Your Guide to Telling The Marvel Movies Apart

In the years since Marvel started its reign over the box office one of the most common criticisms against their films has been that they're too similar to each other.  There are not enough words in this sentence to link to all the times I've proven my love for superheroes but even I have to admit there's a problem.  It's not a very big problem because even the Marvel movies that stand out the least from the rest tend to be mediocre at worst, but it's a problem nonetheless and one that can certainly be fixed. Fortunately there are several entries in the Marvel canon that prove the studio is capable of branching out and there have been since the beginning.

Iron Man was the movie that started it all and set the tone for the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a lot of ways.  It was also a huge gamble and they couldn't be sure that it would pay off so it absolutely had to stand on it's on.  Director Jon Favreau and star Robert Downey Jr. did a terrific job of crafting a fun, grounded, vaguely political action movie.  The MCU would never again be as realistic as that first film about a billionaire in a metal suit with rocket boots and gloves.  Iron Man 2 was the first to really hone the Marvel formula.  It's flashier and more lighthearted than its predecessor with more quips and bigger action sequences.  It was the first Marvel movie to really look and feel like a Marvel movie.

In between those two there was The Incredible Hulk.  I went over that one pretty extensively a while back, but the Reader's Digest version is that it's too different for its own good.  The look and tone is noticeably distinct from the rest of the MCU and a different actor played the titular Hulk than the one in The Avengers.  As a result it tends to be swept under the rug by the studio and fans alike, even though it is a pretty solid movie.

After Iron Man 2 came Thor.  Despite a host of Shakespearean dialogue and cosmic/mythological characters and settings, Thor is very recognizable as a Marvel movie.  Surprisingly, it's a little lacking in action but it still has the standard tone and humor.  Captain America: The First Avenger followed Thor.  Aside from it's spin-off TV show Agent Carter, The First Avenger is the only period piece in the MCU.  It tells of Captain America's origins and adventures during World War II.  As such, it looks more like Raiders of the Lost Ark than a modern superhero movie.  Director Joe Johnston excels at this kind of period piece and it shows.

Then there's The Avengers; the Marvel formula finally perfected.  A flawless comic book action movie.  Every joke, punch, and teardrop lands with the precision of an Olympic archer, which is ironic since the biggest flaw is the handling of Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye.  The stakes are high and the final battle is appropriately epic.  It's everything anyone could have asked for from the meeting of Marvel's heroes and the centerpiece of their universe.

The next year Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World were released.  Neither one ventures very far from the formula but the former is executed much better than the latter.  Iron Man 3 is one of the more lighthearted and comedy-heavy MCU movies while The Dark World is mostly just dull and attempts to be as dark as promised without any real losses.

The year after that Marvel tried to take some more risks with Captain America: Winter Soldier and Guardians of The Galaxy.  Of the two, Guardians is surprisingly the one that plays it safest.  Winter Soldier is a political espionage thriller that happens to be set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe while Guardians is simply an MCU movie set in space.  There's a bit of director James Gunn's offbeat sensibilities in Guardians but by and large it looks and feels like a standard outing for Marvel.

Then everyone came together again for Avengers: Age of Ultron.  Where The Avengers was perfectly crafted and almost universally beloved, Age of Ultron is much more divisive.  It's darker, stranger, and more operatic than all of its predecessors, not just The Avengers.  All problems aside, few could honestly say that Age of Ultron was exactly what they expected.

Finally, there's Ant-Man, which is oddly like The Avengers in that it is the Marvel formula perfected, but also condensed.  Thanks to a brisk pace and short run time, Ant-Man is exceptionally fun and over before you know it, leaving you wanting more.

Next year Marvel is releasing the third Captain America movie, Civil War and their first Doctor Strange.  Civil War is directed by the Russo brothers who also directed Winter Soldier, so it will hopefully be as different as its predecessor, but not too different from its predecessor.  Doctor Strange presents the best opportunity yet for Marvel to get away from themselves.  The title character operates in the world of mysticism and the occult, quite different from the science fiction of their usual fare, with the questionable exception of Thor.  One can only hope they'll take advantage of the opportunity.

Mad Men Report: 'Supergirl' and 'Jessica Jones'

The fall TV season is almost over so Netflix was kind enough to drop one of the most anticipated new shows of the year just in time to remind us all that free time is an illusion.  There is only television.  If you're not caught up on every single critically acclaimed drama you're dead.  To quote the official statement from Netflix "you fools!  You thought Thanksgiving would save you!  You'll spend Turkey Day binging a dark psychological thriller with a strong female lead and you'll... (dramatic pause) 'thank' us for it.  Ha.  Ha ha ha.  MWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!"  Anyway, the question is how much can each current show distract me from finishing the critically acclaimed drama Mad Men which I started just before the fall premieres.  This week two very different shows about female superheroes are attempting to prevent me from finding out how rich white men in the 60's treated women, homosexuals, and racial minorities.  I hope it's with compassion and understanding!

Jessica Jones

The latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe focuses on Jessica Jones, one of the very few comic book characters created since the 70's to gain any traction.  Jones first appeared in 2001's Alias by Marvel maestro Brian Michael Bendis and artist Michael Gaydos.  Now she is following up the magnificent Daredevil series as part of the MCU's street level world of heroes on Netflix.  Jessica Jones is a gritty neo-noir like Daredevil, but it immediately sets itself apart from all of its predecessors by captivating the audience without any of the standard action.  Jones has super powers but there's no stylized martial arts or glitzy technology.  The only fight scene in the first episode is little more than a tussle between two silhouettes ending with Jessica's opponent going through her window.  Instead, all of the tension comes from the horror of an immoral monster who can control minds.

The episode starts slow.  It's all about introducing Jones and her poor, sad, punk rock, gumshoe life.  She drinks whiskey, gets in and out of her blue jeans, and goes on assignments as the one-woman Alias Investigations.  Mostly she tries to work through her PTSD after escaping the grip of the malicious mastermind Zebidiah Kilgrave.  A mother and father hire Jones to find their missing daughter who turns out to have been taken by Kilgrave.  That's when things get much more interesting very fast.

Jones is played by Krysten Ritter, star of short-lived comedy Don't Trust the B--- in Apartment 23 and nine episodes of Breaking Bad.  As Jessica Jones she finally gets a chance to take center stage of a drama and Ritter owns it.  She's tough but vulnerable in a way that's not nearly as cliche as it sounds and she delivers witticisms with a dry iciness.  She is joined by Rachael Taylor as Jones' friend and confidant Patsy Walker, a former model who hosts a radio show for some reason.  Eka Darville plays her lovable junky neighbor Malcolm and Carrie Anne Moss plays corporate lawyer Jeri Hogarth who frequently hires Jessica.  Mike Colter appears as Jessica's love interest, the iconic Luke Cage who will have his own Netflix series next year.  David Tennant does not appear in the first episode but I have faith that his portrayal of Kilgrave will be terrifically horrifying.

Mad Men threat level: 7/10

Supergirl

I didn't give Supergirl a rating when it first premiered partly because I still wasn't quite sure what to think of it.  I'm a big Superman fan and I'm still pretty upset by his most recent live-action adaptation. I never expected Supergirl to have Man of Steel's treacherous "dark and gritty" tone but there's still a lot of baggage there.  Through the baggage I could see a lot of potential in the adventures of Superman's young cousin Kara (Melissa Benoist) and slowly but surely Supergirl is proving capable of living up to it.

Supergirl is created by the same team that have been doing incredible work with the super hero shows Arrow and The Flash.  One of the many ways those two are so impressive is that they are related and take place in the same universe but are wildly different.  Arrow is a grim epic similar to Chris Nolan's Batman films while Flash is charming and lighthearted; its closest cinematic parallel might be Marvel's The Avengers.  Thankfully, Supergirl is much closer in tone to The Flash.  Anything starring a Superperson should be fun and optimistic.  Actually, the two might be a little too close.  They have similar looks, tones, and dialogue.  However, a major part of Kara's character arc is going to be stepping out from another hero's shadow.  It's not fair to expect her to do that right away and likewise the show deserves a chance to differentiate itself from its peers.

Admittedly, the first episode looked a lot like The Devil Wears Prada, with Kara and her coworkers cowering before their demanding boss Cat Grant, but once you accept the superficial similarities as part of the show, its easy to see that the relationship between Kara and Cat is one of the most interesting on the show.  The recent episode "Livewire" especially cracked Cat's tough exterior and revealed that Supergirl is more important to her than just a profitable news story.

"Livewire" was a strong step forward in a lot of ways.  It showed that Kara's adopted father, as played by Dean Cain, died before the show began.  That's disappointing but it makes sense to focus on Kara's relationship with her mother and other female characters like her sister and Cat Grant since the show is obviously intent on making a feminist message.  At times, that message has come across a little ham-fisted.  That's normal for the pilot of a show but it carried over to a couple too many of the following episodes.  Finally, in "Livewire" the show did a little more showing than telling.  It helps that Kara's female mentors are played by fantastic actresses, her mother is Helen Slater, who performed as well as anyone could as Supergirl in the much maligned 1984 film, and Cat is played by Ally McBeal star Calista Flockhart. Also, Brit Morgan of cult-classic series The Middleman was great as the episode's titular villain Livewire.

Mad Men threat level: 7/10

Three Cover Songs That Show There's Always Room For Improvement

There's no such thing as perfection in any artistic endeavor.  In all the ratings and Rotten Tomatoes it's easy to lose sight of how little objectivity there is in music or movies or paintings or anything else creative.  Mockingjay - Part 1 having the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score of the Hunger Games franchise doesn't stop me from thinking it's easily the best of the three released so far.  Rolling Stone gave Gary Clark Jr.'s 2013 album an unremarkable three and a half stars but I gave it seven billion plays on Spotify.  (Which amounts to about $1.13 in Mr. Clark's pocket.  I'm sure my Christmas card has been floating around the postal service for the past year.)  It's not just fans and critics.  Two different directors can look at the same script and see two different films.  That's why in a flood of movie remakes it's still remarkable when one comes along with a fresh point of view.  That's why it can be so powerful when a musician puts themselves into someone else's song, for instance:

Glen Campbell's "Times Like These"

Country legend Glen Campbell is the kind of singer who's career is largely built on covers, which was pretty typical in the 60's.  It was especially common in folk and most of Campbell's songs came from folk or country.  In 2008 Campbell released a new album of covers by artists like Green Day and U2, who at the time were almost contemporary, at least for a 72-year-old.  A stand-out was the 2002 Foo Fighter's hit "Times Like These."  It was originally very much a product of its era with its post-grunge crunchy guitar riffs.  Albeit, the Foo Fighters did early 00's crunchy guitars better than anyone.  The Foo Fighters remain titans of rock because frontman Dave Grohl is consistently an astounding songwriter.  "Times Like These" is an eloquent, if slightly dated, song about toiling towards the light at the end of the tunnel. When Campbell performed it he made it timeless.  He infused it with his glorious arena country/pop sound, invoking images of the sweeping Western plains, permeated with optimism and divine opportunity.

Aretha Franklin's "Respect"

 

"Respect" is so closely tied to Aretha Franklin's legacy that the average music fan could almost be forgiven for thinking she originated it.  Not quite though because it was actually first released by one of the very few soul singers who could rival the Queen.  Otis Redding wrote and recorded the song in 1965.  Redding's lyrics are from the point of view of a humble man who pleads for no more than respect from his paramour and only when he's in her presence.  He doesn't care what she does when he's not around.  It's not a very bold stance but 60's soul had a way of making begging seem cool and Otis's voice was exceedingly more masculine and rugged than most.  From his mouth the plea was a fun, swinging ditty.  Then in 1967 Aretha turned it into the feminist anthem it's been known as ever since.  (Here's my impression of Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds if she taught 20th century music history in 2015: "When you think about it, Aretha Franklin was the original female Ghostbuster.")  Franklin adjusted a few lines to change the point of view from a humble man to a proud woman demanding the thing that had been denied her for much too long.  She also made some changes to the structure like spelling the title and those "sock it to me's," making it catchier as well as ten times as powerful.

Nirvana's "The Man Who Sold The World"

David Bowie is known as one of pop culture's greatest chameleons.  In the 70's his scales were the color of a glam rock god.  He ruled the stage like Zeus on Mount Olympus but with even more sexual deviance and presumably much more consent.  He was finely manicured, covered in glitter and mystique and his music reflected that.  Bowie's 1970 album The Man Who Sold The World and its title track, like much of his work from the time, is grandiose and intergalactic.  The song is cosmic and mysterious and finely polished.  21 years after The Man Who Sold The World ushered in glam rock Nirvana's Nevermind did the same for grunge, glam's polar opposite.  However, Kurt Cobain, Krist Noveselic, and a pre-Foo Fighters Dave Grohl were mere mortals who just happened to be the most famous people in the world.  Maybe the only thing grunge and glam have in common is that Cobain was every bit the genre defining icon Bowie was, if not more.  In their iconic acoustic performance for MTV Unplugged Nirvana played "The Man Who Sold The World" and it was a highlight of an overall magnificent recording.  The cover was earthy and accessible, one of many entrances into the mind of Cobain.  Right now there are hundreds of thousands of teenagers who feel more connected to Kurt Cobain in 1993 than anyone they know personally, as many as those who dream of a celestial encounter with a spaceman like David Bowie.

Mad Men Report: How do 'Master of None,' 'The Muppets,' and 'Quantico' threaten Don Draper?

In the 90's, comedy-drama movies like Singles and Reality Bites defined the youth of the time.  In the golden age of television shows like Girls and You're the Worst have tried to do the same for millennials only to be outdone by Greta Gerwig and her antiquated medium of cinema.  I'm three episodes into Master of None and ready to say it's the best attempt at an updated episodic Singles so far.

The Netflix series follows Dev, played by co-creator Aziz Ansari, as he dips his toe into a different aspect of modern life each episode, never quite completely understanding any of them, hence the title.  Dev discusses his problems with his diverse friend group including the handsome Asian Brian, black lesbian Denise, and the token schlubby white guy Arnold.  Ansari isn't exactly the best actor in the cast, but he has good chemistry with everyone else, especially his romantic interest played by Noel Wells, who had a brief but respectable tenure at SNL during the big adjustment period two years ago.

In the first episode Dev considers parenthood after a miniature pregnancy scare.  He spends the day babysitting a friend's kids and decides it's not for him.  (The friend is Polly from Orange Is The New Black by the way.  I nearly went crazy trying to figure it out.  I got so desperate I read the YouTube comments on a trailer which thankfully pointed me in the right direction.)  The second episode is about Dev and Brian's relationships with their respective immigrant parents.  Dev's parents are played by Ansari's actual mother and father, who are excellent.  In the third episode Dev gets mixed up by the dynamics and decorum of communicating through text.  Digital communication is a difficult thing to portray on screen and the show handles it effortlessly.

Everything about Master of None is stylistically fresh and engaging yet comfortable.  The subject matter is familiar but that's the point.  The narrative of unappreciative second generation immigrants is older than the main cast combined but it's never been told quite like this.  Aziz Ansari is a comedian first and foremost.  With this show all he needs to do is make a few observations that ring true and maybe expand your point of view.  He also has to be funny, which is not even in question.  Master of None is a smart, hilarious, vaguely autobiographical series.  It's like Louie if Louis C.K. were as young as his audience.  And a tiny Indian man.  So how much will it distract me from watching Mad Men?

Mad Men threat level: 9/10

Updates:

The Muppets

The latest TV series starring Kermit and the crew was pretty highly anticipated despite "controversy" but soon after it premiered critics started tearing it apart.  No one could have predicted a work-place mockumentary for the Muppets and the tone certainly takes some getting used to but I stand by the good words I had for the premiere.  The jokes are excellent and the concept allows for more absurdity than the typical workplace sitcom.  In the sixth episode Broadway legend Kristin Chenoweth goes on a road trip with the Electric Mayhem band and when she accidentally upsets them they abandon her in the middle of the desert.  Kristin Chenoweth might be dead for all we know.  No one on The Office ever killed a Tony winner except for Creed maybe.  Now The Muppets is getting retooled but I think that's a mistake.  All the show needs is some time to grow on the audience.

Mad Men threat level: Holds at 8/10

Quantico

Network TV has been missing a good spy show lately so there was plenty of opportunity for Quantico.  The only other contender is Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. which, with some exception, has struggled to balance its espionage aspects with its comic book roots.  I said before that a full blownsies spy show that wants to be a Shonda Rhimes show has appeal.  Unfortunately, the performances on Quantico are just too wooden.  I don't care about any of the characters or story lines save for the cop from Sense8 who died in the first episode and Eddie Thawne from The Flash but even that could just be good vibes carrying over from The Flash itself.

Mad Men threat level: Down to 2/10