Burn After Reading

Coens. Pitt. Clooney. Malkovich. McDormand and more.

Goofy wonderment.

Cloverfield

We saw the tremendous trailer, the viral marketing, the clues hidden in the bizarre photographs and fake Japanese drink websites and I became concerned that in many ways another Godzilla was growing, a collective anticipation to be burst and deflated as soon as the creature itself is seen.

The success of Cloverfield is that in many ways it just doesn't matter what the twisted and gigantic monster looks like, because this film isn't about the creature.

It is about the utter terror and destruction that washes over the insignificant humans around it and how they find what it is that is important to them through their suffering and despair.

Drew Goddard 's script is tight and balances suspense, awe and raw terror with moments of humour to give the audience that short respite before ramping up the tension again.

Matt Reeves sometimes chooses shots to emphasise the handheld nature of the "footage" that aren't necessary and detract a little, but the majority of the film draws you in and does not let you go.

The actors are far too pretty to truly be Everymen, but still I was effected by their performances, particularly Michael-Stahl David's driven but aptly devastated and bewildered turn as Rob.

T.J. Miller plays Hud, given the task at the party which opens the film to document people's farewells to Rob before he leaves for a new job in Japan. Hud's character is both the comic relief and narrator and has a perfectly pitched, deadpan delivery which contrasts the frenetically bizarre disaster going on around him.

Most of the characters are little more than ciphers, which is unsurprising in a film that clocks in at just over an hour and 15 minutes, yet the lack of development, the sometimes clumsy special effects and plot contrivances are just washed away in the unmitigated thrill of it all.

Each time you think you realise just how bad things are for them, it gets worse and the feeling of powerlessness becomes more and more palpable until the audience participation turns into the voyeurism that the idea of the camera implies.

The choice of the handheld camera as the eye of the film isn't just effective in the fly-on-the-wall style that has become so popular in television drama in recent years, it also gives the illusion of stripping away the comfort zone of editing; the camera does not fade to black when something horrific happens, it keeps going and we experience things that leave us in no mind that anything can happen.

This is still a Hollywood film, there are a number of occasions where belief has to be suspended beyond just the monster so have no false expectations of this being a faux documentary.

There are a number of things I would like to go into detail on but I find myself having to be vague to avoid spoilers, just prepare to be bombarded in as frenetic a manner as I can remember in a film in recent years.

Cloverfield is a dark, howling film that even in its own sense of despair manages to be fun.

With Great Power...

Yesterday the final part of One More Day, Amazing Spider-Man 545, hit the local comic shop. I was expecting this to be bad. I was wrong.

Warning, spoilers abound.

As I outlined in a previous post, this has been the big change in Spider-Man continuity that has been hyped and debated for a long time.

Some have said "Wait until it finishes before judging", I myself was wondering if this catastrophe as it appeared was going to be a huge fakeout as noone in their right mind could really think that this direction was a good idea could they?

Well it has now finished and it is without doubt the single most damaging and blindingly moronic stories I have ever read.

The first part of the issue deals with the turmoil as Peter and MJ dicuss Mephisto's offer: let Aunt May die or have Mephisto alter reality and take away their marriage as if it never happened.

MJ proffers the idea that they do let her die, that she has had a good life, Peter has done everything anyone could do for her, Peter says he has thought of that too (I would like to think so) and that if they decided together to do it then maybe he could live with it.

Then MJ accepts Mephisto's offer, whispering something in his ear to convince him to give Peter a true shot at happiness (most likely theory is she told Mephisto she would bear the tragic knowledge of what they once were).

As a last sting in the tail Mephisto revelas that the young red headed girl who Peter saw on his tour of possible realities in the last issue was HIS AND MJ's DAUGHTER! Gasp!

If Peter didn't realise this before now then he is an utter moron, and even if he didn't, wasn't their ever a point in which he thought that maybe being married to the woman he loves and having good regular sex with her might one day to them having a kid and this would not happen now? Pretty obvious really.

MJ tells Peter she believes that no matter what Mephisto does she believes their love is too storng for anything to break it and they are destined to be together no matter what, they kiss one last time as husband and wife and a nicely drawn montage sums up their life together.

Peter then wakes up, it is the "Brand New Day".

He has overslept on his alarm, that goofy guy, and he dashes downstairs as he is late for something.

The stairs he runs down are owned by his Aunt May because not only is Peter no longer married he apparently is either a 25 year old still living with his old Aunt or somehow time has gone crazy and he's younger.

The former is the truth but the latter is how it feels.

Peter dashes out, stuffing down his beloved Aunt May's wheatcakes shouts that he loves her and rides off on his bicycle.

Yes, his bicycle, yes he is wearing a helmet and yes when this image is added to his other actions in this issue one wonders if he is, well, a little challenged.

Peter arrives at his destination: a surprise party thrown for someone to be revealed.

Flash Thompson is there.

Peter spots MJ who is wearing black and looking solemn, Flash spots the distraction.

"Yikes, awkward! Things still frosty with MJ, huh?"

When reading that line it was like a wonderful journey back in time to a simpler age where dialogue was consistently terrible but noone noticed.

And so the big surprise is shouted as Harry Osbourne enters the room.

Yes Harry is no longer dead as the memorable story that included his death never happened.

Peter spies a hot blonde, which turns out to be Harry's girl.

Peter sulks dramatically and says "figures" because this handsome, athletic 25 year old not only can't get a date he has the proportional emotional maturity of a spider.

The final full page is a close up of the revellers hands and glasses of champagne as they raise a toast to "A brand new day!"

"Mmmm this champagne tastes like piss"

There's then a reprint of the Spider-Man/MJ wedding issue. Because that helps.

Where to begin with this travesty?

First of all, it was Peter's decison to unmask himself in Civil War, he was perfectly aware that someone close to him could be killed due to it, Peter then decided to switch sides knowing full well he and his loved ones would no longer have Stark's protection.

And now with great power comes great inability to accept the consequences of your actions and instead let the devil decide the fates of you and your loved ones.

I doubt that will be the tag-line for Spider-Man 4.

There are all sorts of complications now added. Marvel's concept of time and reality altering has been pretty consistent, one change effects another. Now if Harry is alive then how does that effect things that happened? If Peter never unmasked how does that effect Civil War and all of the fallout from that? Is Dr. Doom dead as Spider-Man saved him when on his way to see MJ on the West Coast but now never made that trip?

Apparently not, we just have to assume it changed some things fundamentally but everything else went pretty much the same way. Except Peter didn't grow up at all through the course of what happened it seems. This profound shift in reality only effected the things Joe Quesada wanted them to (including he uses web shooters again now, Joe Q admitted he had that changed so they now had the possibility of Peter running out of web fluid at bad times again. Yay for great storytelling! Quesada also admitted it was his idea to go to organic webshooters in the first place. Yay for consistency!)

Would you like some ice with your Prime Punch?

And now because Peter has repeatedly acted in a way completely out of character (let's face it he does the deal as he can't handle being at fault for May's death, making him a virtual coward) we now have him apparently return to the character that Joe Quesada believes is the right one.

The goofy, nerd Peter who is 15 years of age in all but physical appearance.

Quesada has accused anyone who disagrees with him as just wanting to keep the character that they grew up liking without seeing the big picture of the character who will appeal to younger fans and ensure his future. Y'know, the character that he grew up liking.

In this softball session some would call an interview, Quesada responds to the OMD controversy.

Here is how Quesada sees the debate:

So, the way I see it, there are two sides of the argument, two segments of fans. On one side, there is a contingency of fandom that wants Peter to age along with them and live life as they do. He needs to get married, have kids, then grandkids, and then the inevitable. One the other side, there are fans that realize Spidey needs to be ready for the next wave or generation of readers, that no one can lay claim to these icons, no one generation has ownership and that we need to preserve them and keep them healthy for the next batch of readers to fall in love with.

Yep all fans who rail against this debacle simply want Spider-Man to grow old and die with them and are being selfish.

Staggering.

If I seem a little scattershot with my response it is because I'm having real trouble fully comprehending how awful this is.

There is nothign wrong with change, Ed Brubaker is doing fantastic work with bringing back Bucky from the dead in Captain America, he is doing great work in having Cap himself killed.

But to erase 20 years of continuity in order to make a character unable to change, to reward his growth with a reset button and all because Quesada thinks marriage ends story, the possibility of a supporting cast and the possibility of the fresh and exciting love triangle plot seems incredible in its stupidity.

I believe Spider-Man is such an iconic character because he is an everyman, a person we can identify with who gets put through the mill time and time again but comes through due to his courage, purity of spirit and respect and love for those around him.

Joe Quesada killed that character as he believes we will better identify with a 25 year old man living with his 75 year old Aunt who doesn't know how to talk to girls, can't scrape together the cash for a date, except when maybe at his millionaire best friend's pad and consistently screws up relationships with stunningly beautiful women because he hasn't grown up yet.

I was expecting this to be bad, instead it is an unmitigated disaster.

Coming soon

1) A review of Lord of the Rings Online (there is a free 7 day trial available here)

2) Hopefully a review of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox story.

3) A review of the final part of One More Day.

4) I'll hopefully get around to the planned "Act Your Ass Off".



Until then here is a picture of Kristen Bell in honour of my wonderful in-laws who got me the season 3 boxset of Veronica Mars which I will watch alongside watching the Superman Animated series I got from a most excellent friend.

Gratuitous? Don't be silly.

Merry Christmas

Have a great one, I miss you all.

The Golden Compass

I'm in a rush so a quick review of what is hopefully the first film of the His Dark Materials trilogy.

I have been looking forward to the release of the film for quite some time as I am a fan of the novels though I haven't read them recently enough to become too nit-picky over adherence to the source material.

I saw it yesterday and overall I enjoyed it though it is far from being perfect.

The main problem the film has is how much it is trying to fit in with just under 2 hours of running time. Most of the scenes are absolutely excellent, but there is no room to breathe between them.

We are here, then we are there where something happens and then we are somewhere else where something happens and no time to breathe or foreshadow properly is taken.

Another problem this compression of the story causes is that there are a couple of moments of very heavy handed exposition that feel clumsy and forced which really undermines the ending in particular.

The acting is excellent, with Daniel Craig a natural as the roguish gent Asriel, Derek Jacobi superb as always playing the twisted head of the Magestirium and Sam Elliott could quite possibly read a menu and hold an audience in rapture.

Dakota Blue Richards' performance is what the The Golden Compass hangs on and she is charming and mischievous without the cloying sentimentality that could have ruined the heart of the film.

Nicole Kidman is perhaps the one underwhelming performance and while she is competent she is a little one-note and lacking in depth with her portrayal of Miss Coulter (a character that reminds me of Lady De Winter from the Musketeers stories), her inner conflict being more effectively portrayed by the superb special effects in one scene.

The daemons are wonderfully realised and are particularly effecting in the case of Lyra's companion who's pain and fear no matter what animal it is in the form of are palpable.

Also fantastically realised is the imposing figure of Iorek Byrnison (voiced with aplomb by Sir Ian McKellan) who's journey to redemption is another plot that is truncated but the resultant battle to regain his pride is just stunning.

I really think if this film had an extra 20 minutes to allow the characters to develop, the narrative to flow more organically and avoid some exposition, this could have been one of the films of the year.

As it is it is still entertaining and I would still be happy to see a sequel.

One More Delay

Joe Quesada has spoken a number of times about the things in the Marvel Universe that he wanted to set right, the genies he wanted to put back in the bottle to paraphrase.

The first one was the exploding mutant population, which was dealt with in the "House of M" arc and fallout. Though House of M was moderately interesting, the actual result of the story was precisely that there were less mutants, with no real vision for how that would improve the story possibilities in the books.

The current Messiah Complex crossover is in fact an attempt to sort out the pig's ear that was created.

"Joey Da Q" had also been dropping the notion in interviews for a long time that Peter Parker and Mary Jane's marriage in Spider-Man was a bad idea that limited the character and prevented new readers joining the book. A discussion has gone on for some time about this, in one camp some think that the lack of a chance for a love-triangle storyline is in itself debilitating to the characters (Quesada himself using this as a main example of why a single Peter would be much better). The other side of the argument says that the vast majority of Spider-Man readers have always known Peter and MJ as a married couple and a lack of good storylines involving that relationship is due to sloppy writing rather than the situation itself.

I'm in the second camp. Frankly I'm bored senseless with the love triangle storyline, Cyclops and Emma Frost are far more interesting than the tired Cyclops/Phoenix/Wolverine carousel. Only in Astonishing has Joss Whedon recently brought Cyclops back to being the badass team leader instead of the mopey sop who was completely defined by his relationship with Jean Grey.

Also if one wants to read about the young high school Spider-Man and his misadventures in love and life, hop on over to the superb Ultimate Spider-Man and enjoy.

The main problem Quesada has with the marriage is that it ages Peter, makes him a young twenty something and that is not the Spider-Man he fell in love with and so therefore believes is not the character a new generation would fall in love with.

So One More Day was announced, an event which would be weekly, over in a month and would irrevocably (re)define MJ and Peter's relationship. Excitement built when Quesada was announced as the penciller (again showing how personal his involvement in the story is) and the rumours swirled about the resolution.

To lead in, yet another event was announced, "Back in Black" where Aunt May is mistakenly shot and Peter dons the old black costume to show he's really not happy and in a dark place. Yep he dresses up like Venom to show that he's annoyed. Then we have issue after issue of Peter being willfully dumb, moaning about things and then deciding that he would break the law and kill people for revenge which went against everything the character has ever done.

Not a good sign of where things were headed.

Back in Black then ended thankfully, and One More Day began.

One More Day Issue 1 was pretty much exactly the same as the past several issues of Back in Black.

Then issue 2 was announced as being delayed from the following week to 3 weeks later.

Then 6 weeks later. Then 2 months later.

Exciting plans for the "Brand New Day" for Spider-Man were announced, but unfortunately that was all put on hold until Quesada could pull his finger out and draw the rest of "One More Day".

So for months the entire Spider-Man line has been non-existant. Again not a good sign.

In Part 2 of One More Day Peter is given the chance by Dr. Strange to search the entire Marvel Universe for a way to cure Aunt May. He is unsuccessful and is left in despair with the full knowledge he cannot save his beloved 80 year old Aunt who has already died at least twice.

Some would churlishly point out a number of ways to save May (a blood transfusion from Angel for starters) but lets not let obvious plot holes get in the way of a remorselessly dragging story.

Part 3 was released this week and we were told Peter would be given an awful choice, one that would change his life, forever...

For 9 pages Peter walks around talking to obvious alternate universe versions of himself and his daughter. There's no huge point to this to be honest but it builds up to who is behind these events, the Woman in Red who then explains for 6 pages that he has been speaking to alternate versions of himself. Riveting.

The Woman in Red then reveals herself to be Mephisto! Who then spends a page describing why he would be bothered with the lovable peon who is Peter Parker as he would "go anywhere, do anything for the sound of a soul in pain". Apparently just not enough of that in hell these days so he's on a road trip.

He offers a deal to both Peter and MJ, give up their marriage and he will save Aunt May. He does this as a small part of their souls would eternally remember the happiness they have given up and would suffer which would be really satisfying to him.

He tells them they have one more day (you names the title you wins the prize) and either their Aunt will die or their marriage will never have existed.

I'm pretty sure that moment was meant to be one of shock and turmoil but in my mind a sound like dropping a stone into an old bucket occurred.

If you turn the page after the dreaded deal is announced you will hit the center staples. Yes this languid tale doesn't reach the halfway point of this special-sized book due to adverts and a reprint of Silver Surfer issue 3 where Mephisto messes with him , because that proves that he's done this sort of thing before so noone should complain about it being ludicrous.

There is also a 6 page profile of Mephisto just to make sure a) you know who this is and b) know this is a big deal and c) show that Quesada didn't just pull this out of his arse.

Risible.

For further hilarity JMS has publicly stated he not only loudly disagreed with the plot for One More Day but asked for his name to be taken off the final two issues, then reneged after being asked by Quesada (One More Day by Alan Smithee).

Also JMS reveals the Sins Past storyline where Norman Osborn apparently had sex with Gwen Stacy who then had his kids (and MJ knew it for years) was originally meant to have been a story about Gwen secretly having Peter's kids but Q told JMS to change it. It aged him too much.

But I digress.

Whether Peter being single and never having been married to MJ (though a part of his soul will know and will be really upset) will lead to better stories is up in the air.

What matters at the moment is that a reset button with masking tape stuck on it and "Mephisto" scrawled over is still a reset button. It is a retcon that is questonable in concept and profoundly bad in its execution. On top of that it is a retcon that is very late and harming the whole line of a company's major character.

And the fans are supposed to be excited about it.



But look on the bright side, soon(ish) Pete can be swinging through the streets deciding if he wants to nail Betty Brant, the Black Cat or MJ. Of course they're not getting rid of MJ, everyone recognises her as an important part of Peter's life.




So they're making her a superhero called Jackpot.



If this is a fake-out and Joe Quesada points and laughs hysterically at fandom while screaming "You didn't honestly think I was that stupid did you?" I shall raise a drink in his honour.


If this is heading where it seems to be, the new and much more exciting stories easily spring to mind.It's just a shame they're in Ultimate Spider-Man.

This story was done much more successfully in the season one episode of Angel entitled "I Will Remember You". In that episode Angel gets the life and love he has dreamed of, but gives it all up as he knows it could lead to Buffy's death.

If MJ had been shot and Peter gave up his marriage in order to save her, then the tragedy might have worked enough to paper over the retcon.

As it is I wish that someone in Marvel editorial would think that maybe marriage isn't inherently a barren landscape for stories.