The Upside of Being a Wendigo

Last week I got a little more negative than I like to.  I usually try to avoid putting down any movie and labeling it "bad" or worse; "so bad it shouldn't even exist."  I'm not going to apologize for what I wrote because I still believe Zack Snyder's Wonder Woman would be better than Zack Snyder's Shitfest of Steel, but I do want to be a little more positive this week.

I guess part of why I got so negative last week is because I've been having a hard time lately what with becoming a supernatural cannibalistic snow monster and all.  I guess I should expand on that incase you missed my Spotify post.

And maybe a quick recap won't hurt even if you did see it.

A few weeks ago some friends and I took a trip up to Montreal to make a blood sacrifice to Leonard Cohen at his birthplace, like ya do.  We were just innocently driving through Canada singing along to "Suzanne."  I even think the shaman tied up in the trunk hummed along to the chorus.  On second thought, that could have been him reciting the spell that teleported us to the heart of the wilderness without our phones.  You can probably guess what happened next; it's the same thing anyone else would have done.  I ate my friends' flesh and used their pelts for warmth within minutes of being stranded.

As soon as the curse took effect my body transformed as quickly as my mind but much more painfully.  All my fat disappeared and my skin tightened around my bones.  I've been trying for years to lose weight with varying success.  I worked out daily, skipped meals, and ate food I didn't like.  I never would have thought the most effective diet would be another fat person.  They say nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, but turns out they could have both.  They can even eat their cake and I can eat it too.  If I have one gripe with my new bod, it's that I would prefer to be the muscular and hairy wendigo from Marvel comics, but leggars can't be choosers.

Not a typo.

By the time I stumbled back to civilization I was hungry again, which was strange since I had just eaten my friends about fifteen minutes before.  I made my way to the nearest restaurant and asked if they had poutine, as I've always wanted to try it.  Unfortunately the entire staff and all the patrons fled from my gruesome appearance, so I helped myself.  It was pretty good, but not quite as good as the guy I found hiding in the bathroom who had just eaten poutine.  I took his keys and made my way to his car so I could try to go home but whenever I got close to it the hunger overtook me and I went in the other direction.  Apparently after the wendigo curse was first created the shaman behind it realized it would be bad if any of the monsters got loose so he contained them (us) to the Canadian backwoods.  That's fine by me if Tim Hortons customers taste as good the poutine guy.  Also, it's true what they say, the people are so nice here.  Sometimes they apologize to me when I bite into them.

Still, I realize mythical cannibalism isn't for everyone.  If you're still on the fence, I can tell you that I have never been disappointed by people meat.  Since I can eat all I want and never get full or put on any fat I've had a lot of opportunities to experiment with different recipes.  I've tried skin-flapjacks with maple syrup, I've tried nachos con arm-e, I've tried Mark-chops and pork-Chads, and not once have I thought "this human flesh just isn't doing it for me."  Sidenote: since my hunger consumes my every thought I don't even feel any shame about these awful puns.  I'm not asking you to commit to wendigoism right now, I'm just offering you the chance to come up and watch me or someone else work, and see how much fun we're having.  And while you're at it, maybe bring some good old American barbecue sauce with you.  No reason.

White Male Superheroes Who Deserve Less Movies

We all know that Wonder Woman should have had a movie by now.  The list of female and minority superheroes who have been severely underrepresented by the film industry is almost as long as the list of lists of female or minority superheroes who have been severely underrepresented by the film industry.  It should go without saying that promoting equality doesn't mean taking away from the more privileged, only to increase privilege for everyone like Oprah if cars were not-being-systematically-oppressed.  There's no way to trade the Green Hornet movie for a Black Panther, but let's imagine there were.  Let's imagine there's a Twilight Zone episode about a world that is just like ours but with slightly less white guy movies and in their stead are the Captain Marvel and John Stewart Green Lantern and solo Storm movies that have been missing from our world.  The best part about this fantasy land is that we have so many white guy movies that there are a handful of them that are so bad we could cut them loose without a second thought.  Their absences would probably be better than their presence.  These are some of the white male superhero movies that wouldn't be missed by most people, or at least myself and, as long we're imagining, my lovely wife 90's Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Man of Steel

I hate Man of Steel a whole bunch.  I hate it with every fiber of my being.  My personal (and reasonable and correct) feelings aside, most people can agree that it's the least Superman-like movie out of the six Superman movies.  Grim and gritty isn't really the best fit for a character who dresses in bright primary colors and plays fetch the Easter Island head with his super labrador.  If you were going to erase one Superman movie from history, it should probably be the one where the hero who supposedly represents hope and the best parts of humanity snaps a guys neck like he's Steven Seagal.  In the interest of attempting to be objective, I can admit that Man of Steel had some strong points, for instance, it was surprisingly feminist, especially coming from the director behind 300.  Speaking of which, Zack Snyder's experience with sword and sandal flicks and his apparently newfound competency with feminism make him a pretty good choice to run things behind the scenes for a Wonder Woman movie, which would be about a mythic Greek warrior who has no qualms about killing people.  It seems like Snyder will be doing just that in 2017 as the guy in charge of DC's Justice League, and it's possible he will do right by Wonder Woman, but in the better world he could do it without royally crapping all over Superman first.

Amazing Spider-Man

The first two Spider-Man movies directed by Sam Raimi from the early 00's are among the best superhero movies ever and are largely responsible for the abundance of the genre we have now.  The third was not quite as good, but it shouldn't be erased because every trilogy needs an inferior final act.   The Amazing Spider-Man series, on the other hand, is only two movies in and has already reached Spider-Man 3 levels of awfulness.  Marc Webb's first attempt was fine, but unnecessary  considering Raimi's last attempt was released only five years earlier.  Then with this year's Amazing Spider-Man 2 everything fell apart.  The main villain Electro was practically unrecognizable after his transformation, the secondary villain Green Goblin was superfluous and his plotline was rushed and Peter Parker stalked Gwen Stacy who spent the whole movie looking into the camera and lip-synching "Don't Fear the Reaper" while pantomiming a noose around her neck.

If Emma's alternate universe doppelganger could read this

things would get pretty awkward at the 

Brown-Stone-Real-Life-Hermione-Granger-Louis-Dreyfus household.

The biggest problem Webb faced was distancing his movies from Raimi's.  If he had just waited a while, not only would he have time on his side, but he could make a movie about a completely different Spider-Man all together; Miles Morales.  Morales, who is mixed-race, first appeared the year before The Amazing Spider-Man was released.  That is not enough time for a movie studio to reasonably base an entire film franchise on, but three years later Miles Morales is still going strong, much stronger than the public's interest in a Spider-Man franchise that pales in comparison to the one that came less than ten years before it.

The Incredible Hulk

The Incredible Hulk, starring Edward Norton, is by far the least memorable entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Edward Norton was replaced by Mark Ruffalo for The Avengers, making Robert Downey Jr. the only actor to be in both movies, and he was only in Hulk's after credits scene at a time when audiences didn't know to expect an after credits scene in Marvel movies.  It's been six years since Norton played the role and there is no planned standalone sequel, even though one was set up within the movie by implying that Dr. Samuel Sterns would become Hulk villain The Leader when he was infected with Hulk-blood.  Now The Leader is running around leading with no consequences.   All those loose ends would disappear if only it had been a Black Widow movie instead of the Hulk.  Sure, there might be more but different loose ends, but at least we know Scarlett Johansson is in this for the long haul.

Just like her marriage to Ryan Reynolds.

I always liked them together.

What I learned from watching "I Love the 2000's" for two hours

It’s a strange experience to be nostalgic about commercialized nostalgia.  That’s what happened yesterday when I happened upon I Love the 2000’s on VH1.  For most of middle school and the first few years of high school I was fascinated with the I Love… series.  Like many young people struggling to find an identity I thought simple awareness of pop culture would suffice.  For me, I Love… was less about nostalgia and more about building a collection of references to make later on down the road.  Now that I’m a little older, I have more than enough references in my utility belt.  For instance, did you know that Batman* exists?  I was also alive and mostly conscious for the past 14 years, so when I saw that an I Love the 2000’s marathon was on and in its final hours I watched not out of desire to learn, but out of that weird nostalgia, and in the process learned a few things about myself and my generation anyway.

There is still no good name for the previous decade

I am usually the first to defend millennials, but this may be our greatest failure.  We’re nearly halfway through the teens and yet we still have no consensus on what to call the decade that came before them.  What am I to do if a child asks me about my old flip phone?  Call it a relic from “roughly ten years ago?”  “Sit on my knee and I’ll tell you about the strange era known as ‘the first decade of the current millennium?’”  That doesn’t have any of the mystique and flair that was present when I asked about my parents’ vinyl records and they told me about the 80’s.  What am I to do if I want to host a theme party with everyone dressed in Crocs and Hannah Montana* wigs, with Guitar Hero* controllers strapped to their backs?  What do I call that theme?

Michael Ian Black’s career is going really well

Michael Ian Black is a really good comedian.  I didn’t know that at the time when I first started watching I Love… so for a long time it was what I knew him best for.  The first time I saw him out of that context was on a stand-up show, and the only thing I remember from it is that he acknowledged that he was best known for talking about the Rubik’s Cube* on VH1.  In retrospect I can see that the series isn’t very good and Black probably isn’t very proud of his involvement in it, so it was kind of nice in a Good Will Hunting* kind of way to not see him in I Love the 2000’s.  I’m not really sure what he’s up to now besides having faux feuds with people I follow on Twitter, but it seems like it’s going well enough that he doesn’t have to share airtime with the pubic lice that have gained sentience and now control the part of Bret Michaels’ brain* that is responsible for his appearance.

Insert joke about your mom here.

Whatever it is will be better than what

Bret Michaels inserted into your mom.

My poker phase was actually part of a fad

I knew a lot of people played poker, but I thought it was something that had been going on for generations, and I just happened to get into it at a random point in time.  Still, it’s nice to know that I have something in common with Jennifer Tilly*.

Harry Potter may have contributed to Boy Meets World’s longevity

Or perhaps it was the other way around.  All I know is that the two seem to be related: Boy Meets World went off the air just as the Harry Potter franchise was beginning, and they’re both very important to millennials.  They also have some very similar characters.  They both center on a trio of friends made up of a dark haired, middle class protagonist, his best friend who grew up in poverty, and a bushy haired girl with a weird name who was at the top of her class and is passionate about social issues.  They are joined by a wise, grey haired mentor who is in charge of their school, a smug blonde nemesis, a cool teacher who plays father to one of the boys, and the next generation stars in an epilogue that is pretty disappointing.  I’m not the only one who has noticed the parallels, but no one seems to be able to decide how Eric fits into the HP universe.  I don’t know either, but keep an eye out for Will Friedle to be a major player when I compare My Date with the President’s Daughter* to Tommy Boy*.

*It’s good to be the king.

"The Middle" is the New "Breakfast Club"

The Breakfast Club is perhaps the most iconic film about teenage life, and as such it has many imitators.  Movies like The Perks of Being a Wallflower and the documentary American Teen have been called modern versions of the John Hughes classic.  Little did anyone expect that the true heir to The Breakfast Club would come not as a highly buzzed about melodrama, but as a sitcom that no one watches.

Patricia Heaton may narrate and play the lead role in The Middle, but it is usually her young co-stars who steal the show.  Heaton's Frankie Heck is mother to three children: Axl, Sue, and Brick, played by Charlie McDermott, Eden Sher and Atticus Shaffer respectively .  Axl is the oldest child, an athlete and popular student who coasted through his high school education until his recent move to college, similar to Emilio Estevez's Andrew with bits of Molly Ringwald's Claire.  Sue is the middle child, and as such often goes neglected by her family and is all but invisible to her fellow students, much like Ally Sheedy's Allison.  However, Sue is far from the cynical loner that Allison is.  Sue is much more passionate than Allison; she is a dedicated student and eagerly desires to improve her social status, traits she shares with Anthony Michael Hall's Brian.  The youngest Heck child Brick, who is just beginning to enter his teen years, also shares traits with both Allison and Brian.  He is intelligent like Brian, known to constantly have his nose buried in a book.  He is also a social outcast like Allison, even more so than his sister.  While Sue goes unnoticed for what her peers perceive to be mediocrity, Brick is looked down on for his quirks.  He whispers to himself and woops for no known reason.  The only archetype seen in the Club who doesn't make an appearance in The Middle is the tortured rebel, John, who was played by Judd Nelson, probably because he's in prison.

I don't like it anymore than you do, but let's give credit where credit is due.

He called his shot and Bendet got the horns.

The appeal of The Breakfast Club isn't just the familiar traits of the characters, but their complexity, and the sincerity of the actors who portrayed them.  The world of The Middle is more comedically heightened than The Breakfast Club, and as such the characters are more caricatured.  Nevertheless, they retain some of that same complexity and even more of the sincerity.  As exaggerated and cartoonish as things like Sue's happy dance may be, her utter joy at finally succeeding after countless failures rings true to life in a different but equally affecting way than anything in The Breakfast Club.

She pulled the elephant's trunk and the light came on.

The biggest difference between The Middle and The Breakfast Club is that in the former the parents receive just as much screentime as their children, if not more.  This only serves to further one of The Breakfast Club's central themes; that all people, regardless of any and all differences, should be seen as fully human.  While it is normal for teenagers to see their parents as foes and that is likely one of the reasons for The Breakfast Club's longevity, the reality is that more often than not parents have their children's best interests at heart.  The Middle has its share of generational battles as well, but the view points of both sides are shown with near equal regard.

Next year will mark the 30th anniversary of The Breakfast Club touching the hearts and minds of the young and the young at mind.  The Middle is entering its sixth season even though, as previously mentioned, no one seems to actually watch it.

Why don't we give another Emmy to Jim Parsons?  He's earned it.

The Relatability of Men from Space as Opposed to Those Who Dress as Bats

As two of, if not “the two,” most popular superheroes Batman and Superman are often pitted against each other.  In fact, two years from now a light-hearted feel-good movie will be released based on that very concept.  When fans discuss the faults and virtues of these two titans there is one trait that is usually at the center of the conversation: relatability.  Generally speaking, Batman is seen as more relatable because he is just an ordinary human struggling to make his way in the world with no super powers to help him while Superman freeze breaths and super speeds his way through life with no obstacles in his way.  For some reason this viewpoint never really made sense to me.

I have watched a few documentaries about superheroes and had several conversations about them, but I have never heard the idea of Batman's relatability go any deeper than the fact that he is not an extraterrestrial.  I don’t think I have ever met anyone who has anything in common with Batman.  I’ve known people who have two jobs, but neither of those jobs has ever been billionaire playboy or masked vigilante.  On the other hand, I have met many journalists, even some outside of the four years I spent studying journalism in college.  It may not be the most normal job in the world but I’m certain that journalists are much more common than billionaires.  Take the cast of NewsRadio for instance. 

That’s one news director, one news producer, one researcher, two anchors, one secretary, one handyman, and one billionaire.  That adds up to a ratio of 5 journalism professionals to one billionaire, and if sitcoms aren't an accurate representation of the American public I don't know what is.

What’s more, Clark Kent’s job at the Daily Planet, like many work environments, is where he meets nearly everyone in his social circle, all of whom he has pretty normal relationships with.  It’s where he meets his best friend Jimmy Olsen, who is fun to pal around with but doesn't expect any kind of emotional commitment.  His boss, Perry White, is demanding but respected by most of his staff.   Bruce Wayne met most of his closest friends by either adopting them or being adopted by them, and the closest thing he has to a boss is the incorporeal concept of justice.

Bruce Wayne has never had a healthy romantic relationship in his life.  His most consistent paramour is a criminal, the antithesis of everything he believes in.  Clark Kent has had two love interests in 75 years, Lana Lang and Lois Lane, neither of which is included in the “Villains” section at the bottom of his Wikipedia page.  Lana is his high school sweetheart until the two split up because their lives are going in different directions.  Clark goes on to marry Lois, and the two love and support each other until reboot do them part.

There are all kinds of family structures in the world, but I think it’s safe to say that butler, Batman, and a handful of wards is pretty out there.  The Kents aren't exactly a nuclear family either, but Clark usually has at least one parent and a cousin.  His father is terse but loving and his mother is concerned about the amount of meat on his bones, which is never enough.  If anyone in the Kent house ever called anyone else master they were probably mocking the extravagant life style that they couldn't even imagine, or maybe there was an issue from Krypto's point of view.

Wanna see me catch my tail?  Wanna see me 

do it a... wait a minute, I got this.  I swear, I can do this.

At this point I've nearly convinced myself that Superman is too normal.  Superman isn't normal, though.  He is literally inhuman, but in some ways he is almost too human.  He wants to fit in, but he doesn't want to lose sight of what makes him unique.  Sometimes he wears his differentness on the outside, in bright primary colors and other times he hides it under a tie and collar.  Sometimes he wants to be alone but it doesn't mean he loves his family and friends any less.  He loves them with all his heart and desperately wants to be loved in return, but is afraid to show his true self to anyone but a select few who he holds closest.  The words don't always come easy, whether he's writing a story or flirting with Lois.  There's no guidebook to being both the most powerful person on Earth and the weird guy at the office.  Superman is just doing the best he can.  A lot of that applies to Batman as well, and maybe there are a lot of people who relate to him, but it probably isn't just because he lacks the ability to shoot fire from his eyes.