Ten Things: Guardian of the Galaxy

Hey, remember when going to the movies in the summer was supposed to be fun?  Well, Marvel sure does, and they've decided to take the rest of us along for the ride with Guardians of the Galaxy.  It's actually quite remarkable what Marvel Studios has accomplished here; they've taken one of the most obscure and bizarre hero teams in the Marvel Universe and turned it into one of the best Marvel movies since The Avengers.  Heck, I'm ready to see it again right now, which I haven't done since Pacific Rim.  If you haven't seen it yet, drop what you're doing and go now.

If you have seen it, stick around and see ten things I didn't like about my favorite movie of the year so far:

Such Heroic Nonsense: Get 'Em While They're Young

I mentioned in my last post that the release of Man of Steel on Blu-ray got me thinking about a couple topics, and I'd like to take some time to talk about the other.  Actually, the truth is that I've been thinking about this for a while, but Man of Steel just put it into stark relief: comics and superheroes don't seem to be for kids anymore.  And I think that's a bigger problem than anyone in the industry--especially at DC--realizes.

Such Heroic Nonsense: My Top 5 Superhero Movies

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This week saw the release of Man of Steel on DVD and Blu-ray, and with it a renewed discussion of that film's portrayal of violence, collateral damage, tone and the ethics of killing supervillains.  I'm not going to get into those discussions here, because as I've said before, the two sides of the debate really do seem to be talking past each other.  I'm not sure yet what these stark and seemingly irreconcilable differences among fans mean for superheros and their various medias, but the topic has gotten me thinking about a couple different things that I'd like to discuss at length.

First up: superhero movies and my personal Top 5 of the genre.

Ten Things: Thor: The Dark World

I'm just going to put this out there: Thor is probably my favorite Marvel superhero.  Thor and his supporting cast bring so much of what I love in good superhero stories: high adventure, whimsey, conflicted villains and high-stakes conflicts with a healthy dose of high fantasy strangeness.  Basically, everyone is larger than life and they are constantly dealing with weird and crazy shit.  And it all works, because we're dealing with Norse gods and nothing that modern writers can come up with will ever be as strange as the actual myths.

This love of Thor (and Tom Hiddleston's Loki) is probably why I thoroughly enjoyed the original Thor film, even though it is objectively in the lower-tier of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  The sequel, Thor: The Dark World, thankfully requires no qualifiers or justifications to explain my enjoyment.  This movie is fun, joyful, and above all funny in a way that hasn't been seen since Captain America and the first Iron Man.  While it takes a while to get going, the second and third acts more than make up for a slow start.  If you get the chance, you should definitely check this movie out.

Now here are ten things that I didn't like.

Such Heroic Nonsense: Where's the Joy?

Man of Steel is a tricky movie for me to talk about.  Not only is it polarizing (you either love it or hate it--there's no middle ground), but it seems to be polarizing in a such a way that the two sides literally cannot comprehend where the other is coming from.  Just as it baffles me that anyone could actually enjoy Man of Steel, I know several people that are mystified that I didn't love it.

Like I said, tricky.  Still, I'd like to take some time to explain why I think that Man of Steel is not only the opposite of what a Superman movie should be, but also the antithesis of what superhero movies should be about.

Ten Things: The Wolverine

To round out my discussion of superheroes over the last week or so, I'd like to take a moment to briefly talk about The Wolverine.  And yes, I know that this is a bit late, but I hadn't started this blog when it came out.  So there.


I didn't have high hopes going into this movie, given how bad the X-Men movies had gotten (First Class being the exception).  To my surprise, the film was actually pretty good.  I would rank it as maybe the third best in the franchise, behind X-2 and First Class.  Hugh Jackman still owns the role of Wolverine, and he remains the best thing about the franchise.  His performance here works especially well because the movie isn't trying to be a traditional superhero movie--it honestly feels more like a samurai film.  That difference in tone and structure is a welcome shift, because any experimentation with the formula can only help the genre at this point.

Now here are ten things I didn't like about it.

Such Heroic Nonsense: Sympathy for the Devil

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In my previous post I discussed how heroes reflect the cultures that created them, and how their triumphs and mistakes serve to guide and inspire that culture.  Now I'd like to take a moment to discuss villains and why they are at their best when we agree with them.

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.