Since I found Serenity...

The crew of the Firefly ship Serenity which was grounded far too early.   

 I should probably be tarred and feathered for this, but up until a few weeks ago I couldn't say that I'd seen even one episode of Joss Whedon's tragically short lived show Firefly.  Then I watched all 14 episodes and the film Serenity and now I regret not watching it years ago.  I'd always heard from friends that it was a brilliant and flawless show which was cut down in it's infancy by the cold cunts at FOX.  The show's been referenced countless times on The Big Bang Theory, marathoned on stations like the Science Channel and continues to captivate legions of devoted "Brown-coats" ten years later.  Not bad for a show that didn't even last a full season.  I made a few earlier attempts to get into the show, but each time I was really drunk and came out not remembering much.  This time however I made sure to pay attention and I'm so glad I did.  I know there's not much I can say about Firefly that hasn't already been echoed by fans a thousand times, but I'm gonna pretend that nobody else knows about the show and just pretend I discovered it on my own. 

First off, the show is a incredibly unique blend of futuristic Sci-fi and old west sensibility.  It takes place 500 years in the future, after earth's resources were depleted and humans were forced to flee to a new solar system replete with dozens of planets and hundreds of moons.  After terraforming these planets and making them inhabitable, the central ones came under the control of the Alliance, a federal government created when earth's last superpowers, China and America, merged their cultures and governments.  While these central planets thrived under the authority of the Alliance, most of the outer rim planets refused Alliance control and formed a rebellion which was ultimately crushed by the Alliance.  Therefore, these outer rim planets are cut off from new technology and are primitive, backwoods places reminiscent of old western mining towns. 
Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and his first mate Zoe (Gina Torres) fought in the war against the Alliance and after being defeated at the battle of Serenity Valley, became smugglers aboard a firefly class ship they called "Serenity", taking whatever work they can get while ducking the Alliance.  The rest of the ship's crew are a lovable bunch of misfits who even in the first episode have a natural chemistry and interplay.  If I didn't love Firefly from the start of the first episode, I definitely fell in love the first time I saw Kaylee Frye (Jewel Staite), the ship's adorable engineer.  Then there's Hoban "Wash" Washburn, Serenity's pilot and Zoe's husband, who provides much of the comic relief along with Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin), a mercenary who loves his gun Vera and is handy in a fight.  I can't forget about Inara (Morena Baccarin) the ship's beautiful and sophisticated companion (oh yea, prostitution's legal in this awesome future) as well as Derrial Booke (Ron Glass), a Shepard who joins the crew.  Finally there's Dr. Simon Tam (Sean Maher), who smuggles his sister River (Summer Glau) on board in a cargo crate after he breaks her out of an Alliance facility, making them fugitives. 
The reason I mention each character is because they all feel fleshed out and distinct and the way they interact with each other is immensely compelling and often humorous.  That being said, Firefly is not a comedy, it's a drama with comedic moments.  Although set so far in the future, the show doesn't fall into the cliché trappings of sleek and shiny futuristic technology; on the contrary, because the outer rim planets resisted Alliance control, they are without luxuries.  These environments have a rugged and rustic feel that adds tremendous realism.  The common folk who inhabit these worlds have to rely on old weapons and equipment, even using horses and carts alongside ships.  Mal and his crew use antique firearms in combat and the inside of the ship looks rusted and dirty, which makes everything feel all the more organic.   This blend of space travel and western sensibility might've seemed goofy in someone else's hands, but in Whedon's we get a world that seems convincing in all it's delightful quirks.  Among these are the character's tendencies to blurt out Mandarin curses due to the Chinese-American Culture blend.  They're also fond of the word "Goram" which is slang for Goddamn.  Little quirks like this make the show all the more enjoyable.  The show seamlessly blends both western and Asian cultural styles and the result is sweet. 
I can truly concur with every fan when I say the show is note-perfect, even down to the instantly memorable cowboy inspired theme song and music, which uses fiddles to evoke a sound reminiscent of the American West with Asian overtones.  Again, Firefly makes this odd mixture work.  Another interesting distinction is the lack of aliens; the crew only deal with other humans in the new solar system, with the exception of Reavers, vicious animalistic beings of unknown origin who dwell on the outer edges of space and raid ships, raping and murdering everyone in sight and displaying their victims corpses on their ships.  In the series, Reavers are mentioned a few times but not actually seen until the Serenity film, in which we learn that the secret of their origin has to do with the Alliance.  The lack of aliens takes nothing away from the show and in fact adds to the realism given that as far as we know, we are alone in the universe.  You could say that Cpt. Mal Reynolds is like Han Solo; both are smugglers with a badass, suave attitude but I think Mal's even cooler.  He's a man of action when he needs to be and takes care of his crew, but he also has a natural charisma and a good heart under a gruff exterior that makes him very likeable.  The rest of the crew is likable in their own way, even Simon although he pissed me off a few times when Kaylee would flirt with him and he'd find a way to cock block himself.  The mystery surrounding his sister River, a child prodigy with remarkable mental capabilities becomes a dominant thread throughout the series as Simon and the crew cope with the traumatic effects of the Alliance's experiments to turn her into a human weapon.  River's a fascinating and mysterious character whose intentions remain unknown to the crew and often put them in danger due to her and Simon's fugitive status. 
The show is filled with plenty of action, from old west style shoot outs to sweet bar brawls, all greatly enjoyed by Jayne and the crew finds themselves in plenty of dangerous situations given that they're willing to take almost any job, regardless of the legality.  Interspersed with the action are plenty of hilarious moments which flow naturally from the great dialogue and characters.  Everyone has their chance to provide some humor along with some insight and depth.  Even a character like Jayne, who at first seems like a heartless brute is shown to have a conscience.  In a very short amount of time, Firefly gave us characters who had depth and complexity, even Shepard Booke, who the show hint's at having a past tie to the Alliance.  All these elements and many more yet to be seen until I've watched it again, make Firefly's cancellation all the more sad.  Given how rich and compelling it was from the get go, we can only imagine where they could've taken it.  The show dared to be radically unique and in your face, even racy at times and gave us a lovable band of miscreants who "aimed to misbehave" and find freedom in the black against a frighteningly realistic government demanding total control and compliance.              

Superman Returns...and then leaves again.

Superman sure loves hovering above the earth all Christ like. 

This is a post I've been meaning to write for a while and with the hotly anticipated release of Man of Steel on DVD about a week ago (and yes I bought it the first day), there seems no better time for me to share my thoughts on why Superman Returns just didn't work as a Superman film, in my opinion that is.  I was seventeen when it came out in 2006 and couldn't have been more jazzed to see Supes return to the big screen considering I'd never gotten to see any of the Chris Reeve films at the cinema.  It had been more than twenty years since he soared in theaters and the general feeling was that he was long overdue to return, especially given that Batman Begins had come out a year earlier and revitalized the Batman film saga.  I saw it first with my dad, also a big Superman fan, and came out simply thrilled that Superman was back.  I saw it at least 4 more times with friends and family, extolling it as a terrific film.  As time went on however, and the film's initial glow began to wear off, I began to feel disappointment creeping in as I re-examined what I'd seen.  At first I couldn't quite articulate what I was feeling, all I knew was that something just didn't feel right.  Now years later, I can say resolutely that as much as I tried to love Superman Returns, the film simply doesn't work for me.
I think one of the main issues right out of the gate was trying to pick up where Superman II left off all those years ago.  Despite feeling a little dated now, the first two Superman films were epic, game changing blockbusters which set the tone for virtually every superhero film that followed.  The first established the film formula for the superhero origin and the second cranked up the intensity by having him battle three fellow Kryptonians.  Ignoring 3&4, which did for Superman what Batman Forever and especially Batman and Robin did for Bats, those first two were pretty great.  Having said that, Singer should've honored that storyline by just leaving it alone and instead retold Superman's origins like Nolan did in Begins.  Instead he picked up where things left off and the result is a film that feels out of place.  Of course the film has modern elements but the tone still feels stuck in the time period of the original films.  What made Donner's original so thrilling and captivating was that the film's tone and environment was contemporary to that time and updating Superman with a new look and state of the art special effects made it look and feel so real and grounded, even though it's still fantasy.  Superman Returns wanted to ground it's Supes in some realism too, but was unable to do this because it clings to facets of the Donner films that no longer seem fresh and relevant or easy to accept these days.   
One of the biggest issues is Lois's continued inability to figure out the Clark is Superman.  I know that at the end of Superman II, Clark erased her memory of knowing his secret with an "amnesia kiss" to spare her pain and that's still the case in this film, but since Lois is still deeply pinning for Superman, you'd think she'd finally be able to recognize him behind those glasses and figure it out like she did before.  In the late seventies, her not knowing was easier to accept as a playful suspension of disbelief, but these days, especially in these films, it's harder to swallow.  If we're to believe Lois is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist, she should be able to put it together, as should everyone else at the Planet considering that both Clark and Superman vanished for five years and show up on the same day.  As Gob Bluth would say, "Come On!"  Lois seems to be merely a caricature in this film and it's hard to understand what Superman would've seen in her.  Superman's five year disappearing act is another bothersome point given that he leaves earth and travels to where Krypton was under some notion that it might still be there.  The writers needed some excuse to get him to leave so he'd have to work to regain earth's trust, but his believing that Krypton might still be intact makes no sense considering everything he's been through in the past.  Not only did he learn all about Krypton's demise from the hologram of Jor-El in the fortress but he's come up against actual radioactive pieces of his home planet.  Another issue is that Superman would never leave earth unguarded for that long given that he feels guilty for every person he's unable to save, even when he saves thousands.  I feel that his struggle to regain earth's trust after his cosmic "vacation" was supposed to be an inner conflict, but as soon as he catches Lois' plane and lands it in a baseball stadium, the world unanimously welcomes him back.  Only Lois and of course Lex Luthor are cheesed off about his return, although for different reasons. 
Kevin Spacey is a fantastic actor and he did a good job bringing some darkness and edge to Luthor, at least compared to Hackman, but he was stuck playing a version of Hackman's real estate obsessed Lex, which simply isn't threatening or sinister these days, if it ever was at all.  Spacey along with much of the cast, doesn't have much to work with in the film; his character is merely a thin shade of how diabolically badass Lex is in the comics or on Smallville.  His Lex is simply itching for revenge against Supes and follows the same plot he unleashed in Superman The Movie, only this time using crystals he steals from the fortress, which for some reason grow like chia-pet crystals when put in water.  You'd think Lex would be onto a new scheme by now, but he's already in re-runs.  What bothers me about the film is how it tries to be a continuation of the original but ends up being more a pseudo-homage to the first.  Many of the situations and lines of dialogue are virtually the same and recall the first film.  I think the film's most thrilling scene comes about a half hour in when he stops Lois's plane from crashing; after that the film never reaches the same level of intensity.  That doesn't mean there aren't some cool scenes, such as when he stops a bullet with his eyeball.  The rest of the film is kind of by the book as we see Superman pinning for Lois, who's married to Cyclops from X-men and has a son named Jason.  Supes spends a lot of time mopping around and even follows Lois to her house and X-rays her with her husband and son like a super-stalker.  I didn't have a problem with Brandon Routh as Supes; he's got the Chris Reeve look and mannerisms of bumbling Clark, but again he didn't have the opportunity to make it his own, it feels like he's simply emulating Reeve but adding in the stalker parts. 
One of my biggest sore spots is the revelation that Jason is Superman's kid.  This is confirmed when Lois is taken hostage by Lex's goons aboard his yacht and the 5 year old manages to shove a grand piano at a thug who's beating on Lois.  I didn't like this as soon as I saw it, but I still tried to justify it to myself.  The problem is that the film took a giant leap with something that hasn't even really been explored in comics while playing it safe with everything else.  Fans wanted to see a film about Superman's return, not Superman and son.  Who even knows if Superman's DNA is compatible with human DNA.  For more on this, watch Jason Lee's Superman coital discussion in Kevin Smith's Mallrats, it's hilarious.  It's as if the writers wanted to throw something in for shock value in a film that's otherwise pretty predictable.  Luthor manages to create a landmass made of Kryptonite which rises from the Atlantic and creates an earthquake in Metropolis.  Superman saves the day like he did in the original film, although this time he catches the Daily Planet globe as it hurdles towards Perry White in a pretty cool scene.  Supes then confronts Lex on his Kryptonite island and after being weakened, Lex stabs him with a shank of Kryptonite and breaks it off in his side, after which he falls into the ocean.  Lois, in Cyclopes' sea plane, rescues him and he ends up rocketing down under the sea floor and lifting the whole landmass out of the water and into space.
I have a few problems with this.  First off, the entire landmass is made of Kryptonite and though he put a tons of rock between him and it, the sheer amount of radiation should affect him, not to mention the fact that after Lois pulled out the shank, he still had a little shard in him and that's all it take to rob him off his powers.  He shouldn't have been able to lift that thing, but he does and pushes it into space before blacking out and plummeting back to earth.  I hope he pushed it out far enough, otherwise I fear it to will fall back to earth and take out Metropolis.  Anyway, he's brought to the hospital in an unconscious state and the audience is tricked into believing he'd dead for a moment, but of course that's not the case.  Really long story short, while comatose Lois tells him Jason's his son and when he wakes up he flies to her house and gives the sleeping boy essentially the same spiel that Jor-El gave him about the son becoming the father, implying that Supes will watch over the boy from a distance. 
He then talks to Lois outside, telling her he's always around, minus the 5 years he wasn't and flies over earth just like in the Chris Reeve films.  Ironically, Returns' budget was almost as much as Man of Steel's but there isn't a single Super punch in the film and not much action aside from flying and catching things.  This makes sense given that Luthor is the villain, it's just an interesting side note.  As mentioned, it's not as though the film has no positive attributes, but even when I really tried to love it, it's not the Superman film I was dying to see.  The film seems to have trouble figuring out what it wants to be; it wants to be grounded and serious but there are too many aspects that just don't work believably.  It wants to show that Lois and Superman have this undeniable connection and are destined to be together but she still can't figure out he's Clark and it wants to continue the story in the past films but ends up being a pseudo-homage to the first.  Luckily I can now say I've seen a new Superman film that brought to life what I've been dying to see for years and also made Superman fresh and relevant again, adding depth and reality to the character.  All I'll say is thank the gods for Zack Snyder and Chris Nolan for returning the Man of Steel to his place as the granddaddy of all Superheroes.                              

Beware the Court of Owls

Batman goes face to face with the creepy members of The Court of Owls. 

Everyone knows Gotham City is Batman's city.  In many ways, it's the city that helped create Batman all those years ago when young Bruce Wayne's parents were gunned down before his eyes in one of the city's dark alleyways.  Years later, when Bruce returned to Gotham and unleashed his alter ego Batman, it was to reclaim the city from the clutches of Gotham's criminal underbelly.  Bruce has always thought he knew the city down to the bone, but in Scott Snyder's Court of Owls series, he discovers that he doesn't know the city as well as he thought.  There are sinister secrets lurking behind the façade of the city, dark secrets which stretch back over a hundred years and intertwine with Bruce's own family history.  A mysterious organization known as The Court of Owls is out to prove to Batman and Bruce Wayne that the city belongs to them. 
I'm long overdue for writing about the spectacular Court of Owls storyline, but I figured better late than never.  As part of the New 52, Snyder puts a fresh spin on this timeless character, maintaining the essential traits that drive the man while adding some much needed depth.  At it's core, this story is about Bruce slowly learning that the Gotham he thought he knew so well might not really exist.  When a John Doe is found peppered with throwing knives, all which bear the symbol of an owl, it seems to be the calling card of The Court of Owls, a shadowy group mythologized in an old nursery rhyme.  The group was thought to be simply an urban legend, but the evidence seems to indicate that they might be real.  Only Batman remains skeptical.  When he discovers a message left by the john doe warning that Bruce Wayne will die, he goes about getting to the bottom of the mystery.  Not long after, Bruce is attacked at Wayne Tower by a masked assassin, called The Talon, who states that the Court has sentenced Bruce to die.  In the battle, Bruce gets kicked through a window of Wayne Tower and plummets to the street along with his assassin.  Luckily, he's able to grab onto one of the building's many gargoyles, and he watches his would be assassin slam into a car below.  Even this attack is not enough to convince him of the Court's existence and when Dick Grayson a.k.a. Nightwing asks why he doesn't believe it's them, Bruce tells him how he investigated the Court's existence when he was a kid and found nothing.   
I enjoyed how Snyder finds a way to tie the Court into the murder of Bruce's parents.  After their death, young Bruce in his sorrow became convinced their death wasn't random and started to piece together clues that seemed to point to the Court of Owls.  Believing the Court to be made up of Gotham's most influential who perhaps felt threatened by Thomas and Martha Wayne, Bruce set out to uncover the Court and the truth.  He tells how he found an abandoned social club with a owl for a crest and found his way into a room in the upper tower, certain he'd find their secret meeting place, but instead found just a dusty, empty room.  After that, Bruce came to the conclusion that the Court didn't exist.  Despite his skepticism, Bruce continues obsessively digging and discovers that his great-great grandfather, Alan Wayne was obsessed with Owls and believed they were in his house before he was found dead in Gotham's sewers.  Bruce investigates all buildings funded by the Wayne trust and in each finds a secret floor between the 12th and 14th full of weapons and trinkets of the Court going back to the late 1800's.  His investigation leads him into the sewer where Alan Wayne's body was retrieved years earlier and it's there that he's again attacked by the Talon, who managed to survive the fall (I'll explain that in a bit), and ends up in a dizzying maze called the labyrinth with members of the Court watching his every move.  Here, a wounded Batman must work his way through a maze of rooms, all while being chased by The Talon and seeing photos of Gotham citizens who vanished without a trace, including Alan Wayne.  Bruce, in a state of delirium from drinking drugged water, sees his dead parents and manages to fight through his terrifying visions.  In the process, he learns just how far reaching the Court's influence goes, secretly pulling the strings behind Gotham for centuries.  On the verge of death, the members of the Court order The Talon to finish off Batman but Bruce musters his last ounce of strength and finally defeats The Talon in badass style, after which he escapes back into the sewer while the Court disposes of the Talon's defeated and therefore unworthy body.   
Snyder builds the story up in an exciting way, unfolding crucial revelations little by little.  For instance, early on we learn that DNA found on the John Doe matches Dick Grayson and he explains that the dead man approached him weeks earlier, vaguely warning him about the Court and grabbed tightly onto his arm, explaining how his DNA got under the man's nails.  Towards the end of Vol. 1 when Bruce manages to make it back to the Cave after escaping the labyrinth, he discovers that Alfred found The Talon's discarded body and Bruce begins to run tests on it.  It's revealed that the body contains large amounts of electrum, a substance capable of re-animating dead tissue, which seeped into his cells over many years from a deposit on his back tooth bearing the Court's symbol.  This allowed The Talon and anyone else specially prepared by the Court in this way, to cheat death again and again.  Only by keeping the body cold as Bruce does can it be kept in a comatose state.  Bruce then reveals to Dick that this Talon is Dick's great-grandfather and when Dick gets angry at this news, Bruce strikes him across the face, knocking out a deposit on his back tooth like the Talon's.  Turns out the Court was preparing Dick to be among the next generation of assassins after scoping him out years earlier when he was a circus acrobat.  While this is being explained, we see the Court members preparing a new Talon to lead a full out assault and take back the city of Gotham in an epic ending to Volume 1.   
The Court of Owls is a gripping read from start to finish and a immensely satisfying new chapter for The Dark Knight.  Snyder gets into Bruce's thought process in an interesting way as it swings between the contemplative, informative and sometimes the humorous.  His personality doesn't feel the least bit one dimensional, but he's still the deeply driven and focused detective.  What I like about his adversary here is that it's not simply one guy but rather an entire clandestine organization lurking in the shadows of Gotham.  Like the Illuminati, the Court seems to have its Talons in everything, challenging Batman's authority in the city.  The art by Greg Capullo perfectly suits the tone of the story: dirty and gritty in some places, clean and clear in others.  The story is after all a gritty mystery story but there's also plenty of action.  At times, the action explodes out of the panels.  During the scenes in the labyrinth, panels are turned sideways and even upside down as if to mirror Batman's disorientation.  The story continues in Vol.2, The City of Owls, in which Bruce faces off against a horde of assassins who attack Wayne Manor and uncovers deeper, darker secrets about his family's ties to the Court.  Court of Owls is an engrossing mystery and a perfect Batman story for old time fans and first time readers that only gets better as it steams along.