Why I still have high hopes for a DC Comics big screen superhero franchise

There’s a battle going on right now and it’s not the one coming this November when angry voters across the country cast their ballots to choose the next president of the United States.

This war is currently taking place in “Hollyweirdland” where in one corner, already considered a winner in terms box office revenue the past several years is Disney’s Marvel superhero franchises.

The same cannot be said for the Warner Brothers/DC Comics brand in the other corner, which has taken a beating this year. "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" (2016) fell short of the studio’s high expectations. Despite grossing $166 million opening weekend March 25, box office revenue quickly dwindled in the following weeks. The final U.S. gross came out to $330 million on a $250 million budget. Was it the supposed know-it-all movie critics, a majority of who reacted negatively to the film that kept audiences away?

"Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice" was not perfect, but it had everything I wanted in a good movie. The film had characters I cared about, humor, and made me shed a few tears at the end. When the end credits rolled, the audience, which was a full house, cheered.



I went into "Suicide Squad" (2016) hoping for the same reactions I got watching Batman V. Superman. The results were far from positive. There was some humor, most of it coming from the Joker’s psychotic love interest, Harley Quinn, played by Margot Robie. Brandishing a baseball bat as her weapon of choice and dressed in black fishnet stockings, skintight panties which allow her buttocks to stick out, white-lace-up heels and a shirt with the words, “Daddy’s little monster”, she had all the best lines (“I’m quite vexing”).

Alongside Harley Quinn was Jared Leto’s Joker who stole the show in what little scenes he was in, seven minutes worth if you believe the entertainment tabloids, though I didn’t check my cell phone to time the scenes.

Leto’s pale white nightmarish machine gun toting creation may be everything mass murderer James Holmes thought he was when he opened fire on moviegoers at "The Dark Knight Rises" (2012) screening opening night in July 2012 in Aurora, Colorado.

Much like previous Joker incarnations created by Jack Nicholson in "Batman" (1989) and the late Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight" (2008), Leto made his clown faced villain his own sporting metallic teeth like as though he still has braces from when he was in high school, and a smile tattoo on his hand he uses to cover his mouth when he speaks.

Whereas Nicholson’s Joker was a homicidal artist and Ledger’s version promoted anarchy, Leto’s Joker had no real method to his madness, which is what made him so unpredictable. I couldn’t speak for anyone else but when Harley Quinn received the Joker’s text messages that he was coming for her, I couldn’t wait for his oh-so-brief appearance.

The film’s best moments occurred during the first hour as each member of the “Suicide Squad’s” personal lives were cleverly introduced through rock music hits of the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, all of which fit each character’s personality. To put it simply though as I wrote in my review of the film last week, "Suicide Squad" had a great first act, but barely a second.

When the film arrives on disc early next year, it will be the first “bad” movie I have seen in over thirty years to add to my other list of bad movies I love to hate and don’t tire of watching or listening to while I am doing something else.

Therein lies the reason why despite the many misfires Warner Brothers has had when it comes to the Batman and Superman franchises I have always stood behind their many installments no matter how disappointing some of them were. To this day, I still watch all the good and bad sequels.

 
I don’t care if George Clooney’s performance as the Caped Crusader in "Batman & Robin" (1997) came equipped with leather nipples and codpieces. True, watching director Bryan Singer’s "Superman Returns" (2006) made me feel like I was watching a remake of "Superman: The Movie" (1978). I felt like I was pounded over the head in the way director Christopher Nolan incorporated post 9/11 storylines with Ledger’s Joker as an American version of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in white make-up in "The Dark Knight" and shades of the Occupy Wall Street movement in "The Dark Knight Rises." I was still entertained, nonetheless.

The one thing all of those sequels had, whether good and bad, is they all drew me in emotionally. As I wrote in my review, "Suicide Squad" is so bad it’s almost entertainingly bad. That’s more than what I can say about the Marvel/Disney superhero franchises.

The Marvel/Disney movies I have seen these past few years have not given me that. I won’t be shedding any tears if Captain America dies in some future Avengers installment. Truth is I am bored with the Marvel/Disney product. Call it “Marvel Fatigue.” Something I fear could happen with Disney’s other goldmine, the Star Wars franchise, given Mickey Mouse’s plans for sequels and standalone movies from that "galaxy far, far away" every year until 2020. It begs the question, “How much is too much?”

Every time I sit through a Marvel adaptation and a previous event is mentioned that happened in another superhero film, I almost expect the filmmakers to post a little title card at the bottom of the scene that says, “See "Avengers: Age of Ultron" (2015)” for reference. Something of which I have seen the publishers do with the monthly comics given most every title is tied to another as a means to get readers/fans to spend more money.

Ironically, the Marvel superhero adaptations I have embraced are those that have not fallen under the Disney logo…yet, that is, which included director Sam Raimi’s Spider-man trilogy (2002-2007) and The Amazing Spider-man 1 and 2 (2012-2014) from Sony, Universal’s "The Incredible Hulk" (2008) with Edward Norton, a few of the X-Men installments from Fox.

 
The idea of saying the upcoming DC comics superhero big screen productions are in development hell is the equivalent of the liberal drive by media calling the November presidential election in favor of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over Republican candidate Donald Trump. The debates haven’t even occurred yet!

By comparison, much like that wise old Jedi Master, Yoda, from the Star Wars films, who said the future is always in motion and difficult to see, we will not know whether the "Wonder Woman" film starring Gal Gadot in the title role due out next June, and director Zack Snyder’s "Justice League" in November 2017 live up to the hype as seen by the trailers. Then there’s Ben Affleck’s standalone Batman film, which is also in the works.

With all this mass negativity I have been seeing on social media the past few months concerning "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" and "Suicide Squad", it makes me want to forget doing my daily doses of insulin that I’m required to do before every meal and start a mass production of “granny’s iced tea” in the bathroom every hour at night. I already got a growing list of who to send the jars to.

Seeing that I have my health to worry about, however, I’ll just subscribe to the “law of contrary public opinion” that Al Pacino’s Ricky Roma said in the foul-mouthed real estate robbery film, "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992).

“If everyone thinks one thing, then I say, bet the other way.”

©8/24/16

Rejoice liberals!!! Rush Limbaugh is retiring from talk radio…in four years that is

August 1, 2020. Assuming that is the right date, it will be a sad day for “Rush Babies” and a day of rejoicing for Democratic liberals across America.

The reason why this will be a day of celebration is, after 32 years on the air with a reported 13 million listeners, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh (aka "The Mayor of Realville", "El Rushbo") will end his weekly radio show.

“I have, in the past six months, really been going back and forth on whether or not I wanted to keep doing this or move on to something else,” the 65-year-old Limbaugh told his listeners on August 2, the day after celebrating the show’s 28th year in broadcasting on the EIB network. “I don’t feel old. I don’t feel worn out. None of that. So, I decided to keep doing it because there’s nothing I love more, and there’s nothing that could replace it—even being on TV occasionally, which would not be a replacement or anything of the sort. So four more years is what it is.”

Before his radio show premiered in August 1988, I don’t recall there being such words as “drive-by” media and “info babe” as Limbaugh has called the press and any female news anchor wearing six or seven -inch-heels and over-the-knee skirts on CNN and Fox News. The word “liberal” didn’t sound like a cuss word as it does today, and there didn’t seem to be the “US versus Them” war that we see out of control in the halls of congress.

I laughed and despised the way, Tom Kelley, a friend of mine from high school, idolized “The Doctor of Democracy” back in 1993 as he bought two copies of Limbaugh’s book, "The Way Things Ought to Be." I enjoyed mocking him as he browsed the tie section at a department store one time because he was shopping for a “Rush Limbaugh” tie. Sitting next to those ties, however, were some clip-on ties so I told Tom he’d be much better off buying a couple clip-ons as Cheers’ (1982-1993) mailman Cliff Clavin swears by them.

When Limbaugh aired his TV show that ran from 1993-1994, another friend of mine and former newspaper editor, Glenn Fawcett, and I would die laughing at how everyone in the audience of his show were all impeccably dressed in suits and ties and women were dressed in their Sunday church best during the 93' spring semester in college. Today, if I were to pull up any of those shows on youtube.com, to see the camera pan in on the audience I just might see no minorities present, much the way liberals griped about that recent picture House Speaker Paul Ryan posed with a group of white interns thus continuing the notion that conservative Republicans really are a bunch of rich white racists who don’t hire minority interns in Congress.

As the years went by, however, my political affiliations changed. Perhaps it was the fact being raised by my grandparents on my dad's side who were staunch Republicans that maybe their conservatism got the better of me.

Maybe it was the fact, like George Clooney’s Democratic manager Ryan Gosling played in the "Ides of March" (2011) who realized there was no such thing as honesty, integrity and morality in presidential politicians, I stopped believing in everything the Democratic Party claimed to represent when it came to them fighting for minorities and low-income wage earners. In short, they are just as bad as the Republican Party and judging by who we got to vote for in this November's presidential election, far worse.

As I tuned into Limbaugh’s show over the years it was dawning on me that some of the things he's said actually makes sense. Just don’t take that to mean I am a die-hard fan who thinks everything he says is the word of God. Sure, I admit I have defended him over the past two decades with what he has said but it was with good reason.

When Limbaugh, for example in 2003, said that the only reason for Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb’s success on the "Sunday NFL Countdown" in September 2003, was because he was African American, I saw nothing racist in that comment. Maybe I am just color blind. As someone, however, who hates football and most all sports, I would have watched "Sunday NFL Countdown" every week that year just to hear what Limbaugh had to say about the sport had he not been let go by ESPN executives within days of making that McNabb comment. I would have done the same had he been chosen to co-anchor "Monday Night Football." Not to watch the games, mind you. But so, I can hear what he had to say about the plays being called.

Therein lies the difference between my listening to Rush and how others listen to him today. I listen to him because he is entertaining from those promotional radio phrases (“The man, a mission, a way of life”, “He didn’t start it, but he’ll be happy to finish it”) to those often times humorous song parodies from conservative political satirist Paul Shanklin that bash President Obama and liberalism that are often aired on the show.

When the "Limbaugh School for Advanced Conservative Studies" closes its doors four years from now, I won’t be mourning the end of hearing "America’s truth detector" four or five days a week. All good things come to an end.

What I will be mourning is how the end of Limbaugh’s radio show signifies yet another nail in that coffin called "Free Speech" as political correctness continues to reign across the country because liberals hate it when others “tell it like it is”, or maybe they don’t mind when conservatives are bashed so long as no one bashes them.

©8/10/16

Like Christmas in July

Every year around mid-July I get giddy. No, it’s not the same kind of giddiness I get on my last day of work every week before my two days off kicks in.

The reason for my excitement is because every July at this time is when the Comic-Con convention, now in its 48th year according to comic-con.org, in San Diego happens.

There, thousands of fans, young and old, from across California and the country, maybe even the world, arrive dressed in their Halloween’s best as their favorite characters from comic book, television and movie franchises. It doesn’t have to be the year’s current trend, which is Pokémon. Thankfully, the four-day event is not filled with fans dressed up as each year’s most popular character. I mean, what fun is there to see men and women dressed as either some sort of yellow retarded looking dog or whatever it is, while the other half are dressed as iPhones exhibiting a screenshot chasing down Pokémon?

That does not mean there won’t be a Pokémon or several Pokémon's walking down the halls of the convention center. The list of costumed characters is endless. Over the course of the four-day weekend it won’t be that unusual to see a swarm of comic book superheroes and villains, Jedi Knights along with several characters from that Star Wars "galaxy far, far away" as well as an assortment of Starfleet crew members, Klingons and aliens from the Star Trek universe. Perhaps there will not be one, but many women scantily dressed up in that famous Princess Leia slave girl outfit from "Return of the Jedi" (1983).

“SDCC”, as it is called in short, is a chance for those like me who don't want to grow up to see the latest offerings several toy companies will have on store shelves in the coming months and early next year. For years, as I browsed various websites that covered the conventions, I saw it as an opportunity to gaze at pictures of only the latest Star Wars toys. That has since changed to where my interests not only cover “The Force” but a little of anything I grew up on and am still interested in, or I just think the stuff looks cool.

This year's convention featured upcoming images of Hasbro’s continuing six-inch line of Star Wars figures. With the Star Trek franchise celebrating its 50th anniversary, two toy companies, Mezco Toyz and Quantum Mechanix, offered 12-inch figures of the original crew which included Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock where in the future I could take my pick as to which company to buy from. Unfortunately, the determining factor would be the price tags. Do I want to pay $180 bucks from Quantum Mechanix or $80 from Mezco Toys? Perhaps it will be a question of quality versus quantity.

While I am not a fan of the Hellraiser horror movie franchise, I got to say Sideshow Collectibles naughty black latex preview of their 22-inch female Hell Priestess pinhead suddenly made me forget about longing for the distributor’s 22-inch version of Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman from "Batman Returns" (1992). I was now at a loss as to which statue I wanted to have sitting on my desk at work. I longed to learn how long it’d take the powers that be to privately invite me for a personal chat in Human Resources to not only tell me that such things are not politically correct for the workplace but falsely accuse me of promoting the sadomasochistic Fifty Shades of Grey lifestyle with $500 plus movie statues.

My only disappointment at this year’s convention is that The Lego Group did not unveil the next ultimate collector set in the Star Wars line, the Death Star, due out this fall. The set is obviously meant to tie in with this December’s release of "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" (2016) given that the “ultimate power in the universe” will play a large role in that "galaxy far, far away.”

I sure hope the $500 plus set is not a dud like the company’s May release of the UCS Assault on Hoth playset which was just a compilation of previous Lego sets. Then again, as an unofficial AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego) member, the whole point behind Lego building is when they release a new set, albeit an exclusively expensive one, it’s their way of saying, “Here’s what we did. Now let’s see you top ours?" It’s all about imagination.

I don’t know if my interests in collecting toy related movie/TV merchandise will end as I get older, when I turn 50, or if I will still be interested in such things when I am in my 80s. I suspect Lego will be the last hobby of mine still standing when I reach my twilight years.

One thing I do know is how great it is for just one mid-July weekend every year to feel like a kid on Christmas morning seeing all the new products before reality kicks in the day after the Comic-Con convention is over and I start asking myself, “How the Hell am I going to pay for all this stuff?”

©8/3/16