By necessity, I spend a lot of time on the Internet – and that time is quite narrowly focused on movie and comic book sites, with quick dashes to CNN or Jezebel to see what is going on outside of Warner Bros or Marvel. I'm constantly plugged in, Borg style, and the trailers, rumors, debunkings, rants, and reviews fly by in a rapid stream of information. I'm generally a month or two ahead of everyone I know in "real life," and I've gotten used to the fact that most of my friends and family are only just now hearing something about this weird Watchmen movie. Movie news just doesn't move the same way "out there."
Occasionally, though, a story will shatter through the space-time continuum and everyone will be chattering about it while its still on my radar. Last week, it was Beyonce as Wonder Woman. It was being argued over everywhere I went, and was still being hashed out at my gamer/comic hangout last night. The staying power of this story is not only impressive, it's refreshing for one reason – people really care about Wonder Woman. Men and women of all ages and levels of geekery were incredibly passionate about this story; they all had very definite opinions, and there was little debate. Beyonce shouldn't be Wonder Woman. End of story.
Two weeks ago, Scott Weinberg and I sat down to discuss the DVD release of The Incredible Hulk. It proved to be a popular conversation starter among readers, and I had planned on doing it again the next time there was a big movie release to theaters or DVD. I don't want to abuse the format, and I hardly think everyone wants to just read my goofy AIM conversations. But with the news that First Avenger: Captain Americafinally had its director in Joe Johnston, I decided that the news was worthy of sitting down with the biggest Captain America fan I know, Wes Robinson. Robinson is the steady first mate of Enchanted Grounds, arguably my favorite place in Colorado. Robinson is one of the best Dungeon Masters in the state, pulls the coolest comics for me, is a maker of fine food and coffee, and an all around awesome guy.
What I think is particularly key about a conversation like this is how quickly it destroys the notion that devoted fans are impossible to please. We really are an enthusiastic and optimistic group of people, badly represented by a few rabid nuts with online access. Don't get me wrong -- I know they exist and I've written about them, but this notion that "the fans will hate it anyway, so who cares" really ignores the normal, happy-go-lucky fans that I know and write for. So, more than a goofy AIM conversation, think of this yet another effort to knock down that Berlin Wall of bad reputation. And I hope you enjoy, and pick up the conversation where it left off.
Wes: Captain America!!!
Elisabeth: Yeah! Let's talk Captain America!
Wes: Okay!
Elisabeth: So, what do you think of the choice of director?
Wes: Well I was a big fan of The Rocketeer ...I think he will be able to capture the feel of a period piece Cap movie for sure. I mean, that's really the only way to do the first Cap movie -- set in WWII. I am happy they chose someone who is familiar with doing period pieces. So overall, I am very optimistic about the choice.
Well well, Reverend Jesse Custer. It looks like you might make it to the big screen after all. It's hard to get too optimistic, seeing as you've had directors, producers, and HBO dancing around you for years. In fact, no one I've talked to offline had heard of your new movie deal the way they'd heard about Tony Stark's – and when I told them that it really seemed to be happening this time, no one could muster up much enthusiasm. We're a beaten down congregation, Reverend. It will take some writers or some casting announcements to get us excited – and we may always wish you'd ended up at HBO.
I don't think you're impossible to adapt; you take a lot of digressions that I'm perfectly comfortable never seeing on screen. Your first major adventure versus Si the serial killer, for instance -- then again, without it, your horrible grandma doesn't come into play. Hmmm. Any chance Columbia's thinking about giving you a trilogy? Because not only could you digress into serial killers and hedonistic Hollywood parties to your heart's content, but it would be one heck of a franchise, and might give us The Saint of All Killers' spin-off we all want. (Can you convince them to animate it? Can you use the Word to get Clint Eastwood to narrate?)
Confession time – I didn't see The Incredible Hulk in theaters. I was short on funds and friends to go with, and before I knew it, it was gone. I know most of you out there are better geeks than I, and probably have seen it twice over already. But there's probably a bunch of people out there who had to wait around until last week's DVD release, and might like a chance to talk about it. Hulk out, if you will. To get you all going, Scott Weinberg and I held our own spirited discussion -- or as spirited as one can be at 2am. (4am his time -- he has more stamina than Emil Blonsky!)
Elisabeth: Well first, you need to tell me why Hulk is your favorite character -- because you are honestly the only Hulk fan I know.
Scott: Even as a kid I thought HULK was the most horror-ish of the Marvel superheroes. He's just Jekyll & Hyde, basically.
Elisabeth: Ah, that makes sense. Frankenstein's Monster, too. With a dash of King Kong.
Scott: Sure. Misunderstood beast. Plus he was the only Marvel hero who was trying to get RID of his powers. I thought that was cool.
I've been thinking a lot about maturity this week. It's commonly asserted that we nerds lack it because we focus so much on playing games, reading stories with pictures, and debating who would win in a fight, Batman or Wolverine. (Wolverine.) Of course, with half of the civilized world coming out of the closet and owning up to their love of Star Wars, Dungeons and Dragons, and the Avengers, it's difficult to make that assertion. Are you actually going to accuse some high powered lawyer or CEO of being immature if he's really into the Green Lantern?
But lately, I've been worried about the children. Sure, there's a superhero movie being optioned every other week ... but how many are really going to be for them? We're in a post-Dark Knight world now, with Watchmen and (hopefully) dark X-Men Origins: Wolverine on the horizon. We're all thrilled about the mature, edgy take superhero movies are taking. After all, grown-ups buy the tickets and the graphic novels, adults should get the movies. But what about the younger set? Are we going to leave them any superheroes to dream about?
Hopefully, you're all still out there after last week's emotional revelations. I didn't mean to make that quite as depressing as it turned out – but insomnia and Two Mules for Sister Sara can do that to a girl, I guess. This week, we're going to tackle the intriguing topic of a Daredevilreboot.
While I want to hate the "reboot" trend, I can't. I write too many of those "If they had just done it right!" rants. For a studio to offer the chance to see a movie done right is just too tempting – and it's not as though it obliterates the original attempt, the fans of that film can still go geek out over it and pretend the rest of us are collectively insane. It's not a trend that I would want to see expand beyond comic book films, though – unless there's some classic novel that's been totally bastardized onscreen or something. It really only works if there's source material to go back to, and treat right. And given that comic books are an industry that is built on revision, retro-con, rewriters, and alternate universes, I can't really complain when movie studios try to do the same thing.
I have to warn you, this week's column is probably going to strike you as mawkish and personal – but I thought I'd give the topic a spin and see how it went. Next week, we'll talk about our hopes and dreams of a Daredevil reboot, but today's column is the result of a long vacation, lack of a social life, and downloading the Netflix player.
First off, I must confess – I'm dating someone. Clint Eastwood circa 1970, to be exact. Judge our DVD romance all you will, decry that we break the time-space continuum, but we're very happy together. We just spent a delightful weekend via The Beguiled and Two Mules for Sister Sarah. The sun came up and we were still together. What can I say? He treats me like a lady, despite the fact that he only ever sees me sans make-up and in pajamas.
The sad thing is, I'm only half-kidding -- and yes, I will look back on this period of my life (probably via therapy or alcoholism) and wonder why Eastwood was the most dependable man in it. But our affair got me thinking overmuch about today's men, both in and outside of Hollywood. And it didn't help that in the early days of my relationship with Eastwood, we lost the wonderful Paul Newman. I wrote in Cinematical's tribute to him that the world could use more men like Newman – and it is so very true. Where are the men like Newman, Eastwood, Robert Redford, James Garner and Gregory Peck? The men who are rugged, larger than life, and who exude honesty and decency even when acting in so-so films? Who exude it in real life? What the heck happened to the world since these guys arrived on the scene?
It's a desert of geek movie news out there, and my muse is obviously on vacation with a Spartan, leaving me high and dry. So, I thought I would do something a bit twee, and interview my mom. Many of you know her, she was the subject of a very popular Mother's Day column. She's becoming an interesting test subject, as she slowly gets sucked into the world of comic books, their movies, and conventions. Until now, she's been largely dismissive of the genre because "they were a kid thing." What follows are the impressions of a comic book newbie, who has been bombarded with Marvel and DC movies until they give in -- or at least what happens when you mention Iron Man to my mom. My questions, as few and bland as they were, are in bold. (And after this was over, she took my copies of Astonishing X-Men, Mark Millar's Wolverine, and Weapon X to further her education.)
I think you should start by telling everyone the first comic book you read was. You threw me into the fire with Watchmen. It was like sink or swim. Not just a comic book – a graphic novelof epic proportions. And did you like it when you finally finished it? Yeah. I did end up liking it a lot, even though I bitched through the entire thing. The story reeled me in far enough that I was forced to keep going back and reading it. I couldn't let it go, even though I abhorred just about everything about it. I hated the art, I hated the colors, I hated the characters, although I came to like some of them at the end. The story kept me going.
With the DNC (three cheers for my hosting hometown, by the way!), holiday weekends, and hurricanes, there's not much to spin a column out of this week. I spent my holiday overdosing on back issues of Wolverine and Warren Ellis' Astonishing X-Men because oh happy day, I have a comic slot again! My supply line has been cut off for the last year, and as I refuse to pay anyone (even independent publishers) $6.00 to ship a single issue, I've lived in a drought.
In the midst of all this overdosing, I stumbled across this charming article by Brad Meltzer about why he loves Superman. Immediately I thought about what I would answer if posed a similar question by USA Weekend, and realized to my horror that I lacked such a lifelong bond. Everyone knows my favorite hero is the one with the admantium skeleton, but I can't pretend that he's been a lifelong love affair. Why, I never really had a superhero in my childhood. Why not?
I had planned to do a column ranking the boys of summertime the way I had with the women – but as I've been plotting it out, I realized it wasn't going to work. The roles men are given are infinitely more heroic, interesting, and complex, and any ranking would quickly become a list of favorites rather than best. And it's predictable – Tony Stark, Wall E, Harvey Dent, end of story, and totally boring. The more I tried to make it less so, the more slippery the concept became, and I realized it was all a thinly veiled excuse to write about one of the characters in particular: Harvey Dent. And with Devin Faraci's call to analytical arms, it's like a sign from the movie gods to get into meatier territory.
The most highly anticipated element of The Dark Knight for me was also what ended up being the most disappointing – Harvey "Two-Face" Dent. In the afterglow of opening weekend, people looked askance at me when I voiced this aloud before half-heartedly defending Christopher Nolan's vision. But in all the is-he-isn't-he-dead debate of late, it's became apparent that more people agreed with me than not.
The arrival of snow in the mountains in my neck of the woods means that summer really is on the way out. It seems like it was only yesterday that we were discussing what would be the hits and misses of the season. Now the talk is going to turn to Oscar buzz and Halloween horror. Are you freaked by how quickly time has flown by yet?
Anyway, seeing as school is already in session, I've decided to pay homage to my Geek Beat predecessor, Mark Beall, and do a list of things we learned during the summer season. For no good numerical reason, I stopped at 15. From there, it's your turn to share what important lessons you will carry from your time in the multiplex. (And a special thanks goes out to Jarrette and Matt, who bantered back and forth with me in this study session.)
1. You can use a snake as a rope and its fragile skeletal system won't pull apart. They won't even bite you if it does! (Indiana Jones)
2. All it really takes to be Batman? A really strong jaw, and nice lips.
3. When faced with Tony Stark, all your hard-hitting journalism training goes out the window. (Iron Man)
4. You can get a custom Joker suit made and no one will ever connect you or its purchase to the psychopath terrorizing Gotham. (The Dark Knight)
5. Fridges preserve not only food, but life. In the event of a nuclear blast or poisonous air, they will save humans and plants alike. Who knew? Not I. My watercress goes bad after a week. (Wall-E and Indiana Jones)
With the end of summer drawing near, it's now time to begin the season's autopsy on the Beat. If you're totally burned out on discussing or reading anything to do with summer blockbusters, you may want to skip the next few columns – though I'd be terribly hurt if you did.
This week, I want to discuss the girls of summer geekdom. At the beginning of the season, I complained about the lack of superheroines in film, a trend that not even the summer flicks seem to be reversing. (Unless it's a Top Cow property – it looks as though we will get Witchblade and Magdalena before we ever see Wonder Woman or Black Widow.) Nevertheless, women weren't a complete nonentity in the franchises this year -- some were quite interesting, some were merely bland, and a few were complete failures. I think it's important that we recognize the good and the bad, and with that, let's tally up the scorecard and hand out the prizes.
If you're a faithful Beat reader, you may remember that one of the very first installments dealt with the nasty, critical side of fandom. You know the types – the ones who spend so much time hating that nothing could satisfy them. (Seth Rogen summed it up in a pithy quote that, somehow, I only just caught: "They could find out Jesus Christ was making a movie with Frank Miller and they'd say, 'That's a terrible combination!'") But now, I'd like to address the other side of the coin – and yes, one side of it is defaced to help me decide these things – and that's the uncritical element of fandom. It's a side I didn't really grasp until I started writing here, where anything vaguely critical can be followed by screams of "You're such a hater!! You want it to fail!"
When I was at ComicCon, I tried to keep up with the news of the outside world. One of the "quietest" geek stories (and something I would have talked about much earlier, had con and editorial demands not sidetracked me) was the release of The X-Files: I Want to Believe. The bad reviews were pouring in right and left, even garnering heavy discussion on sites where the interests of geekdom are generally disdained. And no matter where you went, the comment fields were populated with X-Philes, and for every one who was verbose and rational, there were ten saying "F--- the haters! They want it to fail!"
It's rare when geek culture and mainstream movie-goers unite together in barely suppressed excitement. It's so rare that, frankly, it's downright weird when it happens. I'm watching the breathless anticipation that is accompanying The Dark Knight from all corners of the media, from places as diverse as Jezebel and Slate, and wondering how did it come to this...
Don't get me wrong. It's great. I haven't seen The Dark Knight yet (I seem to be the only internet writer who didn't catch a press screening), but I feel it could be a film worthy to unite the masses. When my friends asked me, back in the depths of winter, which summer films would be the biggest and best, I didn't hesitate. "Wall E and The Dark Knight." I maintained this opinion, despite the impending arrivals of Crystal Skull, Angelina Jolie, and The Hulk.
Nevertheless, I'm still not sure where the Dark Knight mania came from. A similar excitement preceded last year's 300, but I think that was largely due to the glut of advertising, TV spots and MySpace banners in the weeks beforehand. This year, Iron Man had a similar effect, but it was practically overnight, and driven largely by the shockingly good reviews. And even so, I have friends and family who still haven't gotten around to seeing Iron Man or 300 despite the buzz – but they've had Dark Knight earmarked for months.
Happy day! Today, we get to talk about the Master of Magnetism and his origin movie! Or, at least, we get to discuss it via the script reviews, as two have popped up online, courtesy of Sal's Scripts and the Coventry Telegraph. A special thanks goes out to io9 for alerting me, and for their ever interesting commenters who spurred me into writing.
You see, without getting into the spoilery aspects of the script reviews, a few people took issue with X-Men's archvillain being made sympathetic. To make a long review short and spoiler-free, Magneto's origin story will center on his time in Auschwitz. Once free, he spends his adulthood hunting down the Nazis who tortured and experimented on him. The movie will be less about Magneto's issues with homo sapiens, and more about his quest for justice. Professor Xavier pops up in it as a friend, but it doesn't look like this film will delve into their break or diverging philosophies.
It's rare when geek culture and mainstream movie-goers unite together in barely suppressed excitement. It's so rare that, frankly, it's downright weird when it happens. I'm watching the breathless anticipation that is accompanying 
