30 Days of DC Meme. Day 8: Favorite Film

I'm cross-posting this directly from Tumblr, because I have no idea how the comments work over there, and was hoping to foster some discussion.

Okay. Hear me out on this. I've written a little bit about this in various places, but let me try to filter everything into a bulletted list of why I like this movie. I completely understand some of the criticisms (and welcome discussion), but to me this is my absolutely favorite comic adaptation. That should be considered something separate than a comic movie, really, since the Superman, Iron Man, Spider-Man, etc. movies may be based off a bunch of things (focusing on origins usually) but aren't direct adaptations of a singular story. Still, they're all comic movies and they should all be considered.

• First, please watch the gorgeous opening sequence. This is about 40 pages worth of comic (and prose) back story set to the perfect song and turned into a poignant, nostalgic, perfect look back at this past that is not-quite our past. They should have won an Oscar for Best Short Film for this. I could watch over and over.
• Second, I know it wasn't completely faithful to the storyline. No giant squid (oh dear, I've spoiled you). But I felt that what they did do worked perfectly as a 21st century adaptation of the story. We're facing an energy crisis in a completely different way than they were when the story was written. Not giving us immediate access to the electric cars of the original story, having it be something tangible that comes out of Adrian's mass destruction (which was no longer limited only to NYC, thankfully), made the sacrifice of the people, and of Doctor Manhattan, much more poignant. We, as a nation, made it through 9/11. England made it through 7/7. Madrid... there are places where bombings and terrorism bring people together for a bit. And then we're divided again. I think Adrian's plan was a perfect way, in this new age of terrorism that is nothing at all like they were dealing with 25 years ago, to get his goal accomplished.
• Casting. Damn fine casting. My only dislike was Adrian, and that was minor.
• Get over the blue penis, people. Seriously.
• They obviously put so much care into set design, costume, etc. that it really felt like the comic had come to life. Even if there were cuts from the story and things changed, I felt like I was watching one of my all time favorite comic books come alive in front of me.
• This movie was made with love by a fan for fans. And as a fan, I appreciated that. And loved it.

Casting the Batwoman Movie

After my post on adaptations, I got to thinking about a Batwoman movie. So I posited a question on Twitter: Who would I cast as Kate Kane? I already knew who my Montoya would be. Then I started thinking about the other roles in the series, and I had a lot of fun just clicking around the internet looking for good fits, so I decided to turn it into an entire blog post, with pictures, pros, cons, and various geekery.

Enjoy.

Hopefully. :)

Kate Kane/Batwoman - My friend Stewart suggested Amy Adams. At first I reacted "huh, Giselle?" and then I remembered her as Amelia Earhart in that movie about the museum with what's-his-face from Zoolander. I know Amy Adams can be adorable. I know she has red hair and very little skin pigmentation. But can she be Kate Kane? I think playing Kate Kane may be even harder than playing Batwoman. After all, with Batwoman you have the costume to get you into character. Once you put that symbol on your chest, I think it makes a huge difference (even with nipples, Clooney did better at Batman than Christian Bale does). But Kate is a non-stereotypical lesbian. She's neither completely butch nor completely femme, and Hollywood generally doesn't know what to do with that (that includes writers, directors, casting directors, and actors). And of course there's that whole spectrum of what it means to be butch and femme, blah blah blah.

I guess I wonder if Amy Adams can pull it off. I don't know. I maybe wouldn't mind seeing her try. She doesn't make any less sense than, say, Heath Ledger, and everyone thought he was a great Joker. Okay, she makes slightly less sense than Heath Ledger.

For a very different and competing opinion, I sort of like Christina Hendricks in the role. I know, I know the curvy Joan of Mad Men is ultra feminine, and Kate isn't, necessarily. But, well, Kate's drawn busty (like almost every other comic book heroine), and Christina Hendricks has done a good job at playing kick-ass, during her two episode stint as Saffron in Firefly. And, actually, Joan is sort of kick-ass herself, in that bound-by-the-sixties sort of way. (For any MM fan interested in a really interesting article about how Joan is a more interesting character than Peggy, read this.)

Here's the thing. I think Hendricks could pull of not only Batwoman (who has a tendency to be hyperfeminine and sexual) but also Kate Kane, whose femininity is a bit more restrained, but who is still a ballsy, alpha-type woman. And, again, the way Kate is drawn is actually very similar to Christina Hendrick's body type.

Yeah, I think I've found my Kate Kane.


Renee Montoya/The Question: Sarah Shahi. Hands down, no questions, absolutely Sarah Shahi. I know there are people that like Michelle Rodriguez for this role, but no.

This woman should play Renee:

Uh huh.

Now, there's more than just looks to back this one up. First, she's played a cop before. Dani Reese in Life, who was a hard-ass, wise-cracking, recovering-addict detective. Basically Renee Montoya. Second, she's played gay before. Carmen de la Pica Morales in The L Word, where she had weird toilet sex with Mia Kirshner. Once you act out weird toilet sex, playing a faceless, kick-ass lesbian PI who macks on Batwoman and gets involved in a Religion of Crime should be a cake walk.

Third, she's a brown belt in karate, which means she could at least be quasi-believable in some of the Question's martial arts-heavy fight scenes.

Fourth, she's Renee Montoya.

Case closed, appeals denied.

Maggie Sawyer - With the understanding that she's going to be somewhat important as the series develops, I figured "what the heck." I like Laura Harris from Dead Like Me and Women's Murder Club, but she definitely seems a bit young/soft for the job. Then again, if Amy Adams is Kate, well. We're skewing a bit younger than I think the characters actually are in the books anyway. So maybe she could work.

Stewart suggested Mariska Hargitay, and I can't say I disagree with him. Around seasons 3 and 4 of Special Victims Unit, she was perfect. But that was a lot of years ago, and I don't know if she could pull Maggie off right now.

So while Laura Harris might be too young, Mariska Hargitay might be too old. Not that I couldn't see having Maggie be a bit older than Kate. That could work, too. And since this is sort of a dream cast, I guess we could just take that Mariska Hargitay from back then and put her in. Hm.

I could go either way, really. I'd have to sit in on the audition and see who has the best chemistry with our lead, because Kate and Maggie already have some very nice chemistry in only a few panels of one issue of Detective Comics. I am, however, a Renee/Kate shipper, so I'm sticking fast with that. Still, definitely important that the actress be able to do well against our Batwoman, since Maggie's apparently going to be her version of Commissioner Gordon.

Edit: A reader, Nikki, has recommended Katee Sackhoff for the role of Maggie. DUH. Wow, great suggestion. She's a great balance of feminine and masculine, can kick ass, and can command a group of people. Also I wouldn't mind seeing her in a tux, either.



Alice - Mia Kirshner. I know I'm sort of double-dipping in the The L Word pot, but take a look:

Now imagine her white-blonde.

Yeah.

Mia Kirshner is a fantastic actress. If you're not familiar with her work, go rent more independent films (she also played Sarah in The Crow: City of Angels, so there's that comic link), and her character, Jenny, on The L Word was completely nuts by the last two seasons (check out this great compilation from S5 NSFW). She'd be perfect.


Colonel Kane - I'm going to go with JK Simmons on this. I just really like the guy and think he has great range (have you seen him in Oz or Law and Order: Special Victims Unit?). I think he could pull off a ex-military, sort-of-traumatized, loves-his-daughter-but-worries-about-her kind of dad. Kind of like a cross between the Juno dad and the SVU shrink. Totally. It's also occured to me that I don't know Colonel Kane's first name (besides "sir" or "dad"), so maybe I'm not particularly wed to the character just yet. Still, I think JK Simmons could pull it off, and be good in the roll. And I'm a fan of the guy.

Okay, there we go, my picks for the main roles of a Batwoman movie. I'd love to get input if you've got any. Or if there are any other roles out there you think I ought to cast (I've already cast Kate Spencer/Manhunter, and am daydreaming of a legal drama where she defends Wonder Woman and they smolder and spar together. Cough.) let me know that, too. This is a fun way to pass the time.

Friday Question/Friday Answer: Adaptations

Okay, here we go for real this time: an actual Question/Answer entry. I made this question up myself, with some input from Anika, but please feel free to ask me future questions because I'm just not creative enough to keep on doing it.

I've been wanting to talk a bit more about non-print media, so this seems like a good transition piece.

What is your favorite comic book adaptation?

Because it's hard for me to narrow it down, Anika recommended I list a few and end with a winner. It's nice to have smart friends!

By the way, I welcome discussion on this. These are all opinion, and I have some very interesting tastes that not everyone agrees with (Donner's Superman doesn't crack my top 10, for instance).

Honorable mentions: Supergirl (1984), Watchmen (2009), V for Vendetta (2005), Mutant X (2001), Batman (1988), Iron Man (2008), Flash (1990), Flash Gordon (1980), The Crow (1994), Tank Girl (1995).

5) X-Men: The Animated Series (1992). This show made comics cool for my whole group of friends and, more importantly, for people who would normally pick on my whole group of friends. I didn't know anyone in my age group who didn't watch this at some point. And because of this show we got all the other neat animated shows that followed in that decade, including DC's amazing, comic-inspiring animated universe. Not to mention that it followed so well with the comics, including the awesome Dark Phoenix storyline. This show made me love Scott Summers, which... is saying something.

Plus it had the one of the best TV theme songs ever.





4) The Adventures of Superman (1952). My dad used to record all the episodes that aired late at night and we'd watch them together. This was my first introduction to Superman, so it holds a special place in my heart. There's something about the fifties-era Superman that is so perfectly perfect that I can't help but love it. The great thing about Superman is that he really is just always like that. I know that makes some people have less of an ability to connect to him, but for me that makes him more universal. Superman is Superman. Even if he crash lands in Siberia and is raised by Communists (a perfect foil to this Cold War Era show, by the way) he will always have the same set of values and morals. He always wants what's best for his adopted planet, even if he doesn't always fit in with it, and there's something very childlike and innocent about that which, in my opinion, is perfectly showcased by this fifties-era version.

3) X-Men (2000). As much as I hate that it was a Marvel movie that did it, Bryan Singer's more-grounded-in-reality version of the X-Men is responsible for the current wave of superhero movies and current love of comics by Hollywood (and therefore the main stream consumer). But more importantly, it's a pretty damn good movie. It's well cast, with a few exceptions (why did no one think of Liev Schrieber back in 2000?), it's got an interesting story, and the effects are good. But most of what makes that movie great, because it does change some things I don't get (swapping in Rogue for Kitty, for example, when Anna Paquin could have played a perfectly good Kitty), is the fact that 95% of the roles were cast perfectly, including the three most important ones: Magneto, Xavier, and Wolverine. These people are the characters. Wow. The first time we saw Hugh Jackman (and let's be honest, how many of us had actually seen Hugh Jackman before?) leaning against that cage, smoking a cigar... sent shivers up my spine. That movie set the bar. Let comic fans make comic movies and you'll get a well-cast (mostly), well-written, well-shot movie. It's too bad that his Superman Returns wasn't as good.

2) Batman: The Animated Series (1992). Where to start. First off, another great title sequence that really pulled in the dark-deco-noir atmosphere of Gotham:



This show created a whole universe of its own, giving us both Harley Quinn and Renee Montoya, who made the transition (very successfully) into the comics. It developed an animated universe full of superheroes and led to its own sequel, Batman Beyond. It made Bruce interesting, it made its villains interesting (Mark Hamil is still the best Joker, period), and it was the first time I ever really looked forward to getting back to Gotham. This did for kids and adolescents what Burton's movie did for teenagers and adults.

And it was fun. It was good. I enjoyed pretty much every single episode, and I still think of it when I think of Batman. To me, this show is Batman. This is the Bruce Wayne I want wearing the cowl. This is the world of Gotham I want to see. Darker than Metropolis, but not as dark as the comic version of Gotham. It really can't rain all the time, guys.


1) Wonder Woman (1975). Ah, the height of the second wave of feminism and we finally got the most well-known female comic hero onto television. Please note that we still have yet to have a female comic lead for a movie, other than the much-lambasted (unfairly!) Supergirl from 1984 and the did-anyone-else-see-it Tank Girl (both in my top ten, btw). And that there have been precious few female-led comic shows since the 70s (Birds of Prey, which I enjoyed, Model by Day, which was awful but I enjoyed because of Famke Jansen but it was just a TV movie, so... and maybe the argument for Generation X, but that was more of an ensemble). Okay, there's one exception, but I'm saving that for my Grand Prize.

Anyway. Here we are 35 years later and the Black Widow has been relegated to Tony Stark's secretary, there will be no female Avengers in the forthcoming movie, and if they ever make a Wonder Woman movie... yeah, exactly.

But besides all of that, I loved this show because of Lynda Carter. Man. She's still Wonder Woman as far as I'm concerned. She made the character interesting, strong, smart, sassy, vulnerable... human. While still being Diana Prince of the Amazons. And she did all of this in an outfit no man would have been caught dead in until 300. This. Is. Themyscira.

Grand Prize: Lois & Clark (1993). Best. Lois. Ever. I remember the big to-do when they announced that it would be Lois' name up front. And now it seems so obvious. Teri Hatcher's Lois was absolutely perfect for the time, and as a 12 year old girl watching this show, there was nothing I wanted more than to grow up and be like Lois Lane (except maybe to grow up and marry Lois Lane, but that came a couple of years later). The leads and amazing chemistry, Dean Cain was a great Superman and Clark (in the more modern, less bumbling sense), and John Shea was a perfectly cast as the evil, strangely noble version of Lex Luthor.

Yeah, this show jumped the shark. But it took awhile. We got a lot of good episodes out of it. But more importantly, we got a pop-culture phenomenon. And us girls got someone to look up to that was just a regular woman, living in a super world with a superhero.

It was sharp, stylized, and witty. Teri Hatcher carried that show (not that Dean Cain wasn't great, and not that I don't give props to Margot Kidder, for being the best part of the modernization of Superman that started with Donner's movie). It was fun and exciting and bright and it got people talking about Superman again. And I loved every minute of it, even after the shark jumping.

So there we go. I cheated a little because I couldn't narrow it down.

What are your favorite adaptations?

Write What You Know?

Okay, first things first: sorry for my lack of entries lately. I promise I'm not dead (see, I made it through two sentences without once asking for your brains). Regular followers of this blog probably know that I recently moved. It was a bit of a process and involved moving from one place to another to another, and I don't do very well when trying to adapt to new routines. I'm mostly adapted now, though. I've also had some medical issues, blah blah, and have spent most of my free time playing mindless video games or Beatles Rockband (buy it if you like The Beatles).

One of the side effects of moving (and last week's holiday) was being all turned around on my comics. I've only recently started catching up. I have yet to read the last issue of Exiles or the latest issue of Flash: Rebirth (they're waiting for me at my local comic shop), but I've read Adventure Comics (loved it!) and Red Robin (ooookay) and the Blackest Night: Batman title (meh).

Also, I bought the Secret Six trade and, on the recommendation of one of the Fantastic Fangirls, the two volumes of Whiteout.

I read the first one last night.

And I loved it.

As usual, the art first because I don't know as much about art other than my personal reactions. I normally don't like the black and white thing, unless there's some sort of hook (like black being the background and an occasionaly bit of color, like Sin City), because I just... like pretty colors? Actually, I don't know. I just know I tend to not like the style.

But considering the setting (Antarctica! Cool! Literally!) the very-white with some black worked. It made me feel like the Ice really did get to Carrie and become part of her. And by the end I really was into it. So way to go Steve Lieber, for having art that doesn't make me wish you also had a colorist. (I also like the way Carrie looks, short and with a button nose and freckles and an attitude, like a cross between a petulant kid and someone that can break your neck with one hand tied behind her back - and the other missing two fingers. I think Kate Beckinsale does not look like Carrie, but hey. That's okay. I get why she was cast, and I dig her as an action heroine in general.)

The story got me hooked, in a way I didn't expect. The trailers for the movie make it seem very supernatural, so I was expecting some kind of alien Yeti or something, but no. Just normal humans in an abnormal environment. Just your regular old murder mystery that happens to take place in Antarctica. As someone that likes my comics to border on the fantastic (I think V for Vendetta is the most "realistic" comic I've enjoyed up until this point, which says a lot), you'd think I would be disappointed. I don't like mystery books, I don't like mystery movies, and I do like superheroes and aliens and apocalypses and spirits and... yet I still liked this book.

So I started wondering to myself: why?

The women.

Seriously.

I mean, sort of a given for me right now, right? Strong and interesting women make me interested, even if it's in the type of story I normally wouldn't go for (erm, yes, I've seen every episode of Golden Girls and Sex in the City, why?).

I've been wondering recently why we're not allowed to have female action heroes anymore. I have a half-done entry about it. I mean, they're around, right? There was that one movie with Rhona Mitra. And that other one with Rhona Mitra that was a sequel to the one with Kate Beckinsale. And Lena Headey is sort of awesome in general. We've got a few on TV, but I think they're sort of watered down by other things now. Buffy wasn't so much a high priced hooker (Dollhouse, which I enjoy but which can be iffy with that sort of thing). And... actually, who else? Yeah, can't think of any other female action people on TV, but maybe that's because I'm multitasking.

Anyway, long story short (too late!) I was thinking about Greg Rucka, and the fact that I like all the women he writes. And I was trying to think about other male authors (in various forms of media) that I can say the same of. Joss Whedon, maybe. Sort of (I can go into the issues with the women and the negatives weighed against the positives, but that's a post for another time). Ron Moore, also a sort of.

When I was in AP Bio, my teacher told us to take an exam question and twist it around so we could write what we know (eight years later I'd wonder if he had ever been a first year law student, since we were given pretty much the same advice for our first advocacy memo). So on one of my AP exam questions I managed to turn it into a map of the digestive system from mouth to anus, with all the enzymes included (I was taking anatomy at the same time). I think I must have read the same thing about fifty million times in various "So You Want to Be a Writer?" books.

Write what you know.

I don't know anything about Greg Rucka personally, other than what he shares on his Twitter account (he's a Doctor Who fan! cool!), but I'm pretty sure he's not a woman or a lesbian.

So how come his women all rock so much?

Yeah, I don't know. Though I can maybe come up with a few male writers in movies and TV that write women with the same combination of humanity and kick-your-assery that Rucka does, I can't think of anyone who does that in comics besides Gail Simone (and I will then add the caveat that I do not consider myself to be a well-read person in the modern comic field, so please correct me if I'm wrong).

You don't really need to limit yourself to what you know, I guess. Or maybe it's more that you have to find what you know in lives you haven't experience.d I mean. It's not like Jerry Siegel could fly or Stan Lee turns into a giant green dude when he gets angry (or DOES he). But the little Jewish guy knows what it's like to be an outsider. And Stan Lee is a master of finding the archetypes in all of us and putting them into comics.

Archetypes come from some place, right? They come from the old stories which were told for a reason. Because we all want to Be Somebody, and we all need to be Saved, and we all have Daddy or Mommy issues, and we're all Totally Normal Until We're Special, and we all want to Fight the Good Fight (or Be Very Very Bad).

And then we don't get new archetypes, we get new applications of the archetype. We get Kate Kane stepping in with her mommy issues, being Someone Special in Gotham, and yeah she's a woman and yeah she's a lesbian and yeah her breasts don't defy gravity and yeah that is sort of groundbreaking for a mainstream comic title. And she's not just groundbreaking, she's cool.

Though not as cool as Renee Montoya, but we all know how I feel about that.

So my point is that when I read that the female co-lead had been cut from the Whiteout movie adaptation, I was not surprised. Having one woman that can be a woman and kick ass (and did they keep the references to her being called a dyke in the movie? because.. yeah) is a big enough deal in mainstream movies, which are of course more mainstream than the most mainstream of comics that you're definitely not going to get two on there. No matter how much that might change the story.

Actually, wait. That wasn't my point. My point was that Greg Rucka writes better women that I do, and I'm a woman. He probably writes better lesbians than I do, but I've honestly never tried. Most of the time I write, I write men, and I certainly don't write for a living. So props to Greg Rucka for continuing to create and write the most interesting women out there in comics.

And tonight I'm going to read Volume 2 of Whiteout, and we'll see how that goes, because I'm sort of worried Sharpe won't be there anymore.

The Watchmen DVD. Also: in defense of Laurie Juspeczyk

So Watchmen comes out today. But I'm not buying it. Because it's not done yet. Dagnabit. I'm so tired of companies trying to milk DVD releases for all their worth. It's bad enough that my 100+ DVD collection isn't in BluRay (and double bad that I picked HD DVD at first!) which means I've got half of BSG in standard def and one day will have half in high def, but why not just release the damn full version concurrently with the director's cut?

You know the one I mean. The one with "Black Freighter" and "Under the Hood" intercut with the movie. The one Snyder promises is coming. What if DVD sales of this version suck? Do we not get it? Will they poll how many of us are waiting for the full version before deciding?

By the way, now that Watchmen is dropping on DVD, it gives me an excuse to write about it. In case you couldn't tell. I was chatting about it with Anika of Fantastic Fangirls (whoa, I totally just name-dropped) yesterday, because I was thinking about writing this post and what I would say that would be 1) different to what I wrote in my livejournal when it came out and 2) hopefully different than what's been written about before. Though probably not, because the internet is big and mighty and I am small and uncreative.

Women! Specifically: Laurie! See? The title was relevent. (Oh. This will have spoilers.)

So I vaguely recall reading somewhere something about Alan Moore and women. I don't remember what it was, but I remember it being negative. I never really thought his women were particularly weak or anything, especially since the first thing I ever ready by Alan Moore was V for Vendetta. But in chatting yesterday, I could see how, yeah, the women of Watchmen (the few there are) could certainly be seen as weak. In a dated kind of way.

Like.

Nothing happens without Laurie Juspeczyk. That's it. She's the lynch pin of the entire story. But at the same time, she's defined by the men in her life. The Comedian (passively for most of the story), Dr. Manhattan, and then Dan Dreiberg. She's not moving forward on her own volition, it seems like, she's tumbling from man to man. That's pretty classic. We say women are important but we always then have to throw in this thing about some man they're with, to make them more human to us. A woman isn't human without a man, you know (this is why I have mixed feelings on the Uhura/Spock relationship of the latest Trek movie; it's very nice to watch, and Uhura is an interesting character, and I get that she's the exact opposite of Spock, but.. I don't know, let her me on her own for a movie... and NO LOVE TRIANGLES). Sorry, digressive parenthetical. Right, Watchmen, women, Laurie.

(By the way, I'm using the picture above because I love the art of the movie version of Watchmen. I want the photography book. I love looking at the stills. It's amazing. It turned a comic with art I wasn't too keen on - nothing against Dave Gibbons, but I'm just not into that style - and made it into something that blew me away.)

So Laurie is defined by the men she's with. Or... is she?

She's the one person that Adrian doesn't seem to have a handle on. He manipulates almost everyone else, but not Laurie. Of course, there could be a reason for that. He's pretty clearly, if subtextually, set up as either asexual or homosexual, so it's possible that's an anvil. But Adrian does just fine jerking Janey Slater around, so I'm choosing to ignore that possibility for now. Laurie, by virtue of being who she is - a second generation mask raised/pushed by another mask, a woman, and a daughter of a single mother - makes decisions that change the world, and that, despite the ending turning out the way Adrian wanted, don't fit into Adrian's plan.

Now, I'm not saying Laurie is the central character to this story. One of the good things about Watchmen is that it's everyone's intertwined choices and actions that lead them to the inevitable result (squid or no squid, it's all the same, thematically, to me). But Laurie is a woman in a man's world, and she's arguably the strongest of all of them. She can handle things Dan can't. She can know truths reserved for Doctor Manhattan. And she can make decisions without having her strings pulled. And it's the way people react to her decisions that change things, not vice versa. Dan puts back on the costume largely because of her. The Doc leaves largely because of her. Rorschach... is insane. But you get the idea. Laurie is important, and not just passively, but also because of what she chooses to do, how she chooses to do it, and who she chooses to do it with.

Oh, and she can kick your ass.

So Laurie's not as bad as she seems at first blush. Sure, she dresses awfully (like every other woman in comics, really). She's a bit angry. She smokes like a chimney, and has some weird mullet-like hair cut. She's got mommy issues, daddy issues, and probably a few other issue to boot (like every character in that story). But in the end she's not a weak character, and I don't think she's defined by her relationships with men quite as much as they're defined by their relationships with her.