Because sometimes The Man makes shilling for him just too much dang fun:
Yes. Yes, I am looking forward to the movie. No; no I haven't read any of the books. Yes, yes I remain at heart a frustrated teenager.
Versing the World
Kick-Ass: A Follow-Up
WAY BACK in November of 2008, when I still had hair (I still have hair), I
to go out and read a little comic called
Kick-Ass
. I had only read the first issue at the time and, thereafter, I read only through the third or so. (Out of eight? I can't be bothered to Google this?) When I wrote that there 'blog post I promised a movie was in production and, last weekend, said movie opened in wide release. And last night, I observed the playing of said movie. This, then, is my response.
RESPONSE. NOT a CRITIQUE, or even a REVIEW. Just to be clear. Though there will be SPOILERS, me mateys. (Gatling jetpack. Wha-tah! How's that for timing?)
I'll preface this with a few interesting facts about this particular movie deal and my particular choices with regards to how I ingested this morsel of mixed media:
- Obviously, I was sold on the concept (as I understood it) straight off.
- I elected not to pursue the comic very far so I would not spend the whole movie comparing the two.
- The comic got the movie deal from practically the first issue (can't be bothered to Google) and subsequently delayed releases of its issues in an effort to release the final one in the story arc as close to the opening date as possible.
- The last issue of the comic that I did read -- though this was not a factor in my decision to stop reading -- I found a little off-putting.
- I like comics, action movies and underdog stories.
To be brief: I enjoyed the movie a great deal.
All right, goodnight everybody! Tip the lamb and try your waiters!
[Then he just went on, and on, and then on about the damn movie...]
Those of you fervently tracking my 'blog, eager to analyze my responses to comicbooks and their cinematic interpretations in particular, may be reminded here of my rant on the impracticality of superheroes (see
). It's true: Superheroes are entertaining mythology, and an answer to almost nothing practical. In that sense all this hubbub about the moral issues supposedly addressed in
Kick-Ass
are simply a mess of malarkey. (Points: "hubbub" and "malarkey" in the same sentence.) This film is not immoral, it's amoral, and one simply has to accept that as an aspect of the genre in order to approach it on terms remotely related to its intentions. It's reminiscent of Japanese manga in this sense (not to mention in much of its imagery) -- indulgent fantasy that
knows
it is indulgent fantasy. Is it immature and irresponsible? Totally. It's a teenager, and that's apt for its story.
That having been said, if this film catches on big, kids are going to emulate and probably get hurt or killed. One can easily argue that such kids will be stupid to begin with, because the movie more than emphasizes the catastrophic physical danger of vigilantism, and one would be right, but one would also be missing the point that
many kids are stupid, because they're kids
. They haven't had enough experience to reliably process this kind of information with some sense of distance. I know this, because I literally fantasized about sneaking out to "fight crime" when I was a teenager. I didn't see why I couldn't, nor that doing so was in itself criminal, nor even what that actually meant. More on that later. Point:
This is an irresponsible movie.
End of point.
I had a hell of a good time watching it. I may even buy it when it's released on DVD/Blue-Ray/DRM-FreePsychicImpression, if for nothing else than to revisit some of the brutal, beautifully choreographed "fights." (There was maybe one actual fight in the movie; the rest of the sequences were, to coin a phrase, "heroes"
owning
"villains.") This film takes a good ol' power fantasy that fanboys have had for at least half a century and just gives it a good, hard nudge into a more relevant setting. Relevant, but not in any sense realistic or naturalistic. Some may be fooled by the many parallels -- far more than even the new
Batman
films -- between the movie's environment and reality, but to those people I would say only this: Gatling jetpack.
Things I liked:
- The action choreography was a really rather interesting blend of tropes and innovation. For an (amoral) example, Hit Girl straight-up kills bad guys, which is really the only way an 11-year-old could be expected to defeat adults, and many of the ways in which she does this are completely over-the-top, but also gratifying in their efficiency.
- It did not pull punches in any sense, and was not aiming for any PG-13 rating, which allowed teenagers to be non-idealized and consequences to be heavy (when actual consequences were audacious enough to appear in this movie).
- There was a very dark humor throughout, to the extent that I can see why some people seem to think the humor ended about midway through.
- Nicolas Cage. I know. I KNOW. He still made gratingly huge acting choices, but if ever there was a movie in which they seemed apt, this is that movie. There was also a fanboy level of appreciating that he was for a long time thought to be Tim Burton's first choice for a very different interpretation of Superman(TM). In particular, the cadence of speech he used for Big Daddy was an astonishingly bizarre, yet recognizable, riff on Adam West's Batman. Fun; lots.
- The movie and comic took a nice risk in actualizing a commonly held fantasy with creativity and specificity -- namely, answering the question of what might happen if a teenager followed through on his power fantasy.
Ironically, this last point was what initially intrigued me with the concept, yet also provided my biggest disappointment with the film. I was already rather resigned to this disappointment from the last issue I read (in which Hit Girl makes her splashy entrance) and from the tone of the movie previews, but I can't shake it completely, because I really wanted to see the movie I had fantasized about way back in November of 2008.
The only actual fight that takes place in the film happens about a third of the way in, and involves Kick-Ass fighting three guys in defense of a fourth whom they have chased into his path and proceeded to beat on. This is months after our hero's initial confrontation, in which he is stabbed and then hit by a car, then takes a little time-out to recuperate in the hospital. Before jumping in, he tells a nearby teen to call 911. The fight goes awfully for Kick-Ass, but he manages to first distract the attackers, then straddle the victim and keep them at bay with two batons. He doesn't win in any conventional sense. In other words, he doesn't beat them, but he endures mortal danger until they have to flee, owing of witnesses and the increasing risk of the intervention of the police. I liked this scene in the comic. I love it in the film; the lighting and dressing is gritty, and the direction is frenetic enough to communicate the utter confusion that the fight entails for our hero, while staying removed enough to allow us to distinguish just enough specificity to appreciate the story of the encounter.
The movie I wanted to see -- am in fact left still wanting, quite badly, to see -- is one that continued along that line. It's shortly after this point in
Kick-Ass
that Big Daddy and Hit Girl are introduced as supposedly more capable superheroes (in fact: vigilantes), complete with tremendous budget and revenge subplot, and everything is amped up. This is the movie (and, I suppose, the comic [the chicken-and-egg here is nigh inconceivable]) they wanted to make and, as I said, I enjoyed it a lot. It's just: What if? I mean this question both in terms of the comic/film, and in terms of continuing what I felt was the set-up and development of the beginning of the story.
What if when our hero gets in over his head, no one is there to bail him out? What if he revisits the hospital? What if he gets involved in the world of crime so deeply that his boundaries start to blur? What if he drops out of school? What if he inspires other teenagers in both directions, heroics and villainy? What if he has to choose whether or not he'll use firearms? What if he kills someone, or even just witnesses murder, and there are actually psychological consequences? What if, somehow, through it all, he actually gets quite good at fighting crime -- what does that entail and lead to in reality? What if he discovers he can't make a difference -- but personally needs to, anyway?
Lately a lot of hybrid superhero movies have been produced, many of them setting themselves in decidedly naturalistic worlds (
comes to mind) but none that I know of approach the idea in such a straight-forward way. No one has made this movie yet, and I'm afraid no one will. Even I balk at writing the story, because I have some pessimistic views about how it might be received by producers and audiences alike. Certainly last night's audience by-and-large would not be pleased with the movie in my head. Yet I'd really like to see it. I think it would be entertaining
and
interesting, and that it would continually surprise its audience with events that occur with such veracity that anyone can imagine the same thing happening to them. Not to mention that it's the kind of story that is best served in film; no other medium could express it with such specific verisimilitude.
I think it's a shame that Millar and Romita, the creators of the comicbook, didn't go in this direction, but they did create one hell of a ride that probably many, many more people will enjoy. I know I did. The movie does what it says it is.
Nerd Herding
I'm bad at it. Twice last weekend I was asked to help round up groups, and I failed in interesting ways both times, including by mis-hearing responses that were in the affirmative.
One of the aspects of
that I appreciated for the first time this go, my third go (see also
,
,
and
) were the many cultural overlaps between stereotypical nerd culture and stereotypical camping culture. Both require an enthusiasm for making life a greater challenge, amongst other specific conditions that supposedly "normal" people would fear or disdain. Both involve improvisation, moderated with a healthy dose of research and acquired knowledge. Both generally associate with high-calorie foods. Both environments typically eschew the strictures of social norms such as fashion and strict codes of hygiene. So yes, camp is an excellent place for fellow nerds to gather, and be unabashedly nerdish.
I am one such nerd. In point of fact, I don't think of myself as a nerd per se; not because I find the term derogatory, either. Rather, I think specifically of a "nerd" as someone very intelligent and good with details. I am not
very
intelligent, at least not in that way, so consider myself something more along the lines of a geek, or dork. Spaz, too -- which I have fortunately parlayed into a rewarding career as a physical comedian. At least, it's philosophically rewarding, when in no way else.
Despite my self-imposed sub-nerd status, I am allowed (nay: encouraged) to ally myself with other nerds on an annual basis at Camp Nerdly. I just did so last weekend, getting my yearly dose of straight-edge, pure gaming. "Gaming" in this context, by the way, refers to just about any actively challenging effort that is endeavored largely for the sake of fun and entertainment. It was a special occasion in several respects, owing to the fact that
was in attendance, all the way from Leeds. (That's in England.) I have a funny sort of response to gaming. Expatriate Younce actively encourages it, as do other friends of my hometown, while
and many of her circle, at best, do not understand its appeal. So I have some strong influences on either side of the debate as to the relative value and appeal of gaming. Then I get to the actual gaming, and have a response similar to when I've been away from a rehearsal process for over a month: "Oh crap. I have no clue what I'm doing here." Of course, I gamely (see what I did there?) fake it until I catch up again. And how do I feel about gaming? Well.
The first game I played on arrival this year was a collaborative board game called
, and I have only good things to say about it.
was the gamer who introduced it to me and my fellow novices, and we had a great time discussing strategy in trying to clear the world of four rampaging diseases. We also got our butts handed to us by the game, which only serves to make you want to play it more. Sadly, I never found another opportunity. It's way more interesting to play a board game that is both collaborative and difficult to beat than it is to play something like Monopoly, wherein a winner is guaranteed and somebody's going to regret buying real estate.
Next that night was a session of
, run by another favorite gamer of mine,
(perhaps cool names are indicators of future nerdom...?). We gathered at "The Castle," de facto cabin for any games likely to involve more adult themes, and we possibly made those themes more adult than they were intended to be.
A Taste for Murder
seems meant to be a story-telling game with a fairly strong and regular dice element, where the "winner" of scenes is determined by competitive rolls. The setting is like an Agatha Christie novel, and you choose your characters based on family and estate relationships, trying for a broad range of class/status. In the first act of play, the relationships are built up and controversy well-established. It culminates in
MURDER
. In act the second, the player of the murdered character plays the detective on the scene, and the back-stabbing begins. We played it a bit grotesque, I'm afraid, for the genre. Not enough class warring. I played the rebellious son of the estate, and all audio was recorded for the game's creator. Well, some. We kept running down batteries. It was a good game. If I ever play it again, I'll focus less on winning the game, more on building my character.
Saturday morning started out with a game called
, a role-playing game that used playing cards to drive the game function. Essentially, playing chosen patriotic figures both real and imagined (much of the imagination having something to do with steampunkiness), I and two others played a card game against the house ("the house" in this game represented by one Mr. Jeff Hosmer), using our hand at a given moment and the resulting win or loss to narrate how that particular struggle against the Tories went down. In most cases, it went down to the ground, and Hosmer trounced our sorry, albe-they rebellious, butts. I played a saucy cross-dressing Frenchman, hungry for rebellion (non-historical, btw). It was a fun game, and collaborative in its own way. The balance between card play and role-play landed heavily on the card side, but this created a very urgent dynamic that was also fun. Imagine playing Spit, and having to make up a whole team-written fiction, simultaneously.
The early afternoon was my most undecided slot, yet ended up being the most overall satisfying experience of the weekend in terms of gaming.
is a unique role-playing game in many ways. The game has most of the players playing the women of a feudal Japanese village, trying to woo and/or seduce a ronin who has wandered into their town, in the hopes of finding love and saving the village from some great threat. The history of the game itself is unique; dreamed up by a male-to-female transsexual who was contemplating female identities, and since carried through a fairly extensive development by her friend -- and Nerdly attendee --
. In our game, a woman played the samurai, and I and three other women (including Danielle) played the women of the village. My character was a very young, innocent girl who loved the nearby mountains and cultivating bonsai. We conceived it all as taking place in a fishing village, one haunted by the spirits of the men lost at sea, and the story ended up being
amazing
. To make a long story short(er), this young ronin, out to prove himself, was variously wooed by very different women, none of whom wanted to tell him the problem of the village for fear of scaring him off. He eventually does confront the ghosts . . . and fails. Throughout this game, this growing story, we were moved. Some of us to tears. It was amazing. It was magic, nothing short of it.
My follow-up was similarly strong in narrative, although less of it was created out of thin air.
takes a very cool, tiny section of history and makes a game of it. You are given a very specific setting, choice of two characters (a primary and secondary) and play through the story of about a year within a community that now-a-days we might be inclined to call a religious cult. Your church, town, stronghold has broken off from the church and set up a rather different set of beliefs, principal among them that earth, life, is in fact a kind of testing hell. It can be transcended, and those who do are religious leaders known as "perfects," who try to guide their people out of the cycle of imperfect, passionate living, into true existence. With pre-established characters, setting and scenarios, the game really takes a lot of the burden of narrative structure away from the players (something we appreciate in Zuppa del Giorno when trying to build a play from improvisation) but there's plenty of room to play in the cracks. I played a quasi-heretical patriarch and a young orphan boy, and the highlight for me was a scene played out with Mr. Jason Morningstar, who was once again running the game. We had a negotiation scene that crackled like good theatre for me; he may have missed his calling, that one.
Finally that day, after dinner, was a
free-for-all, run by Jason (people will say we're in love),
and
. I wrote a bit about Jeepform last year after my first experience with it, and it still intrigues me. Essentially, it is a very interesting hybrid of improvisatory theatre and role-playing gaming. It has its own philosophy, and makes efforts to stand apart from both forms (as any self-respecting hybrid ought). This year was a somewhat more technical exploration of the methods and tactics -- as opposed to last year's straight gaming -- and one which eventually descended into Absurdist madness. Each of the leaders led us through a different Jeepform trope, all three in the context of superhero fiction. This was, perhaps, a contributing factor to the eventual eruption of silliness, as people (read: nerds) had a ton of clever ideas about how to riff on comicbooks. They tried to tell us: The best choice is an obvious one. And we tried to listen, but by the time we got around to the fourth section -- a trial held in a strange,
-inspired universe -- the gaggy gloves were decidedly off. I was as guilt as any, and it was a little too much fun to stop. Yet the surprising virtues I observed about Jeepform held true. People were taking turns, not interrupting, and a story was gradually developing on its own.
There was much discussion after that, rather late into the night (late by fresh-air standards, anyway), about gaming and improvisation and story-telling. There's something about people being excited to talk about that which is oddly fulfilling for me. I went to sleep feeling quite sated.
Sunday mornings at Camp Nerdly are often hungover affairs, but not the usual variety. People are bushed from all the thinking and playing of the day before, and many elect not to play anything at all, but there is a slot for gaming between eating and cleaning up the site.
filled my slot (hey now) with a little game called
. It was reminiscent of my first year and Nerdly, when I discovered just how much fun it could be to create a whole fictitious world from the ground up. Of course, as an improviser and writer, I do this all the time, but I take it for granted somewhat. It's a means to an end. Putting it as the primary purpose makes for some lovely synchronicity, especially when its collaborative, and thereby synergistic.
GHOST/ECHO
offers nothing but variables, an idea for context ("aetherpunk," says the ad) and a device for conflict resolution and lets the players make the rest up. It would be a tricky terrain for someone unused to working without rules, but for someone like me who knows roughly what to expect, and just wants to run free imaginatively -- a lovely way to spend a Sunday morning.
And like that, it was over. Some mopping, some laughing codas, a bus ride for me and the next day Expatriate Younce was bound homeward as well. My annual alliance with 50+ smart, creative thinkers done for the year.
When I was too young to fully appreciate the sentiment, someone mentioned to me the following axiom: When you are young, you love someone because you need them; once you have lived, you find true love when you need someone because you love them. I knew I was too young at the time I heard it to fully appreciate it, but there's nothing to be done about that. We all grow in our own time, and can only listen to the advice we are ready to hear. Yet I remembered it, and whereas it concerned me, made me worry about the nature of this or that relationship, when I was younger, now it is a comfort to me in all of my loves. When I was a kid, and started gaming, I loved it, and I really needed it -- for interaction, to work out my own fears and ambitions and to feel accomplished. And now, I love it. It wakes me up, engages me, gives me ideas and allows me to make the big picture the priority. I'm made happier by having it a part of who I am and what I do. And that's a great feeling.
Alternating Realities
Warning: I will be spoiling the new Star Trek movie for you. If you haven't seen it and give a tootin' holler, go read
instead.
So, apparently, everything we've ever been taught by the cinema about extra-normal time travel is wrong. Go figure. I can't say how we can be wrong about something that at this time exists purely in our imaginations, but if such a blunder is possible, I'm sure Hollywood can find seventeen ways to achieve it in but one script session. It would seem that paradoxes, changing the past and alternate time lines, as such, aren't. I'm certainly crushed. There goes one of Hollywood's greatest plot crutches. I'm sure we'll never, ever have another story that ever uses time travel to the screenwriters' advantage ever again ever.
Unless, of course, someone goes back in time and changes that.
In the new
, the world of the 60s television show is effectively re-imagined, with lots of lens glare and "hand-held" close-ups. I am told the kids are calling this a "reboot" and, indeed, I noticed they put new boots on the Federation uniforms. This reboot is explained, justified, and otherwise meant to be made more palatable by way of time-travel incidences and alternate realities. (Alternate time lines = bogus. Parallel universes = apparently not ruled out just yet.) My biggest complaint about the movie -- which I enjoyed, by the way -- was how adamantly they established and reinforced this argument for making fresh new choices about Star Trek backstory. Just under the scene-after-scene of repetitive expository dialogue I could detect the seismic effects of so many screenwriters giving themselves pats on their backs. Thank you. Yes. I get it. The future is now, conveniently, mostly, unwritten.
It did, however, get me thinking about alternate realities. It's not inconceivable to
much smarter
people than me that there are multiple universes in which an incredible variation of common elements occur. We tend to be pretty narrow in our conception of such alternate dimensions, imagining them largely as revolving around us and our personal choices in life. But who knows? If the alternate realities are as infinite as we believe space and time to be, anything we can conceive of might occupy one or several. A moss universe. A universe in which the motions of the planets are determined by the game mechanics of backgammon. If nothing else, the notion of alternate realities is a very decent metaphor for, or illustration of, the human imagination.
Viewed through the filter of my comicbook-ridden mind, the new film makes Kirk our Batman, Spock our Superman. Kirk is the vigilante anti-hero, Spock the alien who wants more than anything to do right (and be accepted), and now both are motivated by parental demise. There even seemed to be an aggressive (in more ways than one) sub-theme of Kirk getting his ass handed to him in fights. These interpretations are not too far from the originals, so I took them in stride and tried not to snigger derisively. (Aw man, they blew up Krypt- . . . I mean, Vulcan . . ..) Uhura is way more bad-ass-er, which they tried really hard to make less-than-obligatory, and then they made her Spock's love interest, thereby reinforcing what Hollywood considers its biggest obligation to its audience: a love story. McCoy's a divorcee drunk, thank you Spielberg, Chekov is adorable, Sulu is exactly who you'd want in a bar fight, and Scottie -- well, Simon Pegg I love you and you can do nothing wrong not even
Run, Fatboy, Run
.
It's the characters that struck me and stuck with me, you understand. I suppose they were the reason I was there, to see a different troupe tackle archetypes, strap on the classic masks and have a whirl. This can be a recipe for disaster, and this wasn't a disaster, not by a long shot. It's just that the actors came across as more imaginative than the writers, which, keeping with a commedia dell'arte metaphor, is fairly apt. But it would have been nice to have both; maybe next time, or in an alternate parallel universe, somewhere/when/which. Which brings me back around to how we think of these alternate lives we could have had, or are having, in some-dimension else.
It's popular to opine that if we had it all to do over again, we wouldn't change a thing. Even when we think about changing something, many of us realize that we sort of like who we are -- the only "who" we know -- and we wouldn't be said "who" without the "what" we were given, when it was given. Or perhaps taken, depending upon your philosophy and/or theology. At any rate, the experience of our age just allows the slightest logical space to daydream about the past, and what-if scenarios. "What-if," I'm not the first to say, is an essential element in all aspects of acting. It's that logical crack that lets a little imaginative fresh air and warm light into the room. As
quotes Leonard Cohen, "There is a crack, a crack, in everything - that's how the light gets in...." There are people we have been, as we've grown, who in retrospect seem as foreign to us as strangers. Personally, I'm usually embarrassed by my former incarnations; but there are a few of me that I still love, that I'll always love, and will never quite be again.
Fortunately, there are no paradoxes, so I can visit with those guys any time I want, and the universe(s) is safe from implosion.
"Inebriate of air am I..."
That's a rather embarrassingly romantic line I copied in my journal right around college, freshman year (1995 or 6), I think. I say I'm embarrassed by it, but it has stuck with me and popped up every now and again, seemingly unbidden, in my memory. I had to look it up again to discover it was Dickinson and -- as though prescient in my "tweet" of yesterday -- remind myself that I didn't come up with it. Yes. I subconsciously tried to purloin Emily Dickinson. In my defense, I'm certain I'm far from the first, and I'm definitively certain I'll not be the last. Miss Dickinson's poem, in its entirety:
I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!
Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.
When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove's door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!
Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!
Odd to imagine a famous shut-in using inn and pub imagery, drunken bees or no.
The line recurred to me this time because I was thinking about my recent acceptance into the cult of
, and my choice of moniker there: AcroRaven. I hesitated to use it. At first I was trying all different permutations of "Jeff Wills," as it is my brand name as an actor. Alas, I arrived on Twitter too late for such luxuries (I still owe
a big 10-Q for getting me on to Gmail early enough to claim my address there) and I've just never adjusted to the idea of numeral incorporation into naming. Hence, AcroRaven. Right? Of course right.
Of course wrong. Both my embarrassment and my desire to use that name have quite a bit more to them than pragmatic consideration, or mere awkwardness over labeling myself using a species of bird for a site that claims all non-mute birds as its mascot. (Someone needs to get on some flightless bird sites. Cluck-er? Crow-er?) The fact is, I love ravens. And I've never seen one in person. The fact is, I call myself an acrobat. And I still can't stick a one-minute handstand. And the fact is, "AcroRaven" sounds like a really bad superhero, if you can even figure out how to pronounce it, and
that's part of what I love about it.
There. I said it. I made up that name because I love big black birds and acrobatics and seeing myself as a superhero.
The line from Dickinson spoke to me and I isolated it from its original context because it reminded me of how I imagine being a bird would feel. Maybe birds hate flying -- how would I ever know? I find their flight beautiful, however, and it reminds me of breathing deep and loving it. Exhilaration. There's a lot that feeds into my appreciation of birds, and ravens in particular, but suffice it to say that it's an animal that has come to symbolize for me my aspirations, turning my vision of who I could be into who I am. I may never be a bird, or renowned acrobat, or a superhero (in fact, the more I examine the reality of vigilantism, the less appealing it becomes, super-powered or no) yet a few years ago I never imagined I would know how to lift people to my shoulder, or have friends in Italy. These things came about because I can identify with the possibilities my dreams present.
Part of what finally launched me into the Twitter-sphere was a possible collaboration with a good, old friend of mine (one who dates back to my days of first admiring those crows that are the closest things to ravens Burke, Virginia has to offer). We're talking about creating a performance rooted in the ideas -- and maybe even the devices -- that allow us to have a creative collaboration in close-to-real time between East Coast and West, so naturally Twitter came up. As with any collaborative effort, not to mention plenty of the solo ones, it's difficult to say if anything will result from it. All the same, I'm looking forward to throwing those ideas out there, across the atmosphere, to see what sinks and what flies. Inebriates of air, aren't we all?