Reasons Why Black Panther Deserves the Oscar Nominations

We know the unneeded "controversy" about Black Panther's Best Picture Oscar nomination. Simply put, I think it does deserve the recognition of being one of the best movies of 2018...for multiple reasons.

People overlook how difficult it is to build a cinematic world anymore. One measure of a great film is acting...we've surely seen lesser films than this both in terms of acting and even story content that have been nominated and even won (in the past 20 years, but even before that). Of course, everyone has their own subjective take on why a film is or isn't great or remarkable...that's what keeps art important, that it can mean something different to so many. There is NO universally loved film or piece of art, but there are movies that stand the test of time and remain important landmarks of the era.

Even with a film like Avatar, which really does have a simplistic story, it will be looked back on as important in cinematic development to the era of its origin.

We have come to take spectacle for granted so much so that we sneer off things that would have been considered groundbreaking cinematic achievement because we've seen so much, but a film like Black Panther speaks to people in a different way...we look at film in such a polarized lens now, in a way. When we think "groundbreaking", its generally in terms of something with technology, but this film will point to a different revolutionary cinema that is arguably just as important...cinematic black culture and empowerment. I know people use that as an argument AGAINST the film, but I think that's kinda silly.

History will find it to be a pretty important movie, and when a mainstream movie can be that important to millions of people, I would argue it's worth on a level aside from the wondrous, lush setting and superior acting. It's also a movie that you can go all in on...that is, an escape to a different world, one that resembles in many ways the art of its fantasy source material but somehow still reflects this timeline of current events.

Yes, the story! It resonates politically and on a level that some moviegoers wouldn't even recognize...the division of Black America unto itself. That's no small feat...if the film had failed on that huge (conscious) subtext, we wouldn't be talking about it so much now. There are still great divides in the most effective ways of liberating an entire group of people that go all the way back to Martin and Malcolm and is reflected by the two main characters' philosophies.

I saw an outpouring of debate over T'Challa vs. Killmonger's ideologies that really got me thinking and looking at this film in a different way aside from the effectiveness of its Blockbuster-y achievement. So while I was left to consider the differences of the grey areas of those characters (and contemplate who I think I might relate to in the scenario), my 9 year old was just ooohing and ahhhing for the superhero goodness, lost in the movie's grandiose world.

The action sequences ARE on point, and I'm seeing a lot of naysaying over the achievement (or non-achievement) of the effects, but the presenting of Wakandan technology is both fresh and clever over and over throughout. There is NO perfect CGI, but the imagination that drives the tech is pretty surprising and fun, and brought to life in a pretty credible fashion.

Speaking of "fashion"...

The costuming and overall style of Black Panther is truly astounding. Its unique and familiar at once, helping to transform the scenery of Wakanda into an even more effective setting. It's beautiful work.

It's really important that some mainstream films do reverberate with a group of people, and in ways BP reminds me of a gigantic scale version of a film like "Big Fat Greek Wedding" or "Slumdog Millionaire", but we've been conditioned over and over to believe that a "fun" movie, or a horror movie, action movie, genre movie can't also be important.

Even if it's on a level that our personal and subjective experiences are not equipped to truly understand.

When Summer Goes to Rest: A Halloween Tale

We waited the excruciating wait and watched the crawling clock. First it was morning, and then morning, and still morning, and when lunch time finally came to pass, we rushed to the school cafeteria with visions of the autumn night awaiting. We sat to plan, Cerrick and Gil and me, our attack on the neighborhood's prize, the All Hallow's reward for ambitious would-be goblins. Because one night a year...just one, and you can don the identity you always wanted, or at least the one your mother could afford, and they let you free. FREE, into the night, with the intoxicating smell of fallen leaves enveloping your senses, the sounds of screams and "trick or treat" and high pitched laughs serenading you under the orange glow of the Halloween moon.

So gathering to plan, as we did, seemed to be the only reasonable route. One night condenses into a mere few hours, and the later you start, the less treasure to show. The sting of summer's end is relieved by October's dawn, and the thought of pillowcases of candy wafting that combined uncommon scent through the early chilly nights is the first glimmer of a lighthouse until the frost of winter solstice brings the apparition of Father Christmas. Never, we used to say, underestimate the power of Halloween night, that one annual precious marriage of frost and fright.

We ravaged the tater tots and consumed the chocolate milk while mapping out our new system for covering the most all hallowed ground. The green beans sat untouched on the trays. I like green beans, but you can't eat green beans on Halloween. It's bad luck, said Gil, and I've a feeling he thought the same for the other 364 days. I drew a line through the makeshift neighborhood paper, and X marked the spot where we would wind up before the wind called us home, happy, fat on sugar and satisfied with our returns and still full of the macabre of an organic spooky dusk.

"What's this, boys? A map?"

Mr. Margot peered over his glasses at our sprawling paper, a small smile creasing the corner of his mouth.

"Yessir," I smiled. "We start here, on Hadley, and wind up at the corner store."

"Well, we may have to run home and dump pillowcases in between," Gil chimed in.

Mr. Margot nodded. "Why the corner store?"

"My sister works there," Cerrick nearly yelled, "And she is giving us a bottle of pop and a bag of chips when we're all done Trick or Treating."

Mr. Margot grinned from ear to ear. "Well," he said loudly, "Nice to see men with a plan. Halloween night...gotta be the best night of the year, right? Christmas...well, Christmas is the best DAY, right? But there is no other night like Halloween, is there?" He trailed off with that question, a faraway look in his eyes. I knew he didn't expect an answer; it was posed as a question but was given as fact.

"Good luck, gentleman. Hope you find your pillowcases full. Save me a candy bar or two for tomorrow, will ya?"

We all shook our heads yes, smiling and wide eyed with anticipation. He turned to walk away and we went back to marking our trail, but he stopped after a step or two.

"However," he said, a chill in the word. He turned toward us again and leaned down even more closely. "Remember this one thing. Don't look behind you tonight."

Gil laughed, but it was a nervous laugh, and Cerrick and I exchanged furrowed brows.

"Why?"

"Wait...you don't know this? Your parents have set you free on All Hallows Eve all these years, and you were never told?"

I shrugged.

"Mr. McDunn," he said directly to me, "You never look behind you on Halloween night. Because you might see someone who you ought not to see."

Chills filled me. I wanted to ask what he meant, but I didn't really want to know.

"What does that mean?" Gil asked, still trying to be aloof.

"Just what it sounds like. On Halloween, the curtain falls, boys. And yes, there is a possibility that you might turn to see a lost great great grandmother, or a poor, sad soul harvested too soon, but you could also see...well..."

He stood up, a big grin across his face. "Don't mind me, gentlemen. I'm just an old codger looking for a scare on Halloween. You'll be fine, I'm sure of it. But you know, there is one other thing.
I was scared to ask. We all were. But far too curious and young and fascinated to stop him from answering.

"Halloween doesn't really start until 6 PM today, when the sun starts to descend, and doesn't end until the sun sets again on November 1st. Interesting, right? That's when summer really rests. So smack dab in the middle, 6 AM tomorrow morning, that's when the spirits roam most freely. You boys don't dare to be out then, right?"

He had to have known full well that we would be walking to the bus stop in the near dark of 6 AM. He smiled. This time, it looked crooked, and he seemed mean, and his smile held no respite.

He turned quickly and walked off with a slow wave over his shoulder.

We started our Halloween intinerary at 5. Some kids ran out right after school, but no...many houses aren't ready then, and you miss out on the candy. If you want a full bounty, you must be patient. By 6:30, our map a distantly crumbled disposable floating down a side street, we had half full pillowcases and decided to stop for a review of our bags.

One house had given the practically priceless, on Halloween, premium of TWO full sized candy bars. Cerrick attempted to circle back twice to that house, claiming to be his own twin brother. It worked, he had yelled, but I saw the woman shaking her head with a laugh. We paused only briefly, wolfed down a piece of sugary delight, and resumed our pace.

By 8:30, our pillowcases were full. We were the only ones out and about as far as we could tell, and now the night, which had held an air of spooky but harmless ambience, turned colder, as if Halloween itself was beginning its own trek to winter hibernation. We began to walk more quickly as we left the corner store with the promised gifts, none of us in a hurry to depart from the group to their own destinations.

When we reached O'Brien Avenue, Gil gave us a wave and practically ran off toward his house, knowingly spilling a few small candies and pretending not to notice, darting indoors as quickly as we had started out.

The charms of the night's atmosphere had now turned to only the sounds of night itself, the wind alive, murmuring insincere warnings through the trees, bringing to life it's namesake chimes everywhere in the distance. We hurried, any pretense of courage for each others' sakes resigned in a flurry of chills and goose pimples.

I spoke first. "Hope I got a lot of Reese's," I said, half heartedly. Cerrick agreed. "I think you did. I saw Mr. Bittering throw a bunch into our bags, so at least those. But probably more."

We were silent again for a block or two, until the loud crunch of a stick behind us. We froze for a moment, looked each other in the eyes, and continued walking.

"Don't look," I said, in a voice barely above a whisper. It felt like a scream. Cerrick winced.

We took more steps. The crunching commenced behind us. We walked more quickly. Fighting the urge to look was now near impossible, the sight of my house just a block away being the only antidote. A sound like a low growl came up on our heels, and our fast walk turned into a sprint. We raced to my porch with as much passion as we had ever summoned on Halloween night.

Cerrick would still have to cross the street and down a few houses to get home, but as we stood on the porch and blinked and looked toward the place where our pursuant would have been, there was nothing. The safety of my porch had rendered the bite of windy moonlit nightfall to a still menacing but mostly unthreatening sensation.

"Do you want me to get my mom to walk you home?" I asked. He looked around. The bravado of youth was starting to return to his eyes. "Nah, I'll be ok, Cal. See you in the morning."

I nodded and watched as he stepped off the porch, his footing less steady as he hit the sidewalk. I went inside, then felt a moment of panic as I closed the door. I peered out the glass window and saw Cerrick almost to his house, but my blood ran sleet cold when I saw a shrouded figure behind him, stopped on the sidewalk, watching him. I wanted to open the door and call out, but didn't, fearing that the second lost would keep Cerrick from the safety inside. I decided instead to call him, but I watched with bewilderment as the swarthy personage, clouded by the darkness, evaporated into All Hallows Eve.

I shook my head, wondering if my mind had invented the whole thing.

Sleep was uneasy at best, every sound of wind and tree magnified outside my bedroom window. Each brush of branch was the hand of Cerrick's stalker, waking me to see what evil had befallen him. Every bark of the neighbor's dog was a caution of his presence.

In the morning, we met, the three of us, and walked the crisp parade to the bus stop together. Night's shadow was still being cast across the sun. Cerrick and Gil both seemed unshaken by Halloween's touch, and were unwrapping and eating candy bars from open zippers in the tops of their backpacks, already discussing things they would ask for on Christmas.

As we passed the crosswalk and out into the unusually quiet main road, there was a sudden screech from just behind us. A truck veered over the sidewalk, losing control and bearing down directly at us. Gil and I reacted quickly and dove to the cement, but Cerrick was too far ahead and the vehicle barreled toward him. He was stunned, too scared to move, his mouth and eyes equally agape.

Just before impact, I saw it.

I saw the thing.

The figure. It was no less visible than the night before, but no less real. It reached both hands out and shoved Cerrick back toward us, a full five feet away from where he stood just a second before. He landed hard, and the driver of the truck wiped his forehead, face now sheer white, looking as shocked as the rest of us. We saw it, the phantom figure, all of us. Unmoving, standing as straight as the night before on the sidewalk. A voice like I've never heard before or since vibrated in agreeable tones, a circular sound coming from everywhere and nowhere at once, and spoke only two words: Not today.

With purpose, I looked down at my watch. The final seconds of 6:00 A.M. were ticking down.

Cerrick's dark preserver vanished, dissolving with a wisp into soft remnants like onyx feathers before disappearing entirely.

Back.

Back into the veil.



                                        
                                       ---- Paul Counelis

The Greatest Horror Movie Ever Made: The Case For THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE

In honor of the passing of legendary director TOBE HOOPER, we are presenting a chapter from the book THE GREATEST HORROR MOVIE EVER MADE. Author and Rue Morgue columnist Paul Counelis makes the case for Hooper's magnum opus as the best horror movie of all time.

Tobe Hooper 1943 -2017

                            THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974) Director: TOBE HOOPER

     The first time I saw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I was 15 years old. I hadn’t seen a TON of really dark horror films at that point; I had seen A Nightmare on Elm Street as well as most of the Universal Monsters stuff (which I was obsessed with at the time). I had no idea what to expect. To be honest, I thought it was going to be a campy B movie.

     I was wrong. To put it mildly.

     By now, most people who would really call themselves horror “fans” have seen the original ‘TCM’, and are aware of how visceral and realistic it feels. Simply put, it accomplishes that rare feat that very few horror films have. It almost seems like a documentary, like we as viewers are just flies on the wall, uncomfortably observing this maddeningly matter of fact group of cannibal hillbillies chasing a group of lost young people around their “farm”.

     Because so many are WELL aware of the Texas Chain Saw mythology at this point, I will not spend too much time talking about how little blood or gore are actually shown in the film, but its notable that the movie is remembered as being so brutal decades later. The most disturbing things captured by the eye of the camera are the bizarre moments that the family is engaged in, such as having to help their seemingly decaying grandfather hold a hammer so that he can try to hit a victim with it. Bizarre stuff that stays with you.

     Even with A Nightmare on Elm Street pretty fresh in my young mind, I really was NOT prepared for the aural onslaught that is The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. 

     Context is needed. My uncle and I had been renting films that were generally highly regarded but that neither of us had seen. This was pretty much our only criteria when we walked into the video store for the week’s selection. Our first few viewings consisted of such eye opening cinema as The Godfather, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Close Encounters. To be sure, it was a priceless education for a teen who was pretty much a card carrying member of the church of Star Wars. I had seen plenty of good films, the early Karloff Frankenstein films for instance, but they weren’t super challenging in the most emotional ways like some of these films were.

     I feel like something changed inside me when the opening reel of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre flickered across my Uncle Tony’s TV screen. Don’t worry, it was in a good way.

     I sat in enrapt silence and with a more than a few sideways glances to see how Uncle Tony was faring with his own viewing experience. He seemed to be just as engrossed as I was watching Leatherface and his family act like maniacs to this unsuspecting group of city kids.

     Made for just over $80,000 in 1974, TCM marked the first time that I looked at a film and really realized, hey, someone MADE this. They wrote their simple story, got some people to play the parts, went out into a big house and just made their movie. I remember feeling like there was no way it should be as “good” as it was. Clearly, these were not seasoned actors with super expensive equipment and a big studio budget.

     It was the first time I thought, “I want to make a movie. And I CAN.”

     I’m sure that same realization happened to countless hordes of other TCM viewers over the years. The movie is a standing testament to the creativity and drive of its filmmakers and the actors and actresses who braved what was by all accounts a truly dreadful shoot.

     Heck, the shoot itself may have contributed to the grimy realism of the film. By now, the legendary stories of the smells, fatigue and the heat surrounding those folks while they were making the movie have made their rounds umpteen times via interviews and special features on the many home video releases. Suffice to say that some of the craziness we see captured on film was about as close to real as it gets without actually being real.

     Director Tobe Hooper has often recounted stories of how much the cast and crew resented him during the shoot. The movie they came out with suggests that their efforts were not in vain.
To call The Texas Chain Saw Massacre influential is almost an insult to the word “influential”. For dozens of horror filmmakers to come, TCM is less a film than it is a template for a certain type of aesthetic that has come to be associated with the movie and others like it.

     One so obviously influenced dude is Rob Zombie, who has seemingly made a cinematic career out of letting the TCM philosophy guide his work. The results have been mixed, but Zombie’s films have an undeniable grit that they largely owe to the TCM influence.

     It’s also fair to point out some of the TCM acting performances, which vary in terms of thespian quality, but which are absolutely indispensable to the film’s memorable imagery. In particular, the late Marilyn Burns is effective as Sally Hardesty, screaming and crying her way through the film’s seemingly prolonged climax in an excruciatingly realistic and primal state of fear and hysteria. Theories again abound that part of the realism of her performance was due to the conditions on set.

      Burns (decades old SPOILER ALERT, for pete’s sake) helped to establish an eventual major slasher film trope with her character surviving the film as a “final girl”, though she is definitely kind of just more lucky than Nancy or Laurie or Sidney, who are all kind of proactive in their survival. But give Sally credit…she keeps movin’ and keeps screamin’ until the very moment she laughs in relieved maniac manner, climbing into a random escape vehicle while Leatherface swings his chainsaw around like a frustrated dancer in a doomed ballet.

     Of course, Leatherface is another solid “pro” when keeping tabs on the TCM legacy. Gunnar Hansen helped to bring life to an enduring horror icon, playing Hooper and co-writer Kim Henkel’s hulking “Ed Gein” inspired madman. Hansen is a big reason why the film is so memorable, truth be told. He hits the right notes with his body language and the way he inhabits the face(s) mask(s). And he really is asked to do quite a bit in terms of selling the terror.

     One of the most jarring and sinister scenes occurs when Leatherface appears behind some poor fool, bops him on the head, drags him into a room and abruptly slams the door. That is a moment where we as an audience think, “Ok. I kind of don’t want to know what is going to happen behind that door. But I have to.”

     Wes Craven often cited The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as one of the best examples of watching a film that may have been directed by a madman. Craven knew of which he spoke; his own Last House on the Left still stands as one of the most controversial films ever made. It was the type of ’dangerous’ filmmaking that got both films immediately banned upon release.
   
     In multiple countries.

     For years.

     As is the case with so many immortal horror films, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre could also be held up as a reflection of the time of its release. Hooper claims that so much of the nature of the film is due to the government scandals and multiple wars of the era, where brutality and a lack of empathy were becoming the social norm. Leatherface and his loving family were characterized responses to that growing displeasure.

     One aspect of this movie which can’t be downplayed is the “score”, as it were. It is EXTREMELY important, though perhaps not in the way that the scores of films like Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street are. That’s because TCM features a slew of ghoulish and freaky sounds, drenched in echo and delay, often piled each atop the other like a sonic wall of brick and mortar. It is used to highly disconcerting effect. There is no escape from it within the confines of a given scene.

     Again, Roger Ebert heaped praise upon a horror film even while damning it. He grouped it with Night of the Living Dead because of its technical success, while also commenting on the negative content. He said that both films were “better than they had to be.” Which is true in the context of what he saw as B horror films created by fledgling filmmakers with no other outlets aside from horror to make movies. But it is decidedly NOT true for the millions of people who still consistently turn to those films for a good, roller coaster-like scare on a dark night. They do have to be that good.

     Which brings us to another important point…The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is scary.
    
     As with any and all horror films, the scare factor is a matter of opinion and specific to each viewer. A seasoned horror fan is just not going to be easy to scare. But when someone who is not a veteran of horror watches TCM, to this day, they are likely to be disturbed. Often, even terrified.
This is because TCM gets SO much right in terms of setting everything up. This might be due to director Hooper’s background as a documentary cameraman. Camera placement is extremely important to the success of the film’s realism, and the decisions Hooper makes put us in situations that feel claustrophobic and tense. As with Carpenter’s Halloween, an unusual number of daytime shots are initially used to set a mood, as well as adding to the desperation of being stranded with the psychotic family when night falls.

     There is really no way to overstate the importance of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to the horror genre. Fans as varied as Ridley Scott (who claims the movie as an influence on his own amazing film Alien) and horror writing legend Stephen King defend the film as an important cultural phenomenon, and contemporaries like Carpenter and Craven (the latter of which humorously compared Hooper to Manson after seeing the film) have routinely named it as one of the most effective horror films they have ever seen.

     There is a film made before TCM that was also inspired by the Ed Gein story. It is director Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal grandfather of the slasher movie, Psycho. John McCarty, author of several excellent books covering horror directors and films, once remarked that TCM made the hotel in Psycho seem “pleasant” in comparison.

     Simply put, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a full on nightmare, worthy of its legendary status, and a legit contender for the title of the greatest horror film of all time.

                                               

Leatherface, "A frustrated dancer in a doomed ballet."

You can read the rest of  Paul Counelis' book THE GREATEST HORROR MOVIE EVER MADE, available now at Lulu.com, Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble

Halloween Machine's 10 BEST HORROR FILMS OF 2016

Its that time again! A fresh new year of horror ahead of us means a look back at the BEST of 2016, which was one of the very best years for horror in quite some time!!
Agree? Disagree? Weigh in by commenting!

Here we go...

THE RUNNERS-UP:
10 Cloverfield Lane - Awesome genre mash-up
Monsterland - Extremely creative anthology

Blair Witch - Divisive horror surprise
The Monster - Provocative creature feature
The Wailing - South Korean insanity
Southbound - Effective Anthology
I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House - Slow burning stylish throwback
Volumes of Blood: Horror Stories - Super strong indie anthology
Phantasm: Ravager - You CAN go home again
The Barn - Eighties Halloween love letter
The Autopsy of Jane Doe - Unique and frightening genre bender


10 - THE SHALLOWS 
Entertaining and suspenseful shark flick with a great performance by Blake Lively. One of the more surprising horror offerings of the year.

9 - LIGHTS OUT
Spooky story with solid acting and a fantastic monster. Brisk pace and great effects.

8 - OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL
Another mildly divisive entry, but the general consensus is that this sequel was much better than reasonably expected. Great atmosphere and a huge improvement over the weak first film.

7- THE INVITATION
Clever, suspenseful thriller with an outstanding cast. Inspired lunacy.
                                                                                                         

6 - I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER
Tense and well made horror with outstanding performances by Max Records and Christopher Lloyd.

Lloyd and Records share a quiet moment.

5 - GREEN ROOM
The conceit of a horror film is rarely as realistically presented as this astounding punk rock nightmare. Patrick Stewart is a creeper and the late Anton Yelchin gives yet another in a line of strong horror film performances.

4 - HUSH
Director Mike Flanagan continues his career ascension with one of the most intriguing and intelligent slasher style films in years. Kate Siegel co-wrote and gives a remarkable turn as the deaf writer who must channel her creativity if she wants to survive the night.

3 - THE CONJURING 2
Its the attention to the detail of the time period that powers this frightening sequel, along with more believable chemistry and strong acting by the likable duo of Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. Some nifty scares and a spook house penchant keep it at least on par with the borderline masterpiece original.

2 - DON'T BREATHE
Stephen Lang is jaw dropping as a home invasion victim and Jane Levy has another solid outing for director Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead remake). Detroit setting heightens the effectiveness of this thriller, abundant with surprises and nail biting situations.

1 - THE WITCH (The VVitch)
Many horror fans loved it, some claimed to hate it, but chances are everyone remembers the details of this ominous period folk story. It's an admittedly slow burn for the disengaged, loaded with atmosphere, spooky settings and some of the best acting of the year from ANY genre. From the cinematography to the haunting score, THE WITCH was one of the first theatrical horror releases of the past year and gets the HALLOWEEN MACHINE nod as the best picture of 2016.

                                        Wonder what great horror films await us in 2017?! Happy viewing!!

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Five Alternative Scary Songs to Listen to for Halloween

FIVE ALTERNATIVE SCARY SONGS FOR HALLOWEEN

It’s pretty widely accepted that Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s “Monster Mash” is the Halloween anthem, pretty much worldwide. And deservedly so; the song captured the spooky spirit of the Halloween season in a catchy and influential way.

There are a number of other songs that we’ll call “the usual suspects” as well; songs that are pretty much always played at Halloween parties and show up on every other Halloween ditty compilation.

With that in mind, here is a list of five “alternative” Halloween songs. The only criteria is that they have to contain some of that creepy Halloween spirit that makes a great addition to the season, and they have to be, well, different…that is, you won’t find the likes of “Ghostbusters”, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” or “Addams Family Theme” here.

What you will find, hopefully, are a few minstrels of the macabre, contributing chilling choruses to your autumn nights. And some of these are even danceable.

5) The Charlie Daniels Band – “The Legend of Wooley Swamp”

Pretty much everyone knows that “other” Charlie Daniels Halloween canticle, the one about the red fella who goes down to Georgia on a soul-stealin’ mission. But how about this ultra-creepy little carol, an ode to the ghost of a greedy old man by the name of Luious Clay? Clay, it turns out, is known to get up and walk around. After a group of bad guys dig up Lucius’ 13 mason jars full of cold hard cash and leave ol’ Lucius for the alligators, he retaliates from beyond the grave. And does so with a voice as loud as thunder, so we’re told.

And remember, if you ever go back into Wooley Swamp, well, you better not go at night. That’s the rumor, anyway.

4) Jan & Dean – “Dead Man’s Curve”

OK, so this song isn’t a little known secret or anything – it hit as high as #8 on the Billboard top 100 back in 1964 – but it isn’t one of the songs you hear ad infinitum every Halloween. Why that is isn’t entirely clear; it’s a spooky, extremely well crafted (co-written by Beach Boys melody genius Brian Wilson) and memorable ditty, after all. And it’s been covered numerous times, by artists as varied as The Carpenters and Blink 182. It’s generally more thought of as being part of the “Teen Tragedy” song boom of the time period, but it’s just as easily at home playing in the background of your hoppin’ Halloween hullabaloo (say that three times fast).

3) Alice Cooper – “Former Lee Warmer”

Alice is pretty much the king of Halloween music, in a way; his “Welcome to My Nightmare” is one of the most played three or four Halloween songs, in my estimation. You could choose any number of his songs for the list, including such melancholic, uplifting little ditties as “Years Ago” and “This House is Haunted”. But there’s something about this bizarrely lovely song. Former Lee appears to be the dirty little secret of his family tree, and one of the saddest, creepiest moments comes when Alice discloses that Former sometimes works up the nerve to look out the window and wave at his father’s grave.

Alice has stated that he doesn’t recall making the album Dada, home of this impressively unusual song. That makes it even a little more odd, perhaps. For a bonus Halloween treat, watch the fan-made video on YouTube one late fall night. Pretty nifty.

2) Tom Waits – “Oily Night”

This song might make some of your party-goers take pause for a moment and stare at the speakers. The best way to describe “Oily Night” is simply…weird. It’s full of strange sounds, odd percussion and a super deep voice repeating the refrain in a mantra of darkness. If you listen to it and think, “Whatever, this isn’t scary”…well, hey, at 3 AM, open the windows, turn off all the lights, lay on the couch and turn it up. Should make for a pretty memorable experience. Or just the strangest nap you ever took. So, either way.

1) Jim Stafford – “Swamp Witch”

Why this 1974 song isn’t played everywhere on repeat every October is beyond me. It’s got everything a Halloween fan would want; great, mysterious lyrics, steeped in folklore-ish atmosphere, spookified music and vocals. It’s brilliant. Stafford drawls out the story of Black Water Hattie and the Black Bayou with convincing ease; you might be reaching for the light switch or waking up your significant other by the time you get to this lyrical moment:

They never found Hattie and they never found her shack
And they never made a trip back in
'Cause a parchment note they found tacked to a stump
Said “Don't come looking again.”

Happy listening! And HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Paul Counelis is a writer for Rue Morgue and Halloween Machine, and is an author. His newest release is Spook Sleuths: The Legend of Old Man Gooch and is available, along with five other new titles by other Fear Front Publishing writers, here at The Fear Front Publishing Website.

Hey New York post: Batman v Superman is no smarter than most Marvel movies, not even Deadpool

Huh. So, click-bait, right? Gotta be. I hope.

Note the super smart article about the size of Donald Trump's hands.

There's a piece running on the New York Post website by a fella who opines that Batman v Superman is just, like, WAAAAY too smart for Marvel fans. That's the ACTUAL headline (sorta). There can be no other reason to explain its crummy Rotten Tomatoes score of 29%, putting it behind The House Bunny, Donald Trump's approval rating, and season four of "Full House".

Look, this IS a ridiculous score for that film...but blaming people who paid to watch the movie for the combined ratings of a couple hundred critics is as ignorant as...as...I dunno, blaming people who paid to watch the movie for the combined ratings of a couple hundred critics. Of course, he also lists such infallible proof as "They use the word 'THE' before they say Superman!!" Whoa...MIND BLOWN.

He says that using the word "The" means ol' Big Blue is no longer our best-buddy-neighbor-help-guy, NOW, the rules have changed. NOW, he has a "complicated relationship with us mortals." This lends the film gravity, he says...never mind that Supes shacks up with a normal woman and has a GIANT STATUE commemorating our appreciation for his accomplishments in saving the world..."THE" is a GAME CHANGER.

Forget for a moment that Spider-Man (yeah, that dude from dumb ol' Marvel, who are little more than dopey jerks for sometimes adapting their comics into movies by adhering somewhat closely to the source material, which they seem to be almost not embarrassed by, unlike "Direct Competition") is OFTEN referred to as "The" Spider-Man. I mean, dude...it is IN his theme song ("Here comes THE Spider-Man...)
.
No, if we didn't know Superman was NOT like us in the first Superman movies when he was reversing time to save Lois Lane and launching Kryptonian super baddies into the heavens, THIS is the moment that superheroes get a "NEW dimension". Not when Marvel had the concept of not trusting superheroes as the basis of their entire giant label crossover Civil War. Not even when Superman is called THE Superman 38 years ago in Superman: The Movie.

But we press on.

Here is my favorite line: "“Batman v Superman” may be pretentious, but it’s far more mature and ambitious than these other films, and it’s even occasionally interesting."

Wow, that is HIGH PRAISE. Quick, get that out there on the Blu-Ray insert: "Pretentious, but  occasionally interesting." That's not even being a good apologist, for Clark's sake.

Further, how do intelligent people go about scientifically measuring which film is "more" ambitious than the other between such blockbusters as BvS, Avengers: Age of Ultron, with its amazing circular fight scene and an earlier scene that uses the magic of cinema to appear to roll without a cut; Guardians of the Galaxy, which attempts to tell stories about the same character on multiple planets, including earth; and Deadpool, a movie that treats its subject matter in the same manner as the comic it is adapted from, using stunningly clever narration and overt breaking of the 4th wall?

Deadpool being noted as dumb or juvenile and without ambition is pretty much a dead giveaway that the writer didn't put too much consideration into what he was writing about, aside from telling genital jokes (in the Post piece, the word "onanistic" is used as a negative description to describe the Marvel movies) or being OFFENDED by them in the Deadpool movie. Deadpool is extremely intricate from the AMAZING opening right on through, but it would take someone who knows what makes a movie ambitious to really be able to look past the content and to the CONTEXT of what the movie is trying to achieve.

Deadpool is, if nothing else (though it is a CONSIDERABLE deal more), a breakthrough for movies being able to tell their comic stories in ways that remain true to the stories, regardless of rating. If anything, DC threw a PARTY to see that Deadpool did so well at the box office, since they are always toying with the idea of making R rated films from some of their most popular comic stories.


No, BvS is apparently MORE ambitious, because it attempts to "consider the ramifications of super beings" more than most any story over the course of the nearly 80 year existence of the characters (Pssst...guess this guy, an expert on the 8 decades of BvS, has never read The Dark Knight Returns).

And that's only a comic that deals with the EXACT thing the BvS movie deals with. Marvel has pretty much based Spider-Man's angst on the notion that most people do NOT trust him, spurred on by newsman Jolly J. Jonah Jameson (MENACE). Further the X-Men are stand-ins for pretty much any type of racism or bigotry that has ever existed. Those comics and movies consider the ramifications of super beings EVERY SINGLE TIME. In fact, if the writer of that piece saw Avengers: Age of Ultron, he would have seen it dealt with RIGHT THERE; the collateral damage caused by the Avengers while they try to save the world. In short...dude. This is NOT a new concept. DC even did it before with The Watchmen (and just exactly who DOES watch them, huh??).


Being a Marvelite (AND DC fan...wrap your mind around THAT duality, NY Post), I thought about pointing out all the hilarious corn that peppers BvS throughout its runtime, but no...I'm not gonna do that. Because I LIKE the movie, for one, and for another...as stated before, the notion that Marvel fans are the reason that critics gave the film a poor score is just so, so...immature.


Consider the scores given to other DC projects as of late. The Nolan Batfilms got some great scores, even that hilariously ambitious pile of apocalypto that was The Dark Knight Rises. The Nolan films got mostly good reviews even though they were MUCH more intricate in plot and execution than the new BvS movie (which I personally enjoy more than the TDK film series). Marvel fans understood the films quite easily. They understood the BvS precursor Man of Steel well enough, since it scored higher than BvS. And did you realize that even Superman Returns notched a "fresh" rating on the apparent Marvel fan scale of RottenTomatoes.com?

Come on, man. If you HAVE to write click-bait, at least give a bother to write something less silly. I mean, yeah, you can still be as pretentious and as you wanna be, but give us an opinion piece that is "even occasionally interesting".


EXCELSIOR! ;)

Supes is rollin' over in his grave reading this stuff.

SUPERMAN might not be the hero we WANT, but he just may be the hero we NEED: Sorting out Batman v Superman

"What's with all the skyscrapers on the set of '300'?"

WARNING: SPOILERS. 

I've been thinking about this for a while now, some of it WAY before I saw Zack Snyder's new DC film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. I don't want to write a review per se, but I feel the need to sift through my thoughts on the film in order to get to the nitty gritty of this particular entry.

For starters, I went in fully aware that this IS a Zack Snyder flick (and, importantly, at least somewhat playing in the sandbox established by Christopher Nolan in the Batflicks). He isn't going to all of a sudden do a 180 degree turn and be Jon Favreau. You should have some idea going in of what you're going to be looking at, if not in specifics, at least in general artistic choices and style. And that's what he should do, make HIS movie, because he was hired for this job, presumably, based on the things he has done before. You know upfront that you will get a lot of loud, abrasive, chest pounding action (with odd intervals of what resembles wrestling theme music inserts), varying degrees of color (lots of brown...dark blue...black) and not a lot of humor, as well as stylized scenery and a slick coolness that perhaps doesn't always lend itself to warm crescendos that send kids happily inspired out into the playgrounds to mimic their heroes (though to be fair, Legend of the Guardians might come close, and he actually MADE that with kids as the target audience).

Now, lest you think that is fanboy criticism, let me preface this entire blog with one very important point: I could NOT film this script. I would have ZERO idea where to start. In fact, 99.9% of the world's population would not be capable of turning out a cohesive narrative based on a script this ambitious, in terms of both effects and beats, and stuffed with the MILLION things DC needed for what is pretty much a "setup" movie in their fledgling cinematic universe. In short, I couldn't make this film, and neither could you. Unless Guillermo del Toro or Joss Whedon is somehow reading this blog, in which case, you are part of the .1% I referred to before. This movie is, at the very least, EPIC in feel and tone.

That out of the way, let's get on with it...because, look...I have been not only reading comics and books, seeing movies and TV shows according to the ground rules DC has laid out for these characters over the past 40 years or so, but I have presumably gained some insights and a bit of a tuning to my moral compass, at least at the age of 6-17 or 18, over the course of seeing my heroes make decisions based on their held integrity and by virtue of the very reasons WHY they decided to do what they do in the first place. So while I refuse to say things like, "Batman wouldn't act like that!", I do feel qualified to know in my heart if this is a further adventure of the characters I know and love, or just a remix of some familiar themes and people.

The answer, fittingly, is likely somewhere in the middle. As a comic fan, that doesn't delight me. As a movie fan, I can accept it...but I'm still not always thrilled about the results. Most importantly, how does the script (by David Goyer, among others) hold up to its own rules and logic on the DC Universe's own terms, which are partially possibly given invite to scrutiny more than a more "silly" comic book film might by the insistence of DC's head honchos to keep everything realistic?

Hmmm...not necessarily great. But more on that later.

So it was that I was a LITTLE surprised by the opening, which is a really restrained, emotional grounding that a movie like this calls for, but which isn't always given.

I felt stirred by the look back at little Bruce Wayne and his now famous but tragic origin story. It was a great way to incorporate what people who don't know Bats' backstory NEED to know (yes, I assume there are still a few people out there who haven't EVER seen a Batman movie or read a Batman comic) while simultaneously giving us a protagonist to pull for, possibly even some sort of an emotional attachment to. It was extremely effective and low key, right down to the small fade-in of the movie's title, with no blockbuster-y fanfare.

The early scenes of the film also give us a look into why exactly Wayne feels that Supes is a "menace", with the oft overlooked "collateral damage" aspect, of which Marvel REALLY has taken a look at in previous comics and films, it must be mentioned...the Marvels comic by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross gives a bystander's viewpoint, the Avengers movies cover it (and newspaper Easter eggs on the walls of news offices in the Netflix Daredevil series), and the entire Civil War storyline is actually based on the damage heroes do while doing what heroes do. So it's not COMPLETELY new ground we are on in BvS, but still used less than many comic book tropes.

This sequence, with Wayne racing toward the rubble caused by Supes and his pal Zod in the events of Man of Steel, got me to thinking immediately of the way I felt when I was a kid watching Superman 2. Zod and his cronies take over the White House. When it becomes apparent that Superman might not be able to do anything to STOP them from essentially taking over the world, that is as helpless a feeling as I ever wanted to have as a little boy watching a superhero movie.

Again, presumably, that is what the filmmakers wanted to convey with MoS, and the notion was definitely that if Zod and company were not stopped, collateral damage, while important, would be the least of our planet's worries. Surely Bruce Wayne, being an EXTREMELY intelligent man (his detective work in BvS is actually explored here in MUCH more satisfying fashion than in the Nolan films) and someone who after fighting crime in the Gotham streets for decades likely has seen SOME sort of innocent bystander injuries, would be able, with the rest of the world who have come to honor Superman for saving the entire globe, to at least have some semblance of understanding that MUCH of the damage done was out of Big Blue's control. But alas, just as in the dumbed down world of modern politics and the tactics employed by candidates looking to make generalities more abstract, we are torn from the subtlety of any kind of "grey" area by a singular, though harrowing, anecdote from Wayne's personal experience.

But ok, we have to have a reason why Bats will turn suspicious of Supes, so let it ride. I'm in. Plus, the scene with Bruce running to the rescue has a haunting and moving poetry; I admit to tearing up when the little girl points at the building where her mother is. The parallels of a generation who grew up under the shadow of 9/11 are also hard to ignore in that scene, being that we are, in essence, at ground zero of the Superman/Zod aftermath. It's effective. Very much so.

Of a much higher cinematic umbrage is the notion that the ENTIRE plot of this picture hinges on the fact that Batman IGNORE Superman's plea to listen to him. That's right...one single conversation could render Lex Luthor's (sorta stupid, come on) plan useless, and the two extremely intelligent and at least somewhat reasonable men realize that they are being manipulated (over and over) by Luthor. Superman goes fully into the fray completely aware that Lex is manipulating his moral code, for example, and that's troublesome.

Side note: this DID bother the side of me that rooted for Chris Reeve as an engrossed youth; the idea that Superman would knowingly go in for the kill of someone who he knew was at least acting on good intentions, regardless of what was at stake. How many times could Chris have just ripped Luthor Hackman in half? These corners that the writers paint Superman in leave him little choice but to go senselessly into VICIOUS battle. HOWEVER, we are judging this film, at least partially, on the established rules of the modern DC movies, and our new Supes ended the happy and uplifting Man of Steel by not using his brain, but his brawn. So I can wrestle with whether or not I PERSONALLY approve of the writing all I want, but I have to accept this direction as either the way this new Superman will react in future films, or (PLEASE) the actions of a Superman who has not yet matured into trying to discover a way around the obvious (beating and killing everything he can't immediately figure out a way to stop).

One more QUICK note here...while it may be true that Superman did similar things in the comic books, those were WAY isolated events in the 75+ years of stories written about him, enough to where it would be a JARRING thing for Superman to actually have to kill...Doomsday.

Jumping back to the overview, what it is that really gets under my skin in virtually ALL the DC films (possible exception being Batman Begins) are what I feel are two HUGE, glaring issues. The first is that the filmmakers seem to be trying to distance themselves from the source material in such a way as to almost be embarrassed of them; this is evidenced by the obvious, in some cases...what the heroes look like and the design of the characters. Less obvious, in others...the refusal to utter the word "Catwoman" even ONCE in The Dark Knight Rises.

Of course, this is still in line with the consistency of the established rules, so while it may hurt fan feelings, it is what it is. But the second, and again more troubling side for me, is that the villains in these films seem to play the protagonists like fiddles. Luthor in BvS is no different. In fact, in the Nolan Batman trilogy, Batman really doesn't ever outsmart any of those guys, or even STOP them on purpose. He basically loses over and over; his biggest contribution being simply to survive and exist. Think about it.

If Nolan laid the rules out, this here is still Snyder's movie, and he thankfully does give us some things to squeal about, none the least of which is that super cool Batmobile. Wonder Woman is also treated to a cool fanfare, showing up in that Snyder Sucker Punch style amid a barrage of super heroic modern music, clearly able to hold her own, and with one hell of a will to jump into the fray. Ok, so it doesn't LOOK like the orthodox Wonder Woman we're all used to, but dagnabbit, when that magic lasso wraps itself around Doomsday, I wanted to hop out of my seat for the first time in the whole flick. There is also the absolute triumph of Ben Affleck's Batman being able to fight. What a welcome series of sequences to see; when season 1 of Marvel's Daredevil aired, I told my wife, "I wish someone would make a movie where Batman could fight like that." Thanks, Zack. Ironically, after seeing Affleck's Daredevil movie, I thought that it would be cool if Warner would make a Batman movie that dark. Happily, Nolan went beyond that.

The Batman dream sequences recalled in me Roger Ebert's axiom that movies relying on multiple dream sequences to further the plot are in trouble. Rob Zombie's Halloween 2, among others, might seem to bear that out. Further, Bats' "dream within a dream", according to Ebert, would make it doubly so. The exceptions to a rule like that mostly include the character Freddy Krueger, but he aint here, so make of that what you will. As an excuse for Batman to dress up in that super cool trenchcoat and whoop ass all over the place with a gun, it works.

There is PLENTY of illogical corn, it must be said...how many in the audience bought that Batman is dumb enough to toss aside a weapon made of Kryptonite, for instance? And how bizarre to see the Batsignal on the apparent tiny island of Gotham visible in the night sky from Metropolis? How much distance were we dealing with when Lois heroically goes back for the Krypto-sword?

There is more, MUCH more, to be said about Batman v Superman, particularly what I consider to be a very brave (and again, poetic) ending, and the way Snyder beats us over the head even more with this movie than in MoS with the religious "overtones" (that are now COMPLETELY spelled out) but the basis for the conception of this particular piece has been set by what I have said.

Over and over and over, I read on social media how "Superman sucks. Superman is boring. Superman is a goody-goody." I sometimes counter, when I have the will to debate for hours on Facebook, with how very challenging and awesome Superman is as a character, both because of his powers and because of his inevitable status as an outsider. Virtually all Superman stories have to deal with Clark Kent having to adjust to "real" life, for instance, and he often struggles to do so. Part of what makes it believable for Kent to put on glasses and change his hair a little and not be recognized is that Clark has to lead a double life; he has to be someone he is not, to some extent, on both sides of his dual personality. BvS doesn't deal with that as much, choosing to have Henry Cavill and Amy Adams' Lois Lane be pretty open about his humanity and lack thereof (which is interesting in a different way).

Here is my OWN anecdote, in the spirit of the entire driving plot behind BvS. When I was a kid, I saw Superman: The Movie. I was VERY young, and I saw it at a drive-in. I saw Star Wars the year before. The world was still a tough place all in all; dark and scary, but just like Luke Skywalker the year before, Superman was not. He was everything that was good, an outsider who still defended all that was good and moral, and the thought that he was "boring" or a "goody-goody" would have never even occurred to me. He was someone to look up to, someone who always tried to do the right thing. He sacrificed his own happiness for the greater good. I had a wardrobe of pretty much Superman and Star Wars shirts. I was Superman for Halloween (yes the classic Ben Cooper vinyl costume).

I was a teen when Tim Burton's Batman came out in 1989. On opening day, my dad and I had to drive around (and eventually out of) the city to get tickets to see it. For us, it was TOTALLY worth it; we watched Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson satisfyingly embody the IDEALS of the characters, if not a complete take on the characters themselves. On that point, I feel the newer DC movies differ...but that is digression. When the movie was over, after Papa and I went home, I ran around outside that night, acting like Batman, trying to talk a friend into being Robin so we could fight crime together.

Consider this sliver of an aside: my dad grew up with George Reeves and Adam West as Supes and Bats. He welcomed the new take on those characters in the form of Reeve and Keaton, because they were essentially the same characters in terms of morality and ideals. The agendas behind the films were to tell the best possible stories about pre-existing characters, which they mostly succeeded at, with the charms of the respective eras taken in context. When someone who grew up watching Adam West as Batman turns to you during screening of Batman v Superman and says, "Michael Keaton will always be Batman to me," that tells you something. OK, he said, "Birdman will always be Batman to me," exact quote...but the sentiment is the same.

When I saw The Dark Knight Rises with my 15 year old son, he was depressed when we left the theater. He walked out in cold silence after watching Bruce Wayne basically survive in some weird (hella ambitious), 3 hour dystopian nightmare of a movie in which Batman had his ass beat repeatedly. I asked him what was wrong. "That wasn't fun at all," he replied. Bummer.

When I saw BvS with my dad and my 16 and 14 year old daughters, my 14 year old bawled her eyes out for most of the last 15 minutes of the movie. She was quiet on the car ride home. No excitement over watching superheroes battle it out on a huge screen (in 3D, no less!), though she did like it, and became more animated when discussing certain aspects (yay, Wonder Woman! Batmobile! Batman beating up the bad guys!). My 16 year old was also wiping away tears.

I'm not saying that its bad to have a "grown-up" superhero film, even if trailer commercials are everywhere and toys and marketing make kids completely interested. Heck, Marvel was even ballsy enough to give Deadpool the "R" rating so parents would know it aint for kids. Comic book stories deal with dark themes, and making them look and feel realistic is a worthwhile undertaking.

But in the context of today's world, should the ambiguity of the morality of arguably the greatest superhero of them all really be in question? Sure, its just a movie, just escapism, after all...but consider the actual world we live in right now. I don't need to run down the laundry list of the daily things we are dealing with, I'm sure. Suffice to say that I am writing this from Flint, Michigan and that should be example enough.

Why do YOU think my little girls were crying when Superman was killed? Was it because of the emotional attachment to icy Henry Cavill (though he is a hunk) from this movie or MoS? A little...I'm sure the scenes of Lois and Clark at home and abroad, and their undeniable love for each other had something to do with caring about his particular fate. How about the dual Marthas? Yes, that was a sweet touch...I gulped a little when Lois screamed "That was his mother's name!" at Batman...very moving moment that I'm sure affected my smart and intelligent young ladies.

But the BIGGEST reason is that my daughters, my sons, me, my wife, my dad, my mom...probably most of my entire family over the age of 10 go into these movies ALREADY loving Superman. We love him because we grew up with him. Christopher Reeve catching Lois after her fall from a skyscraper, his bright red cape waving defiantly in the night sky. Standing on the side of a building watching criminals try to break into a building ("Something wrong with the elevator?"). We love him because he figures out a way to stop General Zod from becoming the president.

"Is a bird showing off when it flies?"

 And not just because of the movies, but because of the TV shows, Lois and Clark, Smallville...we have repeatedly seen this character fleshed out from babyhood to boyhood to manhood (alienhood?) and our prior knowledge of how he will react, what he has been through, the mythology that surrounds him...that all works toward our caring about this fictional character in a way that might be uncool to admit to ourselves in such a dark, cynical world. Or even in the midst of a dark, somewhat cynical film that tries to distance itself so much from the character's inclinations that it's Batman who delivers the "There is good in the world" narration.

After all, Superman, the character who has generally embodied the good in the world in nearly every incarnation for decade upon decade, was willing to bring Batman's head to the obviously villainous and openly manipulative Mark Zuckerberg to save his mother (who would SURELY have disapproved of this had she known, the way Kevin Costner wanted no part of Clark sacrificing others to save him in the previous film).

Sigh.

And we love him because of the comics. As stated before regarding the films, they are not always consistent from writer to writer; even Superman himself. I read the silliest Superman comics in the world when I was growing up, "The Superman Family". I was reading about his best pal, Jimmy Olsen, that unlikely helpful sidekick. I read about his gruff but sorta lovable boss, Perry White. His cousin, Supergirl. Hell, I read full, standalone stories about Superman's DOG.

My feeling is that this is the world climate that is in need of Superman as any ever has been. The idea of believing in a pure hero, someone who is fallible, but TRIES to make the right decision no matter the cost. Not an anti-hero who stumbles into doing the right thing because it's available on the way to his own self-serving agenda. Not even Batman, who has to hide in the night, and thrives on his own regret and instilling of fear in others to function as a weapon for the greater good.

When I saw Deadpool, like most others I felt like it was a triumph of embracing the source material. It was funny, modern, violent yes, but with tongue FIRMLY in cheek. And as mentioned before, it was rated R. It revels in cynicism at times, but that can and often does lead to a different kind of catharsis than what a Superman movie might bring. Deadpool correctly represents what that character has always represented. It might be telling, then, that my first thought upon leaving the packed theater was, "I hope they (movie studio execs) don't think this movie succeeds BECAUSE of its R rating."

The more people say that Superman is "boring", the more brave I think it is to ensure that his presence as a doer of good wins out, because as silly as it might sound, as uncool as it may seem, our cinematic hopes and dreams are a direct reflection of the society around us. We sometimes need escapism in the form of our established myths and heroes in a way that nurtures our own well being, especially kids. Superman is different than other superheroes because he already embodies qualities that transcend any one movie. Any new mass released story is merely building on what we already know, and is able to play off of our foreknowledge and affection for the character.

Look, Batman is an INCREDIBLE comic book and movie character. He has a deep story that leaves room for mystery and personal growth while making us intrigued by scenes in which Bruce Wayne has to engage in his "playboy" persona. He is adept at playing hunter and measuring his own dramatic entrances, because he is built on the idea that criminals are a "cowardly lot", and he can use a dark flair for the dramatic to his own good. He will punch a criminal into telling him what he needs to know, and even though he has his own highly tuned sense of morality (much like Spider-Man, who also had to learn the lesson the hard way), he is not like Superman.

Superman stands for the light, in a way, though he has his own tragedies and demons. Unlike Batman, he does not allow those demons to control his actions. He is not world weary or of the belief that he may not be making a huge difference, whereas Batman states in BvS that he is fighting a losing battle. Superman will save a cat in a tree for a sad kid; he knows that makes a difference to at least ONE person (and one cat). Superman really believes that there is good in the world. He opines that if there isn't, or if there is somehow LESS or DECLINING good in the world, then he will do what he can to make the world a better place.

We sometimes feel as if we SHOULD do the right thing, but we don't know if its worth it, or we feel like we might be wasting our time. And that's why, even in our moments of entertainment and escapism, we seek representations of either or both of those ideals.

That's why there is a Batman AND a Superman.