Ben Lundy at Broadcast Depth

Ben's Top Ten Comic Book Movies

2011-07-31T11:38:00.007-05:00

Before 2000's X-Men paved the way for the blockbuster Spider-Man in 2002, comic book movies had a spotty history. Most of the ones that were successful weren't based on superheroes; those that were succeeded only in embarrassing comic fandom with their low-budget awfulness. Today, it's an expectation to see two or more superhero comic book movies every summer. Although a pessimist could see it as another symptom of Hollywood's further descent into creative bankruptcy, the flipside is that comic fans have now had the opportunity to see a bevy of heroes and villains come to life on the big screen, with mainstream appeal that many of us never thought possible. Backed by ever-larger budgets and the radical advances in special effects that have made comic book physics possible in live action, Hollywood superhero films have made it a truly a great time to be a comic fan.

It seems a fitting time, at the end of this summer chock full of more superhero movies than any I can remember, and as all of geekdom waits with breathless anticipation for next summer's Avengers film, to look back at the history of comic book and superhero movies and outline a personal top ten. Will The Avengers blow them all away? Tough to say, but I'm not counting on it; while the pantheon of movies establishing the Marvel Universe on film have been competent and highly enjoyable, few have that extra spark to elevate them to the realm of the truly extraordinary. Here are the ones that, in my mind, stand out heads and shoulders above.

10. Iron Man

The first Marvel movie designed specifically to build the Avengers film franchise faced the challenge of selling a B-list superhero to mainstream audiences. The movie succeeds almost entirely on the strength of Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal of Tony Stark, but director Jon Favreau shouldn't be forgotten as the man who took a tough sell and made it work. It should also be noted that, like the best comic book films, it sticks very close to the source material. The journey of the reluctant hero, specifically a scoundrel turned virtuous, is exemplified in Tony's capture, enlightenment, escape and resolve to use his gifts for the betterment of humankind. That's something all audiences can cheer for. It's biggest weakness is a forgettable villain, but then again, I don't know that Iron Man has any memorable ones.

9. V for Vendetta

Combining the frightfulness of 1984-esque cautionary politics with the suspense of a conspiracy thriller and merciless revenge narrative, V for Vendetta is far from a superhero flick. The audience gets behind the protagonist V with trepidation as his tactics blur the line between terrorist and freedom fighter. He plans to liberate a fascist future Great Britain by blowing up Parliament, a plot that was timely and controversial in a post-9/11 world despite being written over two decades prior. James McTiege, who cut his teeth as an Assistant Director in the Matrix films, helms V with action that is stylistic but not overwhelming, keeping the plot rooted in intrigue rather than flash.

8. Spider-Man 2

In some cases a comic book movie sequel surpasses its predecessor because it gets to skip the prerequisite origin story necessary in most fledgling franchises. Spider-Man 2 is such a film; it not only features a more interesting villain (Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus as opposed to the Green Goblin in the first movie), but it hits Peter Parker's greatest struggle on a pitch-perfect note. I was actually unimpressed with the first Spider-Man and saw its sequel only out of obligation. To my surprise, it turned out to be one of the best comic book movies to date. Director Sam Raimi leaves more of a footprint on this second film of the Spider-Man trilogy, another of the film's many strengths.

7. X2: X-Men United

Here's another movie that gets to skip the origins and get right to the meat of a rousing superhero adventure. What makes X2 so great is how successfully it offers up the payoff from seeds sown in the first movie, summarized in Xavier's memorable line, "I feel a great swell of pity for the poor soul who comes to that school, looking for trouble." And come they did-- General Stryker's crusade against mutant-kind starts the war that unites hero and villain alike against a common enemy. Combined with the revelations of Wolverine's past and the compelling new character Nightcrawler, X2 ranks as the best X-Men movie to date. It's a shame that director Bryan Singer left the franchise to make a lackluster Superman movie instead of dishing out more mutant madness.

6. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

TMNT isn't usually perceived as a comic book movie; the 8 - 10-year-olds who saw it in theaters were most familiar with the cartoon and toy line. But the Turtles phenomenon originated in a 1984 adult-targeted comic by independent publisher Mirage Studios, and the film version jettisons most of the kiddie fare that accumulated in the interim. It stays more faithful to the tone of the original comics, slightly reworking elements of the first dozen issues or so to form a fresh take on the Turtles, free of the robot ninjas, Turtle vehicles and visitors from Dimension X that populated the cartoon. These Turtles cuss and clobber with the best of them, and possess a degree of internal drama and relationship dynamics that a kids' cartoon just couldn't touch.

5. Batman

Since Nolan debuted his Batman trilogy, the 1989 Tim Burton Batman has taken a lot of flak for being such a radical departure from its comic book roots. No one thought that way back when these films were rare, and it's easy to forget what a monumental blockbuster Batman was. While it's true that Nolan gives the best interpretation of Bruce Wayne himself, Burton and Jack Nicholson have to be given credit for nailing the Joker perfectly. Heath Ledger's Joker deserves praise, but comic book die-hards must admit that it is a radical departure from the character's pulpy roots. By contrast, Nicholson's Joker is one of those unforgettable, born-to-play-the-role casting choices that overshadow any of the film's flaws. And, to paraphrase the man himself, this Batman definitely has the most "wonderful toys."

4. The Rocketeer

The Rocketeer is another movie not often recognized for its comic roots, but being a kid-friendly Disney film doesn't stop it from delivering high adventure and campy retro excitement. It's no surprise that Marvel recently tapped Rocketeer director Joe Johnston to replicate his success in this film with the new Captain America, also set in the era of World War II. The visuals borrowed from the original Dave Stevens stories, including a bulldog-shaped cafe, the chisel-jawed pilot Cliff Secord and the iconic helmet and jet-pack are all replicated faithfully (chiseled jaw courtesy of a well-cast Bill Campbell). Cliff protects the very rocket technology that's strapped to his back from Nazis and gangsters in a yarn that combines the thrills of Indiana Jones with the soaring flight visuals of Superman.

3. The Dark Knight

When it premiered, many critics posited that The Dark Knight should be viewed less as a superhero movie and more as a crime drama, and they were right. The complexity of TDK's plot and the horror of the Joker's machinations as both crime boss and madman are what elevate it to the status of "best comic book movie ever" for many fans. Volumes have been written about Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker, and, though it was Oscar-worthy, I stick to my guns that Nicholson was the "truer" Joker. TDK also suffers from the same problem as the Burton and Schumacher films in that the screen presence of two villains pushes Batman himself into the background. Still, it gets the third-place slot on my list because it is not only everything you could want from a Batman movie-- it's just a damn great movie, period.

2. Superman

The first big-budget comic book movie is also one of the greatest. Who but Superman could be the precursor to all the great superheroes that would follow? Superman is a huge and ambitious movie, starting on a doomed Krypton and taking its time building Superman's origin. By the time we flash forward to modern Metropolis, it feels like we're starting a second movie. It's at that point that Christopher Reeve makes his debut as the Man of Steel and nails the role in a way that no actor has done before or since (sorry, Dean Cain). He gets the duality of the nerdy Clark Kent and the fearless Superman, and has perfect chemistry with Margot Kidder's Lois Lane in both roles. Gene Hackman has a unique and lighter take on Lex Luthor, but it fits the tone of the film well and keeps the hero as the star.

1. Batman Begins

I'm not the only one who, when the dust settled after the mega-blockbuster Dark Knight, decided that its predecessor was the superior film. The reason is simple: this is the only Batman movie that is truly about Bruce Wayne, and Bruce Wayne only. Earlier I wrote that origin stories can sometimes bog down a comic book movie; in Batman Begins, the opposite is true. It is all origin story. Even the primary villain, Ra's al Ghul, relates to the plot from Wayne's own experiences training to become Batman. The movie took a gamble in using two lesser known villains, Ra's and the Scarecrow, and the decision works well in keeping the focus on Batman's roots, philosophy and quest. It wasn't easy for Christopher Nolan to wash the taste of the previous two Batman films away, but he did it, and that alone may be the biggest achievement in the history of comic book films.

My Picks for the DC Relaunch

2011-07-04T08:26:00.004-05:00

If you follow comic news at all, you know that in September, DC Comics is making a nigh-unprecedented move by "re-launching" all of its comics with new #1 issues. As part of that undertaking, they are canceling a lot of current series, starting a bunch of new ones, and pushing the "reset button" on decades of continuity within the shared universe of heroes like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Some characters will get entirely new origins, some will stay largely the same, but all of them will be younger and participate in stories that are more reflective of modern society.

Naturally this endeavor has caused an uproar in the fan community, with reactions ranging from the unbridled rage of the forum-trolling DC fanboy to the cautious curiosity of the more casual fan. I probably fall more toward the former in my reaction-- particularly because a lot of my favorite books are being canceled-- but I determined to give a handful of books in this reinvented DC Universe a shot before I jump ship. I'm giving the following ten books ONE issue to impress me, and one issue is all that a good writer/artist team should need. Here they are in reverse order, with the number one book being the one in which I'm most interested:

10. Red Hood and the Outlaws

I was against the resurrection of Jason Todd, the second Robin who now goes by the name of Red Hood, but since he seems to have become a cemented part of the DC Universe, I'm interested to see the new direction the character will take in this book. I'm also a big fan of Starfire, and am curious to see what she will be like when detached from the Teen Titans.

9. Justice League Dark

DC is now following Marvel's lead in forging multiple variations of its flagship team book. Justice League Dark is comprised of characters who typically deal in the mystical, the demonic and the otherworldly-- think Avengers if it they had Dr. Strange for a frontman. My primary interest in JLD is the presence of Zatanna, one of my favorite DC heroines whose own book is being canceled.

8. Flash

The Flash is one of those characters who I want to love, but can never seem to find much good material about. Like many second-tier DC characters, he doesn't have much of a rogue's gallery to speak of, and the apparent limitations of his powers can be a stumbling block for a lot of writers. But I'm curious to see what the new creative team can do with the newly resurrected Silver Age Flash, Barry Allen.

7. Action Comics

I won't deny being peeved that Superman's origin is being retooled so much. His new costume looks outright ridiculous, and the fact that his marriage to Lois Lane is being retconned makes me furious (a la the Spider-Man/Mary Jane marriage over at Marvel). Still, all those arguments crumble before the fact that Grant Morrison, my favorite writer and the author of one of the greatest Superman stories ever told, will be writing this new Action Comics.

6. Wonder Woman

Many long-time fans quit reading Wonder Woman after her last major revamp, just a single year ago. J. Michael Straczynski, who has done a number on a lot of characters, turned her from a majestic Amazon warrior to a leather-clad street thug. Now, while she may be keeping the stupid pants, it appears that she's being revamped again. I love the character so much that I'll bite once again and see what they're going to do with her this time. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

5. Justice League

I almost feel obligated to buy this book, since it's coming out first and is purported to be the cornerstone of the entire relaunch. Hopefully it will give insight into the changes we can expect to see in the new universe. If nothing else, there will be very pretty art from comics legend Jim Lee-- who, as has become apparent recently, draws really well but couldn't design a post-1990's costume to save his life.

4. Mister Terrific

Part of DCnU's intended purpose is to diversify their roster of heroes, so Mister Terrific is one of several black characters being brought to the forefront with his own title. Since the Justice Society of America to which he belonged will no longer exist in the DCnU (grrrr), I expect that Mister Terrific will be retooled quite a bit. I've always liked the character's personality and powers on that team, so I'm excited to see him get the spotlight.

3. Batgirl

Probably the most controversial title in the DCnU is Batgirl. After giving the mantle of Batgirl to a new and well-loved character, Stephanie Brown, only a couple of years ago, DC is hitting reverse and bringing back the character who defined the role, Barbara Gordon. This is a divisive move because Barbara has spent the last 20-odd years as Oracle, a paraplegic master hacker who formed her own team, the Birds of Prey. Many saw her as a great representative for those with disabilities, and giving her back her mobility seems to run contrary to the idea of "diversifying" the DCU. Still, it's being written by one of DC's best writers, Gail Simone, so it's hard to pass judgment on the new series yet.

2. Aquaman

Aquaman takes a lot of crap in the wider pop culture for being the "lamest" superhero. Now he is under the creative control of Geoff Johns, a man who has made a name for himself reinventing classic characters, most recently Green Lantern and the Flash. That being the case, I'm excited to see if Johns can do the impossible-- make Aquaman into a badass. Coupled with the art of Ivan Reis, with whom he worked on DC's Blackest Night series, and he could potentially make this a phenomenal series.

1. Batwoman

Batwoman, who starred in the best comics written in the last five years when she temporarily replaced Batman as the star of Detective Comics, isn't even really in the DCnU on purpose. J.H. Williams III has been at work on her solo series for what seems like forever now, and given the number of delays and the popularity of the character and her trademark artist, DC would be crazy to exclude her from their bold new venture. Thus, despite all of the hype for DC's revamp/reboot/relaunch/whatever you want to call it, I'm most excited about the one book that has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Twin Peaks Review

2011-06-16T15:48:00.010-05:00

Ever since I became a fan of LOST, people have been asking me if I've seen Twin Peaks. I recently, finally, took a look at the short-lived cult favorite show from the brilliantly disturbed mind of famed director David Lynch. As a serial show centered around a few main mysteries, it has a lot in common with LOST, but also differs in some key ways that led to its quick demise after only two seasons. Despite its flaws, it's a worthwhile show, deserving of its iconic status, and a treat for LOST fans who want more suspense, thrills, and extended, involving storylines.

Like LOST, Twin Peaks made its mark in pop culture lexicon, so the question "Who killed Laura Palmer?" might be familiar even to TV and film buffs who haven't seen the show. That's the question that opens Twin Peaks, and propels an exploration of the dark secrets and quirky characters that populate the seemingly charming titular town nestled in the mountains of Washington state. The teenaged girl's body washes up on a river outside the home of Twin Peaks resident Pete Martell not long before another girl, Ronette Pulaski, emerges from the woods, bloodied, battered and in shock from whatever nightmare unfolded the night before. The investigation of both events brings FBI agent Dale Cooper to Twin Peaks, thus beginning his odyssey into the mysteries and supernatural forces that surround the town.

David Lynch is an auteur director, with a visual style easily recognizable to those familiar with his work. Though he only directs the early episodes and some key ones later in the series, he leaves his mark on the dark, spine-tingling tone of Twin Peaks. It's a mishmash of moods, ranging from the comedic to the horrifying. Twin Peaks oddly yet successfully combines the whimsical antics of some of the comic relief characters with a chilling murder investigation and other serious topics like domestic abuse, drug use and entrepreneurial corruption.

The likeable protagonist, Dale Cooper, is played by Kyle MacLachlan in his most famous role. To say that Cooper is eccentric is an understatement, yet his quirky traits are charming and almost always germane to his investigation.

He becomes fast friends with Sheriff Harry Truman and his deputies, who learn to forgive Cooper's bizarre methods as it becomes apparent that they bring real results.

Meanwhile, Laura Palmer's high school friends Donna and James begin their own investigation into Laura's murder while sparring with obnoxious football jock Bobby and mixing it up with other Twin Peaks residents and their own personal dramas.

It's sometimes hard to keep track of all the ways in which Twin Peaks' main cast of at least 15 regulars (and many more recurring characters) are interrelated. It seems that almost everyone has at least two lovers, and often there are multiple layers of betrayal, as in the case of hotel owner Ben Horne's plot to burn down a saw mill to make room for his next commercial venture. The main element that will keep the viewer coming back is the mystery of Laura Palmer's murder and the cryptic clues that make the answer seem to get further away with each installment.

Those clues are the sort of fare in Twin Peaks that will be appealing to LOST fans. In the pilot, Cooper extracts a small printed letter from Laura's fingernail and is certain not only that the murder ties to one he investigated previously, but that the killer is sending a message. In the old train car that served as the scene of the grisly crime, Cooper and Harry discover half of a necklace and the words "Fire walk with me" written in blood. Later in the series, and without giving too much away, there are locales like an old cabin and a circle of ash that provide more clues-- hey LOST fans, sound familiar?

Lynch's trademark surreal imagery plays a major role in the show. Early on, Laura's mother has disturbing visions, her shrill screaming echoing in the viewer's mind and giving goosebumps. Cooper, who already conducts his business in the most unconventional ways, becomes even more unpredictable when has a bizarre dream early in the series (the first of many) and spends several episodes trying to decipher it, convinced that it contains the solution to Laura's death.

As he, Donna, James and other characters unravel the events leading to the brutal murder, it becomes apparent that the seemingly pristine prom queen was leading a lurid double life. The side of herself that she hid from the residents of Twin Peaks is what ultimately sealed her fate.

Mention must be made of the bone-chilling score by Angelo Badalamenti, a recurring collaborator with Lynch, and a linchpin in establishing the mood of Twin Peaks (and Lynch's other works). With simple notes and low, rumbling growls of the synthesizer, he enhances the suspense and horror of the series' key sequences. In comedic scenes, he evokes a sort of 50's motif, light but mischievous. He also knows where to place a few incidental tracks in surprising but appropriate places. The drawback is that several of his compositions are used far too frequently; unlike modern shows, he didn't do entirely original scores for each episode. But in the right dosage, Badalamenti is magnificent.

For all of its compelling intrigue, the biggest difference between Twin Peaks and LOST was that it was mismanaged in its second season and, largely because of network interference, suffered a sharp decline midway through. Unsurprisingly, audiences who once made Twin Peaks a pop culture phenomenon abandoned the show in droves, and it sank even faster than Heroes, a more recent serial that became a disaster in its sophomore outing. In fact, the show crashed and burned so quickly that it took a letter writing campaign by Twin Peaks devotees to convince CBS to even air the last handful of episodes. While the last few episodes picked up in quality, the damage was done and Twin Peaks took a bow, becoming the stuff of legend among lovers of thought-provoking, highly artistic entertainment.

Three primary factors contributed to the death of Twin Peaks. First, David Lynch and fellow creator Mark Frost left the project in less capable hands to pursue other endeavors after the first season. The directors and writers that followed made comparatively mediocre contributions, and Twin Peaks became less like a surreal crime drama with humor sprinkled in and more like a soap opera. The exploits of secondary and tertiary characters like Lucy Moran, who gets pregnant and tries to pinpoint the father, and Bobby and Shelly, who concoct various schemes to make money while supporting a comatose family member, are not nearly as captivating as earlier threads. Even less so are vapid new characters like Evelyn Marsh and Dick Tremane. The show was always at its best when it focused on the core character of Dale Cooper.

Next, it became apparent early in season 2 that Twin Peaks would take a highly supernatural bend, and this alienated a lot of casual television viewers who were on board for the melodrama and the promise of a crime caper grounded in reality. Like LOST, it took Twin Peaks a bit of time to reveal its true colors, with very little early indication that it would feature spirits, elaborate visions, and communications from beyond.

For viewers like me, that's when an already great show gets even better. Viewers who relish in the otherworldly have much to love in Twin Peaks. But, of course, such elements had the opposite effect on many others, who felt betrayed upon finding that Laura Palmer's murder was much more than a mundane whodunnit.

Along with that sense of misdirection came the network-mandated reveal of Laura Palmer's killer halfway through season 2. At the time, it was thought that declining ratings were due to the drawn-out resolution of Twin Peaks' primary plot device. The plan was to continue the antics of the town's residents afterward by introducing new story arcs for Cooper and other characters, but it turned out to be a major miscalculation. After audiences knew who killed Laura, they tuned out in droves and ratings dropped like a rock. It didn't help that the story arcs that followed were much less interesting. Twin Peaks was synonymous with the mystery of Laura Palmer's death, but the networks only realized that after the point of no return.

When Twin Peaks got the axe, David Lynch got a chance to take one more trip into his fictional town in the form of a follow-up movie titled Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. The film is actually a prequel revealing the details of the last days of Laura's life. While it contains much of Lynch's trademark surrealism, it fails to engross the viewer like the series once did due to the simple fact that it merely retreads past events already uncovered and referenced on the show. It's enough to learn about Laura's murder through Cooper's investigation and leave the details of it to our imaginations; we don't need to see that brutality unfold when it adds little to the mythos. Conversely, lingering questions that loyal viewers wanted answered go unaddressed, making for a frustrating experience. Fire Walk With Me is certainly not essential to the Twin Peaks experience.

It's safe to say that there's been nothing on television like Twin Peaks, before or since. Even LOST stopped short of the depths of the bizarre that Lynch probed on primetime TV as he chronicled Agent Cooper's exploits. There is so much to captivate fans of suspenseful drama and surreal, artistic cinema that one can overlook the series' low points. The box set is available here, sans the movie, which can be ordered here. The series is also available streaming from Netflix. If you try it and you find yourself wanting more David Lynch, check out Mulholland Drive, probably the director's magnum opus and one of my all-time favorite movies.

Fun fact: Several well-known actors had roles in Twin Peaks early in their careers. Lara Flynn Boyle played Donna and was one of the few lead actors from the show who moved on to larger roles. Heather Graham guest stars as a love interest for Cooper, Billy Zane gets involved with rich girl Audrey for a brief stint, and The X-Files' David Duchovny... well, Duchovny's role you just have to see to believe. Twin Peaks also featured no less than three actors from the 1987 sci-fi classic Robocop-- a mini-reunion of sorts between Miguel Ferrer, Ray Wise and Dan O'Herlihy.

Ranking the Characters: Final Fantasy VI

2011-01-05T09:00:00.009-05:00

Here's a new little project. For nostalgia's sake, I'm taking a look back at Final Fantasies 6 through 9-- you know, back when Final Fantasy was still an RPG series-- and ranking the characters. The final score will be a combined total of three traits: design, or the look of the character both on screen and in official promo art; story, or the character's background and personality; and playability, or how good the character is in actual combat. Each trait is ranked from 1 to 10. If there are ties, I'm breaking them based on personal preference because, y'know... it's my list.

Without further delay, here are my rankings for Final Fantasy VI, from lowest to highest:

14. Gau
Design: 1
Story: 3
Usability: 1

Gau is so worthless. It's just the truth. His Leap/Rage command only appeals to the most rabid completists who are willing to spend hours on the Veldt learning useless, unpredictable and often harmful enemy skills. Once Rage is activated, Gau is out of the player's control for the rest of the fight, making the him a poor choice for boss battles. He looks like something a rabid raccoon puked up in your trash can, and has no story aside from a chance encounter with an old man who is hinted to have abandoned him.

13. Strago
Design: 4
Story: 3
Usability: 3

Strago only ekes out a 4 in design because Amano's illustrations of him look cool. He's uninteresting, since he's from an entire village that can use magic and therefore not unique. While his Lore command gives him access to a handful of spells that only he can use, almost all of them have general magic equivalents that are as effective or more so. There's not too much else to say about him, really. He's not actively detestable like Gau, but he's a total waste of space.

12. Relm
Design: 5
Story: 4
Usability: 1

Relm looks pretty cool in the Amano illustrations, but she's a drag as a party member. The Sketch command is unreliable-- it's basically like a one-time use Rage command. It's kind of cool that she is heavily implied to be Shadow's daughter, and she somehow tames the viscious attack dog Interceptor, but usually she is teeth-grindingly annoying (she paved the way for Yuffie and Eiko in a way).

11. Mog
Design: 7
Story: 2
Usability: 4

I wish I could like Mog. I mean, he's a Moogle, one of the primary Final Fantasy mascots. He gets design points for that alone. But there's just not much to him. He has no story to speak of. His Dance command, like many of these lower ranked characters, is unreliable and generally unhelpful once he goes on auto-pilot. His eight dances basically render him like Gau, if Gau only had 8 Rage commands. He doesn't look as stupid as Gau, but otherwise they're depressingly similar.

10. Gogo
Design: 5
Story: 2
Usability: 7

Gogo's got a wild look typical for Amano, but no story to speak of (although the offbeat dungeon you must navigate to recruit him earns a point). It's usability where Gogo really shines. Any attack you want to do, you can do twice with Gogo in your team. This makes executing the game's most devastating moves, like Bum Rush, Chain Saw and Ultima, doubly effective.

9. Umaro
Design: 7
Story: 2
Usability: 4

Umaro's a pretty fun character. You can't control him, but you can find Relics that add abilities to his repertoire. Unlike Gau or Mog, his attacks usually do a healthy chunk of damage, even to bosses. Once you near the end of the game, you want to have more control over your party, so he's not a good choice for the final battles. He has no story, but gets a point for the fun interchange with Mog when you first recruit him. In terms of design, he's pretty simple, but hey, how cool is it to have a badass Yeti on your team?

8. Setzer
Design: 7
Story: 7
Usability: 4

Setzer's one of those characters who's so cool, you wish he was a better fighter. The Slot command sucks, as they always do; furthermore, he's not a very strong fighter with any of his game-based weapons. He just looks awesome, though, and he has a pretty good story in the game. From his grand entrance kidnapping Celes to his history with Darill and being the owner of the world's only airship, Setzer makes a great addition to the cast of Final Fantasy VI. Maybe they just should have kept him as an NPC.

7. Terra
Design: 6
Story: 8
Usability: 6

Some may consider Terra the "main character" of Final Fantasy VI, but I think it's hard to argue that when she is absent from so much of the game. More than any other entry in the series, FFVI is really an ensemble story. Still, as a half-Esper, she's a crucial piece of the story in the first half of the game. She's great as an early magic user, and the Morph command she gains later can be of use with some boss fights. Oddly, of all the characters, her sprite looks the least like the original Amano designs, but both are pretty cool.

6. Edgar
Design: 7
Story: 7
Usability: 8

Edgar is a powerhouse addition to any party lineup. His non-elemental Tool attacks are devastating and diverse, with both single enemy attacks and ones that hit multiple targets. He's got a pretty good story too as the King of Figaro, with a legacy to uphold and a brother with whom to reconcile as the game unfolds. His design is cool, if predictably regal, though it doesn't seem to match the motif of the Tool command. Still, Edgar's on the short list of must-have party members.

5. Sabin
Design: 5
Story: 7
Usability: 10

Sabin's appearance is pretty simple, basically a dude in a tank top with a flat top haircut. He looks like he could be Guile's distant relative. But his story, which intertwines with Edgar's, is a good one. On the battlefield, Sabin is a monster. His Blitz attacks decimate most enemies and are fun to execute with their fighting game-style button sequences. He's also great for healing the party at no MP cost. Once he learns magic, Sabin becomes one of the most well-rounded fighters in the game.

4. Locke
Design: 8
Story: 10
Usability: 6

Locke is a good fighter. Coupled with his unique Steal command, that makes him a great asset to the party. He also looks like a badass, a little impish and sneaky but clearly not a man to be messed with. But it's Locke's storyline that ranks him near the top of the list. His touching quasi-romance with Celes brings emotion to this dark entry in the Final Fantasy series. As we learn more about his past, he grows to become the most fleshed-out character of them all. You just have to root for him.

3. Shadow
Design: 9
Story: 8
Usability: 8

If you want to lay waste to your enemies in battle, look no further than Shadow. Not only is he a daunting physical fighter with some unique weapons, but his Throw command makes use of an arsenal of deadly and powerful weapons. His dog, Interceptor, often makes a big difference in a fight with his guards and counterattacks. As for looks, Shadow is a very traditional ninja in appearance, and you just can't argue with perfection. His story is unique and engaging in that it must be pieced together by the player through flashbacks.

2. Celes
Design: 7
Story: 10
Usability: 9

Though they share many scenes, Celes edges out Locke simply because of her awesome Runic command. The ability to absorb all magic attacks from a foe turns the tide in many a battle. In addition, like Terra, she is an early magic user, and a powerful physical fighter to boot. Her story is closely related to Locke's and is equally emotional, but she steals the show in FFVI's most memorable scene, the opera. Amano's designs of Celes look great, deftly capturing the feel of femininity in a powerful military general.

1. Cyan
Design: 6
Story: 10
Usability: 10

Cyan's design is his only flaw, as he sports a rather bland blue suit of armor (though Amano's illustrations have more variety and dynamism). Like Sabin and Edgar, his attacks are unique and devastating to the opposition. If timed properly, the wait time for his SwdTech command isn't even noticeable, leaving him with no real disadvantages as a fighter. When it comes to character, none has a more tragic story than Cyan. The player feels his rage at Kefka for the murder of his family, and he gets additional resolution later in the game. Cyan is a big player in the story and, for me, the all-around best character in Final Fantasy VI.

Merry Christmas - Scrooged Speech

2010-12-24T21:44:00.005-05:00

Scrooged is a movie that literally changed my life. It is not only side-splitting hilarious, but the speech at the end by Frank Cross (the "Scrooge" character in this version) is one of the most heartfelt and genuine things I've seen on film. I almost tear up no matter how many times I see it. Some people might think it's corny or over the top. I don't care.

I became a Big Brother specifically because I was so affected by the ending of this movie. I couldn't watch this movie and NOT change my life to give something back to others. This year I watched it again and I'm now planning to start volunteering for the Boys & Girls Club. I'm not trying to brag, just saying-- watch this movie, and then get involved.

Merry Christmas and God bless us, every one.

TRON Legacy Review

2010-12-23T05:07:00.011-05:00

SPOILERS AHEAD!

It took two viewings for me to realize that Tron Legacy is a worthy successor to the original 1982 Tron. Initially, I think the film's significant flaws stood out to me more than its merits. The processing of everything under the surface in Legacy took much longer. It percolated in my mind until I had the chance to see the movie again, and on the second go-round I was able to overlook the shortcomings and concentrate on the deeper levels of meaning that were being conveyed. I know that sounds snootily "high-concept," but unlike most reviewers (and even fans), I see Tron, and now Tron Legacy, as very high-concept indeed.

Before I talk about those concepts, I'll get a few minor points out of the way. First, the 3D in Tron Legacy did nothing for me. This isn't a slight to Legacy, because I abhor the 3D fad to begin with. I've rattled on ad nauseum about that topic, so I won't do it again now. I only bring it up to say that you will suffer absolutely no loss of experience to see Legacy in 2D. In fact, I would encourage it in order to eliminate the distraction altogether. And you'll save three bucks.

Another thing that I won't be raving about are the special effects. Special effects no longer impress me in any capacity. It's clear that we now possess the technology to render perfectly on screen anything our minds can conjure. There are no more limitations of process as artisans strive to make audiences see exactly what they want them to see. Yes, Tron Legacy's visuals are gorgeous, but I expected nothing less from the wizards of our time. Complete visual mastery is now the norm, and I for one am numb to it.

Unfortunately, that numbness leads to the first thing Tron Legacy has going against it, and that is that it unavoidably falls short of being the revolutionary piece of artistic cinema that the original was. That truth relates directly and singularly to the era when the first movie was created as opposed to the second, and I want to make clear that I am not holding it against the sequel. However, it does affect the viewing experience and the impact it will have on the viewer in months and years to come.

The creation of the original Tron was a constant exercise in problem solving for the filmmakers. For example, because the whites of the actors' teeth and eyes reacted differently to the "glow" effect that was applied to the movie's 180,000+ frames after filming, the special effects team discovered that they would have to do no less than five separate effects passes for each frame. Here's another: when the completed live action footage was reviewed, it was discovered that one batch, consisting of footage from various points in the film, was overexposed, resulting in a much brighter image. To cover for the error, they synchronized the overexposed footage with flashes in the computer generated imagery, creating the impression of glitches in the system to explain the problem away.

Now that is frontier filmmaking. When you read all the behind-the-scenes info, you realize how amazing it is that Tron was able to be made at all. It's well known how far ahead of its time the computer animation was, but the other effects work was worthy of a special Oscar in the art of jury-rigging. Tron Legacy, by contrast, did not have any of those complications to contend with. It had a generous $170 million budget with which to seize upon every available state-of-the-art effects technology. That difference doesn't make it a better or worse film. It does, however, quash my interest in the process of its creation, which was a big aspect of my fascination with the original Tron.

Of course, those hard-earned revolutionary visuals weren't the only things that made the original Tron such a masterpiece, and Legacy holds up that standard-- mostly. Before I launch into the real meat of this review-- that is, the philosophical underpinnings of both Tron films and how the new one gives us some new things to think about-- I'm going to let loose with the criticisms, if for no other reason than to get them out of the way. Tron Legacy's primary flaws are poor pacing, overuse of exposition and flashbacks, and the limitations of the entire premise that removed some of the giddy magic with which the original was so replete. The movie succeeds despite them, but they are enough to keep it from achieving the heights of the original.

The first two flaws are the most obvious, both to longtime fans and those new to the franchise. The pacing of Tron Legacy was the single biggest thing that had me leaving the theater in disappointment the first time around. To wit: the narrative curve of the film once Sam enters the Grid consists of two back-to-back pulse-pounding action sequences, the best of the film, followed promptly by an avalanche of exposition, talking, pacing, ruminating and scowling that starts to feel endless and saps a lot of the goodwill achieved in the first act. Even when the film picks up pace again at the End of Line club, it still dips back down into unnecessary conversations that amount to a whole lot of telling and not enough showing.

I wasn't prepared for it the first time around, so I spent less time actually listening to the characters and more thinking "When the hell is the next disc fight?" As much as I tout the Tron franchise's deeper side, ultimately, you have to have awesome action and excitement to make a Tron movie. Granted, much of what the characters say in these exposition scenes relate to the very themes of the film that I only opened my mind to on the second viewing. But there's a lot that could have easily been cut to streamline the proceedings.

While the ISOs play an important role in the plot, their introduction felt like it was missing something. I suspect that's because they were given more detail in the Tron video game, which bridges the gap between the two movies. Conversely, we got too much information about other topics. I don't care how Flynn found Quorra-- what's important is that he found her-- and I certainly don't need to listen while she stares out into the Sea of Simulation and prattles about it. Clu's "maniacal dictator" speech could have been half as long and just as effective. You get the idea. Conciseness is key, especially when it comes to dialogue in an adventure film, and a lot of this stuff should have ended up on the cutting room floor of this 127-minute movie.

If it's true that the pacing problems could have been solved in post-production, the opposite can be said about the limitations of the very premise upon which this sequel is based. Everyone who loves the original Tron probably had their own concept for a sequel, and I'm not going to make the claim that mine would have been any better than what was done. I do feel it necessary, though, to detail what was lost in the story the writers conceived, because it certainly detracted from the film.

The original Tron took place in the "computer world," an ambiguous domain that seemed to extend from ENCOM and the Master Control Program to government networks and arcade machines. During his time in the computer, Flynn meets programs that work at banks and insurance companies, as well as many digital counterparts of real world characters from the film's first act. Tron Legacy, however, takes place on Flynn's second version of "The Grid," a self-contained computer world nestled securely under his old arcade business. By necessity of the story, it's not connected to anything, and has been left to evolve on its own for twenty years.

It should be obvious how that story foundation eliminates the opportunity to replicate many things that made the first movie fun. Other than Tron, whose face can only be seen in flashbacks, none of the programs have real world versions of themselves. In particular, many people thought that when Cillian Murphy appeared on ENCOM's shareholder board early in Legacy, it foreshadowed his appearance as a villain in the computer world. Instead it was just a waste of a cameo by a talented actor.

Furthermore, the restriction of the plot to the Grid places a limitation on the viewer's imagination. In reading the words of other Tron fans, I know I wasn't the only child who, after seeing the original, liked to imagine little "light warriors" in everything from my video games to the calculators we used at school. When I watched Tron again later in life, I was fascinated by the interconnectedness of the computer world. Can you imagine a sequel that addressed the exponential expansion of the digital landscape in our day and age? No such luck in Legacy-- all the action takes place in one dust-covered box.

Still, there's no use belaboring the narrative direction that was chosen, especially when there is a lot of meat in the screenplay to sink one's teeth into. This may sound like an odd statement considering how often Tron, and now Tron Legacy, are decried as vapid special effects vehicles. I couldn't disagree more, and if I'm the only voice standing in defense of Tron's intellectual prowess, so be it. The problem might be that these movies put some of their allegory so squarely on the nose that no one bothers to look underneath to see deeper levels. If you give the movies a chance to grow on you, I think either of them trumps the impenetrably awful machinations of the Matrix sequels.

To a modestly educated adult, it couldn't be more obvious that the original Tron is a Christ parable. A User, who created programs, goes to their world and becomes one of them. He possesses miraculous powers and ultimately sacrifices his digital self to defeat evil before being "resurrected" in the real world. Pretty simple stuff, but it's only one way to look at that original film, and only one way to divine meaning from it. More subtle, yet more universal in the script, is the wider theme of humanity's relationship to technology and the rapid changes that relationship was undergoing in the early 1980's.

ENCOM creator Walter Gibbs said in the first movie, "Our spirit remains in every program we design." The spirit of the digital participant is represented in Tron through the computer counterparts of the characters. Today, we discuss our own relationship with the digital world in different terms, but asking the same questions. Though we personalize our electronic frontier through Facebook and blogs like this one, the vast majority of us are bound by one of two uniform operating systems, all subject to the same deficiencies, limitations and viruses. We all obligingly upgrade on a periodic basis and jump through whatever hoops we have to, complaining all the way about Bill Gates, Microsoft and so on.

On an even larger scale, we are so dependent on computers themselves that they threaten to sap our independence in the real world if we aren't careful. It's an infatuation that follows us everywhere we go. "I couldn't live for two days without my cell phone." "I have to be able to post updates on Twitter while I'm on vacation!" "How did they ever do research papers before Wikipedia?" In 2010, has the MCP finally won? Do computers make us more or less free, more or less unique? As the forward march of technology continues, how long will WE remain the masters?

There is some crossover of this theme to Tron Legacy, but the biggest thing on the new movie's mind is the conceptualization and pursuit of perfection. In the opening flashback sequence, Flynn tells his son that a "miracle" happened inside the Grid. We come to learn that the miracle is the birth of Isomorphic Algorithms, or ISOs, that provide the basis for Flynn's faith in the digital frontier to solve all of humanity's problems. We are never told precisely how the ISOs represent an end to disease or a reinvention of religion; we simply have to accept it on faith. The pairing of the evolutionary metaphor of the ISOs with the religious concept of a miracle is a great springboard for the duality of belief systems that find unification in Tron Legacy.

Legacy presents us with two kinds of perfection-- the artificial perfection of order, and the perfection of spirit represented by the ISOs. The ISOs are apparently innocent beings of incredible power and potential, their existence the product of no agenda. Though Flynn describes them as having manifested from nothing, it must be presumed that Flynn's Grid played a part in creating the conditions that allowed their existence. Thus, in some way Flynn IS responsible for the ISOs, in the sense that a "watchmaker" god creates only potential and leaves it to realize itself.

The aged and enlightened Flynn is a religious man, if non-traditionally so. He gets his "Zen thing" on, in his own words, within the world that he created, even when the darkness of Clu's regime clouds its former beauty. In doing so he represents the foil to Clu, the faithless, who seeks not only to undermine the divinity of the Users within the Grid, but to sack Valhalla itself, to kill the very gods that created him. Oppression is the pursuit of perfection without faith. Clu's actions are all in the name of order and perfection, something Flynn knows is impossible to achieve through such means.

Late in the film, Flynn finds his own kind of "perfection" in reunification with his son, which he realizes is more powerful and meaningful than the Grid. It's one of several pastoral undercurrents Tron Legacy proffers. Like its predecessor, the hi-tech veneer is a mask for the exaltation of human virtues, beliefs and connections. By the end, both Clu and Flynn learn the folly of seeking their own concepts of digital perfection. When the two merge in one of the last scenes, we're left to wonder if some sort of balance will be restored to the Grid.

One of the details to be gleaned late in Legacy comes when Quorra follows Sam into the real world and is finally able to see the sunrise she imagined for so long from within the Grid. She stares bleary-eyed at the sight of the luminous body as it breaks through the clouds, and immediately we understand that for all the digital wonders of the Grid, a simple sunrise is the most beautiful thing Quorra has ever seen. It's closer to perfection than Flynn was ever able to create and reminded me how easily we can take the beauty around us for granted while our minds saunter away into fictional landscapes.

I chose to spend this review talking about philosophy in Tron Legacy rather than the acting, action and other topics because that's what important to me about Tron, and what eventually redeemed this sequel in my eyes. Besides, there are a million reviews like that already. There's still more going on in the movie than I've covered, but I would have to see it a few more times to feel comfortable probing the details. Suffice to say that, like the original, the creators weren't satisfied with just making something that looked pretty. Yes, there are great action sequences, a mesmerizing score by Daft Punk, and remarkable visuals. But Tron Legacy only stands head and shoulders above other effects vehicles when you take a closer look at its soul.

Thanks to Stuck In Customs for the gorgeous sunrise photo.

Once More Into the Well...

2010-12-14T21:56:00.003-05:00

I'd say once too many, but Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3 weren't so great either. The first was a lighthearted, fun summer popcorn flick, ultimately forgettable (though with a score far better than the movie it served). 2 and 3 were cash-ins, I even fell asleep watching the third.

I think they've already lost some of their fangirl audience with the absence of Orlando Bloom, and no man candy to replace him. Still, even bad sequels make a lot of money these days when they're hyped properly. But hopefully this will be the last one.

Updates on LOST Actors' Current and Future Projects

2010-12-14T12:36:00.007-05:00

LOST creator J.J. Abrams is creating a new television show called Alcatraz, and in one of the first big casting decisions for the show, Jorge Garcia (LOST's Hurley) will be joining the cast!

The plot for Alcatraz sounds like it will have a lot of appeal for LOST fans, as it will be a show full of mystery and strangeness in the vein of many of Abrams' previous hit shows. The plot centers around a group of Alcatraz prisoners who mysteriously disappeared 30 years ago, only to resurface in modern times. The show will explore many mysteries and secrets about the infamous prison, and Garcia will be playing a geeky Alcatraz historian.

Sounds great. I've loved everything Abrams has done so far, so I'll be tuned in on the premiere night for Alcatraz for sure. And as a bonus, Sam Neill is also in the cast! He was the star of The Omen, Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III, and the excellent NBC miniseries Merlin that aired in the late 1990's.

No new news on the new Terry O'Quinn/Michael Emerson show, tentatively titled Odd Jobs, but in other LOST alum news, Josh Holloway (Sawyer) will be starring alongside Tom Cruise in the fourth Mission: Impossible movie, titled Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol. I'm not a huge fan of Cruise, but I still enjoyed the last Abrams-directed Mission Impossible movie, so with the addition of Holloway I'm more than willing to give this one a chance.

Daniel Dae Kim's (Jin) current vehicle, the Hawaii Five-0 remake, is doing fairly well in the ratings and is likely to be renewed for a second season. I watched the premiere, and it didn't impress me too much beyond an ordinary cop show, just with a change in setting. But people love cop shows, so it seems to be doing well.

Evangeline Lilly (Kate) is playing a role alongside Hugh Jackman in the upcoming Real Steel, a movie about (brace yourself) robots fighting in boxing matches. Yep, it's "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots" the movie, they just didn't call it that. Despite the goofy premise, they're playing it pretty straight. Here is the trailer.

Know of any other scoops on upcoming projects for LOST alums? Post them in the comments!

What's Going On in the Bat-books?

2010-11-19T14:12:00.006-05:00

It's another period of major transition for Batman and his host of supporting characters. Less than two years after his "death," Bruce Wayne returns from a time travel adventure to resume his duties as Batman-- but of course it's not that simple. For the record, I didn't buy the mini-series chronicling the time traveling Bruce Wayne, but my understanding is that the attack that appeared to kill him in Final Crisis actually sent him back in time.

During the last two years, a lot has changed. Dick Grayson, the first Robin and later Nightwing, took the mantle of Batman, and Batman's son Damien became the fourth Robin (okay, fifth if you count the half dozen issues Stephanie Brown spent as Robin). Tim Drake gave up being Robin to become Red Robin after a falling out with Grayson, and the aforementioned Stephanie Brown, formerly Robin's sidekick Spoiler, became the new Batgirl. That's a lot of shuffling, and things had just seemed to settle down when Bruce returned.

There were also a host of new Bat-related titles launched. A new Azrael is proving the most violent of the new series, but I love the religious angle and keep it on my pull list. Birds of Prey relaunched (it should never have been canceled). Gotham City Sirens features the odd combination of Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, in a story that never caught on with me. Batman: Streets of Gotham highlights Batman villains, and Zatanna, Batman's magician associate, got her own enjoyable series. Which of these will survive now that several NEW Bat-titles are starting remains to be seen.

I guess this is the writers' attempt to keep the Bat-books fresh and interesting now, instead of creating new iconic villains and dark detective stories. I'm not complaining, mind you. Grant Morrison, who basically took the reins of DC's entire Batman line a few years back (not writing every book, but setting the agenda for the massive story arcs that have woven them all together). He's the best writer in comics, one who is constantly underestimated even though he has proven himself time and again to be capable of weaving the most incredible epic tales. Reading the current issues involving the return of Bruce Wayne, we see the payoff of all the groundwork Morrison laid since he first came onto the books.

Thankfully, Morrison is not going to play identity roulette with the characters once again now that Bruce is back. Instead, there will now be TWO Batmen (with the hint of even more to come). Dick remains Gotham city's protector and the focus of the main Batman title, and probably Detective Comics as well, with Damien remaining Robin. People liked this pairing and there is a lot of fan support for Dick as Batman. It would have been a shame to strip him of the cape and cowl after wearing it for less than two years.

Bruce, the old/new Batman, is taking his fight against crime global by forming Batman Incorporated, a worldwide initiative to recruit heroes under his own supervision. With his multi-billion dollar fortune, he'll equip these associates with tools and technology to, his his own words, fight "the idea of crime with the idea of Batman." That line, taken from the one-shot issue Batman: The Return, sent a chill up my spine. This is truly unlike anything done before in Batman. Presumably, Bruce will also be the Batman who appears in Justice League. My only worry is the fact that Bruce has announced publicly that he finances Batman. That's just too close to out-and-out admitting he IS Batman, much like Tony Stark used to claim Iron Man was his "bodyguard." I feel like a lot of people would be able to put 2 and 2 together on Batman's identity.

There's plenty of room for two Batmen in the DC universe, though the concept might be confusing to new Batman readers who are used to the idea that "1 Bruce Wayne = 1 Batman." DC is doing a lot of this recently, and it appears to be a result of the editorial staff's desire to resurrect old characters without killing off the new ones who have earned a place in the hearts of long-time readers. There are now three Flashes as well, after Barry Allen's recent resurrection, and a total of four Green Lanterns from Earth. I don't really mind all this, but some might say the field is getting a little too crowded.

Batman's supporting cast is a mixed bag. I was never particularly interested in Red Robin. Time Drake now seems quite distant, despite being adopted as Batman's son a few years ago. He has evolved into a different person and I don't know that the transition feels "natural" to me. Spoiler becoming Batgirl seemed like a cool idea at first, and I love the new costume, but she hasn't really done anything that distinguishes her from her former persona as Spoiler. Thankfully the talented Batman artist Dustin Nguyen recently became the regular artist on Batgirl, instantly making the book a "must-pull" for me.

Batman will be getting two new titles-- Batman: The Dark Knight and Batman Incorporated. That's both a testament to the character's unwavering popularity and a vehicle for the new direction of the franchise. While I am interested to see where "Batman Incorporated" goes, I remain much more interested in a Batman who is "in the trenches" in Gotham City, fighting crimes big and small in a dark and gritty environment. I like the familiar faces of favorite Batman villains and seeing what new menaces the writers can concoct. It looks like we'll continue to see that in the form of Dick Grayson and Damien while Bruce Wayne moves on to bigger things.

I'd be neglectful to mention the upcoming launch of the Batwoman ongoing series. The character who blew readers away in the Greg Rucka/J.H. Williams III stint in Detective Comics is poised for what has to be one of the most eagerly anticipated returns in comics. Combined with Birds of Prey, the book Gail Simone was born to write, I'm reminded again of how much more dynamic and dimensional DC's female characters are compared to those over at Marvel. This is the biggest DC event I'm looking forward to.

Comics Miscellany

Since the premiere of The Walking Dead series on AMC, graphic novels of the series have been selling like hotcakes. The TV show is amazing and I'm inclined to start reading this book that I never approached before it was adapted for the small screen. Harrisonburg residents who like the AMC version and want to check out the comic should head to our local comics retailer Comic Toast to get their fix. I remember Charlie Adlard, the primary illustrator of The Walking Dead, from his days drawing the first couple dozen issues of the X-Files comic from the 90's. His simple yet striking line work is well suited to dark stories of the supernatural. He also did a pretty cool one-shot Batman story featuring Scarface. I recommend both of those titles if you like the art in The Walking Dead.

I've recently begun to read some Disney Comics again. Adults with an open mind and a child's heart can still enjoy these stories. What drew me to Boom Studios' line of Disney books was the launch of a Darkwing Duck series, and I wasn't the only one-- what was originally to be a limited series was extended to an ongoing title almost immediately after an explosion of interest from collectors, many of whom, like me, probably grew up watching DW on the Disney Afternoon.

Because of the overwhelming popularity of Darkwing Duck, Boom is now preparing to launch other Disney Afternoon-inspired titles. Uncle Scrooge comics have now officially changed their name to DuckTales, and the next series will be Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers. If the quality of Darkwing Duck is any indication, Rescue Rangers should be another hugely entertaining book. DW combines the wacked out humor of the old series with some winks and nods at adults, acknowledging the broad age range to whom the character appeals. The first four issues were terrific.

Cherry Red and Midnight Blue

2010-11-16T06:58:00.003-05:00

Cherry Red - larger version

Midnight Blue - larger version

These took about three weeks of free time to make from start to finish. Based on lyrics from the Lou Gramm song "Midnight Blue," these two pinups are companion pieces featuring my two favorite original female characters. Both were hand penciled and inked, then scanned and colored in Photoshop.

For the backgrounds, I made most of the imagery myself, including torn paper, watercolor splotches, brush strokes, etc. Other elements were added in Photoshop. I used a few brushes for elements like the tape and newspaper, see the DeviantArt entries for attribution.

Feedback is welcome and appreciated.

The Art of the Pinup

2010-11-10T15:24:00.012-05:00

Those of you still following Broadcast Depth have noticed a lack of updates, I'm sure. This isn't due to the ending of LOST so much as my preoccupation with other projects of late. Now that the show is over I'm making a concerted effort to spend more time on my art portfolio and other creative undertakings. To that end, in the coming weeks you will see this blog transition away from LOST talk and toward the artistic realms that interest me-- comics, animation, illustration and so on. Included in that will be updates whenever I finish a new piece of my own work.

In the next week or so I'll be posting the first two of what will hopefully be a series of pinup girl illustrations. I've put up a few on my DeviantArt page in the past, but they're more surreal, not cut from the typical pinup mold. Still, I'm considering them to be part of this series, consisting of girls in the most extravagant 80s fashions-- those who know me would expect nothing less. With this project underway, it seems like a good time to talk about pinups as a staple of American culture and illustration.

Most people tend to think of pinups as something like the image above, and relegate them to a fad of the past. In more conservative times they may have been perceived to straddle the fence between art and pornography, but through a modern lens they seem quaint by comparison, flirtacious rather than raunchy. In fact, what really makes a memorable pinup isn't the depiction of an idealized female form as much as the personality that drives the image, or even a little story that the image tells.

There's no single trait that defines a pinup, and some can deviate quite a bit from the conventional look. I've mentioned Patrick Nagel in the past, a remarkably talented illustrator who got his start in Playboy before his style became an instantly recognizable visual staple of the 1980s. His ethereal women, with pitch-white skin almost always contrasted by jet-black hair and cherry red lips, look nothing like the pinups of old, but share a key artistic goal-- to represent the artist's ideal vision of feminine beauty for the time in which they were created.

Pinups don't have to be American, or even Western. Modern Japanese cartoon art, which runs the gamut in terms of age appeal, is also home to many pinup illustrations. Yamashita Shunya, primarily known as a character designer and game illustrator, is a great example of a modern pinup master. His fantasy girls, often partially clad in decidedly impractical armor and equipped with outlandish weapons, are so popular in Japan that many have been realized as three-dimensional figurines.

Yamashita's works are sometimes nested in a relative of the pinup, the fantasy illustration.
Epitomized by Frank Frazetta and still common in publications like Heavy Metal, these fascinating pieces fit in with the sword-and-sorcery era of fantasy that crossed media through comics, novels and films, particularly in the 1970s and early 80s. Usually fantasy illustrations place just as much emphasis on the environment as the figure itself, and often depict narratives rather than just come-hither poses.

Another place in which pinups have found a home in modern times is in the comics industry. Comics have always had their share of sexy superheroines, but only in the last ten years has the standard of quality for comic art skyrocketed to the extent that it can be compared with the diligent work of pinup artists of old. Particularly on comic book covers, which are now often painted or rendered painstakingly in digital format, female characters old and new are having their moments of glamour under the pen of such artists as J. Scott Campbell, Adam Hughes, Frank Cho, Amanda Conner, and Terry and Rachel Dodson.

As sex symbols of old, it's easy to assume that pinup girls would appeal almost exclusively to the lascivious side of men. However, there is a good deal of interest in the medium among women as well. As is true with characters in books and film, women who like pinups find mirrors of their own personalities in the images. Pinups are timepieces of women's fashion and hairstyles, and the perceptions of beauty from decades past are a form of nostalgia for observers of either gender. When a particular era of the twentieth century is of interest, pinups are a perfect showcase of the styles and ideals of the time.

In addition to the many female fans of the classic pinup, there is a sizable number of female pinup artists, both past and present. The Pinup Files features pages for Pearl Frush and Joyce Ballantyne (see the picture with the cat above, she is a favorite of mine), who contributed flirtacious ladies of their own in the 40s and 50s, as well as Susan Heidi and Olivia de Berardinis, two female designers of modern day pinups. It is fascinating to study these illustrations in search of the subtle differences between male-drawn pinups and those rendered from the female perspective.

Many things contribute to the appeal of the pinup for an illustrator. While there's no denying that male artists just like drawing pretty girls, curiously, I also find myself channeling a "feminine side" at the same time in designing costumes, hair and makeup. Women clearly get to wear more interesting stuff than men do, which is an instant source of appeal for an artist. Aside from the fun of the creation of costumes, it presents a challenge to express a spectrum of female personalities and emotions in the rendering of individual figures. As someone who is not a natural at humorous cartooning, pinups are the most purely "fun" thing that I have any skill at producing.

As hinted at above, my pinups are an homage to the most outlandish of 80s fashions. People often say condescendingly that the 80s are "the decade that fashion forgot." I say, on the contrary, the 80s had the fashions that we forgot, as placid became the standard by the end of the 90s. In my opinion, 80s fashion allows for more self-expression and individuality than any other era. That gives a pinup artist more to work with as they breath life into each unique character they create. With 80s artists like Bill Sienkewicz and the aforementioned Nagel as major influences, I hope to replicate and preserve the visual appeal not just of the classic pinup girl, but of my favorite decade too.

LOST Halloween

2010-11-01T11:43:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. I really should do a review of the LOST Encyclopedia-- unfortunately, it was rather disappointing overall. Until I get to that, here are my LOST-themed pumpkins for this Halloween. They also have a "normal" side that I like a lot as well.

DC Comics Price Drops-- Am I Missing Something?

2010-10-10T07:25:00.005-05:00

Comic fans are celebrating DC Comics' recent announcement that they will be dropping the price of most of their $3.99 monthly comics back to $2.99. As the Number Two of the comics industry, DC's move will probably prompt its rival Marvel to drop prices on many of its books as well. This is being viewed as a "return to sanity" by many who found themselves financially overburdened by last year's big price increases. Comics are a pretty addicting hobby-- they're essentially superpowered soap operas on paper-- so being forced to give up a few books when they all go up in price is, to some fans, like asking which finger you'd like to lose.

Most people who don't read comics remember the days when they were 75 cents at their local 7-11, and are shocked to hear that they now cost at least four times that much. Most of the price increase happened in the late 90's, when comics collapsed as a form of mainstream children's entertainment and became more of a niche hobby for adult enthusiasts. Less circulation means lower advertising revenues, and more cash that each copy has to bring in for the companies to break even.

Still, while $2.99 might seem like a lot to non-fans, it's been at that price for the better part of a decade, so I wasn't surprised when more and more books started cropping up at $3.99. Furthermore, in many cases (especially at DC), it wasn't just blatant price gouging-- the comics came with extra pages, often in the form of a "backup" story. When Detective Comics, DC's flagship title, was bumped up to $3.99, it came with a lead story of about the same length as always, and added an 8-page monthly backup starring The Question. Honestly, I was fine with that. Maybe I had to use a little more discretion in which books I bought, but overall I didn't feel it affecting my wallet. Then again, my usual monthly budget for comics hovers around $50, while there are many people who spend twice that in a week.

Whether you are a rabid big spender or a more casual enthusiast like me, though, it seems like most people are failing to do a little simple math in figuring out whether this price "drop" is really a good thing. See, DC's recent announcement comes with a big catch. Most $2.99 comics-- and there are still plenty of them in the industry that didn't see the extra dollar hike-- are 22 pages of story, and the remaining pages are advertisements. In announcing the price drop, DC has stated that the books dropping from $3.99 to $2.99 will now have only 20 pages of story, with the rest of the 32-page comic rounded out with ads.

So how much are we really paying for each page? Here's where the math part comes in. Let's start with the "old" standard:

$2.99 cover price / 22 pages of comic = 13.6 cents per page

$3.99 comics don't lend themselves as easily to conversion like that. Some are the same length as a $2.99 comic, and others include so-called "bonus material" like previews for other comics. However, most of the $3.99 books DC has been putting out for the last year are more likely to see a jump of eight pages of original material, sometimes consisting of a main feature and a backup story, adding up to about 30 pages. For the sake of argument, let's take as an example a $3.99 comic that only has 28 pages of original material:

$3.99 cover price / 28 pages of comic = 14.25 cents per page

The first thing you should notice about this is that the price increase is barely over a half-cent per page-- not exactly the dramatic ripoff that fans have been barking about for the last year. As far as inflation goes, that's pretty minimal, especially when considering that $2.99 has been the standard for most of the last decade. But here's the dirty little secret. Let's look at the formula for DC's announced price "drop," taking the same comic back down to $2.99 but for only 20 pages of story:

$2.99 cover price / 20 pages of comic = 14.95 cents per page

It doesn't get much clearer than that: this supposed move to please the fans is actually another price INCREASE. The price drop is a pretty new announcement, so I have to wonder when or if readers will catch on, if they'll care, or if it will be forever lost on those of us unwilling to crunch a few numbers. DC is banking on the psychological impact of the $3.99 price tag dropping down a dollar to cloak the fact that, in the cases of a $3.99/30 page book dropping to $2.99/20 pages, readers will be paying more than ever before for each page of a comic book.

There are reasons that fans and dealers may like this change outside of the individual price points of comics themselves. Dealers are hoping fans will be more likely to try out new titles when it doesn't cost as much to do so; that doesn't mean they're going to spend more each month on comics, but it could help the diversity of the industry continue to thrive. As for me, I'm a bottom-line kind of guy, and a price increase is a price increase (if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, and all that).

I don't really blame DC for needing to increase prices-- such are the times we live in-- but this particular move just seemed a little underhanded to me. They are trying to pass it off as a response to fan outcries against the $3.99 price tag, but in the end they're walking away with more of our money than ever before. To me, the change is so minimal it amounts to a wash no matter how I look at it. I can't see praising or severely chastising DC for the move, but maybe I'm missing something. I'd be happy to be enlightened.

RUSH at the Jiffy Lube Live, 9/18/10

2010-09-19T17:27:00.006-05:00

It surprises a lot of friends to hear that I haven't been to many rock concerts. Classic rock is one of the main influences in my life, but I've just never been as inspired to go out and see a band on stage as I was for Rush.

Describing Rush as my favorite band isn't really accurate. It's more accurate to say that there are two categories of music I enjoy-- Rush, and other music. To me it's impossible to overstate the talent and endless enjoyability of the Canadian rock trio and their catalog of 19 (soon to be 20) studio albums spanning nearly 40 years.

Rush are quintessential underdogs, able to boast some of the most monumental achievements in rock but never really appreciated by the mainstream. They've never had a #1 single in the US, and they haven't been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (which says less about Rush and more about that institution), though they don't seem particularly hung up about that.

Despite the snub, they have had more consecutive gold and platinum-certified albums than any other bands except the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. They were pioneers in the 1970s progressive rock movement, composing rock masterpieces of up to 20 minutes that regaled fantasy epics, philosophical musings and retellings of classic literature. They embraced new technology and new styles as they evolved, never afraid to venture outside the confines of the sound that made them successful, but also not compromising on the quality and personality of their music for the sake of sounding hip and current.

So you may not like Rush, or know much about Rush, but you can't dismiss their skill and achievements. In addition to their accomplished library of studio recordings, Rush is known for giving an incredible stage performance. These three guys in their late fifties belt out three hours of music that sounds every bit as good as it did in 1976, their energy and passion vibrating from the stage all the way to the back rows. This year's Time Machine tour was announced as a look at past, present and future, with hits ranging from Rush's earliest albums to their upcoming release.

The first thing I noticed when my friend Matt and I arrived at the Jiffy Lube Live was the cross-generational appeal of Rush. There were fans from six to 60 in the crowds that funneled through the gates, many of them families passing down their Rush fandom from father to son, mother to daughter. As noted in a recent Wired article, Rush is timeless, all-ages music, and the band has some of the most passionate followers in all of rock. Many of those with gray hair in the audience had no doubt been attending Rush concerts for decades, evolving from young, long-haired hippies to family men just like Neil, Geddy and Alex themselves.

These photos are from the Irvine, CA show, printed in the Orange County Register. Here is a link to the full slide show.

It was also an incredibly well behaved audience-- maybe not the most apropos observation for a rock concert, but a valid one. The vast majority of Rush's attendees are there because of their love of incredible music, not as an excuse to act like cavemen. However, that shouldn't be mistaken for a lack of enthusiasm, as most of the crowd stood in the sold-out stadium for nearly the entire concert, screamed and cheered each time one of the band belted out a face-melting solo, and pumped their fists in the air to the beat of the "2112" overture.

As an artist in a visual medium, one of my favorite things about Rush is their openness about the dedication and hard work that has gone into their achievements. Their unbridled enthusiasm for the arenas of their talents is a model for anyone who truly seeks to succeed in a chosen creative profession. One of their songs from Hold Your Fire, my favorite Rush album, is dedicated to this theme:

In this tour, they performed "Time Stand Still" from the same album (this is a 1991 performance):

The highlight of the show was a complete performance of their album Moving Pictures, the quadruple-platinum gargantuan that hosts "Tom Sawyer," possibly the most famous Rush song in the mainstream. They had never performed "The Camera Eye" live before this tour, and it's one of my favorites from their entire library. This is from the first show of the Time Machine tour:

Here is the rest of the set list. Some people don't like being spoiled, so consider yourself warned if you're planning to see the show before it ends in a month. Thanks to Power Windows, the best Rush fan site, for many of these images.

LOST: The Complete Collection Box Set Review

2010-09-11T20:31:00.027-05:00

I don't own very many television series box sets, and the ones I do own are not anything to write home about in terms of packaging and extra non-DVD features. I've seen them on store shelves, of course, in all sorts of crazy shapes and sizes, and I always thought it would be annoying to try to find space for these cumbersome, oddly shaped monstrosities on a shelf or in an entertainment center. With LOST: The Complete Collection, I don't have to worry about that, though, because it's going right here:

Center stage where it belongs. It belongs there not just because LOST is the best television show of all time, but because this magnificent box is packed with goodies that reveal secrets and submerge you into the experience of the show-- all before you even put in the first DVD. Even after devouring the contents in the last 24 hours, I anticipate continuing to enjoy it for a while to come.

In this review, you will find a listing of all of the new answers and information that can be gleaned from both the box set itself and from the Season 6 DVD extras, including the epilogue "The New Man In Charge." Read at your own risk! However, I'll be dissecting the box set piece by piece before I even talk about the Season 6 extras. I'm actually going to put a SPOILER WARNING on my discussion of the box itself, because it is a participatory experience just opening and examining it. If you plan on buying this set and dissecting it yourself, you may want to avoid learning in advance the fun things you'll uncover.

SPOILERS FOR THE BOX SET CONTENTS BELOW

The exterior of the box is a half-pyramid that looks like an artifact from the Temple or some other ancient Island structure. On the four sides of the box are: The LOST logo surrounded by the hieroglyphics from the Swan station counter;

four crude drawings representing the stature of Tawaret, the Temple, the Lighthouse and the Black Rock;

a silhouette version of the massive lineup of characters featured in the Season 6 art;

and six of the nine Dharma logos.

These are all embossed, and the container itself has a rough stone texture (it's just heavy duty cardboard, of course).

On top, the lid has the LOST logo in gold on an ocean background accented by ancient drawings and what appear to be navigational lines. The lid has a vinyl strap that you can pull to easily lift it, revealing the next layer of contents inside.

But, flip the lid over first, and you will find a textured, topographical map of the Island, surrounded by some more symbols. There is more to this map that I'll come back to later when I talk about the secrets.

In the next layer of the set, there are two more vinyl straps attached to faux wooden panels. Pulling these up reveals the contents of several side pockets in the box.

One side contains the playing pieces for Senet, the ancient Egyptian game that Jacob and the Man in Black played. There are five white stones and five black stones. By stones, I mean STONES-- I was fully expecting these to be plastic, but the game comes with actual smooth black and white rocks. The other pieces seem cheap by comparison-- the sticks, which substitute for dice in the ancient game, are plastic, almost rubbery.

In the opposite set of pockets, there are even more great treasures. There is a folded, two-sided sheet made to look like a page from the Black Rock journal written by the ship's first mate. The actual entries are meaningful, so I will come back to the letter to discuss it in more detail. Next, there is an ankh, looking much like a miniature version of the one inside Hurley's guitar case in Season 6. Again, it contains secrets as well, so I will come back to it.

Finally, there is a small blacklight keychain branded with the Dharma logo. More than just a collectible trinket, the blacklight is key to revealing the "big secret" of the box set.

Between the side pockets lies the rest of the contents of the set. On top is a large, high-quality booklet collecting the episode synopses from the individual season booklets included in the old box sets.

This is especially gratifying to have because the last three seasons did not come with synopses. Along with the written content, there are many stills from the show. Some of these were in the old box sets and some are brand new. They're also pretty spoilerific (the last image is a full-page splash of Jack dying next to Vincent), so they're obviously assuming you've already seen the whole series if you're investing in this box set.

Beneath the episode guide is the Senet board to go with the playing pieces. Again, in comparison to the stones, the board seems a little lackluster. It's somewhat thicker than the average board game board. The tiles are embossed, the board is in full color on the front and the back, and the blue/brown color scheme carries over into swirls resembling ancient decorative patterns on the back. There is a little bit of effect if you shine the blacklight on the symbols, but nothing that actually reveals secrets.

Finally, we come to the DVDs themselves. The box containing the discs is surrounded by a cardboard wrap that works like a pair of handles so you can pull the box from the outer container easily. The wrap holds its own secret; shine the blacklight on it and it reveals a copy of the blast door map from season 2.

The box shares many design elements with the outer container: stone-textured surface, LOST logo with symbols and the silhouettes of the characters.

With the actual seasons, we get to my only real complaint about the box set, and that is their packaging. On the plus side, the folders containing the seasons are very long so that the discs do not overlap as they did on the individual seasons. I always found that awkward when watching multiple discs in one sitting.

However, the entirety of the folders is made of thick matte board, without the plastic casing used to house the discs in the original box sets. Instead, each disc is sheathed in a separate sleeve. Because of how they come out of the sleeves, I feel that great care must be taken to avoid potential scratching.

Another issue with the season folders is that the art on the actual discs is unaltered from the old box sets. The disc art was designed to fit the theme and color schemes of the individual box sets, but it clashes somewhat with the dark, faded look of the art on these folders.

Despite the quibble about the disc art, though, the rest of the art on the folders is terrific. Again, much of it is brand new.

The front of each season folder features the character lineup from that season, and the back is stark black with only a small ankh in the center.

I mentioned that I would go back to some of the "secrets" contained in the box. These are the most exciting features of the box set as they turn it into an adventure of its own. I had the good fortune to actually discover the biggest secret by myself, without even reading about its existence anywhere previously. If you shine the blacklight on the map under the box set lid, it reveals a picture of the donkey wheel. There are also four arrows pointing in a clockwise direction, which gives you an indication of what you should do next.

Take the bottom half of the lid, the layer with the map, and rotate it clockwise against the other half. When you've turned it 90 degrees, you will notice that the half-ankhs on either side of the map now fit with their other halves on the layer underneath; also, the heiroglyphics on the two layers now match up as well.

Now you can lift the map off of the top part of the lid, revealing a HIDDEN BONUS DVD underneath. This DVD, packaged in a golden donkey wheel symbol, contains two hours worth of features EXCLUSIVE to the box set.

On the bonus DVD, as with many LOST discs, there are hidden "easter egg" features that can only be unlocked by entering certain sequences on the DVD player directional pad. This is where the ankh comes in. You can pull it open to reveal a "message from Jacob" on a little papyrus scroll.

The message is a series of hieroglyphics as well as a sequence of arrows. The sequence is actually a secret code you can enter with the directional pad on your DVD player while on the main menu of the bonus disc. When properly entered, you can access a video tutorial for how to play Senet.

I tried Senet out with a friend and we found the game quite enjoyable (we are both board game fans). The object is to move your stones in a reverse S-pattern from one end of the board to the other, then to clear all five from the board. There are several symbols on the board that require you to get certain rolls or face penalties. The four sticks that the player drops on the table like dice determine how many moves you get based on how many of them land face up or face down. If you're interested in Senet but don't plan on buying this box set, you can get a very slick looking version of it here.

Before I talk about the rest of the bonus features of the hidden box set exclusive disc, I'll cover the Season 6 special features. The bulk of them are the type we've come to expect from five years of LOST box sets. There is a blooper reel,

a number of deleted scenes, and "LOST On Location," a collection of mini-documentaries about how the crew accomplished the filming of certain scenes from the season.

Other enjoyable mini-documentaries include "The End: Crafting A Final Season;" "A Hero's Journey," which discusses classic hero archetypes and how they fit into the LOST mythos; and "See You In Another Life, Brotha," about the making of the flash-sideways.

As of this writing I haven't listened to the four audio commentaries, but it's nice that they stepped it up from Season 5, which only included two, and neither featuring any of the actors. This season features commentaries for the season premiere "LA X;" two of the best episodes of the season, "Dr. Linus" and "Ab Aeterno" with commentary featuring Michael Emerson and Nestor Carbonell respectively; and "Across the Sea," the big mythology download episode about Jacob and the Man in Black.

Then, of course, you have the main attraction, "The New Man In Charge," an 11-minute epilogue to the series that takes place while Hurley rules the Island with Ben as his right-hand man. (SPOILERS FOR THE EPILOGUE AHEAD!) Once you watch it, it's clear why these scenes couldn't have been in the final episode. They have an entirely different feel than the emotionally overwhelming closing moments of the finale. It's also heavy on the rapid-fire answers to lingering show "mysteries," many of which were inconsequential but plagued the overly demanding hyper-fans. Fittingly, the epilogue also takes a not-so-subtle jab at such fans. The first segment features two Dharma employees telling Ben how much they "deserve answers;" in response, he plays them an old Dharma video.

In the second half of the epilogue, Ben visits Walt at the Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute, where he offers to take the young man back to the Island where he belongs. In their Dharma van, Hurley explains that Walt has always belonged on the Island, and the three unlikely companions ride off toward a future full of new adventures on the Island.

Earlier I mentioned that the Black Rock letter included in the box set answered a mystery. I saved discussion about it to this point in order to generate a full list of new answers that were given in the special features, including the box set materials, "The New Man In Charge" and the deleted scenes:

From "The New Man In Charge:"

The pallet drop of Dharma food from Season 2 was sent in the present, from a factory in Guam. It still functions because it receives automated information from the Lamp Post station, providing the coordinates for each drop as the Island moves around the world.
Pierre Chang uses a different alias (Marvin Candle, Mark Wickmund and Edgar Halliwax) in each of the Dharma orientation films "for the purposes of security."
The "Hurley Bird" was a genetically altered hybrid bred by the Dharma Initiative and released into the wild for study.
Polar bears were chosen as the subjects of experiments because of their memory and adaptability, and because of their comfort in cold temperatures (suggesting the donkey wheel room under the Orchid). It is implied that one of the experiments done on polar bears was to affix them with a collar and get them to turn the donkey wheel, explaining the appearance of the polar bear skeleton Charlotte discovers in Tunisia.
The high electromagnetic levels of the Island interfere with early term gestation (the pregnancy problem).
Room 23, or the brainwashing room seen in Season 3, was created to wipe the memory of Hostiles after they were captured and interrogated about, among other things, the nature of their "deity" Jacob.
Walt was "special" because he belonged on the Island all his life, possibly even to serve as its protector. He may also have the ability to help his father "move on." He returns with Hurley and Ben to the Island, bringing some much-needed resolution to his character.

From the Black Rock journal:

The other party in the outrigger shootout during the Season 5 time flashes was a group from the Black Rock as they were exploring the Island. The journal indicates that the Black Rock members somehow ended up traveling in time, and briefly flashed to 2007, where the Juliet shot at them on their boat, before flashing to another time period.

From the deleted scenes:

The Man in Black, CANNOT break Jacob's rules in his attempts to leave the Island. It was long debated by fans whether he was bound by the rules or just obeying a code of honor between him and his brother.
When Widmore blasted Desmond with electromagnetic energy, he briefly flashed to the flash-sideways. He experienced the moment of his encounter with Penny and then flashed back, filled with a sense of peace and an awareness that the Island was not the end for him or any of his friends.

That's a great wealth of new information, which may or may not help to placate those who still craved answers after the finale. I was glad that the epilogue was an emotionally satisfying story about Walt in addition to just being a mythology dump. The new answers gleaned from the box set only answered one of MY top five questions, but it was still rewarding to sift through the new material.

Finally, we come to the bonus disc exclusive to the series box set. There is a plethora of new material contained within, starting with an extensive collection of previously unreleased deleted scenes and "LOST On Location" vignettes from Seasons 3, 4 and 5. There is a quick video celebrating all the characters who have died on the series, a documentary about the countless iconic props from the show, and a feature about the composition of the music for the finale. Of particular interest to me was "Planet Lost," a piece about the international LOST fandom and all the crazy things we do to celebrate our favorite show.

The crown jewel of the bonus disc is a 40-minute documentary titled "Letting Go: Reflections of a Six-Year Journey." This tenderly rendered feature is very different from the extra in the Season 6 features. It is a much more personal, intimate look back by the actors and members of the crew, not only on the ending of the show but on the six-year experience of making LOST. A number of actors shot material exclusively for "Letting Go," and the emotion in their voices as they contemplate their years in Hawaii is intensely palpable.

Daniel Dae Kim (Jin) takes a helicopter ride and acts as a tour guide as we are treated to gorgeous panoramic views of Hawaii, flying over the many locations where LOST was filmed. Matthew Fox (Jack) and Evangeline Lilly (Kate) speak in beachside interviews about what the show meant to them and how they changed during the six-year run. Maggie Grace (Shannon) and Naveen Andrews (Sayid) playfully reenact some of their scenes in the jungle, showing a clear affection for their characters and for each other. Jorge Garcia (Hurley) and Michael Emerson (Ben) stand on the site of the Season 1 golf course and recount the storied history of the series. Emilie De Ravin (Claire), Nestor Carbonell (Richard) and Jeff Fahey (Frank) take a sailboat ride and talk about the pleasure of working in a paradise such as Hawaii.

Producers/Writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse naturally make appearances, walking around some of the LOST back lots and warehouses, now nearly empty of everything but memories. Frequent LOST director Jack Bender speaks about the good fortune they all enjoyed in that so many of the pieces clicked into place perfectly to make LOST happen.

I have to confess and say that this documentary really, REALLY got to me. In watching the people behind LOST become so emotional about the end of their own journeys, it was impossible not to feel a similar sense of loss, but also gratitude. As I've said many times before, I'm grateful not just for a great series, but for the opportunities it afforded me to learn new things, explore new interests, and most of all to meet new people and share the bond of a mutual passion with good friends.

"Letting Go" is truly not to be missed. It was my favorite feature of the entire splendid box set. If you don't plan on buying the set, it would be worth any LOST fan's time to seek out a friend who has it to catch this great tribute. As a total package, LOST: The Complete Collection is difficult to find fault with. At around $150 in most retail and online stores, it's a bargain (as is the Blu Ray version at around $200). It's an entertaining adventure in itself, a last opportunity to dip into the coffers of LOST wonderment even after the series has come to a close.

In one of the extras, Josh Holloway (Sawyer) said that he doesn't think the reality of the end of LOST will "hit" him until he doesn't return to start filming a new season in the fall when he normally would. In the same vein, maybe it won't hit all of us until next January, when we'd usually be on the cusp of a new season. Still, many fans, including myself, will continue to celebrate the show in our own unique ways for many years after this concluding year. The box set presents an opportunity not just to rewatch LOST, but to expose to it a whole new audience arriving just a little late to the party. To borrow from the author of another of my favorite franchises when it drew to a close, "For me, personally, it never ends!"

It Has Arrived

2010-09-11T06:20:00.002-05:00

That is all. Next week expect a full review of the box set, extras, and so on.

Your Unanswered LOST Questions!

2010-09-09T15:33:00.006-05:00

Recently I asked readers to submit questions about LOST that they still felt were unresolved at the end of the show. I got quite a few responses, and quite a bit of overlap. By far, the most popular questions were about Walt and Aaron. I was interested to see how much those early dangling plot threads had lingered in people's minds, even after years of time travel, donkey wheels and Egyptian statues, but I guess it's a testament to how amazing the first season was!

I also got a lot of responses saying, "I want this answered, but I don't want you to ruin the Hurley/Ben epilogue," referring to the 11-minute extra mini-episode that is included in both the Season 6 box set and the series box set. Unfortunately, a couple of these questions are directly linked to material from that vignette, so in order to answer them thoroughly, I have to refer to it. However, the box sets have been out for over two weeks now, and there are plenty of places to watch the epilogue online, in whole or in part. Get cracking!

All of what follows is my opinion of the most logical answers to the questions that were asked based on evidence from the show. It's not written in stone, and no one's interpretation is more valid than anyone else's. I hope you enjoy reading. I would also be more than happy to do another of these articles, so feel free to send me more questions. Next week I'll be doing a review of the LOST series box set and the extras from the Season 6 DVDs.

ON TO THE QUESTIONS! "THE NEW MAN IN CHARGE" SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT!

1. How was Walt "special" and what happened to him?

Walt's abilities were an important mystery in Seasons 1 and 2, then vanished completely when Malcom David Kelley left the show. Despite the few brief appearances he made in subsequent seasons, it became apparent that Walt's story wasn't going to amount to much by the end. Part of this was probably due to poor planning on the part of the early creative team, when they cast a boy on the cusp of adolescence in a show that progressed about a month per season. Hence, we ended up with "taller ghost Walt."

As we now know from "The New Man In Charge," the reason Walt was "special" is because he was always meant to be brought to the Island. Not only that, but he may have actually been meant to lead it, as Hurley implies. Ben explains to Walt in the mental hospital that people who are destined to be on the Island won't feel "at home" anywhere else. In the first season, Walt and Locke are the only two characters who want to stay on the Island (Rose's cancer is not revealed until season 2). Walt goes as far as to burn Michael's first raft to keep Michael from taking him away.

Walt and Locke are also both examples of people whose affinities with the Island manifested before they set foot on it. As a young boy, Locke drew pictures of the smoke monster with crayons in his foster home. Walt seemed uncomfortably "different" to his foster father Brian. His ability affected birds' navigation systems, which are based on their perception of electromagnetic fields, causing them to crash into windows in Season 1's "Special" and the mobisode "Room 23." Walt's own electromagnetic field is different in the same way as the Island's electromagnetic field is unlike anywhere else on earth.

Walt's status as a future leader of the Island explains why he was able to appear in visions to Shannon, Sayid and Locke. In the early stages of manifesting this ability, Walt wouldn't have even understood his own words, such as when he told Locke not to open the hatch. His communication may have also appeared garbled, as it was when he spoke backwards to Shannon in the forest. By the time he appeared to tell Locke to "get up" out of the mass grave in Season 3, his abilities were much stronger.

In Seasons 4 and 5, Walt reappeared as a young man in 2007 during the Oceanic 6 storyline. Much like the Oceanic 6 themselves, Walt wasn't meant to leave the Island, so he always felt a sense of uneasiness when trying to readjust to his life in New York. Still, his abilities persisted; in "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" he told Locke of a recurring dream in which Locke was on the beach surrounded by people who wanted to hurt him. The separation from the Island eventually led to a decline in his mental stability, severe enough that he committed himself to Santa Rosa. At the end of the epilogue, however, it appears Walt will finally get a happy ending as he heads back to the Island with Ben and Hurley.

2. Why was Aaron "special" and why did Claire have to be the one to raise him?

Aaron wasn't special in the same way that Walt was special. In fact, to my recollection, "special" was not a word used to describe Aaron. However, through the psychic Richard Malkin, the writers made it very clear that Aaron was important, that he must be raised by Claire, and that no one else should raise the boy under any circumstances. Of course, the exact opposite happened. Kate took Claire's place as Aaron's mother after only a few short months, and she and the baby both escaped the Island to become members of the Oceanic 6.

Key to understanding Aaron's importance is acknowledging that the entire Oceanic 6 storyline was about fixing something that went wrong so that Jack and the others could fulfill their destiny. The six were not meant to leave the Island, and only Jack's stubbornness made it possible for them to escape; later, he would realize the mistake and begin the quest to return. Aaron being "raised by another" was a part of that deviation from the course of destiny.

Much of LOST's story deals with causality-- the idea of cause and effect creating a certain sequence of events. Locke talks about this with Jack in the season 1 finale "Exodus" in one of the series' most famous exchanges. Aaron's upbringing by Kate was part of a chain of events that led the Oceanic 6 back to the Island, to course correct their lives and embrace their destinies. Eventually Kate would admit to herself that she had kept Aaron for selfish reasons, to fill an emotional void in her heart since leaving the Island. Aaron and Claire then became her motivation for returning, in order to reunite mother and son. This could be seen as the pivotal role that Aaron had to play-- as a catalyst for Kate's return to the Island.

As for the behavior of the psychic Richard Malkin, many fans theorize that between his first and second meeting with Claire, he had a visit from Jacob, who told him that he must convince Claire to fly on Oceanic 815. The series gives conflicting evidence of whether Malkin was a genuine psychic or a fraud; if the latter is the case, a visit from Jacob would still explain his behavior.

Many people expected Aaron to be more pivotal than he became (he wasn't even seen after the Oceanic 6 returned to the Island), but like Walt, that was probably due to some early alterations in "the big picture" of the show once it became a certified hit. Aaron just didn't fit in with the bigger plan that the writers concocted at that point, but I assert that he still played an important role and that Richard Malkin's words were validated by later events.

3. What was the "sickness?"

The sickness is a condition caused when the metaphysical light inside a person, originating from the Source at the Heart of the Island, is snuffed out, leaving that person in darkness and inclined to succumb to their baser instincts. The monster (AKA the Man in Black) has the ability to take away an individual's light, possibly through physical contact, or by reviving them after death. The sickness was also referred to as being "claimed" in the sixth season. Victims of the sickness can overcome it through sufficient force of will, or with the help of people important to them who can bring them back from the edge.

The first time we heard about the sickness was from Danielle in Season 1. At that time, it was hard to discern from her disoriented rambling exactly what happened to her science team, and there was just as much chance that she simply went crazy and killed her comrades as there was that an actual "sickness" existed. We later see the events firsthand during Jin's time travel trip. After chasing Danielle's science team through the jungle, the monster pulls Montand under the Temple, and everyone except Danielle pursues their teammate through the tunnels below. Jin flashes to a few weeks or months later and returns to the beach, where he finds Danielle's crew murdered. Danielle is in a standoff with her own husband, Robert, saying that the encounter with the monster changed him. Robert gets Danielle to lower her defenses, then tries to shoot her in cold blood. Only her forethought in removing Robert's firing pin saves Danielle, who then kills him to protect herself and her unborn child.

The Man in Black marked his territory with Claire and Sayid, who became loyal followers until their friends eventually broke his hold on them. The evidence indicates that one has to die before they can be claimed. Claire was infected in Season 4, when she died in the house explosion during the mercenaries' attack on the barracks. Afterward, the monster revived her in a possessed state. There is a cut scene in which Claire sees a vision of her father, whom the Man in Black later impersonated to lure her away from Aaron and her friends. He then spent the next three years visiting Claire in the jungle, fueling the deranged state in which her fellow Oceanic survivors would find her when they returned to the present from the 1970's.

Evidence that Claire died in the explosion and was claimed at that time is corraborated by Sayid's experience. He too appeared to die and then come back to life in an altered state. The water in the Temple, which flowed directly from the Source and was usually used for healing, had become corrupted by the monster's influence after Jacob's death. Rather than healing Sayid, as it had done for Ben decades earlier, the Temple water sealed his fate as a servant of the Man in Black. In both Sayid and Claire's cases, the sickness tipped their inner scales, or their moral compasses, toward darkness.

It's possible that the sickness was the root of the danger the Man in Black posed if he ever escaped from the Island. Mother said that if the light went out on the Island, it would go out everywhere. Imagining the results if the entire population of the world were to succumb to the condition that affected Sayid and Claire leaves little doubt as to why it was so important to prevent the Man in Black from accomplishing his goal of turning off the Source so that he could leave the Island.

Unrelated to the sickness described above were the Dharma innoculations and the "quarantine" label on the inside of the hatch door. As was revealed in Season 2, the quarantine was a deception to help keep the operators of the Swan station isolated. As seen in Season 5, everyone in the Dharma Initiative was given the same vaccine that Desmond took in the hatch, and could be for the prevention of any number of standard tropical illnesses.

4. Where did the Others originally come from and why are they on the Island?

The Others are a society formed from the various people whom Jacob brought to the Island over many decades, beginning with Richard Alpert in 1867. Before that time, many civilizations had discovered the Island, and typically tried to exploit its power, but Jacob never interfered with their activities. He wanted to prove that people could determine right and wrong for themselves, but so far that assertion had a pretty miserable track record. The Man in Black, meanwhile, had no problem interacting with Island visitors, killing them and manipulating them into killing each other.

When Richard arrived on the Black Rock, the Man in Black tried to take advantage of Richard's religious convictions to trick him into killing Jacob. After his beachside throwdown with Richard, Jacob realized that the Man in Black was stepping up his game, and that he was now a target himself. Richard convinced Jacob that he had to do something to combat the Man in Black's manipulations, so Jacob tasked Richard with acting as his proxy, communicating his wishes but ultimately letting those he brought to the Island make decisions themselves.

Since that time, Richard organized the people Jacob brought to the Island into a society dedicated to protecting the Island from unwelcome outside influence and to keeping its powers safe from those who would exploit them. Richard always served as a right-hand man to whomever the people chose as their leader. He communicated directives from Jacob and offered advice, but per Jacob's wishes, always allowed the chosen people to govern for themselves. The Others were hostile to anyone whom they believed Jacob did not purposely bring to the Island himself, such as the United States military in 1954, the Dharma Initiative in the 1970's, and the survivors of Flight 815 in 2004.

As the audience, we know that Jacob actually DID bring the crash survivors to the Island. Even though he wasn't responsible for the actual crash, Jacob has been shown on many occasions to have a perception outside of linear time. Knowing the crash would happen, he chose his candidates and made sure they were on the plane that was fated to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when the electromagnetic surge from under the Swan station slammed into Oceanic 815 as it flew overhead. Only much later would Jacob reveal to the Others at the Temple that he intended for the crash survivors to be candidates, through one of his famous lists in the ankh he gave to Hurley.

Since control of the Others still remained in the hands of imperfect people, they were not immune from making mistakes or deviating from their intended purpose. Richard wasn't perfect either, and in the decades prior to the arrival of Oceanic 815 he appeared to make some poor judgments regarding who should lead Jacob's people. Charles Widmore was a shrewd, power-hungry man who had little regard for Jacob's notions of right and wrong. Ben Linus eventually succeeded him in the leadership role and strayed even further from Jacob's intended path, moving the Others into the barracks, "modernizing" them and growing obsessed with solving the Island's "pregnancy problem."

Two possibilities exist to explain the relationship between Ben's Others and the Others at the Temple in Season 6. Ben may have decided to bring only a certain number of the Others to the barracks with him in order to do research and recruit new members from the outside. It's also conceivable that there was an ideological schism between Ben's and Dogen's factions, and that there were in essence two separate groups of Others when Flight 815 crashed. The second theory would explain why Jacob was so dismissive of Ben, and why he never communicated the importance of the candidates to the group of Others who plagued them in Seasons 1 - 3.

5. Why does the monster only kill certain people?

Learning in Season 6 that the monster is actually a person with a conscious mind and a will of his own makes us reexamine all of his prior actions in the series to that point. Some of his appearances fit into the retconned mythology much more neatly than others, and it's easy to perceive an inconsistency among them. We know that the monster has the ability to scan people's minds to see their pasts and their true nature. That ability allows him to determine who he can easily manipulate for his own purposes and those for whom he has no use. In most cases, it's more useful to examine who the monster has spared than who he specifically killed.

The Man in Black killed the entire crew of the Black Rock except for Richard. When he stopped to scan Richard, he realized that he could manipulate the naive Spaniard into killing Jacob, so he spared him and reappeared in human form to begin his deception. The monster had similar reasons for sparing Locke when he first encountered him in the jungle in "Walkabout." The monster knew very early on that, just as with Richard, Locke would be easy to manipulate by exploiting his nature as a man of faith. In the Season 1 finale, the monster made a move to take Locke by pulling him into the underground network of tunnels that extend from the Temple. By contrast, when the Man in Black made an attempt to ensnare Mr. Eko by impersonating his brother Yemi, he found that Eko won't bend to his manipulations, so his reason for killing the former African drug lord is obvious.

Another question that arises is why the monster was so eager to go on a mass killing spree at the Temple, but seemed to never bother Ben's group of Others, even though they routinely left the confines of the sonic fence. The Man in Black had Ben wrapped up in the longest of long cons, one that would eventually compel him to murder Jacob in the Man in Black's stead. His appearance at the cabin, his response when supposedly summoned during the mercenary attack from the hidden room in Ben's house, and his "judgment" of Ben in the tunnels under the Temple were all a part of the deception. He led Ben astray from Jacob, convinced him that he was being spared from punishment for his evil deeds, then terrified him into obeying "Locke's" orders.

Through six seasons of smoke monster attacks, it's hard to come up with any foolproof generalizations about why the Man in Black kills people. However, when individual cases are examined in detail, most of the time we can divine his motivations without too much difficulty. For a full list of confirmed smoke monster killings, take a look at this Lostpedia entry. Reading up on each incident is the best way to get a feel for the circumstances of each incident.

6. Why do pregnant women die if the baby was conceived on the Island?

This question has a fairly straightforward answer, of the kind that can be disappointing to those who would have preferred a much more outlandish explanation. In "The New Man In Charge," Ben plays a Dharma video that reveals that the intense electromagnetic properties of the Island interfere with pregnancy during the first trimester. I'm not sure how electromagnetism affects pregnant women, but I'm also not all that concerned with probing into the science of it.

The pregnancy problem is an example of a mystery for which some of the most elaborate theories were generated in the fan community, leading to inevitable disappointment with a flat, unexciting answer. I was a culprit in this practice as well. I theorized that Ben caused the pregnancy problem unconsciously when he came to the Island, since his own mother died in the third trimester. Another theory was that the Egyptian god Tawaret, the goddess of fertility, was constructed by Egyptian visitors to bring the blessings of safe pregnancies to the Island. That's still entirely possible, but it won't be answered directly on the show.

The pregnancy issue was also related to why the Others kidnapped children. They believed that they could provide a better life for the children, and that by taking them when they were young, would have the ability to raise them in the ways of Jacob. Primarily, the pregnancy issue was introduced to serve the character arcs of Claire, Juliet and Sun. In many cases, the explanation for a mystery isn't nearly as interesting as how it affects the lives of the characters, and this is one such instance.

7. What do the numbers mean?

There's no single unifying explanation for the numbers, but they still play a significant role in the story of LOST in several ways. If you spent the series waiting for a concrete, scientific explanation for how six numerals could influence fate, karma and causality, you were undoubtedly disappointed, although the explanation provided in The Lost Experience "alternate reality game" comes close. Within the series proper, the numbers primarily represented a curse to Hurley that played a role in his character arc.

The Lost Experience was a multimedia game that was conducted during Season 2 and concluded in the summer of 2006. Players pieced together clues from fake television commercials and other sources to obtain small bits of a five minute Dharma orientation film nicknamed the "Sri Lanka video." The plot of the game is much more involved than I can describe here, but you can read this Lostpedia entry about it for a thorough summary. It involved a conspiracy within the Hanso Foundation, the organization that funded the Dharma Initiative in the 1970s, also involving its CEO, who was a descendant of the Black Rock's captain Magnus Hanso.

The Lost Experience had a completely unique set of characters and operated independently of the TV series, but is considered to be official by the LOST writers. The information from the game most relevant to the show dealt with the Valenzetti equation and the numbers. When players completed the Sri Lanka video, they could watch as Alvar Hanso explained the goal of the Dharma Initiative. After World War II, a team of scientists was commissioned by the UN to attempt to calculate the date of the end of the world, taking into account human and environmental factors that could ultimately lead to our demise. One of the researchers, Enzo Valenzetti, developed an equation with the numerical values 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 in order to predict the fate of humankind.

The Dharma Initiative was founded with the goal of performing research that would eventually prevent worldwide catastrophe. They used the numbers from the Valenzetti equation as a constant reminder to their members of the importance of their work. The Swan station computer, for example, could have been operated with any arbitrary code sequence of numbers, but THE numbers were chosen because of their significance to the Initiative. The numbers were also broadcast from the radio tower as a beacon for Dharma vessels to find; again, they were chosen as the broadcast message because of their special meaning to Dharma members.

Hurley befriended Leonard Simms at the mental institution, and heard the near-catatonic former naval officer repeating the numbers over and over. Leonard first heard them when he stumbled upon the Dharma Initiative radio transmission while posted at a listening station in the South Pacific. He and his partner Sam Toomey would eventually become convinced that the numbers were cursed, and Hurley shared the same belief after the streak of bad luck that followed when he used the numbers to win the lottery. Just as each of the Oceanic 815 crash survivors had to overcome personal demons as one of the core themes of the show, Hurley had to convince himself that he was not cursed.

All of the above information about the numbers as they related to Valenzetti and the Dharma Initiative was known to hardcore fans who followed The Lost Experience, but LOST's writers were still beset by the demands of more casual fans for an in-show explanation for the numbers. That's most likely why they decided to have the six numbers correspond to the six remaining candidates in Season 6, although that explanation has nothing to do with the numbers' importance in the early part of the series. One could postulate that the significance of the final six candidates led to an unnatural frequency of their occurrence in anything Island-related, from the sonic fence pass codes to the Oceanic flight number, but the real-world explanation is simpler. The writers included the numbers in a variety of places in the show simply because they knew fans liked looking for them, a variation on "Where's Waldo" or the Hirschfeld "Ninas."

Don't forget, LOST Season 6 and LOST: The Complete Series are now available on DVD and Blu Ray!

Ben and Christina's Top Ten Favorite Weird Al Yankovic Songs

2010-08-28T17:36:00.004-05:00

For this post, I'm joined by my friend Christina as a guest co-author. We decided to determine out ten favorite Weird Al songs together and take turns explaining just why we love them so much. These songs are in no particular order. Enjoy!

1. Genius in France

Christina: This song cracks me up every time I listen to it. It's irreverent and hysterical, and I'm a person who really likes France. "I'm a taco short of a combo plate/but by some twist of fate all the frogs think I'm great./Oh the men all faint and the women scream/they like me more than heavy cream." I'm a sucker for random songs, and this one is one of the most randomly delicious. The melody is apparently created from different Frank Zappa songs, and the electric guitar is played by his son Dweezle Zappa.

2. Headline News

Ben: This song is great not just because it's a parody of the already silly "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" by the Crash Test Dummies, but it recalls several particularly crazy news stories from the mid-nineties. I'd love to see a follow-up to this song with some modern news stories, like Balloon Boy or Antoine Dodson.

3. Pancreas

Christina: Another absolutely delightful, geeky fanboy song about the pancreas, of all things, but according to my doctor dad, the things he's singing about are true. It just cracks me up, and the randomness gets a 10.

4. Bedrock Anthem

Ben: Occasionally, there's a Weird Al song that's even better than the original it parodies. As much as I love the Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Bedrock Anthem" is one of them. It combines RHCP's "Under the Bridge" and "Give It Away," spoofing the latter's music video with some crude Flintstonian visuals.

5. It's All About The Pentiums

Christina: Other than "White and Nerdy," it's probably the nerdiest song he's written involving computers, and as a computer nerd I love it. "Wanna run with my crew, huh?/Rule cyberspace and crunch numbers like I do?...My new computers got the clocks, it rocks/but it was obsolete before I opened the box." Heck yess.

6. I Want A New Duck

Ben: As a lover of all things 80's, a Weird Al parody of Huey Lewis & The News is instantly appealing. As a kid I remember seeing this song used in a Donald Duck TV special, but I haven't been able to find it since.

7. The Saga Begins

Christina: This is actually THE song that got me into Weird Al. I was so hyped about the new Star Wars movie coming out at the time (Episode I), and when a friend mentioned it to me, I listened to it, and I was hooked. In retrospect, it was looking forward to something that, in all honesty turned out to be disappointing, but in its wide-eyed hopefulness, it expresses a collective wish for awesomeness that we all were hoping for.

8. Dare To Be Stupid

Ben: "Dare To Be Stupid" has the distinction of being featured in the 1986 animated Transformers: The Movie, during a scene in which the TV-talking Junkions attack the Autobots. It's a perfect fit, since the song riffs on dozens of idioms, the kind the intellectually challenged Junkions would be likely to get mixed up and backwards. Weird Al himself would go on to voice Wreck-Gar, leader of the Junkions, when the character was revived in the recent "Transformers Animated" series.

9. Amish Paradise

Christina: This is the song I bought the album "Bad Hair Day" for in Middle School. I have a soft spot in my heart for the Amish, so this song is hysterical, and the rhymes are great. "I never wear buttons, but I got a cool hat,/and my homies agree I really look good in black, fool!" Plus the video is an awesome parody of the original "Gangster's Paradise" video it was based on.

10. UHF

Ben: Even many Weird Al fans haven't seen the hilarious, but financially unsuccessful, Weird Al movie of the same name from 1989. As the song and images suggest, Al brings his knack for parody to the small screen for a UHF station he inherits. Also starring Michael Richards, Fran Drescher and Saturday Night Live's Victoria Jackson, UHF has a well-deserved cult status today and really should be in the DVD collection of any serious Weird Al fan.

Cerebus - An In-Depth Analysis of a Twisted Comic Legend

2010-08-20T16:25:00.033-05:00

There are some feats that are so staggering, so monumental that they tower above all other accomplishments in their field, inspiring awe and admiration from the contemporaries of those responsible. The 27-year-long, 6,000 page run of Cerebus the Aardvark is not one of those feats. If you go by pure numbers, Cerebus is hard to beat. It's the longest running comic narrative in history written and drawn by the same creative team. It has won every major comic award given in the industry. Perhaps most impressive is that its creator, writer and artist Dave Sim, performed the author's equivalent of Babe Ruth calling his shot: early in the run, he announced that Cerebus would run for exactly 300 issues and conclude in March 2004. Some people thought he was a genius, others thought he was crazy-- but sure enough, issue 300 rolled off the presses on March 2004, and Cerebus faded into comic book history.

"Why don't I already know about all this?" you may be thinking. "If Cerebus is such an incredible achievement in the art of comic book storytelling, why isn't it more of a household name? Where's the Cerebus movie? The Cerebus action figures?" The first answer is as mundane as the reality of circulation numbers. At its height, Sim's studio Aardvark-Manaheim printed 30,000 copies of Cerebus per month, at a time when titles like Superman and Batman sold in the hundreds of thousands. By the time it concluded, Cerebus shipped far fewer copies than it did at its pinnacle. Such is the fate of an independent publisher: you trade wealth and repute for the freedom to make every creative decision on your own. Exceptions, such as Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, can probably be counted on one hand.

More consequential in securing Cerebus's obscurity, however, is the simple fact that Dave Sim arguably went crazy during the course of writing it. Particularly during the last third of the series, but foreshadowed in not-so-subtle fashion in prior issues, Sim slowly began to work his off-the-hinge social and religious views into Cerebus until it became little more than a mouthpiece for his warped politics. As a result, what was once an epic adventure full of drama and mythological intrigue degenerated into an incoherent mess of a narrative, with only a few sparks of genius still surfacing every so often.

Therefore, rather than being regarded as a towering accomplishment of its medium, Cerebus is something akin to TV's Seinfeld. That sitcom had such an awful series finale (not to mention an overall lousy final season) that it cast a pallor over the many hilarious seasons that preceded it. People cringed at the mention of Seinfeld for years, only recently warming back up to it through reruns of the much funnier early years. Likewise, it seems that only a minority remember Cerebus's first 200 issues or so for the grandiose stories they were, despite such a drastic decline in the final years. Perhaps the greatest factor keeping Cerebus from being remembered with fondness and respect is Dave Sim himself, who severed ties with most of the comics community, and even his family, to live an ascetic lifestyle within the confines of his odd system of beliefs. He no longer seeks the adoration of the masses, and the masses are disinclined to award it.

CAUTION: THERE WILL BE MAJOR CEREBUS SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT. THERE WILL ALSO BE SOME EXPLORATION OF DAVE SIM'S PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWPOINTS, CONSIDERED TO BE HIGHLY OFFENSIVE BY MANY.

Cerebus began as a simple parody of the sword-and-sorcery genre, lampooning Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonja and even more mainstream superhero comics. Most issues were self-contained stories. To read the first dozen or so issues you wouldn't expect Cerebus to expand into a sprawling universe with detail rivaling that of Star Wars or Dragonball. At some point in those early issues, Sim began to see his titular anthropomorphic aardvark as a vehicle for something much larger than he originally set out to do. Issue 20 was the first, narratively and artistically, to be an experimental departure from traditional storytelling. Cerebus spends the entire issue in his unconscious mind, arguing between different fictional political parties.

Soon thereafter, Sim ditched the stand-alone stories entirely and began the series' first massive story arc, "High Society." Over the next 25 issues (or more than two years), Sim chronicled Cerebus's rise to power as the Prime Minister of the city-state of Iest, and all of the political intrigue and manipulation that bubbled beneath the surface on the way. Noticeably, Cerebus ceased to be an action/adventure story altogether-- the aardvark barely swung his sword through the entire tale. Rather than alienating readers with its abrupt shift in tone, "High Society" elevated Cerebus out of obscurity to become a widely respected independent comic, lauded for its layered characters and satirical themes.

The next arc, double the size of "High Society," continued the political intrigue while introducing a new satirical element aimed at organized religion. "Church & State" actually sees Cerebus become the pope of the Western Church (ideologically in conflict, of course, with the Eastern Church). If it wasn't apparent already, it becomes clear in "Church & State" that Cerebus is not meant to be a likable character in the traditional sense. He can be downright evil, in fact-- early in the story he punts a baby and an old man off the roof of a building to demonstrate his papal power, then demands that the destitute citizens of Iest give him all of their gold in order to prevent the end of the world. He may be a little bastard, but his malicious antics regularly bring the laughs.

In both "High Society" and "Church & State," Sim shows a knack for bringing back formerly inconsequential characters from the more carefree early issues to play new roles in the epic storylines that follow. The most prominent example is Jaka, who debuted as a tavern dancer in what was likely intended to be a one-shot appearance. Typifying the radically changed tone of the series, Sim brings Jaka back into Cerebus's life, now as a character with real pathos. In "High Society" he sows the seeds of an ill-fated romance between Jaka and Cerebus (who is almost always treated as if he were as human as any other character). Unfortunately, the later issues of Cerebus, after Sim went "over the edge," bring a bitter conclusion to the story, due largely to his increasing disdain for women.

At the conclusion of "Church and State," Cerebus has an "ascension," a term used in the series for a unique religious experience. He travels to the moon and meets "the judge," who oversees humanity and tells Cerebus of the nature of the god Tarim in one of the most outlandish, metaphysical scenes in the series. The judge also predicts that Cerebus will die "unmourned and unloved," setting the stage for the series' dark and twisted finale. When he returns, Cerebus finds that the ascension decimated much of Iest. He has lost the papacy and the city-state has been conquered by a brutal matriarchal regime from the East known as the Cirinists.

Thus begins "Jaka's Story," considered by many to be the pinnacle of Cerebus. Under the looming threat of the Cirinists, a disoriented Cerebus becomes the house guest of Jaka and her husband Rick, despite the fact that Cerebus is still deeply in love with Jaka. Concurrently, Sim interweaves a prose story about Jaka's childhood, a surreal tale told in the vein of the "unreliable narrator." The 23-part arc is sometimes pensive, sometimes quiet, until its concluding installments descend chillingly into the realm of the tragic. "Jaka's Story" features only five major characters, yet still captivates the reader better than anything that had come so far (and, many feel, would come after). It is the best showcase of Sim's storytelling ability in the visual medium of comics. In a fair world, Cerebus would be remembered for these chapters and not for the gobbledygook that would grow to be the norm after #200.

Personally, I was most affected by #136, in which Jaka and Rick, both having been arrested by the Cirinists because of Jaka's profession as a dancer, face interrogation by an amusing-yet-creepy Margaret Thatcher look-alike. To Jaka's horror, the Cirinists reveal to Rick that Jaka had induced an abortion of her unborn son out of fears that they would be unable to support a baby, and that she would no longer be able to earn a living as a dancer after childbirth affected her appearance. Enraged, Rick strikes Jaka and their marriage is torn asunder, all seemingly so that the Cirinists can "prove a point" to the couple about behavior they deem unscrupulous. Sim's art and words are truly haunting in these moments.

The next arc, "Melmoth," is an odd departure for the series, barely featuring Cerebus at all and focusing instead on a fictionalized version of Oscar Wilde in the final days of his life. Sim begins to increasingly incorporate straight prose into the comic format as Wilde's companion Reggie chronicles his deterioration in a series of letters to a friend. Sim would later repeat this formula, to less success, with fictionalized versions of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The final chapter of "Melmoth" is a segue into the massive "Mothers & Daughters" story arc that would carry Cerebus all the way to issue 200. Cerebus, having sat at a diner in a catatonic state since the arrest of Jaka and Rick, explodes with fury when he hears a Cirinist describe her treatment of Jaka while she awaited interrogation. For the first time in years, Cerebus finally picks up his sword, and thus begins a killing spree of Cirinists that carves a bloody path all the way to the leader Cirin herself. The opening chapters of "Mothers & Daughters" represent an incredible catharsis after witnessing the oppression of the Cirinists for more than 40 issues.

In perhaps the most pivotal moments of the series, Cerebus's murderous rampage leads to a four-way confrontation between Cerebus, his former adviser Astoria from his days as Prime Minister, and Cirin and Suenteus Po, the only two other aardvarks in existence. Po, who has somehow acquired an understanding of the aardvarks' mystical natures, explains to Cerebus and Cirin how their actions affect those around them in an unnatural way, and why he has chosen a path of pacifism. When Astoria and Po take their leave, Cerebus and Cirin square off in a brutal, bloody battle that lasts for ten issues, leading to another "ascension" for both.

Here's where Cerebus takes a dive into the truly controversial. "Mothers & Daughters" spans 50 issues, and is divided into four parts-- "Flight," "Women," "Reads" and "Minds." In "Reads," Sim interlaces the battle between Cerebus and Cirin with the prose writings of three characters-- Victor Reid, Rotsieve, and Viktor Davis-- who all serve as thinly veiled pseudonyms for Dave Sim himself. Beginning in #175, the characters' essays become increasingly misogynistic, perhaps with the intention of creating a parallel with the woman-ruled world of the Cirinists. The essays reach an apex in #186, wherein Sim outlines the philosophy that not only dominates the remaining 114 issues, but alienated thousands of fans and began the series' downward slide from lauded masterpiece to ill-perceived oddity.

In #186, Sim (writing as Viktor Davis) describes the male and female genders, and the universe as a whole, as the "Male Light" and the "Female Void." The Male Light represents creativity, ingenuity and reason that has guided and progressed us since the beginning of the human race. The Female Void is a construct of raw emotion and irrationality that eats away at the Male Light, constantly consuming it through a variety of means such as the institution of marriage, which he refers to by the term "Merged Permanence." He claims as unnatural the concept that people should pair up permanently with one another, and that the Female Void with its constant need for emotional connection is responsible for this. As a result of the temptations of the destructive Female Void, otherwise brilliant men with great things to contribute to society are seduced and subdued, manipulated into prioritizing marriage and family above all else.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, but more than enough to make apparent why a series with only hints of an anti-woman subtext suddenly exploded with controversy. As is often the case, the offensiveness of Sim's writing sparked a surge in sales of both individual copes of #186 and the "Reads" graphic novel. It would be hard to imagine anyone with a remotely balanced mentality not finding Sim's views of women to be abhorrent. The shame in this is that it muddies all the incredible work Sim had done to that point, including writing such a complex and fully realized female character in "Jaka's Story."

Much speculation persists amongst comic readers as to "what happened" to Dave Sim to make him develop such an out-and-out loathing for the female gender. Sim insists that there was no such incident that turned his heels on all of womankind, but instead that he came to his conclusions long ago and that #186 was "the point" Cerebus had been building toward. There are letter columns not printed in the book collections of Cerebus that could perhaps shed some light on the issue, but to me it's immaterial to the story of Cerebus the aardvark. Sim's unhinged viewpoints only become truly problematic when he begins incorporating them into the story proper, beginning with the next arc, "Guys." It's the primary reason for the downfall of the once-great series.

Despite being blindsided by the Viktor Davis "reads," "Mothers & Daughters" concludes on a grandiose scale. Cerebus's ascension concludes on Pluto, where Sim breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to Cerebus as his creation for several issues. Cerebus has to confront a lot of his personal demons (as I said before, he is not the most likable guy, and Sim finally addresses it here), coming to terms with his unrequited love for Jaka and his mystical nature as an aardvark. Finally, he asks Sim to return him to a small tavern, where the majority of the next two story arcs would take place.

In my opinion, if you skip the prose portions of "Reads" and stop reading the comic altogether at issue #200, you've got yourself a pretty amazing epic. Up to that point, despite Sim's encroaching dementia, you still have a collection of both funny and touching stories and phenomenally rendered artwork by Sim and background artist Gerhard. However, with "Guys" and the following "Rick's Story," Cerebus takes a long, gray, pig-snouted nosedive. Both stories are loosely assembled ramblings by a collection of men in a bar, in which Cerebus eventually becomes bartender, extolling the evils of womankind and bemoaning their fates as drunks in the underbelly of the Cirinist society. When Jaka's ex-husband Rick returns and frequents the bar, we get an earful of his and Cerebus's philosophies about women and he even begins to form a delusional worship of Cerebus himself. This self-indulgence on Sim's part brings anything resembling a "story" to a grinding halt. The only other real content is a lascivious competition between Rick and Cerebus for a shallow sexual relationship with a buxom local stereotype named Joanne.

It's bad enough that Sim subtly changes Cerebus's character to reflect Sim's own more open misogyny, but even the once-great art suffers-- probably from repetition, as the majority of some 31 issues takes place in a BAR. Prose sections, now taking the form of religious scriptures, become more intrusive and taxing to read. The dialogue balloons are exaggerated to the extreme, with wide variation in font size and style to symbolize the nearly indecipherable accents with which the characters speak. Sim seems to have lost his understanding of the fine line between "clever" and "damned annoying" from the perspective of his readership, which had been dwindling since #186 and was dwindling still in these laborious arcs.

The series picks up a bit in "Going Home" and "Form & Void," in which Jaka reenters Cerebus's life, and they decide to return to his hometown. The interlude with Sim's fictionalized Ernest and Mary Hemingway is not as well conceived as the earlier "Melmoth," and I personally don't know about Hemingway to say if the story reflects any reality. Much of "Going Home" is introspective and a nice uptick in quality from the last two arcs. Unfortunately, Sim's special brand of lunacy intrudes again, and he re-frames Jaka as a spoiled stereotype, a shadow of the character she once was. Her relationship with Cerebus comes to an abrupt end when Cerebus returns to find his parents have died, and he somehow finds a way to blame Jaka for his misery. She then disappears from the story almost completely, bringing an abrupt and regrettable end to a once-rich character dynamic.

One subtle touch that Sim presents in the final story arcs is Cerebus's aging process. From "Rick's Story" through the second to last arc, "Latter Days," Cerebus slowly but steadily becomes more frumpy and fat, with a few wrinkles forming here and there. "Latter Days" takes place after a major gap in the timeline, during which Rick's writings have formed a religion with Cerebus as its head. Sim used many caricatures throughout Cerebus's 300 issues, but none were as dead-on as those of the Three Stooges, who kidnap Cerebus to force him to reveal his words of wisdom. After three years as the Stooges' prisoner, Cerebus finally generates a plan to overthrow the Cirinists. To his own surprise, the Stooges actually lead an army of men to victory.

Perhaps "Latter Days" would be funnier if the reader was not aware of the genuine anti-woman venom that inspires its narrative; however, its saving grace is that, unlike earlier arcs, it paints the men as bumbling idiots to such an extent that they look as bad as the women. I got a laugh out of the "complete dick" rule instituted after Cerebus's takeover, wherein any 12 men can declare one man a "complete dick" and blow his head off. Also, after the fall of Cirinists, the intellectually challenged mob of men take a vote on every woman in their hometowns, deciding which ones are "angels" (the hot ones) and executing the rest of them. I can't help but feel that Sim is now lampooning shallow men as much as he is shallow women.

I'll admit up front that I didn't even finish the later portion of "Latter Days," titled "Chasing YHWH." It's an almost entirely prose analysis of the Torah, by Cerebus and a caricature of Woody Allen, and it's every bit as tedious as that sounds. By this point in his personal life, Sim, who was once an atheist, had discovered faith and created his own amalgamation of the Abrahamic religions. Once again, self-indulgence intrudes on the concept of "story" in "Chasing YHWH," and Sim finds more excuses to blame women for all the evils of the modern world.

Appropriately, the finale of Cerebus is titled "The Last Day." While I was mesmerized by the horrific end Sim chooses for his protagonist, it betrays every notion of the bond an audience should develop with a character. In the final 100 issues, the character of Cerebus slowly transforms into little more than a vessel for Sim to offer his perspectives on topics that interest him. By the time we reach "The Last Day," Cerebus is a wrinkled old man vaguely resembling a Shar Pei, and there's no more appropriate visualization for Sim at this point-- a bitter relic condemning everything around him.

Cerebus spends the better part of "The Last Day" arguing with his caretaker to let him see his son-- born out of frame during the thirty year gap between story arcs-- before he dies. When he finally gets to see Sheshep, the long-lost son reveals that he has been converted to a new Cirinist movement, which has descended to the depths of pedophilia and grotesque genetic manipulation (in interviews, Sim has expressed his belief that this is the direction of Western culture). Cerebus attempts to kill his own son for his horrific deeds, but falls, breaks his spine, and is pulled into the afterlife, screaming for God to help him.

One can't help but be affected by the sheer darkness of Cerebus's conclusion, but to me there's no lasting value in it, as a work of fiction or as a supposed cautionary tale for our times. "The Last Day" and the later arcs in general are such a betrayal of the series' earlier greatness that any supposed wisdom Sim is trying to impart is lost on an audience mystified that an epic so great could go so far astray. Perhaps it all boils down to that ill-advised declaration that Cerebus would last for exactly 300 issues. A lot happens to a person in 27 years. In Sim's case, he went from an ambitious, talented independent comic creator to a recluse convinced that women and homosexuals were out to get him, and that God plans on sending about 99.9% of us straight to hell for sins such as child support and women's suffrage. Every ounce of that downward slide is reflected in his comic.

I have to backpedal a bit, lest I end on an unintentionally dour note. Despite its later decline, the bulk of Cerebus's story arcs are works of real genius. "High Society," "Church & State I and II," "Jaka's Story" and "Mothers & Daughters" in particular stand out as masterworks on par with great graphic novels like The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen and Maus. Dave Sim is certainly not the first author whose personal life or later works made it more difficult to appreciate a career at its peak. Consummate readers know that those who dismiss a writer's entire catalog based on its lowest points will miss out on some good stuff, and Sim doesn't deserve that fate.

I heartily recommend the four story arcs mentioned above, each available in paperback, for the comics enthusiast or anyone looking to read something truly unique ("Mothers & Daughters" is divided into four books-- "Flight," "Women," "Reads" and "Minds"). "Melmoth" is another solid read, particularly for those of a more literary persuasion. Cerebus post-#200 is only for those who are truly daring, truly patient and nearly impossible to offend. With this particular aardvark, you have to pick your poison carefully.

Ranking Heavy Metal

2010-07-23T15:30:00.011-05:00

Heavy Metal remains one of the great experimental animated films of all time. Its magazine namesake is a monthly anthology of comic short stories submitted by aspiring and professional writers and artists. It is notorious for its "adult" nature-- violence and nudity are the norm, but the stories are often intellectually provocative as well. The magazine is also peppered with fantasy illustrations in many different styles, and is famous for its sci-fi/fantasy warrior babe pinups.

The film version is very similar. It consists of six segments, each with a different story loosely connected by the concept of the Loc-Nar, a glowing green orb of evil that influences events all over the galaxy. Heavy Metal was produced by Ivan Reitman, who would go on to produce and direct Animal House, Ghostbusters and other classic 80s movies. In addition to the varying animation styles using techniques from stop-motion to rotoscoping, the film is populated by a cornucopia of rock music from legendary artists like Cheap Trick, Grand Funk Railroad, Black Sabbath and Journey.

Heavy Metal did decently in its original 1981 theatrical run, but became a cult classic in the following years. That was spurred partly by its rarity, as it took many years for it to be released on VHS. It made the college theater circuit and became known both as a feast for animation enthusiasts and a tripper movie in the tradition of Yellow Submarine and Rocky Horror Picture Show. However one may appreciate it, underneath the psychadelic imagery and adolescent sex fantasy lies a film with more boldness and creativity packed into 90 minutes than many animation studios can claim in their entire catalog.

As with any anthology film, the individual segments vary in their appeal to the individual viewer. Thus, my ranking of each vignette from least favorite to favorite:

7. Den

The weakest of the stories in Heavy Metal is a riff on Conan the Barbarian, but is an even more potent male power fantasy. It's biggest problem is that it's TOO blatant. A scrawny teenage nerd named Dan finds the Loc-Nar and adds it to his rock collection, but it transports him to a fantasy world where he becomes the muscular, brutish Den. In this land populated by beastly warriors and nubile women, he becomes a hero by ending a war between two power-hungry cult leaders, killing and having a lot of sex along the way. There's no subtlety to it, nor are there any twists or fantastic imagery. It's just battle, sex, battle, sex, battle, The End. In a movie made for teenage boys, this is the only story that feels like it was written by one. It also is the only segment to feature NO incidental rock music at all.

6. Harry Canyon

"Harry Canyon" is several steps above "Den," to be sure. It's the story of a future New York cab driver making a living in a decaying, corrupt city. He gets mixed up with a young woman who's trying to protect her father's life's work (which turns out to be the Loc-Nar) from a pack of gangsters. The pulp style animation of the piece is interesting, but not very visually appealing. Still, there is some good satire, and it plays out cleverly as an homage to classic film noir tropes. There's not a whole lot to it, but it starts the vignettes off on a decent note. As an aside, see if you can't pick up shades of "Harry Canyon" in The Fifth Element, a Bruce Willis film made years later.

5. B-17

Now we're getting to the good stuff. This is one of the shorter entries, a creepy horror tale with an atmosphere very much unlike the other segments. The crew of a World War II bomber plane encounter the Loc-Nar after a dogfight, and it turns the dead on board into zombies. The appeal of "B-17" comes from the combination of music and imagery. Don Felder's "Heavy Metal (Takin' a Ride)" plays to psychadelic visuals of a plane, animated in rotoscope, during the battle. The nightmarish events that follow as the dead begin to rise are claustrophic and tense. It's only drawback is that it's brief and straightforward. The shortage of dialogue also doesn't give the audiences any real characters to latch onto.

4. Soft Landing/Grimaldi

These two segments actually comprise the frame that opens and ends the story, and are interlaced between some of the vignettes. It's worth noting on its own based solely on the visual that opens the film-- a 1960 Corvette being lowered out of a space shuttle and dropping into the atmosphere. The astronaut driving it then returns home and shows a "gift" to his daughter-- it turns out to be the Loc-Nar, which corners the girl and begins to tell its tales of fantasy. At the end of the movie, the framing device actually turns out to be more relevant to the plot than you might think at first. But it's that opening shot, along with the powerhouse rock song "Radar Rider" by Riggs, that makes Heavy Metal explode onto the screen from the very first moments.

3. So Beautiful and So Dangerous

A spaceship shows up over the Pentagon just as an "expert" is refuting the existence of aliens. The voluptuous secretary taking notes at the meeting (and wearing the Loc-Nar as a brooch) is promptly kidnapped by three slacker aliens inside, who proceed to take her on a drug-addled joyride through space. This entry in Heavy Metal is a lot of people's least favorite, since it's very short, doesn't have a "story" in the traditional sense, and doesn't contribute much to the overall themes. I happen to love it because it's by far the funniest. Heavy Metal has moments of humor sprinkled throughout, particularly in "Harry Canyon" and "Captain Sternn," but "So Beautiful and So Dangerous" is the most concentrated patch of comedy, riffing on alien paranoia, sex, relationships and drug culture. It also has the best music in any of the segments.

2. Captain Sternn

"Captain Sternn" features the most noticeable stylistic influence of a specific artist in Heavy Metal, that of Bernie Wrightson. The titular character is a corrupt officer in a space armada on trial for various transgressions, but counting on the character testimony of the meek Hanover Fiste to save his skin. When Hanover gets his hands on the Loc-Nar, however, the courtroom scene explodes into a chase around a space station to the tune of Cheap Trick's "Reach Out." It's comedic, visually engaging and stands out as one of the most original amongst an already diverse collection of tales.

1. Taarna

Comprising the last twenty-five minutes of Heavy Metal, "Taarna" is the tale of high fantasy for which the movie is best known. Its heroine graces the cover of most Heavy Metal posters, symbolizing the complete package of otherworldly fantasy, violence and eroticism that make up the entire film. "Taarna" stands apart from the other stories as something more ambitious, a heartfelt homage to sword and sorcery epics that have graced the pages of comics and magazines for years before its arrival.

Taarna is the quintessential Heavy Metal heroine. Summoned by a civilization on the brink of destruction, she arrives to find a city in ruins, destroyed by nomads under the influence of the Loc-Nar. Her mission is one of vengeance and, ultimately, sacrifice. While Taarna may not rack up the same body count as some of today's animated heroes, she represents the Citizen Kane of "bad girls." There really hadn't been an animated female character on film like the sword-wielding Taarna, clad in scant strips of leather and iconic knee-high red boots, until Heavy Metal. Now, of course, "bad girls" are a genre to themselves in comics, and they make up a sizable portion of Japanese anime shows. That such provocative yet powerful women have yet to become more of a staple in mainstream culture makes Taarna even more unique.

Despite each having their own merits, "Taarna" dwarfs the other segments of Heavy Metal by comparison and becomes the defining trait of the film's reputation. There was an attempt to repeat the formula as a full-length film in Heavy Metal 2000, but the production was plagued by delays and ended up as a weak, cookie cutter imitation. However, a new Heavy Metal has been announced for 2011, and it is said to be returning to the original's roots of short vignettes and copious amounts of bold visuals, blood and boobage. With names like David Fincher, Guillermo Del Toro and Gore Verbinski slated to direct shorts, there's much more promise in this next installment.

Movie Review: Inception

2010-07-17T08:23:00.012-05:00

In trying to distill a movie down to an essential description, I often think of how I would describe it to my father. He's a smart guy who likes good movies, and he doesn't tolerate a lot of "fluff." He seems to know instinctively when a movie is trying to compensate for a bad script, or bad actors, or a dumb premise. I choose carefully when making the occasional film recommendation to him. In this case, when I tell him that he must see Inception as soon as possible, I will say that it is "an action/adventure film for which you have to keep your brain turned on the entire time." And never once will he mistake its majesty for fluff.

That's a unique description in today's movie market. We've almost become fully hypnotized by the new conventional wisdom that action movies by nature are loud and dumb, and one is meant to put his or her brain on static mode while watching. Big action performers like Transformers, Terminator Salvation and the Fast and Furious series thrive only because they exist in the modern environment of lowered expectations. I must admit that it's happened to me, too. After last night I feel like I've been subdued for several years, eating so much potted meat that I started comparing the qualities of the cans, having completely forgotten what a sirloin tasted like.

Christopher Nolan's Inception is one of the best action/adventure movies in years. The only two films in recent memory that even come close to it are Children of Men and Nolan's own The Dark Knight. Movies like Avatar, Pirates of the Caribbean and the Star Wars prequels scrape off like barnacles in the wake of a majestic ship such as this. For that reason, it's going to be very difficult to write a review of Inception. It's far easier to complain about bad films or write optimistic reviews of passable films than to do justice to an incontrovertible masterpiece. It is also very important that one sees this film with as little information as possible, so this review will be kept spoiler-free beyond discussing the basic premise.

Inception is basically a heist film in the tradition of Mission: Impossible, Ronin, Sneakers, and Ocean's Eleven. The landscape of the heist is the unconscious mind, and Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and a small team of associates are experts in the art of extracting information from dreams. They find an opportunity to subdue a target, then enter his or her dream world in order to discover some secret on behalf of a paying customer. We get an idea of what Cobb does, but as is often true in these types of films, the case central to Inception's plot is more personal. Just as Danny Ocean was trying to get his wife back and Martin Bishop was determined to outwit an old rival, this isn't just another contract for Cobb-- this is "the big one." Even the mission itself is tweaked-- this time, the objective is to implant an idea rather than to extract one.

How this is accomplished and the complexity of the task is explained and executed with such aplomb in the film's screenplay that, like all the best and most imaginative cinematic works, one never questions the ludicrousness of the concept for a moment. Nolan's lean-and-mean script wastes no time with a misplaced devotion to realism in an inherently fantastical concept. It's all about concept, character and action, in that order. The audience learns exactly what Cobb and company do for a living, then what motivates him as a person. After that, Nolan plunges into the action and there's really no letup until the end. The character of Cobb is the anchor, and he feeds the audience just enough information to establish the rules of the film's reality. Despite being a movie about dreams, it never feels like there are cheats or dei ex machina because the setup is so completely flawless.

Like most heist movies, the protagonist must assemble a team of experts to accomplish the task at hand. Each one has a unique skill set that will prove invaluable during the mission. In the case of Inception, to describe the particular skills of these operatives would reveal too much about the way Cobb's team operates in the dream world, a consistently delightful series of seminars that I won't ruin for you before you see the film yourself. Suffice to say, I've always loved "team assembly" scenes in movies and Inception is true to form for the genre. Cobb is already partnered with Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, far removed from his 3rd Rock from the Sun years). He recruits Tom Hardy, who is slated to play Mad Max in that upcoming franchise reboot, and Dileep Rao, most recently seen in Avatar. Cillian Murphy, whom Nolan used as the Scarecrow in Batman Begins, and the venerable Ken Watanabe also become involved.

The final member of Cobb's team serves the added function of being the "newbie," through whose eyes we see Cobb's world as outsiders. Ellen Page's character, Ariadne, is an intellectual prodigy but a novice at the art of dream invasion. She learns the tricks of the trade with us and shows an innate penchant for manipulating her way through the unreal. Because of the immediate respect her talent commands, she becomes the only character able to emotionally connect with Cobb, and thus also our window to his past. Page is as impressive here as she was in 2007's Juno, which earned her a Best Actress nomination. Hopefully she will continue to make such wise choices in her film roles.

With the team assembled, the movie goes into overdrive and doesn't allow the audience to come up for air. Nolan shows perfect synchronicity of script and directing, as well as a master director's ability to bring out the best in his performers. Pacing of exposition is interlaced flawlessly with the action so that the film comes to an emotional and narrative climax simultaneously. It's the kind of blend you can only get when an artist has complete creative control. This is the movie Christopher Nolan earned the chance to make with his success on the Batman films, and audiences are about to learn (or remember) how impressive the power of uninhibited imagination can be.

Inception operates within genre parameters while presenting an entirely unique set of challenges for its protagonists, blending familiarity with novelty in the tradition of the very best motion pictures of all time. Originality is such a rarity today that I almost neglected to find out that Inception is a completely original work of cinema, not based on any book, comic, television show, board game, juice box label, prequel or dusty old franchise. It's truly Nolan's baby, from the first written word to the final cut. One of the highest compliments I can say about a film is that I've seen nothing else quite like it. Neither, I suspect, have you.

Addendum:

I have to say something about Hans Zimmer's score for this film. I've heard that the recent trend, say the last decade or so, in film scores has been to shy away from having a central "theme"-- you know, those five or six bars that you keep humming to yourself after seeing the movie, sort of like this:

Like most things, I prefer the old-fashioned way of doing it, and I don't see why it could possibly be a bad thing to have an audience constantly thinking about a good movie by unconsciously humming bars from its score. The consequence of the trend is that some great movies of the last decade don't have truly memorable scores. Danny Elfman, love him or hate him, was responsible for one of the greatest theme songs of all time:

So when I saw that he was the composer for the new Spider-Man movie back in 2002, I was thrilled that we would get an equally great sonorous tribute to Spider-Man. But it wasn't to be. Elfman's score for the Spider-Man films is background noise, indiscernable from already noisy films and immediately forgettable. Knowing Elfman's past work, I'm confident that was a studio mandate (this was back when comic book films were just beginning to get credibility back).

Fast forward to to 2005 and Nolan's Batman Begins, the beginning of the best superhero film series ever created. Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard collaborated on the score. While operating in the modern-day framework of motion picture scores, they managed to make music that does not leave your mind, in the most welcome way possible. The scores for both Batman films have been haunting. Nolan uses Zimmer again to compose for Inception and the result is similarly impressive.

I'm not a musical expert so I can't tell you how the composition differs given Howard's absence. However, I can say that Zimmer creates towering musical constructions that rival the daunting visual landscape of the film and the intensity of the caper that unfolds therein. Much like The Dark Knight, it occurred to me at one point while watching the film that the score is nearly constant. There are very few moments of genuine silence. More isn't always better for a film score, but Zimmer knows exactly how to make music that builds tension from scene to scene, never breaking it, so that the audience has no chance to stop and breathe unless he decides to release you. When there IS a moment of silence in Inception, it stands boldly apart. Thus, Zimmer manages to make his music and the lack thereof equally meaningful.

To that end, I recommend the score (downloadable on Amazon) as well as the film. Now, enough talk. Go see it!

Movie Review: Predators

2010-07-11T05:05:00.011-05:00

In 1987, they made a little movie called Predator. Starring superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger and directed by John McTiernan of Die Hard, it was a sci-fi/horror/action film about a military team that becomes the target of an alien hunter while they are on a mission in the middle of the central American jungle. It was deliberately slow paced, gradually building tension as each member of the team was picked off, leading to the ultimate showdown between Schwarzenegger and the Predator. The powerhouse, violent action sequences and the mystique of an alien hunter who saw in heat-vision and could turn invisible made the movie a smash among genre fans. From this movie alone, a major sci-fi franchise was born.

I say "from this movie alone" because the first movie is the only thing many people seem to like about the Predator franchise. There was a sequel a few years later with an entirely different cast being stalked in a dystopian Los Angeles by a new Predator. While I enjoy that film as a decent follow-up on the original, most people outright despise it. Then there was a video game and a series of comic books called Alien vs. Predator, in which the Predators were pitted against another Fox film property, the Aliens from the eponymous film series. This interesting idea may have been taken too far when they actually made two awful Alien vs. Predator movies.

With only one truly great film to its name, it's amazing that Predator has as much favorability and staying power as it does. Maybe it's because the basic table-turning concept of humans being hunted like animals as a sort of divine punishment for our violent nature is so appealing. Maybe Dark Horse's extensive line of Predator comics and the Alien vs. Predator video games were so well-received that they overshadowed the lackluster film sequels. Whatever the reason for the classic status the original movie has received, producer Robert Rodriguez and director Nimrod Antal want you to believe that there can be a truly great Predator movie again.

Truly great might be pushing it. But there can be a pretty darn good Predator movie again, and that's enough for this oldschool 80s film buff to have a great time at the movies. It's not really the story of Predators that makes it good-- in fact, much of it is a note-for-note rehash of the original in terms of plot points and pacing. It's not the cast of actors, who, though serviceable, only have two or three standouts. It's really the whole package that makes Predators fun to watch. It's a package cut from the sci-fi and horror days of yore, when movies weren't diluted to service the teenybopper crowd, and when the crew didn't lazily accomplish every effects shot with the use of CGI. There's a lot of cliche in Predators, but despite the protestations of cynical fanboys, this genre thrives on that to a degree.

MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD. No specifics or ending details.

Predators obviously gets its name inspiration from Aliens, the second installment of its sister series. In those films, the original, claustrophobic battle against one alien on a spaceship was followed by a full-on war with an army of aliens, including their queen. Predators sees itself as the sequel the original film deserved by upping the stakes for the protagonists and increasing the number of grisly opponents they face. This time, rather than coming to our world to hunt, the Predators have taken a handful of humanity's deadliest specimens and dropped them in a "game preserve" on another planet. The roster includes a mercenary (the main character, played by Adrian Brody), an imprisoned multi-murderer, an African warlord and a Yakuza gangster, to name a few.

Does the premise work? Yes and no. Unlike the first film, this is not a "team." Many of the protagonists are genuine scum of the earth, and none of them trust each other. This is a plus and a minus, because while it adds to the tension between characters, it is difficult finding much in them that makes them worth rooting for. Even the main character is a cold, self-serving loner for most of the movie, and the screenplay seems to deliberately distance him from the audience by not even providing his name until the very end. In fact, it's hard to care if any of the characters survive their ordeal, with the exceptions of the Israeli sniper (the only female member of the group) and a Russian soldier with two kids waiting for him at home.

One also gets the feeling that there could have been more done with the premise of multiple Predators on an alien world. Instead, the screenplay limits itself to the number of aliens we know we'll encounter based on an explanation of their hunting patterns. Furthermore, the "tougher" Predators we're told to expect... really aren't that much tougher. Actually, the writing device for making them seem more aggressive is to actually dumb down the original Predator sub-species rather than to elevate the threat of the new ones. Contrast that with the Alien Queen from that sequel-- a massive, hideous creation that left no room for doubt that the stakes had been raised.

Despite some unrealized potential, Predators delivers when it comes to action and suspense. Because none of the characters trust each other, there is automatically more tension among them than the group of elite soldiers in the original who have worked as a team for years and trust one another implicitly. When the hunt begins, it's not always clear which lowlifes will run to save their own hides and which will show glimmers of humanity by looking out for their fellow prey. An early chase scene involving some alien animals, the only major use of CG in the movie, showcases the results of the chaos amongst a group of people who aren't used to working together.

A few twists and turns along the way could be predicted by fans of this genre, but still keep the movie from feeling completely by-the-numbers. Topher Grace plays a good part as a cowardly doctor who is brought to the planet with the rest of the group for unknown reasons. Walton Goggins is the slimy convict who, with Grace, delivers the film's most memorable lines. My favorite segment of the film was a detour into an abandoned piece of alien technology, where the group discovers a refugee played by Laurence Fishburne, who has been hiding from the Predators for a long time.

In reflecting on this movie, I couldn't help but think about Alien Resurrection, the movie that tried to revive the Alien franchise in much the same way. This movie far surpasses that film for two reasons. First, the protagonists are much more enjoyable to watch, even though they are far scummier. Since there is no central protagonist in the Predator franchise, unlike Ripley in the Alien movies, they didn't have to come up with a completely implausible explanation for a character coming back to life, thus ruining her in the process. The characters in Predators aren't trying way too hard to be badasses. Even though most of them are theoretically brutal killers even more hardcore than the space pirates in Resurrection, their every line of dialogue doesn't scream, "I'm a badass, believe me yet?" Also, Winona Ryder. Yeah.

The second reason that Predators trumps Resurrection is that this film knows how to stay true to its roots by adding to the universe without completely betraying it. I was actually enjoying Alien Resurrection until the last 20 minutes, when they introduced that god-awful alien/human hybrid that was the most horrid looking (and not in a good way) creation in cinema history. It basically destroyed any good will the movie had going for it. Conversely, the new Predators in Predators are variations on a theme. They introduce new technology and characteristics to the Predator species without completely overhauling it into a deformed mockery of its former self. Unlike Resurrection, I got the sense that the makers of Predators had a genuine respect for what had come before.

The final conflict between the surviving characters and the Predators was a good climax to the film. It doesn't have the same mano-a-mano feel of the original Arnold showdown, but it has added complications that I shan't reveal here. The best thing Predators has going for it is that it looks great by comparison. It easily trumps the Alien vs. Predator movies, and most would consider it a better film than Predator 2 (since I liked that film, I find them about even). I most enjoyed that it felt like an oldschool movie-- men in rubber suits with old-fashioned special effects that, honestly, look more real to me than the obvious CG creations that clog our movie screens today. It had enough creativity and ingenuity to mask its predictability, plus lots of gore and swearing. All the good stuff I grew up on.

More on the Wonder Woman Costume, Feminism, Sexism

2010-07-05T07:23:00.055-05:00

The debate over Wonder Woman's new costume continues. Opinion was divided right down the middle between those who love it and hate it in a recent poll on Comic Book Resources. Fashion analysts have chimed in, with Comics Should Be Good's Sonia Harris giving the costume a thumbs down while Project Runway's Tim Gunn praises the new look in a Newsarama article. No matter how you feel about Diana's new duds, they are certainly accomplishing their intended mission-- to bring a flood of attention back to the character. Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood Daily reports that Wonder Woman #600, in which the new costume debuts, has sold out and gone to a second printing, its projected sales numbers being roughly quadruple that of the average Wonder Woman comic in the last six months. For now, the flash is undeniably in the pan.

For devoted Wonder Woman fans like me, reaction to the character overhaul isn't just about the costume, but about her changed origin story and the urbanization of a character whose true history is steeped in Greek mythology. However, for most comic fans and pop culture observers at large, it's the costume that's getting the attention. The explanation is twofold. First, it's because the vast majority of them don't read Wonder Woman comics. That much is obvious from observations like one from Gunn, who says that in the new costume, "she looks like a citizen of the real world rather than a creature from another land.” Sorry Tim, but Wonder Woman IS from another land. Unsurprisingly, his analysis is not from the perspective of someone with the character's personality and past in mind-- it's just about the surface level.

Amazingly, even J. Michael Straczynski, who is writing the new WW storyline, seems to have his facts mixed up. “She’s been locked into pretty much the exact same outfit since her debut in 1941,” he says in a recent back-patting New York Times article about the reboot. JMS, who is known by his initials in the comics world, is either forgetting or ignoring that the 1990s brought a temporary costume change for Diana too, one that also included a jacket and leather.

That revamp was reviled by WW devotees as much as the current one, and rightfully so since it morphed her from a heroine into a leather-strapped S&M queen in the true spirit of the 90s' "bad girl" comic fad. Even more memorable was another complete "reboot" Wonder Woman received back in the 1960s, when she lost her powers, became a martial artist and wore casual citizen attire for a few years.

At the time, the writers thought they were modernizing Diana, just as today's creative team claims. That, too, eventually passed.

A professional fashion designer's ignorance of Wonder Woman lore is forgivable, but not that of the man who is taking the reins of her comic away from the capable hands of superstar writer Gail Simone. JMS is likely bloviating a bit to promote the New Wonder Woman, but other commentators offering their opinions without a modicum of WW knowledge amount to a peanut gallery. They can nitpick every detail of the new costume, from the red gloves to the outdated "half jacket," but they can't explain what either costume, old or new, says about who Wonder Woman is. That, in fact, is the crux of the matter for Diana's fans, but it's a point lost on people who just want to offer their two cents on the costume without any real reason to care about the character.

The second reason the costume is getting all of the attention is because it has predictably opened the floodgates for debate about sexism, feminism, objectification and empowerment. Rarely does a single article of clothing seem to represent so much to so many people about the state of women in society as does Wonder Woman's classic, one-piece swimsuit-style costume. Anything that draws attention to it, especially its replacement with a less revealing outfit complete with pants, is bound to bring up all the familiar arguments again.

However, you might be surprised to hear who is saying what about the change of threads. Gloria Steinem, women's rights activist and founder of the National Organization for Women, famously decried the aforementioned 1960s mod-era Wonder Woman in her publication, Ms. magazine. That same magazine featured Wonder Woman on the cover of its first issue as a symbol of feminist pride-- and, yes, she was wearing the old one-piece.

About the new look from WW #600, Steinem says in a Kansas City Star article that "adding pants gives us the idea that only pants can be powerful — tell that to Greek warriors and Sumo wrestlers." There are echoes of third-wave feminism in Steinem's assertion, that empowering women shouldn't be about making them more like men at the cost of their distinct sexuality.

Lady Gaga, a public figure far more prominent than either Steinem or Wonder Woman today, exemplifies the same concept. I can't help but bring her into the topic at hand because I'm becoming a bigger and bigger fan of hers the more I learn about her (and I haven't liked a new pop icon in years). Her own "Haus of Gaga" studio designs most of her costumes for music videos and public appearances, many of which are far more revealing than ANY creative team would dare to put on Wonder Woman, except maybe Jim Balent. Retro feminists don't know what to do with Lady Gaga because she presents herself as a highly sexualized public figure, but completely on her own terms. As Times Op Ed writer Nancy Bauer puts it, "Gaga is explicit in her insistence that, since feminine sexuality is a social construct, anyone, even a man who’s willing to buck gender norms, can wield it."

With Wonder Woman, the question of who should decide her gender identity and the visual expression thereof isn't as clear. Diana is not a real person, and her evolved, honed persona is a result of the collaboration of hundreds of artists and writers who have featured her in comic books for the better part of a century. She doesn't get a say in how she dresses, so it falls to us-- members of the fan community, artists and writers of Wonder Woman, and other voices who find it worthwhile to chime in on the subject-- to make a decision on what kind of costume best suits her. Naturally, DC Comics' editors and Wonder Woman's creative team will be the ones who make the final call, but the opinions of long-time fans are at least as valid, if not more so, than an editorial mandate designed to boost sales.

Proponents of the new costume say that the addition of the jacket and pants finally rights a long-standing social injustice by desexualizing Diana, many as though they suddenly noticed this travesty for the first time. I'm not sure why they think anyone wants her to be "desexualized," but even assuming that they are simply referring to something as shallow as the amount of skin revealed by a costume, the claim shows a gross ignorance of comic book tradition. Wonder Woman's classic costume wasn't created for the purposes of titillation. It evolved slowly from her original knee-length skirt to something more practical for an athlete. Would the people who call Wonder Woman's costume slutty or sexist say the same thing about leotards worn by female gymnasts?

Conversely, just adding coverage to Diana's legs and arms isn't an iron-clad guarantee that she won't be depicted in an overtly sexual way by particular artists. In fact, look at the very first cover of Wonder Woman that will be displaying the new look:

Jacket or no, Wonder Woman has fallen into "watermelon territory" here, with breasts as big as her head. Whether or not to make cheesecake out of a female comic book character is an individual artist's decision (except in the case of Power Girl, of course). By contrast, this image from the late 80s shows Diana with a more realistic bust, looking strong and powerful despite wearing that oh-so-dreadful classic costume.

In one of my favorite Wonder Woman stories, Spirit of Truth by Paul Dini and Alex Ross, Diana's costume is in fact a major subject in the story. Dini concedes that in the real world, such an outlandish getup might induce scorn from those with certain attitudes or cultural morays. Diana looks positively out of place in a UN council chamber or among a squadron of US troops abroad. But, Dini argues in the story, that's the point of the costume-- to stand out, to be bold and uninhibited.

The point comes across plainly in a scene where Diana disguises herself in a burqa to infiltrate a Middle Eastern hostage camp where women and children are being used as human shields by a local insurgency. When the time comes to defend these innocents, she reveals her identity to the shocked crowd, and the contrast is overwhelming.

In the context of the story, it is the liberated woman who chooses to expose her arms and legs, while the victims of a repressive, misogynist society are the ones taught from birth that it is shameful for them to reveal any part of themselves in public.

Not unlike the patriarchal denizens of those fundamentalist countries that mandate the burqa, every male forum poster saying that Wonder Woman should have pants and more coverage to become the equal of male comic characters is just one more man barking about what he thinks a woman should wear. And, as Steinem notes, the solution they offer is usually to make her look more like a man. However, since the subject of discussion is a fictional character, such debate isn't necessarily inappropriate, and it does often come from a sincere, if misguided place. Many who argue against the classic costume feel they are defending Wonder Woman against hordes of horny fanboys who see the character as meat. They feel that a different costume would free Diana from the shackles of fan service, something that dominates the comics industry to a much greater extent than it does almost any other realm of pop culture.

It would be intellectually dishonest to ignore the "fan service" factor in Wonder Woman's depiction. Many female characters walk a fine line when it comes to appealing to the male fan base. Creators are usually anxious to tell believable tales about women with respect and esteem, but when it comes to the bottom line, few can deny that more skin often equals higher sales. It has to be subtle, though; the closer comics venture toward out-and-out pornography, the more readers are turned off. Balent, for example has a small following for his self-published porno comics (even a few women), but he'll never be invited back into the mainstream of the industry drawing women like he does.

The bulk of male comic readers are a slightly lascivious but ultimately principled lot, and they won't tolerate treatment of classic female characters that truly denegrates them. Based on all the evidence I've given above, Wonder Woman's costume doesn't even come close to fitting that description. That doesn't negate the fact that some part of Wonder Woman is patterned after a particular type of male fantasy: the powerful, commanding female presence who tears asunder any and all opposition, male or otherwise, yet remains beautiful, voluptuous and very much feminine. My immediate response to those who disdainfully call attention to this fact is: how could such a fantasy in any way be harmful to women?

When it comes to the expression of sexual fantasy, America remains the most conservative civilized nation in the world. We quietly bottle up our ids in the name of political correctness or religion while we secretly spend tens of billions of dollars a year on an exploitive pornography industry. Fundamentalists shake their heads at porn and prostitution statistics, all the while ignoring the possibility that our visceral private behavior may be the direct result of the stifling environment they themselves have created. As someone who is an avid and unapologetic fan of pin-up and cheesecake art, my position has always been the same: let men have their fantasies. Let women have their fantasies (Twilight anyone?). Don't try to equalize the sexes by making us all equally asexual.

If Wonder Woman is a fantasy for her male readers, that in no way cancels out her status as a feminist icon or role model for girls. The two identities are not mutually exclusive. Wonder Woman means something different to everyone, which is yet another reason why the classic costume should remain. Changing it means shifting Diana in a particular direction, away from the universal appeal that she has to the many demographics of her fandom.

Perhaps one of the biggest differences between Wonder Woman and other female comic characters is that she does in fact reach outside of the comics community and appeal to girls and women in the wider American culture. Most ten-year-old girls can tell you who Wonder Woman is, but ask them to tell you about the Huntress, Black Canary or Ms. Marvel and you'll probably get a blank stare in return. The costume is the linchpin of that recognition factor. If you replace it with dime-a-dozen biker chic, you sever that connection to the mainstream.

Just as Steinem says, the idea that any specific style of costume or clothing is required to command respect for Diana as a woman is silly. None of these real-life Wonder Woman fans look like they are lacking in self-respect or confidence.

In the hands of the right artist, the costume can be everything it needs to be, for every kind of fan.

Bold.

Fierce.

Dazzling.

Compassionate.

Adventurous.

Feminine.

Strong.

It is all these things because it is an extension of Diana's personality. If you take it away, you unavoidably mute a part of her. It should be celebrated that Wonder Woman, complete with the colorful, flashy and uninhibited classic costume, can simultaneously inspire confidence in girls, admiration in women and adoration in men. That's just what one would expect from a woman "beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena, stronger than Hercules, and swifter than Mercury."

Wonder Woman Recommendations

Wonder Woman Volume 1: God and Mortals

Wonder Woman Volume 2: Challenge of the Gods

Wonder Woman Volume 3: Beauty and the Beasts

Wonder Woman Volume 4: Destiny Calling

Wonder Woman: Eyes of the Gorgon

Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth

Wonder Woman-- The Complete First Season DVD

Wonder Woman 2009

The Creepiness of Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse

2010-07-02T20:55:00.013-05:00

One of my favorite 80s songs, "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler, comes complete with one of the creepiest and strangest music videos of that decade. I'll be the first to admit I haven't seen nearly as many music videos as most of my peers (I was banned from watching MTV as a child in the 1980s), but this video is squarely in "WTF" territory by any standard. On top of all the bizarre imagery, it has an underpinning of obsession with young boys that just feels a little... off.

It starts out innocently enough. Doves flying through doors,

Bonnie staring out a window and looking melancholy.

She starts moving through what's supposed to be a boys' boarding school in the first verse, then in the chorus, we get the first "bright eyes" kid.

Freaky, but nothing compared to what's to come. Then we start taking a look into various rooms as Bonnie moves around, notably a bunch of teenage boys standing around in speedos and goggles while random water gets thrown on them.

Then come the ninjas.

Yes, you read right.

Oh, and add some fencers,

and these leather jacket-clad Michael Jackson video rejects, marching up stairs toward Bonnie and periodically grabbing their chests.

Bonnie seems unfazed by the weirdness,

which by this point in the video includes FOOTBALL PLAYERS,

acrobats,

and boys having a food fight.

Then as the bridge ends and Bonnie really starts to belt out the final refrain, the video brings on the creepy at full blast.

A whole choir of "bright eyes" kids. What could be spookier?

Oh, how about if the kids FLY AT YOU, landing next to Bonnie?

Then there's one blink-and-you'll-miss-it short of some boy in drag,

And other teenage boys whose clothes seem to be coming off,

While Bonnie keeps rocking out in front of the ghoul choir.

Then that scene gets spliced in with one featuring half naked S&M guys dancing around Bonnie. Now, half naked people in music videos isn't that unusual.

But the video finally ends with Bonnie in a suit, apparently as a teacher meeting some male students.

Seems to be going well...

Oh, but now Bonnie's transfixed by--

you guessed it--

So that pretty much wraps up the video. The boys all run inside and Bonnie is left on the steps of the school to... I don't know, contemplate her infatuation with a teenage boy or something.

It's a truly bizarre visual companion to an amazing 80s song. It's sort of the opposite of The Police's "Don't Stand So Close to Me," a song that's actually about an adult who's amorously infatuated with a teenager, but has a tame, even bland music video. After all, Sting only loses his shirt for the last 30 seconds.

Weird, but entertaining.

DC Destroys Wonder Woman

2010-06-30T16:07:00.020-05:00

In comics, all editors walk a fine line between tradition and novelty. Long time readers tend to react very negatively when the status quo of their favorite characters is uprooted, but it's also the responsibility of those who decide editorial policy to make titles fresh and interesting to prospective readers. It's almost a no-win scenario.

There have been dozens of major shakeups in comics over the years done for the purpose of enticing new readers. Some have been successful, others not.

John Byrne was hired to rewrite Superman's origins in 1986, but he didn't completely remake them so much as he refined them.

Frank Miller did the same for Batman, shaking off the cheese left over from the Sprang era and 60s TV show.

Then there's Joe Quesada's editorially mandated retcon of 20 years of Spider-Man history, which has ensured that I'll never read another Spider-Man comic (unless the decision is somehow reversed).

Now, DC has just decided to revamp another of its major characters.

You know, last week I would have said that a great age was ahead for Wonder Woman. Fans had successfully lobbied to have her book renumbered to reflect the actual number of Wonder Woman comics that have been produced, and we were about to get treated to the much deserved #600. A great new era was to begin when J. Michael Straczynski took over the book with 601.

Then this nonsense was revealed (click the pic for a bigger version).

Now before you think I'm overreacting, it's not just the look. Wonder Woman's entire origin story is being rewritten (and not just "tweaked," but completely rewritten). The aim seems to be to make her darker and edgier, with a more urban feel. Geez, I almost threw up writing that sentence. Didn't we go through this crap in the 1990s already?

Clearly, DC understands that it is going to piss off a LOT of longtime fans with this change. It let this news slip out after the wave of hype died down from the 600th issue, though it's obviously something they've had in the works for months. I don't know if they quite understand the monster they've unleashed, but this morning I saw a news story about it on Fox News. The last time I saw a news story about a comic event was when Captain America was assassinated.

Before that it was when Peter Parker revealed his secret identity to the world.

The funny thing about both of those "events" is that they were eventually reversed. Nothing changes forever in comics. I don't follow Captain America so I don't know how they reversed his murder, but I can tell you that Steve Rogers is alive and well. Thanks to the steaming heap of garbage that was the "One More Day" storyline, the world once again has no clue as to the identity of Spider-Man.

So, it's not really a question of if we'll get the old Wonder Woman back, but when. Or, put more aptly, "How long will we have to wade through this dreck?" Until then, here are some awesome pictures of Wonder Woman-- the REAL Wonder Woman-- so we can remember the classic heroine we'll get back someday.

Finally, for the record, I AM going to buy the first issue of this "new" Wonder Woman. This article is a reflection of my initial thoughts on the IDEA of the change. I will be going in as a skeptic, but I will give the new approach a chance to prove itself to me.

Live Action Cartoons: Scraping the Bottom

2010-06-18T13:52:00.013-05:00

How did we get here?

When this teaser came out a few days ago, most people sighed, shrugged their shoulders, said "whatever" and moved on with their day. So when did this become normal? When did we become so accepting of Hollywood's penchant for digging up the remains of our treasured childhood memories and defiling them to provide shallow amusement for the next generation?

I can map the step-by-step process by which horrible live action incarnations of popular cartoons of the past penetrated the film industry and gradually took over children's entertainment. I remember it so clearly because I was a pre-teen and then a teen in the 1990s, and thus I was a target demographic for a lot of this stuff when it first started bubbling up from the sewer of Hollywood opportunism. I personally trace the beginning of the phenomenon back to this:

Now, I'm sure some will disagree with me. Some might be tempted to call this the moment when it all went south:

But remember, TMNT was a current trend when the live action movie came out. The film was just an extension of a massive multimedia empire that spanned cartoons, comics, toys, bedsheets, and yes, a live stage show.

In other words, it wasn't dredging up old franchises, it was riding the wave of a current cultural phenomenon back in 1990. And frankly, at the time it was pretty gutsy to attempt a dark, violence laden live action film version of a kids' merchandising empire.

No, to me there's no doubt that it was the dreadful Flintstones movie, with John Goodman, Rick Moranis, Rosie O'Donnell et. al. hamming it up on ludicrous sets with dopey special effects, replicating a premise that was far more entertaining as a work of hand-drawn animation, that was the kicker. The Flintstones was the fifth highest grossing movie of 1994, against stiff competition like Forrest Gump and The Lion King. It was then that the suits realized there was money to be made in translating cherished animated classics into gimmicky modern disasters.

At the time, I remember being bewildered by the Flintstones film. Since there hadn't really been anything like it before, most people didn't know what to make of it; yet, dutifully, they paid money to see it. And honestly, I can't remember a thing about it besides Halle Berry helping to usher me into adolescence.

Which means it can't have been very good. The Flintstones came and went, leaving with a lot of money in its pockets and movieland onlookers anxious to replicate its success. 1994 also brought this lesser known treasure:

This was as Macaulay Culkin's career was just beginning its downward slide, and Richie Rich gave it a nice little push. Still, the trend was being set.

The next few years brought a couple of cartoon-to-film adaptations that honestly weren't that bad:

Either that, or I just have better memories of them without my cynical adult perspective. I'll let you be the judge. At the time, the novelty of these adaptations hadn't worn off yet. People were still wowed by the idea of seeing cartoons brought to life by the likes of Glenn Close and Steven Spielberg, who was producing a bunch of stuff back then.

Then things started getting out of hand.

And, of course, out of all these desperate cash cows, the inevitable sequels began to spawn.

To any outside observer, it became clear that turning cartoons into movies was a crapshoot at best. For every modest earner there was a gaggle of certified bombs.

But Hollywood only needs one occasional hit to spawn a new batch of wannabes.

Meanwhile, in a time when Disney's animation department was collapsing like a cake baking in an aerobics classroom,

the truly original children's films were growing fewer and farther between.

Thus, the barrage continued.

By the way, Bill Murray considers voicing Garfield to be the biggest regret of his entire film career. Yes, even bigger than Charlie's Angels.

So we're pretty much caught up to modern times now, and there's no end in sight for the rehash machine. The aftertaste of the most recent mega-hits still lingers in the mouths of we who remember waking up to bowls of Lucky Charms on Saturday morning and thrilling to small screen adventures that made indelible marks on our childhoods.

Among the most recent translations is the granddaddy of all 80s cartoons run amok.

Transformers was an enjoyable film. In fact, I liked it quite a bit when it came out. But the sequel, dreadful beyond description, erased any good graces the original had achieved and the series as a whole joined the cast of live action renditions gone wrong.

Its Reagan-era companion piece also received "the treatment" and fared much worse.

And, although not as near and dear to my heart as the Transformers, the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movies are a particularly tough punch in the gut.

In this case, it was a double whammy of modern sensibilities and modern music putting a four-alarm assault on my memories (e.g., the Chipettes singing "Single Ladies"). Prior to the 1990s, most popular cartoons settled for a big screen animated movie not that different from the 30-minute installments that could be seen on Saturday morning. Predictably, they were much truer to the source material.

There are a few sacred cows of the 80s that have not yet been violated.

Had the same movie been made today, it probably would have turned out something like this:

Sadly, we can now cross The Smurfs off of that dwindling list. One can only wonder with dread what comes next.

My point in making this post is that we've become far too accepting of the modern movie industry's bad habits. We see trailers for stuff like The Smurfs, we die a little inside, but in all likelihood, those of us who have kids still take them to see it anyway. Instead, I urge you to make your choices a little more carefully when it comes to the entertainment in which you and your family choose to partake.

There are still master storytellers out there. Some are easy to find.

Others require a little more digging.

To end this post on a high note, here are a few classic kids' movies that should be on everyone's "must see" list-- films from a time when original ideas still bubbled to the surface regularly in the movie biz and what once was old was NOT made new again.

Two New Rush Singles from New Album, "Clockwork Angels"

2010-06-08T15:12:00.001-05:00

Rush's new album, out in early 2011, will be titled "Clockwork Angels." It will be their 19th original studio album since debuting with the self-titled "Rush" 36 years ago.

Two singles are available from the new album, "BU2B" and "Caravan." Listen below:

I like both of them and they improve on repeated playing like most of Rush's music. Their modern music abandons many of their old traditions, like the progressive style and epic lyrics of the 70s or the synth-heavy melodies of the 80s, but it still distinguishes itself from other modern rock with the intricacy and expertise of a band that's been at it for almost four decades.

As some of you know I will be seeing Rush live on their Time Machine tour at the Jiffy Lube Live Amphitheater on September 18. They'll be playing these two songs there as well.

Bumper Stickers Are Getting Ridiculous

2010-06-03T08:39:00.013-05:00

I've noticed that bumper stickers have been getting more and more obnoxious in the last few years. By and large they're already obnoxious by default, but now they are proliferating to stickers on people's windows, removable magnets and all kinds of inane pronouncements that smack of unfettered narcissism.

Let's start with some of the old stuff. People have been putting political candidates' bumper stickers on their cars for as long as I can remember, probably well before my lifetime. This is stupid enough because once the election's over, you've got a useless bumper sticker that's almost impossible to remove. It's worse if your candidate lost, because it's a notice to anyone who pulls up behind you that you not only supported a loser, but you believed in them so strongly that you willingly placed a permanent mark of your futile support on your vehicle.

Another trend that has been around for about 15 years now is the "My child is an honor student at..." stickers. They are often accompanied by multiple star stickers next to them. I'm assuming that's one for each grading period the child did well-- I don't know, I don't have kids. But it's got to be embarrassing for a kid that their parent is living vicariously through them to the extent that they have to cover their minivan with 50 stars. To some poor kids that's probably one punch in the gut by a bully for every star.

I'm not sure when exactly the ribbon fad began-- probably during the invasion of either Afghanistan or Iraq-- and the yellow ribbons were certainly well intentioned at the time. Since then, however, they've proliferated and diversified to include any and every cause under the sun. If it's a program or a problem, there's probably a ribbon for it. Breast cancer ribbons, gay rights ribbons, diabetes ribbons and child abuse ribbons are just a few, and that's to say nothing of the satirical beer pong ribbons, pot legalization ribbons, and "support this!" middle finger ribbons (gotta admit, I kinda like that last one). Any and all novelty or prominence of the troop support message borne by the original ribbons has long since been lost in the sea of copycats and mockery.

Recently, more nauseating variations of these self-important automotive pronouncements have surfaced. Have you noticed the window stickers that display for the world exactly how many children and pets the driver has in his or her family? A boy, a girl, two dogs, a cat. A mommy, a daddy, two girls, two dogs. And so forth. There are even variations that place a baseball bat or a soccer ball in the kids' hands.

These stickers have got to be a stalker's dream come true. "Hey creeps and pedophiles! Here's exactly how many kids we have and which sport you can find them practicing in the sports fields every afternoon!" And what happens if Fluffy gets run over and the number of cats in the family's assortment drops from three to two? Do they put an "X" through it like downed enemy planes on the side of a World War II bomber?

To be clear, I'm not opposed to the idea of people being proud of their families. But there is a difference between taking pleasure in sharing your child's achievements with friends and loved ones, and plastering said achievements on the back of your car for hundreds of complete strangers to behold each week. At that point, you are shoving your pride in the face of people who don't know you and couldn't give two windshield bug stains what your kids have done. You're broadcasting to anyone who has the misfortune of pulling up behind you that the motive for your tidy nuclear familial management is your ability to feel superior to others.

The last one is even worse, something I've only seen these in the last few years. In one of the most bizarre forms of mourning I've witnessed, it's now become fashionable to display "in memory of" stickers in back windows for fellow motorists to know that you've lost someone dear. Now, I've never understood fascination with obituaries and the concept of announcing deaths to the masses. This is one step beyond that. I can't quite figure out the motive behind it, and I don't deny that the sentiment may be genuine, but even those who are truly looking for an outlet for their mourning give a negative impression without realizing it. When I see these stickers I can't help but think it's somewhere between either "feel sorry for me, I'm grieving" and "look how great a person I am for shouting the name of my dearly departed from the rooftops."

In summation, if you have a cause or a statement to make, doing it with a bumper or window sticker is probably the lamest way to go about spreading your personal gospel. As the friendly driver behind you at the red light, I don't particularly care what causes you support, how many kids you have or how great their grades are. All I really care about is that you use your damn turn signal.

Here are a few alternative bumper stickers I suggest.

LOST 6x17/18 - "The End" Reaction and Commentary, part 6

2010-05-31T18:53:00.015-05:00

Well this is it, the last hurrah. It's probably not the last LOST-related blog I'll ever do-- I'm planning on getting the series box set and I'll want to review that-- but as the final part of my ridiculously bloated review of the series finale, it does mark the end of an era. As of last Sunday, there will be no more LOST nights with new episodes. As of last Tuesday, there will be no more Cranky Fanatic LOST podcasts. No more surfing the spoiler forums of the Fuselage with one eye squinted shut, no more rides on the Kate Hate Train, no more Jimmy Kimmel skits.

Most importantly, now that the finale has come and gone, there is no more searching to be done in LOST. All elements of the show are now divided into two categories: what we know, and what will forever remain unknown. The only exception to this is if the extra footage or behind-the-scenes information in the upcoming box sets reveal new insights, but as someone who likes to let a show speak for itself, I'm underwhelmed by the prospect of hearing a commentary where Damon and Carlton skim down a legal pad and recite answers for the unsatisfied among us. As far as I'm concerned, I know all I need to know.

What did you get from this journey? Did you get a collection of fun evenings with friends? A bunch of migraines from the show's conundrums? A lighter wallet after having dropped a couple hundred dollars for box sets and merchandise? Did you get involved in some new technology, such as podcasting or Skype, as you waded through the world of LOST fandom? Did you make friends around the world through your united passion for a television show? I, for one, got all of those things from LOST.

Did LOST affect you emotionally, as it often sought to do? Did it change the way you look at television and serialized fiction? Did you think about some of the theological and spiritual questions the show raised and come out a better person for it? I hope that for at least some of you reading this, the answer to those questions is yes. If it is, then every loose thread, every season 3 Jackback, every piece of shipper bait, every Nikki and Paulo scene was worth it. Although no television series is a perfect vessel of storytelling genius, I think LOST came about as close as I'm likely to see for a long, long time. In this final part of my farewell blog-a-thon, I'm going to write an overview from a long-time fan's perspective of how the show formed, changed and concluded.

In its vague beginnings, LOST was an idea cooked up to cash in on the success of Survivor by combining it with Cast Away to make a scripted show about a plane crash. People with interesting pasts would have personality clashes as they looked for food and shelter in a place where there was no hope of rescue. When J.J. Abrams, a hot new entertainment commodity fresh off the successes of Alias and Felicity entered the picture, he saw an opportunity to introduce long-lasting mysteries to the fictional Island, thus reviving the concept of a serialized television show while keeping focus squarely on the characters from week to week.

That character focus was to be accomplished through the regular use of flashbacks that would reveal who the survivors were, what events shaped their lives, and how they came to be on the plane headed from Sydney to LA. The flashbacks were meant to keep the show relatable, grounded in reality, and they would always contain parallels to the stories happening on the Island. On the foundation of these concepts, and the largest budget ever spent on a television series premiere, LOST launched and a viewership of 18 million tuned in to see the birth of a phenomenon.

Since then, the concept changed quite a bit. When production duties were turned over to Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, the show very slowly became more mythological. The fan community mushroomed at that point, and Lindelof and Cuse began to cater to the segment of their audience that studied screencaps religiously and lingered on message boards until the wee hours of the morning debating why Marvin Candle didn't use his left arm in the Orientation video. A divide formed between those who wanted LOST to be a puzzle and those who wanted it to be a character study. Granted, there were many who enjoyed the fact that it was both, but the dichotomy surely challenged the writers greatly.

For every forum hound complaining that "filler" episodes like the Bernard/Rose flashback slowed down the momentum of the series, there was a casual viewer who was turned away by their confusion and the need to watch religiously to understand the story. The first attempt to reconcile these disparate audiences was through The Lost Experience, an online game for more devoted fans to play that revealed background information about the Hanso Foundation that funded the Dharma Initiative, the cursed numbers, and other mythological tangents. For the summer of 2006, these fans had as much LOST mythology as they could hope for.

The Lost Experience soon became a double-edged sword, however. While the "numbers" were addressed in the game (they were the numerical components of an equation designed to predict the end of the world), people who didn't participate in the game felt cheated for not having received answers to their questions in the show itself. Conversely, those who played the game emerged from it with an expectation that its elements, such as the Valenzetti equation, Thomas Mittlewerk, and the Spider Protocol, would soon be featured in the show. When they weren't, doubt began to form over whether fans had been wasting their time, and even if the show's producers really knew where they were headed with this whole thing.

Season 3 brought some of LOST's most hotly debated topics to the forefront. The ever-present love triangle between Jack, Kate and Sawyer had been a slowly building sub-plot of the first two seasons, but became a primary theme of the fall 2006 mini-season, and mythology-starved fans could not have been more livid. While Jaters and Skaters found their interest at an all-time high, and the writers hoped a little steamy cage sex would prove a quick way to pull in some casual viewers, it was like putting fuel on the fire of an increasingly impatient fan base. Throw in the premature death of Mr. Eko when Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje left the series and the introduction of the hated Nikki and Paulo, and many felt that LOST was coming dangerously close to strapping on water skis and jumping the proverbial shark.

Then, like Ajira 316 pulling up just as it was grazing treetops, the biggest behind-the-scenes development in the show's history arose to change everything we knew about LOST. Lindelof and Cuse had successfully negotiated for a fixed end date for the series, agreeing to produce three more shortened seasons of 16 episodes that would each run uninterrupted beginning in the winter of the coming years. The end date had the immediate effect of allowing the writers to close season 3 with the revelation that some of the survivors would escape the Island and that Jack would find himself compelled to go back. The show's perceived denouement thus changed from finding rescue to something much greater: meeting one's destiny. Still considered by many fans to be the most shocking twist in all six seasons, the introduction of the "flash-forward" concept buried LOST's original premise of being a survival show interlaced with character-focused flashbacks. It was now firmly in the realm of the mythological.

Season 4 was arguably the most coherent self-contained narrative of the series, with a fast pace made even faster by the loss of two hours to a writer's strike in 2007-2008. With 16 episodes to work with each season, the writers had no time to waste. LOST was moving at full steam again, but the turning point marked by the setting of an end date came with negative consequences as well. It was clear now that LOST was a different show than when it started. Not only were any and all survival elements jettisoned, but character study quickly gave way to a denser-than-ever plot as the pace quickened. Overall, the pros outweighed the cons, but there was something lost midway through the six seasons: the show's heart became a little less pronounced.

With season 5, the departure was even more marked. The tradition of episode centricity, in which each hour focused squarely on a single cast member, fell by the wayside more and more often as the show delved into the realm of time travel. The narrative divided instead between those trying to survive increasingly bizarre developments on the Island and those coming back to save them. Mythology fans were thrilled, but other viewers were alienated by the loss of the show's lighter episodes and the chance to connect with characters new and old on a more human level.

As season 6 neared, Lindelof and Cuse warned viewers that they were in for a bumpy ride. After years of postulating theories to explain the intricacies of the Island, the fans were about to find out if they were right or wrong. Those who turned out to be wrong-- inevitably the majority-- could feel disenfranchised by the show when it went in a direction they hadn't expected. The producers also told people not to expect answers to every mystery. They would hit the big ones, they said, but much of the material was meant to remain ambiguous. Some fans heeded the warning, and others didn't.

Despite many criticisms of season 6, it represented a deliberate return to the show's roots. Once again character came to the forefront as each episode focused on the life of one of the characters in the "flash-sideways." We were reminded of the core issues that the survivors faced when they were first brought to the Island. The stakes were higher than ever as the show's ultimate antagonist, the Man in Black, set his plan to leave the Island in motion. He and Jacob's origins and motivations came to light, and Jack stepped forward to fulfill his destiny and complete a journey that really began with the famous words, "we have to go back," in season 3.

When the final image of Jack's closing eye faded, fans like me were left to ponder where they had been and ask themselves if the show had been a wise investment of time. A lot of people decided it wasn't. The ones who were watching purely for answers, to watch all of the pieces fall neatly into place, felt cheated, and disowned the show to which they once showed so much loyalty. Others, who were looking for character resolution and an affirmation of the show's core themes of faith and redemption, found the ending satisfying and moving.

From reading my previous entries, you know I stand in the latter camp. I've skimmed the blogosphere, rifled through reviews and given ear to many a podcast in the last seven days, and the one truth that is echoed by myself and everyone who enjoyed the finale is this: it was all worth it. I am a better person for having gotten lost in LOST. This series was more than just a weekly hour of television, it was and remains a landmark of our day and time. It is a resounding affirmation that in an age of cynicism, we still celebrate loudly the basic human values that we all share.

LOST has made me a person of greater spiritual faith. When I reflect on the tribulations of John Locke, the slow conversion of Jack Shephard to the role of believer, and the ability for even the dastardly Ben Linus to earn a second chance, I believe again in the good side of the universe. And when I imagine that something waits for us beyond our short lives, I am comforted. It's not that LOST created these beliefs in me, it's that it affirmed them, renewed them, and assured me that others share them.

In summation, then, I unsurprisingly give LOST a hearty five stars, 10 out of 10 and A+ for six years of outstanding and meaningful entertainment. I'm sure I'll enjoy watching through the series many more times in the coming years, hopefully with folks who have never seen it before in order to keep spreading the fun. But I'll always look back fondly on the years when LOST was still unfolding before our eyes, the unknown was still around the corner, and the time I spent sharing that experience with many, many others, in person and online. It will never come again, and that makes it all the more valuable.

If you made it through to the end of this post, thank you for reading, and if you did so without chortling at my sentimentality, thanks for that too. I will still find plenty to blog about, and in time I'll probably find a new show to obsess over, though I somehow doubt it will ever be as big as LOST. Fringe is currently looking like the most likely candidate for a catch-up DVD marathon. I'm also leaning heavily toward getting into the field of podcasting myself, but I'm holding off on getting too detailed with my plans just yet. As always, I'll keep you posted. Until then, Namaste, good luck and all that!