I'm Batman

We went to see Batman Begins on Friday night. We'd been watching the first Cubs game at the "Home Base of the Evil Empire", Yankee Stadium, since the 1938 World Series. The Damned Yankees were ahead and we figured, maybe we should go out to the movies then, rather than in the middle of Saturday. It was a good choice.

So-ooo Much Better

This vision of Batman is so much better than previous efforts. Let's face it, comic books are fun, but graphic novels ain't comic books (grin). The motion picture format seems to do better with dark graphic novels.

It's an origin story, so we see what forces came in play to create the Batman. Well done, especially starting as it does with the young boy. And how Alfred looks over him until he finally decides to take his rightful place in the world. There is a journey, a quest of sorts, and training with a master. Sure, you can say we've seen this all before -- some because they've been keeping up with the more recent graphic novels visions of Batman -- but that doesn't mean you can't put some effort into it and do it well. We've seen too many, Me-Too origin stories, with Insert Young Jedi/Grasshopper Here scenes which aren't very convincing. Young Bruce Wayne has issues. He is a tortured and troubled soul. He is on the verge of making A Very Big Mistake. He overreaches and recovers. Most importantly, he realizes he isn't alone and reluctantly learns to trust a small inner circle.

One of the appeals of Batman, I have read, is that Batman isn't really anything special as a superhero. He hasn't been bitten by a spider or a vampire. He's not an alien or modified by interaction of either aliens or radiation. His gift isn't out of control when he gets angry. No, Batman is created. From the choice of the myth to make into the superhero, to the selection of gadgets and toys, and enduring the training to use them effectively, Bruce Wayne is Everyman. We could be Batman, if we just had the right breaks -- okay, a couple of billion in cash and a research lab seems to come in handy.

Best scene is the training scene with the ninjas in ranks. I know that sounds crazy if you haven't seen the movie, but trust me, it makes sense on several levels... and anyway, it's crisp. And the battle in the container yard, starting with the very first guy who gets in Batman's way -- ooh, cool and creepy.

As an origin film, we know we're going to see a lot of things foreshadowed and as earlier versions. Sometimes this is done in the movies strictly for laughs. But Batman Begins is pretty straight. Not taking itself too seriously, it nevertheless projects a serious tone from start to finish. These are not cartoon villains or heroes, not in the usual sense. There are smarmy, conniving and very sure of themselves.

Great Cast

Okay, so who don't we like in this? Michael Caine as Alfred. Gary Oldmann as Gordon -- Oldmann is such a chameleon, I never recognize him in movies. Morgan Freeman... what a treat -- Fox is sort of Batman's "Q" in this version, competent and provider of all the wonderful toys. Tom Wilkinson, who I last saw in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, plays a wonderful gangster.

And Liam Neeson... I won't say more here and now, other than to say his take on the training master has been ramped up from his days as a Jedi Knight.

Christian Bale, or whoever he is, plays a good Bruce Wayne -- young, determine, conflicted. An okay Batman, though we never get to see his development of the "Batman voice". I kept thinking he was trying to channel Michael Keaton or one of the other Batmen.

Not impressed with the girl. We get backstory to some extent as to why she's there, but nothing in story or performance is compelling enough for me to believe her wanting to stick by Young Bruce Wayne, given how he acts toward her.

Cool Toys

One word: Batmobile.

We could talk about so many other things, but the new version of the Batmobile finally gives us an urban assault machine which looks like it can speed or muscle its way in or out of any situation. "Does it come in black?" (grin)

I'm not sure about this, but I thought I heard on the radio that tomorrow (now today) -- Father's Day -- that a NASCAR race is going to have the Batmobile as a pace car.

Some Issues

The mass transit system is stunning to look at, but so-ooo impractical. I mean, bad engineering. And I'm not convinced that these (really) elevated train stations are ADA compatible -- I think you have to make a career climbing all those damned steps. No wonder the people of Gotham City are going bad. They're crabby all the time.

And the integration of some real cityscapes with computer generated ones, sometimes I got the feeling I could tell where the boundaries were. It will, I predict, look a lot worse on DVD. TV doesn't have the contrast range to make it work.

But these are style issues. Nothing of the sort to sink the movie itself.

It's got a good movie score and an attention to detail. We thought the first Michael Keaton Batman was pretty good when it came out, but less so today, though there is one nice song in a music video, dating back to when MTV still showed music videos (grin).

We both enjoyed Batman Begins very much.

Where The Hell Is The Crowd?

So it's 10 o'clock on a Friday night in June, a big blockbuster movie has opened on Monday, and we're in the giant Theatre 1 at Grand Rapids' Studio 28 -- and there's hardly anyone here? What's going on? Could it be there are too many screens showing Batman Begins?

Actually, there's a simpler explanation. Jack Loek's Theatres also owns Celebration Cinema on the other side of Grand Rapids, and they have an IMAX theatre -- the IMAX version of Batman Begins opened on Wednesday as well. Apparently, everyone is flocking there, and probably finding that the limited number of seats, they stay for the three screens there.

Oh well. Just means we'll buy IMAX tickets online (as we always do) and make sure we have seats when we go to see the IMAX version with some company later...

Whither Cinema?

Attendance at the movies is down nationwide this summer. Lots of people are wringing their hands and trying to figure out "what's wrong." A recent story in The Grand Rapids Press talked about all the people who are watching their movies on DVD, cable and on-demand. "They" are worried about this? Are "they" nuts? Most of the people who go see movies in the theatre have access to DVD, cable and on-demand. We like movies.

And real movies projected on a screen are not the same as TV projection.

The actual problem is that recent movies suck so bad. There were a number of movies we thought we were looking forward to in 2004 -- and didn't go because the stench turned out so bad. In 2005, we've not gone to a lot of movies, because there haven't been a lot of movies we had any desire to go see. When Hollywood stops making stinkers, people will come.

Simple as that.

Trailers

All the same as before except for ONE REALLY NEW ONE FOR US. Within seconds of a starfield and the opening chords, I knew we were watching the trailer for Serenity, the Josh Whedon movie version of Firefly. We recently saw Firefly on DVD, and now we're just going to have to buy the "complete" series on DVD -- it was pretty reasonably priced on Amazon.com. Part camp, part opera, part Western, Firefly is/was a wonderful example of what it means to have compelling characters interacting with each other, and often interacting differently with different people.

FOX-TV really screwed up by mishandling and then canceling this series. Many others have spent considerable bandwidth on this subject and apparently Firefly shows up heavily at a lot of SF con sessions, so I'll just say the network people were idiots.

Interestingly, the Serenity trailer merely mentions Josh Whedon's other triumphs, Buffy and Angel, and something about a beloved story, but never mentioned Firefly by name.

And Hollywood... Serenity is MUCH more interesting than a tired remake of The Dukes of Hazard.

The Series is Complete

Tonight we're watching Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, part of the Special Edition DVD set. We've commented before how there is more heart and snappy dialogue in The Old Trilogy over The New Trilogy. And by the time we get to the intended execution of Han and Luke and Chewie and Lando, it's already true with the third film.

Consider Lucas' daring to show "the slaughter of the innocents" as the battle goes badly for both Rebels and Ewoks on Endor. Or the horrible burnt corpses of Luke's aunt and uncle in the original Star Wars. Or just how EVIL the Evil Emperor is. (GRIN)

An Aside

Lucas felt compelled to up the ante digitally with the creation of the Special Editions. Fairly seamless in Empire, trying to make things more crowded in Hope, and somewhat annoying in Jedi. Okay, so the herd of bantha parading across the desert is cool looking, so there's five seconds of improvement. But the monster in the pit has to have a secondary, penis-head mouth -- to make it "more horrifying" -- which isn't shown in some of the scenes. I always thought the waving tentacled "wound in the sand" was pretty awful, and besides, the revision makes it look too much like the cave creature in the asteroid field in Empire.

/An Aside

Anyway, the Imperial March is still great cinema music, and having it fade for the Emperor's entrance... perfect. It is disappointing that unlike 3:30am on opening morning in the Chicago Theatre, that the speeder chase scene looks contrived. You really have to see these things on a BIG SCREEN.

Besides, we know the Empire is doomed at this point. What good are armored Imperial Stormtroopers being struck down by arrows fired by Ewok bows? (grin)

Dr. Phil

For Writers Trying to Find Readers

Writing contests of various flavors border from the stupid to the superb, with a huge detour into the unsavory and fraudulent on the side. SF and Fantasy contests are no different. I've used a number of SF writing contests over the past three years to force me to write to a deadline, to limit my long style to more reasonable word counts and write to address different themes and styles. Most are aimed at amateur authors -- those who have not ever sold a story, or sold to a pro market, or qualified for SFWA membership. Since I intend to become a "real" SF writer (grin), contests form a part of my training.

Show Me The Money!

Some people will tell you that "money always goes to the writer" and that "you should never pay a fee (for a writing contest)." The first statement is good advice for those seeking agents, contracts, sale of manuscripts. The problem with the second is that many smaller contests are run by small organizations or small SF cons (as in conventions, not cheats), where a small entry or reading fee is what pays for the copying and mailing to the judges and other expenses of the contests. Some contests explicitly tell you that these fees do not pay for the prize money, others do. Some of the anthology contests will include a copy of the anthology to all those who have paid an entry fee -- this gets uncomfortably close to the vanity press, where the goal is to get you to buy copies of your own work.

I don't have a problem with small fees, $5-$15... certainly never more than $25. After all, I am already going to be out the cost of writing time, manuscript preparation and production, envelopes and postage both ways -- no different than sending to a commercial market. And remember, I'm using the contests to force me to write, and anyways, I can't submit to all that many places in a year and keep my job (grin), so it's not going to bankrupt me.

The 800-pound Gorilla of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing Contests

Without a doubt, the biggest of the SF writing contests is WOTF. Currently in its 22nd year (or as they like to say, their XXIInd year), L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest has a number of laudable features.

(One of them is not the clunky web interface of their website. Sigh. I also object to layouts which force the browser to go full-screen. Excuse me, this is MY computer, not yours.)

A-hem. The laudable features of WOTF: (1) They run quarterly contests, closing on the last day every third month. (2) You almost always get the current results before the next submission deadline. (3) Winners and some Finalists are published in an annual anthology and (4) the entire run of the anthology is kept in print -- you can buy the whole thing in one order. (This isn't as completely stupid as it sounds -- some great current authors got their starts through WOTF and besides seeing how they've grown up, and each volume includes essays on writing.) (4) The prize money is big. (5) Publication in the anthology counts as a pro sale towards SFWA membership. (6) They actually pay you for publication, in addition to any prize money.

No, It's Not What You Think

Please note that this part of L. Ron Hubbard's empire or estate, if you will, has nothing to do with the side which includes Tom Cruise's religion. They scrupulously keep things separate.

The Rules

Though the website has the Complete Rules, they are so simple they are worth including here:

1. No entry fee is required, and all rights in the story remain the property of the author. All types of science fiction, fantasy and horror with fantastic elements, are welcome.

2. All entries must be original works, in English. Plagiarism, which includes the use of third-party poetry, song lyrics, characters or another person's universe, without written permission will result in disqualification. Excessive violence or sex, determined by the judges, will result in disqualification. Entries may not have been previously published in professional media.

3. To be eligible, entries must be works of prose, up to 17,000 words in length. We regret we cannot consider poetry, or works intended for children.

4. The Contest is open only to those who have not had professionally published a novel or short novel, or more than one novelette, or more than three short stories, in any medium. Professional publication is deemed to be payment, and at least 5,000 copies, or 5,000 hits.

5. Entries must be typewritten or a computer printout in black ink on white paper, double spaced, with numbered pages. All other formats will be disqualified. Each entry must have a cover page with the title of the work, the author's name, address, telephone number, email address and an approximate word count. Every subsequent page must carry the title and a page number, but the author's name must be deleted to facilitate fair judging.

6. Manuscripts will be returned after judging only if the author has provided return postage on a self addressed envelope. If the author does not wish return of the manuscript, a #10 (business size) self-addressed, stamped envelope (or valid email address) must be included with the entry in order to receive judging results.

7. We accept only entries for which no delivery signature is required by us to receive them.

8. There shall be three cash prizes in each quarter: a First Prize of $1,000, a Second Prize of $750, and a Third Prize of $500, in U.S. dollars or the recipient's locally equivalent amount. In addition, at the end of the year the four First Place winners will have their entries rejudged, and a Grand Prize winner shall be determined and receive an additional $4,000. All winners will also receive trophies or certificates.

9. The Contest has four quarters, beginning on October 1, January 1, April 1 and July 1. The year will end on September 30. To be eligible for judging in its quarter, an entry must be postmarked no later than midnight on the last day of the quarter.

10. Each entrant may submit only one manuscript per quarter. Winners are ineligible to make further entries in the contest.

11. All entries for each quarter are final. No revisions are accepted.

12. Entries will be judged by professional authors. The decisions of the judges are entirely their own, and are final.

13. Winners in each quarter will be individually notified of the results by mail.

14. This contest is void where prohibited by law.

That's it.

They offer a huge word count and very little restrictions on type of stories. And you're only out paper, envelopes and proper postage. Surely, even if you aren't a short story writer, and I'm not, you can cobble up four stories a year, can't you? Three? Two? ONE? You have nothing to lose and if you place high enough, you may get feedback on your stories.

Of the last eight WOTF quarterly contests, I have one Finalist, one Semi-Finalist and six Quarter-Finalists. My first four WOTF entries didn't place anywhere -- so I have improved. You can use this excuse, too.

Now, if you'll excuse me. I really have to continue to peck away at finishing the story which I'll probably mail postmarked June 30th -- hey, I've got ten days! (grin)

Dr. Phil