Get The Nostalgia While The Nostalgia Getting's Good
The failure of Jennifer's Body at the box office punctured the myth of Megan Fox, but in doing so left Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen's epic success even more inexplicable. You mean that everyone who went to see that genuinely wanted to see giant robots fighting for the right to appear in a story that made sense instead of Megan Fox's ass? Really? (To be fair, maybe it was John Tuturro's ass they couldn't resist.) Of course not; they wanted to relive memories of their childhood/the first Transformers movie/the Go-Bots by proxy. Same reason that Star Trek was such a hit, and the dismal Terminator Salvation made money at all. The problem with this for movie studios is that there's only a limited number of things to be nostalgic about, and they're burning through them quickly (Next year's Tron Legacy and The A-Team show that we're already up to the mid-'80s); when there're already plans to reboot Battlestar Galactica as a movie franchise months after its conclusion as a (rebooted) television show and restarting the Fantastic Four movies from scratch just a few years after the failure of Rise Of The Silver Surfer, you can tell that there's nervousness. With good reason; the lawsuit over the rights to Superman show that nostalgia could get more expensive for filmmakers in years to come. Maybe one day, Disney's $4 Billion buyout of Marvel Entertainment's IP will look like a bargain.

Find A Voice With Something To Say, Then Let It Speak
2009 was a year of extremes when it came to the creation of movies and television that didn't (entirely) rely on IP graverobbing. On the one hand, it was the year when the phrase "production hiatus" became widely known as code for "The Powers That Be don't like what's being done and are about to 'fix' it" as the trains seemed to come off the usually-smoother-running TV production track more often, and more publicly, than usual (See: Dollhouse, FlashForward and V, which has had two such hiatuses, and "coincidentally" switched showrunners twice, as well). On the other, it was the year when smaller movies like District 9 and Moon garnered critical acclaim - and, in the case of D9, a pretty amazing box office haul - for being individual, unusual and something other than generic production line blockbusters. Avatar, too, is being hailed for being the singular vision of James Cameron and, maybe most importantly, that being a good thing. Maybe this was the year that started a renaissance in an appreciation for the auteur theory after all?

On Television, Burying The Lede Will Kill You
We've said this more than once recently, but the fact that Dollhouse's second season was promoted to critics with its lackluster first episode may have damaged the show's chances irreparably. You can't blame the promotions people, because it makes sense to sell something based on the product itself; the "blame" lies with those making the show, who thought that they had the time and space to ramp up the season slowly, reiterating the central concept of the series with episodes that (sadly) repeated the rhythm of the first season. As the creative teams behind V (Put on hiatus after its first four episodes, and before we'd even seen a complete lizard reveal and/or any rodent eating) and the upcoming Day One (Restructured from a full season to a four episode mini-series to test the waters for a regular show) can attest to, there's no time for a slow build on network television anymore. Both Fringe and FlashForward sped up their timetables to try and meet demand for near-instant gratification, and both are still dogged with rumors of cancellation. Remember, television people: Put your best foot forward immediately.

Goodbyes Should Always Be Brief
Yes, yes: We loved Russell T Davies' run on Doctor Who as much as anyone, but the year of special episodes seemed weighed down by a sense of its own self-importance that reached epic proportions during this weekend's "The End of Time, Part One" (On the plus side, Now we know that Barack Obama will save the world with his economic announcement or something. Not that that'll seem horribly dated, oh, anytime after February 2009). Battlestar Galactica, too, approached epic levels of pomp and pretension during its final days. It's not that we would rather have rushed either show offstage unfinished, but there's something to be said for brevity and not getting too wrapped up in your own ego. Lost, consider yourself on notice.

Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should
One word: Watchmen. Yes, we get it; we have the technology to make Doctor Manhattan look like he exists in a particularly shiny version of reality. But, months after all the hype, hoopla and multiple versions on DVD, it's still worth asking: Did Watchmen gain anything from the transition from comic to movie? Besides Zack Snyder's bank account, did anything? Sometimes it's okay to leave the original alone.

Mr. Incredible's trip down memory lane.

Verdict: Worth it. The art on the Incredible magazine covers is absolutely frame worthy.

2012 had crazy Woody and his pull-down chart of conspiracy. Planning to write about climate change? Whoops, you're now dead — see, he put a line through each scientist's name.

Verdict: Worthless, the wall of clippings and the crazy person blog was overkill. But then again this is 2012, so at least it's staying in its wheelhouse.

Mulder's office is papered with clippings and UFO sightings in the last X-Files film, thus hitting us over the head one last time with the fact that he's a BELIEVER.

Verdict: Worthless. Anyone going to this movie already knew all about Mulder's beliefs. They didn't need the "crazy obsession" wall, but they can keep the wrinkled poster from the original X-Files show.

In The Children of Men you get a quickie recap, not only of the Jasper character and his comatose wife but of the present day situation as well.

Verdict: Worthless. If Jasper's wife was indeed tortured by the oppressive new government regime, would they really keep the giant reminder posted on their wall of that horrible experience? Go on down the line, lovely pictures of friends, interesting and telling news clips of something they probably worked on, awards explaining their characters — and then a giant full-page story detailing the brutal torture your wife, thus making her completely unresponsive. Ah, memories.

Here's another newspaper moment in Children of Men that wasn't really used to portray obsession or honor, but it was nice that the production crew made sure all the headlines were relevant to the story.

Verdict: Worth it, even if it was just an aesthetic.

Halloween! Michael will never die, and neither will his victim's memory of him.

Verdict: Worth it. It's a horror movie, it's expected.

The Hills Have Eyes remake had a quickie wall of foreshadowing, and filled us in that the Hills were definitely full of mutant kid eyes.

Verdict: Worth it, it was great build up to the horrible nuclear family reveal. That little girl haunted me for days, and I needed a little build-up to the character, cliché though it may be.

Whip Lash's lair in Iron Man 2 is all about obsession.

Verdict: Worthless, for now. Until we see more. We didn't need the clippings to prove that Whiplash wants to kill Tony, because all he literally does, from the looks of things, is try to kill Tony. But maybe it will flesh out some backstory , although it's highly unlikely as all those clippings are pretty modern.

Mr. Glass' wall of destruction in Unbreakable.

Verdict: Worthless and Worth It. Samuel L. Jackson was scary enough in this as is, but it did help catch you up if you hadn't already called him as the bad guy hours earlier. Also, I believe there may be some flaws in these clips.

Original Nite Owl's den was a museum to Watchmen.

Verdict: Worth It. This is the kind of thing director Zack Snyder excels at. And when it's good it's very, very good. Everything on this wall has a back story. Even with its other shortcomings, Watchmen did have a very well thought-out set. Even if it was ripped from the novel, it looked good.

Willy Wonka's pops reveals to the audience that he didn't hate his son at all, because he framed all his newspaper articles. This was actually more creepy than exciting, but then again it is the remake of Willy Wonka, where Depp gives pale death face smiles for half the film, so it least it fits the tone.

Verdict: Worth it, since it fits in with the crazy theme of the film.

Deluxe Editions Of Science Fiction/Fantasy Classics

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Discover The Art Of Science Fiction, And Drool Over Collectibles

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Explore The Wonders Of Science!

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Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff.

Note: I'm not including the Star Wars prequels here, because the big letdown was The Phantom Menace in 1999. After that, the other two movies couldn't really be letdowns.

The Dark Knight Strikes Again. This was the moment we realized Frank Miller wasn't really Frank Miller any more. He agreed to do the long-awaited sequel to his most famous and groundbreaking graphic novels, the story that redefined Batman for a generation — and he turned in a bland caricature of his earlier brilliance. You can complain all you want about the assitude of All-Star Batman And Robin and The Spirit, but TDKSA was the start of the hackery. Worst moment: When the Joker turns out to be the much-abused Dick Grayson, and Bats kills him without a second thought.

Fox's Reign Of Terror. Firefly should have been one of the great success stories of the 2000s. It's hard to remember now how invincible Joss Whedon seemed going into Firefly — with two hit shows under his belt, he was the writer of several huge movies. And now he was bringing his patented mixture of rollicking adventure and twisted artiness to a space opera. Sure, Firefly's "Cowboys in Space" thing may have confused people at first, but the show really does sell itself, after just a few minutes' viewing, thanks to vivid characters. The failure of the TV show didn't just damage Joss Whedon's career — it damaged media SF as a whole, helping to push us towards canned remakes and reboots. And Firefly's demise was just the first of a trail of broken dreams and disappointments, culminating in the cancellation of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and the burial of the promising Virtuality.

NASA and the space program. The decade did hold some great achievements for NASA, including the Mars rovers and some probes traveling outwards into the solar system. But it's hard not to feel a bit crushed by the fact that NASA is retiring its fleet of space shuttles without having a replacement lined up. We're going to have to hitch a ride with the Russians from here on out, and it feels a bit, well, disappointing. Especially with science-fiction promising us that this is our time to explore the solar system and beyond it, the stars themselves.

Ang Lee's Hulk. Before this movie came out, I would have sworn that Ang Lee never made a bad film. His track record included arthouse sensations like The Wedding Banquet, The Ice Storm and Sense And Sensibility, but also the brilliant actioner Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. He was also perhaps the most artsy director to take on a superhero icon to date (no offense, Tim Burton). There was every reason to believe Hulk would be both epic and heartfelt — but instead, we got gamma-irradiated poodles, daddy issues and a Hulk who sulked. We probably won't ever get a really great Hulk movie now, after two failures, which sucks. The Hulk deserves a proper outing, in which he fights monsters and marauders and crushes buildings. The Hulk needs to discover that he's not the worst monster in his world, and have larger-than-life adventures. Ang Lee just wasn't capable of giving that to us.

The Matrix sequels. This seems like a no-brainer in retrospect, but maybe you need cyber-Colonel Sanders to take you back and explain to you how much we were all looking forward to The Matrix 2 & 3. Ten years ago, The Matrix was the freshest thing to come out in ages, despite playing on ideas that books had explored for years. Its blend of fetish and noir and cyberpunk and Hong Kong action felt viciously original. And there were just so many ideas for the sequels to explore, so many mysteries about the machine world to uncover. And then... we just sort of descended into muddle. And long rave scenes. And blind Jesus. Walking out of The Matrix Reloaded, I remember someone turning to me and saying, "Well, that wasn't even the best powerpoint presentation I've sat through lately."

Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis. DC Comics' biggest "event" storylines of the mid-2000s seemed to be groping towards a more adult, more flawed view of their major superheroes, with some of comics' most talent writers on board. But they overshot, landing in angstville and bombarding us with retcons that rewrote the "Satellite era" of the Justice League. As if in an attempt to capture the cachet of Alan Moore's Batman: The Killing Joke two decades earlier, these stories gave us female heroes being raped or abused, and turning into murderers. And Batman saying to Superman, "The last time you inspired anyone was when you died." The melodrama was thicker than the walls of Superman's Fortress of Solitude, and yet when it was all over, it was hard to understand what any of it had been about. The superheroes were closer to a bickering family (calling each other by their first names all the time) and the threats they faced seemed more existential and less external.

Superman Returns. There were a slew of other disappointing superhero movies in the past decade — but mostly you knew going into them that they were going to be ass. Who really thought Brett Ratner would make a good X-Men movie? Even Spider-Man 3 showed every sign of being ass-flavored long before it came out, despite Sam Raimi's involvement. But this film was Bryan Singer coming off two great X-Men films and The Usual Suspects, and he was doing the gutsy move of making it a sequel to the two Donner movies instead of going for the standard-issue reboot. Singer doing Donner — how could it be bad? Uh. Well, there's the part where he changed Clark Kent into Stalkerman. And then there's the Son Of Superman thing. But also, maybe, there's just the fact that the Donner movies were of a different era, and you can't bring that back.

Heroes seasons 2-4. Just imagine, for a moment, if this show had lived up to the promise of its first season. I know it's almost impossible to picture it, but just try. This mutant soap opera thrived on showing us the complications and craziness that come from secret super powers, against the backdrop of a sinister mutant-hunting conspiracy and a super-powered serial killer. But the show wrote checks it couldn't cash, including showing us Claire growing into her heroic destiny and Hiro becoming a future shaved-headed badass. Most of all, the show ducked out on its very title, opting to show us histrionics and family squabbles in place of actual heroism.

Watchmen. It was perhaps the greatest graphic novel of all time — almost certainly the greatest superhero comic of all time — lovingly recreated on screen by the ultimate OCD nerd. Every panel of the comic, recreated as concept art, then as storyboards, then as living, breathing people in costumes, surrounded by CG. Finally, a movie made by us for us. Except. The result, though lovely as anything, looked sort of lifeless once you took it out of the Smashing Pumpkins music-video trailers. The characters didn't quite live and breathe — especially Silk Spectre II, who needed to be the heart of the story. And the ending wasn't just missing a giant squid, or some other huge monstrosity to replace it — it was also lacking a certain coherence and urgency. Once people start talking about power signatures, it suddenly turns into an episode of Star Trek: Voyager. Maybe Watchmen could never have lived up to the book, but it could have been more thrilling than this, with a different Silk Spectre and a more thunderous ending.

Battlestar Galactica's big finale. I know that opinions will differ on this one — but just consider. BSG's finale was one of the most hyped things of recent years. We read endless interviews in which Edward James Olmos, Ron Moore and various others told us that the final episode would shake us to our very cores, and make us weep and smear paint and throw up on ourselves. Meanwhile, Syfy ran promos over and over again that said that "All Will Be Revealed," and I don't remember an asterisk leading to a disclaimer explaining that "All" in this context actually meant a limited number of things, not including how Starbuck came back from the dead or what the hell was up with the Opera House. Even if you think this was the most brilliant conclusion in history, you have to admit BSG promised too much.

Whether you're buying for loved ones, loathed ones, ones you barely know but feel an obligation to get something something for or yourself, it's hard to go wrong with a well-chosen toy as a gift. But it's hard to know just what toys you should be looking at, which is where we come in; we've split our choices into three categories: Play, Display and Making Your Life Better, which is to say things that are useful (or, in one case, useless but kind of essential nonetheless). Click through to see our selections.

For Play
LEGO, action figures and things for you to hit other people with safely. After all, isn't that what "play" really means?

For Display
For some people, toys are things to keep on shelves, on their walls or in boxes. Here're a few ideas for the serious collector.

For Making Your (Or Someone Else's) Life Better
In which we suggest gifts offering education, amusement and/or something to hold onto at night. Yes, even that last one.

Additional research by Alex Eichler.

Go Hero Limited Edition Raygun
Of course, if you're thinking a little more retro, this limited edition Buck Rogers raygun might catch your eye. And why not? It's beautifully designed by Dead Presidents' Matt Walker, and comes in a beautifully packaged wooden box for extra old-school thrills. There's even a certificate of authenticity to prove that you owe one of only 25 made.

World War Robot Figurines
Ashley Wood's grimepunk series was tailormade for toys, as this set of 6.5 inch figures of warrior robots prove. Everytime we see these deadly oilcans with legs and guns, we want more and thankfully, they're happy to oblige.

Watchmen Be@rbrick
What says "I bought into the hype" more than this sloganeering piece of Watchmen merchandise, ideal for those who enjoyed the Zack Snyder movie, those who thought the movie was a letdown but liked the original comic, or those who just like examples of really, really boldly obvious branding on bear-shaped toys? Surely we all know someone in all three demographics.

Adult Swim Figurines
Until the day when the toy world wises up and realizes that we all need a line of fully-posible Venture Bros. action figures, complete with accessories (Brock can have a pack of cigarettes! Dr. Orpheus can have a magic book! Rusty can have the crushing sense of self-loathing that he can blame on his over-achieving father!), we'll have to settle for these admittedly wonderful figures from various Adult Swim shows; they're boxed anonymously, so there's no telling which one you'll get when you buy it, so you should probably just buy all the boxes you can in hopes of getting that sweet Dr. Girlfriend one.

The Spirit - The Octopus
Samuel L. Jackson's Octopus was probably the most insane translation of a comics character to the screen I've ever seen. Frank Miller just let the actor run wild, drawing eyeliner lightning bolts on his face and saying just about whatever the hell he wanted. At least they got the gloves right.

Bicentennial Man - Andrew Martin

From Isaac Asimov's novella/ I just wanted to know who thought it would be a great idea to make a Robin Williams robot that will last forever. That will give children nightmares.

Elektra and Daredevil

What else really needs to be said that hasn't already? This Jennifer Garner-Ben Affleck disaster was so bad, it's being remade, completely — as if the first one never even happened. Who thought, "Greek assassin? Let's get Jennifer Garner!"

Fantastic Four - Victor von Doom

With one bad film, one of the better villains went from bad-ass to just some neurotic dude muffled behind a mask.

Wolverine - Emma Frost

For years, we waited for the real, live-action version of Emma Frost. And what we got was a dorky girl, in an ugly leather coat/prison outfit. The cosplayers at Comic Con are better, and that's saying something.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas - The Grinch

Who painted my cat green and shoved it in a Santa suit? This isn't a Grinch; this is a fever dream, and there's nothing enchanting or magical about a Jim Carey gesturing about, covered in green fur, while salivating over the Whoville hussy.

I Am Legend - Vampires

They went from complex creatures with a fully realized society to zombie people who were all CG-ed to look alike. The best part of the novel was when Neville found an old friend who was too far gone. That went out the window, along with most of Neville's character, in the movie. But we missed the actual vampire people the most.

Speed Racer - Racer X

Hey, your Dad dressed up like Racer X. Cool, we guess.

Watchmen - Ozymandias

This was not actor Matthew Goode's fault. He was terribly underwritten and thrown into the part very late in the game; we understand. Sadly godlike genius Adrian Veidt, he was not. We're not sure if it was the look or the writing — either way, it just didn't work.

We've seen many fictional American Presidents fight off all manner of alien and/or monster invasions - Who could forget Independence Day's President Thomas J. Whitmore, who suited up and flew a fighter jet himself just to show how much he loved his country? - but the addition of the very real William Jefferson Clinton to Resurrection still seems a surprise, something that writer Marc Guggenheim seems to be enjoying:

I believe we're charting new territory here... For me, the challenge is remembering to write him the same way I would write any of the other characters in the book and not shy away from moments that make him seem real, human and/or vulnerable. The whole point in bringing Clinton into the book as a regular cast member is to treat him like a regular cast member. It's tempting to put him on some kind of presidential pedestal, but even the 'real life' Clinton is, after all, just a man. I'm not making it a story point or anything, but he puts his pants on one leg at a time, y'know?

But we can't help but wonder: Would Clinton be the best President to rely on in an alien invasion? Aren't there better Presidential choices to be made when selecting someone to lead us in out ongoing battle with an extra-terrestial army?

Click Here To Start Our Countdown Of The Presidents We Think Would Manage To Keep Humanity Alive.

Grant understood topography, the importance of supply lines, the instant judgment of the balance between his own strengths and the enemy's weaknesses, and above all the need to keep his armies moving forward, despite casualties, even when things had gone wrong-that and the simple importance of inflicting greater losses on the enemy than he can sustain, day after day, until he breaks. Grant the boy never retraced his steps. Grant the man did not retreat-he advanced.

Plus, he's called US Grant. For symbolic purposes alone, that can't be beaten.

Click To Find Our Choice For Final Presidential Protector!

Click To Continue Our List Of Leaders Trying To Keep It A Free World - From Aliens!

Click To Discover What Other White House Residents Could Keep Us Safe From Death From Above!

Click For More Presidential Hopefuls Ready To Face Down Any House Of Intergalactic Congress!

Let's get this out of the way right away: Jonze's Wild Things is only an adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book in the loosest possible sense. It shouldn't surprise anyone that Jonze, whose Adaptation was a dissertation on the impossibility of adapting a literary work to film, has treated the Sendak book as a mere jumping-off point. There are only a handful of incidents in Sendak's book, but at least half of them don't appear in the movie. Instead of using the book's spare narrative as a framework and adding to it, the movie mostly creates a new story from scratch.

In a way, WTWTA is the polar opposite of Watchmen: Zack Snyder faced a 12-book magnum opus of graphic storytelling, and tried to distill it to three hours without losing anything essential or changing anything (except the ending.) Jonze takes Sendak's twelve sentences and expands them to 100 minutes of incidents. And yet, both films wind up feeling lovely but a bit empty, triumphs of gorgeous imagery over substance.

This review is not going to tell you whether Wild Things is good, or whether you'll like it — after talking to tons of people who've seen the movie, I've come to the conclusion that this is such an idiosyncratic, strange movie that it's impossible to predict whether you'll like it or not. So far, everybody I've talked to has either loved it or hated it — and I have a feeling that sharp divide will be the norm. It also may be the sort of movie that you'll only fully appreciate on a third viewing, with the right substances in the mix. (If you want to read an unreservedly rave review of the movie, check out Entertainment Weekly's.)

Wild Things is not a movie about a little boy who wants to be wild, traveling (in his fantasy, or via magic) to a strange land full of monsters who make him their king and let him be as wild as he wants, until he gets homesick. Rather, Wild Things is a movie about the terrors and insecurities of childhood, and the monsters we all have inside of us. It presents an unnerving portrait of childhood as a stormy, exhilerating time, in which play is intensely serious and important, and loneliness is the biggest nightmare of them all.

Max, who's around ten, lives with his divorced mom, who's slowly failing at her job and barely making ends meet thanks to her shitty absentee ex-husband. She's dating a new guy, whom Max hates. Meanwhile, Max's older sister, Claire, who used to be his friend, has stopped hanging out with him because she's trying to get in with a cool crowd at school. Max acts out, trying to get people to pay attention to him, but it only makes matters worse — so finally, Max screams "feed me, woman!" at his mom, in front of her new boyfriend, and then actually bites her. He's sent to his room, but he runs away from home, until he finds a boat, which takes him to the land of the Wild Things.

Whether you love or hate this movie will depend most on how you feel about the Wild Things, who are sort of weird and totemic. They look like the creatures in Sendak's book — until they open their mouths.

What comes out of the Wild Things' mouths is a stream of complaints and bitter observations, punctuated by moments of extreme, shining whimsy. It keeps you off guard: The monsters, one and all, seem miserable, upset and perennially disappointed by life, but then they come out with cute, occasionally hilarious lines. While the monsters serve to amplify the conflicts, anxieties and destructive glee inside of Max, they don't really feel like aspects of a child's psyche to me — they come across more like emotionally stunted, narcissistic middle-aged people.

I didn't realize the main monster, Carol, was voiced by James Gandolfini until after I saw the film, because i saw a super-early screening and hadn't read much press before hand. So to me, Carol just sounded like a cranky, neurotic old guy with anger issues. At times during the main body of the story, I felt like I was sitting on a particularly long therapy session in a group home, or a Seinfeld episode with fewer jokes.

On the other hand, other people I've talked to who've seen the movie found the Wild Things much more convincing, and compelling, as aspects of Max's inner life, made real and massive. So your mileage may indeed vary.

But whatever you think they are, it's made clear that the Wild Things form an utterly dysfunctional family, one where you sense the same arguments have been going on for decades and will continue for decades more. Carol is upset because another one of the monsters, K.W. (Lauren Ambrose) has decided to leave the group and go spend time with her new friends, who turn out to be weird owls that you have to hit with rocks before you can talk to them. Carol is bursting with resentment and neediness, and when we first meet him he's trashing the other Wild Things' houses like an alcoholic, abusive dad. K.W., meanwhile, just acts like she's sick of everyone's shit.

Then there are two other Wild Things, Judith and Ira, who constantly feel neglected and marginalized within the group — Judith complains every few moments that whatever activities the gang of monsters does, she and her companion are pushed to the side. Nobody cares what they think, nobody pays attention to them, etc. There's also a big bull, who's sort of bull-like.

Here's the scene where we get introduced to some of them, and Judith is like "Oh, you don't need to know me, I'm kind of a downer." The tree-destroying thing is cute, though, as is the tongue thing:

So, yeah... dysfunctional family of losers. Who are depressed. A lot.

But it's not all anhedonia — a big point of the film is that Max shows up and shakes up the monsters' dreadful staleness, becoming their King and giving them a whole bunch of new games to play. "We'll take care of each other, and sleep together in a real pile," Max says. Unlike the people in Max's real life, these monsters pay attention to him and are curious about him, and sort of become his minions.

When Max convinces the Wild Things that he's a King, and that he was a King among the Vikings for twenty years already, it's a brilliantly whimsical scene. Max Records, as Max, shines the most in these quirky moments where's spinning a line of amazing B.S., talking about his crazy super-powers and his amazing leadership skills. The "let the Wild Rumpus begin!" sequence is severely fun and insane, culminating in a crazed puppy pile. And later, when Max concocts a crazy scheme to build a huge fort, with a crime lab and spy gadgets and all sorts of other weird superhero/scifi touches, he's the total nerd-kid avatar, with a team of monsters doing his manic bidding.

But you sort of know, all along, that this whole "king" thing will not turn out well — and that's the biggest departure from the book. Forget the fact that the movie dispenses with the book's "bedroom turns into wild jungle" sequence — the biggest change is that it's much clearer that Max is a failed king, and the monsters end up hating him. This happens partly because Max decides to split the monsters into "good guys" and "bad guys," drawing them into a war fought with dirt clods, which quickly turns ugly. Max makes Judith and Ira into "bad guys," exacerbating their persecution complex, and you can just see in this clip the beginning of things going South:

Sorry to give away so much of the movie's plot — this really isn't a movie you'd go see for the plot, though. It's much more about the weird little touches and character quirks, the lush visuals, and the blaring-loud, wordless score by Karen O. and Carter Burwell.

As I said in the beginning, this movie offers the coldest comfort of any film in Spike Jonze's career. It feels like a journey into sheer dysphoria — Max's home life is unrelentingly horrendous, and when he escapes to a fantasy land, it turns out to be even worse. The film's message seems to be that life sucks, growing up sucks, and most of all, any attempt to escape into wildness or fantasy will only turn out even suckier.

I don't think WTWTA is too scary for small children — but I suspect it may be too nihilistic. Teenagers and tweens, though, may love it.

The film reinforces its dark message with an unblinking stare aimed at blank landscapes. When we first meet Max in the "real" world, the world is blanketed with snow, and Jonze's camera zooms in on the unrelenting whiteness. Max builds a snow fort and hides inside, and he appears to be in a blinding snow tunnel. When Max travels to the land of the Wild Things, at first he's in that famous forest/jungle setting, but the film quickly moves to the blank dunes of the Melbourne area, where Jonze filmed. The landscape is meant to reflect the moods of Max and the Wild Things, which grow increasingly joyless and unrelenting.

Here's a bit where Carol and Max walk through a desolate landscape, and Carol talks about how the landscape used to be rocks, and now it's sand, and soon it'll be dust, and who knows what comes after dust? And then Max says the sun is going to die, and Carol tries to put a brave face on that piece of info:

(The film's visuals, it must be said, really are incredible — the film has brilliant design, from the monsters to their weird circular wicker-like buildings.)

If you think of this as a kids' movie, you'll be sadly disappointed. If you think of it as an adventure film, you'll be puzzled. But think of it as a continuation of Jonze's first two movies, and it makes perfect sense. Like Malkovich and Adaptation, WTWTA is about someone who's uneasy in his own skin — Max literally seeks liberation by donning his wolf costume, and this leads him to his adventure — and like the heroes of Malkovich and Adaptation, Max discovers, the hard way, that being someone else is no solution to his problems, but also that it's a kind of trap.

The main difference is that Wild Things feels much more surreal than those first two films, thanks to the weird Jim Henson/CG creatures. And it's about a kid, rather than a thirtysomething or fortysomething guy. In a sense, Wild Things does for the coming-of-age tale what Jonze's first two movies do for the midlife crisis/second chance story: strip away the candy coating on the fantasy to reach the pure existential crisis beneath, and show how insoluble that crisis really is.

Fall is officially in full effect, which means the big bad summer sci-fi season is over! Now, personally, I set my bar so impossibly high that no film could ever come close to pleasing me unless our lord and saviour Michael Bay himself were to direct it. But perhaps some of you plebs are able to enjoy lesser entertainment - though I fail to see how you can watch anything beyond those low brows of yours. So, now that we've had a little while to absorb and reflect the entertainment we've witnessed, what really was a disaster? So, enjoy a mini "clip-show" to refresh your memory and then vote on what was truly a disaster!


WATCHMEN:



DOLLHOUSE:



TERMINATOR SALVATION:



BSG FINALE:



STAR TREK:



X-MEN ORIGINS - WOLVERINE:



TRANSFORMERS-REVENGE OF THE FALLEN:



GI JOE:



SUMMER GLAU:



DISTRICT 9:



OTHER:



Now go vote... and argue!!!

I also want to use this change in format to bring a little news. For a while now, I've been trying to bring you the best Disaster I can with the time that I have when not busy with other ventures. But, in less than two weeks, I will be welcoming a tiny disaster of my own into the world. So between that and other "official" work that I've been involved in, I will be having far less time to put together a weekly "This is a Disaster". So I am going to take a short hiatus.

I will return, I would just rather promise future greatness than deliver regular mediocrity.


I'll still be lurking around here doing the odd 'shop when time and inspiration meet. But if you want to see what work I'm up too check out my blog. I have big plans for ROACH, so continue to check there periodically. And if you are curious what the fuck I'm going to do with a baby, I just started a new blog that I will do my best to keep up with so follow along there.

Thanks for all your interest so far and I will return before you notice I'm gone.

-Garrison Dean

Morgan told reporters that he'd be interested in taking on the role of the grizzled alien with a fondness for dolphins, currently being developed as a movie by The Losers producers Joel Silver and Akiva Goldsman:

Lobo would be very cool. I don't think that I'm as big as Lobo is, but if you could, like, transplant Mickey Rourke's body onto my head, that would be just great... I do have an in. I'll be elbowing somebody soon.

While we're concerned by the visual of Mickey Rourke's body transplanted onto Morgan's head, we have to admit, he could probably pull it off...

Watchmen's 'Comedian' eyes another comic antihero: Lobo [SciFi Wire]

Clickwheel have teamed up with 2000AD owners Rebellion to offer 2000AD Origins, a free collection of the first episodes of such classic strips as Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Rogue Trooper, The Ballad of Halo Jones and many more (including more recent creations like Nikolai Dante and Shakara) in both PDF and CBZ format. Featuring early work from Watchmen's Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, as well as other comic greats such as Kevin O'Neill, John Wagner, Ian Gibson and Dan Abnett, this is an almost-perfect way to get introduced to the self-styled Galaxy's Greatest Comic. Spludig Vur Thrigg, as Tharg would say.

2000AD Origins [Clickwheel]

We know, we know: the Hollywood development cycle is a slow, lumbering beast. It can take anywhere from a couple years (for a "fast-track" project) to a decade for a movie to see the light of day. But given how many people were saying, this time last year, that The Dark Knight had changed everything, you'd expect there to be at least some films in development, if not in pre-production or actually filming.

And there don't seem to be any movies in "the pipeline" that seem consciously influenced by TDK. Here are a few possible contenders:

• Super-Max. Written by TDK co-writer David S. Goyer, this film has obvious elements in common with Knight. From the scraps we've gleaned, it's about the snotty trust-fund superhero Green Arrow, who gets sent to prison, probably for a crime he didn't commit. And he has to escape from the world's toughest, most advanced prison by teaming up with a host of DC Comics supervillains. Gritty dark action? Check. Moral ambiguity? Check. Heroes who cross the line? Pretty much. Too bad that every time we hear about this film, it sounds more and more like it's stuck in limbo.

• 

• Superman Returns (Again). Every time someone mentions doing another Superman movie in the wake of 2006's underwhelming Superman Returns, they say it'll feature a "dark" take on the Last Son Of Krypton, influenced by Christopher Nolan's take on Batman. Says Warner Bros. president Jeff Robinov, "We're going to go dark, to the extent that the character will allow." More recently, rumored Super-director James McTeigue said something similar. But this "darker" Man Of Steel movie is still stuck in limbo, and Warner Bros. execs told a courtroom that they don't see much box-office potential in another Superman movie. (Granted, they were trying to get out of having to pay Superman's creators' heirs tons of money for Hollywood rights.) In fact, when they talk about doing a "darker" Superman movie, it's usually said with an air of "Well, nobody really wants to make a Superman movie, but if you put a gun to our heads, we'd do a darker one." The confusing copyright situation with Superman means they have to start development on a new Superman film in the next few years, but assuming Warners gets more enthusiasm for the cinematic Man Of Steel again, they'll probably rediscover their love for his fun, escapist side.
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• The Fantastic Four. News sites started claiming last spring that Fox was considering rebooting this super-family series as a darker, "less bubble-gum" version. And now, just the other day, Fox announced it was definitely rebooting the Fantastic Four. On the other hand, they tapped the decidedly non-dark Akiva Goldsman (Batman And Robin, I Am Legend) to produce the new movie, and
  Michael Greene, writer for Smallville, Heroes and the upcoming Green Lantern movie, will write the script. I am having a hard time imagining that team creating a "dark" FF movie. Plus everyone assumes Fox's sudden interest in moving forward with Reed Richards & Co. was motivated by Disney's purchase of Marvel, and the fact that Disney reportedly wants to take back all of the Marvel properties' movie rights as soon as outside deals expire. If Fox wants to impress Disney, a misguided "dark" Fantastic Four doesn't seem a likely approach.
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• Shazam. It's hard to believe, but yes, they were talking about a dark Shazam movie in the wake of The Dark Knight. This is the story of a little boy who discovers a magic cave full of statues of the Deadly Sins, plus an old wizard who teaches him a magic world that will transform him into a big galoot whose nickname is The Big Red Cheese. And then he fights an evil mad-science worm with the help of a talking tiger. Actually, screenwriter John August and director Peter Segal wanted to do a fun, upbeat take on Shazam, but Warner Bros. wanted something more like The Dark Knight. So August rewrote his fun script to make it darker:

  This wasn't "Big, with super powers" anymore. It was Black Adam versus Captain Marvel, with a considerable push into dark territory and liminal badlands like Nanda Parbat. It wasn't the action-comedy I'd signed on to write, but it was a movie I could envision getting made.

  But then Warners pulled the plug on the Shazam movie altogether — remember how I said the enthusiasm for "dark" stories often seems to coincide with a lack of enthusiasm for making the movies at all? And now Shazam is back on track, with Bill Birch writing and comics scribe Geoff Johns pitching in. Says Variety, "The studio is now looking to go back to the original DC Comics source material for inspiration." Going back to the original comics source material is slang for "not fucking it up with a dark reimagining."

So what happened? There are a few theories.

Watchmen happened. You could argue that The Dark Knight changed everything, and then Watchmen changed it all back. Zack Snyder's movie version of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' classic graphic novel was everything the studios were saying they wanted: dark, controversial, morally gray, challenging — and it didn't resonate that well with audiences. It had a so-so opening weekend, followed by a steep drop-off. (Sample headline from the L.A. Times: "Watchmen is going largely unwatched.")

Another "dark" movie that came out this summer, Terminator Salvation, did similarly badly. (It wasn't strictly a superhero film, but it had superhero-ish themes, and starred Bruce Wayne himself, Christian Bale.) And while Frank Miller's The Spirit was more goofy than dark, it did have a noir-ish look to it and was the handiwork of the original "Dark Knight" reinventer.

Meanwhile, movies like G.I. Joe and Wolverine, which were fluffy and bubbly and only challenged you to avoid giggling at their ridiculous dialogue and acting, did great. Audiences didn't suddenly stop liking braindead fun just because they liked one smart, bleak movie.

Also, the economy happened. Suddenly, people were hurting and depressed, and there were a spate of news stories saying that people in an economic shitstorm want upbeat, happy films. They want escapism and a pick-me-up, not a dreadful reminder that life is full of no-win situations and suffering. Whether that theory is true or not, it's one that seems to have a lot of currency in Hollywood.

And finally, looking back through those articles where execs are saying "I want a dark Shazam! I want a dark Dazzler! America needs a dark Howard The Duck!", I can't help noticing that this is usually accompanied by a lack of enthusiasm for whatever superheroic properties they're discussing. Sure, superheroes are big right now, but not every superhero movie is a huge hit, and characters like Superman and the Fantastic Four have fallen squarely into the second or third tier of big-screen spandex-flexers in the past decade or so.

Execs cast about for ways to make those lame fillies run again, and the "dark" thing is one of the ideas they hit on. But at this point, nobody seems to think "dark" is a cure-all for tired superheroes. At least, let's hope not.

During an interview to promote his new The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Gilliam revealed what he thought about Snyder's take on the classic graphic novel:

It got trashed, but there are great sequences in there, but the overall effect is kind of turgid in a certain way. I started putting it down to… you know, in the comic book, or graphic novel… They're still comic books to me (laughs)… It's like the Comedian's coffin is going into the grave with the stars and stripes on top of it and reading it in the comic book it's three panels, boom, boom and boom. On film "hhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmm…"

The pace is wrong. I was glad our version didn't get done, the one that Charles McKeown and I had wrote, because we had reduced it down to about two hours and five minutes I think and we lost so much. Comedian was cut down to next to nothing. So (Zack Snyder) did a good job, but it just felt… I also thought The Incredibles had kind of fucked it for him... [S]o much of that material had been in a quarry that everybody had been digging goodies out of and suddenly you get lost. I think Watchmen really bothered me, because I thought it should be better. It was all there. It looked right, but to me it was pace. It didn't have pace. It needed a bit more quirkiness in there. Dr. Manhattan was getting boring, frankly, and then Ozymandias by the end I thought "Oh, come on!" They lost me by the end, frankly, but it was certainly looking better than what I was going to do! (laughs)

Quint chats with Terry Gilliam about The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Watchmen, Pixar, Ledger and much more! [Ain't It Cool]