Alien, Aliens, and the Art of the Sequel (a review)

This week, I continued to chip away at the list of Movies I Have Not Seen And There's No Excuse For That. There's still a lot of films on this list, notably the Tim Burton era Batman films (and The Dark Knight Rises, I mean, come on, what am I doing with not seeing that?). But this week managed to knock two glaring entries off the list: Ridley Scott's Alien and James Cameron's Aliens. I've been meaning to see these for a while, especially because they've been in the pop culture consciousness a lot recently. Alien consistently shows up on lists of the scariest films ever made, I've read a lot of articles about this series on Cracked.com, a lot of discussion about the merits of Avatar include references to Aliens, and in the past five years we've seen not just a recent prequel to Alien but also the sequel to Alien vs Predator, and when they make sequels to crossover movies from overexposed franchises, not seeing the originals becomes akin to mortal sin for a film enthusiast like me. So when a friend of mine offered to show me both Alien and Aliens, I couldn't turn down her offer.

Before I continue forward, I should probably make good use of a SPOILER WARNING in case you, like me, have waited too long to watch these movies.

But that might not be terribly necessary for discussion of Alien, at least. There's not much I can say about this film that hasn't already been said. It is a very tight, very well-crafted horror film. The villain(s???) are threatening, the suspense is well done, the atmosphere is rarely broken, and except in one or two cases, the plot does not rely on characters making idiotic decisions. So you're not going to hear anything particularly novel on the topic of Alien from me.

No, what I really want to discuss is Aliens. A straight sci-fi action contrast to the first installment's Gothic-horror-in-space, I've heard a lot of opinions on this film in a number of directions. I mean, it's certainly classic: a lot of the mainstays and iconic moments come from this film rather than the predecessor. But there's a lot of discussion on whether this film is good or bad, better or worse than the original, an example of James Cameron as a good director or a bad director, etc.

I think there's a very strong reason for such split opinion. When this film is good, it is excellent action with high stakes. When this film is bad, it is cheese and schlock and questionable one-liners. Let's not be mistaken: this film has flaws. Space Marines are often kind of hit or miss, especially being everywhere these days, and Aliens has them in all their meatheaded, obnoxious glory. You won't feel for the ones that get killed off early, and you likely won't remember any of their names. The young actress who plays the little girl Newt is not very good at all, though at least she feels important. More than a bit of the dialogue is bad, many of the line reads are either flat or hammy, the list goes on and on.

I would argue that these flaws to not prevent it from being a good movie. But even more than that, I would state that this film is an example of how to make a fantastic sequel.

Sequels can fail for a lot of reasons. Airplane 2 made the mistake of trying to be exactly the same as the original. Indiana Jones 4 was hated because it wasn't enough like the originals. Iron Man 2 is unsatisfying because the stakes feel too low. Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3 spiral out of control by raising the stakes too high and too fast. A sequel has to have enough continuity without being a carbon copy, and it has to feel bigger while not getting away from itself. This has often been a difficult thing to do. Some times sequels are studio-slaughtered abominations of filmmaking. And even when a sequel is a great movie, like The Dark Knight, it can still be an ill-fitting sequel. So the balance between respect for the original and creating something new can be incredibly touchy.

Aliens hits this balance almost perfectly. James Cameron couldn't have possibly captured the same sense of suspense and terror that Ridley Scott managed in Alien; no one could have. So he made the right decision and didn't even try. Instead of focusing on the isolation and fear of a small group of untrained survivors fighting off a single unknown foe, Aliens brings in a squadron of marines with guns blazing against an army of hivemind xenomorphs. But at the same time, Cameron manages to hold back, showing the aliens in surprisingly few shots, much like the original. Additionally, Aliens expands on a lot of concepts and story presented in the first film, while never really contradicting existing mythos or derailing the one recurring character.

In Aliens, the stakes are higher and the action is grander. More people are involved, more lives are lost, but also more is risked on a personal level for these characters. The insider isn't acting merely on orders, he's acting out of self-interest, as idiotic as it might be. Ripley isn't just fighting for her life, she is fighting for the lives of the colonists and, when that doesn't work out, for one colonist in particular. There is a sense of pathos on some levels of this film that doesn't get achieved in many sequels, and indeed in many films in general.

Is Aliens as good or as tight of a film as Alien? Certainly not. Have better science fiction action films been made before and after it? Goodness me, yes. But Aliens succeeds on possibly the most important front for a film like it. It expands upon the original while keeping true to its roots as a story. Aliens is a fantastic sequel. And that, for me, is enough.

On the Pitfalls of Literary Study

Whenever someone asks me what I hope to do after college, or what I hope to have as a career, I find it a difficult question to answer. It's not that I have no idea. It's that I have so many ideas. I want to do everything! I want to write, I want to edit, I want to report, I want to work in a theater, I want to be a published playwright and poet and author and I just want to do! Everything!

One of the things that I really want to do is teach English literature. Granted, you might have guessed that from this blog, but I will pretend it's an enormous revelation, and we'll move on. But the endgame for me is probably a literature professor. I struggled with this, because it seems such an obvious answer for an English student to say that people assume it's all that an English degree is good for. And I've tried to work hard to fight against that perception.

And now here I am, really wanting to be an English professor. It's not the fault of the English degree. English study isn't useless. I have learned so much about how to formulate an argument, develop critical thinking skills, write like there's no tomorrow, and understand the human condition. There is a heck of a lot you can actually do with an English degree. And there is a lot that I plan to do with it.

It's just that nothing is quite as enjoyable to me as discussing the finer points of literature, or the hidden details in a movie, or the motivations of a character, or the recurring themes of a screenwriter's work. It's just my favorite thing to talk about, and if you get me talking about the cultural significance of a movie like Captain America: The First Avenger, you had better have a comfortable seat, because you will probably not be allowed to leave for a couple hours. And if I could share this passion with others as a part of my career? That would be the best thing in the world.

I actually spend a good deal of my daydreaming time devoted to making mental lists of possible curricula. I understand that this is probably the nerdiest thing I could do with my free time, save possibly for ranking all the mecha in Gundam in order of least to most available horsepower, but I honestly do not feel any shame about divulging this information. I often wonder what kind of classes I would or could teach if given the opportunity. Maybe I would teach a class on rhetorical usage in the films of Quentin Tarantino. Or perhaps a history of comic book adaptations from Superman through The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises. Or a class on adaptations and reimaginings of various famous works, like the plays of Shakespeare or the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Or the influence of anime on Western cinema and the influence of Western cinema on anime.

If it seems like film is coming up a lot on that list, that's because film really is my favorite medium of literature. Do not get me wrong, I adore novels, I love poetry, I live for plays and music. But when it comes right down to it, I get the most mileage out of films. It's so much more of a recent mode of literature, and it has its very roots in adapting previous works. It has developed its own language of tropes and conventions throughout the decades, and new things are innovated all the time, and they are adapted and perfected and overused so quickly. Few forms of literature can be as escapist as film, but few forms of literature can be so symbolically and intellectually dense as film. Really, if you wish to examine the zeitgeist of a particular time from the beginning of the 20^th Century on, it is so clearly apparent in its film.

I would not, however, begrudge the opportunity to teach something else. I love teaching. My style is a bit more informal than some, maybe, but I think that in a university setting, this would be a good thing. I probably couldn't teach the way I want to in a high school. But for me, getting in front of people and talking about something I am passionate about or leading a discussion is actually something I can do rather naturally. And it's something I highly enjoy doing. So maybe there will be a few steps in between. And maybe it's the obvious answer. But when it comes down to it, I really want to teach literature. I'm sorry friends. I have fallen victim to the legions of English students who want to teach. You're going to have to find someone else who can lead that fight.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm review

Much to my chagrin, it will likely be a while before I'm able to see The Dark Knight Rises. Theater tickets cost a lot of money these days, and with 3D – it is in 3D, isn't it? It has to be – a trip to the flicks is now a significant chunk out of my non-existent paycheck. So in the meantime, I've decided to catch up on some Batman films that I haven't seen. Earlier this week, I watched Batman: Year One, which wasn't half bad. And tonight, I decided that if I can't watch the Batman film that everybody is talking about, I can at least watch the Batman film that nobody is talking about.

Allow me to clarify: for better or for worse, there at least is an opinion on most Batman films. Adam West's Batman: The Movie is talked about all the time for how ridiculous and idiotic it is, a fact that the film itself almost seems to understand. Tim Burton's Batman is held in fairly high regard among most people I have heard, and Batman Returns has a great deal of mixed reviews. Batman and Robin is reviled for both its cheesy campiness and the fact that, unlike its 1960s predecessor, it does not realize how stupid it is. Even Batman Forever, though nowhere near as good as Burton's films or as expressly bad as Schumacher's followup, is at least brought up now and then as That Time Jim Carrey Wore Spandex. And of course Christopher Nolan's trilogy is nothing short of a pop cultural phenomenon, even if sometimes people seem to forget that there was a first film in the series.

But in 1993, hot off the success of the Animated Series and the disappointing returns from Batman Returns, there was another feature film release that is hardly mentioned at all – Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. Part of the highly acclaimed Batman: the Animated Series, Mask of the Phantasm came out about a year after the launch of the series and fits in as part of the story. But the weird thing is that nobody ever seems to talk about it. I don't know if I have even ever met someone who has seen it, and basically every single one of my friends loves Batman. I had to find out about this on the internet, where the few people who mention it assure me it is quite good.

And the thing is, they're right. It is a really good Batman film. It both fits within the established mythos of the series (at the time. Later seasons would retcon some things.) and tells its own story well. Not only that, but unlike some film entries of existing series like Trigun: Badlands Rumble, the film has fairly high stakes. Sure, some of the most important characters are introduced in the movie and never seen outside of it, but their arcs are compelling and affect established characters in a way that makes sense.

For those who have not seen the film, there are two main stories that go on in it. The main story involves a mysterious hooded figure – the eponymous Phantasm, though as far as I noticed, nobody calls it this onscreen – who is systematically hunting down and killing mob bosses. These murders are blamed on Batman, which is not an unlikely leap, what what with the cape and the mask and the unmistakable influences from Gothic horror.

The second story involves a former love interest of Bruce Wayne's, a woman named Andrea Beaumont. And love interest is not a loose term here: we see her relationship with Bruce unfold quite seriously through a series of flashbacks. This story is actually very interesting, as it has an enormous effect on Bruce and raises answers to some pressing questions. Couldn't more good be accomplished by Bruce Wayne through donations to the police and charities? If so, why does he choose to become Batman instead? Where is the line drawn between vigilantism and vengeance and has Batman crossed it? It's an origin story that doesn't involve his technology or his childhood or his fear/fascination with bats, and it works because of it.

Other than these, the rest can be summed up by saying it's a part of the animated series. It succeeds best in its unique mesh of time periods and art styles. It can be somewhat camp and cartoony but still dark and interesting. The cast is fantastic, with some great (though short) parts with Wayne's butler Alfred and of course Mark Hamill's endlessly entertaining performance as The Joker. Furthermore, the scenes with the Phantasm evoke a wonderful classic monster movie feel, and significant development is given to the character and motivations of Bruce Wayne. Sure, it suffers some from its relatively short running time, and the climax perhaps leaves a bit to be desired and a lot unanswered. But in spite of these flaws, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm still is a great film, and easily belongs in the Top Five film adaptations of the Batman franchise ever made.

Review of Batman: Year One

I just finished watching the straight-to-DVD animated adaptation of Frank Miller's Batman: Year One. It was pretty good. Granted, was certainly not the kind of film that could get a theatrical release. The pacing wasn't fantastic and the animation wasn't exactly studio quality. Additionally, at 64 minutes long, it isn't even as long as a Pokemon movie. But as a home release animated film, it worked quite well. It was certainly more interesting than some other comic book home releases like The Invincible Iron Man, which was surprisingly boring. And as far as Batman films go, it also was more coherent and engaging than Batman: Gotham Knight, the DVD release interquel between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

The film, for the uninitiated, follows both Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon as they come to Gotham City in order to fight crime: Gordon as an honest lieutenant in a precinct full of dirty cops, and Wayne as a vigilante who soon becomes the legendary Batman. Interestingly, the film spends a great deal of time more on Lt. Gordon, as he deals with corrupt cops, his superiors, troubles with his marriage, and a so-called giant bat that seems to be attacking people.

Honestly, I suspect that the film would have been done itself a favor if it had stuck with this idea and run with it. It told a very interesting story about Jim Gordon, and a Batman story completely from his view would be fantastic. Additionally, by dropping the few, unsatisfactory parts based around Wayne – as well as the late-coming and quickly forgotten arc about Catwoman – the film could have had more time to develop a few of its plot threads that seemed rushed.

That was one of the biggest problems with the film: the pacing. While the first half had a great deal of nicely done buildup, by the end it seemed like plot threads were rushed to completion – like the aftermath of Gordon's infidelity – or dropped altogether – like the origin of Catwoman. I understand that this is a direct adaptation of an existing story, but many of these parts feel awkwardly forced in.  Other problems revolved around the voice acting  In many cases, it was fine, but some acting, notably Bruce Wayne himself, fell rather flat.

The animation itself was a bit of a mixed bag, though perhaps not quite as literally mixed as Gotham Knight, which was a series of shorts produces by different directors and studios, creating the effect of switching halfway through an episode of Samurai Champloo to watch a little Death Note. Year One seems to take some of its cues from the current trend of Motion Comics, adapting a comic book or graphic novel by putting limited animation into the existing panels. However, it becomes clear that this is mostly to save money for the fight scenes. The fight scenes are stunningly animated, which can provide a bit of a jarring contrast to much of the rest of the film, which thankfully found a bit of a middle ground between the limited style of some scenes and the glossy production of others.

But all things considered, this was a fairly enjoyable film. The story was mostly solid, the animation had some great scenes, and the voice acting was fantastic with only a few exceptions. Fans of Batman Begins or Batman: The Animated Series would probably enjoy this – it certainly has a similar ring to it – and it could even change the minds of those who have found previous DVD releases to be somewhat lacking. It definitely wouldn't win over anyone who doesn't like Batman, of course. But let's be real here: those people are quite beyond help already.

The Freeze Ray that Stopped the World: Dr. Horrible as an Example of Powerful Film

An unsuccessful supervillain, frustrated by his egotistical nemesis constantly thwarting his schemes (which rarely work as planned anyway), runs a video weblog where he talks about his plans and pines over the girl he always sees at the Laundromat but cannot work up the courage to engage in conversation. This unconventional tale is the backbone of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, the wildly successful internet musical created by famed writer/director Joss Whedon. And while it may sound like sheer ridiculous comedy, Dr. Horrible is a shining example of writing in a popular culture that still produces great things.

The beginning to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog can basically be summed up as it is in the introduction. The mad scientist Dr. Horrible, played by Neil Patrick Harris, is a “supervillain” who aspires to enter the Evil League of Evil, the penultimate evil organization, led by a villain known as Bad Horse, the Thoroughbred of Sin, and to take over the world. His reasoning for this, of course, is that, as he says, “The world is a mess and I just need to rule it.” He talks about his life and plans on his internet video journal, from which the musical gets its name. On this blog, he discusses the problems he has with his nemesis, Captain Hammer (played by Nathan Fillion), and a girl named Penny (Felicia Day) to whom he can’t seem to bring himself to talk.

One of his plans involves building a freeze ray, which, as Dr. Horrible is certain to make clear, is “not a death ray or an ice beam” but instead stops time. To build this contraption, he first needs to steal a shipment of “Wonderflonium” that is being moved in a courier van. Thinking that this heist will for sure get him into the Evil League of Evil, he goes undercover in his secret identity (just a normal, timid guy named Billy) and uses a remote controller to carjack the van. When his plan seems to work and he is about to steal the Wonderflonium, suddenly, from out of nowhere, Captain Hammer jumps on top of the van and crushes the device controlling it. This causes the van to swerve out of control and head straight toward Penny, who had only just introduced herself to Billy. Captain Hammer jumps in to push Penny out of the way, just as Dr. Horrible manages to stop the van remotely. This has the unfortunate side effect of Penny falling in love with Captain Hammer, who completely ignores Dr. Horrible as he runs off with the Wonderflonium. This then kicks off the rest of the musical. In the two acts that follow, Billy tries to win over Penny and vows to defeat Captain Hammer as Dr. Horrible.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog began during the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America Strike. Director Joss Whedon, his brothers Zack and Jed, and Jed’s fiancée Maurissa Tancharoen, all screenwriters, had their studio projects shut down because of the strike. So they decided, as Tancharoen relates, to “get together and write something, whether . . . for $100 or whatever it [would turn] into” (quoted in Los Angeles Times). They worked independent of any studios, had a budget in the low hundred thousands, and created a 42-minute short film and released it online for absolutely no profit.

Would a silly, small production released on the internet actually become popular? The answer is a resounding yes. According to the Los Angeles Times blogs, in less than a week of the show’s three-part release, “so many people were clamoring to watch the show that its web site crashed completely, sending the makers scrambling to find more bandwidth” (Los Angeles Times). The demand for this short film was so intense that the people who made it were completely unprepared to handle the web traffic that it drew. Part of the reason for its popularity is, of course, the renown of Joss Whedon, who also created the cult classic television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. However, Whedon himself attributes the success to another factor, saying, “[There] is a modern societal truth about the kind of guy who needs to tell the world his troubles and show off his talents” (quoted in Los Angeles Times). This is also true. Dr. Horrible, supervillain though he may be, is an extremely relatable character. Who hasn’t wanted to talk to that special someone but just couldn’t, felt like they deserved something they couldn’t get, or aspired for greatness in their field and wanted to share these things with the world?

However, Dr. Horrible is not just popular for the sake of being popular, but actually has a fairly powerful impact. The film starts rather comically, with Dr. Horrible displaying the work he has done on perfecting his maniacal laugh, saying, “A lot of guys ignore the laugh, and that’s about standards.” It remains comical throughout, with slapstick, sight gags, and clever writing. However, at the end of the very last act, things take a very drastic turn. Dr. Horrible manages to trap Captain Hammer in his freeze ray at one of Hammer’s public appearances. Most of the people flee the room, but Penny, who was sitting by Captain Hammer at the time, hides behind some chairs in the room. Dr. Horrible aims his newly constructed death ray at Captain Hammer, but torn between his evil goals and his reluctance to kill, he hesitates, which gives just enough time for the Freeze Ray to lose power and Captain Hammer to punch him in the face. Dr. Horrible is sent careening through the room, and his death ray lands hard on the ground, causing it to malfunction. Captain Hammer picks it up and aims it at Dr. Horrible, who warns him against pulling the trigger. Ignoring the warning, Captain Hammer tries to fire it anyway, and it violently explodes, throwing Captain Hammer through the air and sending shrapnel flying in every direction. This causes Hammer to experience pain for the first time, and he runs screaming from the room. Dr. Horrible gets up from the floor, and looks around, thinking he won, until he sees a sight that makes all color drain from his face: Penny, who was still in the room, had been hit in the torso by some of the shrapnel and was now lying on the floor, dying. Dr. Horrible rushes to her side, where she recognizes him as Billy. In her delusional dying state, she feebly tries to reassure Billy that everything will be all right, her final words being, “Captain Hammer will save us.” These words completely shock Dr. Horrible to the core, and, emotionless, he sings a victory song to the tune of a funeral dirge. When he is given blame for her death and Captain Hammer’s defeat, suddenly everyone respects him and is afraid of him. He finally joins the Evil League of Evil, but at the cost of everything he truly ever wanted.
This tragic twist is what gives the film its power. Jonathan Bignell, in the book Media Semiotics, writes about the concept of film genre and its power to create expectations. Everything in a film – such as the stars, the setting, and the narrative structure – causes the audience to expect it to fit into a certain genre. However, according to Bignell, “it is . . . possible to position the film by raising generic expectations that will not be met, so that the film reacts against generic expectations by raising them in the first place” (Bignell 199). In the case of Dr. Horrible, we are shown for almost the entire film that it is a comedy. The writing, the bouncy musical styles used throughout, the casting (such as comedy star Neil Patrick Harris and notorious ham Nathan Fillion) – all of these create an atmosphere of humor and lightheartedness. We laugh at the ridiculousness of musical numbers popping up, sometimes from completely out of nowhere, we feel empathy for Billy’s hesitation to talk to Penny, and we laugh at the silly things Captain Hammer says. The audience expects this comedy to end the way all comedies do, with a happy ending. However, the moment we see Dr. Horrible’s expression change from cautious optimism from defeating Captain Hammer to absolute horror at seeing Penny lying wounded, we know that this film will not end happily at all. This is not so much a mood shift as it is a mood whiplash. This tragic ending to such a previously funny musical evokes quite an emotional response, one that keeps the viewers coming back for more.

This, then, is the reason why Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is such a success. But successful or not, it still is an important work. Some might write it off as silly nonsense. After all, one might reason, it’s a fourty-two-minute-long musical about superheroes that was released on the internet. Surely nothing could be serious about that. Certainly Mark Edmundson would not call it great writing. In his book Why Read?, Edmundson condemns America’s consumer culture and the current generation as “the progeny of two hundred available cable channels and omnipresent Blockbuster outlets. They grew up with their noses pressed against the window of that second spectral world that spins parallel to our own, the World Wide Web” (Edmundson 10). Edmundson goes on to say that in the internet, the current generation “met life at the second or third hand, peering eagerly, taking in the passing show, but staying remote, apparently untouched by it”(Edmundson 10). Edmundson views the internet and the expansion of media as the thing which causes complete and utter disconnect in today’s youth. It would seem to Edmundson that no good can come from the internet, and there is nothing in pop culture that can be held up as an example of important writing.

However, this is absolutely not the case. First off, the argument that nothing in pop culture is worth noticing is completely false. This is even the main point of Steven Johnson’s book Everything Bad is Good for You. In the introduction to this book, Johnson discusses many writers and essayists who have claimed just what Edmundson is claiming: that popular culture is thoughtless, morally bankrupt, and damaging to children and adults alike. However, Johnson argues, “[lost] in that account is the most interesting trend of all: that the popular culture has grown increasingly complex over the past few decades, exercising our minds in powerful new ways” (Johnson 13). Johnson views popular culture as changing in ways it never has before. With television shows with long, sprawling, complex narratives, such as The Sopranos or Lost, popular culture has found a medium of storytelling that allows for far more depth than an episodic sitcom or even a three-hour feature film. A film franchise such as Lord of the Rings told a complex story in a total of about nine hours for the theatrical versions. A television show such as Lost, which ran for six seasons with a total of 121 episodes, can tell a much deeper, fascinating, and intriguing story in the well over 80 hours of screen time it was allowed. But even outside of long sprawling narratives, the importance of popular culture also lies in the worldview it presents. While some may argue that today’s media exposes kids to violence and sex and dishonesty, Johnson would reply that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. While it’s not the main point of his book, Johnson does go out of his way to point out that he is sympathetic to the argument that “[the] real world doesn’t come in nicely packaged public service announcements, and we’re better off with entertainment that reflects that fallen state with ethical ambiguity” (Johnson 14). And while certainly no one would call a musical about superheroes and supervillains “realistic” on the surface, it does present an interesting moral conundrum. Dr. Horrible seeks to be an evil mastermind, but his heart is not entirely in it. When Dr. Horrible makes the decision to kill Captain Hammer, it is these actions that lead to everything he truly wants being taken away from him. Does he triumph over Captain Hammer? Yes. Does he then fulfill his dream of being a renowned supervillain and joining the Evil League of Evil? Well, yes. But at what cost? Though he did not pull the trigger that caused the explosion that killed Penny, he is very much responsible for the death of the woman he loves. It is this moral quandary that makes the end of Dr. Horrible so poignant.

While the medium may be the Internet, while the budget may be small, and while the finished product may be a pure example of pop culture, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, despite its silly name, is a very important work in the millennial age. It may start out light and happy, but with its tragic twist and dark morals, it is a challenging film that at the same time remains one of the most enjoyable movies to watch again and again.

written 2010 by Dave Briggs, (c) 2011 all rights reserved

works cited:

Bignell, Jonathan. "Cinema." Media Semiotics: an Introduction. 2nd ed. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2002. 155-78. Print.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Dir. Joss Whedon. Perf. Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, Felicia Day, and Simon Helberg. Mutant Enemy, Inc., 2008. DVD.

Edmundson, Mark. Why Read?. New York: Bloomsbury, 2004. 10. Print.

Johnson, Steven. "The Sleeper Curve." Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter. New York: Riverhead, 2005. 1-14. Print.

"Joss Whedon's 'Dr. Horrible' Is a Site-crashing Success." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 15 July 2008. Web. 14 May 2010.

Amy is Being Chased

Guest post by Jerry Vogelsang
I think I figured out blogging. Anyways, I wrote this for my um... well of one my many English Classes.

Read it. Love it.

In an age of he said/ she said, love triangles, and adolescents in trying to find themselves; Chasing Amy is a romantic comedy that mustn’t be overlooked.

Chasing Amy is the story of a comic book writer named Holden who falls for Alyssa, a woman in the same trade. Unfortunately, for Holden; he later discovers Alyssa is a lesbian. Eventually, Alyssa begins to date Holden, although Holden goes on to find that his dream girl’s past makes her far from perfect.

Cult director Kevin Smith is popular amongst teenagers and the twenty somethings of today as his films feature vulgar language, pop culture references, and witty dialogue as well as some low brow “dick jokes.” Smith’s Chasing Amy is no exception to this rule, but it is more than the sum of its parts. The film would be great to teach to as it’s Kevin’s most personal, romantic, dramatic, and least seen film.

Along with a big star like Ben Affleck in the lead role, Chasing Amy features the iconic duo of Jay and Silent Bob, the beloved foul mouthed drug dealers with heart, that appeared in all of Smith’s films since his down to earth debut film Clerks. I have seen these characters on posters in a number of dorm rooms, so I have no doubt they would intrigue an audience who wouldn’t normally go for romantic comedies with gay characters.

Chasing Amy has a little something for everyone. The average teenage girl would swoon over a romantic movie. Chasing Amy contains one of the most beautiful and honest speeches I’ve ever heard in a film. However, movies with romance and feelings being expressed through words rather than bullets tend to turn off male viewers. Chasing Amy has plenty to offer those with y chromosomes. It has plenty of vulgar humor, comic book references that will most likely go over their girlfriend’s head, and even a great hockey scene.

The movie is also quite relatable in how real the characters and their New Jersey tongues are. There’s probably a cuss word in every sentence, and if anyone has heard a conversation between teenagers nowadays, would surely agree that seems about right. Any comic book or movie enthusiast would agree that they’ve had similar conversations to those in the movie. Conversations about topics as silly and unimportant yet gripping as Archie and Jughead’s sex life or who should play Batman, are conversations not far from what a teenage male would discuss. A conversation near the end of the film has the ironically named Silent Bob give a big speech about who Amy is and why she is being chased. The gist of Bob’s speech is that there shall always be the girl who got away, and even if you think you move on with your life; you will spend every day chasing your Amy. Change the name and perhaps gender, and this speech could apply to many heart broken teens.

In terms of the story being relatable, Holden deals with his homophobic roommate, Banky, who disapproves of Holden’s friendship/relationship with Alyssa. Banky also gets jealous that Holden is paying as much attention to him as he used to. Many college students have had problems they’ve had to deal with their roommates. I’ve known plenty of people who have had issues with their roommate’s not spending enough time with them.

Chasing Amy is movie that works hard toward tolerance and breaking social norms. A humorous scene at the beginning of the film features a speech on racism in comics from a character named Hooper X. Hooper is essentially the Malcolm X of comic book writers; he is a proud and angry black man. This is merely a guise of his true self, a mellow homosexual man who only exploits his image to help sell his comics.

Chasing Amy focuses on gender roles and sexuality. When Alyssa was a lesbian, Holden has no problem with the fact that Alyssa has slept with dozens of women. Holden later finds out that early on that she used to sleep with men, and a lot of men at that. This raises the issue of whether if someone, man or woman, sleeps with a lot of women, that’s fine. Yet, for some reason, sleeping with men, transforms one into a whore. There is also a lot of gay subtext between Holden and his roommate Banky. Banky could be much like Hooper and needs to pretend to be something he’s not, for he fears that society would not accept his true self.

The movie’s subject matter may turn a lot of people off. I only believe that to be a greater reason to view the movie. If people have negative views on the gay community, then perhaps this movie could enlighten them. Comfort zones must be left at some point in life. Even homosexuality aside, the vulgarity and the in depth discussions about sex may also turn people off. Again, this is how people talk in real life. At a college level, one must accept these kinds of conversations.

All things considered, Chasing Amy is a hilarious romantic comedy with deep social issues that should be embraced by all.

written by Jerry Vogelsang, 2010, all rights reserved