Archive for August, 2009

This was a good summer for movies. This was a good year for movies. Was already, and it’s only half over with many more promising films to go. I think it is fair to say that before now we have been having quite a few years of crap movies, where only a passing few slipped by that were actually worth paying $10 to see. But this year has been remarkably different. I was finally excited to go to the movies again, and almost every new preview I come across increases that movie-lover joy just a little bit more.

But I have come to realize something as I have gotten older and been able to look at films with a more critical eye. While there are still original ideas out there, the films that are made most often, that Hollywood knows are going to sell, usually have an already existing basis: books, comics, older movies, real life stories, etc. There haven’t been too many first-edition Star Wars, if you catch my drift. And while the films that are being made can still be very good, there is almost always something, one little thing about an actor, a scene, the ending, that makes me go ‘oh, if only this had been different’.
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Batman

May of this year celebrated Batman’s 70th birthday, having first appeared in Detective Comics #27. Ironically, our modern DC Comics decided to celebrate this milestone by killing Batman off. This instigated the Battle for the Cowl miniseries that named Dick Grayson (the original Robin) as the new Batman until Bruce Wayne’s inevitable return.

But even if Batman were to remain dead, lost forever to the comic world that needs him, he would never be forgotten by fans thanks to his many other incarnations since first being imagined in 1939. Batman has been a comic book hero, a television hero, a movie hero, a video game hero, and more, so many times that listing them all would probably be ostentatious. Batman is DC Comics’ crown jewel, even more popular than Superman, who has been around longer.

For me, the love of Batman did not begin with the comics, or with Adam West, or even with the wonderful Tim Burton movies—Batman’s 1989 release having marked the then 50th anniversary of the character. No, my love affair with the Caped Crusader began with a cartoon.

I am referring to, of course, Batman: The Animated Series.
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Being a girl geek in the new millennium can mean a number of things. There are anime geeks who gush over prettily drawn bishounen and the powers of their favorite magical girl. Video game geeks who can tell you every possibility of that date with Cloud at the Gold Saucer in Final Fantasy VII, including how to get Barret.

There are also comic geeks who have already chosen which ring color they are going to root for in DC’s Blackest Night saga, as well as those of us beaming over Marvel’s Rogue character finally being able to turn her power on and off (where’s that Cajun?). 

And that’s not even mentioning all of the possible fangirling that geeks commit over certain movies, television shows, books, and more.

Me, I like to think of myself as a little of all of the above.
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