Saturdays Gone

What did you do last Saturday? I hope it was more than I did. And more than I am doing today (I started this last Sunday) All I did was lay around and read, and fend off climbing, clambering, screaming, squawking, tricycle motors. (That is actually an accurate description of one.)

I spent the morning reading up on G.I. Joe. When I was about six or seven I was given my first second hand G.I. Joe action figure, Mutt, and that was it. It was on. Until I was thirteen that was all I spent my money on: Joes, and G.I. Joe Comics. Of course, the comics continued past 13.

What got me started on my Joe diving last Saturday is that I bounced over to IMDB (which KitKat has still not answered my question about). They have finally made a G.I. Joe movie, due to be released in '09. And much to my chagrin, I think that they have messed it up but good. I am SO TOTALLY looking forward to being proven wrong. I was whining to Belle that I have been waiting for this movie for ten years, and it threatens ominously to be another X-men.

Now, I was never a big fan of the X-men comics as a whole, all those crazy mutant "powers" with their pretentious, ostentatious galactic conflicts between good and bad mutants while normal humans squabbled in fear and stereotypical prejudice in the background, suffering the consequences of "homo-superior's" actions. But there where certain characters that I did like.

I always liked Wolverine, the tough, military anti-hero who was paternally protective of the defenseless teenage girls on their own. I always liked Storm, her black skin and white hair and ability to control air currents to fly (among other weather related abilities). Who hasn't wanted to be able to fly? I think that it's a Divine inspiration that has managed to prevail in popular literature. But I digress. Last but not least (did you know that Shakespeare coined that phrase?) There's Rouge, who could absorb the abilities of others; the villain who saw the light and was filled with remorse for her wrong actions and, like a good Catholic, sought to make reparations for them.

But then Brian Singer came along and mulluxed it up but good. "I don't want you to read one comic!" he emphatically told his actors. What brazen stupidity! How can you seek to remake something that came into existence before you were born and that, by popular consent, is not even broken? (We won't even bring up his travesty of a Superman) Contrast that action with those of Sam Raimi, of Spiderman. He took stacks of comics to his actors and said, essentially, "Here is your source material, this is what people expect." And boy did they ever. One of the highest grossing movies in the US and the World (7 and 17 respectively).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against change in movies. With one caveat: the movie must stay within the confines of the source materials "flavor." Unfortunately, from preliminary observations: publicity stills, notation of six different writers (the more writers, the messier the script - many cooks ruin the soup), selection of actors, etc. I am deeply afraid that G.I. Joe is going to be like so many horrid Marvel creations, and NOT like their good ones. Of course, there's only two that I can think of at the moment, Spiderman (that includes all three, yeah, I'll go ahead and put the last one in there) and Ironman, which may be the best superhero movie ever made.

That last statement is hard to make as I love Batman Begins, Chris Nolan's reboot of the Batman franchise which was much needed and anticipated. (Tim Burton trashed it and it just went from one bad garbage dump to the next worst until we were served Batman and Robin on a dirty, fetid plate) But Nolan left out one major story development in Begins that I have always loved. In the movie, Bruce Wayne learns all of his arcane knowledge from Ras al-Ghul. But in the comics, the canon source material for all things Batman, he doesn't even encounter Ras al-Ghul until after he has become Batman and then only because Ras al-ghul's daughter, Talia, introduces them. In the comics he gains his knowledge from a wide variety of sources. He learns his martial arts form a Japanese master, illusion from a Master Stage Magician, detective skills from a Scotland Yard inspector, etc. Batman becomes possible because of the wealth of information that he gathers from many different instructors all over the world through years of study. In the movie, it's like he leaves as a college drop-out and wanders the world as a petty crook (yeah he picks up some martial arts training) but then in a very short frame of time, learns everything he needs from Ras al-Ghul, all in less then ten years, I guess. Now, I'm sure Chris Nolan, who did an awesome job and is a brilliant director, just didn't want to go the montage route or the narrator route, which is old hat for an adventure flic and would be awful for a Batman movie. But it could have be done. That's my only gripe with Batman Begins, and unfortunately, it's big enough to keep it out of the running for Best Super Hero Movie Ever

But I said all of that to get to this: Last Saturday I finished Bull Hunter, that I had barely started the night before and started on the sequel, Bull Hunter's Romance, which I have since finished. (I am now reading Mere Christianity and The Millionaire Next Door.) I thumbed my nose in the stern face of responsibility and maturity and the fact that my shed is a cluttered disaster that I have been needing to clean out and organize all spring and the fact that I haven't gotten into the bees since I hived them in the middle of April. Of course, I can only claim sloth for the last two weekends. Every other time, when I could have actually done something productive I either was, or the weather was not co-operating. But that didn't finish my day: stir craziness set in about at four-o-clock. So what did I do? Five hours later I kissed my girls good night, and told Belle that I loved her and that I would be back in a couple of hours and Cuz and I went to town at nine-o-clock.

Which is why SC wasn't updated. Instead of being productively creative, I was at the shows, watching the reboot of The Incredible Hulk. If it has caught your interest this is all I have to say: Saturday Morning Matinee. Or better yet, twilight pricing. But ONLY after you've watched your paint dry, and your grass grow.

It's not a bad movie, as pg-13's go. It does have some funny parts "You're making me . . .hungry. You won't like me when I'm hungry" Bruce Banner says in stumbling Portuguese. And some other scenes played to the American Pie crowd which WERE NOT funny at all.

Of course, Cuz and I whispered back and forth the whole show, laughing at different points, much to the disdain of our fellow movie goers. Oh, we weren't loud or obnoxious, there were others doing that for us. At one scene, involving a rain storm and a white shirt, one fellow threw both arms into the air and cheered. He was disappointed. hehehe. But one woman did give us a long look after the credits began to roll and the lights came up. It wasn't the hairy eyeball. But almost. I think she was undecided on what to think about us. Perhaps she was reserving judgement because she held similar opinions about the movie. But that's probably transference.

I was not disappointed with The Incredible Hulk because there were several scenes where I felt like the ushers had come in and flipped over to the Soap Opera Chanel or because of the cliches or the convenient rains storms (there is one scene where there is this massive explosion and subsequent fiery inferno at the end of a big fight and it starts raining, out of a clear blue sky) or because I felt like I should be in the front row with two robots. My problem with the movie is two fold: One - it is a Total Reboot. Two - the shocking lack of fidelity.

On the first matter. Ang Lee produced Hulk in 2003, a movie that I have seen once in it's entirety, when it came out on rental. I have never had a desire to see it again. Oh, I've watched it for a few minutes on TV and frankly I do love the scene where the big green guy is being hounded by Comanche attack helicopters and the General, from his command Huey says "Turn it into a parking lot" and the attack choppers launch their rockets and level a big portion of desert monument property. That's pretty cool.

But Ang Lee's project is only five years old. I was expecting this new version to be a sequel, picking up where the last left off and this thought was only encouraged by the fact that the movie opens with Bruce Banner in South America, where we see him in the last scene of Ang Lee's Hulk. But no, as the movie progresses, the writer and director make if very plain that their film is no sequel. As a builder, this really irked me. I would never in a thousand years come to a house that is only five years old and say: "Tear it down!" just because I don't like the trim or the paint colors or how the interior flows. If I was given the task of remodeling or adding to the existing structure I would find a way to correct its weaknesses, improve upon its qualities and leave its perfect parts alone. But that isn't what the makers of The Incredible Hulk have done. They stuck thumb to nose, waggled their fingers and said "Thbbbbbbbbbt!" to Ang Lee. And after they tore his infant house down, they built back a house that was exactly the same! And in some points, worse. One such is demonstratively noticeable. How Banner became the Hulk.

In Lee's version, as a child he was experimented on by his psychotic father and then as an adult he intervened in a lab experiment to save his companions, exposing himself to deadly gamma wave radiation which combined with his fathers previous medlings to produce the rage induced monster. In this current product, Banner's hardly controllable transformation is brought about by experimenting upon himself. You tell me, which is better?

On the Second Matter. The lack of fidelity. We discover that Bruce has not talked to the love of his life Betty Ross in five years (further muddying Ang Lee's waters). When he goes back to society he checks in on the girl of his past, and discovers that she has moved on. Met a new man and is apparently in a relationship with him, as is demonstrated by their mutual affection. But the moment that Betty discovers that not only is Bruce still alive, but that he is within reaching distance, she dumps the new beau as fast as you can say "Jack Spratt." As a dude, observing this action, I would have instantly been put upon my guard. "Wait a minute now . . . I'm out of you life for five years and you've moved on to a new man and now that I'm back you're just gonna run away from this guy without a word? What happens if/when I have to run again? Are you gonna go back to him?" I would have preferred to see that love expressed differently. Either she hadn't moved on, was still single, saving herself for her man, or "Bruce I love you, I'll always love you, like a very good friend. By the way this is Joe, my whatever. Anything you need that I can do for you, I'll do it." Instead, it was just plain ol' lust. "Oh, the object of my old desires, lets get it!"

The one good thing about The Incredible Hulk was the casting of Edward Norton. He is a very good actor and it helps that he is this short, scrawny man who then turns into this giant green monster. The polar differences are pretty cool. The advancement of computer technology helped also. This Hulk looks much better than Ang Lee's. He doesn't look like an over grown, simple minded farm boy. More like a professional wrestler, complete with lowered chin pointing down from broad shoulders to tapered waist.

So that's what I did last Saturday. And today is not shaping up to be much more exciting.