When the recently-released DC animated feature film Superman/Batman: Apocalypse showed up on Netflix's instant player, I decided to give it a roll. Turns out that was a really stupid decision. The movie is adapted from the storyline in DC's Superman/Batman #7-13, a storyline drawn by Michael Turner, and written by Jeph Loeb primarily as a vehicle for Michael Turner to draw boobs. I made it through 30 minutes of the film before I shut the fucking thing off.
The best way to describe the sheer awfulness of this thing is just to tell the plot. Our film opens: Supergirl crashes to earth, naked of course, where she is immediately accosted by a trio of crude masculine stereotypes. She runs. The cops suddenly round a corner and decide to start chasing her, because why not. Then she blows up a cop car with her heat vision, and okay, NOW they have a reason to chase her, but look now she's flying away! Let's SHOOT AT HER! Fortunately Batman finds her and whisks her away to the Batcave (she's still naked), where she then wigs out and attacks him, but suddenly Superman's there in the Batcave! Because he just is! He says she's his cousin, and he knows this even though they were both fucking babies when they left Krypton and there's no reason they'd recognize each other, but OKAY! So he takes her to the Fortress of Solitude, where she meets Krypto the Super-Dog (white dog in a big red cape, don't get me started), and now she starts acting like a stupid fourteen year-old girl because this is a comic book and comic book writers didn't know any real girls in high school SO Superman takes her shopping! And she loves clothes! She LOVES CLOTHES! Clothes and makeup and shoes and omigod! We now get a good four-minute fashion montage of her trying on clothes, and of course there are plenty of short skirts and cleavage shots. At some point in here, the evil Darkseid, with a voice as evil as marshmallow fluff, is watching some Furies fight. They're his personal guard or something, who knows. One of the new recruits is killed, and Granny Goodness (a character created by Jack Kirby, so we can't change her name no matter how stupid it is) says they need some new Furies, and at this point we realize that Granny is voiced by Ed Asner! Why not! And now Darkseid says to go to Earth and get Supergirl, because he knows she's there somehow and whatever. But now back on Earth, Wonder Woman and Batman ambush Supergirl, and they take her to Wonder Woman's Amazon island where the soldiers dress in lace camisoles and Roman helmets, and train her to use her powers. Wonder Woman doesn't want to let her leave, and Superman wants to let her go for no convincing reason. But then Supergirl's mad, because nobody's asked her what SHE wants, and at this point the dull roar inside my brain took over, and I just turned it off.
Ed Asner as an old lady, I can take. Flying dog with a cape, that's pushing it. Dull hero who whines all the time in a pathetic attempt to convey an aging nerd's conception of what teenage girls are like, that's too much. And when that's all put together with a painfully terrible story that panders exclusively to an audience that just accepts this stuff as rote without trying to make it actually work for a half-intelligent audience... then fuck it.
Another cartoon that Netflix was kind enough to throw on instant play for me was the first season of The Spectacular Spider-Man. And before anything else, let me say, this is the best animation I have ever seen on television. The animation style is pretty cartoony, but the actual animation itself is smooth and gorgeous, allowing for some absolutely outstanding fight choreography. Spider-Man's fluidity and range of motion here surpass any of his TV predecessors. So for pure Spider-Man action, this is the best thing you're going to find out there.
The story, though, is hit and miss. The writers are very skilled at setting up long-range subplots and reasonably realistic character work (especially for a cartoon), but of course this is a high-school-centered show, so we also have to roll out the Generic Character Stereotype Formulator and pepper the scene with the usual assortment of jocks, cheerleaders, and lovable but misunderstood nerds. The villains have a similar problem: some of them emerge as the natural result of a running subplot, some of them create an interesting story in and of themselves... and some of them just show up and start going on a rampage for no reason. And of course, spend a lot of time shouting their names: "Call me... DOCTOR OCTOPUS!" It's pretty good storytelling most of the time, but at the end of the day it's still a kid's cartoon. It's a little cheesy, a little predictable. Don't expect to be amazed, but still, don't expect to have your intelligence insulted either.
The show was quite a bit more fun that I expected. I watched the whole 13-episode first season, and after the first three or four episodes it really found its groove. Bottom line: it's not terrifically good, it's still kid-centered, but if you like cool action scenes you'll have some fun, and it's just smart enough to not keep you feeling like you haven't wasted your time.
On the first day of 2010, my wife sat down with me to introduce me to one of her favorite shows as a teenager: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'd seen a tiny bit of Buffy here and there, and I was familiar with some of the character names and backgrounds. I'd seen a bit more of its spinoff, Angel, which I thought looked pretty crappy (and after watching more of it, it turns out I was right). But what the hell, I knew a lot of people who liked Buffy back in the day, and I do trust my wife's judgment, so I sat down and watched an episode from Season 2. It's now a year later, and I saw the rest of Season 2. And 3, and 4, and 5, and 6, and most of 7 except for one episode which looked stupid, and now I've gone back and watched most of Season 1. And I'll say it: Buffy the Vampire Slayer defies all logic by being a far better TV show than it has any right to be. How is it possible that I have seen almost all of what is basically a teen drama (and RE-watched significant portions on Netflix and Danielle's DVDs)?
Season 1 opened with Buffy in high school, and back then it was pretty much "fight the creature of the week." Some vampire or other monster would attack her and her friends, they would fight back, they win. The special effects were cheesy, but it was kind of funny and had some light, enjoyable adventure. Then comes season 2. Here the show really found its bearings, and began to focus on the thoughts and emotions of its surprisingly complex and realistic cast of characters. It's undoubtedly this more than anything that gave the series its strength. Season 2 also saw the introduction of the best antihero ever to touch foot on television, Spike, and a great storyline involving Buffy's boyfriend Angel. So Season 3 still has them in high school, and by this point I'm very happy that they'll soon be DONE with high school... but the season is driven by a great plot involving the city's political figures, the arrival of a second Vampire Slayer, and the unexpected collision of the two that ends up in an enormous battle. Season 4 moves to college and finds our hero with a new boyfriend... who also happens to be part of a secret military force that hunts vampires. The college stuff is miles above high school antics, and the military Initiative brings in some really fascinating status quo changes, while demonstrating why there needs to be a Vampire Slayer in the first place. Oh, and Spike joins the cast as a regular, which is just awesome. But Season 5 is unquestionably the best; the characters are at their peak by this point, and with The WB having decided to drop the show, the gang goes out on a high note with a season-long running battle with a goddess intent on opening the gates of hell (one episode, about a death in the family, is easily in my top five best episodes of ANYTHING). The last few episodes, with our heroes on the run, broken and bloody but defiant, are genuinely thrilling. Season 6 found the show happily renewed by UPN, and apparently UPN had much less of a problem with things like violence and homosexual displays of affection, so the show grows up even more. It's a somber season; all the characters are at their lowest ebb. The episodes are intensely moving and seriously dark, balanced by a fairly light-hearted trio of villains who turn out to just be fuel for the main villain's attack. The last season is number 7, and unfortunately I can not wax as rhapsodically about this one. The first handful of episodes are a let-down, with an unexpected return to high school and a grindingly dull subplot with Spike. Once the major villain is revealed, the characters proceed to stand around and talk about how dangerous it is, but never actually do much about it for episodes on end. I suppose what kind of saved it in the end was the return of Faith (the other Slayer), the expansion of the cast, and a really strong, really good series finale. Not nearly as good as it should have been, but fairly acceptable as an ending.
The series as a whole is not without its faults. This is television, after all. Sometimes the personal drama can border on the melodramatic. The dialogue is known for being quick-witted and clever, but sometimes it can be so "clever" as to become annoying, and some characters early on really make you want to kill them. A significant portion of the series takes place in high school. Nothing more needs said on that... But for such a long-lived series, that's not bad. The human quality of the series shines through: these people are a team, and a family, and even the smallest characters get their moments in the sun. The greatest battles and most devastating tragedies come about not through monster attacks, but through everyday circumstances. Its quality really becomes apparent when compared to its spin-off, Angel, which was continually mired in endless melodrama, and took itself so seriously that only about a third of it is enjoyable, with another third being merely inoffensive and the other third being truly unwatchable (nobody on Buffy was ever pregnant with a mysterious demon baby. Angel did it TWICE. In two consecutive seasons). As I suffer through the fourth season of Angel in order to get to the fifth one and the return of Spike (yes, I really like Spike. If Spike were on Gray's Anatomy, I'd... I'd consider watching it.)... as I suffer through Angel, I find myself coming back to reruns of Buffy, and I find I like them even better the second time. It's a series that settles into you, that makes you fall in love with it over time. Watching one or even a few episodes may give you an idea why people like it, but the more you watch, the more you understand why some people genuinely love it.
I wouldn't say I'm a die-hard. I'm not going to jet out to California for a Buffy Convention, or fill my bookshelves with hordes of cheap spin-off novels, but I do really enjoy this strangely and unexpectedly lovable series. And maybe that's what the hardcore fans really are really responding to, not just the show's quality, but its quality in the face of its own expectations, the surprising story of how a blond teenage girl who likes boys and fights vampires could be funny, moving, exciting, and the best thing The WB ever put on a television screen.
American Film Badger: We're at #9 on the AFI countdown. #9 on the 1998 list goes to... Schindler's List, which I talked about last week (it was #8 on the 2007 list). Still, this bears some commenting: in 1998, a film that had come out maybe five years before could be considered the ninth greatest film of all time... and then move up a slot ten years later. That really speaks to the quality of what Spielberg did. And on the 2007 list, #9 goes to Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Okay, got to admit... I didn't really like Vertigo. Maybe it was just the hyped-up expectation, but it wasn't as good as I thought it would be (and really a letdown compared to Rear Window, Rope, Psycho, The Birds...). Still, a pretty good thriller, full of switching identities and complex mystery. Visually, the set design and special effects are interesting, very expressionistic. I've read that in the original print, the color palate is even more bold. I don't know, probably need to see this again at some point.
This week's reading: About a third of the way through Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, all about wealth, social status, crime, and punishment in the Big Apple. Fun stuff.
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