Not dead yet!
Honest, despite the lack of postage so far, I’m not dead. As a matter of fact, I just got back from seeing a new film for y’all!
So, what film was it? What film is currently in theaters that could possibly have convinced me to leave work early, go to a theater expecting to spend the next 99 minutes sitting in a too-tight seat with a soda bought at 4 times the sane market price, and pay at least a quarter of the price of the DVD for the privilege of the seeing the movie a month or two earlier?
Paranormal Activity. And, despite what you might be hearing in reviews, it was totally worth it.
For the most part, the charitable reviews I’ve been seeing say that you need to see the film in a packed theater, at a midnight showing, in order to really get any impact out of it. Bull. All you need to be willing to do is to pack your expectations of a thrill-a-minute ride up. This isn’t [Rec], this isn’t Cloverfield, this isn’t Saw or Prom Night or any of the other roller coaster films that have been making up the horror genre for the last decade or so (not coincidentally, about the last time I went into a theater without a date attached to the trip).
Paranormal Activity isn’t the sort of movie that was designed to appeal to that type of audience. It’s not a mystery either – they make it clear pretty early on that it’s not a haunted house, it’s a haunted person, and that the haunting is ‘demonic’ in nature (ie, not a human spirit). It’s a character study, built to focus on two people dealing with the strange things happening around them. And, as that, it’s an excellent film.
Our two principles are both very good actors, capable of portraying what’s going on. I’ve read some people complain that the boyfriend’s behavior is ridiculous… well, no, not really. Yes, he’s been told by a psychic (who he doesn’t believe in) that a demon (which he probably barely believes in) is haunting his girlfriend and wants to do Bad Things to her. He proceeds to ignore the psychic’s, and his girlfriend’s, advice and go get a Ouija board to speak with the haunting force so he can try and figure out what’s going on and end the haunting. This is horribly ridiculous behavior, because he knows better.
Well, no, he doesn’t. This guy is summed up for us very, very quickly – junior ghost hunter. He’s the sort of guy who sincerely believes that all he needs to know about ghost hunting, he learned from watching Paranormal State and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Exorcisms are horribly, horribly dangerous, don’t always work, psychics aren’t really real, and when in doubt, provoke the spirit until it gives you some sign of what it wants so you can yell at it until it goes away (seriously, it’s the story of probably 3/4’s of Paranormal State’s cases, and I like the show). Well, in that case, of course he has to give it some way to talk to him.
Why is he trying to do this himself, instead of trusting the experts? The guy’s a day-trader – a punk kid who’s managed to earn himself enough money to own a very nice house with a pool in San Diego, back in 2006 (frankly, given the state of the current economy, being taken out by a demon was probably less painful than living through 2008/09 would have been for him). He’s a self-made man, literally – a guy who can do whatever he sets his mind to. He doesn’t need professionals – especially professionals with no ‘real’ skills who are telling him he can’t fix this on his own. There are ‘ghost hunters’ like him all over the place… they’re just lucky enough not to be dating girls being stalked by demonic beings.
As for the girl… damn, I feel for her. Her boyfriend spends most of the movie painting a target sign on himself, stubbornly refusing to believe that, just maybe, she’s got a better insight into being stalked by a demon (having dealt with it for over 10 years) than he does (having dealt with it for over 10 days.) Both of them end up behaving in perfectly believable ways, as long as you remember that they don’t know that they signed up for a horror movie.
So… there’s the basic story. Girl is haunted by demon, idiot boyfriend tries to play amateur demonologist and solve the problem, things go poorly. Since this is still in theaters, I don’t want to spoil the whole thing, but let’s just say that the last 5-10 minutes of the film are totally sold by the first 90 minutes of it, and you need to sit through the 90 to get the payoff of the 5-10… but it’s worth it. When things pick up, right at the end, there’s not much left… but you will walk out very, very unnerved.
One last little comment about the film. I watched it in a theater at 3:00 on a Thursday afternoon, with about 12 other people scattered throughout it (I lucked out and got an extra-wide seat out of it at that.) It was still very effective for me, and for several of the other people. But the reactions seemed to be split along two different lines. Gender, and age.
Older audiences (or at least older in spirit), and the girls, both seemed to be quite affected by it. The young men, not so much.
Exactly the same split that’s seen in the movie.
Art imitates life, or maybe the other way around?
Oh, and for those of you who might have forgotten, we are still running a contest here! Comment to one of the posts with your favorite Batman movie, and the reason why, and you could win a brand-new copy of Mask of the Phantasm. For more details, scroll down to the end of my Projected Plot post.
Growing up on a Pike
Young adult novels. What do we have to thank them for?
Vampires that sparkle. Am I right, people? Well… not so much.
You see, I grew up in the 90’s, when my middle school had these books on the rack in the library that were a little different from the others. They weren’t Choose Your Owns, they weren’t hardcovers, they weren’t Sweet Valley High or the other pap that got churned out every month.
These were the works of one Christopher Pike. They had titles that didn’t tell you anything (“The Last Vampire,” “Chain Letter,” “The Party,” etc.) and descriptions that make them sound like your basic murder mysteries. So, hey, they had a little bite to them – it’s worth taking a look, right?
And then I went and actually read some of these. Honestly, I kinda have to wonder how the heck these books ended up in a middle school. Why?
If you read these books yourself, you’ll find out. Work through the Final Friends series, or Remember Me, and you’ll run into all the slasher film stereotypes and then some. High schoolers having sex and occasionally getting killed. Safe sex issues. Drug issues and scumbags. A major plot-point in Remember Me hinges around an incestuous relationship, and a minor one in the Final Friends series has to do with one of the characters being a closeted homosexual. The subject matter in these books are like nothing else you’re going to come across in your school’s approved reading list.
Is the writing all that good? Well, it could certainly be worse.
These days, I think people have realized that his subject matter is a bit beyond your typical 6th grader, and moved these off the Young Adult shelves… but I’m not sure. Most of his series have ended or petered out – the man has serious issues with writing sequels, unfortunately, they just don’t work out nearly as well unless he planned the series from the start. But you might want to check him out this Halloween. If nothing else, they’re not what you expected.
Projected Plot
Okay. Everybody who chats with me online regularly has already read this, I’ll admit. Why? Because I’m a noisy little monster when I have ideas trying to wiggle their way out of my skull, that’s why.
The Dark Knight, up until its end, is an incredible film. I personally prefer Mask of the Phantasm, though others have their own opinions (more on that later.) Well, there’s a third Batman Begins film coming out, which seems to be likely to feature the Riddler.
Now, given that another third Batman movie featured the Riddler… well, they can’t do much worse than that one (honestly? I thought Batman and Robin was better than that POS!) But what would I like to see in the third Batman Begins film? What would I consider the ultimate capstone on the trilogy? Here we go.
In Mask of the Phantasm, Bruce’s old girlfriend – who he almost gave up Batman for – comes back hunting the gangsters who hounded her father to death. Eventually, trying to kill the Joker, she meets her (supposed) end in a firey explosion, only to turn up on a cruise ship, leaving Gotham forever.
Well, I’d like to take that plot and filter it through the Batman Begins universe… why? Because it neatly wraps up BB’s little morality play. The first one featured Batman (and his questionable methods) up against people who were clearly beyond the pale (R’as and his cronies). Batman was clearly the hero – Gotham’s prodigal son was fighting crime, kicking ass, taking names, and eventually letting the leader behind all this die in a nasty conflagration. Dark Knight featured him up against a being of pure evil, and forcing himto confront the issue of just what extents he *will* go to in order to protect people… and how he handles failing to protect them, if that will push him over the edge so that he ‘doesn’t save’ another bad guy, the way he did R’as. In case you’ve been under a rock for the last year nd a half, he doesn’t – he only kills once, and that is because there’s no other way to save an innocent boy from dying.
What’s the final act to all this? What else – put the Batman up against somebody who *wants* to die… not because of some twisted game, but out of a sick sense of justice. Put the Batman up against an enemy who *is* everything he could become, if he lets his dark side take over – a sick soul with a death wish, meting out death and destruction, while privately wishing for the same, to put an end to the gut-wrenching pain inside brought on by the path they’ve followed.
Now, of course, the question is… who is, the Phantasm? What person could we put behind that Reaper’s mask, to really drive the message home?
Rachael. Yes, I know, she was blown up in Dark Knight. Work with me here – if Jean Grey, Gwen Stacey, and Bucky can all benefit from a revolving door policy on the afterlife, so can Rachael. Don’t you point out that those are all Marvel characters – if Supes gets a ‘get out of epic, dramatically suitable death free’ card, then Rachael does too.
For our purposes, she isn’t actually killed in the blast – instead, she’s ‘rescued’ by Killer Croc, another Batman villain who fits perfectly into this universe. I’m inclined to make the Joker responsible for this – having him send the Croc there – but obviously certain events make writing the Joker out of this story desirable. At any rate, Croc does with Rachael whatever the screenwriters think they can get away with during the time he has her (and the cops are chasing Batman.) For once, I’m inclined to say they could let the little James Wan inside them get out and run free. This time around, it would actually benefit to some extent from having a few suitably harrowing torture sequences – they feed into the later mystery of the film. They shouldn’t be the key of the film, of course, but it doesn’t hurt to play it up a bit. It also gives the Croc time to explain that he’s helping smuggle some chemicals that are being illegally disposed of or somesuch – the specifics aren’t too important, just covering that there are things down in the sewers that aren’t safe to be in contact with.
Eventually, Rachael gets the chance to escape, albeit at a hefty price. She manages to tie off her wrist, then takes off her hand so she can get free. Croc chases her, but in the course of the chase through the nearly pitch-black sewers, he ends up taking a dive into the Bad Stuff that’s down there. Rachael makes it a bit farther, but through increasing blood loss and shock, she eventually passes out.
When she comes to, she’s been rescued by a group of people living down there. Most big cities actually do have communities like this – homeless people who’ve made their own homes in abandoned sewer lines, maintenance tunnels, and subway lines beneath the city. The group that’s found her is a small enclave led by a veteran who left the surface world and all its problems behind him. There are others with them, some normal people, and one man based loosely off the Toyman from the DC universe (ie, tinkerer and gadgeteer who can put together handy trinkets along similar lines as the Batman’s.)
Having come to, Rachael discovers her entire life has fallen apart. Batman has killed Harvey, so she’s heard, which is devastating to her psychologically. She knows Bruce, has all his life. She knows he wouldn’t have killed Harvey… not unless Harvey had gone wrong somehow. But she knows Harvey, knows he wouldn’t do that… or, at least, that he wouldn’t have if he’d known she was alive. And if Batman *did* kill Harvey without there being a good reason for it… then the only reason for that would be because Bruce had snapped because of what happened to her. Any way you look at it, it’s her fault (to a grief-stricken, somewhat twisted mind). What’s more, it wouldn’t have happened if Batman *had* just gone ahead and ignored the system, killed the Joker when he’d had the chance. Her entire worldview is shattered; she blames herself for the death of Harvey, and she sees a world that’s bleak, dark, and entirely unredeemable… a world where the Bruce who almost shot a man in the middle of a courthouse was right, and she was wrong. A world where Batman isn’t going far enough.
She talks this over with her rescuers (obliquely, not specifics) while she slowly recovers. The vet who leads the group teaches her how to fight, ostensibly so she can protect herself in the Underground – she doesn’t have a life to return to anymore, so she might as well learn how to survive here. The Toyman makes her a prosthetic cap for her arm that she can mount a knife to, so she doesn’t have to carry a separate weapon and fight with her only hand. Gradually, she goes from basic self-defense to being able to *fight*. This doesn’t all have to be covered on-screen at the time; a lot of it can be covered in later flashbacks.
Of course, this movie isn’t all Rachael’s. Christian Bale needs to earn his paycheck too.
In the meantime, in the world up above, Batman is trying to do his work without getting caught by the police. He’s gradually been mopping up other mental ward rejects from Arkham, dealing with organized crime, and generally cleaning things up – Gotham’s looking a lot better, from the perspective of having to deal with organized crime, but there’s still the issue of the *dis*organized crime. It’s fairly good timing, in some ways – Batman isn’t as necessary, allowing Bruce Wayne to let his alter ego rest (more often) while working through social programs to try and address the conditions that create some of the crooks he’s still got to deal with. For some situations though, Batman is still necessary – like when dealing with the hulking monstrosity that’s started rampaging through Gotham in the dead of night, leaving bodies behind him.
At first it’s gang-bangers and homeless bums… but before long it’s hookers mixed in with them, often raped as well as torn limb from limb. The cops are paying attention as much as they can, but they can’t get much done… which puts Batman back out in the open. Trying to evade the police, and the distrustful people of the slums who figure they might be able to take care of two birds with one stone, he sets out to find the killer. Batman traces the killer into the Underground, and follows him there. He eventually finds Killer Croc’s lair, or what’s left of it – there, he’s attacked by Croc, now mutated even further by the chemicals he was dumped into. Batman fights back, of course, but between the darkness and the inhuman strength of his attacker, he’s outclassed. While Croc takes a beating, he eventually gets the better of Batman, nearly breaking his back in the process (suplex maneuver at full Killer Croc strength?) Before he can deliver a killing blow, however, a cloaked figure shows up, attacking from behind. Batman witnesses flashes of the fight, but eventually succumbs to the pain as Phantasm does battle with the Croc. (For the audience’s benefit, Croc escapes – wouldn’t be necessary if Ledger hadn’t died, but….)
When he comes to, he’s back home; somebody called Alfred and let him know that Bruce was badly hurt. The press has been told that Mr. Wayne was injured in a skydiving accident… but it presents the worrisome question of who called Alfred.
Here’s where we can go one of two ways. I’ll go with the one I currently prefer. Rather than the question lasting, when Bruce asks Alfred who it was that called him, Rachael comes in. She’s missing her hand, but after some time in the hospital of her own, she’s got a proper prosthetic rigged, and is looking much, much better than she was before. She moves in with Bruce, her own life having been ravaged by the fact that she was assumed dead, and Bruce needing somebody besides Alfred to help take care of him during his convalescence. During this time, obviously, Batman is AWOL – and the criminal element begins to stick their head out.
As Rachael goes over the Hell that has been her life in bits and pieces (explaining to Bruce how she’s alive, etc.), the same dark figure who helped rescue Bruce before starts showing up above ground now. The Phantasm isn’t a replacement Batman though – the Phantasm is a killing machine, not worried about collateral damage as long as it’s other people who ‘deserved it.’ Innocent bystanders are safe – they have to be, to keep the Phantasm a somewhat sympathetic figure. Bruce begins investigating the Phantasm, who makes his way through the streets with a massive blade on one glove, covered in a shroud of fog that he seems to be able to generate at will. The cops, obviously, are hunting the Phantasm down hardcore – Batman was a black eye, the Phantasm is an obvious homicidal maniac.
Complicating things, Rachael seems to know something about all of this… but she’s reluctant to explain until later. When the time comes, she explains her relationship with the vet who rescued her, and that he was talking about doing exactly this when she left. She thinks that he’s the Phantasm… which certainly seems believable enough. A 50-60 year old Vietnam vet who can fight like a sonofabitch and has a chip on his shoulder is a good candidate, especially with the Toyman’s help. Mask of the Phantasm was a little enough known piece that the obvious suspect isn’t so obvious. Rachael is, after all, a 30-something lawyer missing a hand and rather slightly built. Add to that the fact that she’s living with Bruce – how could she possibly be the Phantasm, given all of that?
Of course, given that fact that Bruce isn’t exactly around all the time either, it becomes plausible, but that’s for the audience to click with later.
The cat and mouse game between the Phantasm and Batman continues, with Batman ocasionally having to save crooks from the Phantasm. Little hints are dropped here and there that the Phantasm knows about Batman – he won’t kill him, for example, despite his being a murderer according to the press. He gives him openings he doesn’t have to. All this time, the cops are searching for them both (admittedly, against Gordon’s wishes, but he has to thanks to the end of Dark Knight).
If Ledger were alive, I’d want to use the chance to start turning the Joker into a sort of supervillain Hannibal Lecter; Batman reluctantly coming to him in his cell to find out what he might know about the Phantasm (an interview through the window between Batman and the Joker has an incredible amount of cinematic potential.) Without Ledger, that’s not going to work (recurring theme, I know, I know.) However, if I ever do this as a fanfic, it’s something to bear in mind as an option.
In the end, it comes down to a final confrontation between the Batman, and the Phantasm, trying to save the life of a criminal who’s pushing even Batman’s limits. This is where Batman has to make the decision – does he go down the Phantasm’s ultimately destructive (yet effective) path, or does he hold true to his (barely, at times) heroic code? My preference, given conditions? Killer Croc (AKA Bane) again. He gets away from the Phantasm in their first confrontation, and eventually comes back, more ripped and mutated than ever, possibly in the service of whoever provided the mutagens that transformed him in the first place. There’s a three-way battle between Bane, Phantasm, and Batman… and, in the end, the Batman discovers that Rachael is the Phantasm. And worse, that all she wants at this point is for him to kill her and end her suffering.
In the end, the movie finishes with the same explosive finale as Mask of the Phantasm, the Batman barely escaping the conflagration that seems to destroy his beloved… except for a little hint we get at the end, that maybe the Phantasm lives on, sane or otherwise….
So, there you have it. My vision of Mask of the Phantasm adapted to the Batman Begins universe, and what I’d *love* to see as BB3. Not gonna happen, I’m quite sure, but I’d be thrilled if something even remotely like this came out. It would tie in one of the more obscure (yet excellent) visions of Batman with the one that’s currently the most popular, and also have elements of one of the slightly more obscure (yet excellent) storylines from the comics (Knightfall is echoed in Batman’s injuries and his being ‘replaced’ by a psychotic, homicidal vigilante).
Now… you’ve read through all of that, and I feel obligated to reward you for it. Fortunately, I can do so – I found my copy of Mask of the Phantasm!
So here’s the contest. I’ve told everybody (at length) what my favorite Batman movie is. I want to hear what yours is. One of the old Batman serials? The camp-fest that was the movie spawned by the 60’s series? One of Burton’s two masterworks? Christopher Nolan’s original? The Dark Knight is one I expect to hear a lot, I’ll admit.
Are you one of those sad, sick souls who actually thought that Joel Schumacher’s vision of the Bat is the ideal one?
Or maybe you prefer the animated versions. Return of the Joker? The anime version that came out? Sub Zero? Mystery of the Batwoman?
Well, by year end, leave a comment explaining your favorite Batman movie. What is it, and why? You don’t need the full-on synopses that I’ve been doing, though I won’t hold it against you if you toss a few spoilers in. The only limitation I’m going to put on you is that I want to see a moving version of it – I’d be interested in knowing your favorite comic arc, but it won’t qualify for the contest.
Entries must be received by 12/31/2009. A winner will be chosen by 1/31/2010, on the following grounds:
- Explanation of why you like your favorite film. Just saying “because I do” won’t get you anything (unless NOBODY else enters). I’d like to see the reason why – what are the themes, what are the aspects of Batman that you like. Long-winded won’t get you bonus points, but well explained will.
- Sincerity. This one’s hard to quantify, but if you just trot out “The Dark Knight, because it’s the best Batman film out there, everybody except you knows that,” or “Mask of the Phantasm, for all the reasons you explained,” you’re not likely to win it.
- Originality. This is kind of in there already, but I’d like to see a reason that makes me look at it in a way I haven’t before.
So, if you’re declared the winner, you will receive one (1) copy of Mask of the Phantasm, never before viewed, but not shrinkwrapped. If I actually get enough really good entries to justify multiple prizes, I might edit the prize packages (they’d be getting better, not worse, trust me). If you want to list your entry but don’t actually want the DVD, let me know so I don’t end up mailing it out to you before I find out you’re not interested.
So, have at it! You’ve got just a little bit over three months – get cracking, people!
Mask of the Phantasm
Happy coincidences abound in this world – as I write this post, I am actually watching the film on Boomerang!
I now forgive them – a little bit – for dropping Thundarr, SWAT Kats, and Centurions from their afternoon lineup. I’m sure I’ll hate them again the next time I come home and the only thing on is Snorks.
Now, a little buildup in the 3 minutes leading up to the film. Mask of the Phantasm was the first of a small handful of feature-length productions done for Batman: The Animated Series (TAS), the brilliant series that followed the 1989 revival of the franchise with Tim Burton’s film. Several years down the line, Mask of the Phantasm came out. It was serious, it was mature, it was romantic, and it was tragic… in short, it was brilliant.
It was a total flop.
Why, I really don’t know… I tend to blame, as my brother does, the “ghettofication” of cartoons; the idea that animated shows aren’t suitable for adults to watch, and the PG-13 rating on this one did *not* mark it out for the kiddie audience. But I love it all the same. Now, as I watch it for probably the thousandth time, I’m going to go on about why.
Most of what makes Mask of the Phantasm work is the same thing that made TAS work in general. Beautiful art, sweeping gothic designs, and that most rarified quality in any work of mass-market fiction… maturity. It takes place in a corrupt city placed somewhere between the 20’s and the 90’s, a world trapped simultaneously in the eras of the Shadow, Doc Savage, Sam Spade, and The Punisher. That the film was even more mature than the series is what earned it that PG-13 rating… and what makes me put it at the pinnacle of Batman movies.
Spoilers shall follow.
The film opens on Chucky Sol and a bunch of other gangsters examining a shipment of counterfeits, when Batman breaks in. A firefight ensues, and Chucky escapes into the parking garage… only to be confronted by an ominous figure who announces that his ‘angel of death awaits.’ Mistaking this figure for the Batman, he opens fire, before fleeing to his car and attempting to run the man down… only to miss, running his car out the side of the parking garage.
We next meet one of Gotham’s councilmen, an anti-Batman crusader who spends his time railing against the Batman… and trying to make some moves on one Miss Andrea Beaumont, an old flame of Bruce’s.
The heart of this film, really, is the relationship between Bruce and Andrea. What we begin to discover throughout the film is that Andrea was the girl who almost made Batman never happen. Bruce and Andrea meet in the cemetery, of all places – Bruce is visiting his parents’ grave, during the months leading up to his becoming Batman. Andrea is having a conversation with her deceased mother, which turns around to be about Bruce. They begin a courtship that gradually becomes more and more serious, and is fleshed out enough that it actually feels like a real courtship. This isn’t your typical whirlwind romance – this is Bruce Wayne, before he surrenders his life to the cape and cowl, finding out that there’s more to life than pain and revenge. Granted, it moves quickly, but there’s enough there that it feels like an honest relationship more than your typical ‘love at first sight’ sequence, where the hero throws his life away for somebody he’s known all of five minutes.
Perhaps oddly, the scenes are interspersed with some of his early crimefighting capers… typically unsuccessful ones. At the same time that the Batman is being born, Bruce is beginning to waver in his conviction to the promise he made his parents.
But, as we all know, this couldn’t last. Andrea flees the country with her father, a lawyer who seems to have some shady business dealings with a few local gangsters, the very night she agrees to marry Bruce… and the next day, when Alfred tells him the bad news just after he’s come up from what will become the Batcave, it’s like fate closing the door. The next scene is Bruce donning the cowl for the first time… and Batman being born.
Now, back in the modern day, we have the “Angel of Death” continuing to hunt down mobster associates of Chucky Sol. This figure, the Phantasm, wears a large blade on one hand, and seems to generate fog everywhere he goes. Unlike Batman, he doesn’t just turn his victims over to the police when they commit a crime – he hunts them down anywhere he can find them, and he kills them, terrorizing them first. With two deaths down, one of the remaining mobsters (Sal Valestra, a liver-spotted emphysemic) goes to speak to the last of his old cronies, seeking protection….
Unfortunately, that last one happens to be the Joker.
Mask of the Phantasm’s plot works between two different extremes; the romance of the past, and the mystery of the present. The ties between the two eras are constantly harkened to, as they shift between timeframes in ways that play nicely with the similarities between them. For example, Bruce staring up at the looming portrait of his parents shifts back to his visiting their grave. His rain-soaked embrace with Andrea in the past, just after a tearful confession to his dead parents that he doesn’t have the heart to fight the way he’d promised anymore, moves to his perching alone in darkness, the iconic image of the future that came of his decision that he *would* fight. Watching Andrea go out to dinner with the Councilman, where she mentions the future, brings back their memories of going on a date to the “World of the Future” exhibit at the Gotham World’s Fair… a relic of a past they both long for, that symbolizes a future they can’t have, and that serves as the backdrop for the final battle between the Phantasm, Batman, and the final target of the Phantasm’s rampage… the Joker himself.
This is also when we discover that the Phantasm, who Bruce has persuaded himself is Andrea’s father come back for revenge and to kill the men who’ve hounded him around the world, is really Andrea. One final flashback tells us that the Joker himself was the one who hunted down her father (with the Councilman’s help), and killed him, before he was the Joker. But Andrea – and, eventually, Bruce – both recognize him yet. Eventually, everything comes to a head. The Phantasm confronts the Joker, Batman hunts her down to try and save her… and we have an epic battle between three titans, each reflecting the spectrum of Batman’s existence.
The Phantasm, aptly referred to by the Joker as “the Ghost of Christmas Future,” who represents what Batman could so easily become. The Joker, who represents sheer madness and lunacy, a Nero who laughs as his world burns around him. And Batman, a good man who walks the fine line between sanity and madness, good and evil… and who is eventually doomed to be unable to save that happy past he longed for from the dark future he lives in.
As you might imagine, Andrea supposedly dies in the final battle, along with the Joker, disappearing into the ruins of the World of the Future as it explodes, hurling Batman clear. Batman retreats to mop up what’s left of his life… only to find that somebody’s been in the Batcave, and secreted Andrea’s pendant there. Our closing shot is of Andrea, standing alone on the deck of a cruise ship, leaving Gotham and her past behind, forever.
Now, spoiler-ridden synopsis completed, let’s take a look at the main theme I like about this film.
Mask of the Phantasm is, ultimately, Batman’s version of the film noir. The major players in this drama already know the hand that fate has dealt them. The past, that place of hopes and dreams and happiness, lies in ruins. The future that once looked so bright is twisted and rusted to nothingness, the domain of madmen like the Joker. When Batman encounters Andrea and the Joker in the World of the Future, we already know what’s going to happen. There’s no other way for it to end – the future has consumed Bruce’s past, and Andrea’s. As much as you might look back longingly, you’ve got no choice but to keep going forward, sailing off into the night. The more I’ve watched this movie over the years, the more I enjoy it, and the more I pick up deeper filmic elements than you’d normally see anybody dare to put into a kid’s movie.
All of this aside though… does it justify calling this the greatest Batman film of all time? Well, I think so… but I’ll admit, I’m a little biased. So here’s what I’m gonna do.
I have a copy of this that I bought on DVD. I have *another* copy that came in a boxed set with Return of the Joker and Sub Zero, but I can’t find it just now. However, when I *do* find it… I plan on holding a little contest. The winner takes home a brand-new, unwatched copy of Mask of the Phantasm of their very own. The rules?
Honestly, I don’t know yet. But keep tuning in once in a while to find out – as soon as I know them, I’ll post them here for everybody to see. 
So, what’s in line for next week? Well, hopefully, contest guidelines.
But beyond that, and whether or not I can find my prize package, I plan on giving you all a look into my twisted little brain, as we see what I would like to see (and know I won’t) for the third movie in the Batman Begins series.
Here’s a hint. It’s got a thing or two to do with our current offering….
The Dark Knight
So… here we go. Last year’s blockbuster magnum opus, and a lot of people’s favorite film of all time. A modern film that adapts a classic superhero, taking it in a darker, edgier direction. A film that has huge special effects setpieces that I didn’t see in theatres (recurring theme for me, you’ll find out eventually.)
Did I like it?
Is the Pope Catholic?
I mean… the film’s almost perfect. It raises ethical issues, it debates them, it does so on-screen, it does so framing the answers in ways that any other film would’ve turned into an irritating piece of pedantry that needs to die so we can get to the next setpiece… and it does so enjoyably, in a way that lets you reach your own conclusions. The action setpieces are enjoyable, and the film gives us a villain who lets our darker, edgier Batman still be a hero, despite his protestations to the contrary.
The fact that the villain in question is Heath Ledger’s Joker is no small boon either, for that matter. He plays the character brilliantly – unlike the Jokers of Jack Nicholson or Mark Hamill, this isn’t an artistic genius who happens to be a psychopath. No, he’s a psychopath who happens to be an artistic genius, the perfect foil to our Batman. He can’t be beaten like most villains because he simply doesn’t play by the rules of objective sanity. Yet he understands those rules well enough to manipulate them… until his insane devotion to anarchy and destruction, and his steadfast conviction that he is right about human nature (namely, that everybody’s a bunch of animals beneath the thin veneer of reality), is his ultimate undoing.
The scene on the two ferries, where the prisoners and the “normal people” of the city are each given a button that could blow up the other ship and thereby save themselves, is incredibly well done. Now, before I discuss this further….
SPOILER ALERTS, PEOPLE!
Come on, the film’s almost a year and a half old now, maybe older, you’re telling me you haven’t seen it if you’re ever going to? I’VE seen it already!
So no whining about the spoilers.
That scene, where the people of Gotham – ‘civilized man’ and felon alike – refute the Joker’s stance on human nature is the key moment of the film. Unfortunately, it’s also the point where the film quietly starts to go off the rails, ultimately resulting in the last five minutes. To me, these last five minutes are the fatal element of the movie.
The boat scene is a classic, if large-scale, implementation of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Here’s the basic idea. Two guys are caught after robbing a store. If they both keep their mouths shut, all the police can nail them for is receiving stolen goods – because the only evidence is that they’ve got the loot in the garage. They each spend a year in the slammer, and that’s about it.
However, the police take them and put them in two separate rooms. They offer each of them a plea bargain – if they turn state’s evidence, they’ll be allowed to plea bargain the charge down so they only spend a few months in jail, and their buddy goes up the river for 10 years on a robbery charge.
However, if they both rat the other one out, the plea bargain’s taken off the table (or at least refused by the judge), and they both go up on a robbery charge for 8-10.
So, in summary:
Both shut up: 1 year in jail each. Total jail time – 2 years.
Prisoner A shuts up, B squeals: Prisoner A goes to jail for 10 years, Prisoner B goes to jail for 6 months. Total jail time – 10.5 years.
Prisoner A squeals, B shuts up: Prisoner A goes to jail for 6 months, Prisoner B goes to jail for 10 years. Total jail time – 10.5 years.
Both squeal: 8-10 years in jail each. Total jail time – 16-20.
The Prisoner’s Dilemma is this. In fear of their partner squealing on them and getting off basically scot free, the temptation to rat them out just to avoid being the only one who suffers for keeping quiet is overwhelmingly strong. The math works out so that the least desirable outcome for the pair – option D – is the one chosen, because they each squeal to avoid being the only one who goes to prison for a long sentence.
Well, the Joker does the same thing, according to his offer, but with a nasty little twist.
Neither ship presses the button – everybody dies.
Civilized people press the button felons don’t – felons die.
Civilized people don’t press the button, felons do – civilized people die.
Both press the button – everybody dies.
So, clearly, with the Joker’s added twist of inaction meaning they both die ANYWAYS, clearly they’re going to go and press the button on BOTH ships, in the hopes that they can press it before the guys on the other ship do, and get out of it alive. Not only are they trying to save their own lives, they’re protecting themselves from the people on the other ship deciding to do the same thing. The Joker rigs the scenario so he can’t possibly lose.
Well, obviously, Batman makes sure he loses. Neither ship presses the button, and Batman stops the Joker from setting them both off himself. The Joker is proven wrong – people aren’t willing to murder hundreds of people they don’t know just to protect themselves and their loved ones. Even when they can justify it by saying “they would’ve killed me otherwise – and besides, they deserved it, they were scum.” Clearly, what the Joker had hoped would happen would be that the ‘civilized men’ would blow up the felons, before he could blow them up himselves just for kicks. But he ended up not getting any explosion.
Well, how does this tie into the last 5 minutes? Here’s how.
We’ve just had this powerful scene where the Joker’s proven wrong. Then Harvey has his little psychotic episode, leaving four people dead (including Harvey). What’s the first thing that Our Heroes think of?
If we let people know that Harvey Dent, having had the worst day in the history of bad days, had himself a psychotic break and went out to murder the people he blamed for his maiming and the death of his fiancee, they’ll all go crazy and start rioting, losing all hope, because really the Joker was right and we knew it all along.
BULLSHIT!
What, do they think the people on the ships were mentally changing WWHD – What Would Harvey Do – when they decided not to blow up the other ships? I’m sorry, I liked Harvey as much as the next guy, but I think they were a little busier thinking “damnit, I can’t kill hundreds of people I don’t even know, who’ve never done anything to me, just to save my own sorry ass! I could never live with myself!”
But okay, they go ahead and undermine one of the most powerful scenes in the film by doing this. That’s fine, I’ve seen that sort of thing before, they just weren’t really thinking. So they’ll go ahead and cover up Harvey’s murderous rampage by blaming -
I’m sorry about that, I had to go out and use the DVD for skeet shooting practice. Fortunately, I’m a lousy shot, so I managed to miss. Allow me to explain.
Here’s the situation. We have Harvey Dent, one of the two most beloved figures in Gotham, lying dead on the ground. We need to explain this, and the three other deaths (though Gordon seems convinced it’s five – I count 4, maybe I missed somebody. But one of the two rogue cops lived, dammit!) We have decided to throw out the moral of our story by covering up this death, rationalizing it as too big a blow for the people of Gotham to withstand sanely. So, we’re going to blame Harvey’s death, and the deaths of three four other people on somebody else.
Ah, but who to blame? Who’s our patsy?
Let’s take a look at contestant number one, Gordy. Contestant number one is a tall, dark, handsome, mysterious man who likes to go out and night and beat the living shit out of wrongdoers. His hobby has earned him the ire of organized crime, but the love of the people, to the point where many people in the city actually imitate his lesson, adopting him as a symbol of resistance to the criminal underworld. Sure, he’s conflicted about his role in all of this, and about how people are idolizing him, but this is the second time we’ve seen him save the city from massive chaos and ruin, and no amount of self-recriminating angst is going to change that.
Contestant number two is a psychotic criminal madman who likes to dress up in clown makeup, tell widely varying stories about how he got his scars, and frighten small children – by making their mothers decide which of them he drops off a high rise apartment building. He actually caused Harvey Dent’s little psychotic episode, created havoc throughout the city and – OH YEAH! – he tried to murder the mayor, nearly killing you in the process! The city hates him with the white-hot fury of a thousand firey suns, and would like nothing better than to see him strung up from the streetlights by his testes.
Every streetlight.
At the same time.
Preferably during the convergence both the International Pinata Breaker’s Conference and the Federation of Spiked Cattle-Prod Lovers Reunion Ball.
You get to chose which of these men is blamed with the death of the other hero of the city who – don’t forget – tried to murder your wife and child before your very eyes, forcing you to tell your son everything was going to be okay practically as he pulled the trigger to blow his little bitty brains out (boy, aren’t you glad that Contestant #1 had captured Contestant #2 to put him in jail in time to save your son’s life?)
So, who do you pick, to become the reviled target of all hatred and fury within the city?
You picked… Contestant #1.
WHAT THE F$#% IS WRONG WITH YOU, GORDON?!?
Yes, I know, it was Batman’s idea. But you’re telling me that NEITHER of these very intelligent people thought to blame the freakin’ JOKER for Harvey’s rampage? You’ve gotta be kidding me! Sure, Batman’s filled with reflexive self-loathing and angst, made all the worse by the deaths of people at the hands of the Joker when he didn’t unmask and turn himself in, and further complicated by questionable ethical choices made in his efforts to capture the Joker. I could see Batman coming up with this sort of hare-brained idiot idea, thanks to his rampant martyr complex! But GORDON! For the love of God, Gordon, you’re AGREEING that it’s a better idea to blame the man who just saved your goddammed son’s LIFE for this fiasco than the man who actually CAUSED it?!?
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, GORDON?!?
The only way this scene makes sense is if it had actually played out like this:
Gordon: “We can’t tell people what actually happened… if they find out that Harvey Dent murdered four people, they’ll break! The Joker wins.”
Batman: “So tell them I did it.”
G: “Well, I suppose that’s not too hard, after all, time of death is approximate at best, we could say he did all this before you – hold on, did you just say to tell them you did it? Did you take a harder hit to the head in that fall than I thought?”
B: We need to let the people keep their hero.”
G: “Uhm… yeah, exactly. You know, I’d been thinking that maybe we’d blame the homicidal maniac for this. By the way, I just remembered, one of those rogue cops was only cold-cocked, not killed, she’ll be fine until IA gets started reaming her a new asshole, so it’s only three, not four. And we kinda already have a homicidal maniac to blame this on. I know it’s trendy for guys in costumes like that to be all dark and brooding, but have you even considered what would happen to the people of the city if we blame you? Not only will they lose one of their heroes – ’cause, y’know, he’s dead and all, by the way, thanks for not letting him murder my son – but they’ll think that their other hero apparently had a psychotic break of his own and murdered three people before killing their first hero! Seeing as the goal of all of this is to not convince the citizenry that all hope is lost, heroes are nothing more than fragile myths, and darkness truly reigns over Gotham, despite the fact that it sometimes seems otherwise, maybe it would be a good idea to make sure they do still have a hero?”
B: “But they will. A real hero. Harvey Dent, he’s the real hero. I’m no hero.”
G: “Yes. Because clearly the real hero is the man who had a psychotic episode and tried to murder a 10 year old boy while forcing his father to tell him everything was going to be all right. And the guy who saved the ten year old boy – and stopped the homicidal maniac from blowing up two ferries carrying hundreds of people – isn’t a hero at all.”
B: “Exactly, I’m glad you see it my way.”
G: “Tell me, just how do you manage to fight crime like that, while clearly tripping out on enough LSD to make MK Ultra look like a high school chemistry experiment?”
B: “I’ve done horrible things, Gordon. I’ve violated the right to privacy of every individual in this city. I bludgeoned the Joker to the point where he finally gave me the info on where to find Harvey and Rachael – and he gave me the wrong info, so I couldn’t save Rachael myself.”
G: “Yeah. Because he’d been planning on doing that from the word go. And by violating that right to privacy, you captured the Joker – oh, and kept my men from MURDERING SEVERAL DOZEN INNOCENT PEOPLE. Thanks for that too, by the way, I forgot to mention that because I was too busy being grateful you kept my son breathing.”
B: “Gordon?”
G: “Yes?”
B: “Stop being reasonable, dammit! Do I look like a reasonable man to you?!?”
G, after considering the clearly psychotic man in the bat costume: “Okay, you’ve got a point. But really, they can do wonderful things with drugs these days, you don’t have to go out and martyr yourself for a city that will actually suffer more for your martyrdom than it would if we took the easy way out.”
B: *icy stare that somehow manages to come across with Christian-Bale gruffness*
G: “Right, right, start running, I’ll make an inspirational semi-philosophical explanation to my son that subtly communicates the message that heroes can’t possibly actually be appreciated for being heroes while we montage a police manhunt for the one real hero left in this city.”
B: “Thank you.”
G: “God, why do all the people in this city willing to fight crime have a f’ing Christ complex except me?” *mutters and goes off to phone in the orders*
Really, it’s a lousy scene, but at least it doesn’t make them BOTH look like freakin’ idiots!
All that ranting aside though, I still love this movie. Honest, I do. It’s because I love the rest of the movie that the last five minutes are so goddamn painful to me. It’s like eating a delicious, juicy prime rib only to find out that the last bite is somehow rancid – the entire meal is tainted with the knowledge that there was something rotten in it.
Next up? My take on what I consider the greatest Batman film of all time.
Mask of the Phantasm.
Got to see this one….
Chihuanhas Poster
Ladies and gentlemen? How could this film not be adorably bad?
Chihuahua/Pirahna hybrids, let loose to munch on summering tourists and such. I’ll be waiting for the DVD eagerly.
Discussion: Ghost Rider
Ghost Rider’s been out for some time now, and the film itself is widely disliked, rather like most Nicholas Cage movies. However, whether it was Cage or anybody else… that film was going to be a disappointment, with the script it had. Why?
Well, that’s the subject of today’s discussion.
You see, I’m not a die-hard Ghost Rider fan, but he *is* one of my favorite Marvel heroes. And it’s my opinion that the place the movie went wrong wasn’t in casting, but in its very core – the film lost track entirely of what Ghost Rider was, in the translation to big studio film. They morally whitewash the character of Johnny Blaze… and Ghost Rider, which is *really* f’ed up.
In the comics (at least the ones I’m familiar with), Johnny Blaze engages in occult ritual to summon the devil on a lark. He’s saved with an associate (friend? sister? I can’t remember off-hand) comes in with a banishing ritual. However, he still gets bound with Zarathos, Demon of ‘Justice’, who occasionally comes out as Ghost Rider. Now, this might sound like what happens in the movie, except…
Well, except it’s not at all what happens in the movie.
In the movie, Our Hero finds out his Dad has cancer, and meets the devil and is offered a chance to cure his father’s cancer in exchange for his immortal soul. Does he accept? Well… no, he doesn’t. Instead, when he opens the contract he’s given, he’s pricked by a hidden needle, his blood falls on the contract, and the devil says “ha! Gotcha!” and walks off. His Dad’s cancer is cured, just in time for him to die a hideous testosterone-related demise as stunt bike riders are prone to doing every once in a while. Johnny rides off into the rain, leaving his girlfriend behind, because the Devil comes around and says “hey, sure, you didn’t willingly agree to my contract, and I totally gipped your ass on the deal, but what can I say? I’m the devil. I own your ass!”
We come back some years later, to find Johnny is the new Evel Knievel, aided by the fact that Old Scratch won’t let him die. Being Nick Cage, he’s a particularly erudite stunt biker, but that actually does make *some* sense given what he did in the comic (typically, one doesn’t get to summon the devil by being a complete moron… having a complete lack of common sense, yeah, but not by being a complete moron). Assorted Cliche Plot Elements happen (including running into that old girlfriend of his, who’s a little ticked at him for some reason… oh yeah! Abandoned her at the elopment, for some reason that upset her… women!)
And then the devil’s son comes up, apparently trying to get his hands on some unfulfilled contract of the devil’s that we heard about, and he’s got Random Elemental Demons with him to help him get these. Well, the devil’s ticked off, because his son’s talking about basically taking over after he gets this super contract. So he calls in his marker with Johnny, making *him* his new Ghost Rider and sending him out after his kid.
And we get to see Ghost Rider in action for a while. He brain-fries a mugger – which is actually something I find pretty damned well done. You see, Ghost Rider’s big powers are:
1: He can summon a bike made of Hellfire whenever he wants, and do impossible things with it.
2: He can manipulate Hellfire to create chains and other biker weapons.
3: The Penance Stare (AKA: The Puppy Dog Eyes of Doom)
Despite the derisive moniker some in my family have for it (myself included), the Penance Stare is Ghost Rider’s big gun power. You know what I mean – that power that, when the chips are down, he can trot out that will solve pretty much anything. For the Flash, it’s running faster than light. For Wonder Woman, it’s her magic lasso. For Batman, it’s the Random Gadget of the Week. For Superman, it’s spinning around something until something else happens (seriously folks – reversing time by spinning the Earth backwards?)
For Ghost Rider, it’s the Penance Stare, which allows him to fulfill his role as Demon of Justice by taking a soul and inflicting every ounce of pain and emotional suffering that soul has caused through their wrongdoing. This is also where the whitewashing of Johnny Blaze, and Ghost Rider, is complete, but more on that later.
The Penance Stare is the power that allowed Ghost Rider to singlehandedly whup Galactus’ ass, and would have killed the Purple Planet Eater if not for Reed Richards having an attack of idealism. So this power is pretty impressive in scope, and deserves to be treated well… and it is. When he unleashes it on somebody, we get a brief trip into their mind, as they flash back to their past crimes. They don’t use it often in the movie, because it has to be tailored to the victim, but it’s well done in that they *did* tailor it to the victim. Experiencing all of this pain, torment, and guilt tends to reduce people to shattered wrecks of their former selves; the soul is burned out by what they’ve done.
Now, back to that whitewashing bit.
The Penance Stare is what makes Ghost Rider more than just Johnny Storm in leathers. Ghost Rider could kick anybody’s ass with his other powers, but the Penance Stare discriminates between good guys and bad… sort of. Mother Theresa? She’d be *fine*, presumably. Charlie Manson? Oh if *only* that would happen to the asshole.
Your Uncle Tony who, while being a generally nice guy, had a hit and run incident back when he was in High School that resulted in somebody being killed, but has become a pillar of society since then, turning his life around and becoming a genuinely good person despite that one fatal mistake in their past?
Sorry, Unc, you’re screwed.
That’s what makes Ghost Rider a real, honest-to-God curse for Johnny Blaze. Marvel has a great history of flawed heroes. The Fantastic Four often bicker, and The Thing angsts over being tall orange and rocky all the time. Namor has a chip on his shoulder the size of a small Buick. The XMen are hated by society for being what they are. The Hulk is a radioactive monstrosity that tends to go nuts and kill people every once in a while. Spider Man has a self-imposed aura of despair that he carries around all the time, stemming back to his failure to stop a robbery that resulted in his uncle’s death.
Ghost Rider? Ghost Rider, by his very nature, is a demon. He’s a demon who fights bad guys… but he’s still a demon. He doesn’t discriminate between “good person who did something bad in the past” and “nasty asshole who needs to die.” Either way, your soul will fry if he gets his hands on you. And Johnny, being human and capable of weighing things like that on a moral scale, really doesn’t like it… especially when otherwise good people he knows are turned into burned out wrecks by Ghost Rider because they made a mistake. And, unlike the Hulk (otherwise his closest spiritual ‘mate’ in the Marvel canon), Ghost Rider does this with conscious intent, not just because he’s got the rage control ability of your average two year old on steroids.
And Johnny Can’t Stop It.
In the movie? Well, Ghost Rider only comes across bad people who’ve done bad things, not good people. Now, let’s watch a little scene from the film, shall we?
This is the “Ghost Rider Goes Nuts” scene in the film. Notice anything in the jail there?
1: All the people in the cell, except for one black kid, are white rednecks.
2: The black kid is the only one who comes to Johnny’s defense. The rednecks all go to beat the snot out of him, apparently because he’s not dead. Go figure.
3: The combined evil in the cell is enough to force Ghost Rider out, and the implication is that he pretty well goes to town on everybody in the cell… except the one person in it who was nice to him, the black kid.
What implications can we take from this?
1: White people who end up in jail, or at least white redneck people who do, are all there because they’ve done Horrible Horrible Things.
2: Black people who end up in jail are actually good people who just got a bad rap.
3: Ghost Rider only hurts bad people.
You might think I’m reading too much into it, but why put that one token minority in the cell if you *weren’t* trying to make points 1 and 2? Because it’s not an authentic jail if you don’t have a poor black kid chucked in there for the crime of being black?
More importantly, from the perspective of being familiar with Ghost Rider… this was their best chance in the movie to show why Johnny Blaze really wants out. If the one person who was nice to him, rather than just happening to be an innocent, was actually in there because he’d been involved in some sort of gang activity (for example), you could still have a popular “good guy” character type (the banger who really isn’t a bad guy and who’ll get out of it later on), but who would be on Ghost Rider’s hit list… and *that* would have driven home, in one scene, why it’s a Bad Thing to be the Ghost Rider.
If you don’t want to risk portraying a black person as a gang banger, then fine, cast a white kid.
Ultimately, they had their chance to show why it is that Blaze would want out… and they blew it. Instead, they turned Ghost Rider into a generic angsty superhero. “Oh, woe is me, I have phenomenal superpowers and a conscience – my life must suck, because otherwise I wouldn’t be teaching the Great Lesson that one must surrender his happiness in order to do good things, thereby subtly suggesting that regular people don’t have the stones to do good things.”
That’s not Ghost Rider, ladies and gentlemen. That’s Spider Man with a different powerset.
Anyways, the rest of the movie happens… and yeah, it just sorta happens. He meets another Ghost Rider, they go hunting for the devil’s son, said guy proves that he can’t be hurt by Ghost Rider’s penance stare because he doesn’t have a soul, the devil’s son gets his mits on the contract, cashes it in, and accepts the souls of an entire city soaked in sin into himself, and Ghost Rider whups his ass with the Penance Stare, since he’s just absorbed a thousand sin-soaked souls.
Ghost Rider proceeds to ride off, leaving his girlfriend behind, and telling the devil that he’s going to fight him every chance he gets. Because the devil doesn’t own him, since he’s a good guy…
EXACTLY!!!
They totally whitewashed Johnny Blaze morally! Since he didn’t agree to this, even if Ghost Rider was a badass who hurt good people for being guilty, it’s not really his fault! It would be like blaming a lunatic’s estranged brother for the lunatic’s crimes – he’s only related to him by the purest of accidents of fate and genetics, he couldn’t control this if he wanted to at any point in the chain of events!
Further, I really think that old Scratch was a little paranoid about his kid. Think about it – his son absorbs the souls of a thousand sinners, and he’s supposed to have the power to conquer Hell, or the Earth, or where-the-f@#$-ever?
Excuse me, over the course of ALL HISTORY, how many souls has the Devil collected, do you think? Sure, maybe they’re not as high a quality, but I should think that he’s probably managed to score well over a thousand or so mass murderers, sadists, sexual psychopaths, and generally Bad People over the eons… Hell, just after the Third Reich came grinding to a halt!
What, you’re going to tell me that the evil that one city committed over the course of a few years (at most) outweighs ALL THE EVIL IN HUMAN HISTORY?!? I don’t think so!
But even then, I’d have been able to accept that as the plot (Hell, I didn’t even really think about that element until I was writing this), if they hadn’t polished Ghost Rider to a nice shiny gleam that makes him a superhero, instead of an anti-hero. Because that’s something Ghost Rider was never meant to be.
Oh, and the techno version of Ghost Riders in the Sky? My ears still bleed when I hear that starting up.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go listen to Johnny Cash’s version of the song, which I still think is the best one out there.
Top 5 Films that Should be Remade
Everybody’s been screaming about Hollywood remakes lately – and who can blame them. If it’s not a remake, it’s a re-imagining, a revamp, or just generally disappointing. It seems there’s nothing new under the sun (District 9 politely excepted), and that every beloved film from your past is vulnerable to being mauled by the current studio heads (for example – who would have thought that they’d (1) remake Look Who’s Coming to Dinner and (2) remake it as an Angry Black Man comedy?)
While vast amounts of virtual ink and vitriol has been expended to try convincing Hollywood to give up the remake, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s unavoidable – we’ve had remakes since the 1920’s, and all we can really do is hunker in and maybe try to nudge Hollywood towards films that should be remade. With that in mind… my list of ten films that Hollywood should consider churning out again, and why.
First off, what do I use as criteria? I don’t look at whether or not the film can be ‘improved’ by Hollywood – often, classic films are classic because there are elements that can’t be improved on, or can’t be recreated. You can’t get Roddy McDowall back. You can’t get Peter Lorre. You can’t get Boris Karloff or Vincent Price.
Instead, I look at the potential for new technology – and new social standards – to bring out elements of the original that were underplayed. Not downplayed – many films (like Jaws) benefit vastly from downplaying the FX. However, other films (like my #1 pick) have underplayed elements that really ought to be key – be that gore, sex, or social issues that simply weren’t acceptable to address in the original time frame.
With that in mind, let’s get this show on the road.
Brief Summary: Four people go into a haunted house, hoping to find proof of the supernatural for their wealthy patron. Over the course of a week, the central haunting force rips them apart, before concluding in a mass attack to destroy them all.
Why a Remake? Folks who know me will probably be picking their jaws up off the floor to see this one. I adore this film, as everybody knows. But I also adore the book, as I’ve admitted in my discussion of Hell House on this very blog. In the 70’s, the British film simply couldn’t play out all the gore and sexual elements of the novel, and a modern remake could get away with bringing up much more in the way of the elements that made the novel so horrifying. However, don’t focus entirely on the gore and sexuality – focus more on Mrs. Barrett, and her issues. That was, after all, the primary focus of the novel. Casting moves – I’d replace Roddy McDowall (God, that hurts to say, but it’s necessary – the man’s dead, and I have to accept that) with Robert Downey Jr. He’s got the potential to play the trouble character that Fischer really needs, and the quirky side that implies a trip through mental breakdown and alcoholism. Plus, giving him only a handful of big scenes would help keep him from overpowering the other characters too much.
4: The Shadow
Summary: Leading a small army of agents of people he’s helped, the Shadow fights crime with the power to cloud men’s minds….
Why a Remake? Because the original film, while enjoyable on a basic level if you quietly ignore the original source material, needs to be expunged from the memory of mankind and replaced with the real thing. Drop the origin story, put the Shadow in at his roughest – I recommend Crime Nation era. In the post-Batman Begins world, we can hopefully convince them to go with the original Shadow, who’d have been more at home with Bale’s Batman than with Clooney’s (rather more the model they went with, sadly.)
Summary: Not Night of the Demons, the singular. This film is a classic version of M.R. James’ Casting the Runes – read it, love it, watch it.
Why a Remake? Mostly to bring James’ work back into the public consciousness. The movie doesn’t need a remake, but it could be done pretty well, especially if you put in a director and screenwriter who can handle the slow burn tension of it all. Best of all, in a post-Omen, post-Final Destination world, there’s a chance that you could get away with going back to the original view of the monster, which raised the question of if it was actually a physical being, or if it was merely the gnawing terror of knowing you were doomed to die in 30 days that led to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
2: The Beast with Five Fingers (Sadly unavailable on DVD)
Summary: In Victorian Italy, a one-handed pianist passes away, leaving his fortune to the young nurse he’s fallen in love with. His conniving family shows up, hoping to claim said fortune, and generally make themselves obnoxious, particularly to Hillary, the secretary played brilliantly by Peter Lorre. But when the people conspiring against our heroine start passing away, is it a human agent at play? Or has the iron-willed pianist come back, in the form of his one functioning hand, out to see that his wishes are fulfilled?
Why a Remake? Honestly, it hurts me to put this one on the list. However, the story hasn’t been seen in decades, and a remake would let us excise the horrible coda where the comic Italian policeman explains everything. More importantly though, a remake would just about force them to finally put the original out on DVD, so I can watch it at my leisure….
1: Werewolf in a Girl’s Dormitory
Summary: In a German reformatory school for delinquent girls, wolves seem to be attacking the girls… but does our wolf walk on two legs? If so, who is it – the school’s chief backer? His wife and her hounds? The mysterious new professor? Or perhaps our ersatz Peter Lorre groundskeeper?
Why a Remake? Come on, folks, doesn’t the title say it all? The original was a bloodless, tame German film that had the sensibilities of the 50’s. It begs to be remade with all the tacky CGI gore effects and T&A that can be crammed in, with all the lack of subtlety that Hollywood is so very, very good at these days. Would the result be any better than the original? Well, no, probably not (not that it has to aim very high to manage it). But that title, man! It begs to be made as a proper piece of exploitation crap, rather than merely pseudo-gothic Z-reel crap.
Evony
Evony… probably one of the most advertised free online games out there, honestly. I play this one as Lord Wolfemann on Server 7, at the moment, and figured it was about time to write up my thoughts on it, since I’ve been in the game for a couple months now.
First off, let’s get the most obvious rough point out of the way. Evony currently has one of the most misleading ad campaigns you could ever ask for, I’m sorry to say. Constant web ads imply a romantic medieval setting, with some semblance of plot, romance, and intrigue… and none of that is currently in the game. There may be intention to add it to Age 2, and I sincerely hope that’s the case, but Age 1 is much more like a game of Civilization than Defender of the Crown.
That said… it *is* a fair amount like a game of Civilization. You start out with several ‘quests’ that step you through how to play the game, serving as a very comprehensive tutorial. You build structures, research technologies, recruit heroes to enhance your abilities, and train troops to send out so you can conquer valleys to enhance your resource production and conquer cities. As you go along, you collect medals for your conquests and use those to help build up your rank, and reward your heroes for their service. Through all of this, you build up your prestige and ranking within the game.
From the perspective of the 330th-ranked (roughly) player on Server 7, the early stages of Evony are the most fun. You’ve got a clear idea of what you’re supposed to be doing, and you’ve always got something you’re supposed to be doing. As you go along, technologies become more powerful, units take longer to build, and some of the buildings literally require days or weeks to finish processing. However, you still have good reason to check in every day – the game grants a free spin on the Wheel of Fortune (also referred to as the Resource Wheel) every day, as long as you check in to collect the amulet you receive from the Daily Gift quest. Since the prizes can be worth a small fortune in game coins, it’s well worth checking in.
And that brings us to the economics of the game. You can play Evony without ever putting a penny into the game – when they say “free forever,” they seem to mean it. However, if you want, you can plop down your cash to purchase Game Coins that can be used to purchase in-game items that will do anything from improving your production to moving your cities to allowing you to fully upgrade buildings to Level 10. But you don’t need to spend anything in order to make it up to Level 10 – you get one free item to let you upgrade from quests, and they show up on the Resource Wheel periodically too.
However, if you do decide to invest in the game, you’ll find that you have several options. There’s the quick one – shell out $30, and you get 300 in-game cents (typically along with a bonus package that’s worth about 500 cents and includes many of the high-demand items right there). And there’s the Evony Rewards program, that lets you invest a smaller amount (between $10 and $200) in the game and subscribe to receive in-game funds gradually for the next four months or so, which ultimately works out to a much higher investment (about 4-5 times the amount you get for a straight purchase, spread out over 15 weeks.)
As the fact that I’ve been involved in the game for several months now proves, Evony definitely has a good amount of staying power. If there’s one real problem with it, it’s that after a certain period of time the game runs out of things to do besides attempting to conquer your neighbors, or defending yourself against the neighbors trying to conquer you. If they work in the plot elements their ads promise, Evony’s going to find itself with some serious potential for long-term gameplay and an even larger community than it has. It’ll also help the game retain players, since it’ll give the “old folks” more to do than pick on smaller alliances and players, which often ends up driving good players either off of servers or out of the game entirely.
All in all, I have to give Evony a positive verdict – check it out, and drop me a line if you end up playing on Server 7. I’ll be glad to show you the ropes – or at least introduce you to folks who can.
