Comics and Idolatry

I didn't go to Comic-Con this year, for various reasons, but I did go walk around downtown San Diego on Sunday with some friends and people watch (and of course eat at Cafe' Diem). I unfortunately missed the crazy Westboro Baptist Church people out protesting, and even more unfortunately I missed the Comic-Con attendees protest of the WBC protest. At the Comics Alliance link you can see images Con attendees counter signs - which are great, particularly the Odin is God one.

While I've heard of the WBC, and am continually appalled by their anti-American, anti-military, anti-Semitic, and homo-phobic views, I somehow find myself surprised that they also take out their rage and hatred on American Idol, Twitter, and Comics. At some point I realize that false idolatry, as they see it, is kind of a big deal in organized religion - but I fail to see the damage to any God in respecting and looking up to an iconic figure, whether it be Obi-Wan Kenobi, Captain America, or Lady Gaga.

Maybe I have trouble with the idea that celebrating comics endangers one's soul because I am more likely to believe Batman is real than that a God created me. I believe that any God who denies humans role models on Earth is not a very self confident one and he/she is pretty lame. Comic books, science fiction, and fantasy are meant to teach you life lessons; they are meant to allow you to explore notions, choices, feelings, and ideas in the safe world of a comic book, a novel, or a movie; they are meant to allow you to grow into your life as a more mature, well thought person.

Look at some of our biggest comic book/nerd/fantasy heroes: Batman, Superman, Captain America, Luke Skywalker, Captain Kirk, Aragorn, Frodo, Spider-man, Dorothy Gale, Alice, and the X-Men. Each of these characters deals with some sort of unfathomable tragedy, responsibility, or hurdle and must make the right choices to save a loved one, a planet, the human race, etc. These struggles and choices are meant to teach us to be better people. Comic-Con, and other comic/nerd conventions, are meant as celebrations of the mythos of nerdom, as celebrations of the human condition and spirit.

I'm a proud nerd, and I love Comic-Con, and it hurts me that people look down on it as being something ridiculous and look down on nerds as being less than human (although many are less than normal). I realize that I write this while watching Star Trek and wearing an Empire Strikes Back t-shirt - but I hope you get the pretty biased gist.

May the Force be With You.

Outside Comic-Con 2010

Comic-Con 2009 - Cafe Diem

Comic-Con 2009 - Main Hall

Comic-Con 2009 - Stark Industries Booth

The Last M. Night Shymalan Movie

The Last Airbender may wind up being the last M. Night Shymalan movie I ever see.

Before driving back to San Diego yesterday, a few of us decided to check out The Last Airbender. Quiet possibly one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made. Its a terrible terrible movie. I really would like to find a way to get my 8 bucks and 2 hours back. 

The concept is great - the world is made up of tribes of people who can call upon the 4 elements: Air, Water, Earth, and Fire. These nations are at war with each other - with the Fire nation trying to dominate the other three elements. Legend has it that once a lifetime, an Avatar - one who can "bend" each of the 4 elements to his will - will come and unite the nations. Great idea for a story - from the cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender - absolutely horrible execution. The writing and directing were way off the mark, and as a result the acting was strained and canned. It was painful to watch. I'm in the process of trying to renew my faith in Sci Fi/Fantasy movies - given that this is my favorite movie genre, I think that goes to show just how awful The Last Airbender was.

Earlier in the week I did see a pretty hilarious sci fi parody type movie called Free Enterprise - about 2 20 somethings who grew up on Trek, Logan's Run, Star Wars, and other genre related series/movies. Fantastic movie, trailer below:

It's Complicated

Three of us went to see It's Complicated last night - and I am going to have to add it to my list of movies that made me laugh *a little* too loud in the theater.

It was chalk full of humor, well delivered lines, and fantastic characters. Meryl Streep is, as always, amazing! She plays against both Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin in such a natural, non manipulative way that I feel like any woman can relate to her character Jane and the situation she is in. Also, I love Alec Baldwin's character, Jake, its almost like Baldwin's Jack Donaghy character on 30 Rock but with a lot more depth. My absolute favorite character is Harley, played be John Krasinski - he definitely held his own against 3 acting giants and had some hilarious scenes. We're pretty sure the role was written for him, and he nailed it.

The movie is set in Santa Barbara, and I'm totally jealous of Jane's house and garden. Watching the movie made me a tiny bit homesick for the central coast.

It was refreshing to see a "complicated" set of relationships that are not malicious. I feel like the majority of real "exes with benefits" relationships are the way they are portrayed in this movie, and that this is rare in tv/movie relationships.

If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it.

Star Trek = super happy Az

I've never anticipated a dvd release this much and I am certainly not disappointed. 6 months seems like a long time to wait for a dvd - but it was totally worth it.

Star Trek on dvd was everything I wanted. I still need to watch the blue-ray version of the special features, for the additional 1 1/2 hours of extras not on the special edition dvd, but my thirst has been momentarily quenched by the fantastic special features I watched today. For a look at what's on the DVD and Blue-Ray release of Star Trek, check out the Sci Fi Wire article -- or man up and go get the movie!


I've NEVER worked my way through every special menu on a dvd in one sitting, but I could not work my way through fast enough this time. Between the documentaries on casting, make-up, masks, and prosthectics, the hero production team, the score, and the development of the story I was seriously like a kid on Christmas morning. Oh man. I loved watching footage of Abrams and his AD shaking the cameras (did you know that the film was shot on anamorphic film and not digitally?) and then while watching the movie seeing the scenes where Abrams was shaking the camera while filming. Its a technique he really developed on Mission Impossible 3 and I love it. (More after the jump)

Star Trek - May Have Just Rocked My World

Don’t worry - no spoilers for the new Star Trek movie here!

All I have to say is that its AMAZING! I’m a long time fan of J.J. Abrams and Star Trek (I’m more of a TNG kid, but still), and he got it right, all the way around. If you have the opportunity to see it in IMAX do so - the sound is INCREDIBLE! I saw it last week on preview night in regular format, but the THX sound in the IMAX theater made it an entirely different movie!

Also, keep your eyes peeled for a tribble and for R2-D2.

Check out these Star Trek links on Hulu:

Chris Pine & Zachary Quinto on SNL's Weekend Update

The Onion News Network Covers Star Trek

Mutants, mutants, mutants

Went to the midnight showing of the new X-Men movie last night / this morning. As far as movies go, especially the comic book adaptation types, it was pretty okay.
At first I didn’t give it much credit, but it was actually a funny, well choreographed, well filmed, action packed movie. Lots of good fight scenes, really good explosions and action sequences. Logan finally gets his backstory, and a lot of fan favorite mutants who were noticeably missing from the first three movies make appearances.
There are a few portions of the movie that I take issue with on a consistency basis (like Logan’s trademark leather jacket), and there is one particular mutant at the end who was literally photoshopped in, which makes me sad.
Of course Gambit was in it, which makes me happy, and now I’ve found an on screen mutant I’d rank with an awesomeness factor over Wolverine. Liev Shreiber was awesome as Sabretooth (but then he’s awesome in every movie he’s in), and Ryan Reynolds as Wade kept up with Hugh Jackman’s off the cuff humor. Stryker was played perfectly evilly by Danny Huston.
Any comic book fans will probably be overly disappointed, the characters are all over the place, even more so than in the original three X-Men movies. All in all though - a good show!

Favorite dialogue:
Stryker: “You boys were supposed to be killed by firing squad at 1000 hours, how’d that go for you?”
Logan: “It tickled a little”