Scott Pilgrim vs The World: An Epic Review of Epic Epicness

At last, I got to see Scott Pilgrim vs The World! I only say "at last" because in a normal world, I would've been at the midnight show. Probably would've seen it twice opening weekend, too, in that normal world. I saw it Sunday, and again Tuesday night. I want to see it more, but no one wants to hire me so I don't have money.

This'll be spoiler-free, too. Scott Pilgrim isn't like Inception where you have to know how it ends to have a legit conversation.

Barely negative first:

Ramona can come off a tad cold. It's a stark contrast to her jokey/flirty graphic novel counterpart. I don't get the feeling she's really into Scott until Ex #3. Maybe a bit before, actually. Which makes me question why he's fighting all these guys for a girl that's only showing mild interest. Really, I want more time for these two. We, the audience, deserve to see them fall for each other. It's cliché, but it raises the stakes. And everyone loves a cutesy montage of time spent together, amiright? No? Just me? Whatever. More screen time would've alleviated this fan's minor hang-up. Emphasis on minor (I didn't want to put it in caps because then it looks MAJOR, which it isn't).

The graphic novels take place over the course of a year or so. The movie, around a month. The way we tell is Ramona's hair (she changes the color every week and a half; that revelation leads to a hilarious over-reaction by Scott). It's easy to follow. Except in one instance: I have no idea how much time passes between the battle of Exes 5 & 6 and the final showdown. Maybe after another viewing it'll be clear. But this is a nitpick, not a problem like Super Mario 2 being a dream. Editor's/Writer's Note: After the second viewing, still confused about the time. Once again, minor issue.

Something's clicked in the last year or so. Michael Cera went from being funny, to good, to tolerable, to annoying. For me, it's complicated. I love him as George Michael on Arrested Development and Superbad is one of the best comedies of the 2000s. But there's a stigma that's been following him around. His range, it seems, is limited to awkward, nervous guy. Which Scott Pilgrim can be. But reading the graphic novels, it also felt like there was a force-field around Scott—it either drew you in, like Knives Chau, or repelled you, like Julie Powers. It lent itself to him being self-absorbed. And I didn't get that from the Michael Cera-Scott Pilgrim. (The force-field, I mean. He did self-absorbed very well.) Maybe it's because he's such a small physical presence. It might come off as an odd gripe, but he looks really young/small. Especially next to Chris Evans and Brandon Routh. Even next to Jason Schwartzman. Hell, I think Mary Elizabeth Winstead has wider shoulders than him. It irks me and at times, distracted me. But he plays Scott well—he really does. Parts of my brain are still battling each other over this. Mind you, it's certainly possible that I've missed a crucial element: Scott Pilgrim is supposed to be physically unimposing. But I don't get that feeling because it's never mentioned. Or even hinted at. Ahh! (Real Monsters!) I just don't know how to feel about it, even after viewing numero 2.

Finally, and this is a bitchy point: The trailers revealed too many jokes. Way too many. This isn't a mark against the movie, really. I'm just a fan of "less is more" when releasing a trailer.

Now the good!

As folks ought to know by now, video games and comics are the heavy influences here. Comics are like the gateway visual to the harder, video game visuals. Best of all, friends, it works! The screen splits into panels. We see character names and tidbits (Name: Scott Pilgrim, Age: 22, Rating: Awesome). Silver Age sound effects come out of combat (Bam! Pow! Thwack! etc). Sound gets squiggly lines. It's good stuff. But Scott Pilgrim vs The World pulled the most from video games. Points appear after Scott defeats enemies or does something heroic. He grabs a 1-Up. Enemies leave behind coins after defeat. Bars measure remaining life, or bladder levels. Combos, KOs, team-ups, etc. all get accurate graphics. Undeniably genius. It's integrated to the point where you don't notice it after the first big fight (there is a period of adjustment. This is NOT a typical movie). Coming from a gaming background, I loved it (couldn't tell?). It makes me want to pull out the old Nintendo, which Cindy has down in Austin. Sad face x 10. The creativity shown here is stunning.

Not everything is super in-your-face. A lot is, and I'm really glad Edgar Wright did NOT do the 3-D conversion (3-D is not a future of film I'm excited about). Subtlety abounds and those paying attention will get extra laughs. But I'll give you some things to look for: Wallace has his initials embroidered on shirts and cuffs. Watch Scott's head anytime his hair is mentioned. At one point, Scott's bass explodes. Chuckle at it's reappearance. Ramona's clothes and bag will match her hair. During a conversation, the characters can go through 3+ locations. It's flawless really, and it might even go unnoticed if you aren't looking for it. Also, when on the bus with Ramona, the streetlights on her side are heart-shaped. It's hard to spot, but if you have a keen eye, you can pick it out. I'm looking forward to wearing out my pause and rewind buttons. Editor's/Writer's Note: Pay attention to the opening credits. Each actor's name is accompanied by drawings relating to their character. Neat!

The soundtrack is incredible: Beck stands in as Sex Bob-Omb, Metric as The Clash at Demonhead, and Broken Social Scene as Crash and the Boys. Brillance! Seriously, The Clash at Demonhead scene...It makes me want to buy a ticket for their concert. It scares me that the original script didn't have any music scenes in me, because it became almost as integral a part of the story as comics and video games. Sex Bob-Omb has the charm of your above-average garage band (Another Day, anyone?) and a catchy sound despite ridiculous lyrics. Crash and the Boys, well, I don't want to spoil anything about them, so the less said, the better (get it?!).  We've got a horribly appropriate Rolling Stones song thrown in for good measure, too. The score is littered with 8-bit era sounds and shout-outs to games of yore. It's rich and funny: There are send-ups of action movie music (shoelaces have never been so compelling) and a particular sitcom, too. I make no guarantees since I'm broke, but this is the type of music I'd go out of my to buy.

In one of the short behind-the-scenes features from the interactive trailer, Edgar Wright mentioned that the fight scenes were like dance numbers in musicals—for 3 minutes, everyone is involved in this giant routine, and when it's done, no one questions how everyone knew the dance steps and lyrics. That in mind, Scott Pilgrim vs The World fits into the musical mold (along with the comic book mold and video game mold—naming a genre for this movie will be a bitch). Just like in the graphic novels, the fights were as normal as blowing in a Nintendo cartridge. Treating them without any sort of mystique makes it easier for the audience to accept them. The fights are more than just battles, too; they're stories themselves. We learn about the person Ramona was, and how resourceful/ingenious/lucky Scott can be. They move the plot forward and give us the best scenes between Ramona and Scott. They're also badass. They had two of the best fight choreographers on set and it shows. There's moments where Michael Cera looks surprised at where a hit is coming from and that helps keep things looking super staged. Each fight had a distinct feel and they each stand out. That's no easy feat. Can you tell the difference between any of Rocky's fights, without relying on his opponent? No? You can here. (OK, that's a mostly unfair comparison, since boxing is, well, boxing. But you get the point.)

I've mentioned a lot about Scott and Ramona. Michael Cera is an effective Scott. Mary Elizabeth Winstead wears Ramona well, even if I want more. The story may be about them, but they are far from all there is. There's all 7 of the Evil Exes. There's Wallace, and Stacey, and Stephen Stills and Kim, Knives and Young Neil. With the exception of the twins, the Exes chew up scenery like a T-Rex on Donald Gennaro (65,000,000 points for getting the reference. Another 65,000,000 points for getting the points reference. But only the first points. If you add the two, it's just a really big number with no significance). Chris Evans was obviously having a blast. He was also doing his best Batman impression with that voice. Same with Brandon Routh (it looked like they shot him so he didn't tower over everyone else). He played grammatically challenged very convincingly. These two guys turned it up to 11. Arrested Development fans will get a kick out of watching Ann (her?) kick the crap out of George Michael. Her exit is something to behold, too. Satya Bhabha played Matthew Patel with such absurdity. You need to see his entire routine to believe it. Ellen Wong as Knives—this poor girl. Infatuation must be second nature to her (or maybe she's just...acting!). The bandmates were spittin' images of their graphic novel counterparts. Mark Webber as Stephen Stills carried the neuroticism and one-track mind humorously and without getting annoying. Kim was a bit more dead-pan than I expected, but it works. You see a lot under the surface, and I wish they had been given time to really explore her and Scott's history, because it's complicated and helps develop both characters. Kieran Culkin (Wallace) stole his scenes. He took them from Michael Cera and refused to let go, until he disappeared in the third act (mostly). Jason Schwartzman was so smarmy, you wanted to punch him in the face and be him, but not at the same time. He secreted douche bag with every little thing he did. Amazing job. It's so rare that everyone in a giant ensemble pulls their weight, but it happened here.

Some of the reviews I've read, well, they missed something. A bunch of critics mentioned Scott being a jerk. They say this in a bad way, asking why he's the hero and why we should root for him. That's the point. At least part of it. Scott's an asshole. Scott broke Kim's heart and Knives' heart, and probably other hearts. He did this without really thinking about the girls or their feelings. Each of us has been there (replace girls with boys when appropriate, unless you lady readers had a "sexy phase"). He's sometimes oblivious and self-absorbed. To say that you have never achieved either of those statuses would be denial. Scott reflects his audience. He makes the mistakes of a 22-year-old. And I think the audience appreciates that. We like flaws. A flawed character has a more satisfying redemption than the clean cut guy. Look at how popular Wolverine and Batman have become the last few years, especially in comparison to the last Superman movie (which I like and own!). At the moment, the not-so-hero has become the hero. Scott isn't a Superman. But we're never led to believe he is. Instead, he's human, with all the messy intricacies that entails.

As Ramona accurately states, "We all have baggage." That's the other point of the movie. In some way or another, we all struggle with the past. We carry it around with us (that's why it's called baggage!) and sometimes we drop it at the feet of a significant other, and sometimes they rifle through it. Sometimes it forms a League of Evil Exes and tries to control your love life and keep you from dating anyone. Our response is what matters in these instances. Jealousy is a hard thing to overcome. A Dave Eggers short, Quiet, deals with a past creeping in on the present, and it was super convenient that I read that before seeing the movie. It can be dangerous. Physically so in Scott Pilgrim vs The World. If one were so inclined, one could write a theory about how the fights were just hallucinations on Scott's part, daydreams to deal with the revelations. Or Scott may just be insane, thus the visuals. Either way, the heart of the movie tells us that we have to deal with it and move on. The past can be left behind. That's encouraging.

I'm already looking forward to the DVD release. The movie itself is reason enough to get it upon its release, but the extras have my attention. There's so much to learn about this movie and I want to soak it all up. Edgar Wright is a baller, through and through. He assembled as close to perfect a cast as you could get for an epic of epic epicness, and his crew had to have been outstanding. It's visually arresting, will leave you laughing, and never gets carried away with excess. It speaks to a generation of 20-somethings, regardless of whether or not they played video games or read comics. Really, I can't say enough good about it. So go see it, multiple times. Buy the soundtrack and the score. Tell your friends, or better yet, drag your friends to see it. Then go to Memory Lane Comics in Wilmington, NC and buy all six volumes. Edgar Wright borrows graciously from the source material: Entire chunks of dialogue, action pieces, designs, etc. It's cool to take a look at a page and then see it on the big screen.

The long, drawn-out point here is that Scott Pilgrim vs The World is a great movie. It's quirky and unique and has a visual style all it's own. If you go in with an open mind and no bias against video games, you'll have fun. A lot of it. Probably too much fun.

Final Score: 10 out of 11

Ran-Dum-Dum-Dugan Thoughts

— Star Wars fans can be divided into two groups: those who prefer 1-3 over 4-6, and those with taste. It's the exact opposite for Lost fans.

— Rachel Maddow is as wonderful as she is intelligent and witty.

— I've done my best to read up on the Google/Verizon proposal, and see things from their side. But I can't. It seems wrong to partition the internet into different, tiered internets. I bet the same was said about TV and cable. 

— New York Comic Con looks bodacious, through and through.

— It's nearly Sunday, and I still haven't seen Scott Pilgrim vs The World. :(

— While some stranger inherited my one-way ticket to Oakdale, I just came into what amounts to a round-trip ticket. For those keeping track, MTA/LIRR: 1, JOEY: 1

— I hope the rumors about MARVEL Studios and Jon Favreau are just that.

— One of the more boggling aspects of politics in the last few years has been the degradation of intelligence as some form of elitism, and the rise of ignorance as some kind of virtue. We can blame former-President Bush and former-Governor Palin and numerous talking heads for this.

— It's good to have Futurama back.

— Keeping my chops even has become infinitely easier now that there's a beard trimmer around.

— Can you name a better SNL sketch than Celebrity Jeopardy?

— Jon Stewart with or without goatee? With.

— What lies in the shadow of the statue, Lebowski?

— The Half-Penny is like Blue Post, if you could actually talk to the bartenders on a busy night, eat popcorn, and watch movies.

— Is there a point when creation no longer belongs to creator? That's a conversation I want to have with George Lucas.

— Speaking of, read this article. Things will make sense (Ewoks!).

— Something like 3 people have told me they've posted comments, but they haven't stuck. I haven't deleted any! So, post it to facebook. I promise I'll respond and we can chat about things. It'll be fuuun.

— I could really stand a haircut.

— An explanation of the title.

— I need your help: What should I blog about? New ideas that aren't me bitching about things I enjoy (Lost, Star Wars, comics, the United States) are hard to come by. I'm open to ideas.

Lost about L O S T

Before I start, I will be discussing Lost spoilers. If you plan on watching it, stop reading, because I'd feel like a right ass if I ruined it for you.

I finished Lost about 2 weeks ago. I haven't said anything much about it because I wanted to let it marinate. All 6 seasons in about a month. That's a ton of TV: 121 episodes at about 42 minutes each. There was good and bad to watching Lost like this. I could recall things that happened in prior seasons pretty easily. But I didn't give myself time to fully process each episode with a week's worth of reflection. This kept me from forming too many of my own theories; instead, I just processed what I saw. Now, that's not to say I didn't wonder about mysteries and twists. I just figured there was a master plan. How naive!

I'm going to flashback now, to a time when I was new to UNCW and Creative Writing. I was sitting in CRW 207, Intro to Fiction. On the first day, the TA, Tim, gave us a couple of rules: No killing, no dreams. The latter was about the cheesy/cliche/horrible/misleading/amateur "it was all a dream" trash. Just for emphasis, I'm going to repeat a few things. On my FIRST day of INTRO to Fiction, I was taught not to deceive my audience. Before I even put pen to paper for my first story, this is what I heard. Flash forward to a day or so after I finished. Imagine my dismay, after I got over the emotional high of the finale, when I realized what Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse had done. If I had followed the series from the start, I'd have been angry. Because what they did equates to waking up at the end of it all, and everything being OK. It's one of the cheapest tactics in storytelling. But they did it masterfully. Up until the reveal of what was actually going on at the church, Cuse and Lindelof were manipulating our emotions by showing us what these lives could've been if they hadn't crashed over the island. That first mega-episode of season 6 broke my heart. A lot. It hurt me to see John Locke again, but confined to that damn wheelchair. And that's what a lot of the flash sideways was, but never again to the same effect as that first episode. I wish I had recognized what they were doing while it was happening, but alas.

What gets me about the way it ended, was the way Cuse and Lindelof handled it. How did they handle it? Like dicks. They were smug about the lack of answers, about the mysteries left wide open. They implied the fans were stupid to have expected reveals. Excuse me? I was stupid for thinking that after you spent an entire season talking about how special Walt was that you might tell us what that was all about? We had some crazy guy screaming at Claire that she was the only one who could raise her baby. And then it's promptly forgotten a few seasons later. It just doesn't seem right to me to introduce mystery after mystery after mystery, and then scoff when the audience expects answers. And I don't need concrete explanations. I don't want things spelled out. That's one of the reasons I loved Inception: Chris Nolan didn't have to explain why certain rules existed, or why they could be broken, or how different levels worked. He gave us just enough to let us know that he knew. But these guys threw twist after twist after surprise after surprise with no real plan or over-arching theme or anything that resembles how you should go about something this intricate. Ever since I got over how rad lightsabers are, this has been my major critique of every last Star Wars movie: Lucas never planned things out. He made it up as he went, and Lost followed suit. Difference being, Lost's creators saw the nerd-rage focused at George once we wised up to the fact that he's a terrible writer and storyteller. And the thing is, they had time to figure all this out. By the middle of season 3, they'd been given an end date. They knew how many more shows they had left. But instead of looking back at the past seasons, at all the things they introduced, and seeing how they tie in together, and what ought to be explained and what left a mystery, they just kept on making it up as they went. (Oh, I don't in any way buy that they planned out the bodies in the cave. Especially since when Jack finds them in season 1, he says the decay on the clothes is somewhere around 40-50 years. When they flashback to that episode in season 6, they conveniently left that dialogue out.)

Good, I got the super-negative out of the way first. Mostly, anyways. I can't guarantee I won't spin-off into a long-winded rant about Jacob being an idiot without a plan or Ben being a better character without Jacob existing, or about how they just threw the whole science vs. faith out there, with nothing to really say about it, or how Sun told Claire a mother would never leave her child and promptly LEAVES HER CHILD and instead of knocking sense into her husband so he raises their daughter, lets him die with her. Ahem. For the first bunch of seasons, I want to say 1-3, character was ballin'. Between Sun and Jin's developments, Locke vs. Jack, the development of the Others, there was a ton to be excited about. Season 4 did some cool things, and had one of the greatest episodes in The Constant.

Season 5 introduced time travel, and I thought they handled it well. Daniel Faraday explained the rules to us, without going into the mystery of how the island was doing it, and it worked. The island all over time was rad, even if why it moved didn't fit with that (or why Jin was somehow within range but the helicopter wasn't). What confused me about it, though, was why Hurley thought to "fix" The Empire Strikes Back. Of all the movies needing improvement, that is one at the bottom of my list. If anything, fix Return of the Jedi. Regardless, they handled it well, and the idea that hopping through the timestream could kill you was a nice touch.

Obviously, I've got problems with the mystery aspect of the show. I stand by that I don't need my hand held, or everything explained. That sort of thing would've ruined the show. Just like too few answers ruined the show. It hurts to type that. But that's just the truth. The way the series ended keeps it from being great. I want to love the intrigue. I want to wonder about the mystery. But the ending said none of that matters. The ending said this is a show about characters, when in fact, only one character developed past where we met them. Sawyer in season 6 may as well have been Sawyer in season 1. Not necessarily a bad thing, until you remember the character he was in season 5. Kate was never allowed to be anything more than a reason for Jack and Sawyer to fight. Sayid just killed people, and loved Nadia (don't get me started on Shannon being with Sayid in the church). It's frustrating.

That one word describes my feelings on Lost: frustrating. It wouldn't have taken much. Every time these guys got together to plan out a season, come up with a few explanations. They don't need to be in the show, but knowing them informs your writing. But they didn't, and the show ended how it did. To hide their problems, they used the emotional pull of a reunion. And it worked. I cried. I was so glad to see everyone together again, even if it didn't make sense. When I stopped to look back at it, there were too many glaring problems. I want to love the show, and I think I can love about half of it. When I rewatch it, it'll be with a smarter eye and lowered expectations.

A Fool's Hope

If you ignore the 9/11 Responders heath care bill getting shot down, Google's and Verizon's shenanigans, and a whole bunch of other terrible political things, the past few days have been substantial steps forward. I'd say it even started a week or so ago, in California. Here's what you should know about me before going forward: I'm a registered Democrat, but I don't buy into every little thing they do. I have no problem dissenting from the party line. But I'm still a liberal. Mostly, because I also believe in a smaller government and less spending.

Proposition 19 will be on the California statewide ballot come November. What is Prop. 19? By golly, it's the Regulation, Control, and Taxation of Marijuana Act. It's about time a state put this up for a vote. California, along with the rest of the United States, is horribly in debt. That's no secret. But no one wants to pay more taxes. Legalizing pot is a way to produce revenue. If the rest of the country is anything like my group of friends, alcohol sales are enormous. But I know plenty of people who would much rather smoke a blunt, watch a movie, and talk then get hammered and vomit. I'm one of those people. It would mean revenue. It would mean more jobs, because someone has to farm it and sell it. It's a stimulated economy. On top of that, if marijuana is legalized, the drug cartels in Mexico start losing their power. Hopefully, that means less massacres along the border towns. But, it'd still be illegal under Federal law. Then it becomes a states' rights issue, and gets real attention. The key, though, is getting it passed in November. The joke is stoners are lazy and forgetful. Young too. But my age came out in full force to elect Barack Obama. When motivated, when the issue matters, we'll show up. And then we'll head to the local Mary Jane shop and spend our money on something that won't kill our livers or lungs.

Next up, New York City approved the building of an Islamic community center two blocks from Ground Zero. This in spite of politicians and people on both sides of the political divide coming out in opposition. The reasons given were varied: it'd be an insult to everyone who died in the attacks, we need to protect this country from the takeover of Muslims, it's too soon, etc. A friend has suggested that it'll be attacked by some crazies who believe in a different god. I agree with him, but I don't think that's reason enough to refuse it. Yes, there's a good chance some insane zealot will do something stupid and tragic. But are we really willing to deny freedom of religion for security? We've lost a ton of freedoms already under the guise of being more secure, but I don't buy it. Just because something MIGHT happen isn't enough. I stand by education as the way around a lot of these issues white Christians have with brown Muslims. The problem resides in the face that ignorance is paraded around by "politicians" and talking heads as something admirable. It's not, and the ignorant are bringing this country down by the head. No, Muslims have every right to build their community center wherever they want. Especially if the man behind it has a history of reaching out to people of other faiths in the spirit of bridging gaps. Frankly, for a country of immigrants, this shouldn't have been a big deal. Opponents are grouping nearly 1 billion people in with the extremists. As if Muslims didn't die in the attacks, which they did. More than 20 did, which is about .6%, which is about how many Americans identify as Muslim.

Back to California, a judge overturned Proposition 8, which barred same-sex couples from legally wedding. Nice, says I! Despite the United States' claim to equality and all the rest, it's always a struggle when a minority wants equal rights. It doesn't click though. There's no sense to it. The white majority likes to forget that whites weren't always the majority here. That once upon a time, we were immigrants, we were invaders to someone else's land. That 'Murica is made up of more than just white, straight, Christians men. And every once in a while, when another group wants to be treated the same, that majority gets in a tizzy. Watching pundits talk about it, it's gross. They take a moral high-ground, or say the courts are interfering, that marriage is a church thing, blah, blah, blah. It's all crap to hide bigotry, methinks. That may be generalizing, but what else am I to think? Gays, lesbians, and transsexuals are the other, the alien, the different. They're not "normal," even though homosexuality shows up in nature, making it NATURAL. These are the same arguments made against interracial marriage. They just replace one minority with another. Which is, I suppose, how bigotry works. But slowly, as per the usual, this new minority is getting equal rights. And that's awesome.

It's a fool's hope to think that things are getting better. Gay marriage will soon find itself in front of a conservative Supreme Court. California may find itself at odds with the federal government. And who knows what some sick individual will do to the Muslim community center (but I bet no one will call them a terrorist because they're white and God-fearing). But for right now, at least, things look better than they did last week.

Comic Con

As a geek, nerd, dork, fanboy, etc., I'd be remiss in my self-appointed duties to not talk about what's been going down at the biggest collection of geeks, nerds, dorks, and fanboys in the world: the San Diego Comic Con.

I've been keeping up as best I could, but foolishly forgot that G4 airs from the Con until this morning. Bummer. Regardless, I checked out updates at IGN, CBR, and some other abbreviations. I won't be recapping everything, just the stuff that appealed to me the most. Or the stuff I have an opinion on, even if it was completely unappealing to me.

First and foremost, the unauthorized trailer for The Walking Dead:


Talk about faithful. And awesome. The zombies look astonishing. I'd daresay they're the best I've seen committed to any sized screen. All that from a shaky cell phone video. And since AMC has a great storyteller behind it all in Frank Darabont, we're guaranteed quality. So long as the show follows the comic's character-based format, and don't get carried away with zombie-killing, I'm all in.

Next up:

This is the only DC book I'm still on, and with good reason. Geoff Johns is doing a hell of a thing with Green Lantern, namely in expanding the world with all the other Lanterns, and now the White Lantern, too. That said, I'm excited about the movie. I was less excited when we got the costume reveal from EW. Many a nerd typed their disdain in the forums, and the movie folks noticed. At the Con panel, the director reassured that what we saw was (hey! those words reflect each other!) not the final costume design. I hope so, and I'll believe it. Recently, at least, Warner Bros. has been giving their superhero flicks the proper attention. That they'd listen to their fanbase could be great or terrible. In this instance, I think it's smart.

Of course, they brought footage with them, and I've only heard good things. Also heard this may be DC's start to expanding their movie universe, like Marvel's been doing. Hopefully that means a Flash movie, and a Wonder Woman, a Superman and Batman that live on the same planet.

That's a beautiful thing. Also beautiful? From more than one review, the footage shown was compared to Indiana Jones. And said footage also helps connect The First Avenger: Captain America with Thor, as the pre-Red Skull Hugo Weaving is searching for a couple of items, namely the Cosmic Cube, said by him to have been in Odin's possession. Tying the mystical into a World War II flick is all right with me, thanks to the Indiana Jones movies and the start of Hellboy. So long as Joe Johnston doesn't bungle it, I mean. More than anything I've heard about the movie, he worries me. I'm worried because of Jurassic Park III, which was worse than the Jurassic Park-inspired stories I wrote in the fourth grade. And then there was Wolfman...Yikes. But again, the footage looked good, especially since it came after only eight days of filming.

More than any other Marvel movie, I've felt Thor would have the hardest time fitting in. Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk did wonders creating a realistic world. Or as realistic a world can be with a 7-foot green monster and a man in a metal suit. But I'm also looking forward to it more than I am the Cap movie. I'm a fan of Kenneth Branagh, and I like that Natalie Portman is involved. But the big question has always been how will the Asgard-side of the story fit in? We saw Mjolnir at the end of Iron Man 2, and it looks like the Cosmic Cube will have some ties to Odin in the Cap movie. And from the descriptions of the footage, I'm excited.

There are two parts to the Avengers I want to talk about. I'll start with the less than good:

Looks like Red Hulk is joining the ranks of Marvel's elitest. That announcement was met with polite applause. Why? Because it's not a good call. Most of you know that I'd love to have a job at Marvel. As such, I hope they never see what I'm going to say here. The Brian Michael Bendis/John Romita, Jr. run on Avengers, so far, has been lackluster. It doesn't feel big. It doesn't feel important, despite having the biggest names in heroes grace its pages. The problem is two-fold: Bendis is great at fast, witty dialogue. That was probably the greatest part of the entire original New Avengers. New Avengers has been my favorite book for the last 4+ years. The man's run on Daredevil was nothing short of bad ass. And it looks like I'm not the only one in love with Spider-Woman. So I know he can write. We all do. He's been writing Marvel's major storylines for nearly a decade! (Avengers Disassembled, House of M, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, Siege, etc.) But now he's on both Avengers and New Avengers, and they all act the same, it's just that one group has Thor and Iron Man, and the other has Luke Cage. It doesn't make sense to me. They both feel like street-level teams, which is what New Avengers has been since Luke Cage's been in charge. But that's not the Avengers. They're higher brow. Yes, Spider-Man will always crack stupid jokes. But he does more than that too. Thor will likely seem out-of-place around some of the newer Avengers, but how about we explore that, not crack a joke? And I think Maria Hill ought to be a bit more professional in the field than we've seen so far. It's about appearances. The Avengers are IT: the best of the best, the most prestigious in Marvel. Write them as such.

The other half is literally appearance. I'm not a fan of JRjr. I read over and over again that he's a legend. That he's a master. But where is that, then? It's not in this book. That cover to #1? Jake was right when he said that's not a cover that sells. I get that no one works on just one book anymore, and I know I'll sound like a broken record, but this is supposed to be Marvel's best. I'd like to SEE that. Now maybe I just don't get his style. But I don't think that's it. I don't care for his character designs. I don't like the way he draws a face, or a lady's neck. I think a lot of his body designs are unnecessarily rounded—there's no hard lines. Look at Big Daddy in Kick-Ass. Look at Apocalypse in Avengers. Limbs don't bend, they curve.

The addition of Red Hulk seems par for the course, that is to say, below par for what ought to be amazing.

Now for the good:

That's the Avengers cast. All of them. Righteous. Left to right, we have Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans), Nick Fury (Sam Jackson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Hulk (newly cast Mark Ruffalo), director Joss Whedon and head of Marvel Studios Kevin Fiege.

Here's video of the announcement, with Robert Downey really being Tony Stark:

I'm holding off on writing about Scott Pilgrim since the movie is coming out soonish. But they screened the movie for lucky attendees, which is always one of the coolest things people can do. Edgar Wright even brought out Simon Pegg and Nick Frost for a hot second. Combine that with Michael Cera on stage in a Captain America costume and you've got a hot panel.

Other tidbits: Robert Rodriquez said Fox has given him the go-ahead to start developing a sequel to Predators, Warner Bros. pissed off a bunch of fans by showing very little new footage and only having Tom Felton (Draco) show up, Green Hornet is NOT impressing, Grant Morrison will be writing Batman, Inc., which he said was like Brave and the Bold combined with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and Carnage is coming back, but without Cletus Kasady.

I'd love to be able to do a live-esque blog from San Diego next year, so I'll start accepting donations now. It's much appreciated.

In Memory of...

I've told a few of you. Most friends could probably guess it—it's been as imminent as Luke's showdown with Vader: the Bronco, as we've known her, is done. She has a bad ticker. Her heart's failing her. There's 8 cylinders under the hood. Right now she's operating on less than half of them. Less than 50% power. Despite that, she got me to New York.

We got the Bronco in December of 2003 after some jerk ran a red light and totaled my K5 Blazer. Initially, my dad was driving it and when I got behind the wheel, it was a bit of a treat. It was such a different riding experience. You felt the road, every crack, every bump, every imperfection. That might be bothersome to most, but I liked it. It was like driving a roller coaster, or a 2-ton go-cart. It really wasn't like any of the other cars I've driven—not my mom's Suburban, my dad's Dodge Ram, Jake's BMW, Emily's Camry, Terence's Volvo, or the Chevy Caprice I first had. Maybe the closest thing was the '69 Grand Prix my dad was rebuilding for a little bit: Lots of power, lots of noise, and a lot of uncertainty as to whether or not you'd get where you wanted to go.


Plenty of money was spent to keep it moving. The rear axle had to be completely replaced. That's a fun story. Turns out, when we bought the truck, the rear axle had been broken in a past life. But it wasn't fixed: it was patched up. I aggravated the problem when I went off-roading at the Uwharrie National Forest. Months later, after making the drive from NC State to High Point, with Jim and Sheyda in the truck, I was heading to the old high school for a football game or something. On one of the country roads, my brakes stopped working. I can't tell you how exciting that was. We got it re-patched, and that held for a while, at least until I got to Wilmington. I was heading to my apartment from campus one night, and low and behold, my brakes stop working. Reverse went, as well. And then we got a new rear axle.

We also replaced the ignition switch. Technically, it was the lock cylinder—the part you put your key in. One Friday night at NC State, me and some suitemates made a midnight run to McDonald's. When we got back, I tried to the turn the truck off. Except that the lock kept spinning around. I couldn't turn it off. I call my dad and the decision is made: I have to drive home that night and park it in the driveway until it runs out of gas. Had he not been in Georgia at the time, he could've shut it off. So I made a late night/early morning drive back home, on a full tank of gas. Thankfully, that 90-minute drive used up close to half a tank, and it was spent when I went back to Raleigh the next day. 

Then there was the time camping on Carolina Beach was ruined because the front end was about to fall off. Sixteen years of wear and tear caught up with her and kept camping from getting checked off the Wilmington bucket list. It also refused to function properly after a day trip to Raleigh. Wouldn't start, and once started, wouldn't stay started. The transmission has always banged shifting in and out of first gear, the torque converter rumbles, and she goes through a quart of oil as often as I do a gallon of milk.


Bare bones doesn't begin to describe the interior. I've never seen a floor like that: No carpet, just black...mat, I guess. Complete with a fire extinguisher in the backseat. The passenger side of the dashboard isn't really attached, and will move around like crazy when the road gets bumpy. The CD Player stopped working after a dusty trip in Uwharrie. The driver's door handle has broken off twice, and I still haven't gotten it replaced after the last time. I love the lack of power; no power locks or windows means one less thing to break. I instinctively go for a window crank now. I'm always a bit nervous about tracking dirt into a car that has actual floor upholstery.

We're at a turning point now. Do we get a new engine? Can we somehow afford a new (to us) car? The Bronco can only sit in the driveway right now, because she has a hard time maintaining 40 mph. It hurts seeing her like this. I used to park in that truck before the back windows were tinted. Mike, Zac, and I used the Bronco's jack to the take a wheel off Ben's car on April Fools Day senior year. I remember Ashley helping me clean it out after off-roading. I laugh at none of us believing that Emily was bleeding after climbing in the night before graduation (she was, and has a scar to prove it).

More than the Caprice and the Blazer, the Bronco was mine. She was my Millennium Falcon: things were constantly wrong, but there's a character there. It's undeniable. She had problems, but I saw them more as quirks. There's a strength under the hood, a desire to keep moving down the road. A lesser engine would just stop turning over. A lesser truck would've quit running before we got out of North Carolina.

But the Bronco wasn't a lesser truck.

The Separation of Church and Everything

I won't pretend: This will be a rant. It will be a rant because I'm annoyed. In spite of that, I'll do my best to remain civil and relatively unoffensive. I'm not naive enough to believe you can talk about religion and offend no one. But I'd rather this be a conversation or even a debate than a Bill O'Reilly screaming match. Or a Glenn Beck cryfest.


(If by the end of this you have any questions about the validity of my statements (those that aren't opinion), ask me for proof. I'll gladly find the appropriate sources.)

I do not believe in gods. Not in Allah, Yahweh, or Jesus Christ. But I also don't believe in Krishna, Enlil, Thor, Zeus, Apollo, Xenu, Shiva, Buddha, or the thousands of other gods society has deemed man-made, and thus not real. All that separates us is one god. Wrap your head around that for a minute. Of all the gods mankind has created, from Mesopotamia to Mecca, we disagree about .001%. But, as it turns out, that makes all the difference.

Here in 'Murica, I'm in the minority when it comes to religion (and race, since I'm a Cuban-American, suckas!). It didn't used to be that way. I was raised Catholic. Went to Catholic school from 3rd grade until I graduated high school. And I was practicing the entire time. Things changed during my second year of college. After a super-religious first year, I found myself faced with an interesting conundrum. Dinosaurs are easily the coolest animals. There's no debate about this and if you say otherwise, once the Bronco is fixed, I will drive to your house and slap you. So there I am, taking a class all about them. Evolution comes up. I never learned about it, but hot damn, did it make sense. It clicked. And despite all the concessions the Catholic Church will and has made to try to be compatible with science, it went against the natural history presented in the Bible. (Not that I was ever a young-earther, but I do remember (and I'm embarrassed to admit this) saying something along the lines of, "I didn't come from a monkey!" in the seventh or eighth grade.) And let's all be real. Whether you're Muslim, Jewish, or Christian (and since I only know about the big 3, those are my focus), you pick and choose what to believe from your particular book. No one follows anything to the letter. But they do make excuses for a lot of it. "Oh, we don't believe the passage about selling our daughters into slavery, but those queers better not ruin the sanctity of marriage!" The same sanctity of marriage that demands you kill your wife if she's not a virgin? Anyways, at that point in my life, I was making excuses, and creating my own beliefs. But this whole evolution and dinosaur thing, that made sense to me. I didn't have to make excuses for the existence of a Tyrannosaurus. The thought never once crossed my mind that fossils were put in the ground by Satan to confuse us because I'm not an insane person. My decision essentially became dinosaurs or God. Yes, this is a giant simplification. But looking back, that was the turning point.

The first time in this country's history a president acknowledged non-believers as equal to believers was when President Obama mentioned us during his inauguration. In fact, good old George Herbert Walker Bush, while campaigning in 1987 said, "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." (Keep in mind, of course, that "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, in response to the Red Scare and as a distinction from the godless commies. And keep in mind the fellows who framed the Constitution and wrote the Declaration of Independence were mostly deists.)


I want you now to replace "atheists" from Bush's quote with Muslims. Or gays and lesbians, bisexuls and transsexuals. Blacks or Asians. No one would be that ignorant, right? How could someone so blatantly discriminate against a significant amount of the populace and still be elected president? It's disgusting. And I'm not saying that as the persecuted minority. When Bush said that, I was probably being taken to St. Lawrence every Sunday as an infant. I'm saying that as a human being who can't wrap their head around such flagrant discrimination.

And that, I guess, can lead into the heart of this blog: Separating religion from public life. It doesn't necessarily start with politics, but that's where I'll start. Take out "under God" in the Pledge. Why? Because it's not necessary. It never was, and certainly not now. Were we a Christian nation, as so many inane talking heads insist, I could understand that. But we aren't. And so long as "God" remains in it, the country is discriminating against every religion but Judaism and Christianity. After that, get the 10 Commandments off of government property, like courts or governor's estates, etc. Again, this is a blatant endorsement of a specific religion. In the same vein, if you're going to allow Christian-themed holiday decorations on govt property, you had better make room for all the others, and that includes the Flying Spaghetti Monster. That stuff I could see happening in my lifetime. This, not so much: If a church contributes to a political campaign of any sort, they should lose their tax exemption. And presidents, how about we keep God out of our speeches? I'm glad Obama is president, but what the hell was he saying about the oil spill during his Oval Office speech? That we ought to be praying? It's a cliché, but two hands working do more than a thousand clasped in prayer. And let's not forget Dubya calling the French president before the invasion of Iraq and telling him that demons, written about in the Bible, needed to be fended off, and that's why 'Murica was heading to war. That man was in charge for eight years.

Keep religion away from science. They do not coexist, and pretending they do deludes both your faith and science's whole premise. The whole premise of faith is that it goes against reason, logic, and fact. It requires no proof. Thus the term "leap of faith." Now, what is science founded on? The scientific method. We all learned this in middle school. There's lots of hypothesizing, recording data, but what're the key elements? Experimentation and repeated results. You have to test something again and again and again and again and get the same results before something is considered legitimate. You have to PROVE it. Not to mention if one thing is proven false later on, you don't fight a war and slaughter thousands or millions because you dedicated your entire life to one set of scientific findings. No, you do some more experiments, and if one thing replaces another, well that's amazing! It's amazing because we're discovering more and more truths about the natural world. "God did it" doesn't fly. It doesn't answer anything. Just because we don't know it now, at this point in humanity, doesn't mean we won't have some more answers in 100 or 200 years. Just look at how far we've come in 200 years and tell me we won't know more about the planet in another 200.



Going off the science thing, the universe is amazing. It is the biggest thing you could ever imagine, but times 1,000,000,000,000,000. And you know what religion does? It takes a tiny rock, spinning in space around a mediocre star, which sits inside one of billions of billions of galaxies, and it tells the marginally self-aware inhabitants of said rock that you are the center of it all. That all of it exists purely for you. If you can't see the arrogance of that, I don't know what to tell you. Yes, it is absolutely amazing that we've gotten to the point where I can bitch and moan on a piece of hardware that connects me to the internet, which mankind invented. It blows my mind that we can do that. That I can wake up, in air conditioning, and turn on a TV, that I can pick up a pencil and a blank piece of paper and make something beautiful, that I can play a song. These things should never, ever be taken for granted. But I don't think for a second that this planet is mine. Or that the moon is mine. Or that the sun is for us. Why would it be? It's all been here billions of years before us, and it will for billions of years after us. Life existed before mankind. It probably does elsewhere in the universe. Why shouldn't it? And besides, it's not that conditions on earth are perfect for life. It's that life adapted to the conditions on earth. This wasn't made for us. I'm not scared to admit that I have no idea how it was formed. Either are scientists, the people who are actively searching for an answer. But chalking it all up to a god? That's the definition of deus ex machina, which all my writing friends know to avoid like Pat Robertson. Don't ever be scared to admit you don't know. That's how you learn.

When it comes to learning, religion has no place in the public education system. All this nonsense about creationism, or intelligent design? No. Just shut up. You want that in the science classroom? How about Scientology and Mormonism in history class? Let's all learn about Emperor Xenu casting billions of creatures into the volcanoes of Hawaii. Or how the Native Americans are actually Jews. Give me proof for creationism or ID, and I'll concede. I'll admit I was wrong. I might even apologize. But until then, until it has been put through the same rigors that evolution has, shut your pie hole! Teach the controversy? The only controversy is that this is given serious consideration by the people who decide what children will learn. Texas wants to amend history books so that the Founding Fathers are seen as Christians, and the United States of America is seen as ordained from on high. How about instead of that, we teach what actually happened? That means the ugly and the pretty. There's good and bad about the founding of this nation straight up through now, so show us both sides. Don't put your own politics and religious ramblings ahead of the education of the next generation. And you know what ought to be taught? Sex Ed. Not abstinence only. That doesn't work because teenagers are horny and want to see how things work. So teach them how to be smart about it. That means birth control in all its forms. You want to combat abortions and teenage pregnancy? EDUCATE. 

Most importantly, keep religion out of morality. One does not rely on the other. Not at all. What is moral about murdering all the men of a nation, taking the children as slaves and the woman as sex slaves? You can find that in the Old Testament. Please, explain to me all the death and destruction found in that book (for a body count of sorts, check this out: http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-many-has-god-killed-complete-list.html). There's nothing moral about forcing your beliefs on those around you, let alone killing them if they refuse to subscribe, as both the Bible and Koran call for. And this is where picking and choosing comes into play. Noah's Ark is suddenly a fable, not a story about the godly genocide of an entire planet's worth of life. Despite God decreeing that we can't touch the skin of a dead pig, man, tossing that football around is fun. Shananigans, I say, on picking and choosing, and fishing a few morals from the remains. No, religion is used to justify discrimination. It endorses slavery, casts homosexuality as a sin, and says there's something wrong with being human. I don't need a textbook to tell me the slave trade (which Texas wants to rename the "Atlantic Triangular Trade") was inhumane. I never needed to watch a trial to see that murdering an innocent person is wrong. Either did you. The 10 Commandments are mostly inherent. Well, the ones that pertain to living a decent life with the people around you, anyways. For some reason, despite the very words that are in the Bible and the Koran, people will sit and defend both as THE moral standard. Please, read either or both. As the person you are now. Do your best to look at them from the standpoint of a creative writer, or a decent human being, and push aside your emotional connection. Look at the words, and the stories they tell, that we've been told is truth. Come back and tell me it's moral. Without lying to me or yourself. 


Speaking of lying, what the hell is going on with Catholicism? I'm not just talking about the church-wide conspiracy to move molesting priests around to different churches so they can scar multiple children, but the uprising of Catholics to defend this BS. You're going to come to the defense of the Pope, the man who was responsible for covering up a ton of this, but not the children? He was aware of at least one instance, and stayed quiet about it. This is an organization that publicly reprimanded the man who blew the whistle, instead of praising him. It's not like this happened once. And it's definitely not a recent thing. This has been happening for decades. Hundreds, if not thousands, of children lost their innocence, their childhood, and likely a bit of their humanity and sanity at the hands of horrid, hypocritical, deranged individuals. And the Church has the audacity to blame homosexuality and atheism for pedophilia? I mean, WTF? And then there's the Pope telling AIDS-stricken Africa that condoms spread the disease. That man is infallible, and in contact with the Lord God, your savior Jesus Christ.

Which brings me to this: Keep religion away from children. I was indoctrinated. You probably were too. I wasn't given a choice; I was pushed into this and told it was as real as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny (I won't get into the pagan roots of Christmas or Easter). Children are, above all, impressionable. And trusting. As a kid, we trusted what our parents said without question. What most adults said even. So if you tell them this is the one true way to live forever, I bet they'll believe you. People get horrified when they see a kid in the Middle East holding an AK-47. "They've been brainwashed! They were taken advantage of!" Yup, they sure were. So was I. That's how religion takes hold. Get 'em when they're young and etch your beliefs in their mind. Does that seem wrong to anyone else? Why not, instead of taking your kid to church, you teach them how to reason. How to be inquisitive. How to logically think. Explain that instead of there being one way, one truth, etc., many people believe many things. That when it really comes down to it, no one knows the truth. 


I understand why people are religious. I've been there. It's comforting to believe there's something after this. But it lets you make excuses for not really living your life now. Had a crappy day at work? By golly, once you die you get to praise your god of choice for all eternity and be in complete bliss! I don't buy it. Not when I take into account everything the authors of the Bible and Koran got wrong. Not when I see the insanity that religion causes in the world. Of course, those people causing the insanity aren't true Christians, or Muslims, or Jews, or whatever. They never are. EVER. Islam is a religion of peace. Christianity is a religion of love. I call BS. I call BS for the people who died in the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition, for the families who lost someone on 9/11. Religion is not progressive—it's regressive.

By all means, be religious. But keep it private. Keep it in your place of worship and your home. Don't force it into science, education, and politics. It has no right to be there. At least, I don't think so. And you know, I don't know that there isn't a god. There might be something behind all this. But it's not the Christian god. Or the Greek gods. Or the Norse gods. Then again, there might not be anything all, except this life. How are you going to live it?

For those of you who stayed with me this long, thanks. I know this was an arduous read. But it's been boiling up for a while and I realized I have a forum to vent. If something said here bothers you, tell me. Let's talk about it. Too often talk about religion is just shoved aside, or deemed unfit for discussion. But these beliefs impact us.


P.S. Can we please ban, "Then God help us all," from movies, televisions, books, comics, etc.? It's a bad cliché. I'm tired of it.