Having undergone the mirthless, witless, and generally worthless Iron Man 2 recently, I attempted to write short pieces on it a few times. But I found myself overwhelmed by the staggering pointlessness of the film, and moreover somewhat disinclined to contribute to the inevitable 'debate' on its values (or conspicuous lack thereof). Suffice to say therefore that IM2 is typical of the very worst kind of contradictory, redundant Hollywood franchise, with Mickey Rourke's effortless charisma the only thing even approximating a redeeming feature.
This post however is less about my obviously pointless criticism of the summer's biggest superhero film, and more about a roundup of recent links to clever images and mash-up clips. The niftiest superhero-related post I came across in a while is Chris Sims' Periodic Table of Superhero Elements, which cleverly sums up the generic powers and origin stories into an elegant overview of elements. (Just for the record: Superman breaks down as OAFSISpVxVhSn...)
In the ongoing series of witty mash-up videos, Iron Man has been by far the most-repeated figure, as a quick look at the most recent posts on this blog will attest. But although they all play up the hilariously inappropriate homoerotic subtext the films work so hard to avoid, none managed to be quite as ridiculous (and weirdly fitting) as the latest one, which pits Tony Stark against Ivan Drago in Rocky IV and that manages to throw in Jim Carrey, James Brown, Apollo Creed, Vanilla Ice, and -so help me- the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for good measure.
Meanwhile, the upcoming reboot of the Spider-Man film franchise gave occasion to a fast-paced short that puts Spidey on the operating table, with his surgeon calling for a 'gritty reboot.' To illustrate the success rate of the proposed procedure, an image on the wall briefly flashes by with stills from Batman Begins, Hulk, Casino Royale and Star Trek.
Finally, the Joker may no longer be the ubiquitous video mash-up figure he was two years ago, but that didn't keep one person from getting creative with the trailer for The Dark Knight. In this mash-up, images from the two first Toy Story movies are edited together with the audio from that intensely familiar to amazing effect.
We're now just days away from the much-hyped international premiere of Iron Man 2, the sequel that appears to offer more of the same, but -as per the logic of franchises- bigger, louder, and with more colorful celebrity bad guys. And as 'fanticipation' reaches fever pitch, the video mash-up meme that incorporates Iron Man's CG exoskeleton (along with his signature AC/DC riff) into an iconic movie scene continues to proliferate. Following the well-done appropriation of Hugh Grant getting his ass kicked in Bridget Jones's Diary, the man in red has now also appeared in similarly skillful mash-ups of wonderfully inappropriate scenes from Titanic and Dirty Dancing. What's next, you ask? Hopefully, at some point, Iron Man vs. Precious Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire...
The more time I spend on the subject of superheroes, the more boring my research becomes. As a 21st-century movie trope, nearly every new release seems dedicated to repeating the same old fantasies over and over again without adding anything new to the discussion. But being -or, at the very least, feeling- professionally obliged to sample enough of every new major superhero item that raises its head within the pop-cultural arena, a new comic book adaptation that promised to pull superhero fantasies into 'the real world' was a bit of a no-brainer, especially once it managed to offend Roger Ebert. In spite of Walter Chaw's enthusiasm and Ebert's outrage, I was still expecting Kick-Ass to deliver something decidedly mediocre, especially having just read Mark Millar's smart but strangely depthless comic book. And having so recently ingested the graphic novel's narrative twists and turns, I was looking forward even less to what would surely be not only an annoyingly snarky riff on superhero geekdom, but a boring and predictable one to boot.
Imagine my surprise therefore when Kick-Ass turns out to be not only a smart, literate take on overly familiar themes, but also one hell of a comic book adaptation. Since the release of Sin City in 2006, the prevailing wisdom for Hollywood adaptations of successful comic books has been to recreate the source text's aesthetics as closely as possible, using the comics panels as an insecure, inexperienced director would a prefabricated storyboard. (Zack Snyder and his obsessively slavish adaptations of 300 and Watchmen may perhaps be held most strongly accountable, his films having embalmed rather than adapted their source material.)
By contrast, the most impressive thing by far about Kick-Ass is how director Matthew Vaughn and his co-screenwriter Jane Goldman have taken a text that functions within the serialized context of its comic book medium, and have transformed it into something that lives and breathes as a piece of cinema. Not only have the filmmakers successfully transformed the design of these characters and the version of New York they inhabit into something that feels more of a piece with the superhero movie genre (esp. the past decade's Spider-Man and Batman films), but they have also managed to spin, re-organize and expand the original narrative in interesting and productive ways.
Protagonist Dave Lizewski (an outstanding Aaron Johnson) is here made less of a loner, his generic banter with his limited group of geeky peers a credible and functional expansion of both character development and narration, which is in the film somewhat less dependent on non-stop voice-over. The basic story structure has also been streamlined to fit the three-act setup of classical Hollywood cinema, again making it less reliant on medium-specific end-of-chapter cliffhangers that defined much of the comic book's reading experience. Some of the changes however may be viewed as a bit problematic: I waited in vain for Nicolas Cage (impeccably cast here) to voice the reactionary arch-conservatism of the comic book's Big Daddy character, while his formulaic vengeance-driven motivation is elevated from the realm of psychotic fantasy to a sentimental flashback (although its 'animated comic' presentation is again very cleverly done). Also, the hero winning over the object of his affection so easily was an element I was reluctant to accept, even if it does make more dramatic sense given both the film's resolution and its embodiment of teenage hormone-induced fantasies. The violence meanwhile felt like it had been toned down slightly, but on reflection I suspect that it seems like there's less of it simply because there are more other (and more interesting) narrative components at play here than in the sometimes determinedly gory comics. But mostly, the film's complete grasp of the language of cinema makes it such a kinetic and aesthetically satisfying experience, with director Vaughn demonstrating an uncanny ability to riff on John Woo, Quentin Tarantino, and Sam Raimi all at once. After an increasingly despondent series of big-budget superhero films that have either boringly 'come of age' (Nolan's Batman cycle, Bryan Singer's Superman Returns, Ang Lee's Hulk), or that recycle equally boring CGI bonanzas (Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk, the last two X-Men ventures), Kick-Ass thankfully returns the genre to its teenage roots: with the Id represented by that stunning whirling dervish Hit Girl (the instantly iconic Chloe Moretz), a ten-year-old who successfully channels the Kill Bill Vol. 1 incarnation of The Bride, Vaughn's film is all about the unchaining of (pre-)adolescent energies, and the magnetic power of violent fantasies. Misinterpreted by many either as satire or as realism, Kick-Ass operates instead where superheroes have flourished for the past six decades: in the domain of popular myth.
(Speaking of the film's authentic-feeling connection with subversive, angry teen culture, its use of Joan Jett's 'Bad Reputation' at a perfectly chosen moment of cathartic, Tarantinoesque ultra-violence was one of several moments in film that actually gave me goosebumps - and not just because it was previously used so effectively over the opening credits of that best-ever TV narrative of teenage anxiety, Freaks and Geeks.)
While Green Lantern fans hold their breath in anticipation of Ryan Reynolds' much-hyped turn in next year's major superhero blockbuster, the double-R heart-throb has meanwhile appeared as another goofy superhero character: Kieran and Michele Mulroney's Paper Man has been making the rounds at film festivals for a while, without apparently making much of an impact. It stars Jeff Daniels as a troubled, friendless writer whose loneliness is compounded by the fact that he has an imaginary superhero friend, played by Reynolds as a goofy send-up of Superman. The whole thing looks like it suffers from the usual list of indie clichés, but Jeff Daniels may be game enough to pull it off, and despite the obviousness of the ploy, Reynolds looks like fun.
Finally, an amusing superhero-related YouTube clip -this one from The Ricky Gervais Show- spurs me back to long-delayed blogging. My habit of posting every link of interest that I come across to Facebook and/or Twitter is meanwhile making me re-think my blogging habits, as it's becoming increasingly frustrating to retrieve those links a few months down the line. Perhaps it's time to start relaxing my 'superhero material only' policy for this blog and start using it as a public archive for more general stuff of interest.
How long has it been since my last blog post that had anything to do with superhero movies (supposedly my object of research)? A long time. And why is this? Because obviously all superhero movies are exactly the same. See below for evidence...
Somebody up there clearly wants me to keep updating my blog: now that I recently indicated that my update-finger starts a-twitchin' as soon as I come across a fresh Dark Knight analysis and/or parody, they seem to be popping up all over the place. This one is a spot-on music video parody that combines some astutely observed critical points on the film with the usual kind of silly parody (discovered via Jim Emerson).
Since receiving the movie version of Watchmen on Blu-ray, I've been going through the extras slowly but surely. The moderately hyped, ridiculously titled 'Maximum Movie Mode' is pretty nifty, even if it fails to say anything interesting about the movie in three hours of audio-visual commentary, image galleries, text overlays, and picture-in-picture videos. Like the movie, the technique is far more impressive than the ultimately shapeless content it provides.
The second-disc featurettes are unsurprisingly superficial as well. The best one is probably a half-hour documentary-lite titled "The Phenomenon: The Comic that changed Comics," which briefly introduces some of the most obvious points of the book while singing its praises in nonstop hyperbole. This may be considered an easily palatable introduction to the book for people who haven't read it (and honestly: how many people buying this Blu-ray are unfamiliar with the comic book?). But in drawing its commentary on the film from the likes of Malin Akerman, Zack Snyder, Dave Gibbons, and a parade of DC Comics executives, it's not exactly providing the kind of insight that would make this stuff interesting to the fans for whom this was most likely intended. Some of the most cringe-worthy sound bites actually come from Time magazine book critic Lev Grossman, who proudly proclaims that Watchmen showed us the underbelly of superhero archetypes, and that we "loved them all the more fore it" (???). The whole thing suffers badly from the absence, both in body and in spirit, of Alan Moore, whose fundamental authorship is consistently undervalued, while a constant source of annoyance is the frequent use of the god-awful 'motion comic' version of the book (a DVD release that stupidly animates the panels from the book, supplemented by some absolutely terrible voice casting).
Unfortunately, it's all downhill from there, as the 26-minute "Real Superheroes: Real Vigilantes" combines endless scenes from the film with Discovery Channel-type reportage on real-world vigilante, again with commentary from the film's cast and crew, along with pretentious-as-hell Grossman offering this kind of insight: "They didn't really have superpowers; they were just dudes wearing costumes. And it makes you think really, really hard about questions of ethics and morality in a way we're sort of not used to, but Watchmen forced us to." Wow. I guess Richard Schickel isn't the only idiot working as a critic for Time magazine...
The already famous fan-made trailer shows just how little it takes to connect the dots and imagine a full-length generic blockbuster simply by creatively repurposing spectacular moments from existing features...
"But the real injustice: out of ten stamps, no Captain America. Ridiculous. He's a real hero. Every lick of his sticky backside would taste like democracy. Plus: your tongue would be greeted as a liberator."
Loath as I am to lavish any kind of attention on the atrocious X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I somehow feel obliged to comment on this most recent entry in the ongoing line of superhero blockbuster embarrassments. One would think somehow that no matter how bad Wolverine was, it couldn't possibly be any worse than Brett Ratner's abortion of a movie X-Men: The Last Stand. But although a comprehensive point-by-point comparison would require more attention spent on both films than I can reasonably summon, sufficed to say that Wolverine certainly isn't better in any noticeable way.
Shallowly hyperbolic in every department, the film has been described as something written and produced by a group of eighth-graders, though one might actually suspect that today's eighth-graders would on average probably be capable of an end product a good deal more sophisticated than the collection of visual clichés and narrative non-sequiturs on display here (not to mention the fact that off-the-shelf software packages are able to conjure up better-looking visual effects than pretty much anything in Wolverine...).
Having been lucky enough to know a good friend who was able to sneak me into an early press screening of the long-awaited, much-hyped, and already close-to-tiresome Watchmen adaptation, I'm somewhat relieved to relate here that the title of today's posting refers not only to the fact that I was lucky to catch the flick before the wave of anticipation crests, but also that it's not remotely as bad as I had feared --indeed, assumed-- it would be. My first sneaking suspicion that I may have been a bit over-zealous in my blanket condemnation of all things Zack Snyder-related came upon re-visiting his version of Dawn of the Dead recently on DVD. Because let's face it: that was another contemporary adaptation of a 'classic' text which throngs of devotees and other assorted naysayers had rejected in advance, only to make a quick about-face once it actually saw the light of day.
My own reluctance to embrace the hype came pretty much entirely from the total failure of the atrocious 300, followed by the first Watchmen trailer made up entirely of slow-motion shots that recreate famous panels from the book. Perhaps I should have taken into account the fact that Frank Miller's 300 comic book wasn't perhaps the most compelling source text to start off with anyway, and that the film's version attendant emphasis on macho violence and kitschy homo-erotica could hardly be deemed all that surprising.
But now that I've actually experienced the thing first-hand, I must admit that I can't imagine a film version that is substantially better than the one that looks likely to become an international phenomenon as of next week: it's extremely faithful to the book without entirely mummifying the source text; the casting is fiendishly clever, with Patrick Wilson a particular stand-out; there is plenty of delicious eye candy throughout; there are a few moments when the film's editing comes close to resembling the book's extraordinary use of symmetrical mirroring devices; and its depiction of Rorschach as the story's 'hero' is neither more nor less problematic than it is in the book (although the one moment of applause in this screening occurred when that sociopathic loner deep-fried another inmate and let the others know that they're locked up with him rather than the other way around).
A long-overdue update following the terrific 'Politics of Superheroes' conference I attended at Yale a few weeks ago. All the start-of-semester activity got the better of me since my return, and robbed the planned update to this blog of some of its urgency. At any rate, the second (and last) day of the small conference was certainly worthwhile, culminating in a closing round-table discussion, which was sometimes annoyingly unfocused (like much of the conference), but which did re-emphasize many theoretical concerns central to the topic of superheroes in popular culture.
My own paper was a modest success, but since the panel's chair wasn't very strict about enforcing the 20-minute time limit on presentations and the first paper was plagued by a computer crash and other technical problems, there was only very little time left for Q&A, most of which was then directed at another presenter, whose misapplication of Freudian terminology drew some heated remarks.
What I got out of it for my own work was firstly a new network of strong contacts, not only from some of the better universities in and around New England, but also from France and the UK; secondly, a number of tantalizing ideas on re-thinking and conceptualizing the superhero figure and how this relates not only to politics, but also to the city, to digital ontologies, to globalization, and to race and gender. So now the time has come to feed some of those ideas back into a new draft of my research proposal as I begin to catalogue funding options for the next academic year(s).
So the first day of the graduate conference at Yale mostly lived up to my high expectations: most papers that were presented during the two longish panels this morning and this afternoon were solid efforts, with a few standout contributions, and the keynote speech from Scott Bukatman was entertaining and contained some stimulating new insights, even if it was somewhat snarky and opinionated. I was pleased to encounter Ramzi Fawaz again after previously having met at the 2007 PCA/ACA convention, where I had already been impressed by his acute dissection of superhero mythology. His talk here at Yale focused on The Incredibles, laying bare the problematic ways in which this beloved film of mine actually has at its core a problematic resistance towards 'otherness' and non-conformity - I now understand somewhat better why I may have been so reluctant to work on this film and take its true politics to task...
Predictably, much of the discussion so far has been centered on The Dark Knight as a cultural phenomenon, with some heated exchanges of opinion about the film's obvious (and less obvious) flaws. Unfortunately, much of the social banter between panels has had a tendency to the exchange of preferences and opinions rather than further discussion and analysis; I understand the impulse to defend or attack films like these among other academics, but there's really only so many times I can stand to hear what's wrong with Christopher Nolan as a writer, director and/or editor.
Resulting from a guest lecture I gave a few months ago on 9/11 and representations of evil, I have been invited to introduce screenings of two films this week, which have been programmed as a 'superhero double bill.' The appearance of last year's phenomenal The Dark Knight on the schedule will probably surprise no one. Combining it on a single bill with Kurosawa's arthouse classic Rashomon, however, is to my mind a more 'creative' choice: I doubt I am the only one to be initially somewhat baffled by the thought that Rashomon is in any way related to the superhero movie genre.
But although Rashomon's reputation is mostly based on the way it constitutes narrative as subjective, with its contradictory accounts of a single event, what it seems to have in common with Nolan's The Dark Knight is the way in which it offers competing ideas about the nature of reality. Speaking more broadly, the different people talking about the different eye-witness accounts bring into sharp relief the absence of a single, trustworthy perspective on the world, which is in many ways one of the foundations of the superhero genre as a whole.
Both films also, each in its own way, break with the moral and aesthetic conventions of the genre from which they have emerged. Where Rashomon offers a deconstruction of traditional Japanese samurai stories, The Dark Knight is far more interested in the slippery slope one encounters when confronted with chaos and nihilism. So whatever the original reasons for programming these two films together on a single bill, I guess there is some basis for a somewhat cohesive introduction...
With the upcoming Yale symposium at the end of this month, I'm starting to try to organize some thoughts and ideas that have been circulating in my mind, and in some cases taking shape in recent lectures, articles, reviews and discussions. One of these concerns the ambiguous relationship the superhero seems to occupy towards theories of modernism and postmodernism. In some ways, they seem to be the ultimate embodiment of the heroic ambitions of early 20th-century modernism: Superman and Batman are - after all - the ultimate incarnation of individual human accomplishment, constituting modernism's ambivalent relationship to technology in its two major figures: Superman has no need for technology, and his first cover (and most iconic moment) is one of him lifting up and destroying a car. Batman on the other hand uses individually customized technological gadgets to overcome challenges. On top of that, we have the strong, frequently defining relationship between superheroes and the modernist architecture of the early twentieth century.
On the other hand, the forms in which we have traditionally encountered them seem to be more characteristic of most notions associated with postmodernism: the stories tend to be predictable and highly generic; the comics clearly recycle dominant ideologies associated with mass culture of the various periods in which they were produced; superhero mythology as a whole tends to contribute to a nostalgic de-historicizing of the present, in a classically Jamesonian way; and with their massive accumulation of varied, often contradictory histories, superheroes also seem to have become Baudrillardian simulacra: free-floating signifiers that can come to stand for anything from an ironic fashion brand to an ideological position.
Meanwhile, our main news item for this month is the announcement of a graduate symposium on post-9/11 superhero movies organized by Yale University's Film Studies department. The deadline for the Call for Papers is December 19th, and I certainly plan to attend, taking the opportunity to expand my most recent research into a new paper that I hope to present there.
I am a lecturer in Media Studies and English Literature at the University of Amsterdam, where I am currently completing my dissertation on superhero figures in post-9/11 culture (hence this blog's title). I like to think, talk, write, and argue about movies and books, not necessarily in that order.
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