Marvel's Daredevil: The Show Without Fear

Marvel has done it again. They took on the superhero movie genre by storm and went where no movie has gone before with The Avengers, and now they boldly go where no superhero TV has gone before with Daredevil. This is a work of art, this is pioneering work. Genre breaking, groundbreaking stuff. If the superhero TV programs go from good to great one day, we can all look back and say THIS is where it all started.

This is the Game of Thrones, The Wire, The Dexter, the Battlestar Galactica of superhero TV. They got everything right. The tone, the characters, the story, the grit, the empathy, everything. The journey of Matt Murdock from concerned citizen to masked vigilante is perfectly captured. The love for the source material permeates the series. Every time Daredevil takes on a boxing stance, you remember his father Battling Jack Murdock. Every cut, every wound you feel is a lesson that will one day complete the education of Matt's journey to the epic personality he will become.

I cannot thank the people at Marvel enough for this. There are a lot of passionate, dedicated and talented people at Marvel working on these gems and I have to say Kevin Feige, as their leader, is a godsend to us comic fans. He truly gets what makes each of these characters special to us fans, and more importantly understands that what makes it special to fans is what will make it special to people who have no clue about this character.

The casting is perfect. The characters are all fleshed out beautifully. Marvel understood that you cannot tell a compelling story without a great villain, and Vincent D'Onofrio gives a tremendous performance as Wilson Fisk. Because this is not just the journey of Matt from citizen to Daredevil, it is also the journey of Wilson Fisk from conflicted mob boss to Kingpin.

With Daredevil, Marvel has thrown the gauntlet to all other creators. There are no more boundaries. No more treading softly. It's time for big bold steps. Lets hope Daredevil can show the others how to make a show without fear.

Daze of Future Past

Just got back form watching the latest X-men movie, Days of Future Past. An excellent outing. Really appreciated the fact that Brian Singer had a vision, and he stuck to it without delivering an "avengers type" movie. The new X-men film is as different from The Avengers as Sherlock is from Breaking Bad. Be that as it may, i do have some nit picks.

For one, i think the X-men franchise will always suffer because the director has never embraced the comics wholeheartedly. I'm not just talking about the lack of costumes, and yes the lack of costumes does bother me. I'm talking about the movies following a very different path than the comics. I understand, support and insist on making necessary changes in content or form when translating a story from one medium to another (in this case, from comics to movie). But i also insist on adhering to the spirit of the original content, and that's where Singer lets me down every time. Brian Singer has already said that he is not a comics fan. He set out to do the Superman Returns movie because he was a big fan of the Richard Donner Superman film from the seventies. That, while very cute, is really the worst reason for wanting to make a superman movie. You gotta be a fan of the lore, you gotta respect the material, if you want to make a superman movie. Or any comic movie.

Back when Fox made the first X-men movie, it was clear what the direction from the studio was to Singer - "Wolverine is the hit character, so make the movie centered around Wolverine". That was fine for that time. But that's not good enough for me now. Because now we live in the AIM era. That's "After Iron Man" era. With Iron Man, who was a little known character to the public in general and also a not so heavy hitter in the comic scene in terms of popularity or sales, Marvel showed the world that a movie with good story, good direction, good acting and a lot of heart can kick major ass. And after that Marvel has not looked back since. So if it can work for Iron Man, then why the fuck are Fox/Singer STILL ignoring the importance and impact of Scott Summers (Cyclops) in the X-franchise?

The story of X-men has always been the story of 4 people in general, and of those 4, Scott Summers stands out by a mile. He is the conflicted leader, the big brother, the faltering husband, and ultimately the man with the plan in the X-universe. He more than any other has guided the destiny of the band of X-mutants. And we have seen none of that in ANY OF THE X MOVIES TILL DATE.

Marvel embraces the comics, while changing and adapting where they need to. And it works every time...because they embrace the comics. They are not ashamed by anything, they don't think it will seem ridiculous, they don't think they have a better "vision" of the characters than the years and bodies of loving work that already exists.

And that, for me, is the next step for Fox and Brian Singer. I really WANT to see Logan in the wolverine costume. I really WANT to see Scott being the tremendous leader that he is. I REALLY WANT to see Brian Singer embrace the comics. It can only be good for the soul. (And the bank account)

Avenged

That's right. I am a big time comic book fan. Anything that bends, distorts, challenges reality - i am a fan. and the dream of all comic/fantasy geeks? to see their beloved stories on the silver screen. So it was a real hard time for me when i was growing up. The Batman movie phenomenon in the 90s? i had to live through it. Have to say though, the first Batman film in 1989 was a decent one. It wasn't a Batman film per se, but it was a good film about the mythos of Batman. Through the 'vison' of Tim Burton. And therein lies the  problem. Who the fuck is Tim fucking Burton to come and impose his vison on a decades old beloved fan property? Who is he to say, "THIS is how Batman should be"? No, no, i want the director of a Batman film to say "This is how the FANS want Batman to be". Respect for source material is paramount. not a slavish respect, where every tiny detail should be adhered to, but a healthy respect for the spirit of the stories.

I remember i used to tell my other geek friends that things would change. People like us, geeks, were growing up all over the world, and they would take over. they would reject the so called "visions" of hollywood directors and they would make movies that THEY want to see, movies that WE want to see.   And it happened. With Spider-man. With Batman Begins. With X-men. and then came orgasm time when Marvel finally owned their own production studio and started making a movie about a b-list character called Iron Man.

Really, there is 'before Iron Man' and 'after Iron Man'. Before, we never really knew what to expect from a superhero movie, unless it was Nolan doing Batman. Spider-Man was a surprise. So was X-men. we never assumed, or took for granted, that an upcoming superhero movie would be good. And we were right to be skeptics...remember Daredevil? the Ang-Lee Hulk ("Don't make me Ang-Lee, you won't like me when i am Ang-Lee")? the Punisher movies? Elektra? Catwoman? It was mostly shit.

But then came Marvel and Iron Man. Iron Man was literally marvel's knight in shining armor for us starving comics fans. We couldn't get enough, and we were ecstatic to see that the whole world was with us on this one! no one could get enough! And then marvel made their master plan. Then came Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, and some were excellent, some sort of average but you knew, you just KNEW that the guys making these movies are doing it from the heart. It felt right.

Suddenly you had people who never even knew comics existed being as excited about watching super-hero movies as a typical geek. And thats how it should be. i always wondered if you can make movies like Predator, Terminator 2 or Robocop, why not good comic movies? These movies are essentially fantasy/sci-fi stories, exactly what superhero comics are. you didn't need to read 30 years of back stories to enjoy the Robocop movie. And the Marvel guys understood this. and they did it right. And it all came to a head this summer with the release of what to my very biased opinion is the greatest movie of all time, The Avengers. The Avengers is a defiant challenge, a rousing call, that superhero movies are good, superhero movies are fun, and superhero movies are here to stay.

What a wonderful time to be alive!

Ties that Blind

For the last 20 years or so a new breed of film makers have come to the fore, makers who are geeks and fans first and film makers 2^nd. We see their work all around us. Turn on the TV and watch Dexter, Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Alias, 24, Law and Order, Monk, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Turn on the movies and watch Mission Impossible 3, Clerks, Dogma, The Dark Knight, Up, Cloverfield, Star Trek, Iron Man 1 and 2, the new Incredible Hulk directed by Louis Letterrier, Lord of the Rings, Serenity, Kick Ass, Ring, Grudge.

I call them a new breed because they've been thinking about films, be it TV or Movie, in a different way. They've dumped conventional thinking into the toilet and set out to tell a more honest, a more realistic and as a result a far more interesting story. I've watched Iron Man 2 this summer in the US. The hall was packed, I was there with my girl friend, her sister and her husband. Immediately beside us and behind us were people whose average age was 40+. We LOVED the movie. All of us. Everyone clapped when the movie ended. It was complete entertainment. We were all fulfilled. So imagine my surprise when I found a lot of average reviews of the movie on the net from reputed reviewers. Even from people who I revere and adore, namely Orson Scott Card, genius science fiction writer. They all enjoyed the movie, but compared it unfavorably to Iron Man 1. They found a hundred and one flaws. The story was too convoluted, there wasn't enough characterization, tying the movie to the greater marvel universe was a distraction for the common audience bla bla bla etc. So I came back to Dhaka slightly dazed and confused. And I waited for the DVD to arrive. I had to watch the movie again. Was I so biased about superheroes that I had got the wrong impression? Was I such a bubble head that the big screen and the pop corn and the coke and loud explosions blinded me to the rotten core of the movie?

So just before the Eid vacations, I got my hands on a copy of the Iron Man 2 DVD. And I sat to watch it with my good friend and Bhoutist Gibran. And you know what? I was blown away AGAIN. This time I watched the movie in total analytic and geek fashion. We stopped the movie several times to discuss a plot point or a sequence, we rewound to watch a particular delicious actions sequence again, etc etc. And at the end of the movie I asked what Gibran thought of it. He said, “dost this is BETTER than Iron Man 1”. And I was like, “exactly!” So then we got to discussing how in hell was this movie getting lukewarm reviews. And this is the conclusion we reached.

Its all to do with this new style of film making. Its all about understated drama. From our childhood we have been brainwashed into watching grand moments in film delivered in a grand fashion with the appropriate music and stylish camera treatment, sometimes in slow motion, and the melodramatic dialogue so that there's no way in the world you miss out on the fact that THIS IS A DRAMATIC MOMENT. Now however, we have this new breed who think that if your story is interesting enough, the moment will stand out on its own. So we get a lot of fast cuts, lots of hand held camera, and sometimes no music. The dialogs between people feel like real conversations instead of theatrical dialogs which belong on Broadway. But since we have been brainwashed into thinking “when Superman saves the girl falling from the building there will be dramatic camera work, a climactic music and cheesy dialog”, we get disturbed when we don't see these things. In Iron Man 1, the first action sequence with the proper Iron Man armor in that village has no slow motion camera work, no music, no dialogs from Iron Man. That is one of the BEST superhero action sequences I have even seen. In Iron Man 2, we have two wonderful antagonists played by Micky Rourke and Sam Rockwell. They put in steller performances. No cheesy dialogs, no “you can't stop me iron man, I will rule the world” shit. And for some of us, it was too shocking I guess. Where were the stuff of blockbuster Hollywood that we were so familiar with?

So the next question was, then how come I didn't have a problem with this new style of Hollywood movies? I think its because I never liked the old Superhero movies. I mean yes I enjoyed Superman and the Tim Burton Batman, but that was more on a “beggars can't be choosers” basis. And this new style of movie making, I think that’s how I’ve been playing movies in my head for a long time. This is what I wanted to see on screen for a long time. So when I finally saw these films and TV series, for me it was like coming home. And fortunately for me, even though Iron Man 2 got lukewarm reviews, it made a hell of a lot of money. So these film makers are not going away.

It's good to be alive.

mixed feelings

What song to put in a mixed album -- something everyone will like? Or something the band wants to do right here right now? This dilemma of choice has been plaguing artists since the dawn of time. Roger Waters once said something interesting in an interview. He was talking about the early days of Pink Floyd and how people would come up to him and ask "why do you guys do such dark songs? can't you do some lighter, more fun stuff?" Waters then went on to say that what those people don't know is that the artist does not control the art. I'm talking about all good/great artists in their fields, from Van Gogh to Mozart to Rabindranath, Nazrul, to Hitchcock and Spielberg and JJ Abrams to Lep Zep, Deep Purple, Maiden, Metallica to Asimov to Satyajit Ray.

The Artist does not control the art. There's something inside the artist at that particular point in time which is a culmination and a reflection of his emotions, actions, surroundings etc. And anything the artist creates at that point will be the product of those things at that point in time. If the artist is lucky, his work will be well received.

Every time i sat down with my band Cryptic Fate for a mixed album song, the only thing we cared about was sounding different from the 12 other bands that will be in that album. "Different" is a loaded word in the world of creativity. Everyone wants to be "different", everyone is working on a "different" angle. And at the end of the day, it turns out (to your horror) you are "different" in exactly the same way 6 other bands are "different". Or you are "different" because you were creative with your tempo and tune sense. Be that as it may, being "different" became our magnum opus motivation for every mixed album song. And its worked out pretty well so far. Just recently two of our songs were released, one as a radio single (Tepantor) on Radio Foorti, and the other (Ondho) on a mixed double album called "rock 404\505". Why two songs at the same time? Well as i said, the artist does not control the art. We did the Cryptic Fate thing for the mixed album and hopefully delivered something "different" than the 29, yes TWENTY NINE other bands haha. And the Radio single? i had this poppish tune in my head that i had to get out and i don't like solo projects so i used all my cards to get my band to play the song and then Radio foorti graciously released it. So after 4 years of Silence, the Fate engine is roaring back to life. Stick around. It will be interesting.

Princess and the Frog

On this auspicious day (yes, that's Victory Day), I just have one thing to say: Disney's ONLY African American protagonist is the new Princess in 'Princess and the Frog'. But what makes me happy is that she looks more deshi than African American. So Disney finally got it right? I think so. Unless you start questioning why she falls in love with a White Prince, like Conan just did.


Bijoy dibosh'r shubhechha shobai k!

Random thoughts

1.The one hour premier of Scrubs was interesting. You won't believe it, but J.D. and Turk are now teaching! Wasn't paying a whole lot of attention, but if I did, I'm sure I'd have enjoyed it more.

2. Obama's speech on sending more troops to Afghanistan.
With unemployment rates hitting 10.8% everyone's worried, even though the word is that the economy's getting better. Not for everyone, I would say. While Obama's trying to set up programs to tackle the problems he inherited, the war in Afghanistan is overshadowing everything else. At least for now. There's a 50-50 consensus on whether or not more troops should be sent to Afghanistan, but my hunch is, people just want to pull out. No one expected it to take so long. And now people are tired. I am. And I'm not even American.

3. It's interesting how Democrats are the ones who take the heat for increased government spending on social welfare programs when it was Nixon, the paradoxical president, who increased spending on programs like EITC, which, by far, is the most expensive (but effective) anti-poverty program. Also interesting, how he campaigned on law and order and then resigned for his connection with the Watergate scandal.

4. Relationships are funny. All types. What's funnier is that people in the relationship often have very different takes on what goes on in it. That's probably more sad than funny.

5. Everyone's getting swine flu I think. They just don't know it. That's the only thing that's going around. So if you're sick with symptoms like fever, headache, sore throat and the like, you probably have the flu. Fight it with Vitamin C. Don't let it reach the stage where you get a bacterial infection. That can be deadly.

6. Life's short. Live it.

7. I have work to do and I'm procastinating. Why? Beats me. God knows this only hurts me. No one else. Yet, I can't bring myself to get some work done.