Airs - Ian Lance Taylor

I’ve always liked Iron Man. Tony Stark has a simple comic book story: a smart guy, who doesn’t think very much about what he’s doing, is nearly killed. The experience changes him–but not all that much. He’s a superhero because he’s addicted to action, because he feels the need to justify his survival, and because he needs the armor to keep himself alive. He doesn’t have any special powers–he’s just very inventive.

Tony Stark’s alcoholism wasn’t introduced until the character had been around for a long time. Stan Lee created Iron Man in 1963 (script by his brother, Larry Leiber, and art by Don Heck and Jack Kirby). The alcoholism was introduced in the 1980s by David Michelinie and Bob Layton. However, even though it came so much later, it fit the character so well that it has never been forgotten. Denny O’Neill later picked it up for a long run on the character in which Stark loses everything and his friend Rhodey takes over as Iron Man.

Iron Man is a natural hero for an engineer: a smart, intuitive guy who succeeds entirely on his own wits. He’s also, of course, handsome, suave, ultra wealthy, self confident–in fact, overly confident. I don’t think anybody could really identify with Tony Stark, which probably hurts his sales. But he’s a believable character at the core, more believable than many superheroes.

I didn’t have high hopes for the movie which just came out, but I’m happy to say that it captures the character very well and was also a very good movie. They changed the details of the comic book story, but kept all the essential elements. In fact, it’s early days yet, but right now I think it was one of the best superhero movies that’s been made, right up there with the first Tim Burton Batman movie. Unusually, the ordinary life sequences were better than the action sequences–something which only works because Iron Man is such a plausible character at the core. That said, the special effects were excellent, and really conveyed the power of the armored suit.

If you’re a comic book fan, sit through all the credits until the very end, to see the short setup for the sequel (if you’re not a comic book fan, though, the setup probably won’t make any sense).

I did go to the movie version of Jumper. It had nothing to do with the book. I think there were about three or four scenes from the book in the movie, all at the very beginning. The characters were all completely different, although they had the same names.

In general the movie was pretty bad. The story was full of logic holes. The characters were completely unbelievable. The dialogue was badly written. The acting was stilted–not even Samuel L. Jackson could make his character remotely believable. On the plus side, the special effects were generally pretty good.

Also on the plus side, the story was so completely unlike the book that it doesn’t spoil the book.

Don’t go to this movie, even if it is still in the theaters. Save your money.

My six-year old daughter doesn’t like to go to movies in theaters. She does like watching them at home when we let her. Since I like going to movies, this seems strange to me. What seems even stranger is her reason: she says that at home she can pause the movie whenever she wants to take a break or just go to the bathroom. In the theater she can’t do that.

I don’t know whether she’ll change her mind as she gets older. If she doesn’t, though, it’s an interesting snapshot of a changing relationship to media. She has always had a lot of control, and she isn’t interested in media where she doesn’t have that control.

Along the same lines, we never watch television or cable programming at home–we just use our television to watch DVDs. My daughter still doesn’t quite grasp the basics of ordinary television when we are at a hotel or a friend’s house–that you have to watch the show when it comes on, and if you want to see the whole show you have to watch it until it ends. You can’t start it or stop it. She sort of understands this when we explain it to her, but she never remembers it.

I don’t care what happens to television, but I do like the movie theater experience, and I hope it doesn’t go away. I guess we’ll have to see.

Jumper, by Steven Gould, is among my favorite SF books. It’s a simple story based on a simple premise: a teenager discovers that he has the power to teleport. The book is both a bildungsroman and a revenge story, as he uses his power to strike back at his enemies (thanks to the one outrageous coincidence permitted to every story, he has some nasty enemies). He reacts plausibly to his power, the characters around him react plausibly, the government gets involved. The book doesn’t hit any false notes, and it’s not too long.

Gould’s second book, Wildside, was also good, though not as good. It was also based on a single simple premise, in this case a doorway to another world, an Earth without humans.

His subsequent books were by-and-large completely forgettable, alas. He did write a sequel to Jumper, Reflex, which was OK. It lost a lot of the charm by introducing another fantastic element, an evil conspiracy which was not really spelled out and led to an ending to the book which I found quite implausible.

Jumper is now being turned into a movie, being released this weekend. It’s always fun but scary to see a favorite book turned into a movie. Unfortunately, based on the previews I’ve seen, this one is going to be a lot more scary than fun. In the movie Davy is not the only person who can teleport. There are fight scenes between teleporters. There seems some to be some kind of organization which works against teleporters. This might all be good fun, if it weren’t for the fact that none of this is in the book, and that it ruins the basic idea which made the book good. The book as written would be filmable; it has good characters and plenty of action and conflict both between and within characters. I guess it just wouldn’t be a spectacular special effects event movie, though.

Who knows? Maybe the movie will be good after all. And presumably Gould will get a small pile of money out of it, not to mention more book sales.

Sweeney Todd actually works better as a movie than on the stage, at least when Johnny Depp is on the screen. The music overcomes the staginess and melodrama of the story. Closeups make Sweeney Todd more tortured and less bombastic. On the other hand, I think that Angela Lansbury (who I’ve only seen in video) did a better job on the Mrs. Lovett role than Helena Bonham Carter.

It’s a pity Tim Burton couldn’t keep the chorus in the movie, though, as that is my favorite song.