Tag Archives: geekery

Long week

Comics, Media, Music, ,

Work’s been squeezing my mindgrapes dry this week, hence the lack of blogging. But here are a few things I noticed this week. They’re mostly local issues, which will probably disappoint all those who’ve arrived here by Googling “nine west high waist jeans.”

Chicago Tonight, regardless of what happened that day
The flood waters were big news yesterday, and all concerned – from the local MSM to the folks who helped each other hold together in relatively trying times – coped with it in a cool-headed manner, but I was most struck with how the folks at Chicago Tonight managed to broadcast their show, live, from their control room after their studio flooded. An odd sort of intimacy resulted, and I kept expecting Elizabeth Brackett and Eddie Arruza to sip from cups of tea.

Chicago Lack of Transit Authority
I’ve been mostly impressed with Ron Huberman’s conduct as CTA President. I do wonder how they agency continues to “find” money to make slow zone repairs and scale back predicted fare and service cuts when we were told for so long that such a thing would be impossible. I’m sure some capital programs are getting cut – just a hunch, mind you – but I haven’t seen any reports that mention anything like this happening.

I’ll be very interested to see how Huberman weathers the lack of CTA funding in the almost-passed state budget. You can only cry wolf so many times, and since there’s now talk that they’ll suck it up until the end of the year when a capital funding plan can be put in place, people are going to have a hard time believing in a “Doomsday” scenario, going forward, though it appears CTA VP Dorval Carter disagrees. Much like the record industry, the CTA ought to stop threatening its customers and find a way to work with them instead.

And finally tonight…

Next up: TV not a cultural wasteland!
I really like the Tribune’s Julia Keller. I think “low” culture tells us as much about a society as its politics, history and sociological framework, and she doesn’t shy away from the lighter aspects of life. Honestly, I’ve had a thing for her since she tackled the old Superman vs. Batman debate.

But man, I wish she had told her editor that the “Comics: Not just for weirdos” angle was the wrong one to take on this story about Douglas Wolk’s Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. The Beachwood Reporter (with an assist by So-Called Austin Mayor) says it all in the last item here. The Trib – by its very nature – is usually late to the game on cultural trends and tends to be approach these stories as the very reactionary paper it’s often accused of being (“Some even claim to be–gasp–making money. Some crazy folks are even opening new ones.”). To be fair, the Trib’s Mo Ryan, Eric Zorn and Mark Caro know how to put their finger to the zeitgeist.

So maybe they can sit in on more story meetings. For instance, can someone explain to me why the Trib is so geeked on vinyl lately? Monica Kendrick over at the Reader blogged about a recent Trib editorial that extolled the virtue of the black circle, but she didn’t mention that they wrote an article on this very same topic earlier this month that was pegged to the resurgence of independent record shops (which incidentally TOC covered back in March) not to mention last June when they wrote about it.

Anyone who follows music knows this story gets trotted every year or two. And I don’t think vinyl gets “big” – or bigger as the case may be – each time. There isn’t an ebb and flow with a love of vinyl, but there is a steady stream of folks who cultivate this love the way some people cultivate a garden. But just like you can’t grow all plants in the same dirt and light, you only get true richness from vinyl with the proper sound system, which most people don’t have the desire to learn about or cash to purchase. And it’s why vinyl will be as “big” now as it will the next time this chestnut gets trotted out.

Van Halen, The Flash and more for my 14-year-old readership

Comics, Music, ,

I’m still in a bit of a follow-up mode this week so bear with the retreads.

First, whatever. I can’t take all this back and forth. In fact, this line from the Reuters report says it all about the Van Halen reunion:

“The band’s luck ran out a decade later when Hagar and Van Halen acrimoniously parted ways, and a new album with a third singer tanked.”

Man, if REUTERS gets that, why doesn’t Eddie?

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, Wizard World hits Chicago this weekend, which was a reminder to me to pick up this month’s comics, including All-Flash #1, a stop-gap between the end of the previous Flash series and the resumption of the Wally West-led series, which also resumes its previous numbering at #231. I mentioned last month the reasons why I felt DC bollixed up this most recent series, but after reading All-Flash, I realized something else that felt off to me several issues ago.

When Wally’s Aunt Iris arrived on the scene, she pulled a gun on Bart. While this made for a nice, tidy cliffhanger at the end of one issue, it felt wrong, even though it turned out to be a stun gun or some such nonsense. Instead of allowing Iris Allen to remain the heart of the Flash comics – as she’s been since she met Barry Allen, the Golden Age Flash – she was turned into an amoral Jack Bauer-type, willing to do Whatever It Takes. Sure, she was doing it for Bart’s own good, etc. etc. but it was yet another example of how the cores of the individual characters were missing, and this moment from the current issue made me think that maybe they were right to bring a full stop to the proceedings (click the image for a larger view):

If DC had Wally’s return as an end game all along, they’d have had more moments like this in the previous issues of the book to demonstrate that they weren’t making things up as they went along. Sometimes when you’re really lost, the best thing to do is to pick a new destination.

Nice to have you back, Mark Waid.

Death and ennui

Comics, ,

Hey wait, where you going? Come back, I promise this isn’t going to be depressing.

I think for anyone who follows media cycles, there comes a point when you sigh and say “That’s quite enough.” For me, it happens when all the stuff that’s being pushed on you is of middling to no value. It’s perhaps exacerbated by my failing to renew my subscription to The Economist.

In any case, I present this list of Things Whose Ubiquity Is Indirectly Proportional To My Level Of Excitement About Them:

* The Simpsons Movie
* Local stage productions of “High School Musical”
* Silverchair’s new album (I swear I get 1-2 press releases a week about this thing)
* The Redwalls’ new album (ditto)
* Michael’s return to Lost
* Meltdowns by Lindsay and Britney
* A really blurry video of Beyonce falling
* Flash Gordon returning to TV

OK, that last one’s a lie. The buzz on that is proportional to my level of interest (“mild”). Mainly, it’s been stoked by TOC‘s TV editor Margaret Lyons who keeps inquiring if I’m looking forward to it, followed by me correcting her that it is this Flash and not that one, that I follow.

Speaking of, the most recent Flash, Bart Allen, died in last month’s issue, just as his mentor and uncle Wally West (the prior Flash) returned from a sort of self-imposed exile in the speed force. It’s a shame that the character was killed just as Marc Guggenheim was starting to shake off the awful Bilson/DeMeo re-launch. But worse than that is the possibility that DC has thrown out the baby with the bath water in an attempt to get the series back on its feet. It’s bad enough that DC bungled the character’s life, but worse than that they’ve bollixed up his death.

Up until this 13-issue run, DC did a pretty good job of developing Bart Allen as he grew from Impulse to The Flash. But in the first few several issues of the relaunch, Bilson/DeMeo took a storied title and ran it into the ground by writing it as if they were crafting a discarded script for Smallville. Guggenheim came aboard and grounded the character, thanks to a job with the LAPD and a romantic interplay that resembled the hard choices and failings typical of your first adult relationship.

But it’s possible the damage was done. Plus, most readers still felt as if they were in a limbo over Wally West’s departure, unsure whether they should mourn his passing and embrace his successor or bide the time, and have patience with his placeholder. Per tradition, Bart Allen as The Flash died saving the world (not during a Crisis like his forebearers, but still) and received a similarly literary send-off (a quote from Sir Walter Scott that read “And come he slow, or come he fast, it is but death who comes at last”). But even with these ties to the past, his was a quick and senseless death, and quickly followed by the return of his much-loved uncle (and the much-loved Mark Waid who has a better ear for The Flash than anyone in the last 25 years). In giving so little weight to his death, DC tarnishes the spirit of the character.

The Flash is a harbinger of change in the DC Universe. And the death of a Flash has always been heavy with meaning. With so many changes yet to come for DC characters, and so little meaning attached to the loss of Bart Allen, I’m wondering if I’ll get that same “That’s quite enough” with comics, too.

Transformers: Significantly less than meets the eye

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Regular readers of this space may have noticed that this week’s installment of Oblivious Living was not posted in its regular Monday slot. The reason for this was, in part, because I was busy preparing for a guest co-host appearance on Filmspotting, the weekly film podcast and radio program, regularly hosted by Adam Kempenaar and Sam Van Hallgren. I’ve been a fan of the show ever since I interviewed them for Chicagoist a couple years back, and was honored to be asked back a fourth time. I understand that if I make it to five, I get a special badge.

You can hear this week’s show here. Adam and I discuss Sicko and Transformers. I gave Sicko a generally positive review, though I expressed reservations with Moore’s style. I maintain he’d be a better filmmaker if he dialed back some of the shtick. As for Transformers, I really disliked it, as did Adam. During one of the breaks, he predicted that the show would get a lot of mail from people claiming that we didn’t get it or that we expected more out of a film that features giant robots fighting each other before turning into cars. Yet I expected little more than that, and even with that relatively simple premise, Michael Bay still managed to fuck it up.


The biggest problem is that there isn’t a single memorable character in Transformers, though Bumblebee comes close to having a Herbie-The-Love-Bug-style personality thanks to the constant sound bites issuing forth from his radio. (Explain to me again how a car radio would be able to broadcast movie clips?) Of the Autobots, Optimus Prime’s a stiff, Jazz is a shuck-and-jive caricature, and Ironhide…likes guns. We’re also never given a decent villain since Megatron doesn’t show up until very late in the film along with most of the other Decepticons who all look the same in robot form. They might as well be wearing t-shirts with their names on them like the bad guys in the old Batman TV series.

But at least they’re consistently – if lamely – written. The human characters fare much worse since their dialogue serves only to move the plot ahead. So you end up with characters who act as if they’re suffering from multiple personality disorder or, at the very least, have forgotten to take their meds. I know I’m supposed to be happy that the characters played by Megan Fox and Rachel Taylor are the smartest people in the movie, but when I’m constantly reminded that they are Really Really Hot, how can I be expected to notice anything else? (Note to Michael Bay: it’s kind of overkill to have your actors AND THE CAMERA giving elevator eyes to your actresses.)

The plot’s flat-out confusing, which is really a depressing thing to admit for someone with a college education. I’m still not sure if The Cube/Allspark was supposed to bring life back to Cybertron, give ultimate power to whichever robot contingency captured it, or make julienne fries. Plus, Transformers seems to borrow elements from several other (better) movies: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Independence Day, Signs, Men In Black, and Terminator 2. (credit where credit is due: the alternate explanation for Hoover Dam was original and clever.)

But I could leave all my reservations aside if the action sequences rocked. And they didn’t.

Look, I’m 32 years old now. But I own an Xbox that gets regular use. On my desk is a Flash action figure along with several plastic miniature ninjas. To my right is a James Bond calendar. On my DVD shelf, along with some high-brow picks, are genre movies and shows like Raiders, Buffy, Star Wars, Goonies, The Incredibles, Superman and many Dude Classics like Old School, Tombstone, Swingers, and almost every Kevin Smith film. In short, though I’ve grown up, I still enjoy things that are the province of people half my age. I want – nay, I long – to see giant robots fight each other, turn into very fast cars and then turn back into robots again before throwing each other into buildings throughout downtown Los Angeles. But Michael Bay couldn’t even give us a final well-staged action sequence that brought the dreams of every 14 year-old in the 1980s to life. Instead, he gave us muddled set pieces with characters so badly drawn that when one of the Autobots dies, we don’t even care (I’m still not entirely sure who bites it and neither does Optimus Prime as he intones “We lost a comrade today, but gained many others.” Way to shed a tear, bro. I know he’s a robot but damn, that’s some cold shit.)

So I don’t need to be told that I’m too old to appreciate this film or that my expectations were way too high. My expectations were pretty low, and Bay managed to subvert them by flubbing the basics. I’m all for explosions, as long as I know and care about what’s exploding.

The revolution may not be televised, but it will surely be available on special edition DVD

Comics, Media,

I’ve been in a fair amount of comic book stores in my life, and I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve seen a woman browsing around, and count on two fingers the number of times I’ve seen a woman actually working there. So kudos to my local comic shop for busting stereotypes.

But as much as I support the tearing down of cultural barriers (and as much as it behooves some of my comic-loving brethren to actually have a conversation with a girl), is it really necessary for her to play the Grey’s Anatomy DVDs while she’s working? I’m all for moving forward, but dear God woman, take us in baby steps, please! It would be so much easier to handle with the de riguer murmur of obscure sci-fi flicks and/or British television comedies on a seemingly endless repeat in the background.

I’m joking, of course. Geekery – in all its forms – is about enjoying what you like, consequences be damned. The enjoyment proves its value, whether it’s comics or a show where doctors act like they’re in high school. It proves that the thing does not exist in a vacuum, but says something else about who you are, and how you relate to the world. Not all forms of culture get people geeked about them, as evidenced by the intense lack of Internet fanpages devoted to According to Jim.

So a love of Grey’s is no more or no less a form of geekery than a love of Green Lantern. Still, I’m hoping she compromises by rotating in some old episodes of Wonder Woman. Or hell, even Cagney and Lacey.

Welcome geeks and nerds! I am your people.

Comics,

Hi, Chicagoist readers. You’ll find the main page of the blog here and more comics content here.

Looking through some referral logs today, I discovered that a decent handful of people are finding this site when searching Technorati for “oblivion.” Rather than individuals who’ve got an obsession with the end of the world, I surmise these are instead people who are searching for information on The Elder Scrolls IV video game.

Sorry, dudes.* Not here. Just posts about songs of the 80s.

But it’s not as if there isn’t reason enough for you to stick around. Between posts on Tarantino, Captain America and uh…Van Halen, there’s plenty here to keep you entertained. Sometimes I even bury a Halo joke in a hyperlink within the post. Like an easter egg.

Speaking of comics, I’m starting to wonder if Joss Whedon leaving the Wonder Woman movie project is the worst thing to happen to the character since Frederic Wertham.

Wonder Woman’s history – both in and out of comics – is flat-out remarkable if for no other reason but the inspiration for William Moulton Marston’s character came from both his wife and the woman with whom they were in a polyamorous relationship (a detail which I’m sure has made it into someone’s fanfic story). Though a founding member of the Justice League of America and a part of the Golden Age of comics, she didn’t become truly iconic until the 1970s when she regained her original origin story, and rose as a torchbearer for feminists. Not coincidentally, she was given the small-screen treatment around this time as well.

I grew up in a house of almost all women, women have been some of my closest friends, and – from time to time – I find myself in romantic situations with women. And I know all of them thought Wonder Woman was pretty awesome at one time or another. So great was the impact of Lynda Carter‘s portrayal, I’m willing to say that 90% of the women I knew in my age cohort had Wonder Woman Underoos (nevermind the impact she had on men in my age cohort).

Recently, DC has re-positioned the character as one of the Big Three, along with Superman and Batman. She’s on equal footing with both, and is in the middle of (and still reeling from) storylines fraught with questions of identity, responsibility and the consequences of a life of duty. It’s heady stuff, and with author Jodi Picoult taking a turn at writing duties, the character is due for a renaissance.

And that’s why the worst thing in the world is for Joss Whedon to leave the project.

Whedon’s probably the best person alive to bring Wonder Woman to the screen. He’s shown a deft hand in navigating the comic world whether handling characters of his own creation (Fray and his Buffy “Season 8” series on Dark Horse, which is so fantastic that I want to light myself on fire) or those entrusted to him (Amazing X-Men). His dialogue mixes equal parts of humor and pathos, while staying true to the characters despite the creative freedom he’s given.

Whedon’s also a master at writing for women. Most impressive is his ability to write strong, smart, independent women who are sexual, but not pandering. They’re not flawless women, but they’re human beings, driven by equal parts mind and heart, which is a rare find in mass entertainment.

Of course, all this makes Whedon a rusty gear in the machine of movie-making.

His original Buffy film is…an interesting failure, for reasons that aren’t Whedon’s own. Serenity was a solid film – though hindered by trying to serve both die-hards and newbies – that didn’t do as well as many expected. His scripts for other films have often been chewed-up and spit back out at him. Like Kevin Smith, he works best not in mass-market films but in boutique pictures that serve a particular audience.

So it’s little surprise that Whedon left the Wonder Woman project, which is destined to be a big-budget film with a star heavy on recognition but light on salary and time commitments (if Katharine McPhee or Anne Hathaway doesn’t end up in the title role, I’ll really be surprised), that will undoubtedly suck so hard, it will make The Fantastic Four seem like The Seventh Seal. It’s film-making by committee as opposed to filmmaker as auteur, and not an environment suited to the man’s talents (or fussiness).

Too bad, really. It’s been 30 years since Wonder Woman’s last bout of iconography. Give the lady her due.

* This is not sexist. It’s just fact. If people were finding this site as a result of a search for “Legend of Zelda” or “The Sims” then you’d have a point. But “The Elder Scrolls?” Come on.