Saved by the Bell Ruined My Life Part II

Welcome to Part II in an ongoing experiment in which I try to experience the show Saved by the Bell as a jaded and cynical twenty-seven year-old. You can find Part I here if you want. I loved the show growing up, and I still do, as it is a nostalgic treasure. I hate it, too, though, because it ruined my life for reasons detailed in the previous section. Click the hyperlink if you’re curious. So, as a bit of retroactive retribution, I’m going to watch episodes of the show and tear down the gang in an effort to make myself feel better. It’s a psychological release, and it’s better than crying myself to sleep on my Zack Morris pillow. This episode was suggested by two (count ‘em – TWO!) readers so I’m doing it for my audience. Enjoy.

If you want to get me that clock, I won't be mad.

The episode, “Model Students,” begins as all episodes do – with no apparent connection to past episodes. Kelly is working in the school bookstore (the store is never referenced before this episode, nor in subsequent ones. Surprised?) and Zack introduces it by saying it is also known as “Nerds ‘R’ Us,” which gets a hearty laugh from the ‘studio audience.’ We see the nerds looking at a bunch of shit – books, a fucking seashell clock (pretty awesome), and an 8X10 picture of Mr. Rogers, who I guess is a nerd god or something. The nerds love the fluorescent pocket protectors that have just arrived because they glow in the dark and they can wear them with their pajamas. Fuck the nerds. Sadly Kelly can’t quit her job because she needs the money – she’s the superhot poor cheerleader who has to be ogled by nerds all day long for a buck because her dad doesn’t know what fiscal responsibility means, I guess. Slater gets felt up by the nerds and they ask him what his biceps are. He informs them that they are muscles and he acquired them by bench pressing nerds. Zack realizes that he loves his school so damn much that he wants to revamp the book store because the story needs him to. In an attempt to show Belding he should be in charge, Zack shows Belding the sales figures (which are just blank pages). Why the fuck does Zack have access to the sales numbers of a legitimate business? And why doesn’t anyone care that he acquired them through, I’m guessing, illegal means? What a fucker.

When Zack gets the reins to the store and reopens it, the nerds want their store back, but Slater scares them into leaving. Fuck Slater. These kids legitimately love this store, and Zack just boots them out because he got a funny idea. That’s really unfair. We never find out what happened to the gang in the future, but I sure hope that Slater ended up working for them in Silicon Valley or some shit and they just mercilessly belittled him day after day. “Hey, A.C.! Remember that time Zack fucked your sister?” “Slater! Remember that time you got your ass kicked in an obstacle course by Lisa Turtle, the most unathletic person ever?” “Albert Clifford! Remember that time Jessie’s stepbrother Eric outsmarted you and recorded you and Jessie making out, and she called you Papa Bear? Get me some more toner, Papa Bear!”

Skinny Pete Alert!

Zack has the store open, but nobody is there because nerds ran it! Zack needs a gimmick, but everyone else has to bail – the girls have swimming practice (Jessie and Lisa are suddenly athletes), and Screech had photo club. So Zack, in a brilliant move, has Screech illegally take pictures of the girls at swim practice. Nobody gets arrested, of course. Zack turns the pictures into Girls of Bayside Calendars and starts making money hand over fist. When the girls find out, they’re rightfully upset because a school full of horny Bayside Tigers are jerking off to pictures of them in swimsuits. The calendar business is about to be closed by Belding, but something special happens.

Some guy – a thirty-something photographer and assumed pedophile because he tracked down a fucking calendar with scantily-clad teenagers in it – named Adam Trask shows up at Bayside and tells Zack that the calendar is awesome and everyone instantly forgives Zack. Oh, the photos are good? Nevermind the host of laws you broke then, Zack. Carry on. This creep wants the girls to pose for him for a “fashion spread” and nobody thinks it’s fishy. The girls go from being upset to on board in record time, because it’s not exploitation if millions of people see you half-naked, it’s only wrong if a couple dozen horny classmates see it, right?

The next scene shows the girls getting photographed. It’s nice to see Elizabeth Berkley in some pre-Showgirls situations slutting it up. It’s a brief look into her future, only she’s more clothed and doesn’t violently lapdance someone to the point of climax. That would have made this episode better. Kelly does Kelly stuff in a distinctly 90’s-era outfit. Lisa is wearing a costume that looks like it was worn by Aresnio Hall in Coming to America. Yuck. Nobody ever mentions that the only girls in Bayside who do a fucking thing are Kelly, Jessie, and Lisa. I wonder how many girls at Bayside viciously hated them because they were the focus of the entire school and nobody else was even looked at. Even those homely twins didn’t get any attention, and they were identical twins. Hell, Kelly, Jessie and Lisa were so damn important that the twins didn’t even get names. They were just the twins, and everybody knows twins without names don’t even count as actual people. I get Kelly’s popularity because she was cute, a cheerleader – back when cheerleading was cool and not a synonym for “semen drinker” – played sports, and had a Tony Hawk poster in her room. I get that. Jessie kind of makes sense because she was a tall bombshell and was very smart, despite her inability to shut the hell up about anything for more than six seconds. Lisa Turtle, though? What the hell did she bring to the table? She was pointless and stuck up and stupid and mean. She never said anything nice to Screech and just wanted to spend money all day long. How in the hell did Lisa Turtle become popular while I wasn’t? It doesn’t make sense.

Kelly is selected for a cover shoot and Jessie and Lisa instantly hate Kelly but then mature in two seconds and are happy for her. Everyone is best friends again, and all is right in the world. Until Kelly is informed that she’ll be going to Paris and Zack gets pissed because Kelly will be gone for a month and Zack is afraid of losing Kelly, and thus missing out on a chance to nail her at the drive-in or something. Zack, the asshole that he is, doesn’t care about Kelly’s happiness at all and schemes to make sure she doesn’t leave him to get jackhammered by Adam Trask on the Eiffel Tower. Zack makes Kelly feel guilty about leaving by ensuring that everyone realizes their lives will fall into a horrible chaos without Kapowski around to do shit. The girls will have to team up with a fat chick in the swim meet (yuck, amirite?), Slater will fail biology because he’s a wrestler and stupid, and Screech’s birthday will become unimportant without Kelly there.

Look at that shirt. That looks like the shirt of a sexual predator

Additionally, Kelly, in the span of two days, loses all of her freedom because she has to take round-the-clock pictures because she’s a model. Zack makes Kelly feel even more guilty by ensuring that the gang doesn’t show up to the shoot and practically brings Kelly to suicide. Adam Trask talks some sense into Zack – maybe because he’s a mature, professional photographer, or maybe because he’s a sexual predator, I don’t know – and finally Zack wises up. He tells Kelly the truth and she forgives him because he’s Zack Fucking Morris and consequences don’t exist in his world. He says to Kelly that he can’t compete with Paris, but Kelly reminds him that Paris can’t compete with him. Of course Zack’s a shithead; he has people constantly forgiving every transgression and telling him he’s better than one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Fuck him. The gang joins them in Kelly’s room and they have a party. Kelly’s brief and illustrious career as a globetrotting model is never mentioned again.

I remembered this episode fondly because it had Kelly as a model. That’s a six year-olds’ wet dream, I’m telling you. Really, while it is a solid episode of the show, it isn’t in the upper echelon of the show’s esteemed pantheon (that’s reserved for the one where Jessie gets addicted to caffeine pills, the one where Zack and Kelly break up, the one where Zack solves a murder mystery, the one where Jessie gets a step-brother (a two-parter!), and the one where the black kid hyperactively freaks the fuck out for the “B-BA-B-BA-BA-BA-B-GO-BAYSIDE!” song), it is a perfect example of the show as a whole. It is a twenty-two minute showcase for Zack Morris’s douche baggery and how everyone excuses his frankly disgusting behavior. In this episode alone, I suspect that Zack broke no less than three laws in the state of California, screwed a few kids out of a job they truly loved and appreciated, betrayed the trust of his girlfriend and two childhood pals, produced smut and sold it on school grounds, and used his “friends” in an effort to stop his girlfriend from achieving worldwide fame and success as a supermodel. And what happened at the end of the episode to Zack? Fucking nothing. In fact, he got a smooch from Kelly Kapowski and partied with his pals.

While that is bad enough, Slater is shown as a mentally deficient meatwad who has only achieved such a high place in the social hierarchy of Bayside because he’s got pecks and is a good athlete. He physically threatens to beat people up because they are, rightfully, upset that some blonde asshat stole their jobs from them. Screech is portrayed as a moron and Zack’s personal puppet. Lisa doesn’t do much of anything. Belding lacks any amount of self-awareness and finds his own face superimposed on Jessie’s body sexually arousing. He also doesn’t punish Zack for breaking all those laws or exploiting his students because a fucking photographer shows up and says the pictures he illegally acquired look good. A photographer! That’s like me going into the police station and telling the cops that I’m a waiter, and the guy behind bars shouldn’t be held accountable for murdering his ex-wife because he makes a good spaghetti and the cop unlocking the cell. And then we get Jessie as the hypocritical nag who freaks out about being exploited for thirteen seconds before getting excited about the prospect of being exploited to more people. She’s the worst feminist ever.

Seriously, fuck these guys. Fuck all of them. They’re assholes, douche bags, idiots, hypocrites, and clueless. I don’t mean that. I still love them. Kind of. But you try watching this episode as an adult and not being disgusted by what’s happening. You’ll be sick within five minutes. Zack Morris is the scum of the earth. I don’t know who the most entitled dickweed character to never face any consequences for negative actions ever is – Zack Morris or Michelle Tanner. It’s close, I’m telling you. I would love those two to be starved for three days and then placed in a room on opposite sides of the other with a banana in the middle, just to see what would happen. This is what growing up with television in the nineties did to me – it made me a cynical, miserable pop culture freak who fascinates about imaginary characters fighting over a phallic fruit.

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Saved by the Bell Ruined My Life Part I

It's no surprise at this point that I'm a real geek. Not geeky like Skinny Pete from Saved by the Bell, but geeky like everyone in the world today who didn't get laid a lot in high school or play any sports. You know, the regular kids who didn't have a lot of friends and weren't even so special that they fit into a specific social strata in high school. The type that read a lot of comic books, watched a lot of movies, grew up with internet porn, and tried to play in a rock band. That's the type of person I am.

Now, I'm all grown up. Mostly. Sort of. Not really. Either way, growing up, Saved by the Bell was one of my favorite shows. Every Saturday morning, I woke up early to catch a new episode, and when the gang finally graduated and made their way to syndication, every weekday afternoon was spent in front of the tube rewatching their exploits on TBS (back when it was still called a "Superstation"). I've seen every episode of Saved by the Bell at least ten times. I am not exaggerating. That's the truth. I even pride myself on being a bit of a SBTB scholar, as I've only ever been stumped on SBTB trivia once (and that was by my sister-in-law, who loves the show even more than me (to be fair, she was also starstruck when she met Kip Winger, so that makes me sleep better at night to know I've been bested by someone who can't even speak to Kip Fucking Winger without losing her shit; it's a great equalizer for me)... we're a weird family). I want to maintain a bit of a presence here so I can hone my writing chops, and I just started watching the show again, so maybe if I get some valuable feedback on this, I can make it a weekly thing where I can mercilessly tear down the show that meant so much to me and helped ruin my life. We'll see.

The title of this piece is "Saved by the Bell Ruined My Life (Part I)" because, well, I've long maintained that the show ruined my life. I grew up wanting to be Zack Morris. That never happened (obviously). While I didn't descend into a Screech-like level of existence, I was never the Prom King. Never the cool kid. Never the guy who conned everyone I met out of something valuable (like Slater's bomber jacket, or Kelly's virginity). I never made buddy bands. I never solved a murder mystery at a mansion. I never got stuck in a mall after finding a shitload of money. I never hooked up with a pretty-hot babe who went to college back east in the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I never attempted to fool my father and my principal by having an out-of-work actor/waiter pretending to be both of them at different times. I never did anything Zack did, and I hate him for that. I love him, but I hate him, too. His story set me up for success that I would never have, which means that Zack Morris made me a failure. I will never get over having to come to terms with the fact that high school was nothing like the show portrayed it to be. It hurt. Most of this is my fault, sure, because I should recognize the difference between fact and fiction, but fuck you. Seriously. And fuck Zack Morris (mostly joking). And my primary fuck you to Zack is this: tearing down his shitty (i.e. - amazing) show.

Her existence baffles me

So, the first (and potentially only) part of my experience re-discovering Saved by the Bell at the age of twenty-seven begins with one of the forgotten episodes. I say forgotten because it is not one that is immediately mentioned whenever the show is brought up. It's one of the Tori episodes, which we all know made zero fucking sense at all. Tori, the weird biker chick who Zack kind of dated, showed up out of the blue one episode and stuck around for a while. That's fine, a lot of shows add a new character after a few seasons to spice things up. The problem is, the episodes she appeared in didn't feature Jessie or Kelly at all. They weren't even mentioned in passing. It was like Tori existed in some other dimension, and she couldn't occupy the same time and space as both Jessie or Kelly. Chuck Klostermann addressed this by explaining the "Tori Paradox" in his book, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs - a book far-better written than any of my crap, so you should stop reading this and pick that up instead (don't do that, please). Tori's existence always confused me, because everything at Bayside was exactly the same as when Jessie and Kelly were there; the only difference is they were gone. The show never bothered to address this at all, and I suppose one can assume that during the Tori episodes, Kelly was just taking care of her seventeen brothers and sisters and Jessie was, I don't know, prepping for Stansbury or some shit, but it always ate at me (I like to think Kelly and Jessie were mischievously conniving behind Lisa's back to create a new-and-improved Hot Sundae sans Turtle). And poor Tori. As soon as she entered our lives via television screen, she disappeared. Never to be seen or heard from again. I don't know if she ever even graduated high school. She might still be at Bayside, wandering the halls, looking for Zack to take her to the dance or something. It's frightening to think about. She's the literal forgotten child of a cultural treasure, and I wonder if the actress who played her has had an existential meltdown wherein she questions whether or not she actually exists. I don't know, Leana Creel, I just don't know.

This pugnacious bastard accomplished
more in five episodes than most
teachers do in a thirty-year career.

The episode up for discussion is "Earthquake." The episode opens with Mr. Belding practicing his breathing in order to coach his wife as she is due to give birth in two weeks. That's right. Mr. Belding's wife - who should be in her mid-to-late forties - is pregnant. Nobody knew about it before this episode, and I'll be damned if the child is ever mentioned in subsequent episodes, either. The baby is a lot like Tori in that it was focused on briefly, then forgotten about entirely. Maybe there's something to that. Probably just lazy writing, but either way, without Belding's phantom child, this episode never would have happened, so at least we have that. However, I can't forgive the show for making Belding into some sort of sexual being, you know, in which he has sex with his wife for both pleasure and procreation. Belding was always better as a periphery character, never one of the main focuses, because he's a principal, and in a sitcom about high school kids, the principal is really the least interesting one. Even Max, the dipshit narcissist magician/waiter who opened a restaurant named after himself, was more interesting than Belding. I have so many questions for Max. For example: why food, Max? Why not a magic shop, Max? Why did you hire Jeff to be your manager, Max? Where did you disappear to, or is answering that a violation of the magician's code, Max? The teachers are even better characters than Dick Belding. Mr. Tuttle was a better character, but that might just be because he taught driver's ed, was one of the primary individuals behind a teacher's strike, urged the students to become young entrepreneurs by selling shitty bracelets and headbands for a mint, ran the glee club in his spare time, was at least partially responsible for the gang creating a love machine, and had a high pitched voice. That's someone I can get on board with. He was fat, too. What's not to like?

Unimpressed Tori, Weird Blonde Guy Who Shows Up in,
 Like,Ten Episodes, Bookie Zack, and Skinny Pete. 

Now we know Belding's wife is expecting. Exciting! Of course, the only reason this even registers on Zack's radar is because he can monetize it. What a scumball Zack is, right? He makes people bet on the birthdate of his principal's child. That's weird. So we see Bookie-Zack placing bets on the birthdate and he pulls out a hideous calendar, because of course Zack took the time, effort, and money to create a fucking Belding Baby Calendar. Aside from showing us how big of a prick Zack is, we also get Skinny Pete (I don't know if this is his character's name in this episode, but that was his name in the Sand Volleyball Episode, so I'm using it) placing a bet on the eleventh because he has eleven chest hairs. Keep saying shit like that, Skinny Pete, and you're never going to nail the weirdly attractive geek goddess Louise. We also find out that Zack has blown off studying for a physics midterm because he was busy making a calendar. I wonder why I liked Zack Morris so much now.

LOL Tori.

The physics examination - the teacher is an atrocious caricature of an Indian - is cut short because of an earthquake drill. Tori wants to know what an earthquake drill is, which is funny because it's pretty self-explanatory just what an earthquake drill is (maybe she thought it was a drill that caused earthquakes; no wonder she just disappeared). And you know that there will be an earthquake if they just had an earthquake drill. It's like every time we had a fire drill in high school, and then two days later, the entire school would succumb to flames. Tori reveals her fear of experiencing an earthquake, and then a scene or two later, she reveals that she was the birthing coach for her sister who had a child last year. Tori doesn't even get legitimate plots like Kelly (father being laid off so she can't afford prom, falling for her smooth-ass college-age manager when she's dating Zack, dealing with acne) or Jessie (caffeine pill addiction, asshole step-brother, environmentalism). She's just a plot point, a way to explain a bunch of shit needlessly and be a convenient person for the story at hand. Need a character to be afraid of earthquakes? Tori! Need a character to know how to deliver a baby? Tori! Mix it up, swish it around, and make it happen.



With the physics exam looming overhead, Zack gets the bright idea to throw Mrs. Belding a baby shower to avoid taking the test. Belding goes for it and excuses them because of course he does. What an asshole principal he is. It's no wonder the teachers went on strike; any time the kids wanted to do anything, he just let them. He even abandoned his own brother for these high school kids. Belding is kind of creepy, actually. After the baby shower, Zack and Tori take Mrs. Belding down to her car in the faculty elevator (which didn't exist before this episode, nor after it), Belding and Screech take the gifts from the shower to his office as opposed to the car (who knows why), Slater has swimming practice (he wasn't on the swim team before or after this episode), and Lisa does who the fuck knows what. Shops aggressively, I suppose. As everyone is off doing what they're doing, a vicious earthquake occurs (by vicious, I mean the sets on the show start awkwardly shaking). Zack, Tori, and Lady Belding are trapped in an elevator, but it's a huge elevator - twice the size of a normal one - so that's good. Tori starts freaking out because earthquake! and Mrs. Belding goes into labor because of course she does. The entire run of the show is just one big serendipitous shitstorm and this episode perfectly portrays that. The girl who is afraid of earthquakes and also a master at delivering babies for people is stuck in a trapped elevator after an earthquake with a woman (who is probably too old to be having a child anyway) in labor. I'm all for suspension of disbelief, but this is seriously fucking pushing it. I get that Zack has mystical powers where he can freeze time for his own gain, but this is just silly. And to make matters worse, they're trapped between floors. Between floors. Why not just pry the goddamn doors open, Zack? Why not just freeze time and go get a doctor or something, Zack? Why?

A.C. Slater: Unfuckwithable

Screech and Belding get trapped in the office because of course they do. Who really knows why? We are treated to some silly slapstick comedy between Sammy Powers and Dick Belding, and then Screech just starts playing with a puppet. Lisa survives the earthquake because she found a doorway, and so did Slater, but he was changing into his swimgear and the lockers tipped over, so now he's in a towel. Slater was a badass motherfucker, I'm telling you. He was jacked as shit. Nevermind the jheri curl mullet, he was etched out of granite. Lisa gives him her sweater when they meet up and they can hear Screech and Belding screaming for help in the office. My favorite part of the episode is next. Slater fucking Van Dammes the shit out of the door to free Screech and Belding. Look at Lisa's reaction there. She's turned on. Hell, I'm turned on. Slater also took, like, ten seconds to set up his kick. I like a man who is meticulous and perfect. The best part is just after Screech and Belding emerge and Slater tries to play it straight by doing the "tough man touches his nose" thing and everybody rushes to see if Lady Belding has birthed the child yet.

Spawn of Belding.

Zack tries calming down both Lady Belding and PTSD-Tori, and he succeeds because he's Zack Morris. Tori realizes it's baby time, and she gets down to it. The entire school waits next to the elevator and breathes along with Lady Belding as she pushes, and in what is surely the shortest labor in history, she births a little boy. A clean little boy, too. Like the kid stopped off at a spa and got the full treatment before he emerged from his mother's vagina. Born without placenta, birth juice, or even an umbilical cord. And he's, like, the size of a two-month old. Either the Child of Belding is an alien or Mrs. B. was waaaaaaay too busy before she settled down with Dick. What else am I supposed to assume, considering she was in labor for three minutes and gave birth to a nineteen-pound infant and barely broke a sweat? Everybody ends happy and the events of the episode are never mentioned again. How beautiful.


So that's it. The conclusion. The big climax. La Birth Le Belding. This episode was an amazing piece of television history to revisit because it taught me so much about life: the importance of preparing for earthquakes, having muscular friends to rescue you from the principal's office, buddying up with someone who is a master of delivering babies in case you ever find yourself in one of those situations, knowing a shopaholic African-American who can lend you a matching sweater if you ever find yourself in a bath towel and nothing else, betting on the birth of children, and relying on the life-affirming humor of a puppet in dire times. It's really important shit, people. Or, you know, it's not. It's just a constant reminder that you can be a shithead in high school as long as you're handsome. I mean, if you're a cute blonde guy with a cellular telephone and fancy basketball sneakers (Zack liked Cons), you'll come out of everything just fine. And that's why Saved by the Bell ruined my life, goddammit. Because my life was nothing like Zack Morris's, and that makes me sad.


Got an idea for a different episode you want me to tear down? Let me know.


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The Dark Knight Rises

Let's start this off the right way: I am deeply saddened that some assclown (I won't give him the satisfaction of writing his name on my blog) decided it would be awesome to open fire on a theater full of individuals at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises. This man, who I hope is brought to swift justice, is scum of the highest order and he robbed the lives of a dozen innocent people and irrevocably altered the lives of dozens more. My thoughts are with the victims and their families. Good luck. I don't wish to belittle this tragedy at all but I will be ignoring it for the sake of my arbitrary thoughts on a film I've been anxiously awaiting for four years. Apologies to any offended parties in advance. What follows is my typical voice.

Confession: I feel like crying. I do. The reason is two-fold: One, the cinematic trilogy that has meant more to me than any other (and that's saying a lot because I was a huge Star Wars dweeb growing up and I loved Lord of the Rings so much that I conned my parents out of ungrounding me for one night only to go see The Two Towers when it was released; I could have used that one-night-only deal to make out with my then-girlfriend, but I blew her off for Aragorn, Legolas, Frodo, and the gang... Moral of the story: it's no surprise it took me so long to get laid) has finally ended; two: the culmination of The Dark Knight Rises hit me pretty hard. I'm sad. But that's a good thing - it means that Christopher Nolan's holy triumvirate of Bat-films has succeeded in telling a story spanning seven years and almost nine hours of film. Nolan saw his vision for the character of Batman through to the end he had in mind, and it was mostly pretty darn spectacular.

Over the course of this essay/review/whatever, I'll be going off on a lot of tangents (would you expect anything less? We've already had at least one) and be addressing a lot of my own disparate thoughts on the nature of characters I love, and the importance of differentiating between different interpretations of those characters. So sit back, enjoy, and prepare yourself to be inundated with a shitload of verbiage in regards to The Dark Knight Rises. There are going to be a few spoilers, but not till much later. I'll be sure to post a spoiler warning before shit gets real intense.

And...

Here...

We....

Go!

I used the included Bruce Wayne character to simulate sex
with my Catwoman figure. I know, issues.

In typical fashion, let's start at the (Batman) beginning... all the way back to 1989 when Tim Burton unleashed Batman on the world. It's the first movie I remember seeing in theaters (I may have seen Masters of the Universe in theaters prior to this, but my memory may just be playing tricks on me. I can't be too certain, thus I identify Batman as my first cinematic experience as I remember everything about it clearly). The crummy theater it was playing at featured a cardboard cutout of the Bat-cave that you had to walk under to get to the theater. It was amazing. The film rocked my world. I remember getting it on video and the Daffy Duck Warner Bros. commercial before the flick started which involved Daffy proclaiming, "You're despicable" to somebody. I watched that movie a million times. I had Batman figures up the wazoo. The day my mom and older brother took me to Batman Returns, I got a special toy: Batman's Custom Coupe at Venture - you all remember Venture, right? It was a shitty wannabe-Target department store and it was right behind the theater I saw Batman Returns in. That day was the high-watermark in my life to that point and it stayed that way until I got my first HJ on New Year's Eve 1999. I loved Batman then and I do now. He's the one superhero who I love more than the rest. He's the man who has perfectly blended physical and mental preparation to its furthest limit in an attempt to fight crime. He's the embodiment of the perfected human, minus the whole, you know, obsessive compulsion in regards to his war against crime.


Of all the comics I have collected over the years (and let me tell you, brother, that's a lot of comics...), I treasure none more than my Batman comics. My favorite comic book arcs all surround the Bat. My favorite comic book writer's seminal work (one of his seminal works... the guy's a genius) was/is on Batman. I love his dedication. I love his work ethic. I love his villains. I love everything about Batman, and even as I type this, I know how fucked up that is to say about a fictional character. It's not normal. It's not even particularly safe to love a fictional character this much, I think. But it's the way it is, and I can't help my love for Batman. He's a part of me (if I were into quoting Katy Perry lyrics, this is where I'd do it), for better or worse, and he will be until I die, I think. And yes, I know that this is sad. I know.

I love Batman so
much I dress up
as characters
constantly.

So that's the base that you need to understand as you dig through my thoughts on The Dark Knight Rises. It's important to note that I don't perceive this flick like your average filmgoer does. I love Batman too much to process this flick like someone who saw Batman Begins and The Dark Knight and dubbed himself a Batman nut. I don't mean to try to put myself on a pedestal (my geekiness does not make me better than anyone), I just think it's important to understand that I don't necessarily view Batman films like the average person, so my view is going to be quite skewed in one direction or another. I make a lot of fun of the Twilight films - and they deserve a lot of that - but I'm not really one to judge them because I didn't grow up following the narrative of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. I didn't ever fantasize about a shiny vampire making sweet, sweet love to my nether regions. I never stayed up past my bedtime to see what was going to happen to Bella next, ferociously turning page after page. As such, I don't get out of the Twilight series what true fans get out of it. Maybe I could enjoy it (I couldn't, but you get my hypothetical here), but not on their level. Again, this isn't to say that I can enjoy The Dark Knight Rises better than someone else, I just view it on a different level than most people do. 


It does piss me off sometimes that people claim to be Batman fans when they're not on my level, but that says more about me being a fucking nerd and protecting that than anything else. Just last night at work, several people were talking about going to the midnight showing and how fucking pumped they were, bro and I was pissed. Not because I couldn't go to it at midnight (I chose not to. I'm too old to stay up and engaged in anything that late), but because they were speaking as though they were real Batman fans like me when it was clear they weren't. Some kid mentioned that he knew a lot about Batman, then tried to educate me that there were three Robins in the comics. I got pissed because I know there have been five in established continuity (plus more in out-of-continuity tales like The Dark Knight Returns, and even now, I guess in the new DC Universe, Stephanie Brown wasn't ever Robin, but it still counts to me... sorry). I schooled him up but quick and some coworkers looked at me like I was an idiot savant. I was upset because Batman is a huge part of my life (bigger than he should be, I know; let's just assume for a while that it's not weird for the sake of this) and these people were trying to take a part of that from me and pretend like they liked Batman or understood him half as much as I did. I know this is pathetic, but it's how I feel. It's ridiculous. I can't help it. At least I recognize it. That counts for something, right?


So, with that established, how did I like The Dark Knight Rises? I liked it. A lot. I think it's, structurally speaking, a tighter film than The Dark Knight, even if it's simultaneously a little bit more expansive. It's more of an ensemble film than the previous Nolan films in the series, but it makes sense in the context of the trilogy. Nolan portrayed Batman as more than just a man; Nolan always seemed more interested in Batman as a symbol and not an actual individual. The thematic thrust of Batman Begins was that a single man was corruptible, but a symbol - Batman/fear - could be above that and inspire change. The thematic thrust of The Dark Knight was chaos in the form of the Joker and it steered away from the symbol idea a bit as Batman ended the film being a fugitive and villain in the eyes of Gothamites, but the notion of an entity (in this case, Harvey Dent) being a symbol for change remained.  It all comes full circle in The Dark Knight Rises, as the people of Gotham rely on Batman as a symbol and a literal savior, although the idea of pain and how it is used and channeled was a big part of the narrative arc. It's powerful stuff, even if it does kind of spit in the face of my own personal vision of Batman. If there is a thesis to Nolan's Batman films, I would say it's this: Symbols very powerful things, ya'll. That's it, in its essence. And that's great for this version of Batman.

Still the best villain. Ever.

But let's move back a step, here. You probably are curious how I feel about TDKR compared to TDK (and if you're not, the next few sentences are going to be a drag for you). The Dark Knight came along at a perfect time in my life. It hit in the middle of Grant Morrison's Batman epic in the comics and I was completely obsessed with Batman more than at any other time in my life. I was twenty-three when TDK was released, and if you know me personally, you know that me at twenty-three is about the same as a typical fifteen year-old. I'm that immature. The Bat-hysteria was compounded by the fact that Heath Ledger died shortly after filming concluded and it was his last performance. And that performance was, no hyperbole here, one of the best I've ever seen captured on film. It created a perfect storm. Not just for me, but for people throughout the world, and TDK became a cultural icon of film. It rewrote so much of what we believed comic book movies could be (serious, engaging, powerful, stirring... award winners) and it was a zeitgeist. Nothing could touch it. That's how I felt when I saw it the first time. And the second time. And the third time. I saw TDK in theaters three times within its first 24 hours of release. That's how crazy I was about the film. I ended up seeing it eleven times in total in theaters. That's sad. I think Christopher Nolan has grown as a filmmaker and storyteller since then (Inception is, by my calculation, the best film in almost ten years), so maybe TDKR is a better film overall, but it can't hold a candle to TDK because of the impact it had on me. So, while I loved TDKR, it's not the same. I can't compare it to TDK fairly for those reasons, but I did really, really, really like it.


For months now I've been training myself to not get too excited about the movie. I knew that I would succumb to ridiculous expectations if I allowed myself to get too excited so I did my due diligence in preparing myself. It was hard, but I think that it served me well, as the anticipation for the film only hit a fever pitch last week. It doesn't hurt that I've been busy with, y'know, real life for a while, but all the same, I kept myself in a good spot so as not to ruin the film in my head before I viewed it. I think that healthy expectations are paramount when seeing this for the first time, because so many people loved TDK for so many different reasons that TDKR was going to be difficult to match up to it. Nolan and Co. did a good job of not trying to recapture lightening in a bottle here, though, and the story is more closely tied to Batman Begins than it is to TDK, and that ultimately helps it, I think.

Christian Bale as Batman. Which is like saying
Jesus as God.

I know I've said a lot to this point without actually saying much of anything. I do that. It's an issue. But now I'm going to attempt to get into the film proper. It takes place eight years after TDK and Batman has retired. Thanks to the Harvey Dent Act, organized crime in Gotham City has been eradicated. Bruce Wayne has become a recluse and is hobbled by injuries sustained in the cape and cowl. He's a depressed man, a defeated man, a man without a purpose. He's basically waiting to die, wishing that he could die for his city as Batman. Then, suddenly, a masked fellow named Bane shows up and cuts Gotham City off from the rest of the world. He claims that Gotham City needs to, essentially, start over due to all the greed and thievery from the rich folks in Gotham. It's not a bad stance to have, as far as villains go. So Bruce Wayne finds himself galvanized and dons the cape and cowl again, reborn as a man with purpose.


I don't want to say much more than that for fear of spoiling any of the plot for anybody. This is a tricky tightrope to walk because I could easily spoil a lot of the movie by saying just one or two things. I won't do that. However, I'd like to take a minute (just sight right there) to discuss Bane, how he compares to villains in the other Nolan films, and his primary motivation. Straight off - Tom Hardy is fucking incendiary as Bane. His posture. His demeanor. His eyes. His voice, oh that voice! Hardy's voice as Bane is really something special. It's not like the Joker's; it's not particularly creepy and it doesn't offer the same variety in tone, but it is astounding in its own way. Bane speaks loudly and clearly (most of the time), and in spite of his brutish appearance, he sounds like an incredibly intelligent individual. Hardy's ability to alter his voice so drastically lends a lot of dramatic heft to the proceedings. I loved his voice. It might be my favorite part of the whole movie.

He's Gotham's Reckoning. And hungry.
I have no idea how he eats.

It's impossible not to compare any villain against Heath Ledger's Joker, and with that in mind, yeah, Bane leaves a bit to be desired. The Joker in TDK was simply perfect. The essence of the character, the symbiotic relationship he has with Batman, all of it was spot on. Bane in TDKR is a bit different from the comic books but he's still a great villain. He's a physical match for Batman, and he's not an idiot, either, so he poses a big threat. He's just not as electric as the Joker, nor does he pose the same type of threat because the Joker was chaos incarnate. The Joker is a direct response to Batman's existence, a maniac who is the yin to Batman's yang, and that's powerful shit. You can't top that type of relationship, and any villain coming after that is going to be less powerful. The Joker is different from most villains in two key ways: he knows what he's doing is evil and he embraces it (In recent comic book movies: Bane, Ra's Al Ghul, Magneto, Loki, the list goes on... they all operate under the assumption that they are the real heroes righting some cosmic wrong, or are doing what is necessary), and he loves Batman. He doesn't want to kill Batman; Batman is the Joker's favorite playmate. How awesome is that? If you answered in your head, "Totally super-awesome," give yourself a gold star, because that's the correct answer.

Bane, though, thinks he's a good guy, doing something that needs to be done. While the Joker is an agent of chaos, Bane is more measured and meticulous. In a way, I'm glad that Nolan opted to take on such a different villain because anyone remotely like the Joker would have fallen flat. Other than the Joker, I'd say that Bane is one of the best villains in a comic book movie we've ever gotten; Hardy is just a beast, a physical animal with a healthy dose of intellect and philosophical motivation to boot. He's an electric motherfucker in the movie, he's just not Heath Ledger's Joker, and that's not a slight at all. But it does need to be said.

The other big character in the movie that most people were curious about was Selina Kyle/Catwoman. Anne Hathaway is a fine actress, a beautiful person with a lot of talent, and she is one of the best things about the film. When people heard about Hathaway being cast as Selina Kyle, there was a small outrage on the internet - isn't there always? - but she is a sultry, strong, sexy, capable individual. I thought from the start that she'd be great as Catwoman because she's everything Catwoman is in the comics. She's an interesting character, one who can be both good and bad, someone who is more concerned about her own survival than anything else. Or is she? The film does a great job of having her straddle the line between good and evil, and Hathaway is more than up to the task of ensuring she remains an engaging character throughout. The other newcomer as far as characters are concerned is John Blake, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He's an honest to goodness cop, someone who is inspired by Batman. He's a neat character and fits in well with the story, which is amazing considering just how many characters we must follow in this film.

Okay, now here is where the people who haven't seen the movie yet need to get off the train. Seriously, just go. It's gonna get fucking spoilerific in a minute here. Leave now if you haven't seen it, or you'll be disappointed. This is your last chance. Gone? Good. If you're still here - congrats on watching the movie.

This is so awesome.

I'm pretty pissed off that Christopher Nolan really screwed the pooch on the idea that only Bruce Wayne can be Batman. I'm also kind of upset that he really missed the boat almost entirely on the notion that Bruce Wayne doesn't want to be anything other than Batman. Bruce Wayne doesn't care about his own happiness, he just cares about being Batman and protecting his city. This was a lot more forgivable in TDK because it was essentially a year-two story, right at the beginning of Batman's young career and he wanted something more. But in the comics, Bruce Wayne's unwillingness to move beyond Batman is a touchstone of the character. He is Batman, and he likes it that way. He's not interested in being Batman and smiling and finding happiness. His innocence and happiness was entirely stolen from him the night he watched his parents gunned down. He's evolved beyond that; he's now a creature of the night, he is vengeance. He is, simply, Batman. But Nolan has created a Bruce Wayne (still capably portrayed by Christian "I'm the Best Actor of My Generation" Bale) who ends his story arc as a man living happily with Selina Kyle in Italy. What? This isn't right. It's wrong. It made me mad that Bruce Wayne moved beyond Batman and left the rookie cop Blake to pick up the mantle. That really isn't an appropriate characterization of Batman as I know him.

But this is where it gets tricky, because this Batman isn't the comic book Batman. He's different, and I can't really let my own biases interfere with the story Nolan wanted to tell (and he told it so well). It's difficult sometimes as a fan to differentiate between so many different versions of popular characters, especially when that character is an all-time favorite. So I had to step back and breathe a little to understand that this Batman isn't the same as the one I read every month in the comics. He's similar, but not a carbon-copy. Even still, it was a bitter pill to swallow because the characterization of Bruce Wayne was so fucking spot on in the previous two entries that it seemed like a big departure immediately, until, upon further evaluation, I recognized that Nolan was telling his own story about Bruce Wayne and not the one we see in comics all the time.

Grant Morrison addressed the idea of a Gotham City that no longer truly needs Batman anymore a few years back. Batman had eradicated crime in Gotham and he had nothing to do. Alfred had to basically teach him how to be a human again, and when that happened... well, he found out that there would always need to be a Batman. There was no escape from it. And you know what happened after that? Batman beat the devil. Yeah, the fucking devil. And The Joker. That's right. So I guess I'm just very attracted to the idea that there always needs to be Batman, and the hero that he is doesn't gripe about it; as a matter of fact, he embraces it.

But, again, Nolan's Batman isn't that Batman. He's a guy with a finite story, and the story that was told was good. I just had a difficult time processing it initially. And I don't really like the idea of someone other than Bruce Wayne being Batman. It just seems sacrilegious based on all the hard work Bruce Wayne endured to become the perfect human being vigilantly watching over his city.

"We should breed."
"I don't think the world could handle our children."
"Too awesome and attractive?"
"Yep."

The other big gripe I had with the movie is that Alfred left Bruce. Bullshit, man. Alfred would never leave Bruce. Never. That's all I have to say about that. Moving on.


There's a healthy debate online already in regards to whether or not Bruce Wayne died saving Gotham City, due to the fact that Alfred saw him in Florence at the end of the movie. As Nolan is wont to do, he likes to play tricks on his audience and let us put the puzzle pieces together. Well, I think Bruce survived and is now having sex with Selina Kyle all over continental Europe. Why? Because it is revealed that he fixed the autopilot on the Bat before flying the huge bomb away from Gotham. And the second part, the big one, is that when Alfred saw Bruce in Florence at the end, Bruce was with Selina Kyle. If it was a dream or his imagination, I don't believe Selina Kyle would have been there, because Alfred didn't know that Bruce and her had a thing developing. So, yeah. Bruce lived. And he was happy as shit with Selina Kyle. That's what I believe, so feel free to debate with that.

And this is where I sign off. I said a lot without saying a whole lot, didn't I? Here's the thing, though, and this is all you really, truly need to know: I loved The Dark Knight Rises. There were parts of it that felt wrong or off to me, but I adjusted and recognized why those parts were included. And this is, easily, the best cinematic Batman we've ever had. Ten years ago, there's no way this would have been expected, so enjoy this for what it is. A great movie trilogy that told a self-contained story about Batman and his city. Is this a better movie than the Avengers? Yeah, I think so. Did I enjoy watching it more than Avengers? I don't know; they're two different types of films and were processed differently by my brain. I loved both of them. And you know what? To be able to say that we've had a summer that included both of those movies is pretty damn awesome. It's a good time to be a dork.

The Amazing Spider-Man

Hey, gang. Sorry it's been so long. Who am I kidding, you didn't miss me. Well, screw you, too, pal. I thought we were friends. You're a real snake in the grass. I'm sorry I've been busy living my life while you've been aimlessly staring at your computer screen waiting for an update from your's truly. What? You haven't been waiting around for yours truly to update this blog that underwent (very) few changes (like the name, because I'm going to be teaching kids and I don't want them finding my inane ramblings on the internet)? Eat my shorts, ass. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. Are we good? Good. [Cyber-Hug]

Anyway, it's summer movie season and I watched a bunch of movies. This review center, or whatever it is/was/might become, has been barren lately because I haven't had a whole lot to say about the movies I've seen. I saw The Avengers (three times) just like everyone else. And just like everyone else, I loved it. It was true enough to the comics - and more importantly, faithful to the characters - and it made sense. The action was tops, the banter was ace, and they got the Hulk really right. There just wasn't much for me to add to the conversation about The Avengers, so I kept my mouth (keyboard) shut (untouched). Prometheus was a clusterfuck and I'm still not sure how I felt about it. Great review there, right? Those are the two big ones thus far this summer, and I didn't know what to add, so I didn't. Addition by subtraction, eh? How's that for maths, Mrs. Weber? Twelve on my ACT in math sounds pretty stupid now, huh? The scoring system is all wrong on that test, anyway, it doesn't make sense, and it is ethnically biased (not towards my ethnicity, but still).

So finally we have arrived at a film that I do have something to say about. A whole helluvaot about, as a matter of fact. I've loved Spider-Man as a character for as long as I can remember. He is firmly ensconced (great word) in my Top-Five Favorite Superheroes Of All-Time List at number four (because I know you're curious - 1. Batman (duh), 2. Captain America (it's called patriotism, shitheads. Try it), 3. Superman (he's everything humanity should strive to be), 4. Spider-Man (the closest superhero in character to me), 5. The Incredible Hulk (he smashes shit and yells stuff, he's just like me, except I don't smash shit, am not green, know next to nothing about gamma radiation, and have never smooched a girl named Betty - although I'm open to it ;) )). I love Spidey. He's a great character that the karmic gods consistently crap on. He has depth. He has range of emotion. He uses humor and sarcasm as a defense mechanism (I'd never do that). What's not to like?

Seriously, people fucking miss this?!

In 2002, something crazy happened. Sam Raimi made a little flick called Spider-Man and it was huge. Like, the Incredible Hulk's pectorals huge. It was the second big comic book movie adaptation, and without it, I have a feeling that we wouldn't have Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Avengers, or any of that really good stuff we all know and love today. It was a watershed moment for geeks. Something confined to the funny pages transcended its origins as a nerd escape and became accepted by the mainstream population. How geeks felt when Spider-Man the movie got as huge as it did is similar to how I suspect BDSM weirdos feel about Fifty Shades of Grey. Comic books - at least the characters - became acceptable, and the medium wasn't stuck in the greasy hands of acne-dotted teenagers anymore. It belonged to the world. I saw the movie at the tail-end of my sophomore year of high school. It was shortly before my renaissance as a stud (I smooched no less than four babes that summer - three in a one-week span), and right before "Hot in Herre" by Nelly became the anthem of a generation. I loved that fucking movie. I did. It was great. Then, something weird happened two years later - Spider-Man 2 came out and it sucked. It did bank at the box office and everybody except for me loved it. I couldn't stand it. It was claptrap, shit, tripe, nut-butter, any other adjective/noun that can be used negatively - that's what Spider-Man 2 was to me. But it was popular, so whatever. Then, three years after that, something even weirder happened - Spider-Man 3 came out and it made me want to off myself like a shamed member of the Yakuza. My hatred for Spider-Man 3 is well-documented. It made me lose faith in humanity. It made me question the existence of a higher power. It made me want to open-mouth kiss a blender.

Thankfully, Sam Raimi opted out of a fourth Spidey flick, and his absence ensured that Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst would not return, either (thank the nerd gods). Sony, who owns the rights to Spidey on film, opted to reboot the franchise and now, in 2012, this is what we've got.

And what we've got is good. Real good. Like "Amazing Spider-Man, I'ma get you pregnant" good. And the primary reason why it is so good is so stupidly simple that I can't figure out why we haven't gotten a cinematic Spidey like this yet: it stayed true to the characters on the comic book page (mostly).

The thing that never resonated with me with Raimi's interpretation was his characters. The horrible, bland, boring, lame characters. He didn't nail them at all. Peter Parker is a wise-ass by his very nature. He's a loner (because he has to be). He's stubborn. He's a good guy who sacrifices his own well-being and happiness at every turn in order to help others. He's like Jesus, but with webs. Raimi's Parker was never like that. He wasn't funny. He was awkward, but he didn't rely on sarcasm or self-deprecation in big moments. He spent half of the second movie playing out some weird "my-lack-of-super-powers-is-actually-a-metaphor-for-impotence" shit that made me want to hit myself with a plastic toy truck. The thing about Spidey is that he's a smart guy. He doesn't need to be reminded why he's a hero every movie. He's a hero because he lost his uncle due to his own un-heroic behavior. It's that simple. Stick to it and move on, don't dwell on it. Don't throw the suit out in the trash and act like a little baby.

Does whatever a spider can...
except kill his lover after they mate.
That's illegal.

Raimi's Spider-Man took all the great things about Spidey's character we love and threw it out, and what was left was a sad, pathetic person who felt really crummy about himself all the time. Imagine taking Superman as a character and stripping away his constant optimism and good nature (calling everyone 'Ma'am' all the time, for example). All you're left with is an asshole with super-powers that nobody cares about or can relate to. And that's what happened with Spidey in the Raimi-verse - he was a schmuck who felt really bad for himself and just whined all the time, until in the third movie he decided to go full-emo and get a funny haircut and wear eyeliner and dance around Manhattan for a while before punching his ex-girlfriend in the face. Add in the fact that Mary Jane, who was supposed to be a total babe bombshell turned out to be a really underwhelming Kirsten Dunst (not because she's not pretty, but because the movies tried really hard to make her look really plain), and Aunt May went from a rambunctious senior citizen to an old lady who spends the majority of her time crying into a cup of decaf, and it was just a huge mess. Huge.

Even the villains sucked, by and large. The Green Goblin in Spider-Man was a bit of a missed opportunity (which I don't fault the movie itself for, because it was a comic book movie with training wheels at that point, and Amazing Spider-Man's villain, The Lizard, left a lot to be desired, too... we'll get there). Norman Osborn is Spidey's Joker - the one villain who means more to him than all the rest. He knows Spider-Man inside and out and hates his stinkin' guts. The interplay between them can be potent. Instead, we got a green Power Ranger. In Spider-Man 2, we got Doctor Octopus, who turned out to be the best villain of the Raimi bunch. Aside from a supremely campy introduction in a hospital operating room, he looked awesome and posed a great threat to Spidey. However, his motive for destroying Manhattan didn't make a lick of sense and he got caned by Aunt May at one point, so whatever.


Spider-Man 3 is where everything really went to shit with the baddies. The Green Goblin and Doc Ock at least made sense. In Spider-Man 3 we had three(!) villains, and none of them were worthwhile or remotely interesting. Harry Osborn, Norman's son, took the mantle of the Goblin and hoverboarded around before losing his memory and kissing MJ for some reason. The Sandman, who was - get this - retconned in the film itself to have been the one responsible for Uncle Ben's murder, spent the entire movie staring at a fucking locket and turning into sand at odd intervals. Then, when Spidey finally confronts him for killing his uncle, he just lets him go because I don't fucking know why. There was zero character development and the best part of Spidey's origin - similar to Batman's - was ripped from him, that a simple crime and un-heroic behavior from Peter resulted in Ben's death. It changed from being a crime of the moment to some cosmic destiny shit that was preordained to happen, and it cheapened Ben's death. And then we get Venom, played by Topher Grace - the one guy less manly than Tobey Maguire in the entire world - and the less I say about him the better. Even thinking about him gets me mad. If you grew up in the '90's, chances are your favorite villain of all time in comics is Venom because he's fucking Venom!, just look at him! And they screwed it up. Horribly.

So, yeah, I'm happy Raimi and Co. didn't return for a fourth installment. It was better for everyone. Raimi got to move on to do what he does best - oddball horror and slapsticky stuff - and Maguire got to become an actor who ruins other movies for me (I'm already dreading The Great Gatsby just because of him. They get DiCaprio to play Gatsby and Maguire to play Nick - they get the most talented actor of his generation to play an iconic character and some guy who looks like he couldn't bag groceries efficiently to play the anchor for the film. My God). Sony wisely decided to just start from scratch and give audiences a new, fresh look at Spider-Man.

"Thwip!" goes the web

Now we get to the actual discussion of the new film, The Amazing Spider-Man, which has been the scorn of the internet since being announced. People were up in arms because it's only been five years since Spider-Man 3 and it seems awfully quick to do a reboot, I guess. I don't know, I think that when a character as beloved as Spidey is screwed up so terribly the first time, a reboot is fine. As a comic book fan, maybe I'm just more used to different interpretations and retellings of origins because comics do it all the time. Each creator has something different to say about a character, so it's fine to see a different version on screen, especially if this version is more faithful to the character. Eight years passed between Batman and Robin and Batman Begins, so it's only three fewer years for a new Spider-Man. It's not a big deal to me. But that's really neither here nor there. The fact is, the new movie is a reboot and it's impossible to avoid comparing it with Sam Raimi's trilogy.

There's been a fair amount of criticism because people think we just saw the exact same movie ten years ago. We didn't. Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man are two radically different flicks. In ASM, Peter Parker is very much a loner. He's still hurt by his parents abandoning him. He is an outcast because he doesn't fit in. He's bullied. He's not a dork, but he's not a part of the cool crowd. He is, like most adolescents, trying to find his way. He's really smart (and we get to see it, we're not just told!) but in 2012 that doesn't make you a geek. Intelligence is, get this, a good quality to possess! It's not the '80's when smart people were nerds. It's 2012, and guys like Bill Gates are the richest, most powerful people in the free sector. I'm glad that this is finally reflected in movies. Peter Parker is just an awkward kid trying to make his way and then he gets bitten by a spider that gives him superpowers. This is when it becomes fun.

This is adorable. I mean it.

He doesn't just become a superhero over night. There's a process here, and he struggles with his new powers. He doesn't act like a hero right away, he grows into it. The wise-cracking and sarcasm is there throughout, but it's more mean-spirited here than in the comics. But it makes sense, because he's an angry kid trying to make sense of his dead uncle. He's a teenager, of course he's going to be a prick. But he grows as the narrative unfolds through his encounters with other people, namely Gwen Stacy and her dad, the police chief of New York. He realizes that his actions have repercussions and he must be accountable for that. Even as the film ends, he's still struggling with this, and it adds for some nice dramatic tension and sets the stage for what's to come in sequels. It's called character progression, and it's something you don't see a lot of in these types of flicks. I'm surprised at the depth of the characters and how some of the narrative is left open to interpretation at the conclusion.

The film nailed the characters, and that's all I really cared about at the end of the day. The Raimi movies can't be ignored for their impact (and in some cases should be looked at as a "what not to do" thing), but as I just spent the last few hundred words or so detailing, they never nailed the character of Peter Parker. Marc Webb's ASM does, and that's why I liked the movie so much. When you get the essence of a character, you're allowed to tweak other aspects of the story and the audience will stay with you. That's why Christopher Nolan's Batman movies work so well - they get who the characters are and build realistic stories around them. It doesn't matter that in The Dark Knight The Joker doesn't have bleached skin from a chemical accident; what matters is that his character is the truest to the comics of any interpretation we've yet seen. In Tim Burton's Batman, The Joker's origin is almost identical to the comic book one, but The Joker in that movie isn't nearly as powerful as the one in Nolan's because the character isn't the same as he is on the printed page. Character essence is so important for me in comic book adaptations - if you can get that right, you can screw around with the other stuff. So Peter Parker is different from Comic Book Peter Parker in the sense that his origin and his parent's disappearance is different, but the essence is there. Everything else is background noise and can be fiddled with to "modernize" it or whatever.

A big part of capturing this essence lies in the hands of the actors, and they're really good. Andrew Garfield will be a big star now because of this. And good, because he is the Peter Parker I've always wanted. He's skinny. He's awkwardly handsome. He's not Channing Tatum, and he's not Tobey Maguire (have we figured out I don't like him yet?). He's Peter Parker, and that's what I've always wanted. I've said for years that I would have been a great Peter Parker - not because I'm handsome or muscular or anything like that (I'm not), but because I'm naturally a small kind of guy and I am a huge wise-ass and I rely on sarcasm like my life depends on it. I'm insecure. I'm funny, sometimes (my jokes miss more often than they hit, similar to Spidey's "throw everything at the wall" approach in battle, hoping something sticks and he can divert the attention of his foes). I've got the right build and I know the character. If you give me Hollywood money and access to Hollywood foods, I could tidy myself up and be a great Peter Parker. Assuming, of course, I had any acting talent whatsoever, which I doubt I do have, but that's unimportant because this is hypothetical and I can dream, right? Point being, Tobey Maguire was never right for Spider-Man in my estimation. He just doesn't have it for Spidey, and that's fine, that's all in the past now, because now we do have someone who is right for Spider-Man, and that's Andrew Garfield. He has the look, the movements, the mannerisms, and the ability to play a smart-ass when need be (which is often, for this character). He brings the right amount of sadness inherent in the character, too, even if some scenes border on melodrama at times.

Seriously, how adorbs are these two?

Emma Stone is also really swell as Gwen Stacy. She's cute, adorable, and perky. She doesn't take shit from anyone, which is nice because all Kirsten Dunst ever did as MJ was play a damsel in distress (the feminist in me can't stand that). Gwen is just as smart as Peter, and she doesn't sit around when the shit hits the fan. But really, her scenes with Garfield are amazing. I was in awe of their cute, budding relationship. It was weird, it was odd, it was awkward, it was uncomfortable, and it was so friggin' adorable it hurt my heart. That's how these young wooings should go - they're awkward kids awkwardly figuring out the opposite sex. It's perfect. Their chemistry is well on display whenever they share the screen together (I guess they're dating in reality now, too, for whatever that's worth).

The biggest stumbling block in the flick is the villain, The Lizard. He's just too much like Raimi's baddies - he's a scientist and shit goes wrong for him and he loses his mind. We've seen it way too many times before, and it sucks. Rhys Ifans is fine as Curt Connors, and The Lizard itself looks fine, if a bit like a certain Super Mario Bros. character at times. The action scenes with The Lizard are all awesome visually, and it looks excellent, and you feel the velocity of the fights and all that jazz, it's just there's not a real connection to the villain, nothing that really jumps out at you when he's around. He's just window dressing for the rest of the movie and an excuse to make Spider-Man appear in cool fight scenes (and they are cool, they just don't resonate beyond that). It doesn't help that The Lizard is so un-human that it makes it hard for the audience to identify with him at all, and he's not anything at all like other villains who just own the screen when they appear (like The Joker in TDK or even Magneto in X-Men: First Class, but then Heath Ledger and Michael Fassbender were/are incredible talents). He's just there. I hope that a sequel introduces Norman Osborn as the Green Goblin so we can finally see him how he was meant to be - unhinged, insane, ruthless, cunning, and sans Power Ranger outfit. Here's to hoping.

Ultimately, the flick's pitfalls are overcome through capturing the characters correctly. There's a scene near the end of the film when Peter strolls into class late and the teacher is lecturing on the nature of storytelling. She says something to the effect that there's only one type of story - "Who am I?" - and I couldn't help but feel that this was a subtle jab at the Raimi movies. That question really is central when adapting any type of medium for a different one - you need to ensure that the characters know who they are and are represented appropriately. Raimi's Spider-Man had the costume, it had the webbing, it had the action, but it lacked the true essence of Peter Parker. Something was just missing. And now, finally, we have a Spider-Man on screen as he was meant to be. And, goddammit, it's pretty fucking amazing.

Really, this sequence was better than the entire Raimi trilogy