Try A Little Tenderness

The stories you are about to hear are true.  Names will be omitted to protect the innocent.

Incident #1: Sunday afternoon.  I'm at church, and I'm sitting in Sunday School.   It's an excellent lesson, partly about using our talents to push the work of God forward. Suddenly, I hear the teacher say my name, and I snap to full attention just in time to hear the teacher give me a lovely compliment about a talent she's perceived in me, one I'd never been aware of.  As a result, I feel like a million bucks the rest of the day.

Incident #2: Your birthday is always the best time to have a Facebook account, because, if you have awesome friends (like I do), a lot of them will take the time to write out a little birthday greeting to you.  I love all the greetings I received (and I thank my friends profusely for all of them), but one of them was different from the others.  In this greeting, a friend of mine, who happens to be an editor at a website I write for, takes the time to not only wish me a happy birthday, but also thanks me for being a good addition to the website team.  This makes me feel really good; it's a birthday gift in and of itself.  I come away feeling like a million bucks again.

Incident #3: I'm at work, and I've come off the high of an excellent weekend and I'm back to the day-by-day drudge of working at a warehouse.  The day is coming to a close, and I'm getting ready to go home when one of my co-workers, just out of the blue, says, "AJ, has anyone ever told you that you're a pretty cool guy?"  Stunned, I stammer out some stupid-sounding response, but I'm feeling like a million bucks again.

What do these three snapshots of my life have in common?  All of them feature someone who, with just a few words, changed my mood for the whole day.  It just took a few seconds to do, but it affected me for hours.

If your mom is anything like mine, you've probably heard this phrase hundreds of times: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."  It's a cliche, yes, but it does have a lot of wisdom behind it.  What we say has such a big impact on what happens around us.  With one small insult, you can tear a huge hole out of somebody's self-worth.  It also works the other way, though; with one small compliment, you can build a person up and really feel great about themselves.

I don't want to get preachy, but I would just like to encourage all of us (including myself, because I can work on this, too) to be careful what we say around others.  All of us are in a position to have a big impact on the people we meet, and all it takes to leave a mark is a couple of words.  It behooves us to choose those words carefully.  Remember what your mom said!

Superhero Fatigue

The year: 2002.  I was thirteen years old, the perfect age to get swept up in the hype surrounding the release of Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man film.  Said hype got me to buy my first graphic novel: a Marvel Masterworks collection of the first ten issues of The Amazing Spider-Man.  I read it to pieces; I have lots of fond memories of hanging out in my room, reading the book while sipping Sprite and listening to '60s pop music.  Needless to say, I was really excited to see the movie.

For some forgotten reason, I missed seeing Spider-Man in theaters, but my dad brought the DVD home soon after it was released.  I vividly remember seeing the film for the first time, nestled in my usual spot on our couch, with a bowl of popcorn in my lap.  I was amazed by the film; every second, I was seeing things I had never seen before, and my teenage mind was blown by the action sequences and the humor.  Seeing the film now, I can also see that the movie stays more true to the tone of the comic books than any other Spider-Man film.  I loved Spider-Man then, and I still do; it's one of my top ten superhero films of all time.

Predictably, Hollywood looked at the success of Spider-Man and decided that what we wanted was more superhero films, and lots of them.  The first few were really good; I liked Spider-Man 2,  I absolutely LOVED The Incredibles, and I think I'm one of the two people in the world who will actually defend the first Fantastic Four film.  Unfortunately, as superhero films have been falling ever thicker and ever faster, I've grown bored with the flicks.  This illness is commonly known as superhero fatigue.

Don't get me wrong; some really great superhero flicks have come out over the past few years.  Unfortunately, I can think of only two that I unreservedly love: Chronicle and Big Hero 6.  How many superhero films have come out since 2010?  I haven't been counting, but it must be up there in the double digits.  Of course, I'm talking about my own personal taste, but two out of (at least) ten is not a good ratio of greatness.

What went wrong with the superhero flick?  Every superhero flick feels the same.  Occasionally, a flash of originality will shine through, but, for the most part, superhero films feel like slick movies that roll off the assembly line, each exactly the same as the others.  Personally, I'm tired of seeing the same old stuff in superhero movies.

What's the solution?  It's simple: the filmmakers need to bring their own personal flair to the films.  Take, for instance, another of my favorite superhero flicks: Richard Donner's 1978 masterpiece Superman: The Movie.  Each of the movie's three acts has its own distinct style: epic & almost Biblical in the opening scenes on Krypton; sepia-toned Americana (composed in beautiful widescreen shots) in the Smallville section, and jokey, fast-paced, urban style in the Metropolis portion.  Some directors, like Shane Black (Iron Man 3) and James Gunn (Guardians Of The Galaxy), have learned this lesson and applied it, leaving their individual touch on their films.  Now, it's time that other directors did the same.

I mentioned Black & Gunn to specifically prove one thing: that doing distinctive, unique work is possible, even in a huge corporation like Marvel.  I think that a lot of filmmakers think that directors like Brad Bird (The Incredibles), M. Night Shyamalan (Unbreakable, a movie I will defend to my grave), and Josh Trank (Chronicle) can do clever, creative stuff, since they're working with original stories.  However, some directors who work for the big companies, like Marvel or DC, feel hamstrung by us fans and our expectations.

What do do about fans?  Here's my answer to the directors: in the words of Fleetwood Mac, "go your own way."  Comic books are a different medium than movies, and comic book stories will inevitably need to be tweaked to make them work on film.  On top of that, if a director doesn't feel like filming a story exactly as it unfolds in the comic books, he should feel free to change it!  Personally, I applaud Shane Black for making his controversial Mandarin decision in Iron Man 3.  I know it annoyed a lot of fans, but I admire Black's ballsiness in taking the comic-book story and changing it to suit his own sensibilities.  If a director is going to make a superhero film that's going to stand out, he or she needs to have that kind of courage. 

I know that my opinions on this issue aren't widely held, and I know I'm going to catch a lot of heat for this post.  I anticipate it, and I look forward to the good discussions (NOT arguments) we're going to have.  So, have at it!