Arts & Letters

Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance

Science Fiction / /

The latest entry in Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga actually focuses on one of the colorful side characters of Bujold’s Vor universe: Ivan Vorpatril. Variously referred to as “That idiot Ivan” (or directly addressed as “Ivan, you idiot!”) among other variations, Ivan is often played as a foil for Miles (the central character for this 15 book or so series, though Miles takes a minimal role in this particular installment). In early novels, Ivan is generally portrayed as a lazy but handsome womanizer type, completely harmless and lacking in ambition. One wouldn’t think that this would make for a particularly compelling or even sympathetic protagonist, but as the series progresses, you get a better feel for the character and his motivations (or rather, the environment which caused such). Indeed, his laziness is carefully constructed, and probably more work than it would be to actually apply himself.

You see, both Miles and Ivan are technically in line for succession to the Emperor’s throne. This sounds fine and dandy, but on Barrayar (the planet these stories revolve around), being a serious contender for the throne makes one a target for assassination plots, conspiracy theorists, political muck-raking, and general misery. Miles, by virtue of his mutated appearance (among other qualities that would take way too long to go into here), is mostly exempted from this pressure, to the point where he has a sorta opposite problem. But Ivan is the tall, dark, and handsome type, the perfect vision of a leader. And in terms of succession, he’s basically next in line. If he even hinted at applying himself, he’d probably be portrayed as a potential usurper to the throne by political enemies (of both Ivan’s family and the Emperor, or whoever thought they could benefit from some additional instability in the ruling class). If this seems paranoid, well, sure, but we’ve seen such happenings throughout the series (whether that be actual military coups, or political enemies portraying someone as a potential revolutionary). To forestall such political wrangling (not to mention the aforementioned assassination attempts and whatnot), Ivan has carefully cultivated an air of lazy incompetence so that he could never be taken seriously by any political operatives or revolutionaries or what have you.

As the series progresses and Emperor Gregor ascends to the throne and actually manages to stabilize and grow Barrayar, not to mention take a wife and start popping out kids, the pressure on Ivan is released somewhat. As such, we start to see that he’s not as dumb as he appears. I particularly enjoyed his role in A Civil Campaign. At the start of Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Ivan is living as a comfortable Bachelor, but a certain restlessness has crept in. Enter a friend and Barrayaran intelligence operative with a strange request to look after an attractive young woman who may be in danger, appealing to Ivan’s Barrayaran sense of chivalry.

I actually don’t want to get into too much detail about the plot. The first act basically plays out like a spy thriller with a dash of romance, while the second act turns into more of a comedy of errors kinda thing (akin to A Civil Campaign), and the third act morphs into a sorta heist story. The first half of the book is great and funny and I found myself wearing a stupid grin and laughing a lot. Things slow down just a bit in the middle as Bujold maneuvers for the final act, which is also quite good. I’d put this somewhere towards the top of the Vor series in terms of enjoyability, certainly better than the last two installments (which were no slouches, to be sure), though not quite reaching the peaks of my favorite novels.

Again, I don’t want to give too much away, but Ivan’s romantic interest is Tej Arqua, and while their introduction may have been harried and rushed in convenience, they actually do match together rather well. Tej is from a house of Jackson’s Hole, which is the Vor universe’s sorta free-for-all capitalist planet, with no real rule of law. Her house has just been attacked and split up, with members of her family hiding in exile… which is when Ivan runs into her. Eventually she begins to get a feel for the man and his planet. In line with the above discussion, Tej has Ivan pegged as “…a middling Vor officer of middling responsibilities and middling rank. Just middling along.” To which someone replies that such a sentiment is a “charming understatement,” while explaining Ivan’s family and potential of succession…

Bujold has mentioned that she intends the book to work as a stand-alone to first-time readers, but so much of what I enjoyed about the book came from the fact that I’ve read all the previous novels. I’m positive that it would work for new readers, but I don’t know that you’d get that stupid grin and engage in laugh-out-loud moments like I was if you don’t get the background. That being said, I do appreciate that Bujold tends to make her novels stand-alone stories, rather than relying on cliffhangers and multi-book stories (even if there are character arcs that go across multiple books, each book generally tells a self-contained story). I would still recommend that you start the series with Shards of Honor or The Warrior’s Apprentice, but all things considered, this one is pretty darn good.

Book Clubbing It

Arts & Letters / /

I’ve fallen behind on book reviewing, partially because I’ve been doing other stuff but also because I’ve been reading at a pretty fast pace this year. According to Goodreads, I’m clocking in at 43 books so far this year, which might be my highest ever total in terms of quantity (though it should be noted that at least a couple are very short, novellas and the like, and even most full novels are in the 300-400 page range). So I’m going to start catching up on reviews in the next few weeks, starting with a trio of books I read for a book club at work. Book clubs represent a funny dynamic, as people tend to flex in and out of the club depending on the chosen book, and it’s near impossible to choose a book that everyone will want to read. That being said, I’ve hit up most of the selected books, and even mentioned a couple of them in previous roundups. Here’s some of the more recent picks:

  • The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars by Paul Collins – Or: the book only 4 people read. Apparently non-fiction scares the living daylights out of people. In this case, that may have actually served them well, even if I ended up enjoying the book. The problem is that it’s a little schizophrenic. Collins can’t seem to decide if this is going to be a survey of turn-of-the-century journalism or a lurid true-crime tale of murder, and he thus vacillates between those two poles for most of the book.

    The beginning of the book meanders considerably, with no clear throughline to latch onto. Collins attempts to write evocatively, but the lack of consistent key players in the first third of the book makes it difficult to maintain focus. For example, at one point, Collins writes about a down-on-his-luck detective who’d been assigned out in the boonies and who’d seen this grisly murder as a chance at redemption. Sounds like a solid story right? Well, after being introduced, this guy falls completely in the background. I don’t think he’s mentioned again. The tabloid wars were mildly interesting, and the steady presence of Pulitzer and Hearst do help stabilize the narrative a bit, but even then, the reality of what happened seems to undercut the rivalry that Collins is trying to portray. Oh, it’s there, but it’s a bit lopsided (the upstart Hearst was clobbering Pulitzer, and they were both bastards) and there are a bunch of other newspapers involved that don’t have such polarizing figures at the head. The role of journalists in that era is still an interesting subject, as they were often just as good at investigating a crime as the police:

    It was not unknown for reporters to tail detectives, for detectives to tail reporters, and for competing reporters and detectives alike to tail one another—anything for a good lead.

    Unfortunately, there aren’t enough such insights to really sustain the narrative, which is partly why Collins must fall back on the grisly murder.

    The book doesn’t really find its footing until the two main suspects are identified and go to trial. Suddenly the narrative congeals into something that works, and it becomes much more interesting and cohesive. Augusta Nack is a fascinating personage, and the trial that proceeded seems surprisingly familiar to modern scandalous trials. For instance, this notion:

    …it was the immense popularity over the previous decade of Holmes and Watson, after all, that had nudged the public into expecting some scientific acumen in modern policing.

    This echoes the issues courts are currently dealing with, namely that juries who watch CSI seem to have a much higher standard for evidence than is scientifically possible.

    Anyway, it’s during the trial that all the sordid details of the murder and the events leading up to the event become clear, and there’s actually a few bombshells that get dropped during the courtroom scenes. The newspaper coverage also fits rather well with the narrative here, as I suspect most of Collins’ information came from the papers themselves (as opposed to official sources). I was particularly entertained by the lead defense attorney William “Big Bill” Howe, a seeming giant of a man, wearing ostentatious outfits and theatrically showboating in front of the crowded courtroom. In my head, I was picturing a mix between Johnnie Cochran and Don King.

    So I ultimately came away with a good feeling for this book, even if it took a long time for the narrative to settle down into something I could latch onto. I find it a difficult book to recommend because of how disjointed a lot of it feels, and while Collins has clearly done a good job sifting through the multitude of conflicting information surrounding the murder and the tabloids, I don’t think he really nailed the execution. An interesting book and I’m glad I read it, but it certainly has its flaws.

  • Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs – Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most popular choices for this book club seem to be young adult type stuff, and this is a prime example. The story follows sixteen-year-old Jacob, who sets off to a remote island in England to investigate his grandfather’s fanciful tales of a Home for Peculiar Children. He finds the crumbling ruins of a bombed out schoolhouse, but it soon becomes clear that there is more there than meets the eye. The most interesting (and creepy) thing about the book are the photographs that Riggs structures the story around. They’re apparently actual photographs that Riggs and company found whilst sifting through shoeboxes and such. Here’s one example:

    Check the reflection...

    Check the reflection…

    They’re genuinely effective, if a bit extraneous. The story moves at a solid pace, bogging down some at times, but for the most part it’s an entertaining piece and there are some really interesting (if not wholly explored) ideas concerning time loops and whatnot. I think I’d be more happy with the book… if it was actually a complete story. Apparently this is the first in a series, and the book ends with quite a cliffhanger, something that I found very disappointing, not the least of which because the second book isn’t even out yet. Even if it was, I don’t think I was taken enough with the book to really want to delve into the full series. Make of that what you will. It wasn’t bad by any stretch, it just didn’t really tickle my imagination the way it seems to do for others.

  • The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern – The most recent entry, which I just finished, is yet another YA book, though I enjoyed this one significantly more than most of the other books I’ve read for book club. It’s certainly not perfect. It withholds certain key information about the main conflict until far too late in the story, and some of the side characters (particularly Bailey) seem tacked on for the sake of plot, but in the end, the book worked entirely too well for those things to bother me too much. The story is focused on two young magicians, pitted against each other in a competition of sorts. The venue for said competition is the titular Night Circus, where each competitor devises a series of fantastical attractions and tents, thus progressing the game. This is not a direct competition, and the two main characters are not allowed to interfere with one another’s work, but they are also not told much in the way of rules. The “twist” of the competition seems pretty obvious to me, and the book certainly took its time getting there, but I was taken with the rest of the characters and story that it didn’t matter that much. The circus setting is wonderfully evocative, almost a character in itself, and the passion it inspires even in its architects and visitors feels well demonstrated and real. Too often, a story like this would simply tell you how fantastical the various attractions are, but Morgenstern does a good job of establishing the sense of wonder that visitors feel without going overboard or making it seem hollow. As previously mentioned, I’m not entirely sure there needed to be quite so many side characters, and some of them seemed to be included for convenience’s sake rather than as a natural growth out of the story. But for the most part, I liked all of the characters, even the extraneous ones, and didn’t mind spending time with them, even if it wasn’t strictly necessary. The ending might strike some as a bit of a cop out, and I suppose it is, but I thought it worked well enough. It’s not a perfect book, but I think Morgenstern earned her indulgences. Of all the book club books I’ve read so far, this is probably my favorite.

So there you have it. More reviews to come in the next few weeks too, so stay tuned!

6WH: Jekyll

6 Weeks of Halloween, Arts & Letters, Movies / /

The Six Weeks of Halloween horror marathon continues with this BBC series written by Steven Moffat, who would go on to produce the most excellent Sherlock series as well as take on the show running responsibilities for the most recent seasons of Doctor Who. Like Sherlock, Jekyll is a modern-day retelling of a famous Victorian-era story, in this case Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novel, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

As with a lot of other British shows, this one is a simple, 6 episode season that has had no real follow-ups (though I suppose Moffat left things open enough in the end to continue the story if needed). Once again, this is a bit of a modernization of the story, so Moffat is able to play with the conventions established in Stevenson’s original novel, even to the point of self-awareness by referencing Stevenson’s novel.

The show starts a little on the slow side as it establishes the setting and situation our main protagonist is in. Many mysteries and conspiracies are cycled through, and our main character has quite the interesting arc, making you wonder who is the real villain of the story. For the most part, this plays out in a grand tradition of fun, as you learn more and more about Jekyll and Hyde, their origins, and how they impact those around them. I don’t want to give much away, but there are plenty of red herrings and mysteries that are eventually resolved in a somewhat satisfactory manner.

The production is generally well orchestrated, with solid visuals and music, if perhaps not quite as polished as a usual TV production would be. It shares a lot in common with Sherlock, though it clearly retains an identity of its own.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The crucial part of Dr. Jekyll (and his modern incarnation as Dr. Jackman) and Mr. Hyde is played by actor James Nesbitt, who certainly sinks his teeth into the part. He may even delight a little too much in the part, which becomes a bit showy. Of course, it’s quite a juicy character, a man with two distinct and opposite personalities, so there’s not much to complain about there, and again, he does quite a good job keeping up with the production.

As horror, it’s not really gory or scary, per say, but it certainly touches on such sub-genres and establishes a tension all its own. I found the beginning to be a bit on the slow side, but it became more involving as things went on, and there were certainly of twists and turns ans the series progressed, each episode ending on a minor cliffhanger, but proceeding anyway. I wouldn’t call this a masterpiece or anything, but I had a fun enough time giving it a gander during the Six Weeks of Halloween…

6WH: Halloween Season’s Readings

6 Weeks of Halloween, Arts & Letters / /

Every year, the Six Weeks of Halloween marathon creeps up on me, and I completely forget to line up some good horror books to read. Well not this year! I’ve already detailed my first season’s reading a couple weeks ago, the near-comprehensive Slasher Movie Book, and in this post, I’ll chronicle some other recent readings along those lines, as well as some genuine horror fiction. Let’s get this party started:

  • Red, White, and Blood by Christopher Farnsworth – The third book in a series chronicling the adventures of vampire secret agent Nathaniel Cade (I’ve already written about the first two novels. Highlight: a fictional account of “Bin Laden’s assassination – by a vampire who stuffed a grenade in his mouth and then threw him over a cliff so he exploded in midair.”) Interestingly, this novel seemingly works on a smaller scale than the previous entries, and that actually brings some much needed focus to the series. In the first book, you’ve got a shadowy conspiracy creating a small army of Frankenstein-like monsters. In the second book, another shadowy conspiracy (actually, multiple interlocking but distinct conspiracies) unleashes Reptilians on the world. In this third installment, we get the Boogeyman. Oh sure, that shadowy conspiracy angle is still there, but it’s pushed way into the background (and it does help set up the next novel), but the general thrust of the story is more personal. Both the Boogeyman and Cade have done battle before (multiple times), with the basic tally of their encounters being a stalemate. And this time, the Boogeyman has switched up methodology! It’s not going to win the Pulitzer or anything, but it was great Halloween reading, and the Boogeyman makes for a great pseudo-slasher villain (he even wears a chinsy rubber mask in the form of a big smiley face, which is so awesome I’m surprised there isn’t a real slasher movie featuring that kinda mask). Fun stuff.
  • Books of Blood Volume 2 by Clive Barker – I don’t normally get all that “scared” by most horror books, and even this collection of short stories isn’t that fear-inducing, but Barker’s shear creativity and inventiveness can get unsettling at times. Nothing in this book stood out as much as some of Barker’s other short stories (my favorites being “In the Hills, The Cities”, “The Last Illusion”, and “Twilight At The Towers”), but there’s some freaking, weird stuff going on here, as I generally expected. Reading these short stories, I really wish Barker would get off his butt and finish The Scarlet Gospels (seriously dude, it’s been well over a decade, almost two decades actually, since you started talking about that book!) and the third and final Book of the Art (the second book was published in 1994, for crying out loud). Fortunately, I have plenty of other Barker short stories to work through. I forgot how much I enjoyed them.
  • Morning Glories, Vol. 1: For a Better Future and Morning Glories, Vol. 2: All Will Be Free by Nick Spencer (Author) and Joe Eisma (Illustrator) – These are comic book collections recommended to me by the Radio Free Echo Rift podcast a while back. It’s an interesting series. Perhaps not strictly “horror” but there’s enough creepily bizarre events that it sometimes reads like it. The story follows a few new students at an exclusive prep school as they realize that the school is more of a prison with nefarious purposes. I’m actually getting a very Lost TV show vibe from this, in that I’m not entirely sure they’ll be able to resolve all the disparate threads and mysteries, but so far, they’ve done a pretty good job of it… and I have Vol. 3 sitting on my shelf right now…
  • Crystal Lake Memories by Peter M. Bracke – If the breadth of film knowledge covered by the Slasher Movie Book came at the expense of depth, Crystal Lake Memories sacrifices breadth for depth. It’s actually made a great one/two punch, though I should admit that I have not yet finished it (it’s only 300 pages, but the pages are huge and the type is very small!) It basically chronicles the origins and production of the entire Friday the 13th series in exhaustive detail. Bracke seemingly interviewed everyone ever involved in the Friday the 13th movies, from the lowliest crew member or teen victim to the producers to the directors to other folks only tangentially related to the series (like Wes Craven). So far, it’s actually been one of the most fascinating books about the film industry that I’ve ever read. Since Bracke spent a lot of time talking to producers, and since these movies emerged at a key time in the movie industry, when production and distribution were being revolutionized and streamlined, you actually get an intensive look at the business side of things and how studios drove the creation of franchises in the 80s, and so on. Again, I’m only about a third of the way through the book, but it’s been a really great read so far. Plus, the book is filled with gorgeous full color images, including a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that I’ve never seen before.

And that’s all for now! Stay tuned for some batshit insane Italian horror on Sunday.

6WH: The Slasher Movie Book

3 Comments / 6 Weeks of Halloween, Arts & Letters, Movies / /

I like slasher movies. There, I said it. Of course, longtime readers of the site (all 5 of you!) already knew that, as slashers tend to comprise an inordinate proportion of movies watched during the Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon I do every year. As sub-genres go, it’s not particularly well respected, but again, I like them. I’ve written about this before, so I’ll just say that I find them comforting, like curling up under the sheets on a cold autumn night. Oh sure, they’re all working from a relatively limited and predictable formula, but sometimes that works and I’m a big fan of folks who are able to find new and interesting ways to think inside the box.

The Slasher Movie BookDespite all the slasher movies I’ve seen, I’m far from an expert. Enter The Slasher Movie Book. I didn’t realize this, but the book was written by J.A. Kerswell, who runs Hysteria Lives! website as well as the Hysteria Continues podcast I mentioned recently.

Having read the book, I think it’s safe to say that Kerswell is indeed an expert, and not just on slasher movies. Indeed, the first several chapters of the book cover broad swaths of horror movie history. He’s mostly focusing on proto-slashers, but it’s clear that Kerswell has broad expertise in the rest of the genre as well. As most horror movie histories begin, this one starts with the Grand Guignol (a theater in Paris that specialized in short plays featuring graphically portrayed acts of torture, murder, and general mayhem), but quickly transitions into silent horror films (which have guided my recent viewings).

From there Kerswell spends a chapter on German “Krimi” (translates roughly to “Crime” or “Mystery Thriller”) films, a sub-sub-genre originating in the 1950s that I’d never even heard of before (as such, I will be devoting this coming weekend to some Krimi films I was able to wrangle from Netflix, tune in Sunday to see the results!), then moves on to the Italian Giallo movement (which is a sub-genre I’ve enjoyed greatly) and other similar proto-slashers from the 60s and 70s.

But the bulk of the book focuses on the Golden Age of the Slasher film, those hallowed years between 1978 and 1984 when slashers were formally codified and replicated ad nauseam. Starting with Halloween and basically ending with A Nightmare on Elm Street, there were seemingly hundreds of slashers made and released in that era. And Kerswell’s seemingly seen every last one of them. I mean, I know I said I’m not an expert, but this dude outstripped my knowledge on just about every page. The book is nearly comprehensive, especially in the Golden Age portions. Unfortunately, that breadth of film knowledge comes at the expense of depth. Most films warrant little more than a sentence or two. The classics of the sub-genre obviously get more attention, though even these portions are not exhaustive. But really, how could they be? There are probably a thousand movies mentioned in the book; going into meticulous detail on every single one would be tedious and boring.

Instead, Kurswell does a pretty deft job and summarizing the ebbs and flows of the genre, from the origins of various conventions in early films to the progression of said conventions through the Golden Age. He traces the genre’s roots as they move from gritty realism to a reliance on the supernatural to the self-reflexive parodies that kept it alive. He’s identified the trends and movements within the genre while cataloging examples to demonstrate. This is a book I assumed would bog down in repetition or simple regurgitation, like that part in the Bible where Jeremiah begat Jededia, Jededia begat Jebediah and so on, for like 10 pages. But this never really reached that kind of boring territory for me. Of course, I’m kinda obsessive about this stuff, so this book fed me a steady stream of new and unknown movies, all contextualized with stuff that I was already familiar with. It worked well.

The book rounds things out with a look at International slashing, the dark days of slashers, “Video Hell”, the reinvigoration of the sub-genre at the hands of Scream, and a survey of latter day horror.

I found out about the book from Brian Collins, the guy who runs the estimable Horror Movie A Day website, and I think his review is pretty spot on, and he’s qualified to make statements like this too:

…there’s enough evidence throughout the book to suggest that I won’t always see eye to eye with him, as he refers to New Year’s Evil as “dull” (no movie with a killer name-dropping Erik Estrada can be considered as such, in my opinion) and considers the (IMO) rather bland House On Sorority Row to be a top-tier slasher on the same level as My Bloody Valentine. But I have to remember that everyone has their own favorites; the book’s introduction explains that Halloween II was his first slasher and thus he has a soft spot for it, though he’s thankfully honest about its shortcomings in the text itself. And he’s on the right (meaning: MY) side for some other underrated flicks, such as the 2005 House of Wax, and he also (correctly) refers to Cold Prey II as one of the best post-Scream slashers, a bit of a surprise given his affection for Halloween II, which it was clearly aping.

I’d never judge a book of this type on a few opposing views of some low-rent slasher films, however – it’s meticulously researched and the occasional flubs are likely due to typographical error, not ignorance (though he seems to suggest Wes Craven directed Hills Have Eyes 2 AFTER Nightmare On Elm Street, when in reality they were just released that way). But I’d have to stop just shy of calling it “exhaustive,” as there are some puzzling oversights. No mention is made of 1991’s Popcorn, for example – strange given the fact that it was one of precious few slashers of that time (and fairly well regarded to boot), and Craven’s Shocker is also missing, odd considering that the “death” of the slasher cycle of the ’80s could probably best be exemplified by one of the genre’s founding fathers trying and failing to create a new slasher icon. No Dr. Giggles either, another “too late” attempt to revive the sub-genre. I wouldn’t consider this odd in a typical book that just covered the marquee titles (Friday the 13th, Halloween, etc), but come on – there’s two paragraphs on To All A Goodnight but not even a passing reference to Horace Pinker? For shame…

Brian is dead on (read: he agrees with me) about New Years Evil and House On Sorority Row, and some of his omissions are good calls to… One omission I would mention is Alice Sweet Alice – Kurswell does mention it in passing under it’s original title (Communion), but I would have expected more info on what I thought was one of the clear proto-slashers (I mean, not even a picture of that creepy mask? Come on!) You can’t please everyone, I guess. As mentioned above, Kurswell needed to walk a fine line here. Too much info and the book gets cumbersome and boring, too little information and doofuses like me whine about it on the internets. Again, this book is about as good as it gets when it comes to breadth of information.

It’s also a very pretty book. Paperback, but all in color, with oodles of gorgeous poster art and stills. I’m not one of them poster art curators that seek out foreign lobby cards and obscure movie art, but I can appreciate that sort of thing when I see it, and if that’s your bag, you’ll love this. Tons of goofy stuff, along with genuinely effective imagery.

It’s a fun book for fans of the sub-genre. Kurswell seems genuinely enthusiastic about the subject and treats it with a respect that few do. As a result, I’ve come away with dozens of movies I want to track down (if not, uh, hundreds). But don’t worry, I’m only planning on spending one week on out-and-out slashers (probably next week).

Revisiting The X-Files

Arts & Letters, Movies / /

I’m not a big TV person, but as it turns out, this is less a result of quality than it is of convenience. I think it’s the broadcast model that really grinds my gears, but in this age of DVRs and Streaming services, I find myself gravitating towards a lot of television shows that are fully available. This includes a lot of discoveries, but I also value the ability to go back and revisit a show I once loved. As you might guess, I’ve been watching a lot of The X-Files lately (the whole series is available and easy-to-mainline on Netflix Instant).

Clocking in a 9 seasons and 200+ episodes, it’s not a series that lends itself to a single blog post, but it’s still worth talking about. There were, of course, two main threads in the series: a continuity of alien/government conspiracy plot-based episodes (though not the first series that attempted such long-term storytelling – Twin Peaks and Wiseguy come to mind – it was still quite ahead of the curve in this respect), and a series of one-off creature of the week type episodes. The continuity episodes established an elaborate mythology that quickly became too dense and nonsensical to me. I’m not sure if that’s just because I missed the occasional episode (and thus had no idea what was going on), or if it was because the overarching conspiracy just made no sense, but the general consensus is that the overall storyline went on a little too long, was drawn out over too many seasons, and just got overly complicated and downright silly in the process.

I was always more interested in the one-off standalone episodes though, and they’re the ones I keep returning to… Some are memorable favorites, some are new discoveries, things I’d never seen before. One thing that strikes me now is that the series really did consist of an eclectic mixture of elements that worked surprisingly well. There are stoic episodes consisting of deadly serious tragic figures, or lighthearted comedic takes on normally staid subjects. There were a lot of horror or science fiction tropes thrown out there, but also more realistic takes that only feinted towards the paranormal (in particular, there were some serial killer episodes that had little to no supernatural elements). The series was one of the few that could scare you like a good horror movie, instill suspense like a Hitchcockian thriller, impart that expansive sense of wonder that’s the hallmark of great science fiction, or just plain make you laugh with expertly crafted comedic episodes.

I haven’t really revisited any of the mythology episodes, but the standalone stuff has held up remarkably well. Monsters, aliens, psychics, freaks, serial killers, urban legends, claustrophobia, disease, the series took on quite a broad set of topics. In addition to the subject matter, the series is notable for its production values. In particular, I think the series had great cinematography. Sure, it sometimes gets a little too dark and the special effects are certainly showing their age, but for a TV show made in the 1990s, it’s remarkable. Most television of that era had a sorta “flat” feel to it, but the X-Files always seemed to have qualities more closely related to film. That’s not particularly rare in contemporary television (especially with the rise of pay cable network television like HBO), but back in the day, watching television that had filmic qualities was quite an eye opener, and as the series progressed, they managed to push boundaries and play with conventions more than most shows of the era. Take, for example, the episode Triangle, which consisted of four continuous shots (there were actually a few more than that, but clever editing made each segment seem continuous, with only commercials breaking up the action).

I had originally planned to list out my favorite episodes that were also somewhat obscure – the ones you don’t hear much about – but perhaps it would be good to quickly revisit the series’ regularly accepted best episodes (and save the obscure ones for their own post). Unlike a lot of series, I find that my favorite episodes are pretty well represented among the typical best-of lists out there, so here they are:

  • Jose Chung’s From Outer Space (Season 3, Episode 20) – Darin Morgan only wrote 5 episodes of the series, but his influence is clearly felt in the entire show. In particular, he brought an offbeat, humorous perspective to a show that could easily have become mired in alienation and despair. To be fair, those were certainly themes of the series, but thanks to writers like Morgan, they were not overbearing themes. This particular episode is one of the rare alien-focused episodes that doesn’t connect with the series’ mythology (and thus, one of the rare alien episodes that I enjoyed!) The episode is structured around a series of flashbacks and interviews, highlighting several different points-of-view and numerous unreliable narrators. This structure is leveraged for all it’s worth, often emphasizing the humor, but also just plain weirdness inherent in the premise. Jose Chung is an author is seeking to write a book about alien abduction and thus he gloms onto Mulder and Scully. It’s an interesting and fun episode.
  • Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose (Season 3, Episode 4) – Another Darin Morgan penned episode, this one retains much of the goofy humor that Morgan is known for, but also infusing a tragic poignancy in the form of Clyde Bruckman, a psychic who can predict the circumstances of peoples’ death. There’s an interesting serial killer story going on in the background here, but this is really about playing the agents against Bruckman. In particular, I like the way this episode plays with skepticism among Mulder and Scully. Apparently actor Peter Boyle won an Emmy for his role here, and it’s easy to see why. Morgan won an Emmy for writing as well, and again, it’s easy to see why.
  • The Post-Modern Prometheus (Season 5, Episode 5) – This one’s written by series-creator Chris Carter, and represents one of those broadening episodes that tried to break through typical formulas for the show by varying the style considerably. It’s filmed in black and white and features a modern take on the Frankenstein story – a goofy homage to Universal’s famous monster movies, with some comic book tropes thrown in for good measure. It’s a really weird, surprisingly light-hearted episode, with lots of quirky details (in particular, the monster Mutato’s love of Cher music has always stuck with me as a memorable quirky element here). Definitely one of the series more adventurous episodes.
  • Drive (Season 6, Episode 2) – I’m not sure this one would have made the list a few years ago, but because writer Vince Gilligan and actor Bryan Cranston were both involved in this episode, many have revisited this one in light of their later work on Breaking Bad (another series I’m trying to catch up on). Gilligan is actually responsible for a lot of great X-Files episodes (including another called Pusher that often makes best-of lists) and you really can see his style in both these episodes and his later work on critical darling Breaking Bad. Gilligan was one of the few to successfully pick up the goofy humor once Darin Morgan left the series, but this particular episode features very little in the way of humor. It’s actually once of the tenser affairs in the series. There’s a government conspiracy angle that fits with the series themes, though it’s still standalone. A lot of tension is ratcheted into the premise by working with a sorta counting-clock mixed with geographical limitations, and the unrelenting pace is matched by a rather dark and depressing ending. There’s a lot of haunting moments here, though I do think that Gilligan tends to rely on certain crutches in his storytelling, particularly with respect to characters not explaining themselves (something I’ve noticed in Breaking Bad as well). In any case, this is a very well crafted, if disturbing, episode.
  • Home (Season 4, episode 2) – Generally considered to be the best of the standalone episodes, this one featured a script by James Wong and Glen Morgan (brother of the aforementioned Darin Morgan). It’s also probably the most graphic and disturbing episode of the series. While many of the series’ horror beats relied on “boo” moments of monsters jumping out of the dark screen, this one relied on a slow burning story concerning a terrifying clan of inbred backwoods hillbillies, calling to mind an entire subgenre of horror that, quite frankly, this episode pretty much outclasses (with maybe one notably exception of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). Some of the most terrifying, disquieting moments of the series are contained within, and this is a must watch episode for any horror fan (or fan of the series). It’s actually one that I missed upon its initial run, but which I discovered years later in an eye-opening experience.

There are, of course, lots of other regularly praised episodes, but I’ll save them for a later post, along with some of my personal favorites.

The X-Files has a clear legacy, but few shows that followed have really captured what made this show great. The broader legacy includes all of the shows writers and directors, who’ve gone on to write and direct shows like Lost and Breaking Bad. There have been a few recent heirs to the series, though none has really approached the versatility or depth of the X-Files. Still, shows like Warehouse 13 (a sorta mashup of X-Files and that wacky Friday the 13th series) and Fringe do their best, and even succeed in some limited degrees. At this point, I’m guessing there won’t be another series like The X-Files, and maybe that’s ok.

Book Queue, 2012 Update

Arts & Letters / /

Back in January, I posted a list of eleven books I wanted to read in 2012. In March, I added another 5 to the list. That’s sixteen books listed, and I’ve read eleven of those. In fairness, of the remaining five, one has not come out yet, and I’m not going to read another of them until its sequel comes out. Also, I have read a lot more than has been listed, 34 books so far in 2012 (though a couple of those are short stories or novellas). So I’m making good progress, but I think it’s time to load up again.

Holdovers

The remaining books from previous queues…

  • Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter: Been on the list for a long time, and I’m probably not going to tackle this one for this year. It’s a very long (1000+ pages), dense text filled with philosophy and mathematics. I’ve been doing pretty well this year in terms of quantity of books, so I don’t want to bog myself down with a book like this. However, I do think I’m going to focus on “long” books next year, so this will definitely be on tap for that book queue. More details on that project to follow!
  • The Children of the Sky by Vernor Vinge: My status on this book is unchanged: I still want to read this (a continuation of Vinge’s loosely linked Zones of Thought books), but initial reviews of this book seem to indicate that it ends on a cliffhanger and that another novel is forthcoming. I thus won’t be reading this until I know more about when the presumed conclusion to the story will be available…
  • Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris – Another long non-fiction book that I’ll probably tackle next year. Again, just want to preserve the momentum I’ve built up this year.
  • The Mongoliad: Book One (The Foreworld Saga) by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, and others – This is just something I haven’t gotten around to… but apparently a second volume is forthcoming, so I should probably hop to it. I’ve actually been waiting for my Amazon Prime book lending thingy to reset so I can get this one for free. Score.
  • Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold (releases 11/6/12) – Hasn’t come out yet, but I am going to read this one as soon as I possibly can. It will actually be perfect timing for me, just after the Halloween rush. Apparently you can buy a pre-release galley of this book or something, but I figure I’ll just wait until the final version comes out.

New Stuff

In no particular order:

  • Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday The 13th by Peter M. Bracke – I went a little nuts trying to find this a few years ago, and when I finally got my hands on a copy, I kinda forgot about it and haven’t picked it up since. I figure it will make a good read during the six weeks of Halloween this year.
  • Mucho Mojo by Joe R. Lansdale – Lansdale’s second in a series of Texas crime novels featuring the unlikely duo of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine (the first, which I enjoyed even if it was a little on the predictable side, was on my previous book queue.)
  • Morning Glories, Vol. 1: For a Better Future by Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma – Yeah, so this one is a comic book omnibus recommended to me by my buddies Mike and Don over at Radio Free Echo Rift (an excellent podcast for all you comics fans out there and heck, I like it, and I don’t even read much in the way of comics.) I have pretty much no idea what it’s about (apparently a school is involved), but I’m pretty much just taking Mike and Don’s word for it.
  • The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester – One of those books that frequently pops up on best SF novel lists, something I’ve been trying to wittle down for a while now.
  • Jack Glass by Adam Roberts – Only recently released, but for some reason, not available on the Kindle. I suppose it’s got to be available in ebook format somewhere though, and I do want to read this book, supposedly a mashup of locked-room mysteries and crime tropes with golden age SF.
  • The Gift of Fire / On the Head of a Pin: Two Short Novels from Crosstown to Oblivion by Walter Mosley – Two interesting sounding stories in one book. I don’t remember where I heard of this, but I’m glad I stuck it in the queue, as it sounds pretty interesting.
  • Red, White, and Blood by Christopher Farnsworth – The third in a series of trashy vampire spy novels that I’ve come to enjoy.
  • The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold – Since I’ve mostly exhausted Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga, I figured I should probably start hitting up her fantasy novels too.
  • Among Others by Jo Walton – Just won the 2012 Hugo Award for best novel. A little surprising, actually, as smart money was on the China Mieville or George R.R. Martin books, but not having read any of the nominees, I can’t say for sure. Still, the annual bitching about nominees seemed to indicate that Walton’s book was actually a worthy nominee but that it would probably not win because it was not as fancy as other noms, so it’s nice to see that it actually did win.

So there you have it, lots of books to read, and so little time. I’m hoping to knock most of this new stuff out before the end of the year. As mentioned above, some of the holdovers will probably have to wait for next year, but at least a couple will probably be checked off the list this year too…

Update: Just added Among Others to the list.

On Nitpicking

Arts & Letters, Best Entries, Movies / /

I watch a lot of movies and thus it follows that I also consume a fair amount of film criticism, mostly through the internets (reviews, forums, podcasts, etc…) One thing I’ve noticed recently in a few high-profile movies is that many reviews resort to long lists of nitpicking. I’m certainly not immune to this tendency – I tried to minimize my nitpicks in my Prometheus review, but if I were so inclined, I could probably generate a few thousand words picking the nits out of that movie. I really disliked that movie, but were the nitpicks the cause? Another movie I could probably nitpick to death is The Dark Knight Rises… and yet, I really enjoyed that movie. We could quibble about the quantity and magnitude of the nitpicks in both films, but a recent discussion with a friend on both movies made me start wondering about nitpicks again. It’s something I’ve seen before, though I don’t think I’ve ever really written about it in detail.

The origin of the term comes from the process of removing the eggs of lice (aka nits) from the host’s hair. Because the nits attach themselves to individual strands of hair, the process of removing them is tedious and slow. You could shave all the hair off and later, chemical methods of treating lice infestations became available. But the term nitpicking has lived on as a way describing the practice of meticulously examining a subject in search of subtle errors in detail. In the context of this post, we’re talking about movies, but this gets applied to lots of other things.

When it comes to movies and TV series, nitpicks can go either way. Some will claim that the existence of nitpicks are evidence that the show or movie is sloppy and poorly made. Others will claim that the nitpickers are missing the forest for the trees. Nitpickers just don’t “get it” and are taking the fun out of everything. In fairness, there’s probably an element of truth to both sides of that argument, but I think they’re both missing the point of nitpicks, which is this: Nitpicks are almost always emblematic of a deeper problem with the story or characters. Oh sure, there are some people who can’t turn their brains off and nitpick because they’re just analytical by nature (one definition of engineer’s disease), but even in those cases, I think there’s something to be said for a deeper dislike than the nitpicks would seem to indicate.

Nitpicks are the symptoms, not the disease. I didn’t dislike Prometheus because, for example, their spaceship was in a constant state of thrust at the beginning of the movie or because there was no explanation for how the ship maintained gravity in space. But both of those things were immediately obvious to me, which tells me that I wasn’t really immersed in the story that was being told. As the movie unfolds, a number of breathtakingly stupid plot developments were continually taking me out of the story. Perhaps if the movie wasn’t so stupid, I may have overlooked those initial observations, but as the nitpicks mounted, it became harder and harder to overlook them. I don’t go into a movie hoping that it will suck. There’s a certain amount of goodwill that a movie has to wear away at in order to ruin immersion, and for whatever reason the quantity and magnitude of nitpicks with Prometheus wore out that goodwill pretty quickly. The Dark Knight Rises, on the other hand, didn’t bother me nearly as much. In fact, as I mentioned in my review, most of the nitpicks I have with that movie came to light after the fact. It’s what Hitchcock calls a “refrigerator” movie: something that makes sense while you’re watching it, but falls apart under critical examination (while standing in front of the refrigerator later in the night). That being said, for lots of people, that wasn’t enough. And that’s perfectly understandable.

In general, it seems that people are perhaps less objective than they’d like to think. One of the great things about art is that the pieces that move us usually aren’t doing so solely on an intellectual level… and when it comes to emotion, words sometimes fail us. Take, for example, a comedy. The great thing about laughter is that you don’t have to think about it, it just happens. Different people have different tastes, of course, and that’s where subjectivity comes in. But for whatever reason, we don’t like to admit that, so we try to rationalize our feelings about a given movie. And if we don’t like that movie, such rationalizations may manifest in the form of nitpicks. None of this is absolute, of course. Most art works on both intellectual and emotional levels, and as you gain experience with a given medium or genre (or whatever), you will start to pick out patterns and tropes. One of the interesting things about this is that what gets labeled a “nitpick” can vary widely in scope. Nitpicks can range from trivial mistakes to serious continuity errors, but they all get lumped under the same category. As such, I think it can be difficult to discern what’s a nitpick and what’s the root cause of said nitpick.

A few years ago, I was discussing John Scalzi’s book Old Man’s War in an online forum. I (and a number of other forum members) enjoyed the book greatly, but one person didn’t. When asked why, she responded that it was disappointing that, during one scene earlier in the book, a doctor spent time explaining how some machines worked to his patient. This is a nitpick if I’ve ever seen one. What she said was true – it was somewhat unrealistic that these two characters would stop what they’re doing to have a discussion about how certain technologies operated. But I was wrapped up in the story by that point, so I barely even noticed it. Even after it was pointed out, it didn’t ruin the book for me. She was not invested in the story though, so that scene was jarring to her. After further discussion, it turns out that this was a specific manifestation of a larger issue she had with the book, which was that it lazily introduced concepts through awkward exposition or dialogue, and never followed through on any of it. I don’t particularly agree with her on that, but I can see where she’s coming from.

I think the lesson here is that when people are nitpicking a movie to death, it’s not necessarily the specific nitpicks that are so bothersome. Perhaps, in some cases, it’s the combined weight of all the nitpicks that causes an issue, but I suspect that even in those cases, the nitpicks are merely the most obvious examples of a deeper problem. I think both critics and defenders would do well to recognize this sort of thing. It’s fun to list out nitpicks or examples of something you don’t like about a work of art, but that’s not really what criticism is about. I don’t mean to say that you can’t or shouldn’t do this sort of thing, just that it would be useful at some point to look back at that list and wonder what it was about the book or movie or whatever that inspired you to meticulously chronicle minor errors or whatever. This is probably easier said than done. I can’t say as though I succeed at this all the time, but then, I’m just some dude wanking on the internets. Ultimately, all of this is somewhat superfluous, but it’s something worth considering the next time you find yourself cataloging trivial errors in detail.

Recent Trashy Reading Roundup

Arts & Letters / /

It’s not all high minded nerdery here at Kaedrin. Sure, we’ll take on classics on occasion, but sometimes you want to read a fictional account of “Bin Laden’s assassination – by a vampire who stuffed a grenade in his mouth and then threw him over a cliff so he exploded in midair.” Yeah, it’s trashy, but it’s fun. I’ve recently started a couple of series that promise to keep me busy, so long as I don’t lose interest…

  • Storm Front by Jim Butcher – This is the first book in the long running Dresden Files series recounting the adventures of Harry Dresden, a modern-day wizard operating out of Chicago (i.e. that other wizard named Harry). Butcher is trying to mashup fantasy with detective fiction here, Dresden being something of a magical PI. This was a book club choice of my work companions and I was in the mood for something trashy, and this pretty much delivered exactly what I was looking for. I was already familiar with the world of the books from the short-lived TV series (which is obviously slightly different) and I thought it would be enjoyable. For the most part, I was right, though I will say that if you’re looking for anything that will display restraint or rigor in its worldbuilding, this series may not be for you. I was willing to go with it in this first book, but things get pretty absurd at times, and while Dresden is a likeable enough protagonist, he’s also a little too old fashioned for my tastes. I’m surprised the TV series never took off, because this book is something right out of the police procedural TV series playbook. But, you know, with wizards and shit. In that way, the book is somewhat predictable. I mean, Dresden suddenly takes on two completely unrelated cases, but yeah, we know better than that. Still, as a first entry into the series, this works pretty well.
  • Fool Moon by Jim Butcher – This is the second book in the Dresden Files. With the worldbuilding and character establishment out of the way, I was expecting something more assured… but this thing is a mess. I suppose I was somewhat biased here because one of the TV episodes kinda gave away the “twist” of this installment, but even then, the things that I hated here were many. The story basically surrounds a series of werewolf attacks, and yes, it’s lame. One of the things I dislike about fantasy stories involving magic is that the rules of the magic are often vague and limitless. This tends to lead to an escalation of power that quickly becomes unwieldy. In this case, I felt like Dresden took way too much of a beating to be effective in any way, and the limitations of magic in the series seem arbitrary and inconsistent. Not ridiculously so, but enough that I was continually taken out of the story. I get that authors need to make things hard on their characters – otherwise there’s no real conflict and thus the story becomes pointless and boring – but Butcher perhaps went a little too far, and didn’t really allow Dresden to redeem himself. Butcher is trying to walk a tricky line with this series, and while he managed to get it working in the first book, I feel like he faltered with this one. I didn’t particularly enjoy it… That being said, I may actually check out some of the later books in the series. I’ll have to look into it, but I’m guessing the series gets better as it moves on…
  • Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth – Inspired by a review of the second book in the series, I decided to check out this first installment. In an interview, Farnsworth lays out the premise pretty well:

    ….he discovered an odd factoid in American history: a sailor who was convicted of killing and drinking the blood of his crewmates, then inexplicably pardoned by President Andrew Johnson. So Farnsworth provided a reason: The vampire sailor had taken an oath to serve the nation. The ideas for a series of novels were quick to follow.

    “I just thought it would be really cool if Jack Bauer were like a vampire,” said Farnsworth.

    And indeed, it is pretty darn cool. The vampire’s name is Nathanial Cade (fantastic and evocative name) and in this opening installment, we get a little of his background and see him take on a group of Frankenstein’s monsters (or something like that). This book certainly does check off quite a few boxes: Supernatural secret agent? You bet. Newly assigned hotshot kid minder? Yep. Grizzled veteran agent teaching the hotshot? Of course. Insane Nazi doctor? Naturally. Zombies? Check. Hints of romance? Sure. Big explosions and car chases? Indeed. High level government conspiracies? Well duh! Where Butcher tried to walk a line with his Wizard Detective between magical and realistic, Farnsworth seems to be saying: What line in the who now? And that lack of restraint does infuse the book with a manic energy that works well enough. I mean, this won’t change your life, but it’s a nice travel/beach read, and a lot of fun. Despite all the insanity, it is pretty clear that Farnsworth is drawing on a universe he’s thought a lot about. While this book does suffer a bit from the arbitrary escalation of magical power mentioned above, it never feels like Farnsworth is making this up as he goes along. I had a lot of fun with this and pretty quickly moved on to the next book in the series…

  • The President’s Vampire by Christopher Farnsworth – This is the book that opens with Bin Laden’s assassination, what Farnsworth describes as his “Captain America punching Hitler in the mouth moment.” And it is pretty glorious. In this book, the world is fleshed out a little more. We get some insight into the mysterious Shadow Company, and there appears to be some sort of Reptilian conspiracy as well. As villains, the Reptilians are a bit lacking, but the Shadow Company guy is pretty great. And Zach, the young hotshot minder for Cade, has grown into his new role to the point where it doesn’t feel silly when he contributes something (always an issue when you pair a supernatural being with a “normal” human). Cade is his usual stoic self and totally badass (of course). And Farnsworth seems to have injected more humor here than in the previous book (though neither is a comedy or anything):

    “He’s too geed up to notice. Got a skinful of mahoska in him.”

    Zach sighed. Cade had been around a long time. As a result, his slang spanned decades. Antiquated terms could come out of nowhere. It got to the point where civilians would notice, and Zach couldn’t have Cade becoming too noticeable. So Zach had taken the rare measure (for him) of giving Cade a standing order.

    “Cade, what have we said about using slang?”

    Cade grimaced. He spoke mechanically, as if forced: “‘It embarrasses both me and the person forced to hear it.'”

    “And…?”

    Cade frowned at him, but continued: “‘And we try to avoid that kind of humiliation whenever we can.'”

    …

    “Prador’s on drugs?”

    “Antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs and tranquilizers,” Cade said. “He’s under a tremendous amount of pressure, and he’s used drugs to cut off almost all of his body’s signals. I could smell it in his sweat.”

    “I never get tired of hearing what you can smell.”

    Again, this isn’t life-changing stuff, but it’s entertaining and fun. Farnsworth does seem to be burning through the ranks of the supernatural at a pretty high pace though. At the beginning of each chapter, there’s often a reference to a past event that Cade dealt with or that was just strange, and you can recognize most of them. For instance, one is the mysterious death of a bunch of kids living on Elm street. Heh. So nothing unexpected here, just good old fun. The third book in the series came out just recently, and I’ll probably be checking it out in the near future…

I seem to have gotten away from my Science Fiction comfort zone recently, though I don’t think I’ve found anything that quite engages me on the level that SF does either. I’m sure I’ll continue to hit up some fantasy novels now and again, but I’m hoping to return more to SF in the near future…

On The Inevitable Batman Reboot

Arts & Letters, Movies / /

This list of five things he wants in the Batman reboot (assuming that the next film in the franchise will be some form of reboot) has some interesting notions. I’ll have more to say about some of his other demands, but if I were ever tapped to make a Batman movie (or comic, for that matter), this one would be my keystone:

Make Batman a detective.

The full name is “The Dark Knight Detective.” Batman isn’t just an urban vigilante in a strange getup – he’s a master detective whose deductive skills rival Sherlock Holmes. This element of Batman is historically underplayed, and Nolan’s Batfilms in particular have ignored his detective element (or, more truthfully when Nolan has engaged the detective element it has been in a way that makes Batman seem stupider, like the fingerprints on the Joker’s bullet thing).

Tell a story where Batman isn’t just punching guys but where he’s engaged in a real mental match-up. Where he’s not only riding in his Batmobile but also piecing together seemingly mundane and pointless clues. Where he’s seemingly at a loss but is actually one step ahead of the villain. Look to the Robert Downey Jr Sherlock Holmes films for a sense of how to do this.

He loses me with the Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes reference (I guess they’re fine for what they are, but are they really something to emulate?), but otherwise, this is spot on. Batman’s first appearance was in Detective Comics, after all, and he’s supposed to be the world’s greatest crime solver. Why not give him an actual mystery to solve? As the Devin Faraci (the author of the piece) notes, this aspect of Batman is historically underplayed, but everyone loves a good sleuthing, so long as the mystery is actually clever and not just obscure (i.e. don’t hire Lindelof and Abrams, though I suspect people would lobby for that duo). To my mind, this sort of story would be an ideal fit for The Riddler as villain, but I’m getting ahead of myself. More on villains later.

As for Faraci’s other suggestions, I don’t feel strongly about most of them, but let’s take a look anyway. Maybe I can muster up some invective or praise:

  • Less Frank Miller, more Grant Morrison. Having already copped to not having read the comics, I’m not really qualified to respond to this, but I think I can go along with the general point, which is to make Batman less grim and gritty and more fun. Makes sense, but there’s also a fine line to walk. I’d like to avoid the Danny Devito Penguin, if you please. Say what you will about Nolan, but I like his mixture of realism and comic book fantasy when it comes to a character like the Joker.
  • Get rid of the bulky rubber outfit. I’m mostly ambivalent about this one, though I agree that it would be nice to see a good portrayal of the grey suit. On the other hand, the grey suit has that whole Underwear of Power thing going against it, so I’m fine if they stick with the black armored stuff.
  • Have it take place in the DC Universe. Again, not really qualified here, but I would want anything in this vein to be subtle and on the periphery. Post-credits sequence would be acceptable. I may have more to say on this a little later in this post.
  • Don’t you dare make it an origin story. Hell yes. Wholeheartedly agreed here. As Devin notes, “I’ll allow a visit to the grave of the Waynes, but that’s it.” Heh.

So, what would I really want out of a reboot, besides making Batman a detective and eschewing the origin story? I’m glad you asked:

  • Give Batman a single villain. Look, I get it, Batman has the strangest, most memorable, and all around best rogues gallery in all of comics. But please, please show some restraint here. Villains seem to multiply in sequels, but I’d respectfully request that be avoided as well. You only have two hours or so, and it’s exceedingly difficult to manage the balancing act of having so many characters onscreen. What’s more, it’s completely unnecessary. You want to do a story with The Riddler and The Penguin? Fine, make two different movies. It’s not like the studio doesn’t want two more movies. Keeping the number of main characters to a minimum is another reason I don’t really like the idea of opening Batman up to the rest of the DC universe (though I suppose that can be done responsibly).
  • Avoid the Joker. I know someone will eventually get the unenviable task of rebooting the role of the Joker at some point, but for now, you have to leave this one alone. There’s just no beating Ledger’s Joker right now. Maybe with the passing of time, a new take on the Joker can emerge, but for now, let’s just focus on the rest of that neglected rogues gallery. What I would have loved to have seen with Leger’s Joker was a situation in which Batman would consult with Joker in Arkham, Hannibal Lecter style (“What became of your lamb, Batman?“) That is one situation where multiple villains would actually work. Alas, I still think it’s too soon for such an approach. A Harley Quinn approach would be an interesting way to reprise the Joker’s themes without the Joker himself… but I’m digressing.
  • Don’t set up a sequel/crossover. Like limiting the story to one villain, this is all about focusing on the matter at hand. I think some leniency could be made on this point if the setup is minimized and subtle, like in a post-credits sequence (Nolan managed pretty handily in Batman Begins). This one is another reason I’m not a fan of opening Batman up to the rest of the DC Universe. Again, it could be done responsibly, but there’s a big possibility the movie would pull an Iron Man 2.

So there’s my five requests. I suppose an honorable mention could go to leaving out a love interest for Batman/Wayne… but that sorta goes along with the minimizing characters theme I’ve got going with the list. My movie would be pretty simple from a number of characters standpoint, but perhaps more complex from a theme and plot perspective (as befitting a mystery, though obviously there’d have to be enough characters to maintain suspicions). This is straightforward stuff: Make him a detective, pit him against a single villain who is not the Joker, and don’t say anything about sequels or origin stories. It’s minimalist, but don’t worry, I can guarantee this won’t happen. Unless Hollywood calls, in which case, I’m all over it.