I will be attending the Rally To Restore Sanity. Of course now that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have officially combined their events it is technically The Rally To Restore Sanity and / or Fear, but I'm going for the sanity. I want to call the rally by its full name because I'm a stickler for detail, but I don't want to give people the wrong impression of my motives.
Maybe I can make the Fear parenthetical, as in: "I'm going to the Rally to Restore Sanity (and / or Fear)."
Maybe I can shut up about the name of the event and get on with this blog entry which is about this central question: Is the Stewart / Colbert Rally a political event, or is it a comedy event? According to most news agencies the answer is that it is a political event, or at least must be treated as one. For this reason employees of news agencies are being directed NOT to rally to restore sanity (nor march to keep fear alive).
Most news organizations have policies against their employees participating in rallies, marches, petitions, etc. Their employees cannot run for offices or contribute to political campaigns. Examples of news organizations with policies of this nature include, but are not limited to, ABC News , the Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, NBC News, the New York Times, NPR, Politico, and the Washington Post. The policies of these organizations make it clear that these strictures are necessary in order to preserve the organizations' status as neutral observers, and to prevent their impartiality from being questioned.
NPR has a nice column online about their policy. The Huffington Post has a related column in which they quote the policies of various news organizations.
If you can bring yourself to read the Huffington Post column you'll notice a few things.
1 - NBC specified that the rules for MSNBC staff are different, or have been in the past.
2 - The Wall Street Journal's policy is a little vague compared to most of the others. The Journal expects its employees to "exercise good judgment."
3 - Fox News did not reveal their policy. Fox News always values fair and balanced reporting, of course.
Regarding this last: How could they reveal their policy without revealing that they've probably broken it? Employees of Fox News haven't just participated in rallies, they've hosted them! That's what The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are actively satirizing. As you probably know, Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally is the inspiration for the Stewart / Colbert rally.
Maybe Fox News would like to retroactively reclassify the Beck rally as a comedy event.
Regardless of the origin, it seems the Rally to Restore Sanity (and / or Fear) has taken on a life of its own. It's going to be a huge event. Woodstock huge. Not that it's really going to be like Woodstock. For one thing the rally will be three hours long instead of three days long, and hopefully it won't open with a three hour set from Richie Havens. Seriously. I like singing about freedom as much as anybody, but if I'm taking trains, planes and boats to get to and around DC then the event better be better than that.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
This one's for the geeks
Okay, as often happens to me, my mind has become recently stuck on something that is completely useless to me. Here's where I get it all out.
What is today's attention-consuming question? It is this: What movies should Disney be making out of Marvel comics characters?
I was thinking about this the other day and the answer was obvious: Luke Cage.
So obvious, in fact, that they're already doing it. Luke Cage: The Movie is due out in 2011.
Luke Cage, you see, is Marvel's best black character, hands down.
Marvel's Black Panther, although he has a great name, is the king of his own ridiculously-technologically-advanced nation in vaguest Africa. It's possible that not every African-American youth would sympathize with the character sufficiently to shell out ten bucks to see a movie about the guy.
Marvel's Falcon, who does not have a great name, is the Aquaman of the Marvel universe. He flies. He talks to birds. It's not that different from He swims. He talks to fish.
Other attempts to create a black character, such as Night Thrasher, have generally failed.
Somehow, with Luke Cage back in the 70's, Marvel got it right. Luke Cage was an inner city youth who was framed for a crime he didn't commit. Consigned to the American penal system by a skeptical justice system, Cage volunteered for a dangerous experiment in exchange for early parole. The experiment made him very strong and gave him unbreakable skin. Freed, he first capitalizes on his abilities, marketing himself as a Hero for Hire. Later he dedicates himself to cleaning up his neighborhood, at which he succeeds. It's only a few blocks of New York City, but thanks to Luke Cage there are a few blocks of New York City that are completely free of drug dealers and their associated ills.
Here's the thing: If Disney has any vision about really doing something with Marvel's properties then they need to do one simple thing: They need to put the character of Jessica Jones somewhere in this movie.
Jessica Jones is a character who has been retconned into the Marvel universe, in the same way that Forrest Gump was retconned into ours (If you don't know what retcon means, or only know it from Torchwood, then you're reading the wrong blog). She didn't exist until the 21st century, but her exploits theoretically began in the early 80's.
She's a failed super-hero. She received super powers as a teenager in an almost stereotypical origin involving a canister of radioactive waste. She's strong. She can fly. So she dons (in the early 80's) a skimpy, strapless bodystocking and, using the name Jewel and coloring her hair bubblegum pink, fights crime.
For reasons she is hesitant to share, she comes to believe she is not meant to be a super-hero. She quits for a while, but tries again for about a week in the late 80's - comics' Dark Age - as a darker version of herself called Knightress. During that week she meets Luke Cage and gives up, again, the super-hero racket.
She becomes a private detective. She's good at it.
As a private detective she accidentally discovers Captain America's secret identity and has to decide what to do with this information. Alongside Luke Cage, with whom she has had a fling, she does some bodyguard work for Daredevil / Matt Murdock. She is hired by J. Jonah Jameson to discover Spiderman's secret identity. She dates, briefly, Scott Lang who, as Ant-Man, is a member of the Avengers.
She discovers she is pregnant by Luke Cage. The two decide to have the baby together.
This is a big deal. The character of Luke Cage in the 21st century publications of Marvel Comics is defined by the fact that he's going to have, and later has, a daughter. Suddenly he needs to act like a grown up. But here's the thing: Luke doesn't give in to The Man (even when The Man is Tony Stark) just because he needs to provide for his family. Luke Cage becomes a mensch. He's willing to go to jail for what's right, although he'll fight like hell to stay out of jail, rather than submit himself to the American justice system again, if he can avoid it. He doesn't always take the easy way. He does the right thing, as an example for his kid, even when it's the hard thing.
The point is that Luke Cage ends up being a great role model. And it's all for his kid.
Let's get back to business, though. Let's talk about what Disney needs to do. At this point they've developed a couple of Iron Man movies. They're working on Captain America and Luke Cage. They're also working on an Avengers movie. Spiderman, Daredevil, and Wolverine have been done. The Black Widow is appearing now in Iron Man 2.
Eventually, though, Disney is going to want to build some synergies between the current comic books and the movies. The problem is that Disney is trying to build a franchise around the classic Avengers - Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man - at a time when the classic Avengers team has been largely destroyed in the comics.
Currently there are multiple sets of Avengers in the comics, but there are only two sets of Avengers that matter: The Ultimates, and the New Avengers.
At this point I'm going to assume that if you're still reading this then you have some passing familiarity with current comics' lore and know that I'm now talking about two different universes of characters.
There's the mainstream universe, in which the classic Avengers were thoroughly destroyed a few years ago. A new team of more streetwise Avengers, consisting of Captain America, Spiderman, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Daredevil (briefly), Wolverine and Spiderwoman has formed in their place. If you'll look back over that list you'll notice that all but one of those characters has either had a movie come out recently, or has one scheduled to come out next year.
Then there's the Ultimate Universe, in which the Avengers are a supergroup called the Ultimates that has been formed under the command of Nick Fury, who in this universe is modeled after Samuel L. Jackson. That supergroup consists of Fury himself, Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Ant-Man (sort of) and Hawkeye.
If you've been paying any kind of attention at all then you have noticed that Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury is going to be the catalyst of the Avengers movie.
Basically, Disney is trying to synthesize these universes into some decent movies.
The problem is that the classic Avengers are a bunch of white guys from the middle of the 20th century, and they're really hard to update. Iron Man kind of works. He's basically What If Steve Jobs Made Weapons? How do you update Thor, though? Or Captain America? Or Ant-Man?
The Avengers movie really needs to be about Nick Fury assembling a team of powerful individuals in his one-man war against terror, but ultimately realizing that these are (with the exception of Captain America) the Wrong Guys. He needs soldiers and what he has are heroes. The movie ends with him having assembled his team of Captain America, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Hawkeye, and possibly Thor. They've defeated a bad guy who wanted to rule the world - possibly Kang the Conqueror - but Nick Fury really needs a different team to do dirtier work in the name of America and America alone.
The Luke Cage movie needs to be made alongside the Avengers, but be completely unrelated. It establishes that Luke Cage is willing to get his hands a little dirty in order to do what must be done.
Then there needs to be a second Avengers movie called Avengers: Secret War. This will basically be a faithful adaptation of Marvel's Secret War miniseries from 2004-2005. It's the story of how Nick Fury uses Captain America, Daredevil, the Black Widow (appearing now in Iron Man 2!), Luke Cage, and Wolverine in a preemptive strike against a terrorist rogue nation, then removes from the heroes any memory of their having done so. One year later the Avengers and these Secret Warriors are attacked in retaliation, but unaware of why.
This is what destroys the classic Avengers in the movie universe. It's not Avengers: Disassembled. It's Secret War. Nick Fury is very publicly associated with the Avengers in the movies, as he is in the Ultimate universe. When he undertakes his Secret War then he turns the heroes against him, leading the Avengers to disband. Also the Avengers headquarters are destroyed in the retaliatory strike made by the terrorist rogue nation. Scott Lang, Ant-Man, is killed. If there's a Hawkeye then he's killed too.
The next movie is New Avengers: Breakout. Many of the same Secret Warriors come back together when a massive prison-break occurs. After responding to the prison break and preventing many super-criminals from escaping, Captain America encourages the heroes (himself, Iron Man, Spiderman, Luke Cage, possibly Daredevil, and - replacing Spiderwoman - Black Widow) to stay together in order to round up the few who did escape. These New Avengers aren't working for the government. They're doing what needs to be done, on their own.
That's maybe the first half-hour of the movie. The rest is the New Avengers confronting a conspiracy involving the escaped criminals and the remainder of Nick Fury's organization. The whole thing culminates with Iron Man / Tony Stark taking over the organization in question. The good guys win.
Or do they? On to the next movie in the franchise, Avengers: Civil War. Iron Man / Tony Stark is in favor of all superhumans registering with the government and working for it under his authority. Captain America and Luke Cage see things differently. Things Fall Apart. It is revealed that all appears to be going horribly wrong under the direction of the Black Widow, who turns out to be an alien impostor. In order to make a decent movie we have to simplify the Secret Invasion storyline and have the Avengers get back together with the real Black Widow and a returned Nick Fury on the right side of the fight, united against the aliens. They defeat the threat, but are distrustful of each other and concerned about how their united strength was misused. Although victorious, they disband. Movie ends.
You'll notice I'm leaving Wolverine out of all the New Avengers stuff. He can probably be taken out of any Secret War movie as well. I really want to keep the X-men franchise separate from the Nick Fury / Avengers franchise. For similar reasons Spiderman could also be removed from all things Avengers.
Individual movies pick back up:
A contemporary Captain America movie. Captain America, finally on his own, is a man out of time. A Rip Van Winkle. A patriotic and inspiring Blast From The Past, but not everyone approves of his brand of patriotism. A powerful individual murders Cap's girlfriend in the process of an attempted smear campaign. Cap brings the bad guy to justice. This is all an homage to the first few issues of Jessica Jones' first comic book appearance.
Luke Cage 2. Cage cleans up his neighborhood. On his own. He begins a relationship with Jessica Jones, if he hasn't already. The movie centers around trying to balance responsibility to his family and to his neighborhood. He needs to do the right thing for his family, but he also needs to do the right thing for everyone else in order to be someone his (as yet unborn) daughter can be proud of.
Nick Fury and The Black Widow, Nick helps the Widow try to rebuild the life an impostor was living in her place.
Daredevil 2. Daredevil is outed to the media as Matt Murdock. (In promotional webisodes, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones pretend to be Matt Murdock's bodyguards. Their relationship advances.) Murdock successfully settles out of court when he convinces the media's source to deny the story.
Jessica Jones, pregnant, gets a job at the Daily Bugle, working for J. Jonah Jameson. She investigates a group of kids trying to fill the void left by the disbanded Avengers. These Young Avengers are led by Iron Lad, a kid who claims to be destined to become the time-traveling supervillain Kang the Conqueror. (If Kang hasn't already been used in an Avengers movie then it could be revealed that he's come back too soon and no one has ever heard of Kang the Conqueror. That adds to the confusion.) The deceased Ant-Man's daughter is one of the Young Avengers, as is the African-American Patriot, an shape-shifting alien defector from the recently attempted invasion, and a debutante taking on the mantle of Hawkeye. These Young Avengers are brought into conflict with an elder version of Kang and YOUNGER versions of Iron Man and Captain America and others whom the elder Kang has taken out of time in order to force his younger self to get back on track. This causes instability to the time stream. Jessica discovers she's no longer pregnant as a result of the time-stream changes and freaks out. The young Kang goes back to his own time in order to set things right. When he does, his sentient Armor, JARVIS, changes its name to VISION and joins the team. Jessica, pregnant again, has a story for the Bugle that it probably can't print.
Whew.
Okay, looking back at this ridiculous post I seem to have pitched 10 separate movies. They all, in one way or another, pay homage to the recent and classic history of the characters while not being married to that history.
Jessica Jones can serve as a linchpin that ties everything together. I see her as having a series of live-action, advertising-supported web-based serials in which she intersects with each movie.
This post is all about the Avengers and related properties. It's also about Brian Michael Bendis. He's been the moving force behind all of these characters for the last several years, with the exception of the Young Avengers. It seems to me that since Bendis has revitalized the characters in the comics then some of his plot-lines should be adapted to the films.
There are other Marvel properties that can be adapted to film, of course. I've got some ideas. Mostly I want to keep the Marvel movie universe segmented. The Fantastic Four, the X-men, the Avengers, the Hulk, Spiderman, Power Pack, and the Runaways (just to name a few) should never intersect with each other (although Nick Fury and Jessica Jones can wander through the background as necessary).
Okay geeks-who-made-it-all-the-way-through-the-post. What do you think? Think there's an Avengers movie (or ten) in here somewhere?
What is today's attention-consuming question? It is this: What movies should Disney be making out of Marvel comics characters?
I was thinking about this the other day and the answer was obvious: Luke Cage.
So obvious, in fact, that they're already doing it. Luke Cage: The Movie is due out in 2011.
Luke Cage, you see, is Marvel's best black character, hands down.
Marvel's Black Panther, although he has a great name, is the king of his own ridiculously-technologically-advanced nation in vaguest Africa. It's possible that not every African-American youth would sympathize with the character sufficiently to shell out ten bucks to see a movie about the guy.
Marvel's Falcon, who does not have a great name, is the Aquaman of the Marvel universe. He flies. He talks to birds. It's not that different from He swims. He talks to fish.
Other attempts to create a black character, such as Night Thrasher, have generally failed.
Somehow, with Luke Cage back in the 70's, Marvel got it right. Luke Cage was an inner city youth who was framed for a crime he didn't commit. Consigned to the American penal system by a skeptical justice system, Cage volunteered for a dangerous experiment in exchange for early parole. The experiment made him very strong and gave him unbreakable skin. Freed, he first capitalizes on his abilities, marketing himself as a Hero for Hire. Later he dedicates himself to cleaning up his neighborhood, at which he succeeds. It's only a few blocks of New York City, but thanks to Luke Cage there are a few blocks of New York City that are completely free of drug dealers and their associated ills.
Here's the thing: If Disney has any vision about really doing something with Marvel's properties then they need to do one simple thing: They need to put the character of Jessica Jones somewhere in this movie.
Jessica Jones is a character who has been retconned into the Marvel universe, in the same way that Forrest Gump was retconned into ours (If you don't know what retcon means, or only know it from Torchwood, then you're reading the wrong blog). She didn't exist until the 21st century, but her exploits theoretically began in the early 80's.
She's a failed super-hero. She received super powers as a teenager in an almost stereotypical origin involving a canister of radioactive waste. She's strong. She can fly. So she dons (in the early 80's) a skimpy, strapless bodystocking and, using the name Jewel and coloring her hair bubblegum pink, fights crime.
For reasons she is hesitant to share, she comes to believe she is not meant to be a super-hero. She quits for a while, but tries again for about a week in the late 80's - comics' Dark Age - as a darker version of herself called Knightress. During that week she meets Luke Cage and gives up, again, the super-hero racket.
She becomes a private detective. She's good at it.
As a private detective she accidentally discovers Captain America's secret identity and has to decide what to do with this information. Alongside Luke Cage, with whom she has had a fling, she does some bodyguard work for Daredevil / Matt Murdock. She is hired by J. Jonah Jameson to discover Spiderman's secret identity. She dates, briefly, Scott Lang who, as Ant-Man, is a member of the Avengers.
She discovers she is pregnant by Luke Cage. The two decide to have the baby together.
This is a big deal. The character of Luke Cage in the 21st century publications of Marvel Comics is defined by the fact that he's going to have, and later has, a daughter. Suddenly he needs to act like a grown up. But here's the thing: Luke doesn't give in to The Man (even when The Man is Tony Stark) just because he needs to provide for his family. Luke Cage becomes a mensch. He's willing to go to jail for what's right, although he'll fight like hell to stay out of jail, rather than submit himself to the American justice system again, if he can avoid it. He doesn't always take the easy way. He does the right thing, as an example for his kid, even when it's the hard thing.
The point is that Luke Cage ends up being a great role model. And it's all for his kid.
Let's get back to business, though. Let's talk about what Disney needs to do. At this point they've developed a couple of Iron Man movies. They're working on Captain America and Luke Cage. They're also working on an Avengers movie. Spiderman, Daredevil, and Wolverine have been done. The Black Widow is appearing now in Iron Man 2.
Eventually, though, Disney is going to want to build some synergies between the current comic books and the movies. The problem is that Disney is trying to build a franchise around the classic Avengers - Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man - at a time when the classic Avengers team has been largely destroyed in the comics.
Currently there are multiple sets of Avengers in the comics, but there are only two sets of Avengers that matter: The Ultimates, and the New Avengers.
At this point I'm going to assume that if you're still reading this then you have some passing familiarity with current comics' lore and know that I'm now talking about two different universes of characters.
There's the mainstream universe, in which the classic Avengers were thoroughly destroyed a few years ago. A new team of more streetwise Avengers, consisting of Captain America, Spiderman, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Daredevil (briefly), Wolverine and Spiderwoman has formed in their place. If you'll look back over that list you'll notice that all but one of those characters has either had a movie come out recently, or has one scheduled to come out next year.
Then there's the Ultimate Universe, in which the Avengers are a supergroup called the Ultimates that has been formed under the command of Nick Fury, who in this universe is modeled after Samuel L. Jackson. That supergroup consists of Fury himself, Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Ant-Man (sort of) and Hawkeye.
If you've been paying any kind of attention at all then you have noticed that Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury is going to be the catalyst of the Avengers movie.
Basically, Disney is trying to synthesize these universes into some decent movies.
The problem is that the classic Avengers are a bunch of white guys from the middle of the 20th century, and they're really hard to update. Iron Man kind of works. He's basically What If Steve Jobs Made Weapons? How do you update Thor, though? Or Captain America? Or Ant-Man?
The Avengers movie really needs to be about Nick Fury assembling a team of powerful individuals in his one-man war against terror, but ultimately realizing that these are (with the exception of Captain America) the Wrong Guys. He needs soldiers and what he has are heroes. The movie ends with him having assembled his team of Captain America, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Hawkeye, and possibly Thor. They've defeated a bad guy who wanted to rule the world - possibly Kang the Conqueror - but Nick Fury really needs a different team to do dirtier work in the name of America and America alone.
The Luke Cage movie needs to be made alongside the Avengers, but be completely unrelated. It establishes that Luke Cage is willing to get his hands a little dirty in order to do what must be done.
Then there needs to be a second Avengers movie called Avengers: Secret War. This will basically be a faithful adaptation of Marvel's Secret War miniseries from 2004-2005. It's the story of how Nick Fury uses Captain America, Daredevil, the Black Widow (appearing now in Iron Man 2!), Luke Cage, and Wolverine in a preemptive strike against a terrorist rogue nation, then removes from the heroes any memory of their having done so. One year later the Avengers and these Secret Warriors are attacked in retaliation, but unaware of why.
This is what destroys the classic Avengers in the movie universe. It's not Avengers: Disassembled. It's Secret War. Nick Fury is very publicly associated with the Avengers in the movies, as he is in the Ultimate universe. When he undertakes his Secret War then he turns the heroes against him, leading the Avengers to disband. Also the Avengers headquarters are destroyed in the retaliatory strike made by the terrorist rogue nation. Scott Lang, Ant-Man, is killed. If there's a Hawkeye then he's killed too.
The next movie is New Avengers: Breakout. Many of the same Secret Warriors come back together when a massive prison-break occurs. After responding to the prison break and preventing many super-criminals from escaping, Captain America encourages the heroes (himself, Iron Man, Spiderman, Luke Cage, possibly Daredevil, and - replacing Spiderwoman - Black Widow) to stay together in order to round up the few who did escape. These New Avengers aren't working for the government. They're doing what needs to be done, on their own.
That's maybe the first half-hour of the movie. The rest is the New Avengers confronting a conspiracy involving the escaped criminals and the remainder of Nick Fury's organization. The whole thing culminates with Iron Man / Tony Stark taking over the organization in question. The good guys win.
Or do they? On to the next movie in the franchise, Avengers: Civil War. Iron Man / Tony Stark is in favor of all superhumans registering with the government and working for it under his authority. Captain America and Luke Cage see things differently. Things Fall Apart. It is revealed that all appears to be going horribly wrong under the direction of the Black Widow, who turns out to be an alien impostor. In order to make a decent movie we have to simplify the Secret Invasion storyline and have the Avengers get back together with the real Black Widow and a returned Nick Fury on the right side of the fight, united against the aliens. They defeat the threat, but are distrustful of each other and concerned about how their united strength was misused. Although victorious, they disband. Movie ends.
You'll notice I'm leaving Wolverine out of all the New Avengers stuff. He can probably be taken out of any Secret War movie as well. I really want to keep the X-men franchise separate from the Nick Fury / Avengers franchise. For similar reasons Spiderman could also be removed from all things Avengers.
Individual movies pick back up:
A contemporary Captain America movie. Captain America, finally on his own, is a man out of time. A Rip Van Winkle. A patriotic and inspiring Blast From The Past, but not everyone approves of his brand of patriotism. A powerful individual murders Cap's girlfriend in the process of an attempted smear campaign. Cap brings the bad guy to justice. This is all an homage to the first few issues of Jessica Jones' first comic book appearance.
Luke Cage 2. Cage cleans up his neighborhood. On his own. He begins a relationship with Jessica Jones, if he hasn't already. The movie centers around trying to balance responsibility to his family and to his neighborhood. He needs to do the right thing for his family, but he also needs to do the right thing for everyone else in order to be someone his (as yet unborn) daughter can be proud of.
Nick Fury and The Black Widow, Nick helps the Widow try to rebuild the life an impostor was living in her place.
Daredevil 2. Daredevil is outed to the media as Matt Murdock. (In promotional webisodes, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones pretend to be Matt Murdock's bodyguards. Their relationship advances.) Murdock successfully settles out of court when he convinces the media's source to deny the story.
Jessica Jones, pregnant, gets a job at the Daily Bugle, working for J. Jonah Jameson. She investigates a group of kids trying to fill the void left by the disbanded Avengers. These Young Avengers are led by Iron Lad, a kid who claims to be destined to become the time-traveling supervillain Kang the Conqueror. (If Kang hasn't already been used in an Avengers movie then it could be revealed that he's come back too soon and no one has ever heard of Kang the Conqueror. That adds to the confusion.) The deceased Ant-Man's daughter is one of the Young Avengers, as is the African-American Patriot, an shape-shifting alien defector from the recently attempted invasion, and a debutante taking on the mantle of Hawkeye. These Young Avengers are brought into conflict with an elder version of Kang and YOUNGER versions of Iron Man and Captain America and others whom the elder Kang has taken out of time in order to force his younger self to get back on track. This causes instability to the time stream. Jessica discovers she's no longer pregnant as a result of the time-stream changes and freaks out. The young Kang goes back to his own time in order to set things right. When he does, his sentient Armor, JARVIS, changes its name to VISION and joins the team. Jessica, pregnant again, has a story for the Bugle that it probably can't print.
Whew.
Okay, looking back at this ridiculous post I seem to have pitched 10 separate movies. They all, in one way or another, pay homage to the recent and classic history of the characters while not being married to that history.
Jessica Jones can serve as a linchpin that ties everything together. I see her as having a series of live-action, advertising-supported web-based serials in which she intersects with each movie.
This post is all about the Avengers and related properties. It's also about Brian Michael Bendis. He's been the moving force behind all of these characters for the last several years, with the exception of the Young Avengers. It seems to me that since Bendis has revitalized the characters in the comics then some of his plot-lines should be adapted to the films.
There are other Marvel properties that can be adapted to film, of course. I've got some ideas. Mostly I want to keep the Marvel movie universe segmented. The Fantastic Four, the X-men, the Avengers, the Hulk, Spiderman, Power Pack, and the Runaways (just to name a few) should never intersect with each other (although Nick Fury and Jessica Jones can wander through the background as necessary).
Okay geeks-who-made-it-all-the-way-through-the-post. What do you think? Think there's an Avengers movie (or ten) in here somewhere?
Thursday, March 4, 2010
There's nothing wrong with Hulu
The big news today is that Hulu failed to come to an agreement with Comedy Central / Viacom. As a result The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are being pulled from the site.
This means that when I miss an episode of The Daily Show then I'll have to surf over to TheDailyShow.com instead of Hulu. Or it means that when I want to look over clips of The Colbert Report's "The Word" segment then I will have to surf to ColbertNation.com's Word page.
And, as a result, Viacom will get more advertising dollars from my viewage than they would have from my viewage on Hulu. Hulu gave them a percentage. Now they get it all. It's a good decision on Viacom's part, especially since they already have the websites up and running and paid for by advertisers.
But there's all this chatter, now, about how Hulu will have to start charging a fee to viewers of their other shows. That may be the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
I will say this: If paying a fee means I don't have to watch any commercials in order to see the shows I watch on Hulu then I'm listening. How much of a fee? That could be interesting.
But if it's a choice between commercial-free with a fee and commercial breaks with no fee then I'll probably still go with commercials and no fee, thanks. Unless we're talking about a lot more commercials than Hulu currently shows during a typical show. If the commercials get to the point where I should actually start using my old VCR to tape shows again then I may do that, instead.
Someday I will possess a DVR, but not yet.
Here's the thing: VCRs and DVRs allow viewers to time-shift their television viewing. They record the show on Thursday night and they watch it on Sunday or something. Fine. But that's not all that these video-recording technologies allow users to do. They also allow users to fast-forward through the commercials.
Hulu doesn't. If a viewer time-shifts his/her viewing on Hulu then that viewer is going to see a commercial at each break in the show. The whole commercial at its intended viewing speed, even. The viewer cannot fast-forward through the commercial. The viewer can, however, rewind within the commercial if s/he really wants to .
To the advertiser this should mean that advertising on Hulu is better than advertising during the broadcast of a show. It's also better for other reasons involving demographics and disposable income.
Advertisers, however, are stupid. They're willing to pay a lot more money in order for people to fast-forward through their commercials.
"But what about real-time viewers?" I hear you ask. I answer: Real-time viewers flip channels during the commercials. Or they run to the kitchen or the bathroom. They try to move clothes from the washer to the dryer during that commercial break for which the advertiser has paid so much.
So again I say that advertisers are stupid. They should be willing to pay more for Hulu viewers (the numbers of which are counted exactly by Hulu's computers and software) than they are for broadcast or cable viewers (the numbers of which are estimated using a small sample of homes).
Either that or Hulu is just not charging the advertisers enough.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Yet another blog
I've started yet another blog. It's about my experiences trading stocks. It will be updated each market day, before the US markets open. It can be found here.
Meanwhile I'll retain this one for non-investment pontifications.
Krugman
I just finished reading a profile of Paul Krugman from the March 3rd issue of The New Yorker. It's a long column, but it's worth a read. It may force me to reconsider my investment strategies.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Third Party
I really should be working on my blog for class over at huckcrowley.wordpress.com, especially since I need to post this week's assignment there in the next few hours. However I have something on the brain that has nothing to do with my Communication coursework and I need to get that out of my brain before I can effectively work on something else. The thing that's on my brain is political party affiliation and the lack thereof.
My father is nearly ready to leave the Republican party out of frustration with its insistence on exercising its ability to vote as a single, unified block. I, meanwhile, am nearly ready to leave the Democratic party out of frustration with its inability to vote as a single, unified block. The question for both of us, then, is where do we go? What political party speaks to us?
And the answer, of course, is that we're already affiliated with the parties that most closely represent our views, so there's absolutely no chance of us each switching to the other party.
What about the various third-party parties? Really I don't know enough about them. According to Wikipedia (I know, I know...) there were 4 third-party candidates in the 2008 US Presidential election. Those candidates represented:
The Constitution Party
The Green Party
The Libertarian Party
Independent
There were actually more candidates than the big two and the additional four listed, but these four actually appeared on the ballots in enough states to get 270 electoral votes, so they were legitimate candidates.
Look at that list again. You'll notice that the last party isn't a party. It's just a category of voter: Independent. And that Independent candidate - Ralph "I Used To Be A Good Man" Nader - actually got more votes than any other third party candidate. That's actually pretty impressive. How do you get votes for the office of president without a party apparatus behind you? Heck, how do you get on the ballot?
In Ralph's case the answer to these questions is, in his own case, fanatical devotion to his cause. For his followers the answer is fanatical devotion to Ralph Nader.
Regardless, this is fascinating. Especially when you consider what appears to be the growing power of Unaffiliated Voters. The information below is from a Washington Post article that's over 5 years old, so its behind the curve. Here's a convenient chart that Wikipedia has taken from that article. States are ranked in order of percentage of unaffiliated voters registered:
AK 60.0%
Astute readers will notice that there are only 27 states listed. That's because there are only 27 states that register voters by party. In the other 23 states there is no way of knowing how many independent / unaffiliated voters there are, really.
According to a more recent piece by Marc Ambinder - also in the Washington Post - about 30% of voters nationwide "tell pollsters they don't belong to a party." This means that Independent voters are officially the deciding votes when it comes to Presidential elections.
Do these independent voters agree on anything? Or are they too heterogeneous to define by anything other than their lack of party affiliation?
I don't know Ambinder's source for information, but he says "these non-affiliated voters tend to be less fiscally liberal than the Democratic mean and less socially conservative than the Republican mean." That's interesting. In general, then, we're talking about people who aren't going to be pushed around by wedge issues like the ongoing debates about abortion and gay rights. And we're also talking about people who are at least somewhat realistic when it comes to government spending.
I can get behind that. Basically it's a loose collection of practical people who, at the moment, lack an effective voice to speak for them.
Do they need a party? Do I need a party? These are the questions. By being a silent party that is also, effectively, the deciding party then these voters will pull candidates to a pragmatist center. They may do so very slowly, however, over time. It may take a while for political candidates to Get It.
Would a new party help candidates to Get It faster? Probably, but it might also weaken the unaffiliated voters at the same time. A new party would have to come up with a party platform, and it's very possible that a Practical Party (or whatever) wouldn't be able to come up with a platform that would attract enough voters to make it a viable force in American politics. In fact such a party might only succeed in splitting the vote in a crucial election in a Naderesque manner.
Basically a Practical People's Party probably would help candidates Get It and then become instantly obsolete as the two big parties move to the center. Unless a Practical People's Party possibly proves popular enough to purloin an impressive percentage of people from the presently popular parties. That would be perfect, but then we'd effectively have a one-party system, which might actually be worse than the present two-party system.
It seems then that the best thing for a voter that is disenchanted with his present party to do is to become unaffiliated, thereby effectively becoming a member of the silent, deciding party. Both parties are already trying to figure out why voters are leaving. More voters leaving will hopefully make then try harder.
My father is nearly ready to leave the Republican party out of frustration with its insistence on exercising its ability to vote as a single, unified block. I, meanwhile, am nearly ready to leave the Democratic party out of frustration with its inability to vote as a single, unified block. The question for both of us, then, is where do we go? What political party speaks to us?
And the answer, of course, is that we're already affiliated with the parties that most closely represent our views, so there's absolutely no chance of us each switching to the other party.
What about the various third-party parties? Really I don't know enough about them. According to Wikipedia (I know, I know...) there were 4 third-party candidates in the 2008 US Presidential election. Those candidates represented:
The Constitution Party
The Green Party
The Libertarian Party
Independent
There were actually more candidates than the big two and the additional four listed, but these four actually appeared on the ballots in enough states to get 270 electoral votes, so they were legitimate candidates.
Look at that list again. You'll notice that the last party isn't a party. It's just a category of voter: Independent. And that Independent candidate - Ralph "I Used To Be A Good Man" Nader - actually got more votes than any other third party candidate. That's actually pretty impressive. How do you get votes for the office of president without a party apparatus behind you? Heck, how do you get on the ballot?
In Ralph's case the answer to these questions is, in his own case, fanatical devotion to his cause. For his followers the answer is fanatical devotion to Ralph Nader.
Regardless, this is fascinating. Especially when you consider what appears to be the growing power of Unaffiliated Voters. The information below is from a Washington Post article that's over 5 years old, so its behind the curve. Here's a convenient chart that Wikipedia has taken from that article. States are ranked in order of percentage of unaffiliated voters registered:
AK 60.0%
NJ 59.1%
MA 49.8%
CT 44.4%
NH 42.1%
ME 40.8%
IA 38.0%
CO 33.4%
KS 27.2%
NY 26.1%
OR 25.7%
AZ 25.5%
DE 23.4%
CA 22.3%
FL 20.8%
LA 20.7%
NV 19.3%
NC 18.7%
NM 17.7%
NE 16.2%
MD 15.4%
SD 14.4%
WV 11.9%
PA 11.7%
OK 10.5%
WY 10.2%
KY 6.5%
Astute readers will notice that there are only 27 states listed. That's because there are only 27 states that register voters by party. In the other 23 states there is no way of knowing how many independent / unaffiliated voters there are, really.
According to a more recent piece by Marc Ambinder - also in the Washington Post - about 30% of voters nationwide "tell pollsters they don't belong to a party." This means that Independent voters are officially the deciding votes when it comes to Presidential elections.
Do these independent voters agree on anything? Or are they too heterogeneous to define by anything other than their lack of party affiliation?
I don't know Ambinder's source for information, but he says "these non-affiliated voters tend to be less fiscally liberal than the Democratic mean and less socially conservative than the Republican mean." That's interesting. In general, then, we're talking about people who aren't going to be pushed around by wedge issues like the ongoing debates about abortion and gay rights. And we're also talking about people who are at least somewhat realistic when it comes to government spending.
I can get behind that. Basically it's a loose collection of practical people who, at the moment, lack an effective voice to speak for them.
Do they need a party? Do I need a party? These are the questions. By being a silent party that is also, effectively, the deciding party then these voters will pull candidates to a pragmatist center. They may do so very slowly, however, over time. It may take a while for political candidates to Get It.
Would a new party help candidates to Get It faster? Probably, but it might also weaken the unaffiliated voters at the same time. A new party would have to come up with a party platform, and it's very possible that a Practical Party (or whatever) wouldn't be able to come up with a platform that would attract enough voters to make it a viable force in American politics. In fact such a party might only succeed in splitting the vote in a crucial election in a Naderesque manner.
Basically a Practical People's Party probably would help candidates Get It and then become instantly obsolete as the two big parties move to the center. Unless a Practical People's Party possibly proves popular enough to purloin an impressive percentage of people from the presently popular parties. That would be perfect, but then we'd effectively have a one-party system, which might actually be worse than the present two-party system.
It seems then that the best thing for a voter that is disenchanted with his present party to do is to become unaffiliated, thereby effectively becoming a member of the silent, deciding party. Both parties are already trying to figure out why voters are leaving. More voters leaving will hopefully make then try harder.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
It's Alive!
My loyal readers haven't had much to read from me as there has been no update to this blog since June. That changes now because one of the requirements of one of my classes is that I maintain a blog and update it weekly.
"Requirements? Classes? What is he on about?" you might be saying to yourselves. Well, there have been some changes since my last post in June. In July I became disemployed for the first time in 8+ years. In August I enrolled at university full-time in an effort to get the bachelor's degree that has eluded me for the 20 years that I have been ostensibly seeking it. I have no specific update regarding September, except to say that September was spent preparing for October. In October I got married (despite my disemployed status, amazingly enough) and my spouse and I enjoyed a wonderful honeymoon in San Francisco. November and December were spent on family holidays and finals. And this brings us to January 2010 which is, as of this writing, the present.
Today is the first day of the Spring 2010 semester at the learning institution I have sporadically attended for over 20 years, but for the first time my goal is within sight, even unaided by any form of telescopic magnification. If all goes according to plan (and why wouldn't it?) I shall graduate in May with a BA in Communication.
One of the requirements for my degree is COMM 303: Introduction to Communication Technologies. I'm taking the class online. It's the first class I've taken online, so we'll see how that goes. Still, it seems appropriate that a class about Communication Technologies be mediated through same. It's called hands-on learning, folks.
As I mentioned in my opening paragraph, one of the requirements (1/6 of my total grade) for the course is that I maintain a blog. Well, I've been maintaining a blog already, if "maintaining" can be understood to mean "posting with decreasing frequency after the election of 2008 and then ceasing altogether upon disemployment."
I rather thought that I would be posting with more frequency in my disemployed state, but many of the things about which I previously posted became less important in the absence of a regular paycheck. Green energy and electric cars, especially. I still discuss politics and investment strategies ad nauseum, but I have done so recently without resorting to posting my thoughts on these subjects on the series of tubes you see before you.
Anyway, for those of you (I know there's at least one) who have this blog on your RSS feeds: It seems only fair that I give you a heads-up about the renewal of this blog and its new context. According to the syllabus for my class, blog "entries will mostly be responses to web sites or questions given to [me] by the instructor. Good entries will get more credit than bad entries. The entries will be evaluated on how well they are written with both content and form taken into consideration. Good entries may become required reading for other students in the course."
I'm assuming I'm allowed to blog about other matters that occur to me also, but if past performance is indicative of future performance then non-class-related-posts will be few and far between. Besides, if I know my fellow classmates may be reading then I may exercise additional gate-keeping ability on my thoughts and opinions, at least until May.
Regardless of the impetus, this blog is once again active and promises to have (at least) weekly updates for the next four months. Comments are, as ever, welcome.
UPDATE: Or not. Syllabus has been revised since my last post. The blog for the class has to be set up at wordpress, so my blogger / blogspot blog is somehow unacceptable.
"Requirements? Classes? What is he on about?" you might be saying to yourselves. Well, there have been some changes since my last post in June. In July I became disemployed for the first time in 8+ years. In August I enrolled at university full-time in an effort to get the bachelor's degree that has eluded me for the 20 years that I have been ostensibly seeking it. I have no specific update regarding September, except to say that September was spent preparing for October. In October I got married (despite my disemployed status, amazingly enough) and my spouse and I enjoyed a wonderful honeymoon in San Francisco. November and December were spent on family holidays and finals. And this brings us to January 2010 which is, as of this writing, the present.
Today is the first day of the Spring 2010 semester at the learning institution I have sporadically attended for over 20 years, but for the first time my goal is within sight, even unaided by any form of telescopic magnification. If all goes according to plan (and why wouldn't it?) I shall graduate in May with a BA in Communication.
One of the requirements for my degree is COMM 303: Introduction to Communication Technologies. I'm taking the class online. It's the first class I've taken online, so we'll see how that goes. Still, it seems appropriate that a class about Communication Technologies be mediated through same. It's called hands-on learning, folks.
As I mentioned in my opening paragraph, one of the requirements (1/6 of my total grade) for the course is that I maintain a blog. Well, I've been maintaining a blog already, if "maintaining" can be understood to mean "posting with decreasing frequency after the election of 2008 and then ceasing altogether upon disemployment."
I rather thought that I would be posting with more frequency in my disemployed state, but many of the things about which I previously posted became less important in the absence of a regular paycheck. Green energy and electric cars, especially. I still discuss politics and investment strategies ad nauseum, but I have done so recently without resorting to posting my thoughts on these subjects on the series of tubes you see before you.
Anyway, for those of you (I know there's at least one) who have this blog on your RSS feeds: It seems only fair that I give you a heads-up about the renewal of this blog and its new context. According to the syllabus for my class, blog "entries will mostly be responses to web sites or questions given to [me] by the instructor. Good entries will get more credit than bad entries. The entries will be evaluated on how well they are written with both content and form taken into consideration. Good entries may become required reading for other students in the course."
I'm assuming I'm allowed to blog about other matters that occur to me also, but if past performance is indicative of future performance then non-class-related-posts will be few and far between. Besides, if I know my fellow classmates may be reading then I may exercise additional gate-keeping ability on my thoughts and opinions, at least until May.
Regardless of the impetus, this blog is once again active and promises to have (at least) weekly updates for the next four months. Comments are, as ever, welcome.
UPDATE: Or not. Syllabus has been revised since my last post. The blog for the class has to be set up at wordpress, so my blogger / blogspot blog is somehow unacceptable.
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