Such Heroic Nonsense: They Will Stumble

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My previous post sparked something of a conversation on my Facebook.  It was a good discussion, and one that led me to think a little more about heroes and why we need them.

Such Heroic Nonsense: The World Needs Heroes

"Super Hero" by Psyshark

For a long time, it wasn't cool to like superheroes.  To admit that you enjoyed tales of men and women who battled crime in colorful outfits was to label yourself a "nerd" or a "dork" and find yourself ostracized by your peers.  It's ironic, then, that nowadays movies like The Avengers and The Dark Knight boast some of the biggest box office numbers of all time.  How did that happen?  Why did it happen?

I think the truth is that we've always loved superheroes; we just didn't realize it until now.

I Love It, But It Sucks: Street Fighter

Video game movies don't exactly have the best track record.  Of the maybe dozen or so that I can recall (not including anime adaptations) one would be hard pressed to find one that can really be called good.  Even 1995's Mortal Kombat, which I consider to be the best video game movie ever made, has so many flaws that I would hesitate to say that it is anything other than okay.  But Mortal Kombat, while arguably the best video game movie, is not my favorite video game movie.  No, that honor belongs to a train-wreck from 1994 called Street Fighter.

Ten Things: Star Trek Into Darkness

(For my inaugural post here at Impossible to Please, I thought it fitting to begin with an updated version of the Facebook status update that planted the first seed of an idea.)

I did not like Star Trek Into Darkness.  At all.  I could (and probably will) dedicate an entire blog post to why this movie is a failure and why it's a terrible omen for Star Wars Episode VII.  When I said as much on Facebook after seeing it, one of the first comments was how I don't like anything.  To prove that person wrong, I decided to come up with one thing that I liked about STID.  That one thing became five things, which ended up ballooning to ten things.  Soon I was listing ten good things in other movies I hated, plus ten bad things about movies I liked.  A few months later and that idea has blossomed into the blog you see here.

Mission Statement: Here There Be Ranting

It's hard to pinpoint where all of this started, but I'm pretty sure that it started with the first JJ Abrams Star Trek.  To say that I didn't care for that movie would be an understatement on par with calling the Grand Canyon "kind of big."  I despise that movie, and I let all my friends know how I felt.  A lot.  Probably more than was socially acceptable, and maybe even more than the film deserved.  But whenever I brought up how much I hated Star Trek, my friends would always respond the same way:

"Matt, you hate everything," they'd chuckle.