The Next Journey

This blog post is going to be a personal one so please bear with me, it indeed rambles.

I don't know how many people read this blog, but for the people that do I want share something. Maybe, you've been through similar circumstances and can identify with me. Maybe you can identify with my frame of mind. The way I think that men should lead their families, support their families.
     When I moved to the Atlanta area two years ago I had every intention of creating a great life to support my small family. Two years later, that did not happen. Sure my wife works and supports us and I did go to school during that time, but what I wanted was to be the bread winner, I wanted to give my wife the life that she deserves. For two years, well for most of the time, I have been filling out at least 5 job applications a week, calling at least one possible employer a day. I even went as far as walk into some places and try to bargain for a job. I thought with my strong employment background that I would get a job quickly. I still don't have one, in fact in the two years I've been here I've only had four interviews, only four! How does that happen? How do I not get a job after 2 years of searching. To make matters worse now I have a huge gap of unemployment, which places hiring tend to discriminate against. I'm not trying to throw a pity party, I'm just finally venting about it. I am exhausted, this place has beat me down to the ground and I'm crawling on my hands and feet.
     Enough is enough though. I left things behind up north, like my son, my parents, my old job. It's time to bring my family together, time to be a real Dad again. What I'm trying to say is that Anna and I have made the decision to move back to Massachusetts in the fall. Whenever I'm away from there I always get a strong urge to get back, like I'm being called there. I have to believe that it's God calling me back there, not homesickness, especially because of the last time I lived there, for reasons I'll explain if you ask. I have to do what I think is best for my family, what God thinks is best for my family no matter what others might think.This is not some decision that I have made on a whim, I have been struggling with it for weeks, months actually, praying about it endlessly, but it's final now.
    I'm grateful to my wife's family and my older brother's support they have given us and I will never forget it.
      I guess this post could be seen as my trying to justify the reasons for moving, but in the end my wife and I don't need to justify our reasons. This is just the next step that we are feeling lead to take and we're going to do so.

2 Timothy 4:17 -  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful.

Why Some Comic Book Movies Still Fail

Green Lantern, total dud.

Comic-book movies, they either have it or they dont. They either make a piss load of money or they flounder like a deflated party balloon in a rich kid's pool. You'd think after the early success of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man that other studios and directors could pull the same thing off and create another successful franchise. You'd think that after the massive success of Christopher Nolan's Batman films that studios and directors would get it right. Alas, that has not been the case and I want to examine why that is not the case. I want to examine why some still fail while others succeed.


 Character Development
     To figure out why we have this problem we must first look at what makes a good movie overall, not just in this category. One of the most important ingredients for any movie is Character Development. All of the Best comic book movies spend a lot of time developing the hero's past and present. It's essential to see what drives the main character to become the hero, it's even important for the development of the villain at times, like Loki in Thor. It's not just a tool for the justification of actions, it's also a means of identifying with the hero, we need to feel what he/she feels, in order to make a satisfying connection to the film. Film's like Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Spider-Man, and Iron Man do a great job of character development and the movie version of Thor is pretty much all character development because of transitioning from one personality to another.
     For me, the best way to handle character development is to have someone close to the hero die early on, before they become the superhero, it's a powerful catalyst if properly handled. All of the films mentioned above have the death of some one close to the hero. In Spider-man it's his uncle who dies in his arms. In Batman it's his parent's who get murdered in front of him. In Iron Man it's two Deaths, the Death of Tony Stark's father, which leaves the burden of running an entire international company and the death of the man who helped him survive his hostage ordeal. Through Yensin, Tony Stark was able to realize that he had to take responsibility the weapons he created that are killing innocent people. In Thor, one could argue that nobody important to the hero dies, but there is something that is just as important and that is the illusion of death, it looms over the entire film. First you have Thor being exiled to Earth, which is the metaphorical death of the person who he is at the time. Next you have his father's sleep mode, which in this instance is taking along time and is simulating death. Lastly, Loki, Thor's brother and the Villain, lies and tells Thor that their father did actually die. All of these events and a few other create a change into the hero we have at the end of the film, a sort of prodigal son.
   
     Take our word for it...
    In movies like Green Lantern, there is very little of this going on at all and with a very small amount of time spent on it. Oh sure you have that Green Lantern who escaped to Earth and then died when he handed over the ring, but this was the first time they ever met. This brings me to the next subject. The guy that handed over the ring To Hal Jordan was suppose to be this big shot hero, but we were only told off screen that he was, we're just suppose to take the word of these aliens. So there is no connection to the audience by the death. It would have been great to have at least 15-20 minutes of photage dedicated to the previous Green Lantern so that there could have been a little more impact when he died. The same thing goes for the fantasic four, very little character development was provided before their accident. We just have to say, "Ok, they're scientists turning knobs, pushing buttons, and saying big words", but why are they scientists and pilots? Instead we get "Oh hey! we are fun and goofy with our new super powers, let's say corny things now."  And this brings me to the ultimate Comic-book movie killer...

It should say "Prepare for the Craptastic"

The Cheese Factor.
Let's start out with a little story. I had just returned from the video store where I picked up a copy of "Daredevil", easily one of my favorite super heroes. I put in the dvd and pressed play. I was pretty satisfied with the beginning, it was darker than I thought it would be, Michael Clarke Duncan as a believable Kingpin, there was a little mystery in it. Enter Jennifer Garner's character, still okay, he tracks her down to a playground and the cheese commences. Why oh why did they have to include one of the most hokiest fight scenes in the history of cinema? Nothing about the faux "hit on me" fight scene was believable. Then there was the even more cheese-tastic villain Bullseye throwing out all his little projectiles in cheese-tastic fashions, good lord. So yes, crappy fights and corny dialog are a couple parts of cheesiness, but another is, too much SFX or crappy SFX. One film this is prevalent in is "Wolverine", it was yet again one movie that seemed like it was going to be great. They developed character from youth to adult, connected with the audience, then severed that connection with over the top SFX (jumping over an exploding helicopter anyone?) and unfinished CGI(looking at claws in bathroom.) There was also the metaphorical rape of another classic comicbook character "Deadpool"(Ryan Renoylds) that sealed the movie's fate as well as another crappy hokey fight scene on top of a nuclear cooling tower.And the fantastic four movies as well as the recent Green Lantern basically relied on CGI and special effects to tell almost the whole story(look at these super powers! Aren't they cool!?). When will movie makers learn *cough George Lucas cough* that you can't force feed CGI to people and expect it to tell a story? Oh well. The movie that takes the cake though is Joel Shumacher's(sp?) Batman and Robin where the cheese raineth down! Take a look:


Really Hollywood? What in God's name were you thinking? It's hilarious in retrospect though.

Direction
     The other day I asked my friend Stephen what he thinks will make a good comic-book movie and he offered up the answer; a good director. He's right of course, a good director makes a world of difference for a few reasons. Firstly, you need a good director to stand up for the material. Sometimes the studio that is financing the movie gets ideas they think the movie would be better, mostly for the sake of profit. If you have a decent director worth his/her salt than they will be like "Yo studio, shut the eff up! I will not bow to corporate sponsors!" and then proceed with making the film. You also need a director to break down the film to see how they can relate to the audience using the things I mentioned before. A good director can take the fantastic elements of a heroes journey, powers, or equipment and make them seem possible, thereby shrinking the need for suspension of disbelief. For most of the film you want to be able to say "Yes, this could possibly happen" i.e Batman Begins(kinda helps if you're a billionaire with access to a research lab), of course if they have superpowers it gets harder, but that's where suspension of disbelief comes in, moving on!
      Here's the controversial part of good director. Say a comic or graphic novel has been published and has become a massive hit among comic book fans. Then said comic book gets picked up by a movie studio. They hire a director that is also a big fan, but the director knows the ending of the comic wont translate well to the screen so he changes it, much to the ire of the fans of the original piece of work. However since the director knows he has to change the ending, he has to seamlessly work the ending into the rest of the film. There is a particular director and film I'm talking about here, Zack Snyder's version of The Watchmen. In the graphic novel, the villain creates a giant Lovecraftian monster which supposedly appears from another dimension and kills most of NYC's inhabitants. Since the story takes place during the cold war, it unites all of the world super powers against this threat and creates world peace. That wouldn't translate to film very well, so instead Zack Snyder used the public's general fear and mistrust of Doctor Manhattan(the blue guy) by having the real villain create a bomb that simulates Dr. Manhattan's powers, detonates it and kills millions of people in several cities around the world. Whew, out of breath.
Here is an example of Dr Manhattan's powers:

    
And here is a scene where the bomb goes off. Unfortunately this was the only clip of it that I could use.


     It was definitely a risky choice to alter the ending this greatly, but I think he did the right thing and it fit the film and the original story just fine despite what all the fanboys think. Too bad this film was under-received when it was released.

Consequences
    The last thing I want to cover is consequences. Every good comic-book movie should have them for the hero. All of the good ones I've listed have them. Batman becomes a target for the law, Spider-Man hurts his relationship with MaryJane, Thor loses his brother(or so we thought!) and gets stuck in Asgard, and Tony Stark poisons himself with the paladium he needs to power his heart and the suit. If there weren't consequences for these heroes, despite the brave things they did, than we wouldn't be able to identify with them on a human level. They would just be these demi-gods flying around and doing nice things we don't appreciate. The consequences bring them down to Earth so to speak and inspire conflict within themselves. This theme is virtually non-existent in Fantastic Four and the earlier Batman films, they were the kind of films that wanted us to bow down and worship these people, they were some kind of rock-stars instead of people.

Acting counts too, but for the most part the things I talked about were key to a comic-book movies survival, some of the movies we've seen are missing things, but most of the ones that have come out lately are pretty decent. If you have anything to add or if you have disagreements, than you are welcome to say something.







    

My 5 Most Favorite Video Games

     I came up with this topic thinking it was going to be a cake walk, but as I started to think about the games I've played over the past 20 plus years it got a lot harder. There were two games that I already knew had to be on the list, but the rest I really had to think about and I had to think of good reasons why they needed to be on the list, not just because I thought they were cool, although to be honest that a big part of it. The games are ranked in no particular order except for the number one spot, let's get on with it shall we?

#5 . Tekken
Specifically Tekken 2 through Tekken Tag tournament. I got a hold of these games before I ever even heard of Sega's Virtua Fighter so deal with it.
Reasons why it's good: The story was great. A dystopian future controlled by the powerful Mishima Corporation that holds an anual Iron Fist fighting tournament. Power struggles between father and son for control of the company. The ending videos do a great job of fleshing out the story. The next reason why it's good is because it's not like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter, I hate those games. This was a way more realistic way of fighting and Tekken is also known for the diversity of different fighting styles, no cheaty super powers. Also, when Mortal Combat and Street Fighter were still using 2-D levels and fights, games like Tekken utilized 3-d or 360 degree stages and camera angles, you could use the whole stage to fight. The characters in these games had great personality as well, they felt human. There's also some straight up goofy characters in the games too, like that little dinosaur that farts on you, or Bear and Mokujin. Tekken Tag Tournament also had a bowling mode too, that was fun.

#4. Castlevania: Lord of Shadows.
This title is only a year or two old, it's mechanics aren't very original, but oh man is it epic. This title was sort of a reboot of Castlevania because the past titles had a messy timeline that didn't make sense. This game fixed all that. It is also the introductory story for Dracula in Castlevania. The story is fan-effing-tastic, I can't even summarize it properly. Basically you're this medieval Holy Knight named Gabriel searching for 3 masks to stop the end of the word, these masks might also help you reunite with your dead wife too. You battle classic Transylvanian mosters, and some new ones throughout. The levels are beautifully designed works of art and challenging enough to get your money's worth out of it. It's also one of the longest games I've played in a while, which is almost unheard of these days. One final reason that it's epic, Patrick Stewart! He voices a major supporting character in the game, he's also the narrator. You can't get more epic narration than that!

#3. Wrath of the Lich King
This is actually an expansion to the MMO World of Warcraft for those of you who don't know. It's true that MMO's are the tradition video game, but I still categorize it as one because you're still in control of a virtual character.
Anyways, in Wrath, you're finally getting down to the nitty-gritty to confront the Lich King and his armies of the dead. You're taking the battle to him. This expansion had a Norse flare to the storyline and the 5/10/25 man instances/dungeons. They also came up with the random Dungeon Finder during this expansion, which was a GREAT way to get the gear you needed for the endgame content. I also dicovered the joy of endgame pvp using my Death Knight, ah old Grimwraith, I hardly knew ye. Anyways, It was my favorite expansion. I had the most fun with it, I pwned so many people and I was usually the one left standing after my entire guild wiped, gotta love melee dps! Then Blizzard had to ruin it all with Cataclysm. Oh it was a cataclysm alright, just not the good kind. Moving on!

#2. Tomb Raider

Yeah Tomb Raider 1-3 was pretty great, after that it was kind of downhill. There some pretty obvious reasons why people liked it, especially males. In fairness it had some great storylines and I loved the fact that Lara was basically a female Indiana Jones. The game mechanics Eidos introduced were pretty innovated too. The auto-aim and grappling were my favorites. Some of the weapons were funny as well. Overall, they're just some darn fun games.

     And last, but certainly not the least, we come to number one. Ladies and Gentlemen, this one is near and dear to my heart. It's the favorite old flame, that gentle lover, you know, the one that got away. You spend hours upon hours upon hours upon hours romancing it, getting to know all of it's little quirks, it's secrets. You forsake your friends just so you can spend every precious moment with it, what is friendship compared to this love after all. You think you have it all, when, like a Nicholas Sparks novel, tradgedy stirkes. Some cruel digusting twist of fate happens. YOUR GAME SHARK CORRUPTS YOUR MEMORY CARD AND RUINS, ABSOLUTELY RUINS, 80 HOURS WORTH OF PLAYING TIME LEAVING THE END JUST OUT OF REACH!!! The world is over! The devil is laughing at you! You log onto Napster, download your favorite theme music from the game and cry into your chocolate milk inbetween screaming "Why God!?! Why?!!!"
That, my friends, is the story of the number 1 game....


#1. Final Fantasy VII
Yeah that's right, this is it. Playstations first major Final Fantasy title I believe. The one with a heart of gold. I'm getting misty eyed right now just thinking of all the memories I have *Sniff sniff* People who have played this game know what I'm talking about. I don't think there is any reason to go into detail here... now if you'll excuse me. I have to go and listen to Aerith's theme and cry into my chocolate milk.

Her and Cloud will be together one day Damin it!
Friggin Sephiroth. One winged angel my rear end!

Also, how cool are limit -breakers right?

Dad Things

It happens to everyone, it can't be avoided, with age you eventually notice that you're becoming more like your parents. I don't know what it's like for women, but for men it's a curiosity, a quest, and maybe down the road, an acceptance. Suddenly we start to understand ridiculous rules, behaviors and values they tried to install in us as children. Suddenly we understand the folly of youth. Suddenly it makes sense and we rebel less and less against it. Depending if it's negative, we rebel even more and try to break a cycle of abuse or addiction, but hopefully most of the time we embrace the traits we inherit from our parents.

     For me it started when my son was born. I wanted/want to give him the world, protect him, make sure he knew he was/is loved. As he grew it became apparent that he needed structure so I followed my parents example and put in place some of the same rules they had for me. With that came the understanding I mentioned earlier.
    
     Other things happened too though, strange unexpected things I never even thought about. For example, I without knowing it at first, adopted my Dad's fashion sense, a t-shirt and jeans with white tennis shoes. One could argue that that fashion is normal for men, and it is, but you'd have to know my Dad and his sons to truly get it. I found myself sitting like my Dad used to, especially on the couch. Back straight up, legs parted a little, feet on the floor, and arms folded resting on our belly-shelf while comically suffering from the omnipresent hiccup-burp. Sometimes when I'm eating, strange questions pop up in my head like "is this how my Dad chewed?" Next, and this may be a thing for all dads, but I am now able to fall asleep anywhere I am sitting. Whether it's at home, or dare I say, at church, even at the movies. I like to call this ability sleep anywhere "The Dad Syndrome". Women and Moms can talk up a storm all they want about how much they do for their families, and they do provide a lot, but all men know that a man's work is never done. Life saps our energy the most, causing this ability to sleep anywhere. To be fair to the ladies, single mothers may suffer from this too.

     The last trait that put the nail in the coffin for the subject of this blog, is laughter. The other night my wife was telling me a story, there was a funny part and I laughed. I swear on everything that it sounded the same as my Dad's and it shocked me so much that I immediately stopped laughing. It wasn't a bad thing, but after it happened I realized that the traits and other things we inherit from our parents are more profound we think they would be, at least at this current stage in life I'm at right now.

    Some parents get a bum deal, I realize this. Some parents are separated from their children and they worry that they aren't going to teach their kids what they want to teach them. They worry that they wont have enough time to teach them, I know because I have these same worries. The best advice I can give to someone in this situation is to do the best with the time you're given with them. Call them, send them letters, kids LOVE mail. Other parents may have obstacles in their way, maybe they get in their own way even, or maybe they feel like all of hell has put gates in between them and their kids. As a Dad I'm telling you to break down those gates because it's all worth it in the end.

    Lastly, I know that kids can get the crap end of the stick when it comes having parents, or no parents. Maybe one of their parents wasn't around, maybe one or both of the parents were abusive. Maybe you had a string of male or female figures in your life that never ended up being a parent to you. Some people never met their parents so they don't know what traits they inherited. They don't know if they have their father's laugh or their mother's sense of humor. They might worry that when they have kids they wont be good enough because they never learned from example. If any of those things are the case then as a Dad the thing I can tell you is to be like the best image of a parent you always wanted to have and the opposite of the superficial portrayals you see on the TV. Be the father you wanted to have. Be the mother you wanted to have.

In closing I want to wish all the parents, new parents and future parents good luck.

P.S. The Bible is a good instruction manual when properly studied.