Gawker

Screw Superheroes -- Just Give Me Darkness

The Dark Knight succeeds as a film because it fearlessly trashes the idea of heroism, and turns hopelessness into a motivation so pyrotechnic that even torture is a kind of seduction. Nothing escapes corruption. Even the poignant anguish of loss is an emotion summarized by gleeful beatings in police stations, innocent faces burned down to bone, and brute-force surveillance that turns an entire city into one giant spy camera. This is a movie that grabs you by the hair and mashes your cheeks against the cold, flat reality that nobody will ever save the day again. Your only joy from now on will be in destruction. And what glorious destruction it is. Spoilers ahead. More »

12:20 PM on Fri Jul 18 2008
By Annalee Newitz
8,527 views, 74 comments

Latest by Purple Dave: @mxmarks: I think that is somewhat a major point of this series. Bruce Wayne needs to figure out just how far he's comfortable going as Batman. What rules must be upheld, what ones can be bent, and what ones can more »

generation x

Entertainment Industry: Please Stop Pandering To My Generation!

When did I first realize that Generation-X nostalgia was a driving the entertainment industry off a cliff? First all the toys I'd broken were suddenly on the big screen, thrashing each other and cursing loudly. Then the cartoons I learned to masturbate while watching were being acted out — with gravitas — by real actors. Now it turns out Sir John Gielgud is being dug up, resurrected and having frog DNA injected, so he can play Baron Silas Greenback in the new Danger Mouse movie. When will it stop? More »

9:00 AM on Wed Jul 16 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
7,074 views, 87 comments

Latest by Final: @knyghtryda: Monkeybirds, Ecomancers and pirates riding dragons. What the hell wasn't there to love about Pirates of Dark Water. more »

wall-e

Wall-E, Right Wing Hero?

You may have thought Pixar's trashbot epic Wall-E was an environmentalist screed about humans ruining the planet through over-consumption. But you'd be wrong, say a rising chorus of conservative commentators. Rather, Wall-E is a right-wing dream come true, a saga about the need to escape big government and return to small-town family values. Not only that, but some progressives are starting to attack the poor little guy for not being hardcore enough. More »

2:11 PM on Sun Jul 13 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
16,768 views, 87 comments

hellboy 2: the golden army review

Do We Really Need Hellboy to "Come Out"?

I love smashing, and lighting things on fire, and monsters fighting on top of giant gears with huge mechanical creatures covered in golden carapaces — but I don't love a sloppy allegory about minority rights, and that's unfortunately what you'll get in the new Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. And no, the stuff about minorities isn't something I'm "reading into" the plot of this awesome monster extravaganza from the brains of comic book artist Mike Mignola and director Guillermo del Toro. It's right there on the surface, with a Magneto-style separatist from the elf underworld wanting to crush humans who make his people "ashamed" to be open about their monstery ways. Also, at one point, we hear a television news anchor complaining about how Hellboy's organization, the Bureau for Paranormal Defense and Research (BPRD), "promotes inter-species relations, thereby undermining traditional marriage." Gee, do you smell a subtext? Spoilers ahead. More »

1:01 PM on Fri Jul 11 2008
By Annalee Newitz
8,573 views, 102 comments

Latest by justhesh: @pink_clerical_collar: Again, as a VA, he's not responsible for the way the character was written and directed. He can only do so much with what he is given. more »

wall-e review

Humanity Cannot Be Saved in Wall-E

Disney/Pixar's latest CGI confection, Wall-E, is an oddly moving love story about a sanitation robot abandoned on the garbage-caked Earth for 700 years after humans have been wiped out or fled to space. Billed as a sweet, eco-friendly kid's movie, Wall-E's message is dark as hell: Humans as a species are doomed to extinction, and robots will inherit our planet. Rarely have I seen a more pessimistic movie aimed at children. Director Andrew Stanton has said the movie explores how "love defeats programming," and yet the only creatures who embrace love over an implicitly bad program are the robots. The humans cannot overcome their programmed greed and laziness. They never learn, and they never change: They grow fatter, weaker, and more hideous, redeemed only by the hope that they'll eventually be replaced by their industrious mechanical creations. Spoilers ahead. More »

1:36 PM on Fri Jun 27 2008
By Annalee Newitz
7,708 views, 81 comments

Latest by Jack Szwergold: You know, after reading stuff like this and then seeing the movie, I'm not too sure how people are seeing the ending of this as negative or the film as a dark indictment of humanity. From a basic scientific point of more »

Wanted review

Wanted Strips White-Collar Rage Bare

Wanted is one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen, but also one of the most beautifully filmed. And its scream of strangulated middle-class frustration will lodge in your mind afterwards. Wanted, which opens tonight, is like a John Woo remake of Falling Down, the story of a shlubby white-collar worker who finally, violently, breaks free. Spoilers follow. More »

9:00 AM on Thu Jun 26 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
16,120 views, 54 comments

Latest by enjikunoichi: @drhayes: If you noticed that from the screencap, then you'll see more of it in the movie. I find it amazing that the character is such a big badass assassin when she looks like she can barely win a fight. more »

television

Meet The New Science Heroes

With the anti-science Bush Administration finally groaning to a halt, we may finally be willing to admire scientists. There are three new TV shows with scientist heroes coming this fall, creating a genre that hardly existed until now. We've always had lots of shows about doctors, lawyers and other highly paid professionals, but the science-hero show is a new phenomenon — and it may be more political than the existing genres. Minor spoilers ahead. More »

9:00 AM on Wed Jun 18 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
7,372 views, 63 comments

the happening review

"The Happening" Is the Biggest Intelligent Design Movie of the Year

M. Night Shyamalan's critically-panned flick The Happening is Hollywood's first blockbuster to promote the anti-evolutionary theory of intelligent design. Maybe you thought Ben Stein's ill-fated documentary Expelled was the only movie to argue in favor of the neo-Christian idea that an "intelligent designer" created the universe. Think again. With its references to "unexplained acts of nature" and a science teacher main character who calls evolution "just a theory," The Happening is basically a giant propaganda machine for intelligent design. Maybe science journalists are jizzing all over its allegedly realistic plants-attack-humans plot, but we talked to Shyamalan and we know the truth. More »

2:19 PM on Fri Jun 13 2008
By Annalee Newitz
44,722 views, 208 comments

Latest by geekzilla: @frank_reed: Nice! Thanks! more »

The Incredible Hulk review

Post-Traumatic Stress Makes Hulks Out Of All Of Us

Bruce Banner, the Incredible Hulk's alter-ego, suffers from terrible post-traumatic stress disorder in the new Hulk movie. There are a few scenes of Banner freaking out in the bathtub as he remembers the violence of the military's latest attempt to capture him. You can't even get close to Bruce Banner (Edward Norton), because he's so wound up with his trauma. Flashes of guns and fists. But in the end, the movie suggests, Bruce's PTSD is a by-product of his struggle to hold onto his humanity, to avoid becoming the ultimate killing machine. Spoilers ahead. More »

9:00 AM on Thu Jun 12 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
3,619 views, 43 comments

Latest by hakubak: Okay. Saw it.Meh. 80% no smashing. 20% all smashing. HATING Tim Blake Nelson as Samuel Sterns. Not funny. Not compelling. more »

rant

"Technology is Another Version of Communism or Aliens or a Large Praying Mantis"

Does science fiction appeal mainly to audiences who are ignorant about how technology works? That seems to be the message from creators of some of TV's most innovative science fiction, who talked to Variety about why viewers are hot for tech-centric shows. Some of last seasons's best new shows were about technology run amok (Chuck, Sarah Connor Chronicles); next season's Battlestar spinoff Caprica, plus JJ Abrams' Fringe and Ron Moore's Virtuality promise more. Though scifi has historically been deemed the purview of techie geeks, creators from many of these shows agreed that people are fascinated by them because they find technology (and especially computers) terrifyingly incomprehensible. More »

11:26 AM on Thu Jun 5 2008
By Annalee Newitz
3,779 views, 59 comments

Latest by Klebert L. Hall: @braak: True enough then, in fiction. Of course, I hate that. -Kle. more »

guilt

Welcome To The Summer Of White Guilt

As we lurch into the slow-motion hysteria of the summer election season, movies aren't serving up the pure escapist crack we depend on them for. Instead, almost every movie stars a tormented Gen-X or Baby Boomer white guy, who's trying to atone for using his power to make the world a worse place. Welcome to the summer of guilt. More »

10:20 AM on Wed Jun 4 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
24,025 views, 142 comments

Latest by RAHfanboy: @napthia9: "Thanks for letting me get the last word though. I'm a firm believer in not letting people be wrong on the Internet without calling attention to it." You're welcome. So am I. more »

lost

In Lost, Home Is Always Moving Away

From the moment of their plane crash until last night's season 4 finale, Lost's castaways have wanted nothing more than to go home. But there's a sort of observer effect of the heart that keeps home, like the island itself, from being permanently fixed in space or time. Getting back to civilization isn't exactly the balm our characters hoped for. Maybe that's why last night's episode was filled with references to The Wizard of Oz. At least in that movie, a happy homecoming was possible. In Lost's world of grown-up sorrow, nobody is going to get back to Kansas — or if they do, they're going to hate it there. Spoilers ahead, of course. More »

1:30 PM on Fri May 30 2008
By Lynn Peril
9,581 views, 67 comments

Latest by scotto: it's a first generation TARDIS, before they perfected the OS. more »

michael chabon

The Grad Students Who Mocked Michael Chabon's Science Fiction

In an alternate universe, Michael Chabon has a long track record of writing space opera. When the Yiddish Policemen's Union author was a young writer in UC Irvine's MFA program, he wrote some science fiction stories and brought them to his peers. He was met with "if not hostility, then incomprehension," and so he switched to writing literary fiction. We went to a Chabon reading and Q&A on Tuesday and he asked him about anti-SF prejudice among the literati. His full response, after the jump. More »

12:47 PM on Fri May 16 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
4,726 views, 38 comments

Latest by n/a: @Lizfu: If you're posting here, then it probably wasn't inspired by The English Patient. Going Solo (Roald Dahl's 2nd autobiography) might be an interesting source for you more »

speed racer review

Speed Racer is Rewardingly Weird, State-of-the-Art CGI Slapstick

The hype about Speed Racer has been fairly negative, and I can only guess that's because people still have a bad taste in their mouths from The Matrix Revolutions, the most recent film directed by Speed Racer helmers the Wachowskis. In addition, I think there's been a lot of skepticism about whether the director pair could really do a kid-friendly movie after their lesbian noir flick Bound and sexy/fetishy scifi fare like the Matrix trilogy. I was dubious too, but after a few minutes of immersion in the clever, color-drenched world of Speed Racer, I was surprised to find myself becoming a believer. No shock that the visuals were brilliant, but honestly I wasn't expecting . . . fun. (Spoilers ahead, my racers.) More »

6:09 PM on Thu May 8 2008
By Annalee Newitz
5,783 views, 55 comments

Latest by gunnk: @Cantonkid: I feel EXACTLY the same way! I approached the movie with high hopes and a sense of dread that it would be awful. Speed Racer is just too precious a part of my childhood. The movie ROCKED. It's true more »

robots

Dance, Robot Snake Girl, Dance!

A ballerina from the English National Ballet dances next to a two-meter-high robot snake, which looks every bit as graceful as she does. Maybe the future of robotics isn't dancing little humanoids or cute puppies, but a nice sinuous snake that can slither around your house cleaning your floors and picking up after you. They could be standard equipment in every home within a few years. Click through for more cool robot images from the Streetwise Robots event at the London Science Museum's Dana Centre. More »

4:11 PM on Wed May 7 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
2,291 views, 12 comments

Latest by tamoko: "Forget Dancing with the Stars, Dancinng with the Robo Snake! Next on Fox! "@Priam: You are my new master...teach me. more »

iron man review

Robert Downey Jr.'s Exposed Torso Is America

There's no way to make an apolitical movie out of Marvel Comics' Iron Man, and director Jon Favreau doesn't try. The story of a weapons manufacturer who's captured by a warlord in Afghanistan is clearly a metaphor for American power overseas. The great strength of Iron Man, which opens tonight, is that it can be read in a variety of ways, in spite of a fair bit of speechifying. And how you read the movie's narrative of weapons proliferation depends on how you view the constantly half-naked cyborg torso of Robert Downey, Jr. Spoilers ahead, Iron-fuckers! More »

9:00 AM on Thu May 1 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
10,132 views, 63 comments

Latest by n/a: Good write up, apart from a couple of points: Starks heart is not turned into a source of world-beating power - the technology had already been created - albeit in a larger form. He merely miniaturised it. Paltrow doesn't do any more »

chart

Where Do Scifi Fads In Mainstream Lit Come From?

Dale Peck and Tim Kring's alternate-history novel is just the latest in a long history of mainstream authors lifting ideas from science fiction. But what sci-fi concepts have been most in vogue with literary publishers — and when did those fads peak? We decided to look at the biggest novels by literary authors that involved time travel, alternate history, or post-apocalyptic futures. And then we threw in larger political, cultural or literary events that could have influenced authors, publishers or readers. We discovered a shocking connection between real-life wars and the popularity of time-travel stories. More »

5:06 PM on Fri Apr 18 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
6,050 views, 24 comments

Latest by I&I: I think the apparent correlations here are accidental. There's usually a time lag of at leat 3-5 years between an event and fiction that it inspires - at least the good stuff. more »

battlestar galactica

Documentary Fetishism in Battlestar Galactica

TV watchers tuning into the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica tonight have more accurate information about humans killed in the show's space battles than they do about civilian deaths in Iraq. This fetish for numerical exactness is part of what makes the show so realistic and appealing to non-scifi fans — but it's also what makes fans so freakishly devoted. Because you can track every single death. And we've done that for you here, in a chart revealing the strangely detailed information Battlestar offers about its fictional population of spacers fighting robots. More »

12:34 PM on Fri Apr 4 2008
By Annalee Newitz
8,785 views, 30 comments

Latest by n/a: @shoffsky: The population dropped all the way to 39,000ish at one point, and it happened during the New Caprica occupation. It states this number at the beginning of the episodes in that time, and stated again during Baltar's trial. Actually, that more »

io9

A Taste of the Comic-Con Expo Floor

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