Way back before the turn of the century, in that distant year of 1997, director James Cameron when asked what sort of project would he do next after producing the massively expensive and massively successful movie Titanic, he quipped to Larry king that he might do a small art film. He did not, his next directorial effort was the wildly expensive and wildly successful Avatar.

Joss Whedon however, after finishing principal photography on Marvel’s The Avengers, a fantastically expensive film, raised a miniscule amount of funds, contacted friends, and in just twelve days photographed his next film as a director, an adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. Continue reading →

So Sunday morning a friend and I headed to a local upscale movie theater and took in a showing of the newest superhero movie, Man of Steel. Warner Brothers, unhappy with the performance of the previous entry in the Superman franchise, Superman Returns, turned to Zack Snyder, Christopher Nolan, and David Goyer to reboot the series.

This film has struck like a metro in the fandom with plenty of people loving it and seemingly equal numbers of people hating it. From what I can gather the people unhappy with the movie are general people who have a devotion to the character and cannon of the Superman mythos. I can empathize with their reaction, the latest entry into the Star Trek franchise to me feels like a cheap rip-off created to sell toys and tickets without any hear of soul of the original series. The fact that people feel the same way about a grittier and darker Superman interpretation is no surprise at all. Continue reading →