So close as I can tell, Hollywood doesn't really like doing superhero movies. Back when I reviewed Transformers, and, for that matter, back when I reviewed Knight Rider, I pointed out that the Transformers and KITT both came off more as props than as characters. What Hollywood is interested in is characters and situations, and superheroism is really just a category of special effect. Consider a movie about two former lovers who meet again in the midst of dangerous circumstances, and there's a corporate sellout who is antagonistic. This movie has special effects. Now, if those special effects are a dude in tights flying, the movie is Superman Returns. If the effects are a tornado, it's Twister. Okay, that's not the best example, but you get the idea. Far as Hollywood is concerned, superheroism isn't what the story is about; it's just a framing device for the special effects. (Now, this can be contrasted with the martial arts genre, as I've also seen The Forbidden Kingdom recently. There's a movie where being capable of chi-magic is not simply a prop, but is really what the story is all about. Now, I thought it felt a bit silly, but maybe that's just because I've been trained by Hollywood) They don't want you to think in terms of "It's a movie about a giant monster" or "It's a movie about giant robots" or "It's a show about a talking car." Cloverfield was a movie about young, frightened people surviving a disaster in New York, and it had a giant monster in it. Transformers is a movie about a dorky boy and a hot girl surviving a disaster in middle America, and it has giant robots in it. Knight Rider is a story about a reckless womanizer learning responsibility while protecting a former lover from evil mercenaries, and it's got a talking car in it.

Iron Man is a story about a hard-drinking, womanizing arms-manufacturer, who is forced to come to terms with the fact that there are indeed negative repercussions to selling dearly weapons after he is gravely wounded. And it's got a flying armored war-suit in it.

Iron Man
2008, Robert Downey Jr., Jeff Bridges

Anyway, hit the jump for the spoilers, but even if you don't, if you've somehow managed to avoid knowing this: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STAY UNTIL THE END OF THE CREDITS.

Continue reading "I AM IRON MAN" »

Aww. My wife and infant child look so cute and loveable and carefree as I am about to back over them with my SUV

Not too long ago, I found a pile of digital camera pictures from some time back. Today, I'd like to juxtapose two that I took at the National Aquarium in Baltimore on or around the beginning of November, 2006.

This is a little funny, because here's an adventurous outdoorsman in a playset with a bunch of wild animals, and look: his arm's missing. O for fun. Now, look at what was directly under it:

When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you

…Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.

I don't even need to summarize. "Science leads to killing people."

Someone disagrees (emphasis mine):

I hereby offer a few suggestions on how we can ruin American competitiveness and innovation in the course of this century:

Elevate mysticism, tribalism, shamanism and fundamentalism--and be sure to exclude educated, hardworking men and women--to an equal status with technology in the public mind. Make sure that, in order to pay proper (and politically correct) respect to all different ethnic groups in America, you act as if science were on an equal footing with voodoo and history with ethnic fable.
...

Ben Stein wants to kill American competitiveness.

I think it's our turn to use everyone's favorite right-wing mudsling:
Ben Stein, why do you hate America?