Finally saw this with Clare yesterday. I find myself deeply ambivalent about it. There was definitely a lot to love about it - it did all of the surface stuff quite well. Yet I left the theatre feeling unsatisfied and almost uninterested. On some level, the plot or characters or something failed to really deeply engage with me, but unlike The ( Read more... )

There is a tension in critical thought between taking works on their own terms and applying to them analytical perspectives from your own interests. You could think of these as intention and taste, and going too far towards either can be fraught. If you subscribe too much to allowing works to set their own terms of reference you can become mired in ( Read more... )

Recently we've been subjected to a glut of reboots of well-worn superhero franchises. It all kicked off in 2002 with Spiderman by Raimi, followed by X-Men, The Incredible Hulk [Correction- Hulk; thanks J!]... retelling stories more than 50 years old, many of which already have numerous other film and TV adaptations. Standing alone, like a beacon of ( Read more... )

In my recent discussion of Prometheus I talked about how the film was going to be a struggle for Morgue because of his investment in the franchise; and I guess that a similar concept is in play with me and Spiderman. I am not actually the world's biggest Spiderman fan, but I suspect I have more love for him than the average person. Here's a sampler ( Read more... )

So far in my sputtering start to my MA, I've been thinking about Hammett primarily in the context of the detective story. That is to say, with Conan Doyle, Christie, Chandler, and those other jokers. But there is a second possibly equally substantial context in which he belongs - the Pulps. Pulps are something which have mostly interested me from ( Read more... )

Started to write this months ago, can't be bothered finishing and editing. Take it as you find it,

Ivan summarizes superheros:It's been twenty years since Watchmen; does anybody really still think the superhero genre is about the fighting? .... Fights are a necessary part of the superhero genre, but they're a means to a storytelling end .... the ( Read more... )

The last academic writing I did was on Shakespeare's use and treatment of violence in his Roman plays. The bard was able to juxtapose violence with rhetoric very effectively in a number of situations. The two scenes which I found most effective were the assassination of Julius Caesar and the duel between Coriolanus and Aufidious. In both scenes, ( Read more... )

One of the cool things about the iPad is the way you can read comics on it. You can get page-by-page and panel-by-panel, and you can dial up individual issues and they're just there. One thing that having access to this range of materials means is that you become absolutely clear on the availability of different, for want of a better term, streams ( Read more... )

Thor is one of the superheroes that has essentially escaped my notice. He appeared in some cross-overs with Spiderman that I read 20 years ago, but as a concept, as a character, I've never been interested enough to find out more. I hadn't seen any trailers or talked to anyone who'd seen it, and hadn't seen any of the internet vibe. I didn't know ( Read more... )

We are going through an undeniable Superhero Renaissance at the moment. You basically can't buy a movie ticket without seeing a super hero do something. This is not the first time that's been the case. In the late 1970s there was a run of super-hero themed TV shows -Wonder Woman (1975), Spiderman (1977) and the Incredible Hulk (1978), culminating ( Read more... )