I think I'll go to the movies...

That's what I said yesterday.  I went to see "Batman Begins."

After seeing "Batman and Robin," I figured they couldn't have ruined the myth attached to The Caped Crusader any further and, who knows, I might like it.

It wasn't bad at all! It was actually pretty good!

I'm going to lay down a sea of *'s for those readers who haven't seen this film, because today's entry deals not only with this film, but "comic book films" in general and similar comic book (non-Batman) themes to this film in particular. Here goes....

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Consider yourself warned.

We start the film with a "day in the life" scene showing a man, possibly American, in a foreign prison fighting several convicts at once, who is eventually recognized as Bruce Wayne, son of Dr. Thomas and Martha Wayne, neither of whom are mentioned by their first names interestingly. We are also treated with intermittent flashbacks and flash-forwards that have been expected in superhero flicks since the (Christopher Reeve) Superman I. In this film, we get a better idea of what made Bruce "batty" than we did in the earlier films:

1. Young Bruce stumbled upon a group of bats fleeing from a well that's above their lair, causing him to have a stifling fear of even peripheral images of bats flying, as in the opera that his parents take him to see (Faust or Die Fliedermaus? I'll have to wait for the DVD for clarification, I guess). Which leads to:

2. After Bruce sees the image of a man in a bat costume flying by guide-wires, he ask his parents if they could go outside. This leads to the infamous "Crime Alley" scene that every Bat-fan is intimately aware of and most of them who were ticked off that Pre-Joker Jack Napier was the hold-up man in the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton film probably breathed a sigh of relief when they discovered that, yes, small-time thief Joe Chill is the guy who wants Martha's new necklace to the point that he'd kill for it, which he does. Like in the earlier film, police sirens save Young Bruce's life. But this time, the police catch the thief/murderer! However, this doesn't prevent Bruce from blaming himself for "creating the situation" in the first place. Nor does Alfred, the faithful butler, change his mind with gentle reasoning. 

3. When Chill is up for parole 12 years later and Bruce the Princeton University Student makes an appearance at the hearing to keep his parents' killer behind bars, he does something that we've never seen him do: he brings a concealed pistol! However, someone else kills him instead: a hitman in the employ of Carmine Falcone, Batman's equivalent to The Kingpin(Spiderman's and Daredevil's arch-enemy). Falcone inadvertently prompts Bruce to learn how the criminal mind thinks by turning his back on his world of high-class living and becoming "one of them," but not to the point of being a killer like Chill or Falcone. This brings us back to the opening scenes in the foreign prison.

4. We get to learn more about the mysterious Lucard and his "employer" Ra's Al Ghul as well as The League of Shadows, creations of the very talented Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams (the writer and artist who eliminated the "campy" elements of the TV series and brought Batman back into the darkness where he belonged). Bruce's introduction into the League as well as his inevitable "defection" has mirrored several comic books that have been featured by DC as well as Marvel and the deceased Atlas Comics, which had a character named Demon Hunter who once belonged to a demon-worshiping cult and defected when he discovered that their goal was world destruction instead of just domination. When Atlas "died," Marvel "inherited" him and made him a member of a loose-knit superteam known as The Defenders. While I would be the last to imply that this connection was intentional, it's interesting how this version of the Dark Knight is written as a man who "lost his way" but found it as he was on the verge of allying himself with a greater evil than he could have ever imagined?  This is obviously meant as a seed-planting subplot for a later chapter involving...OOPS! I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's move on...

Another O'Neil/Adams created character, Lucius Fox, played with understated brilliance by Morgan Freeman, is the engineering genius behind The Batmobile and the rest of the bat-arsenal at Bruce's disposal in his war on crime. Gary Oldman does a competent job as Lieutenant-demoted-to-Sergeant-promoted-back-to-Lieutenant James Gordon GPD. We get to see the origin of Gordon's lackadasical attitude toward Batman's unorthodox appearances. If I were exposed to them for over 10 years, I'd take them casually as well. I also liked the closing scene where Gordon gives Batman a "calling card" of the next villain that he's going to fight. The gimmick villain in this film, however, is Dr. [Edit: Jonathan] Crane alias The Scarecrow. Crane runs Arkham Asylum and performs "forbidden experiments" with the inmates, but secretly works for Ra's Al Ghul, who we discover is not the man who died after Bruce destroys his "temple," but Lucard, the man Bruce rescued! The plot as it unravels probably has little to do with what's in store for both characters in future installments. "But Ra's gets killed when the train crashes...doesn't he?" I hear you say. Did you see his body lying in a prone position? No? Let's just say that Denny O'Neill originally killed him off as well, but like Sherlock Holmes and Dracula(spell "Lucard" backwards if you want to see a connection to where I'm going here), it's hard to keep a legend dead for long. If a later Batman film features a device called a "Lazarus Pit," I'll have a conspiratory grin on my face that will hopefully be hidden by the darkness in the theatre.

I won't go into detail regarding Bruce's obligatory love interest, in this case the courageous Assistant DA played by the future Mrs. Tom Cruise(?) Katie Holmes, because she's hardly in it. While she occasionally went beyond being the typical "lady in distress" that the Caped Crusader must rescue, she was also the one who inevitably discovers who "the man behind the mask" is, which is getting a little monotonous in my opinion. The Original Zorro didn't tell everyone who he was! Even Superman managed to keep his identity a secret with a pair of glasses! Why can't they keep a few sacred cows intact when they adapt a comic book character to the screen? Do the suits think that they add pathos to the film when The Woman The Hero Loves discovers his "forbidden secret?" One of the true saving graces of "Batman Forever," I believe, is when Chase Meridian says to Batman that she "loves someone else" and Batman walks away and shows the movie audience a covert smile! I interpreted that as "Hot Damn! I can finally take this stupid costume off, 'do the nasty' with her and STILL BE BATMAN ON EVENINGS AND WEEKENDS!" Somehow, letting her know who he really is in order to progress "the love story" tends to project the "having your cake and eating it too" effect while losing the "costume mystique" that defines the character and that spells c-o-p-o-u-t in my book. Why have a secret identity if it's necessary to lose it for drama? At least he didn't take his mask off while the train was in motion.

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End of the Spoiler Zone!

The weekend after next, The Fantastic Four will be appearing in theatres. From what I've seen of the previews, it looks like it'll be fairly faithful to the original, with the exception of the main hero and the main villain being friends and colleagues up to "the fateful accident in the Van Allen Belt" while in the comic book, they were bitter rivals, even in college!  I suppose that the filmmakers wanted to create a cohesive bond that would be dramatically ripped apart when the battle lines have been drawn (an obvious echo of the plot in both XMen films, wouldn't you say?). It's funny, but that was the path that was taken in the Roger Corman bootleg version of the low-budget FF film that the majority of fans dismissed as "awful." I wonder how they'll feel about the high-budget version when they see that subplot basically unchanged?

Also, Sue looks younger than Johnny in this film (the Invisible Woman and the Human Torch respectively), while in the comic book, Sue was Johnny's older sister. They may still attempt to do that in this film, but Jessica Alba doesn't look any older than she did in "Dark Angel," that short-lived TV show that she did on Fox.  Maybe they tried to get Heather Locklear or Pamela Anderson for the part and they both turned it down. Just as well. I wouldn't have bought either of them in the role. Sela Ward, on the other hand, would have been perfect! Even Natasha Henstridge would have been better. Oh well, you can't always get what you want...

Disney will be coming out with "Sky High," a comedy about a school for fledgling superheroes, with the main character as a "legacy" of The Two Most Powerful Superheroes on Earth! The previews boasts a cameo from Linda Carter...of course. I stayed away from "The Incredibles" because I don't like one-joke movies nor gimmick-laden ones. I think I'll do the same with this one...unless I'm really bored.

I'll pick up the latest issue of either Wizard or Starlog next week to see what other "long underwearcharacters" will be popping up on the big screen in the coming year.

Work has been fairly routine, but some interesting developments are coming up which I'll detail in tomorrow's entry.

I'm starting to suffer from a strong case of the Yawns, so I'll rap it up here.

I'll see you out and then go back upstairs to my room for a sweaty night's sleep.

Drive carefully. It's still raining outside and the roads could be slick.

Good Night!

And so it begins....

Mark this day down on your calendars: June 26th, 2005.

This is the day that I started to commit my thoughts to a computer screen for others to read at their leisure.

It was a bright and sunny day...

That serves as a calculated constrast to The Oldest Cliched Opening that most mystery readers would come across when they start on Spillane or Hammett or Chandler. It also serves as a short-handed weather report through the old-fashioned method of  "looking out of the window" of what I've designated my study. It's really a spare bedroom that I've planted my computer and several boxes of books in. The plans I have for this place...

When my finances are straightened out, I'll probably shop around for inexpensive bookcases, file cabinets and storage drawers, provided I can fit them all in and stay comfortable here. That tends to be the top priority of writers who write at home: comfort. While I haven't achieved the status of a Stephen King or a Peter David, I would like to think that I'm setting a goal that each of them would have envied when they were in the early stages of their careers. Of course, I have the advantage of not having a wife and children to divide my time...if you can call it that.

Instead of children, I have two cats that demand to be fed at least twice a day and petted and played with when they feel like it. One of them, YumYum, is a calico or tortoise-shell, depending on how much of an expert on cats you are. She's very friendly and out-going, especially if you let her ride on your shoulder and clean your ears and the tip of your nose. The other one, Tara, is a tuxedo cat, as in "she looks like she's wearing one" with a matching black face mask. 

"How on earth did you come up with those names?" I hear you ask. A very nice lady named Mimi found these two near her house completely abandoned.  This was after one of my cats, Emma, died.  Emma was also a tuxedo cat and named after Emma Peel from the British TV show "The Avengers." Since Tara King became John Steed's partner after Emma left him, it made sense to name the cute little kitten, that looked so much like her, Tara.  YumYum came about due to a discussion of Gilbert & Sullivan heroines that I was having with Mimi. "She doesn't look like a Mabel nor a Buttercup, does she?" "No, she looks more exotic." "How about Piti Sing?""Somehow, I don't think that she could play a supporting character in anyone's opera!" "Then, call her YumYum!" And it stuck ever since.

That pretty much covers my home environment.

As for work, I'm an Acounts Payable clerk at a nationwide retail chain and from January to mid-April I'm a Tax Preparer for an internationally-recognized tax-preparation firm. Since neither company are paying me to give their names, I won't. Let's just say that at one time, you've probably bought a coat or a pair of pants or a dress or a pair of shoes from one of them and Jeopardy champ Ken Jennings blew The Final Jeopardy Answer which featured the other company.  Personally, I think that was rigged, but then I believe that there was a Mafia hitman stationed at the "grassy knoll" in Dallas, in case Oswald lost his nerve and he had to kill him too. If I'm dead tomorrow, you'll know I'm on to something...Ha. Ha.

My day job consists of making certain that the vendors, whose wares we sell, get paid, either directly or through factors, or "banks for businesses"  (I didn't know that either until I started working here) and keep track of those payments until I'm instructed to store or discard the information. To put it simply, I create, shuffle, file and, if instructed, destroy paper when I'm not typing on a computer, answering telephone calls, receiving faxes and creating and responding to emails. I also create and modify spreadsheets that store data on the vendors' accounts. This activity keeps me on track regarding whether the stores have received the merchandise the vendors shipped and whether our pre-set computer programs acknowledged that the vendors sent bills, or invoices, for them. Once a month, reports are generated that confirm that these invoices are processed and, upon the A/P clerks' approval, checks are generated to be signed, by the merchandise buyers and one of the company Vice Presidents, and mailed out to the vendor. Sometimes this is done more than once a month when unforseen events occur, like the merchandise was delivered and the receiving manager/computer operator didn't enter the information before she/he generated price tags for them. This requires me to contact the vendor (or the factor if there is one), and request a Proof of Delivery. After this is sent, I contact the Receiving Manager or the Computer Operator and confirm the delivery, prompting either her/him to enter the information into the system or I would do it instead, depending on whether there was a store inventory after the delivery date or if the manager/operator knows how to pre-date an entry(enter the information on the proper date instead of "today's date," which would affect when the vendor gets paid for the merchandise). I also field complaints from the vendors when they wish to dispute the shortage of a shipment. This prompts research of shipments as well, sometimes months after the store discards the shipping information. This tends to get re-directed to management when a "ruling" is required.

That is my day-to-day in summation.

I'll record variations on the routine from time to time along with my reflections on "current events" and my movie/TV viewing and book reading. When any one subject outweighs the others, I'll create additional journals so that I can give them equal time (and space, if I'm able).

I'll also be setting up special journals for writing projects. When I start them, I'll either create a link here or tell you how to access it. Like a baby taking his first steps, I'm starting to "learn my limitations," technically, as well as journalistically, speaking.

Watch your step and don't bump your head as you go down and please try not to step on YumYum's tail. She won't always remember to move it (I don't think that she's always aware that she's a c-a-t).

In the words of another of my favorite writers, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "Thank you for your attention."

Dave