Agent Carter

 

Get Carter

Agent Carter
Original Airdates:
Season 1 - January to February 2015 (8 episodes)
Season 2 - January to March 2016 (10 episodes)
Marvel Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Some spoilers. 

 Following on from the popular Agent Carter One Shot short movie included as an extra on the Iron Man 3 Blu Ray and DVD, Hayley Atwell reprises the role which she first played initially as Steve Rogers’ love interest in Captain America - The First Avenger and some of the other Marvel Cinematic Universe films depicting her at different ages in different times. This show is set in 1946 and I came to it via a very cheap Blu Ray set from my local cash converters. Well, I can tell you that I was so impressed with the first episode that I ordered a Blu Ray set of the second season straight after watching it so that, by the time I’d finished the first series, I could go straight onto the second.

Initially we see a version of Peggy Carter who is still mourning the loss of Captain America as she is handed all the menial ‘women’s jobs’ in the intelligence agency for which she works, the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR). However, as you would expect, she starts doing things her own way and getting a jump on the case in hand, without the knowledge of her superiors and co-workers, subsequently making herself a target in the process. Here, she works to clear the name of Howard Stark, as played once more by Dominic Cooper from the role of Tony Stark’s dad in Captain America - The First Avenger and is assisted throughout the majority of her investigations by Stark’s butler Jarvis (played wonderfully well by James D'Arcy) while trying to throw her newish, possible romantic interest, fellow agent Daniel DeSousa (played by Enver Gjokaj) off the scent of what would be her perceived collusion with an enemy. All this after an arsenal of Stark’s weapons is raided and unleashed into the wrong hands by an unknown party.

The casting is wonderful and everyone does a good job here. Hayley is pitch perfect and, honestly, takes to the action just as well as she does to everything else about the show. She had me when her character uses a leather jacket and thick gloves to scale an electrified fence in seconds during the first episode. And it’s the kind of thing you expect from Marvel when they get things right... and as you know, Marvel really have a good track record with getting their stuff together properly (with just the odd glitch here and there on the way).

As you would expect, there are also lots of little throwaway references to all things Marvel and it has a lot of ties to other concepts in the MCU too. Such as, in the second series, when they are trying to shut down a dark matter rift, they use a new invention called the Gamma Cannon, which is obviously a forerunner of the technology that gave us The Incredible Hulk in the cinematic version of that character’s creation. Or the main villain in the second season being Whitney Frost, who long time fans of Marvel will know debuted in the comics back in 1969 as the character Madame Masque. Another example of the wonderful referencing cementing the various MCU structuring would be one of the main villainesses of both series, the lethal Dottie Underwood. She is one of the ‘Black Widows’ trained by the Russians from a young age to be a ruthless killing machine (and has Peggy and her colleagues in her sights). Alas, that character is left at a loose end at the end of the second series (I’ll get to that in a minute) as is another character which would eventually herald in the Winter Soldier programme. It’s good to get another look at Sgt Fury’s Howling Commandos in action again too although, of course, in the cinematic version of the Howling Commandos of the 1940s, Nick Fury isn’t their sergeant at all.

And, it’s a fast paced show with some absolutely beautiful period sets, costumes and cinematography... indeed, vintage stockings were used over the camera lenses as they were back in the day because they couldn’t afford to shoot with the same special lenses they used in the first Captain America film. There are some nice nods to the obvious, such as Hopper’s Nighthawks inspiring a certain aesthetic to a lot of the show and sometimes the not so obvious, such as a wonderful, dream musical sequence in the second series. This latter is a really nice attempt at doing one of those big budget, abstract set piece musical numbers and it’s a real blast, although I think in terms of this specific variant it’s possibly just a shade too early, by maybe a couple of years,  in terms of that particular style being used given the show’s 1946 setting, perhaps?

Now, the slight downside is that the writers obviously didn’t know the show was going to be cancelled. So some of the characters like Dottie Underwood are deliberately left to bring back into the action in a later series and, although the second series does have a proper resolution to things (Peggy gets the guy!), they couldn’t resist leaving things on a cliffhanger to set up the next show. So, in the last minute, a main regular character is shot dead by an unknown hand. I guess that one may never get resolved now, although Agent Sousa goes on to appear in the time-travelling episodes comprising the seventh series of Agents Of SHIELD. And, yeah, we already know what Peggy’s future holds in store for her from the MCU films... and we also know what her re-written past will probably look like, given Steve Roger’s return trip to the 1940s to be with her and live his life out with her in Avengers Endgame (which also features James D'Arcy as the original version of Jarvis). It’s resolution enough although, it has to be said, the obvious resolution the show would be working towards would be Peggy Carter getting together with Howard Stark to set up SHIELD. It’s a shame that we didn’t get to see this before it was cancelled but, then again, with the current MCU status... you never know, we might get fed more information about those events in time. My understanding is that one of the reasons the show was cancelled is similar to the reason the Emmy award winning Tales Of The Gold Monkey (reviewed here) was prematurely stopped... aka, not enough ratings to justify the extra expense of making a historical period show, alas.

Meanwhile though, as they say in the comics, we are left with two seasons of an absolutely splendid TV show which dovetails nicely into the current MCU and is a real joy to watch. Agent Carter is something you’re really going to want to take a look at if you want to see the flesh on the bones of the character whose life, death and then life again was referred to throughout Phase 1 to 3 of the MCU films and possibly, for all I know, coming again in Phase 4 (surely the new Doctor Strange movie, given its probable plot, could slip a few more things into the mix?). Marvel fans are definitely going to want to familiarise themselves with this show.

The Hollywood Meme

Meme Me Up, Scotty

The Hollywood Meme -
Transnational Adaptations 
In World Cinema
by Iain Robert Smith
Edinburgh University Press ISBN: 9781474441339

This is, once again, another book that caught my eye drifting past in my Twitter timeline and I was lucky enough to be given a copy for my birthday earlier in the year. Now, it would be true to say I had a few problems with The Hollywood Meme - Transnational Adaptations In World Cinema, the first being when I finally cracked it open to read in the Jury Lounge while on Jury Service and finding that, although the cover was correct, an entirely different book had been printed and bound inside - namely Creative Involution  - Bergson, Beckett, Deleuze by S. E. Gontarski. Luckily, Amazon were more than happy to change it for me which they did, fairly promptly. So well done to their customer service team for that one.

Now the book focuses on the phenomenon of the meme as a snippet of an idea bringing together a common visual image, for example, which is then spread around such cavernous places as the internet and changed in ways which take the core meaning or notion but re-contextualises it to fit something else... if my understanding of that creative process is correct. So what Smith does here is use the notion of meme as a metaphor for the specific elements of Hollywood product and how different cultures utilise certain things from these to fit in with a specific market place and to bring more recognition and box office gain to the equation. And he does this using a few of the usual suspects by focusing on three large chapters, one each, about the Turkish, Philippines and Indian cinema at specific periods in their respective history (again, different periods) which best demonstrate what he refers to as The Hollywood Meme in evidence at the times selected to best highlight these points.

And he starts off by making a very good point about American product cannibalistically turning in on itself to reconstitute its own successful ideas and therefore reap greater profits from it. In this case, in his introduction, he starts off talking about the universal reaction that Star Wars Episode VII - The Force Awakens was a rip off of the original, first Star Wars movie. Of course, this didn’t stop the film’s key target audience (myself included) from going to back to it for multiple repeat viewings and it’s certainly true, of course, that the very first Star Wars film itself was a potpourri of famous creative influences which owed a debt to various forms of cinema (not to mention Joseph Campbell’s writings) which A New Hope (as it was later retitled) was less than subtle with when it presented various texts combined and regurgitated back in 1977.

He is also keen to point out that the street goes two ways, as it were, in the way that various countries and cultures borrow and exchange ideas, allowing us to distill down from bits of each other’s successes within the context of our own cultural backdrop, so to speak. He makes the point that Hollywood comprises only 6% of global film production so, perhaps its reach and dominance of so much of international culture is a bit of a puzzle. Actually, in the early pages of the book I was just waiting for him to get around to pointing out Wim Wenders famous quote from his 1976 film Kings Of The Road and, sure enough, within a couple more pages he’d gotten around to that  “The Yanks have colonised our subconscious” dialogue so, yeah, it’s still a useful quotation to use as a metaphor, I guess.

He also goes onto talk about The Berne Convention For The Protection Of Literary And Artistic Works set up in France in 1886, at the behest of writers such as Victor Hugo and how this was pretty much ignored by the various people making movies at these key times of Turkish, Philippine and India.

Here’s my big problem with the book though... it’s way too academic. And when I say that I mean that the levels and denseness of the academic speak and technique in which the book is written is far more alienating and able to render vasts swards of text almost incomprehensible in the worst way. To myself, at least. I still can’t for instance, work out just what the objective of Mr. Smith’s new model for the study of transnational cinema is... even when he tries to sum everything up in the end. As I’ve said elsewhere (in a review of a book which I’ve so far been too cowardly to publish here for fear of hurting an author’s feelings), I really hate the academic approach of ‘method, text, conclusion’ as I find it a complete waste of everybody’s time but this is exactly the mode of discourse that the writer has chosen to utilise his ideas with here. The first two great chunks of text discuss exactly what he is trying to write about and prove and then, before we get to a similarly redundant conclusion chapter, the book is split up into three main chapters which actually are very interesting when you can cut to the chase, namely Popular Turkish Cinema from 1970 to 1982, Popular Philippines Cinema from 1979 to 1994 and Popular Indian Cinema from 1998 to 2010 (specifically their Bollywood strand of national cinema).

Then, at the start of each chapter he does exactly the same thing... starting off each section with a lengthy summary of what he is going to write about and then following up, at the end of each chapter, with another summary of what he’s just written about. And I suspect, with the overwhelming academic speak that some parts of this text uses, I didn’t always understand all of the points he was trying to make. Especially when the specific samples he picks... of which he chooses three to four films for each chapter to briefly write about... are all examples which are somewhat different in intent to each other and which all use slightly different modus operandi in their respective approaches to the ‘Hollywood Meme’ part of their make-up.

But, like I said, there is some ‘gold in them thar hills’ if you can penetrate the slightly alienating writing style found in many passages and he helpfully includes, near the start of each chapter, a kind of precis of each of these national industries at the period he is writing about and how they came to be at that place within a historical context. He also talks about the lack of enthusiasm or recognition of copyright laws in each respective country as an indication of the relative ease in which films like the famous yesilcam 3 Dev Adam aka Santo And Captain America VS Spider-Man are made.

So, in addition to introducing me to the background behind the ‘yesilcam’ film and the term ‘Turkification’, he explains why Turkish cinema was more Westernised and populist in its execution as opposed to the often more artistically different film produce of other countries. He also demonstrates how many of the films from Turkey and the Philippines are actually not utilising the specific characters from the source material... Batman, Robin, Superman, Captain America, Spider-man etc... but merely using the visual iconography of those famous characters to get people into the cinemas. So the only traits that the villanous Spider-man of 3 Dev Adam shares with his comic book counterpart is, for example, just the costume and the name. And often the text of the movie will point out that the characters are only borrowing these trappings due to a plot point, rather than actually being the same characters (which is kinda interesting, actually). Again, he points out that in Turkish Star Wars, while footage and music from various Hollywood products are spliced in (visually, from Star Wars) the plot and characters are different to the original Lucasfilm classic.

He goes on to look at Turkish Star Trek (this is one of the many films highlighted in this book where I’ve had a ‘DVD’ waiting in the piles to watch for years without getting around to looking at the thing) and how it’s a continuation (indeed conclusion) of a long series of films about a Turkish comedy character and how he is injected into a feature length remake of the early Star Trek episode The Man Trap (the salt vampire one... I believe it was actually the first in the series to air when the show was first transmitted, with the second pilot film following a week later) plus famous scenes from other Star Trek episodes and how this character is used to highlight, metaphorically on screen, the exchange between Turkish and US culture.

He points out, in another film I’ve still yet to get around to watching, Seytan, which is a Turkish remake of The Exorcist, how the Catholic tropes which make the film quite terrifying for audiences of a certain religious persuasion, have been replaced by Islamic ones. So, for example, the infamous, forced crucifix masturbation scene in The Exorcist is replaced with a Jinn-headed knife masturbation scene in Seytan.

His chapter on Philippines is more of the same but he points out that their cinema is a more postmodern one in terms of its borrowings from American culture, with several sources and genres spliced in so the movies can appeal to a wide range of countries in export. So, for example, Dynamite Johnson is a sequel to both The Bionic Boy and Cleopatra Wong (the Philippines answer to Cleopatra Jones). He also looks at the way their own popular characters such as the comic strip heroine Darna, who is already a little like Wonder Woman, is further enhanced to resemble the US heroine in the long series of films about her, even down to giving Darna a similar costume, tiara and bracelets that ward off the bullets of her enemies.

In the Bollywood chapter, however, Smith is quick to point out that the visual iconography of Hollywood so prevalent in the popular cinema of the Turkish and Philippine cinema of these respective time periods, is absent completely in the popular cinema of India. Instead, it is the characters and plots, scenes and shots which are transplanted wholesale... after being ‘Indianised’ with national traits like the addition of musical sequences... and this gives various Hollywood ‘classics’ the chance to flourish in a national market where penetration of Hollywood product is very low, especially in comparison with most other countries. So a Bollywood remake of Christopher Nolan’s Memento, for example, has the narrative unfolding in the correct order but also has a parallel flashback story added and it’s in that romantic back story that the traditional Bollywood musical sequences are inserted.

In his concluding chapter, where the author also tells us what it is he’s just written about, he says some interesting things about the memes taken by these countries being 'memed' themselves and altered to produce a new phoenix form the ashes of what’s gone before... especially in regards to the web. So, for example, a serialised version of 3 Dev Adam has been re-subtitled with a totally different story and dialogue, with much the same attitude that Woody Allen ended up pulling together What’s Up Tiger Lily? from the ashes of the Japanese film Key Of Keys and turning it into something funny with the addition of new dubbing.

It was in this final chapter that the writer did really go down in my estimation, it has to be said, by using the phrase ‘an history’ instead of the totally correct ‘a history’... it’s a hard ‘H’ people! Other than that though... and the somewhat tiring use of academic syntax to render what should be easily understood ideas into fairly less penetrable ones... I’d have to say that The Hollywood Meme - Transnational Adaptations In World Cinema is actually a kind of interesting book and if you’re one of those few people in this ‘bootleg DVD, internet ironic’ world who has somehow not heard about a lot of these manifestations of national cinema, then you might want to give this book a try. If nothing else, it will open your eyes to what’s around for the more jaded of cineastes to whet their appetites on. This probably won’t end up being my favourite book on the subject but, until something better comes along, it’s definitely worth a look.

Captain America - Civil War

The Stark Knight Rises

Captain America - Civil War
2016 USA Directed by Anthony & Joe Russo.
UK cinema release print.

Okay... trying to make this one spoiler free is hard because I can’t talk about specific things which are significant firsts in the cinematic iteration of the Marvel Universe but... I’ll give it a go.

First up, though, I’d like to throw up the familiar caveat on this one that I’ve never read the Civil War storyline in the comics. I think that’s only about ten years old and, frankly, most of the Marvel comics I’ve read date from the very late 1930s (October 1939) through to the 1980s. That being said, my understanding is that this movie is not exactly an adaptation of that storyline anyway. It would need a heck of a lot more characters from the Marvel Universe in it, for example, and the company producing this film doesn’t have the rights to use all of them. So any fans of the comic book which this is ‘inspired by’ may well be a bit angry at the way it’s been approached, is my understanding.

I’m feeling a little conflicted in reviewing this one, to be honest, because my recent reviews of Avengers - Age of Ultron (reviewed by me here) and Ant Man (reviewed by me here) were not all that enthusiastic about the product but I did find that on subsequent viewings I enjoyed them a heck of a lot more and I think, maybe, my brain needs more than one showing to process what’s going on in these and be able to appreciate the finer points of them. So, although I don’t exactly feel like going back for a repeat viewing of this one right now, I won’t be too hard on it here. Although I wasn’t exactly blown away by it, I can tell you that much.

That being said, Captain America - Civil War is far from being a terrible movie and, to be honest, any problems I have with it probably stem from the fact that I was expecting a really great movie and... it really isn’t. What it is, however, is a very good superhero movie which takes the subject seriously, possibly a little too seriously at some points, and therefore doesn’t let the side down when it comes to both credibility in its approach to the sci-fi/fantasy elements and it support and progression of the overall story arc that is unfolding in what has now become known, it seems, as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (or MCU) in terms of the Phase One, Phase Two and Phase Three movies.

This film deals with a serious issue which is the United Nations trying to put a stop to the vigilante attitude of the super beings who have made themselves the unofficial police of the world, and the thin line between saving as many lives as possible or waiting for a committee to make decisions before you go out and do that... more often than not, a decision which is going to be made way too late to save the lives that needed it. So it’s about Law Vs Justice/doing the right thing with Iron Man, The Vision, Black Widow, Black Panther, War Machine and Spider-Man being hastily recruited to stand for the Law... while Captain America, The Falcon, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Ant-Man and, by default, The Winter Soldier... are on the side of the latter. I’d have to say my personal choice would be for doing the right thing over the Law any day but I can appreciate that some strange individuals might not see it the same way. I think the film kinda takes that tack too, actually, because the issue is quickly ignored by Iron Man when the true villain of the movie is revealed (or one of them... I think they’re holding back on revealing the motivations of a couple of characters who are in this movie, as yet).

Actually, the main issue which is the heart of the film, the ‘vigilante mentality’, is something I’ve only personally experienced in comics from DC, in Watchmen (which had a pretty sound movie version) and The Dark Knight Returns (maybe one day somebody will be brave enough to greenlight a movie version of that) so I was surprised that the dialogue and emotional beats of this movie were so well done in the Marvel Universe. And its these quieter scenes which are the best ones of this movie. A lot is revealed in the sub-plot which is actually behind the scenes on the big issue in this film... although I was surprised that it wasn’t spelled out here (maybe they’re waiting for a twist revelation later on down the line). However, we see certain life defining events from the history of one of the Marvel movies’ best loved characters and how it all impacts on modern day events. We also have a nice little scene with a CGI recreation (presumably) of a young version of one of the actors as he shares screen time with his parents... which was a nice touch.

Other nice continuity things are the second appearance of William Hurt as Thaddeus Ross, after his original appearance in The Incredible Hulk. I think he might well be set up as a super villain at some point in these films... and maybe they’ll go with the comics and he’ll eventually become Red Hulk, who knows? This, along with numerous references and a certain kind of closure on one of the characters make for some compelling viewing.

However, it’ the action scenes which, in some cases (not all), suffer quite a bit. There’s lots of hand held, in your face stuff with a quite aggressive editing style but, in certain scenes, there was way too much to take in and the editing was such that, at some points, I was completely unsure of what was going on and what I was looking at. Which is a shame because I think the action scenes on these films are often big draws. And, also, although there was a fair amount of humour in the movie, I felt that it was just a little too sobering and somber as a whole. Granted, the issues being explored in both the converging plots don’t exactly allow for a lot of laughs but I think the scripting for this was... well... it wasn’t having a lot of fun, put it that way.

Black Panther was a lot more successful as a character than I thought he would be, although I did struggle to understand him a lot of the time... the accent was just getting in the way too much for me, I found. That being said, although I’m not particularly looking forward to it, I suspect the idea of giving him a stand alone movie may not be doomed to failure, as I at first thought, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens on that one.

Spider-Man, on the other hand, left me quite torn. All the cast regulars on this... Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr and all the rest of them, are all absolutely brilliant in their roles, as you would expect, As is Daniel Brühl as, a version, of Baron Zemo. He’s always good to watch. Martin Freeman seems completely underused and has a ridiculous American accent but... I think his role hints at more to follow so... maybe this is just a set up. And Tom Holland’s new version of Peter Parker/Spider-Man is equally at home in the mix, displaying great chemistry with the other actors and working well in the situations he finds himself in. He’s great in the role but unfortunately, to my mind at least, that role is not The Amazing Spider-Man.

That is to say, the way this new version is written seems a little too at odds with the character as it was in the early 1960s and, for some reason, the writers seemed to have replaced humourous wise cracks with inquisitive geekiness. Also, as great as Tom Holland is in this, he’s the first version of Peter Parker in cinema that, really, doesn’t look like any of the comic book versions of Peter Parker that I’ve known through the years. Still, hopefully they’re still finding their feet with the character and the writing will evolve a little in his next cinematic outing. That being said, they do introduce a concept in one scene which is something which was very much used in those early days of the comic book and which, I believe, is the first time it’s been used in a cinema version of the character... I won’t say too much about that but, stick around for the post credits scene folks. There are two again on this movie... one in the middle of the end credits and one right at the end.

My other main complaint on this one was Henry Jackman’s score. It’s fine and does what it needs to do and... it’s probably a good stand alone listen too. However, it also highlights one of the continuing failures of the Marvel Cinematic Universe... that of a cohesive musical support via leitmotif. Yeah, I know, different artists and different people doing the inking might be a nice comic book analogy you could use to justify the use of music in these but, honestly, that really doesn’t cut it with me. I thought the last few Brian Tyler scores for the series had some nice work in trying to bring everything under one banner, especially his score with Danny Elfman for Avengers - Age Of Ultron, which I thought really did a lot to weave some of the recent movie’s musical identities together. In this one though, unless I missed, it, there are no straight quotes of the Avengers or Iron Man sub themes and I felt this movie really needed it. As the film progressed, I was more and more missing the familiar musical glue which would have brought me closer to the characters emotionally through the emphasis of their themes but... unless it was buried under the sound mix (and that’s entirely possible), I wasn’t aware of anything that relevant happening with the scoring on this one. And that’s a great shame... it’s a bit of a step backwards, for Marvel, I think. The music to these (and all) movies is pretty important and I wish the producers at Marvel would finally start to take the musical contribution a little more seriously.

Other than all that, though, it’s a fine film. Not great but, as I said, one which will probably get better and have more resonance on subsequent viewings, especially by the time the Avengers Infinity Wars films have both hit the screens. Not quite a classic Marvel movie and not in my top five of this series but, still, a nice time at the cinema. If you’re already into Marvel films then you’ll know you won’t want to miss this one anyway but, to be honest, if you’re not into these films and the way they interlock, you might find yourself having a harder task jumping into them blindly without having seen the previous films, at this stage in the game. Still, looking forward to the next one in the series, Doctor Strange, which should be out in cinemas in the Autumn. That should bring in a whole new element to these films, that’s for sure.

Amazing Fantastic Incredible

Ex Sales Sayer

Amazing Fantastic Incredible: A Marvelous Memoir
by Stan Lee and Peter David and Colleen Doran
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4711-5259-7

Well this was a nice surprise present for Christmas... mainly because it wasn’t even a blip on my radar. I didn’t know it existed but I would have jumped on it myself, straight away, if I’d have known about it.  Subtitled ‘A Marvelous Memoir’, Amazing Fantastic Incredible tells the story of one of the giants of modern culture, the man behind so many of the fantastic characters that people have loved since their inception in the early 1960s... Stan Lee. And what’s so wonderful about this autobiography is that it’s done, as it really should always have destined to be, I think... in comic book form. A hardback graphic novel, if you want to get technical about it, although I would have loved it if this had been serialised monthly with cheaper looking covers.

Wait, did I say autobiography? Well it’s co-written, by the looks of it, by the famous Peter David and illustrated quite wonderfully by Colleen Doran. So the question really arises as to what this book actually is because... well it’s kind of shimmering incandescently in a state between autobiography and biography... I think. For the sake of my own sanity and as something to refer to it as for the purpose of this review... I’m going to remind myself that a lot of autobiographies were actually ghostwritten by or with other people and don’t technically count as an autobiographies at all. At least this book is giving all the credit where it’s due and, since Stan so obviously has a strong stamp on what his life story contains and how it plays out here... yeah, I’m going to go with autobiography. ‘nuff said.

So I have to start off here by saying that it’s a wonderful book. There are some things I would have liked to have seen a little more of and I’ll get to those in a minute but one of the main plus points here is that it’s a vastly entertaining read and, luckily, it’s really well written. Stan Lee’s personality and jokey trademark sense of aggrandizement shine through the pages right from the outset as it tells the tale of young Stan Leiber and his home life, growing up poor, and how he joined the company which, decades later, would become Marvel Comics. Also, how he took some time away in the middle of his job there to serve, in a capacity he probably didn’t expect, in the Second World War and of the various challenges of creating and editing some of the characters he’s come up with over the years.

And it’s really warm, fuzzy and lovely... some of it actually brought a tear to my eye... oh, lay off, I’m getting older and the tear ducts open up at the drop of a hat, these days, okay? Also, though, he did manage to surprise me a few times.

The structure is not completely linear, instead he opts to do what many good tale tellers do by highlighting things which lead in to one another and go together which could be many years apart. Obviously this helps to focus on the points being made... rather than completely doggedly following a straight route through the timeline. Lee also accentuates this necessity himself in the context of that structure and it gets him to places where he’s eventually talking to his younger self about his future. It’s pretty good in the way it does this...

... but that’s not what I meant by it managing to surprise me.

What I meant is that there are a few times in here where Stan The Man’s humour got the better of me by setting up a ‘story beat’ to follow a pattern of ‘monologuing’ he might have been using earlier in the strip and then, as you turn the page, pulling the rug out from under you... making you smile and also keeping you interested because you know you can’t always predict when his humour is going to kick in. Like the time he tells of his quick divorce and marriage (into one office for his future wife’s divorce and then into the next office to immediately get married) which had a nice little set up in the style of writing that when you turn the page... oh heck. I’m really not going to spoil it for you here.

Now this book is probably going to come under fire from some quarters, I’m guessing. I was expecting Stan to gloss over certain things and, I suppose, to an extent he does. He does, however give full page (and sometimes more) shout-outs to some of his co-creators over the years, the most famous (and possibly most troublesome in terms of whose side of the story you believe) being Steve Ditko and Jack ‘King’ Kirby. Now, as it happens, I don’t think Lee is trying to make light of any of the serious issues which became problems at certain stages in the history of the company... such as when Steve Ditko parts ways by becoming a ghostly, vanishing figure from his desk. The story about the big argument surrounding the identity of The Green Goblin is a well known one and I’ve certainly heard Stan tell it himself in various interviews... so I don’t think he’s particularly trying to hide anything here... he just doesn’t mention it again because it’s such a well known one, I suspect.

We’ll probably never get to hear about the full stories behind some of these problem issues where people became kind of casualties but one throwaway comment he makes about artists retaining their work and why he wasn’t able to do that did remind me of one thing... Stan Lee is not Marvel Comics. Sure, he is synonymous with them and he’s their mascot but... he is not always guilty for some of the mistakes made in the past. When you become a figurehead, though, sometimes you find yourself caught in the crossfire whether you like it or not. I’ve got no idea myself so I’m just going to shut up about these issues now... other than to say it certainly felt like Stan has done a good job here in giving people their due and there must have been some moments in this memoir (or autobiography as I like to call it), not just dealing with the day in and day out of Marvel, that must have been very painful for him to write and include. However, if you’re going to do a project like this, I think you have to realise there’s stuff you can’t leave out and, thankfully for us, Stan certainly seems to realise this too.

The artwork by Colleen Doran is amazing and when Stan talks about some of the comic books successes, we are presented with reproductions of the covers in question with Stan’s monologue continuing the story in little strategically placed boxes over them. It’s a nice touch, as are the pages which give you a fly on the wall perspective of the recording of the first Merry Marvel Marching Society record. Its great stuff actually and although I never had much of this kind of stuff at the time, it took me straight back to being a kid in the 1970s again because... well, Marvel were never shy on their self promotion were they? We all knew about this fan club stuff, even over here in the UK.

One thing I really would have liked to have seen, since Stan mentions his rivals DC a fair few times, is the inclusion of what was, when I was a kid, one of the most stupendous publications around. The first teaming up of Marvel and DC heroes in the Giant Sized Treasury Edition of Spider-Man VS Superman is not mentioned here... and it’s a shame because I used to love laying that big tome out on the floor as a kid and pouring over the words and pictures as Lois Lane and Mary Jane Watson got themselves into trouble.

The other thing I would have liked more of is actually dates put to incidents. You kind of have to guess a lot about when things were happening and reference your own knowledge of when certain incidents might have slotted into history... so there’s a possibility some readers may have trouble keeping up in certain areas, I think. Especially when, as I said, the narrative structure tends to hop around a bit in terms of the time frame. It doesn’t make the narrative any less compelling, though, so it’s not something that should stop anyone from picking it up.

These minor quibbles aside, I have to say that Amazing Fantastic Incredible is one of the more entertaining books I’ve read in a while and is... exactly what the title says it is. It's also a lovely homage.. or self homage... to one of comic book fandom’s greatly loved figureheads which even takes us right up to date with his cameo appearance in Avengers: Age Of Ultron earlier in the year. A nice thing to own and done in a medium which really captures the spirit of the man... or at the very least the spirit of his public persona. Greatly enjoyed and recommended by this reader, at any rate. What more is there to say?

Excelsior.

In The Nick Of Time: Motion Picture Sound Serials

Image Chapter

In The Nick Of Time: Motion Picture Sound Serials
by William C. Cline 
McFarland Classics 
ISBN: 978-0786404711

I was really looking forward to reading this book when I initially bought it. I’d already read one pretty good book on serials, The Great Movie Serials: Their Sound And Fury (reviewed here), and, although I enjoyed it greatly, I felt it was lacking in some areas for a number of reasons, not least of which because the serials which are available to us now on home video systems were not readily available to the writers of that book in 1973. It was still a great read, however, and I was looking forward to reading what I thought would be a, relatively, modern take on the genre, looking at the components and key themes of these chapter plays in a more critical and enlightening manner.

However, what I didn’t realise is that this is actually a reprint of a book which was originally published in 1984, so although the writer would have possibly had a little more access to his subject matter, the book doesn’t really break down the form of the serial in a way which might have been more useful. To be fair, it does analyse aspects of the chapter plays to a certain degree, but I did find this one a hard and, in some ways, monotonous read for large sections of the book.

Now I fully comprehend that the author did, in fact, see pretty much all the serials he talks about and was in a unique position to do so for some of his time as a cinema programmer. This is not in question. However, I did find it hard to read that, according to the writer, serials were primarily aimed at the juvenile end of the market and that the reason they are neglected by many is because they are not sophisticated enoutgh to hold an adult audience. While I can tentatively object to the first accusation on the grounds that I’m pretty sure expensive serials like the Flash Gordon series were as much for adults as they were the children, I can certainly raise the issue that an adult appreciation of all art forms, whatever their primary market, is not without reward or interest and certainly I am able to enjoy the format, formulaic as it is, from a modern context as much as I can from pitching my viewing to a historical perspective... albeit with a different level of appreciation juxtaposed with the initial thrill of the action.

Nevertheless, the author may have got off to a bad start with me but at least he is passionate enough about the serials that he’s written at length about them. Like the earlier book I read on serials, In The Nick Of Time: Motion Picture Sound Serials eschews any real glances at the early silent film serials, instead choosing to pitch its tent firmly within the era of the talkies... although the way the subject is organised, it could have easily been used to cover both forms, I suspect.

My main problem with the book is, although it is split into dedicated chapters on specific tropes of the serials such as heroes, sidekicks, leading ladies, villains etc, it mostly reads like a series of lists strung together to pass for sentences. Extremelely detailed lists, granted, but also not very interesting in that they seem to be saying such stuff as “actor x played this kind of character in serial A, serial B and Serical C, totalling y number of serials for this company and z number of serials for that company”... before just moving onto the next person in another paragraph and repeating this kind of exercise throughout. It doesn’t breakdown the serial formula to specific story arc styles so much, or refer to the psychological reasoning that brought certain kinds of serials to our screens and, much as some of this book was quite informative, it’s really not the critical study of the form I have been searching for so far (although, if anybody knows of one, please either tweet me or pop it in the comments section at the bottom of the page).

To be fair to it, some of the sections are quite valuable taking this kind of approach, such as the one on score composers, but when I did find something as interesting as this, I found it not going into enough detail on the subject... possibly for a lack of research resources in this kind of area (the composers were rarely credited and most of the serials recycled music from here, there and everywhere, including cannibalising their own past successes... although the part about why the Spy Smasher music was like it was is something I found very interesting).

And there, I think, lies the nub of why I just didn’t get as much joy from this tome as I thought I would. For the casual reader who is interested in these things, there’s probably way more irrelevant detail than required but, for the reader who wants to explore these in more depth and gain more of an understanding of just what made these chapter plays tick in the way they did, there’s maybe not enough focus in those areas... it has to be said.

However, you have to respect the author of this work because he certainly knows his stuff and, for the time in which this was written, this was probably an essential addition for any cinephile’s shelf. By no means a hard recommend from me but, since there’s not exactly a glut of books on this unique form of cinematic entertainment, it’s possibly one you might want to welcome into your hands at some point, if you have no others on the subject. An honourable attempt with, I hasten to add, a very valuable and lengthy reference appendix detailing every sound serial shot and released in any given year from 1930 to 1956... so if you need an essential checklist of sound era serials, this book has it.

The Avengers

Some Assembly Required

The Avengers 

aka Marvel Avengers Assemble

(aka Iron Man 4, The Incredible Hulk 2, 

Thor 2, Captain America 2)

US  2012

Directed by Joss Whedon

Playing at UK cinemas now

Warning: There are going to be some pretty strong spoilers 

assembling themselves in this review... don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Hmmm... Maybe I was setting myself up for something of a fall but when the good word of mouth buzz about the new movie of “Earths Mightiest Superheroes” (as the tag line on the comics always used to read back when I were a lad and directly quoted by Rob Downey Jr in this movie) hit the internet, I was really expecting to like this film a lot more than I actually did. Don’t get me wrong... it’s not a terrible movie by any means and it’s an incredible task to be able to keep this many balls in the air in terms of plot points and multiple characters who all have to be major factors in this kind of film... it just fell a little short of my expectations and disappointed me a fair bit. This is usually something I try not to let happen... have expectations that a film will actually be quite good, that is. I always try to keep my expectations as low as possible to avoid this kind of disappointment but I guess the long slow tease over the last 4 years where The Avengers has been less than covertly promoted in various "slot in" sequences in 5 other films has artificially built up my expectations somewhat. This is, after all, a film which is a sequel to 4 other superhero franchises, where four of this particular team come from.

Maybe that’s my problem with it. All of those four characters - The Invincible Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, The Mighty Thor and... The... um... and Captain America -  have to have some serious screen time to keep their respective fans happy and, of course, other members of the team (Black Widow who debuted in Iron Man 2 and Hawkeye who made his first on screen appearance in Thor) also need equal amounts of screen time... not to mention Loki and the other regular characters who are returning from some of the previous films... Nick Fury, Agent Coulson, Doctor Selvig and Pepper Potts (regrettably, Natalie Portman’s character is referred to only in the context of a holographic photo). It’s an almost impossible task to cram all those characters into a movie that really, in my opinion, could have done with about three quarters of a hour of judicious editing down, and still have everything flowing the way a good story does... if story is what you’re after.

Truth be told, because of some of this, it’s a movie which does, in places, become a little dull and jaded around the edges without concentrating on any one thing for too long. It’s certainly weatherable because, in spite of all of this, there are some really great, kick ass moments in this movie, but I did find myself clock watching a little before the end of the movie, which is a little unfortunate.

Also, I thought there was a certain inequality in terms of character arc on this one. Thor, for example, appeared almost from nowhere and I still don’t know how he managed to get back to earth after the end of the last movie, when the rainbow bridge from Asgard to Earth was destroyed. Did I miss the explanation somehow through all the visual noise in this movie? Maybe so. 

I thought Captain America, Nick Fury and Hawkeye had a little less progression of character in this one too. Apparently the original three hour cut of this had a lot more of Captain America in it, including one sequence I would have really liked to have seen and which I would have expected to give the character a little more depth. His reunion with his 40s sweetheart from the previous movie (presumably as a very old woman now) was sadly left on the cutting room floor for the theatrical release but I suspect they’ll stick it out on BluRay when the time comes (not that I’m going to be bullied into buying a BluRay player just for this release!).

And to be fair to the Cap, he did get the best line in the movie. Two words when he was giving orders to his superhero army at the final battle of the movie. Just a quick order to a certain green-skinned goliath who more than fulfils this order... “Hulk... Smash!”

On the other hand... some of the main protagonists in the movie did get a much better character arc and sense of progression and, to be fair to the movie, were handled much better...

Black Widow is introduced in what amounts to a remake of the “tied-to-a-chair-fight” in the first Charlie’s Angels movie. Despite all this, the character manages to demonstrate her techniques of prizing the truth from people not once, but twice, over the course of the movie and her back story is fleshed out as something more like the Black Widow I used to know as a lad growing up in the early seventies as opposed to the travesty of the character as she appeared to be in Iron Man 2. As usual, however, Scarlett Johanssen does a pretty good job in the role.

Agent Coulson, although not exactly a major player but certainly a big series regular, is fleshed out a little more and makes the ultimate sacrifice in this movie by dying at the hand of Loki as he fights back (well, hey, look... when I say there are going to be spoilers in a review there’s going to be spoilers... you were duly warned). Perhaps not a major character for some but certainly he has a lot more screen presence than Loki, who is as dull and flat and useless as he was in Thor. Honestly, I don’t understand why people like this character so much because the guy playing him seems to have virtually zero screen presence... what’s up with that?

Tony Stark was pretty great in this. Not only coming up with ways to save the world and also a new way to put his suit on (as you just knew he would) but also, finally answering the big question which has kinda plagued the character since his inception as a guy wearing armour... is he really a hero? Captain America questions Stark’s ability to make a sacrifice for a cause and cites this quality as a true mark of a hero. In the final battle sequence Stark sacrifices himself for the planet and proves himself a hero (and in this sense, man of the match) but, of course, ends up surviving that sacrifice... since we already know Iron Man 3 (aka Iron Man 5 in my book) is due up for shooting soon. Plus we all knew by this point that we hadn’t seen the shot of Hulk catching him yet from the trailer.

And I’m saving the best character for last because, without him, this movie would not have got anything but a big thumbs down from me...

Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk, as played by Mark Ruffalo (I guess nobody wanted to work with Ed Norton again... I hear he’s difficult on set?) really comes through and finally does the character some justice in this movie. I’ve always liked Mark Ruffalo as an actor anyway (seriously check him out in My Life Without Me and In The Cut) but a combination of his acting with some “not half bad” dialogue writing for the character (the original TV Hulk Lou Ferringo does the voice for Hulk on this one but Ruffalo did all the motion capture himself and the CGI Hulk’s features are obviously modelled after Ruffalo) really works wonders and the character positively shines in this one. He plays Banner as a much more confident, in control, kind of person... one who has come to terms with his lot in life and who is at peace with what is obviously a constant raging anger within him (he lets slip near the end that his secret is to be constantly angry all the time, which helps him tame the beast I guess). 

When he’s the Hulk, too, he gets three of the most attention grabbing and “physically” witty scenes in the entire movie. The first is when he and Thor (who he kinda dislikes after a fight with him earlier in the film) take out a load of aliens and they both stand triumphant... there’s some brilliant CGI comic timing as the Hulk does a little side punch into Thor’s head which sends him flying off screen. It’s a bit like a Ren & Stimpy cartoon.

The second standout Hulk moment is where the “evil” Loki starts “monologuing” in front of him about how humans are pathetic and they should all neal to him because he’s a God. Right in the middle of his speech he is interrupted by the Hulk picking him up and battering him all over the place like he’s a limp rag doll. I couldn’t hear Hulk's words to him as he walked off and left him smashed on the ground because the audience was laughing so hard.

The third wicked Hulkout moment is the bit where Iron Man is unconscious, presumed dead. Everyone is all sad and weeping and then Hulk just lets out a big roar right by his face and he wakes up! This was pretty funny.

I really wanted this movie to be more than the sum of it’s parts, especially as some of those parts were really shiny. Alas, I feel The Avengers is less the movie it possibly could have been. That being said... there’s plenty for both comic book afficionados and superhero fans to get their teeth into in this one. Lots of geeky references to old comics but I don’t want to give away too many of them (and I’m still trying to process them all) but I could almost swear there were even a few panels from the legendary four issue mini series Marvels recreated in this one. It’s been over a decade since I read that and the issues aren’t anywhere I could easily get ahold of them for this review (boxes behind boxes behind boxes) but it would be great if somebody reading this could tell me if the waitress looking at the battle from the diner window and her subsequent TV interview footage were taken from this tome. There’s a even an ALIEN reference when Banner is greeted by veteran character actor Harry Dean Stanton (wearing his trademark hat from ALIEN and Paris, Texas) and they get into a conversation about... well... aliens. That was pretty good to see. I would say, however, that the inevitable Stan Lee cameo, which I was waiting for all the film and which didn’t surface until a few minutes before the end, was a little lacking in originality in this one. Probably his worst cameo to date.

Okay so, as you can tell right now, I didn’t love The Avengers but neither did I hate it. Of the six Marvel movies actually made by Marvel Studios themselves so far, I’d say it was my third favourite... far behind the first Iron Man movie and the Thor movie in terms of both quality and entertainment value and into the okay but not so hot status of the other three Marvel Studios movie... Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk and Captain America: The First Avenger. However, like I said before, if you’re into comics and/or superhero movies, you’re really not going to want to miss this one... and if you’re a fan of The Hulk, well this is his best movie. Have a good time with it if you can.

Captain America: The First Avenger

The Man With No Namor

Captain America: The First Avenger 2011 USA

Directed by Joe Johnston

Screening at UK cinemas

Warning: Star spangled spoilers are slight but they are being played.

“When Captain America throws his mighty shield... all those that dare to oppose his shield must yield.”

Woah! I really am just not sure where to start on this movie review. On the one hand it’s a brilliant looking movie, more than competently handled with some really nice “tips-of-the-hat” to the long history of this character... which I’m not a huge fan of, I hasten to add, although I do have all the old seventies issues of The Invaders, so I’m a little familiar with the character (or would be if I could remember much about them now in the 15 or more years since I last read them). On the other hand... this film didn’t keep me entertained much and I did feel things were dragging towards what turned out to be an unsatisfying denouement when they should have been cracking along at the fun pace of a 1940s republic serial.

Mind you, having said that, I’ve seen the Republic serial of Captain America from 1944 and I have to say this movie is certainly a lot better than that... and yes, I love old movie serials but that particular title is one of the worst I’ve seen.

Okay... where to begin on this one then.

The first half an hour to three quarters of an hour is tremendous. It doesn’t suffer from one of my long-standing complaints about superhero movies, that of not being set in period, and evokes a lovely this-is-us-now-looking-back sense of atmosphere which subtly permeates the proceedings until... well until things go a bit pear shaped in the second half of the movie. The pacing on these sequences is fantastic and the puny, Steve Rogers’ character is well spelled out, although the Bucky Barnes character is just so not Bucky Barnes it’s untrue. What happened to the teen/kid sidekick who was pretty much based on Batman's Robin?

There are loads of nice references for fans of the comics, which actually did not start off in the hands of Marvel Comics when first released in 1941... in fact Marvel as we know it today didn’t revive Captain America until an early issue of The Avengers in the 60s, following on from their revival of Namor (The Sub Mariner) in an early issue of Fantastic Four after Stan Lee bought the characters (did he buy them or did the rights get inherited by Marvel via Timely).

Now I missed the sly reference to the original Human Torch in this movie (damn, can I wait until the DVD to spot it or shall I go see it in 3D again... nah, I think I’ll pass) but I was quite annoyed by the absence of the aforementioned Sub Mariner, especially since this movie is done in the right period. I guess you could say these characters formed The Invaders with Cap and Bucky during one of the battle montages in the movie but you’d be hard pushed to do it... although saying that, there’s a reference to The Invaders character Union Jack in the movie. Like Bucky Barnes, this character is never seen in costume and so I didn’t catch the reference myself (you can tell I’ve been doing a modicum of research for this one, can’t you?) but there are so many other distractions that there’s a point when the hodge podge of little fanboy quirks begin to grate. Especially when they contradict things quite badly. Why the heck have we got the characters that made up the team from Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandoes in it... if NIck Fury isn’t leading them himself. Yeah that’s right... Nick Fury fought in World War Two... so put it in the movie and have him frozen alongside the main character perhaps? Do you think?

I think I’ve just covered most of the negative references in this movie.

The positive ones are... well for starters, the inclusion, in a big way, of Howard Stark (yeah, Iron Man’s dad) although this does give rise to a continuity error... how come he’s got Cap’s shield in Iron Man 2 which is, you know, the only one of it’s kind made with a special metal, if Roger’s gets frozen and goes into suspended animation with it at the end of the movie. That question needs to be answered please people!

Another great thing about this movie is that, despite all the pre-publicity for the film, we do actually get to see Captain America in his proper, original costume from the 40s with his big, floppy wing ears, his red, turn up boots and his old-style pointy shield. That’s a great rush (even though it’s played for laughs) and to top it off the writers even found a way to include a little tribute to the famous cover of the first issue of Captain America, the one where he’s seen socking Hitler on the jaw, as part of... well okay, I don’t want to give too much away... but they even manage to include facsimilies of that comic in the movie itself... however, footage of a fictional Captan America movie did not match any footage from the 1944 serial... actually this movie footage looks like everything that movie serial needed to be, to be honest with you. Although I’ve got a nagging feeling in my head that I should go and watch that serial again now.

Lots of great things then, but this movie really falls flat a little before all those sequences... character development almost dissappears once Steve Rogers takes his super-serum but there are still enough “little moments” to hold your interest, even if the pacing isn’t as "singing along" as it was before. Tommy Lee Jones is absolutely excellent in it, bringing his comedy timing which we know him for from movies like Men In Black... and Chris Evans is, well, absolutely perfect. It’s a shame they didn’t have the original Human Torch in this movie with him... he could have played both roles since he did such a good job with the silver age version of the character in the Fantastic Four movies. It’s also a shame since the one thing it tells me loud and clear is... The Vision won’t be in The Avengers movie next summer (The Vision was an android member of the team haunted by amnesia of not knowing who he was and why he was created... years later it was revealed that he was a revived version of the original Human Torch... well actually it got a bit more complicated than that but that's the essence of it).

Actually that’s a major gripe with this movie for me. We’re rushing towards a movie version of The Avengers and this means they have to get Captain America frozen in time and then thawed out in time for next summer’s event movie... they even begin the process at the opening of this movie (as opposed to surprising non-comics readers at the end). This is a great shame because, frankly, I would have liked to have seen another Captain America movie (or two) set back in the 40s and this time have The Invaders join in. That would be cool.

The other gripes I had with this film were the fact that the good Captain is not going up against the Nazis but Hydra... and this production does everything it can to make it very clear that these bad guys are not Nazis... different logos, different salutes and, the thing which really kills this move for me, the introduction of disintegrating ray guns which takes things firmly out of the World War 2 feel and into B-movie science fiction... nothing wrong with B-movie science fiction, it’s just that they’d done such a good job on the film up until these things came along and ruined it.

So that and, yeah, the pacing felt off in the second half of the film. The climactic fight scene was something I was expecting to build to and be spectacular... then I’d realised we’d just had it... it was nowhere near as good as the stuff we’d seen in the battle montages and this really felt like a big anticlimax to the movie... in much the same way that Optimus Prime in Transformers 2 rose up from the dead and... gave the other robot a few punches and finished him, The End.

What more can I say about this movie. I’m really conflicted because it is really well made, other than on these points... and I would love to see a proper direct sequel... set in period. But it doesn’t look like we’re going to get that as The Avengers is obviously something that the studios are expecting to make more-money-than-humanly-possible with. I wish them luck and I’ll be first in line... but I just wish Captain America, a character who is not even one of my favourites, could have been treated with a little more thoughtfulness in regards to his context in the rest of the Marvel Universe on screen. As it is, I think this movie ranks six or seventh in my top ten list of successful Marvel adaptations... but please don’t let that put you off going to see it. I think it’s very successful on an artistic level and, while I prefer Johnstons own The Rocketeer as a good period movie (stymied from being a good adaptation by copyright issues, I guess), this is certainly a movie where that World War Two atmosphere of patriotism is done right. So it’s definitely worth a look and, for once, the 3D on this movie really isn’t bad.