From Fireworks likely when NASA blows up comet on July 4:
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Not all dazzling fireworks displays will be on Earth this July 4, Independence Day in the U.S. NASA hopes to shoot off its own celestial sparks in an audacious mission that will blast a stadium-sized hole in a comet half the size of Manhattan. It would give astronomers their first peek at the inside of one of these heavenly bodies.
Of course, this will awaken the cosmic hellbeast slumbering in the comet’s core, who will become enraged and head to Earth to destroy us.
Fortunately, we have Superman to save us. Superman’s real, right?
On the writing front, I finished the first chapter of The Shiver of the Gate, which really isn’t that much of an accomplishment, but at least progress is being made.
On an unrelated note, I’m becoming increasingly paranoid that there is something very wrong with my monitor at work. For no obvious reason, it makes my eyes hurt and my vision blurry. I get a vague dizziness that lasts all day, but it never starts until I sit down in front of this monitor. I’ve asked the IT department to replace it. Fingers crossed.
—06/28/05
My review of Batman Begins has been posted on Fungible Convictions.
In the time between submitting the review yesterday and its publication today, one of my hopes for the sequel came true: Holmes Dropped from ‘Batman’ Sequel.
—06/21/05
I saw Batman Begins over the weekend–my official review will appear on Fungible Convictions in a day or two, but in three words: I liked it.
Be sure to check out FC founder Andy Whitacre’s essay on modern lit magazines–it’s a good read.
More progress made on The Shiver of the Gate this weekend. I also started a short story, featuring some of the same characters as SOTG but set in 1991; since my original idea was to write a book of short stories featuring these characters, I thought this might be a good way to help flesh them out in my head. Titled “The Jetty,” the story is set in Plymouth, Mass., not too far from where I grew up. The idea for it stemmed from some research I did on the Plymouth jetty when I was working as a reporter for the Old Colony Memorial years ago.
I read Patrick McCabe’s The Butcher Boy over the weekend, another book assigned for my class on adapting novels into films. I have to say, though, I’m a little tired of these books narrated by depressing crazy people. Especially when they’re first-person and stream-of-consciousness. 200 pages of that is very wearying. I’m not a fan of long-form first-person narration as it is, and when you add the S.O.C. in, I tend to have a difficult time paying attention.
Was it a good novel? I suppose it is…I’m not inclined to doubt its artistic merit. But the ordeal of reading it reminded me that I am, unquestionably, a writer who tries to entertain (for lack of a better term) as well as create a work of art. This is not the goal of all authors, including (perhaps especially) some of the best. I admire that–truly. But I don’t often find myself seeking out that sort of writer. And I don’t believe such a style is necessary for truly great writing (the “eat your greens” conception of literary appreciation). It’s simply one option among many.
—06/20/05
What is it with maverick directors and superhero movies? Tim Burton started it. He’d had back-to-back sleeper hits (Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and Beetlejuice) when he signed on to direct the original Batman. Bryan Singer made the fun and inventive film The Usual Suspects, then went on to direct X-Men, X2 and now Superman Returns. Sam Raimi worked his way up from genre flicks to his dark masterpiece, A Simple Plan—then took the reigns of the Spider-Man franchise. Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream) is working on an adaptation of the Japanese graphic novel Lone Wolf and Cub (and for a long time was attached to an adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen).
And now we have Christopher Nolan, who created one of the most innovative films in years (Memento) directing the latest entry in the Batman franchise, Batman Begins. It stars Christian Bale (American Psycho, Reign of Fire) as Bruce Wayne/Batman; Michael Caine as his butler Alfred; Liam Neeson as Wayne’s mysterious mentor, Ducard; Cillian Murphy as Dr. Crane/Scarecrow; Gary Oldman as Sergeant Gordon (not yet the Commissioner), and Katie Holmes as Generic Love Inter—I mean, as Rachel Dawes. Rutger Hauer makes an appearance as the CEO of Wayne Enterprises and Morgan Freeman steps in as Lucius Fox, who is the Q to Batman’s James Bond.
With that sort of cast, you’ve got to expect something good out of the film. Fortunately, Nolan gives us a lot more. Batman Begins is the best entry in the franchise (though Burton’s first two films run very close behind). Gone is the sweeping impressionism and Wagnerian romanticism of the Burton era; Begins reboots the cinematic Batman myth. At least half the film is devoted to showing us how Bruce Wayne goes from millionaire orphan to costume-clad vigilante. The story does a good job of building Wayne’s character, and Bale gives us the most compelling and interesting Wayne to date (though it takes at least twenty minutes too long to finally see Batman in full regalia). Nolan seems interested in showing us the nuts and bolts of Wayne’s operation, and while this adds a degree of realism (if such a thing is possible in a superhero film), it starts to bog down the story.
Fortunately it picks right back up when Batman finally appears. What I like about this Batman is his humanity; the new bat-suit has a more pliable mask, allowing Bale to actually emote. Bale takes a cue from Keaton and gives Batman a harsh, grating voice. His Batman also screws up once in a while; he trips, he falls, he gets bruised and battered.
But as good as Bale is, the best performance comes, as always, from Gary Oldman, who vanishes beneath a thick rust-colored mustache to become Sergeant Jim Gordon, the weary Gotham City cop who clings to his integrity with a kind of resigned hopelessness. He’s the only one who trusts Batman (and vice versa).
The film does have a few problems. Composer Hans Zimmer’s lackluster score offers nothing in the way of memorable motifs; I sorely missed Danny Elfman’s epic themes from the Burton films. The fight scenes are mostly incomprehensible, giving us half-second close-ups of limbs with no indication of who’s hitting whom. And I didn’t care for Holmes, whose role seems wedged into the plot.
But Batman Begins is a promising start to a revitalized Batman franchise. Here’s hoping the same cast (sans Holmes) and Nolan return for the sequels.
—06/20/05
As we celebrate the release of perhaps the best–or certainly most artistically ambitious (and potentially pretentious) Batman film–I’d like to take the opportunity to remind people of the character’s most ignominious moment: the Batusi.
The Batusi is that silly little mod dance, made famous in the 1960s Batman television show and made famous again by John Travolta and Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction.
I wish I could find a video file of it somewhere–just reading the description of the website linked above is enough to make me laugh, but I want, no, I need the full Batusi experience…
The Batusi. Take that, Dark Knight!
—06/15/05
Writing on The Shiver of the Gate has officially begun. I wrote ten pages last week. Obviously, I hope to increase that pace in the coming days and weeks (once my summer class is over at the end of the month, I’ll have all my nights free to work on it).
Unfortunately, the new writing desk I ordered is on backorder, so I won’t have it until the beginning of July. But that’s all right–it’s so damned hot in my apartment, I won’t be able to write there anyway. And by the time the desk comes, Widener Library will be on its summer school hours, and I’ll be able to use my carrel at night again. So basically, it’s June that’s going to be difficult.
The writing went smooth enough, however. I’ve also been polishing a few other projects, so writing is getting done, if not encessarily on the novel.
On a related note, I’m beginning to realize that a blog that chronicles one’s writing before one is famous does not make for a very interesting blog…
—06/13/05
For better or for worse, Fungible Convictions has posted my official Revenge of the Sith review. I manage to be slightly less snarky than Anthony Lane in his The New Yorker review.
Progress on The Shiver(ing) of the Gate is slow (an understatement). But starting this week, I’ll have an extra day to work on it, which I hope will help get it going. As Neil Gaiman writes constantly in his journal, one simply has to Write (as opposed to Not Writing).
—06/06/05
A few days before the release of Star Wars/Episode III/Revenge of the Sith/etc., Star Wars creator and certifiable megalomaniac George Lucas offered his opinion on why so many fans of the franchise were disappointed with the prequels. According to Lucas, “”The older [fans] are loyal to the first three films I made, and they are the ones in control of the media. The films that these people don’t like—which are the first two prequels—are fanatically adored by the under-25s. They are always at each others throats about it.”
That’s right, it’s not Jews who control the media, like the stereotype says; it’s the Star Wars fans.
Unfortunately, Lucas is wrong. The prequels may be better liked by kids, but that’s because they don’t know any better—I watched and loved a lot of crap when I was a kid (He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, anyone?). No, George, there is one very good reason the older, wiser fans don’t like your new movies: they’re bad.
For the five or six people who don’t know what happens in this movie, here’s a summary: the big bad guy, called alternately Chancellor Palpatine and Darth Sidious depending on how much wrinkle cream he put on that morning, tempts Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) to the Dark Side. Anakin becomes very, very naughty, kills a lot of people, falls in lava and ends up in a big black suit with an inordinately loud respirator.
There are some great battles and a few effective scenes. Ian McDiarmid turns in a wonderfully hammy but effective performance as Sidious, a.k.a. the Emperor, and his seduction of Anakin to the Dark Side is actually somewhat convincing (from his side, at least—Christensen doesn’t offer much in the way of acting here).
As I’ve told many people—at length, and despite their pleas—I think the prequels could have written themselves. A problem with the prequels is that, according to the off-screen mythos established in the Star Wars lore (and Lucas takes all that stuff very seriously—he has an entire department devoted to “continuity” in the Star Wars universe of movies, novels, videogames, and so forth)—according to this mythos, Darth Vader hunted down all the Jedi and, presumably, slaughtered a lot of other people besides. So, by making the prequels about Anakin Skywalker’s rise and fall, Lucas was essentially giving us a story about the rise of a Hitler. It doesn’t help that the films are loaded with strange lessons like “fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering”—I won’t argue with the last one, but there is such a thing as righteous anger, and fear is a natural human emotion that should be understood, not suppressed.
The prequels should have been about Obi-Wan and his failure with Anakin, not Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side, with Obi-Wan as a supporting character. But there was a point in this movie when I thought, “Well, they haven’t made Anakin that bad…maybe, other than a few Jedi and a few strangled Imperial captains, he wasn’t as evil as all that, which could make this whole thing work…”
…and then he killed some kids.
That was about it for me. Child-murderers do not deserve sweeping six-film epics devoted to them, period. Near the end of the film, after Anakin’s pregnant wife Padme (a hapless Natalie Portman, clearly aware of how terrible her lines are) has found out about the children, she still tries to talk him into running away with her and leaving the Dark Side, which—after the child-killing—makes her seem like one of those women who clings to her abusive husband. It’s creepy and disturbing, and it doesn’t help that Portman’s dialogue seems to have been cobbled together from Lucas’s copy of The Big Book of Clichéd Dialogue.
Allegedly Tom Stoppard gave the Revenge of the Sith script a once-over. I don’t believe it. Lucas apparently said that these films should be considered “silent films.” Great idea, George—I could imagine the characters were speaking interesting, subtle dialogue, rather than the laughably bad material Lucas came up with. Did he really sit in front of a computer, cup of coffee in hand, and ponder over lines like “I don’t know you anymore”?
The original films actually have a number of funny lines—mostly coming from C-3PO and Han Solo. The prequels, sadly, have no Han Solo character at all. Han Solo is the Everyman character of the original movies; he’s the one people can identify with. He has no supernatural powers. He consistently points out how ridiculous every given situation is. He has real motivations—early on, he’s in it for the money, and later, for love.
Rewatching the original films recently, I’ll admit that there’s a lot about them that hasn’t held up. But they’re still far, far better than the prequels.
And Han Solo is still the man.
—06/05/05