Movie Transformer

From the latest box office numbers, is looks like everyone in America is rushing out to see Transformers: Dark of the Moon.  I read on Facebook as dozens of my friends rushed out to see the film - some at midnight the day before it officially opened.  Then I read their varied opinions.  These ranged from "you will wish you were dead" to "that was the most amazing thing I've ever seen" and just about everything in between.  I keep hoping the movie will stop making money, but it doesn't.  This makes me wonder what exactly is wrong with me.  Why don't I want to see this epitome of a summer action flick?  Not only have no interest in seeing it, but I actually have been rooting for it to fail and be awful.  Why is that?

I am a movie fan.  And I am far from one of those snooty filmgoers that only watch foreign films and limited release films (aka Oscar voters).  I am just as likely to avoid an Oscar nominee as a brainless action film.  I set my own standards for what I want to watch.  They don't have to make sense to anyone else.  I really don't care if you think my decisions are stupid.  I'm the one who ends up having to sit there.  I used to go see just about everything that came out, except for horror films.  (I have NEVER liked those.)  But now I actively avoid certain movies.  What changed?

I spend far too much time thinking about this and came up with reasons.  And, more than that, I came up with an exact date when all of this changed.  September 11, 2001.  Now, I know a lot of things can be hung on that infamous date.  You may think it is extreme to blame my increasing disconnect with many movies to that day.  But I don't.  There are three major reasons that can be traced back to that particular 24 hour time period.  But they aren't all what you may think.

REASON 1:  REALITY TRUMPED FANTASY
I used to be lustily waiting for big time disaster and action movies.  Independence Day, Armageddon, Deep Impact, Godzilla, Volcano, Dante's Peak, The Rock.  I loved those movies - even with all the completely impossible plot lines and over the top stupid dialogue and moronic characters.  I knew they were far from top notch cinema.  But they were sure entertaining.  And I was just as amazed as anyone else with the shots of the White House exploding and New York City being demolished.  But, when 9/11 happened, the reality came home to roost.  The fact is that a city being annihilated is horrific.  When it came down to it, no one sat there and thought, "Ooooo, cool.  Look at that sucker fall."  Instead, we all got nauseated and started crying.  Turns out mass destruction and global upheaval wasn't so cool after all.  I had trouble disconnecting that reality when I watched movies.  I couldn't help thinking about the aftermath.  We always are left with scenes of plucky survivors hugging and promising a new day.  But the reality would not even be close to that.

As we saw several other major disasters, like the tsunamis in Thailand and Japan and the earthquakes in New Zealand and Haiti, we began to realize the massive human toll in these events.  It isn't just special effects.  Cities and countries don't just "come back" from that.  They are decimated and may never recover.  For me, I couldn't always turn that off.  In some movies I really like (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Iron Man) I can turn down the volume on those thoughts.  But even then, I may have random questions pop up like, "How much money did it cost Gotham to rebuild that elevated train after it got blown up?  What did all those people think when their cars got destroyed?"  But I couldn't ignore it when movies like 2012 and Day After Tomorrow just cavalierly obliterated these mega cities.  That was one of the same things I thought about in the original Transformers.  There was this major battle in the middle of downtown.  Buildings are getting shredded.  City blocks are destroyed.  The mayhem is a little too much for me to take.

REASON 2: HUMAN LIFE ELEMENT
The second reason that came from that day was the awakened reality of human suffering.  That wasn't so much from the scene in NYC.  It more came from the fact that my first child was born at 2:11am on September 12, 2001.  In the midst of all that tragedy, my wife was in labor with our boy.  And now, I had this little life to protect and care for and hurt for.  And suddenly it wasn't so minor to watch lives get snuffed out - even in a fictional context.  Subconsciously, I am always aware of the fact that those characters had families.  Those thousands of people who just got blasted by an out of control robot had kids who now were orphans.

I know a lot of people say, "It's just a movie.  Lighten up."  But isn't the point of a movie to have viewers connect with the story on screen?  I just connect in a different way.  I easily slip myself into the story.  As a result, I have a hard time watching movies about kids getting hurt.  I don't enjoy movies that have a lot of physical pain or killings.  Again, there are some movies that I like enough to disconnect those things.  But this plays a major part in how I watch movies.  I remember going to see Monsters Inc after our child was born.  I had such a hard time because I sat there and kept saying, "This must be killing Boo's parents - to have her missing for days."  I actually had to walk out of Finding Nemo when I went to see it in the theater.  My pregnant wife was on a mission trip in Germany and my toddler son was staying with his grandparents.  The images of a father losing his wife and kids were too much - even if they were fish.

As my kids have grown and I have become more experienced as a father, this has diminished somewhat.  I have more experience disconnecting my personal feelings from shows and movies.  But I still try to avoid things that spend a lot of time showing kids getting hurt.  If a movie shows child abuse, I won't see it.  I didn't follow the Casey Anthony case at all.  When my wife and I had a free night this summer without the kids, we wouldn't go see Super 8 because I knew kids would be in peril - and our kids were hours away from me.  I couldn't just go home and kiss them after the movie.  Transformers is just another movie franchise that glorifies violence.  People get hurt without much thought.  And I just don't like that any more.

REASON 3: KIDS ARE EXPENSIVE
Money isn't so easy to come buy when you are responsible for a family.  That combined with high ticket prices means that you have to be choosy when going to films.  If I am going to spend $10 on a ticket - or $30 on a family worth of tickets - the movie had better be worth it.  I know that critics are usually giant wastes of space.  But, when there is an avalanche of bad press and negative reviews, it may not be worth my investment.  It used to be that I could use my student discount and get a $5 ticket.  If that didn't work out so great, it was only five bucks.  And what else was I going to spend the money on?  Now, though, it is much more expensive.

When you combine that with the easier access to movies after their theatrical run, it doesn't make sense to risk an unpleasant movie going experience.  I have Netflix.  For $8 a month, I can watch any of thousands of movies free.  So, if there is a film that I wanted to see and wasn't so sure about, it's easy to watch.  Or I can go to Redbox a couple months after the theater run and rent the movie for a buck.  Or I can buy it on DVD or BluRay for less than a family going to the theater.  So now, if I'm not sure about a movie, I just don't go.

It used to be that I would go to any superhero movie that came out - if it was good or not.  For Pete's sake, I saw Spawn in the theater.  But that changed when I had to buy two tickets, pay a babysitter, or leave my family home to go.  Now, I am much more discriminating.  Take this year, for example.  I saw Thor, Pirates 4, X Men: First Class, and Cars 2.  That's pretty standard.  I will go see any Pixar movie that comes out.  I go to see most Marvel movies - although I avoided the first Hulk and both Fantastic Four.  I did NOT go see Green Lantern.  I love DC Comics.  I prefere them to Marvel.  I like Green Lantern.  I like Ryan Reynolds.  But I had a bad feeling about this one.  I could just tell it was going to suck.  And, sure enough, it did.  It was either going to be phenomenal or a disaster.  I guessed right and saved a good chunk of money.  If there is a franchise I particularly enjoy (Harry Potter, Bourne, James Bond, Pirates) I usually will keep seeing them until they prove themselves unworthy of that support.  Pirates 4 did just that.  If they do a fifth film, I will not go see it.  I still want to go see Captain America, Cowboys and Aliens, and Zookeeper - and of course Harry Potter 8.  

[Side Note: Yes, I realize Cowboys and Aliens seems to violate two of my new rules.  But there are several things that make me want to see it anyway.  Jon Favreau is making it and I think he is brilliant.  It stars Daniel Craig - who I really like.  It also has Harrison Ford - who I have always liked.  Mix in Sam Rockwell and Olivia Wilde (NO! Not just because she is attractive.  She is an intriguing actress.  Follow her on Twitter and watch Tron Legacy and you'll see what I mean.  This is where I am interested enough in the movie to suppress the other stuff.]


I am even discriminating with kids movies.  My kids would go see anything with a G or PG rating if they could.  But I don't take them.  We have found out how to minimize costs (go Tuesday night to a Regal theater or before noon to an AMC one).  But it still is $25 doing that.  So, even though my kids wanted to see Mr Popper's Penguins, I didn't take them.  That is a Redbox movie.  I still love movies and watch a lot of them.  But, honestly, I have swayed more to television shows - I think they have a higher percentage of enjoyable ones.  And I just watch my movies in different ways than I used to.

So, when it comes to Transformers 3, it fails on all my criteria.  It has too much wanton destruction and violence.  It is cavalier with human life.  And I wasn't sure it was going to be worth seeing.  I never saw the second one and didn't feel like I had missed out on anything.  I even got the DVD for it from Netflix and sent it back eventually unwatched.  Truth be told, I could have been fine without ever seeing the first one either.  It wasn't exceptionally enjoyable or life changing.  I think Michael Bay knows how to make an exciting loud movie.  I don't think he knows how to make a good one.  I hated the Transformers in their modern form.  They were so chaotic it was impossible to make out many features.  The voiceovers were poorly connected to the character (like my argument for why the Hulk movies keep failing).  The movie is so loud and wild - just for the sake of being loud and wild.  Shia Le Bouf is so annoying; I think he ruins anything he is in.  I feel the same way about Megan Fox.  And, replacing her with an animatronic Barbie doll isn't going to help matters much.  So, I just will remain in the minority of movie fans and stay away from Transformers.  I may have felt different if everything I read and heard was trumpeting the film as a work of cinematic art.  But, since even my movie loving friends couldn't decide on it if was "epic" or "lame," I stayed home.  I'll bide my time and save my money until something more my taste arrives.

Reading: A Story

I went through a period last year where I didn't read very much.  I think it was during the summer, when I was in the midst of my "What in the Wild Wild World of Sports did I get myself into?" phase.  This was highly unusual for me.  I don't go through many phases of not being interested in reading.  I have always loved books - from when I was a smallish boy.  I got it from my parents.  My dad read voraciously.  One of the most indelible images of my childhood was my dad laying in bed reading books until he fell asleep.  He had hundreds and hundreds of books in his room that he had devoured.  I'm not a big fan of all the stuff he read - but he loved reading.  My mom was similar.  I can distinctly remember her sitting in her chair by the window and front door, reading something and taking notes in it.  She had her own bookshelf down in the living room, stocks with books on theology and other Biblical study books.

I married a reader, too.  Heather tells me about how she used to get in trouble for reading too late in her room.  She reads faster than I do - a great quality for a Med Student.  Her mom has a huge bookcase full of her various interests.  Heather's grandparents always were reading - as are her brothers.  And our kids are following in our footsteps.  Even our little guy, Gabe, now has gotten hooked on books.  Every night, we have to read him Go Dogs Go and Whose Nose and Toes.

All of that is to say that I don't remember a time when I avoided reading.  At some point, though, my older self took back over my big stupid self and I went on a reading tear that was unlike anything that I can remember doing in my past.  I began to notice this.  And, being the enormous wonk that I am, I decided to start tracking my book consumption.  (I'm a nerd.  This is news to you people?!?)  Here's what it looked like when the year was over.

• In February and March, I read The Watchmen by Alan Moore at 416 pages, Tuck by Stephen Lawhead at 464 pages, and Hooked by McIlhaney & Bush at 178 pages.  Then it came to a screeching halt.
• I didn't read anything until at least July.  That was when I started reading some books at Heather's parents' house - John Grisham in particular.  I guess it kick started things.  Starting in July, here is what happened.
• Anger by Gary Chapman - 242 pages
• The Associate by Grisham - 284 pages
• Bleachers by Grisham - 192 pages
• The Street Lawyer by Grisham - 384 pages
• The Partner by Grisham - 416 pages
• The Testament by Grisham - 480 pages
• The Summons by Grisham - 304 pages (I was reading these Grisham books in one and two days - just flying through them.)
• Samson and the Pirate Monks by Nate Larkin - 224 pages
• The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown - 528 pages
• The Jesus You Can't Ignore by John MacArthur - 256 pages
• The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons - 736 pages (yeah - like an encyclopedia - took me three weeks to slog through it)
• Harry Potter Saga (seven books) by JK Rowling - 4324 pages (took three weeks to read all of it)
• Psych Books: Mind over Magic by William Rabkin - 288 pages (based on the USA series)

The grand total for the year was over 9600 pages.  I know that I probably forgot something here or there, so I'm guessing I actually was up over 10,000 pages.  I don't know what I had read in years past, but I don't know if I ever had touched that total.  Well, this year I swore I would continue the process and keep reading.  So far, after almost eight months, here is where I am this year.

• The Alchemyst by Michael Scott - 400 pages
• Crazy Love by Francis Chan - 192 pages
• Other Small Harry Potter Books by JK Rowling - 216 pages total
• Another Stupid Psych Book - 284 pages
• Percy Jackson Series (five books) by Rick Riordan - 1824 pages total
• Game Change by John Hellemann - 464 pages
• How to Train Your Dragon 1 & 2 by Cressida Cowell - 480 pages
• Artemis Fowl Series (six books) by Eion Colfer  - 1700 pages
• Circle Series (four books) by Ted Dekker - 1551 pages
• Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry - 451 pages
• The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader by Ryder Windham - 224 pages
• Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan - 528 pages
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  by Stieg Larsson - 644 pages
• Against Medical Advice by James Patterson - 284 pages

I've already read 9500 pages this year.  And I already have the second Stieg Larsson book waiting.  Plus I've started several other books that are ones I pick up, read a few chapters, and lay back down.  That means that in the last thirteen months, I have read about 18,000 pages!  That's is a lot!  After all of that, here are a few observations that I have come up with - about myself and books in general.

• Some of you have probably noticed there are not a lot of "Christian" books on that list.  It used to be that all my reading was in the "Christian Living" or "Christian Topics" sections of the bookstore.  In this last explosion of books, I can see nine that would even be sold in a Lifeway Store.  I have tried to figure out what happened with all of that, even talking to my good buddy David Tarkington - pastor at First Baptist Orange Park - to see what he thought.  I think part of it is that I am not in church work now.  So I don't have a desire to read a bunch of books on that, like I used to when I worked for the church.  Second, I often will read books that have something to do with Defender Ministries, but those rarely are "Christian" books.  There aren't a ton of "Christian" books out there that deal with the stuff we work with.  When a good one comes along (like Samson and the Pirate Monks) I read it.
• Furthermore, I have kind of gotten a little tired of a lot of the "Christian" titles out there - at least the approach that I have begun to see take root in the Christian publishing world.  A lot of books seem like they were generated by a sermon series.  That series is then turned into a book.  I know this happens all the time because big famous Christian authors do it (Stanley, Swindoll, and MacArthur - to name a few).  Also I talked to a pastor before about doing that very thing with his sermons.  The problem is, a lot of times that is enough information to generate about two-thirds of a book.  So you kind of figure out where everything is going and there just seems to be a lot of fluff and repetition to fill up a full sized book.  Then it is just fluffy and repetitive.  Very much repeating and fluff.  See how annoying that is?  I still keep my eyes open for good books in that realm.  But I probably should be in there a bit more.
• "Young Readers" literature is fun to read.  So far, I have tackled part of all of seven different series that would be classified as "children's books."  Let me be perfectly honest - they are just as well written as John Grisham books and just as challenging.  I found it humorous that he actually put out a book in this genre this year.  It would basically be a normal John Grisham book, but probably with less cursing and adult situations.  They are far better than stuff like the Psych books I wasted my time reading.  They are usually fast paced, interesting, and don't have a lot of the language, violence, and sex that so many books struggle with.  And some of them, like the Harry Potter series, are far better than the vast majority of literature out there.
• Non-fiction books can be just as exciting as fiction.  I always steered away from non-fiction books.  Maybe it was the bad memories of my college years when I had to read countless volumes of those type of books.  I don't know.  But I also avoided documentary films.  Lately, though, I have found that I have thoroughly enjoyed numerous non-fiction tomes.  The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons was immensely fascinating - even though it was a beast to work through.  The book Game Change, about the last Presidential election, was even better than most thrillers.  I couldn't put it down.  And I blew the heart-rending Against Medical Advice by James Patterson today.  It was about a boy who battled OCD, Tourettes, and Anxiety Disorder and how his family struggled to find a cure.  Gripping and fast paced.
• The latest "big reputation" novel I finished was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  It was brilliantly written, very intelligent, and hard to put down.  It also was very hard to stomach.  It dealt with the hunt for a murderer and dealt with issues of rape, abuse, and incest.  There were scenes that made me want to put the book away for good.  The book was just too good to abandon.  The other thing that kept me going was that the author interspersed the story with stats about how common those things are in Sweden (where he is from and the book is set).  It is truly heartbreaking that evil of that sort exists - especially on that scope.  But the book itself was just an amazingly crafted work.
• One of things that I am learning through all of this reading is how to be a better storyteller.  This is something that I see in myself - the ability and desire to communicate stories about life, God, the world.  I think it is a noble calling that has existed as long as man has.  I love writing, teaching communicating messages through graphic work.  I also want to write books.  I have several started, but need to work harder on them.  Over the last twelve months I basically have been in a crash course with some of the best authors in the business.  JK Rowling, John Grisham, James Patterson, Stieg Larsson, Bill Simmons, Ted Dekker, Dave Barry.  I have seen how they craft stories that enthrall.  And they also can sustain a long term series of books.  I feel I have actually grown as a writer by reading these other writers.  It is almost like I have been in school.  

That all being said, there may be some changes in my blogs.  I have been thinking about the direction I want to take both this blog and the Darth Fatso site.  The other day, I looked into WordPress.  They have a better way of organizing blogs - where I could host both under one roof.  I am still thinking about what all I want to do, but that may be something that happens sooner rather than later.  I, of course, will let you know.  Just keep reading.

Percy Jackson: The Formula Thief

I know that I haven't been posting as much on this blog lately.  I apologize profusely.  Honestly, since I began my food efforts - and subsequently began the Darth Fatso blog - most of my writing efforts have been directed over there.  That just is predominant in my mind.  Many times things I want to post here end up working themselves into that site - or they seem to be frivolous compared to the "big issue" posts over there.  So, I feel as if I have neglected this blog (and, through the magic of RSS, my Facebook Notes as well.)  I will try to be more conscious of this, but I make no promises.

Last week, whilst in Orlando, I had the rare opportunity to actually attend a movie in a theater.  It has been a pretty dry season for movies in Staplesville.  I haven't been able to go as often as I would like.  (I promise this will change in May with IRON MAN 2!!!!)  For now, I wait until the movie hits DVD or InDemand - and then I might get around to watching them.  [I did get to see Up in the Air and Julie and Julia finally on DVd - my posts for those will eventually work their way onto my Rotten Tomatoes Site.]  This time, though, I actually got to go see Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief.  I had read the books this year, and really wanted to catch the film.

The concept of Percy Jackson (I am shortening it, since the other title is as long as a Mexican nobleman's) is pretty cool.  Basically, the premise goes that the ancient Greek gods still exist.  They move their influence to the center of the world's culture.  At one point, that was Greece.  Then it became Rome.  Later it was Europe.  Now it is America.  And, like in olden times, the gods still can't keep their pants on.  So they have these half human/ half god kids - called demigods.  In the books, it was kind of neat to see how the gods have updated their wardrobes and everything - as well as how the ancient mythology was worked into modern society.

The stories were entertaining, for sure.  I have always been a sucker for Greek mythology.  I remember reading the entire Bullfinch's Mythology when I was in high school.  In college I took Classic Mythology as a class in my senior year.  So I knew most of the characters and stories referenced in the books.  I didn't necessarily like some of the themes and beliefs reflected in the books, but for the most part they were a fun read.

As with every movie based on a beloved book, there are going to be issues.  The film deviated pretty widely from the book.  They changed scenes, outfits, explanations, major plot points.  One of the scenes I was most looking forward to from the book (the St. Louis Arch scene) was completely changed and moved to Nashville.  Usually, I would love the addition of one of my favorite cities.  In this case, though, I was a little peeved.  Even the casting of the main characters was vastly different.  In the book, the kids are all in middle school.  In the movie, they were at least juniors.  (Not to mention the female lead didn't look anything like her novel description - and actually seemed like an amalgam of the two largest female roles.)  But, on its own, the movie was very entertaining.

There was a lot of action.  It was neat to see some of the characters brought to life.  And anything that puts Sean Bean and Kevin McKidd to work is alright in my book.  The climactic fight scene was wonderfully staged.  My friend, Tim, who went with me, at one point leaned over and said, "I hope they work a fight scene like this into the new Superman."  It was that good - some of the best aerial fighting I've seen.  I always try to give the movie a chance on its own, not weighing it down with the impossible to replicate book quality.  Over the years, I have seen a bunch of movies based on books I liked (Tom Clancy books, Stephen Coonts books, A Christmas Carol).  Some of them are big successes.  Others are huge embarrassing failures.  But I want the movie to have a shot on its own.  If I actually did that for Percy Jackson, it was an entertaining movie with some cool concepts.

But the fact is that there is something overshadowing Percy Jackson.  It isn't the books putting a shadow on the movies.  It isn't even really anything to do with Percy at all.  It is Harry Potter.

If you have read the Harry Potter books (which I finally did in December), you cannot help to compare Percy Jackson.  The Potter books came out first.  They presented a kid who had a secret he never knew about.  There was a mysterious and intriguing element of society that always had been labelled as mythology being brought to light as real.  A school existed to train the children with the secrets.  There was a big time bad guy that slowly was brought to life to wreck havoc.  And the books progressing from whimsical children's tales to dark good vs evil epics.  That formula plays out almost identically in Percy Jackson.  When I was reading the first book, I kept on thinking, "Man, it is like they switched magicians for mythology."  As I went on, the Percy books developed their own voice, but the spectre of the Potter works always was hanging over.

The problem was that Potter is so stinking good.  They are simply amazing books.  The worst book (in my opinion, that would be Chamber of Secrets or Prisoner of Azkaban) is better than most books out there - the literary equivalent of "worst Pixar movie."  So, when any series is compared to Potter, it is going to fail.  If Percy had come out first, it would have been great.  And then Potter would have been seen as the ripoff - only that it improved the formula.  Instead, Jackson is the inferior copy.  The same thing went for the movies.  The Potter films have been great across the board.  The worst one (again, Chamber or Azkaban) was supremely entertaining.  So the Percy movie had a built in handicap.  It wasn't just competing with its own books, it was competing with the highest grossing movie series in the world.  (Yes, you read that right.)  I remember after I watched the first Narnia movie, I said that if it had come out before Lord of the Rings, it would have been amazing.  Instead, it was still very good, but it seemed dated and grossly inferior to the LOTR trilogy.  It was kind of the same thing for Percy, due to the Potter films/books.

If The Lightning Thief had really delivered on its source material, it could have at least been in the vicinity of HP2 or HP3.  But it whiffed on several fronts.  The things they pulled out weakened the story.  The "Big Bad" of the books never was even introduced.  A lot of backstory between characters was erased.  Even the rules for the gods were changed.  And that is what was so hard to understand.  The director was none other that Chris Columbus - the very same person who brought Harry Potter to the big screen in the first two movies.  I remember after I finally read the first Potter book, I thought to myself, "Man, that book was almost a screenplay."  There wasn't a whole lot from the book left out in the movie.  Columbus had a daunting task in that first film - and he did an excellent job.  But when it came to Percy Jackson, he took some basic frameworks from the book and ditched the rest.  I can see where some of the story would be confusing.  It just seemed like it missed out on a great opportunity.

They were good books, and worth reading.  (Read them before Potter, if you haven't read those yet.)  The movie was fun and had some really good moments.  I hope they make the sequels, because I would like to see the other stories played out.  And there is going to need to be something to fill the void once the last Potter films are through next summer.  The big difference between those two series, though, will be that I will do my best to see the next Percy film - and there is no way I will miss the last Potters.