Libraries Exist! (Book Review)

So here's a fun fact: Libraries still exist!

I know, they've never actually STOPPED existing.  There was a decade there when I really didn't have internet access at home, so the library basically became my second home.  You know what somehow slipped my mind during that time, though?  What libraries are actually meant for.  The thing we used them for as kids, when our moms would drive us and we'd have that one little lonely id in our little velcro wallets and used it for one thing; Books.  Remember library books?

Now, I love books, but I am not a good reader.  For years, I would clamor through book stores and buy all sorts of treasures, but I was not great at finishing them.  When I got my first kindle I thought it was the best thing in the world, now I was certain I would finish my books.  Yet still, aquiring books always seemed easier than finishing them.  What was the problem?  Why was I struggling with something I used to do all the time as a kid?

Oh right... a DEADLINE.

When it suddenly struck me that I was still a semi-functional member of society and I could actually get a library card and check out books it struck me like a hammer.  We made our trip to the library and rummaged through the stacks, and I left with no fewer than THREE books.  For free, because of course they are.  This shouldn't feel quite so novel, but somehow I am just dumbstruck by the fact that I had somehow forgotten about this.

So here we go, my very first review of a Library Book!

The Dresden Files are, obviously, a long-standing presense in the world of fantasy.  If you're a fan at all, you've heard of Harry Dresden.  The guy even got a short lived TV series where he was played by Paul Blackthorne of "Arrow" infamy.  It's actually a little bit embarassing that I hadn't read this YET.  Storm Front by Jim Butcher is the very first Dresden Files novel, published in 2000.  It established the world, more or less, and starts you off by getting you comfortable with the blend of fantasy and noir tropes.

If anything, that's actually where I think the book was the most enjoyable.  The idea of contemporary fantasy isn't THAT novel... it's pretty much a genre all on it's own... but this particular book stood out because it actually did some real legwork to make it feel like a classic detective novel.  I happen to be a real Raymond Chandler fanboy, but part of what makes classic detective stories so pleasurable is that the tropes are so well-trod and familiar.  It was actually kind of cool to see those exact story beats playing out in a story where the mystey might suddenly be interrupted by a mage battle.

As a character, Dresden was actually a little more accessable that I imagined.  He's such a popular character he comes across as a little monolithic so it was fun to see that he didn't read that way.  He played a lot more like a traditional detective, and just like a classic hard-boiled detective he gets the holy hell beat out of himself over the course of the story.  It uses that trope so well it actually becomes almost rediculous, but it actually fit in the heightened reality of these characters that are, for all intents and purposes, superheroes.  The world of Dresden files presents it's particular notion of magic well without requiring you to own tarot cards to understand; it's all very accessable and fun.

If I have a complaint, it would have to be the relatively limited scope of the female characters in the book, and that's really a hard complaint to make, because the women that are in here are diverse, they have what feels like their own agency and all of them drive the narrative in their own way.  Harry's relationship with Detective Harris is particularly interesting, but that's kind of the point; none of these characters really seem to exist outside the framework of their relationship with Harry, and while he treats women with respect the guy doesn't quite seem capable of seeing them as equals.  He's meant to be an old-world gentleman, but as a reader in 2017 it comes across a little belittleing.  Now it's kind of understood that in a noir detective story really needs to focus on the main character, and this is also the first book in a series that is almost twenty years old and fifteen books deep, so who knows how these characters have grown and evolved over that time.  (Don't tell me.)  I look forward to finding out.

SO!  That's my totally unnecessary review of a book everyone besides me has already read!  This is more for me.  I'm going to start an actual list of Books I've Finished, as a way to celebrate this totally awesome thing that I totally forgot existed.

 Books I've Finished:

The Dresden Files: Storm Front by Jim Butcher (2000)

What did we learn?

There was a new wrinkle in my D&D experience this week, and it was a lot of fun.

I've played with variations of the same group for about twenty years.  We've all had our own, seperate gaming experiences, but the three of us have been a gaming team forever.  We were all in each other's weddings, have started families, and basically been brothers to each other.  One of the three of us, let's call him Dave, gave his oldest daughter a copy of the players handbook for her most recent birthday, fueled by her love of harry potter, lord of the rings, and her absolutely amazing creative streak... I guarantee you, someday we'll be watching movies based on her books.  She was super excited to play, and her father decided to make it happen.  He invited her to invite her friends to their own game, and we worked together to give them something tailored for them.

Now, I've run the game a few times, but I'm nowhere near as good as our third friend and normal Dungeon Master, lets call him John.  The dude actually gets paid to run a game online in addition to the one I play in.   He didn't have time to put together another campaign, so we decided we'd work together.  I would DM, I'd build the story, and John would play in the campaign as a sort of DM-Player Character, keeping all the rules above board.  

So there we were, three guys putting together a very first ever D&D experience for a group of 12-year-old girls.  It was actually a lot of fun, they took to it pretty quickly.  John, always the DM, was pretty adamant that we keep the game's narrative moving, while I, usually a player, was more focused on just keeping it fun moment-to-moment, but I think we worked together to find a good middle ground.

Why am I writing about this? there was a moment in our gameplay that actually make me question a few things.  The girls had all chosen to play spellcasters of one sort or another... they were a Wizard, a Druid, a Bard, and a Ranger (Dave's daughter picked the Ranger... she had a much clearer vision of what she wanted to be).  Meanwhile, Dave was a fighter and John, our DM-PC, was a cleric.  Essentially, you had the men playing armored warriors, and the girls playing characters that really didn't engage in physical violence.

Now, the game featured a moment when the characters were seperated from the bad guy's base by a wide open field of tall grass.  It was pretty clear that the thing to do was to sneak through the grass, and the girls were all certain they wanted to leave the guys with their big noisey armor behind.  (I imagine the fact that they were essentially the authority figures in their badass girl-band was a factor in it too).  I found myself pointing out... hey, if there are badguys in the grass, how are you gals going to protect yourselves?  None of you are built to fight up close...

Even as I was saying it, I could feel myself unpacking all sorts of stuff in that moment.  How awesome was it that all four girls had picked characters that eshewed the whole idea of up close physical violence?  Moments like that are often central to the game, but why is that?  Is it a gendered idea, to place violence so central to the narrative?  Had *I* done that?  What exactly does it say if I tell these awesome young ladies that they HAVE to conform to this male-dominant perspective to problem solving?

Obviously, a lot of that is nonsense and I was just overthinking it, but it occured to me that this was such a great moment for me to listen and maybe be taught something by these girls.  Maybe I'd see a broader perspective on conflict resolution? Well, they decided to sneak themselves, and watch the two armored teammates walk through the grass noisily... and when they were jumped by the hidden badguys, the girls were free to counter-jump THEM.

I have no idea what the lesson was there, but I can already tell this is going to be a great time.

The Doctor Who post!

Doctor Who can be pretty intimidating. 

Any self-respecting sci-fi nerd has built up an intrinsic need to see ALL of whatever nerd-thing currently has their attention. It's understandable, then, that a lot of us had difficulty wrapping our heads around a show with this much back-story.  How could we possibly start following a show fifty years in?

Of course, now that it's gained a foothold in America, we are finally catching on to the fact that the whole point of the show is that it has too much back-story.  Even if you've watched every single episode ever made (which is impossible, apparently; a bunch of them are lost), you're still not getting all of the doctor's history.  The show basks in it's inscrutableness.  Newcomers and longtime fans alike can swim in the exact same water, and we all have a grand time together.

As a relative newcomer, I find myself wishing I had been following the show back when it was a bit more obscure... but I'm having a lot of fun being one of the thousands of Americans jumping onto this particular bandwagon.  There aren't a ton of classic Who episodes available to us just yet, but there are a few, and I've been making it my business to watch as much of it as I can in an effort to catch up with the old hands.

While I'd LOVE to try to make some observations about which doctors are cooler than others (10 > 4 > 2 > 5 > 9 > 3 > 7 > 11 > 1 > 6 > 8), there isn't much I can say that hasn't already been said.  Instead, to celebrate my finally having watched all the Doctor Who available to me without buying sketchy VHS bootlegs from England, I thought I'd make a list of my favorite companions.  It might seem kind of pointless, but one thing I've noticed in these marathon sessions, is that the companions make or break the show.  It's basically through them that we come to know the Doctor.  Sometimes, the companions are great because of the way their relationship with their particular Doctor makes him a better character, other times, they're awesome all by themselves.  Trying to come up with some system for rating these companions against each other has proved more or less fruitless because their Doctors were so different, so instead, I'll just put them in alphabetically.

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Ace

Ace is very specifically the seventh doctor's companion, which puts her squarely in the late eighties.  He was a small guy wearing a knitted vest and carrying an umbrella, and she was a feisty teenaged girl with a shady background that carried a backpack of explosives that she fired with a slingshot and beat the paint off a Dalek with a bat.  She let the show exist in a post Arnold Schwarzenegger world while allowing the Doctor to stay decidedly intellectual.  It was a fantastic pairing, and while Ace is clearly a product of her time, she was so fantastically spunky you can't help but want to see her come back.

 

Adric

Adric was a product of the Fourth Doctor's time in the TARDIS, which brought us a leotard-wearing wild women, a Time-Lady, and a robot dog.  By that standard, a teenaged mathematical genius refugee from an alternate dimension with advanced healing doesn't seem that farfetched.  Once the Doctor regenerated into his fifth appearance, Adric's seeming arrogance somehow morphed when paired with the Doctor's new, earnestly sweet personality.  It became a desire for approval.  You had this sense of the two of them developing a relationship you hadn't seen the Doctor develop before; he was like a big brother.  Adric is most famous for being the only companion to have died, and his death profoundly affected the Doctor, so much so that his name was the last word the Doctor said before he regenerated.

 

Amy & Rory Pond 

I may be cheating a little bit by including them together, but I don't think anyone can really fault me for this. As the companions of the 11th Doctor, these have been THE companions for most American newcomers to the show, but they stand out among all the companions because of their unique relationship to the Doctor and to each other.  Amy's bond with the Doctor stretches out over her entire life, and because Rory adores her so much, that means that the Doctor is bonded to him as well.  There's something really special about that.  Plus... you know.... there's his in-laws, so there's that.

The Brigadier

Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart was the long-time leader of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, and met the 2nd Doctor in that capacity before the 3rd Doctor served his exile on Earth as the science advisor to UNIT, ostensibly under the Brigadier's authority.  For years, the Brigadier suffered constantly being one-upped by the Doctor, always out of his element, and never once has he ever lost his cool.  He approached every situation with a uncomplicated military focus, providing the Doctor with constant and unerring support.  The Brigadier has appeared again and again across the series.  The character was eventually knighted, and was clear to introduce himself as Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.  Even long after his retirement, he continued to help the Doctor and his companions. 

 

Clara Oswald

  I totally admit I may be jumping the gun on this one, but honestly, in all my Doctor Who marathoning, I haven't seen a single companion leap off the screen like Clara.  She obviously has the benefit of being not only the Doctor's companion but also the big mystery for the season, so she gets a lot of really awesome moments, but even without that, she absolutely crackles. She gets to do so much and BE so much.  She's whip-smart and feisty, compassionate and cheeky, playful and beautiful... and maybe the most important;  she gives the Doctor more of a run-around than any other companion.  Ever.  Out of all of them.  That is absolutely fantastic.

Jack Harkness

I honestly can't imagine why I could possibly need to explain this.  While he brings both a healthy dose of swashbuckly awesomeness to the TARDIS (to say nothing of the notable uptick in hanky-panky), There's something unmistakeably special about Captain Jack.  He's a uniquely fantastic character, and  it's to the Doctor's credit that he can count heroic, immortal ex-con adventurers from the future among his companions.

Jamie McCrimmon

Here's a fun fact about Jaime; He was never written to be a companion.  He was a highland piper in Scotland from the 18th century that met the 2nd Doctor in a series called "The Highlander".  The writers liked him so much, he joined the doctor at the end of the episode.  He went on to be the longest running companion of all time.  Jamie and the Doctor were a fantastic comedy team, they would riff back and forth through adventure after adventure.  He was a brave and loyal friend; always completely out of his element, but sharp enough to, if not work OUT the high technology, then at least work around it.  The character is referenced constantly, throughout the entire series.  He might be one of the few times when the companion was as much the star of the show as the Doctor himself.

 

K-9

I honestly challenge a person to not find K-9 absolutely charming.  Not only does he have a cool laser, and a chipper little voice that is incredibly helpful with all sorts of useful facts... not only does he have all the inherent coolness of being a robot sidekick, which is pretty cool all by itself, but he's also the Doctor's dog!  What relationship could possibly be simpler and more likeable than a dog and it's master?  Of all the companions to part ways with the Doctor, he might have been the only one that you kind of worried about, because the idea of a dog being separated from their master is never a wholly pleasant one under any circumstances, so seeing him happily living with Sarah Jane just filled me with joy.

Leela

Leela was part of the Sevateem tribe, descendants of a survey team that crashed on a distant planet in the far future.  She barged into the TARDIS and demanded that he take her with him.  She is clearly designed to be a sort of Eliza Doolittle character, a wild girl for him to slowly 'tame' over time, but of course, it didn't exactly work out that way.  Leela was a little too badass, and her trademark leather leotards proved to be a little too popular with the dads watching the show.  You can't possibly not include Leela;  there have been other warrior characters in the TARDIS, but Leela stands out as one of the great female television heroes like Wonder Woman or Charlie's Angels.  They all had an element of cheesecake to them, but they used it to really kick butt and enhance the possibilities for women as action characters. Doctor Who got to be a part of that because of Leela.  

Peri Brown

The 5th Doctor had a very crowded TARDIS.  He never had less than two companions at any time, and often had more.  Peri was one of his last companions, and was the only one to remain after the regeneration of the 6th Doctor... who immediately tried to kill her.  The 5th Doctor had been such a gentle, generous soul, and he and Peri had a very dear friendship, that this sudden change was almost as jarring to us as it surely was for her.  It might even be safe to say that it put a lot of viewers off the 6th Doctor right out of the gate.  But the fact was, the 6th Doctor was a very complicated incarnation, who had been traumatized in his regeneration, and had dense layers of anger and frustration built up around him.  He was a difficult Doctor to sympathize with, and it took a very special companion to help us do it.  Peri saw that her friend was troubled and stood by him.  She chose to see the good person under the ridiculous patchwork jacket, and it went a long way toward helping us see him too.  Peri gets written off a lot because they tended to dress her to show off her body, but the fact is, she's probably the main reason that the show continued during this period.

Rose Tyler

I think it's safe to say that modern Dr. Who fans owe quite a bit to Rose.  When the new series started, there was a clear new focus on the relationship between The Doctor and his companion.  It was pretty important that they find just the right person to share the TARDIS.  Rose was more independent, more capable, more dynamic than so many of the companions before her had been.  There have been other companions that seemed to have feelings for the Doctor, but the relationship that grew between these two was certainly unique. You really did watch them grow to love each other, and to have the Doctor continue on without her (even after we discovered that she wasn't going to have to carry on without him) was perhaps the most painful reminder of his endless loneliness.

Sarah Jane Smith

Sarah Jane started as the 3nd Doctor's companion, but went on to travel with the 4th for many years.  Jaime has been in more actual episodes, The Brigadier has been a recurring character for longer, and Tegan (the 5th Doctor's displaced air stewardess who didn't want to be there) was there for more seasons, but when you add in Sarah's appearance in modern Doctor Who,  her own spin-off series the Sarah Jane Chronicles, and the pilot for K-9 & Company she's actually put in more hours than any other companion.  The reason is pretty simple: she is widely regarded as the most beloved companion ever.  She was funny, she was brave, she was feisty, and strong, and determined... almost the equal to the Doctor himself.  The extraordinary thing about that is that she managed to do it in a time when it just wasn't done.  Women just didn't get to be heroic, they were victims or they were decorations.  She brought a can-do spirit, a brightness, and an overall aura of being a real, wonderful person that we all wanted to call our friend.  Almost every companion that followed owes a least part of who they are to Sarah Jane.

Susan Foreman

The very first companion of the 1st Doctor, Susan has one incredibly unique quality that makes her unique among all the companions that have come since:  she was the Doctor's grandaughter.  This meant that she herself was a Time-Lord, and implied quite a bit about the Doctor's life before he stole the TARDIS: He had been a father, and a grandfather.  Susan was adorable and endearing, and yet had an other-worldliness about her, something that made her feel apart from humanity.  There has been another Time-Lord companion in Romana, but Susan's relationship with the Doctor is obviously completely unprecedented.  The existence of Susan does more to effect the story of the Doctor than any other companion there has ever been.

Vislor Turlough

The 5th Doctor had quite a few companions, but Vislor didn't only stand out among them, bit among all the companions there have ever been.  He was an assassin, and he had been tasked with killing the Doctor.  The idea of a character like that existing in the Doctor Who universe is fascinating all by itself, but to have him falling in with the crew of the TARDIS made him absolutely fascinating.  Then, of course, there was his incredibly striking look.  He was tall, slender, and elegant, somehow coming across as incredibly dangerous.  I'm not sure if I'm the only person that felt like there was a vague notion that he might have been gay, but whether he was or not, he was nonetheless an absolutely striking character.  It was such a unique energy to have on the TARDIS, and one that was really special.

Zoe Heriot

While Sarah Jane was really the first truly modern female companion for whom the role of "confident, smart, capable woman" didn't seem more or less painted on, Zoe might have been the first companion to present the idea at all.  Zoe was a catsuited, kung-fu fighting astrophysicist with a photographic memory.  She was from the distant future, and was so incredibly bright she often outsmarted the 2nd Doctor.  There have been spunky, sexy companions, tough, resourceful companions, and brilliant companions; but was the very first that was all of those at once.

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There have been SO many companions, and while these are my favorites, there have been so many stand out moments of so many characters.  Even after all this marathon viewing, I still have quite a bit to go. Classic Doctor Who is still a tricky thing to watch in it's entirety, and I'm sure I have quite a few moments of falling in love with other companions in front of me.  Even as Doctor Who moves on into a new era, going back to watch these classics is going to be a unique joy.

A Real-Life Electric Mayhem

If you were to have to pick one band in the entire history of music to call the greatest band of all time, it would do little more than start a sizable argument.  No one band can be all things to all people.

Except that's not true at all.  There is one band.  the greatest band of all time. 

Doctor Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. 

 

If there's any one downside to the Mayhem, it would be the fact that they aren't actual people.  This particular combination of talent and musical style creates an absolutely epic, universally loved sound, but its kind of hard to put together a tour when all the members of the band don't have legs.

But what if we could somehow make a real life Electric Mayhem?  Could you find just the right combination of musicians, from the whole of musical history, to give the world our very own Greastest Band of All Time?  Let's take a stab at it! 

Dr. Teeth

 

 The leader of the Electric Mayhem, Dr. Teeth is a bombastic, flamboyant piano legend that plays the electric organ, and who can somehow manage to turn any song into a rock anthem.

Real Life Dr. Teeth: Dr. John

This is the easiest leap to make: Dr. Teeth is based on Dr. John, the legendary king of blues, jazz, and zydeco infused boogie woogie, which is basically the meat in the Electric Mayhem sandwich.  Dr. Teeth's stage costumes are based heavily on Elton John's early peacock & giant glasses ensembles; but musically, he's all Dr. John.

Janice

Janice is sunny, sexy lead guitarist of the Electric Mayhem.  She sings backup and often takes lead, and her airy, California look belies her ability to absolutely shred.

Real Life Janice: Grace Potter



















The leader of the popular festival rock band Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, Grace is a brilliant songwriter, a fantastic guitarist and piano player, and has a voice that is at once beautiful and full of funk, but more than anything else, she is an absolutely world-class frontperson.  Everything about the Nocturnals is infused with her incredibly soulful, deep-from-the-belly-of-rock sound.  The fact that she happens to be a beautiful blonde certainly doesn't HURT, but it's her incredible talent and luminous stage presence that makes her our girl.

Floyd Pepper













Floyd is that bassist for the Electric Mayhem, and while he's an old blues guy deep in his heart, he throws down with his bass, keeping up with the fastest and most talented musicians in the world.  His gravely voice is often singing backup for the Mayhem, but he'll also sometime take lead when the song requires someone with a little more soul.

Real Life Floyd Pepper: Lemmy Kilmister













Anyone that makes a list of the best bassists of all time that doesn't end with Lemmy is out of their mind.  The leader of Motörhead, his gravely voice and downright explosive bass helped pave the way for the second British invasion, and inspired an entire generation of thrash metal musicians.  While Floyd and Lemmy might have a different playing style (Floyd tends to err on a more bluesy sound, while Lemmy prefers something more akin to a runaway freight train) the consummate musicianship and talent more that make up for the subtle difference between them.

Zoot

The super laid-back saxophonist for the Mayhem, Zoot is a committed, working musician, never all that interested in the spotlight, just content to jam out and play some righteous tunes.   His distinct sound is part of what makes the Electric Mayhem so unique.

Real Life Zoot: Alto Reed

While Clarence Clemons of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band might be the more easily recognizable rock band sax player, for my money there's no single saxophonist that rocks quite so hard without getting recognition as Alto Reed.  A long time member of Bon Seager's Silver Bullet Band, Alto played the legendary riff that begins the song "Turn the Page", as well as the solo in "Old Time Rock & Roll".  He's also played with George Thorogood, Grand Funk Railroad, Foghat and the goddamn Blues Brothers.  This is a guy with Rock & Blues pumping through him instead of blood.  Just like Zoot, he's not looking for the spotlight... he's just here to jam.

Animal

Easily the heart and soul of the Mayhem, Animal is their completely and quite literally feral drummer.  He might be a little hard to keep contained (he has to be kept on a chain while they're not playing), His intense love for his drums and unbridled ferocity while playing makes him an absolute icon on the instrument.

Real Life Animal:  Keith Moon












Widely considered one of the two or three greatest drummers of all time, Keith Moon was the legendary drummer for The Who until his untimely death in 1978.  His completely wild style of drumming was a cornerstone of one of the best bands of the British invasion.  He would detonate his drums during performances, hurl TV's out of hotel windows... I wouldn't be surprised if Animal & Keith Moon hung out as kids.

Lips

Lips was the trumpet player in the Muppet Show Orchestra, alongside the members of the Electric Mayhem.  After several years of jamming with them, he started to join the Mayhem onstage. While he has some blues experience, he differs from the other musicians in the Mayhem in that his experience is more in big brass bands and less in rock & roll.

Real Life Lips: Herb Albert

The founder of Herb Albert's Tijuana Brass Band, the group responsible for bringing a lively, world-music sound to the big brass revue.  They were one of the highest-paid performing acts in the mid-sixties, and went on to earn dozens of Gold & Platinum records as well as eight grammies.  While Herb is clearly a big brass player of the highest order, he's also a very successful expressionist painter & sculptor.  His willingness to branch into other arts and his cutting edge approach to the big brass sound make him an ideal choice to be the Mayhem's resident big brass player.

Rowlf the Dog

While Rowlf was never a member of the Mayhem, and never performed as part of the group, he was a very good friend of the band, and played a lot of the same shows, usually performing alone with his piano, interspersing his music with clever anecdotes and quick one-liner jokes. 

Real Life Rowlf the Dog: Zach Galifianakis

Depending on who you ask, Zach Galifianakis is either a fantastic comedian or just a descent one, but setting that aside, he's always played piano during his act, spouting out surreal half-jokes.  If the Mayhem are going to have an opening act like Rowlf, Zach might just be the absolute best choice. 

And that's my attempt to create a real-life Electric Mayhem. it actually turned out better that I had imagined; this particular combination of artists might actually be able to turn out music on par with the greatest band of all time.  What do you think?

My top 20 most anticipated movies of 2012

I love movies. Even more than that, though, I love being a fan of movies. Following different projects as they develop has always been a lot of fun, and anticipating upcoming movies will always be a joy of mine.

I maintain a list of upcoming movies on my phone along with their release dates. It's a great reference; You'd be surprised how often release dates come up in conversation. Also, it's a fun way to keep track of all the different projects that spark your interest.

This, year, though... the list has gotten pretty long There are a LOT of exciting movies coming out this year, as well as some ridiculous ones, some fascinating ones, some promising ones, and SOME that I'm going to have to watch despite my better judgement.

Rather than subject you to the entire list, here's the top 20, with as brief an explanation as to WHY they're on the list as I could muster. If the movie has a trailer, I put in links so you could check them out for yourself.

#20 - Red Dawn (November 2nd)

 They filmed the Red Dawn Remake back in 2009. Chris Hemsworth was in it, as well as Josh Hutcherson and Adrianne Palicki. I don’t imagine that the idea of a group of photogenic teenagers fighting an invading army is going to be any more believable this time around, but I'm still fascinated by this thing. First, the release was delayed by MGM’s financial troubles, the same troubles that sidelined Skyfall for so long. Then there was all this talk in the Chinese media that this movie was indicative of a sweeping American animosity toward the China, so they altered the invading army to North Korea in post production. Now it finally has a distributor, and is on it’s way. There hasn’t been a trailer or anything, and honestly, there’s no reason to think it’s going to be anything special. I think I’m just fascinated by the IDEA of it. 

#19 - Expendables 2 (August 17th)

I don’t think anyone is going to argue with me when I say that The Expendables was not a good movie. I saw it in the theater, own the DVD... I’ve sat through this quite a few times, and I still couldn’t tell you a single line of dialogue from this movie. It’s like the opposite of a silent film: people are talking, but you don’t retain any of it, because it just doesn’t matter. That said, I love this movie. Of COURSE I love this movie. I don’t see how you can call yourself a movie fan and NOT love this movie. It’s the cinematic equivalent of banging your action figures together. Click the word ‘large’ next to the small poster up there to see it in full size... this is the movie I used to dream about when I was 11. the fact that they’ve added Chuck Norris and Jean Claude Van Damme to this steaming pile of awesome just makes it that much more ridiculous. It will very likely suck. I plan on smuggling in a burger.

#18 - The Bourne Legacy (August 3rd)

I like the Bourne movies as much as anyone. As much as the narrative started to wander, it was a fun, consistently rewarding series. Still, I just don’t see how anyone benefits from revamping the series under the director of Duplicity. Do we need a sequel THAT badly?

Still... Jeremy Renner. I absolutely love every single second of screen time this guy has ever had. Every time he shows up in ANYTHING, he’s the best part of that thing. I’m honestly less excited about this as a continuation of the Bourne series, and more because it’s Jeremy Renner starring in his own action movie. He’s absolutely awesome. I almost feel like the Bourne series isn’t cool enough for him.

#17 - Skyfall (November 9th)

I’m totally aware that not everyone likes the Daniel Craig James Bond. Honestly, it’s valid... it’s a real revisionist version of the character. There’s no gadgets to speak of, no suave banter... the violence is a lot more gratuitous, and James is actually kind of hard to like. Somehow, though, I really enjoy the result. There hasn’t been much said about this movie, other than it was going to be testing James’s relationship with Judy Dench’s M... I’m of the opinion that she’s going to have to step down and be replaced by a new M. You can see the trappings of the classic Bond slowly building around this version of the character: I’m expecting both Q and Moneypenny to show up in this one. James Bond movies don’t really need to win you over, though... you always know you’re going to see them.

#16 - The Amazing Spider-man (July 3rd)

Man, have I fought this movie. I wasn’t super loyal to the old Spider-man movies, but I was a staunch supporter of marvel getting back the full rights to all it’s characters so they can be folded into the marvel movie universe proper... so the fact that Fox still has the X-men and Sony still has Spider-man really bugged me. And of course, they have to crank out sub-par movies just to retain the rights, so naturally, any x-men or spider-man movies couldn’t be good anymore.

Except X-men: first class was probably the best one yet. One theory down. I just chocked it up to the fact that Matthew Vaughn directed it, as the guy clearly can’t make a bad movie. The Spider-man movie though... this was going to suck!

God, look at that cast. every single choice is PERFECT. If only this cast was going to be in a GOOD Spider-man movie! I mean, look at these early previews! It looks all twilight-ish!

Actually... this looks an awful lot like the comics. Maybe the type of teen drama they were trying to infuse it with actually fits better into a movie than the kinetic comedy of the old movies... still... the costume is different, and he moves weird. Sam Rami really had the MOVEMENT of Spider-man down...

He has actual web-shooters. He’s a teenage genius, just like the comics. The layers of guilt and angst are so familiar. The action looks so smooth and vibrant... and right out of the comics. Everything about this movie looks REALLY good.

I’ve completely run out of reasons to not look forward to this movie. I’m still hoping against hope that it will suck... but I have this sneaking feeling that it’s going to be fantastic and I’m going to be disappointed.

#15 - Total Recall (August 3rd)

I don’t go latching onto every remake that comes along, but I'm not against them either. Some remakes are really good (in fact, i usually site Fright Night as an example, and that happens to have Collin Farrell too). In this case, there’s quite a lot going on that should make this worth watching.

As much as the original movie had going for it: Paul Verhoven, gratuitous violence, three-boobed aliens, height-of-his-coolness Arnold, some of the best action movie one-liners EVER... the one thing that’s kind of lost in the shuffle is the fact that it’s based on the Phillip K Dick short story ‘We Can Remember It For You Wholesale’. A lot of Dick’s stuff has been made into movies, but it’s usually reworked as an action movie. The exception is Blade Runner, which is based on ‘Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep’, and even that is drastically reworked. The difference is that Phillip K Dick and Ridley Scott had a great deal of respect for each other, and were aware and appreciative of every difference Scott was putting into his movie. The result was two very different stories that are both strengthened by the existence of the other. None of the other movies based on Dick’s work have that sort of fusion of the two versions of the story into a more complete whole, and it would be fantastic to see that happen. There’s no real strong evidence that this movie is any closer to the source material than the Arnold movie, but even if isn’t, watching it from this perspective is going to be very fun. 

#14 - World War Z (December 12th)

It's gotten quite fashionable lately to say that you're tired of zombies. they're so prolific in pop culture lately, I guess I can kind of see where they're coming from... but the fact is, good stories don't go out of style. Every time a superhero movie doesn't perform well, they say it's the end of superhero movies. And yet invariably, for every Green Lantern we get a Captain America. It's not superhero movies that are going out of style, it's BAD superhero movies. Zombie stories are no different. As uninteresting as Walking Dead is getting, the comic Walking Dead is still as amazing as ever. For every monotonous droning zombie you gun down in Call of Duty, there's the constant melee scramble of Dead Island. There's always room for awesome stories, and World War Z is a fantastic one. Based on the book by Max Brooks, the guy who wrote the utterly game-changing Zombie Survival Guide, it's an oral history of the world-wide zombie apocalypse. It's full of remarkably unique, human stories.

The movie has to share it's visual cues with the dozens of other zombie movies out there, and so it's already losing a part of what made it unique. Also, they're changing the setting slightly, so instead of a journalist collecting stories of the war after the fact, it's during the initial outbreak. I really don't know what this is going to do to the movie, but the fact is, Brad Pitt can do any movie he WANTS, so it's often a good sign for a project when he's in it. Add the fact that Marc Foster is directing it, and this becomes a very interesting movie to watch for.

#13 - The Dark Knight Rises (July 30th)

The question isn't why this movie is on the list, but what it's doing so far down. The Dark Knight was a uniquely fantastic movie, and anyone that's a fan of genre movies should be chomping at the bit to see Chris Nolan's seminal Batman cycle complete. The fact is, I'm actually worried that the expectations for this movie have been raised to the point where they're pretty much unreachable. As fantastic as Nolan's Batman is, make no mistake, Dark Knight was Heath Ledger's show. His Joker was instantly recognizable as one of the greatest character creations in film history, and a movie that was already really good rode the wave of that performance. without him, you're left with a still really good movie, but not nearly AS good... essentially, you get a sequel to Batman Begins. That's more of what I'm expecting this time around, a movie that's just about as good as Batman Begins.... which is to say, VERY good, but not one of the best genre movies ever like the Dark Knight.

Granted, if this movie really delivers on it's promise of being the end of Nolan's Batman, I might just eat my words. If Nolan has the balls to actually kill Bruce Wayne, then I take it all back. The man already just might be worthy of being counted on the lists of the greatest filmmakers in history, with Coppela, Hitchcock, and Orson Wells. If he actually does deliver on the expectations heaped on this movie, it's going to be legendary.

#12 - Lockout (April 20th)

I've tried three or four times to come up with a clever thing to say about this movie, but the fact is, it basically defies any attempt to analyze, belittle, praise or even describe it, because it's SO right down the middle. It's as straight-forward an action concept as I can ever remember seeing... something right out of Escape from New York, and Guy Pierce looks like he's building a simple but timeless action hero right out of the Snake Pliskin mold. All this movie has to do is deliver on it's basic concept, and it's already looking to be one of the most fun movies of the year. 

#11 - Django Unchained (December 25th)

I was born in '79, which means I turned 11 in 1990. This means a few things for me: the Stone Temple Pilots will always be one of my favorite bands. Flannel is comfortable and looks awesome. Michelangelo is a party dude. Quentin Tarantino is one of the coolest directors there is. No matter how much the guy seems to love to hear himself talk, I'm still going to watch every single thing he ever does. This one looks to be very much in the same vein as Ingloreous Basterd, where we all enjoy watching vengeance be exacted on someone who really deserves it. This time, it's southern slave owners getting taken down by an ex-slave trained to be a bounty hunter. I have no idea if it's going to follow the pattern of his last movie, where it mostly became an elaborate talky instead of having a lot of action... I'm guessing it will. I also absolutely don't care. This will be awesome.

#10 - The Hobbit (December 14th)

I have a confession to make. I'm kind of done with the Lord of the Rings. I absolutely acknowledge that both the original books and the movies themselves are benchmarks in the world of fantasy and genre entertainment of the highest order, to say nothing of the fact that they are also among the greatest movies ever made. I'm just not as entertained by them as I used to be. Clearly, it's me... my tastes run more to sci-fi, and I just run out of patience somewhere. I can still watch them and be entertained, but nine hour marathons just aren't doing it for me anymore.

Which is kind of why the Hobbit is looking good to me. It's the same exquisite design, the same craftsmanship... but without the huge weight of the story behind it. the Hobbit was a children's book. It's simpler, sweeter. I can join my fellow nerds at the Tolkien table without committing to six courses.

Of course, there's also a very good chance that whatever is keeping me from really loving the Tolkien movies will pass, and this will wind up being one of my favorite movies of all time. That would be pretty cool.

#9 - Dredd (September 21st)

For people that only know of Judge Dredd from the Stalone movie, this might seem like a weird choice. The character debuted in the British sci-fi anthology 2000 AD in 1977. He's been an ongoing feature in that magazine ever since. He's a fantastic creation, a long-running fixture of sci-fi the likes of which you really don't see outside of Doctor Who, but with a decidedly Heavy Metal bent. If you can somehow get this character the way he REALLY is in the comic onto the big screen, it's going to be unlike anything you've ever seen.

Enter Karl Urban. There are only a few actors that manage to consistently be the best part of any movie they're in, but it can only happen so many times before you start to recognize that it MIGHT not be a fluke. He was very vocal early on about having read Judge Dredd comics since he was in his teens. Fans will recognize this for what it is... it's almost impossible to try to explain the nuances of this character to someone unfamiliar with him, but you IMMEDIATELY know when someone is getting him wrong. The thing Karl said that solidified this movie for me was his insistence that he would never do a Judge Dredd movie where Dredd took off his helmet. That was key. The movie has an actual Judge Dredd fan on board, and now, I can't wait to see it.

#8 - The Avengers (May 4th)

Remember the end of Iron Man, when Nick Fury showed up, and mentioned the Avengers? I do. I had never been really, truly overwhelmed by a movie before. I knew this was the very first movie Marvel had ever done on it's own, and there was a CHANCE they might try to do what I had been dreaming about my whole life, but I had never imagined it possible. To make a unified universe of marvel superhero movies? I had been casting and writing treatments for these things since I was 16.

And here it is. The Avengers. It's happening. I'm trying to be at least a little bit rational with my expectations about this movie... I really doubt that they can hold on to the cohesion of all the disparate elements going into this movie. Joss Whedon might be a reigning king among nerds, but make no mistake, this is a man that lives to make you fall in love with something so he can kill it and make you watch. There's almost certainly no way this movie can ever be as amazing as I want it to be...

But it's not going to matter. I'm going to be vibrating out of sheer giddiness for the entire thing. I'm probably not going to be able speak for several hours before or after.

#7 - Hunger Games (March 23rd)

I’m not going make you sit through ANOTHER anti-twilight rant by an angry hater, because by this point they make up about 15% of the Internet, but suffice to say, I’m not a fan. But there has been some good coming from Twilight, and that's the massive backlash against it. Twilight has illuminated a large audience for romantic fantasy, but most people that aren't obsessive fans have all recognized that the biggest weakness of Twilight is the weakness of it's heroine. A character can be uncertain, can be human, but doesn't have to be helpless. There are several stories out there that are certainly influenced by Twilight, but give us heroines that empower us.

The Hunger Games is a lot more than just the cure for Twilight, though. This story is fantastic, and it seems like it's being handled with exceptional care. It's been a lot of fun to follow the development of this project, and while I know I'll be sitting in the theater with a lot of twi-moms eager to fall in love with Liam Hemsworth, but I take a lot of comfort in knowing that, if this movie does what it just might do, they're more likely to fall in love with the version of Katniss that they find inside themselves.
 
#6 - Brave (June 22nd)

Pixar movies have been distributed by Disney forever, but they were finally purchased by them outright a few years ago. The shift was subtle, but noticeable... after a long history of making some of the greatest movies ever (anyone going to argue with that? didn't think so), they followed up Toy Story 3 with Cars 2. They're currently working on Monsters University, the sequel to Monsters Inc. You can't really blame Disney... it's obviously more profitable to use existing franchises with established audiences, but are you REALLY going to try to tell the studio that made Up that they can't make original stories? No. Of course you're not. They might be capitalists, but that would be utterly inhuman. The very fact that this is a new story from Pixar should pretty much be reason enough for anyone to get excited about it, but watching the trailer, I think I'd be excited about this story no matter who was telling it. I love celtic stuff. I adore stories about heroines overcoming society's expectations of them. Kelly Macdonald is one of my absolute favorite actresses in the world, mostly because of her voice.

These are small details, though. I don't know how often Pixar is going to be able to do these original stories anymore now that they are going to be working on all these sequels... but when they get a chance, they consistently make movies that can only be measured against the greatest movies ever made. This is the definition of must-see. 

#5 - Looper (September 28th)

One of my favorite movies is Brick, a low-budget crime thriller written and directed by Rian Johnson. It was his first movie, and in addition to being the movie that cemented Joseph Gordon-Levitt as one of my favorite will-watch-anything-he-does actors, it also has the absolute best dialogue in anything, ever. Rian's new movie is the first time he and Joe have worked together since Brick, and the concept is just too cool to pass up. It's set in the near-future, shortly before the invention of time travel. The idea is that once time travel DOES exist, criminals that want to have someone eliminated will send them back to before the invention of time travel where hitmen called loopers kill them, and dispose of the body. It's a pretty genius concept and an application of time travel that honestly has never occurred to me. The twist comes when Joe's looper is sent his latest victim, and realizes that it's actually himself from the future. This is the sort of genre story idea that you just never get anymore, and the fact that it's coming from an actor-director team that I'm such a huge fan of just makes it all that much better.

Oh... and future Joe is played by Bruce Willis. Perfect :)

#4 - Iron Sky (April 4th)

I actually have no idea what's going on with this movie. It came out of absolutely nowhere. As best as I can figure, it's going to be some kind of limited release. It might actually be a European production... I couldn't tell you. All I CAN say is that this is clearly the sort of remarkably stupid idea that leads to pure, unfiltered, straight-from-the-rockies badassery. It purports that the Nazis had a base in Antarctica in 1945 where they started their space program.

I'm going to type that out one more time, so you get to read it again. Nazi space program.

It goes on to say that the Nazis landed on the moon in the forties, and built a base on the dark side where they prepared for their return. The final result is this: in 2018, Earth is invaded by Moon Nazis.

The sheer lunacy of this whole thing can only mean the movie will be either horrible beyond belief or an instant classic. It definitely seems to have it's tongue planted firmly in it's cheek. A lot of the other trailers feature heaps of anachronistic humor, and their depiction of the US president has more than a passing resemblance to a certain ex-governor of Alaska...

This is what movies are SUPPOSED to be like. Even if it totally fails, I'm going to love it, I can already tell.

#3 - Prometheus (June 8th)

This movie was originally conceived as a prequel to Alien featuring the "space jockeys"- the giant alien spaceman whose ship houses the original xenomorph eggs. I've talked to people who insist that if it DOESN'T have xenomorphs in it, then it will be a complete failure. I guess I can sort of see their point: Alien is completely awesome. Still... if this was just another Alien movie, I wouldn't be nearly as excited about it. I want an ORIGINAL Ridley Scott sci-fi movie... the same Ridley who gave us Alien and Blade Runner. The guy has a unique vision, and the notion of revisiting that vision is irresistible. The fact that the movie features Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Charlize Theron, Patrick Wilson... just a PILE of awesomeness. Watch the trailer. With luck, this is going to blow my mind. 
#2 - Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (June 22nd)

If the title alone doesn't win you over, then there's not much I can do for you.

Seth Grahame-Smith wrote Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. He did NOT write Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters or any of the myriad other sub-par follow-ups. His actual second book was Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which took the idea of working a fun genre conceit into a classic story and made it way, way better by using the life story of Lincoln, stirring in one of best versions of vampires in recent memory, and then spinning the whole thing on it's ear. The way he remixed the history of slavery in America with the secret existence of vampires running all the way back to Jamestown really has to be experienced. It is, simply, a great story. I have no idea how faithful the movie is going to be to the source material, but the source material is SO good, this movie has jumped all the way up to number 2.

#1 - John Carter (March 9th)

John Carter is based on Princess of Mars, the 100 year old novel written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the inventor of Tarzan. It was the first book of his Barsoom series. Before this, science fiction was best exemplified by the works of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells, which were masterful introductions of applied scientific IDEAS being used as the basis for fantastic stories. It wasn't until Burroughs Barsoom series that the idea of a science fiction landscape was applied on a massively grand scale. It creates some of the most titanic action and adventure sequences EVER, laying the groundwork for all the science fiction that came to follow over the next century. The character of John Carter is part of the genesis of so many amazing science fiction characters, from classic serial heroes like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers to Luke, Han and Kirk. John Criton, Starbuck, Commander Shepard, Malcom Reynolds... they all owe a tip of the hat to John Carter.

Princess of Mars has been a favorite book of mine for a very long time. It's a surreal experience... to have something so incredibly Metal exist before they even invented rock & roll, but there really is no better word for it. This book is METAL. It's like Burroughs was deliberately thinking "what is the most insane, ass-kicking thing I can write?" The sheer epic awesomeness of this book can't be overstated. Everyone needs to read it.

This version is being made by Disney, but not the Jerry Bruckheimer Disney. This is actually the Pixar Disney. Andrew Stanton, the Oscar-winning director of Finding Nemo and Ratatouille is making his live-action debut. This might seem a little odd from an action-movie standpoint, but trust me; this story sells itself, action-wise. What it means is that it's being stewarded by a MASTERFUL storyteller, and someone very familiar with the nuances of the abundant computer effects this movie will need. Honestly, I don't think I can think of a better set of circumstances for one of my favorite stories of all time to be hitting the big screen.

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And that's it. I'd LOVE to hear what you have to say about this list, or even better, what YOUR list looks like. Let me know!