Top Numbered Somethings: The Simpsons

The Simpsons reached a huge milestone this weekend when it aired its 500th episode. Like any middle-class male whose formative years took place around the same time The Simpsons debuted, my sense of humor owes a huge debt to the absurd shenanigans that take place each week in Springfield. While the quality of the show has waxed and waned since it's heyday of seasons one through eight, The Simpsons is still something I can count on every week for a few laughs while also sometimes managing to reach the heights of its hall of fame days. Here are my five favorite episodes in almost no order.

Homer Goes To College - When the Nuclear Regulatory Commission discovers that Homer doesn't have a college degree, he goes to school in an effort to rectify that and also live out every college comedy movie he's ever seen. Unfortunately for Homer's fantasy, the dean is not a monster, he befriends the nerds, and it turns out that Nuclear Physics 101 is kind of a difficult course. Much like any classic Simpsons episode, it's infinitely quotable and manages to focus on the one storyline the whole way through the half hour. It's also written by Conan O'Brien, demonstrating the depth the writing staff had at the time.

Homer Badman - Through a misunderstanding about a gummy Venus de Milo, a babysitter accuses Homer of sexual harassment. The media firestorm surrounding her accusation is the kind of satire that The Simpsons does best.

Three Men and a Comic Book - As soon as The Simpsons showcased an entire episode about buying an expensive comic book, they had me secured as a fan forever. It's not like comic books got any mainstream attention back in 1991, so getting one of the most popular shows in the world devoting half an hour to the expense of a single issue and how difficult it would be to split ownership between friends spoke to me on a level I hadn't experienced before.

Holidays of Future Passed - Here's an example of territory the show has covered before to varying degrees of success (fast-forwarding to a possible future for the family to see where they end up), and yet it's one that is incredibly sweet without losing the biting humor the show has always employed. There are definitely funnier episodes, but the weight of the show's history pushes this one over the top, especially the montage of family holiday photos at the beginning.

You Only Move Twice - Hands down, this is my favorite episode of all time. Hank Scorpio and his Globex corporation hire Homer and move the family to Cypress Creek because he's the second longest tenured individual at the power plant. Life seems perfect in the new town, but no one except Homer is happy. Also, despite his jovial exterior, Hank Scorpio is a James Bond style villain bent on world domination. Al Brooks steals the show from everyone else as the voice of Hank Scorpio, and his is a guest starring role that no one else has ever really been able to top.

What are your favorite episodes of The Simpsons?

Frosh
We've spent the last two weeks transitioning from the balcony scene in Romeo & Juliet to finally attacking the first act of Othello.

Seniors
Thematic dichotomies abound in Macbeth. Keep looking out for those and focus on those paragraphs.

A Tale of Two Games

New video games in my house are pretty rare outside of a sudden and/or unexpected cash influx, and to get two new games inside of a month is like finding the Loch Ness monster hanging out with Bigfoot. Yet, here we are, as I've acquired both Batman: Arkham City and WWE '12. Both are sequels to popular franchise games, but that's about the only thing the two have in common.

Arkham City takes place a year after the events of 2009's Batman: Arkham Asylum and opens the world to include a large portion of Gotham City's slums, which have been converted to an enormous prison/police-state. It's a tremendous concept, with gameplay that builds on the original and then exceeds it. There's a very defined version of Batman and his outlying universe that Rocksteady is creating with these games. While it's not the version of Batman I envision of the character due to him generally being a jerk to everyone all of the time and how he oddly feels compelled to save a girl he kind of likes instead of the hundreds of people dying at one point in the story, I dig that the creators are forging their own mythos that plays somewhere in between the comic books and the Christopher Nolan movies.

Additionally, the downloadable content provides some awesome alternatives for the challenge maps as a way to keep them from being too repetitive. Playing as Robin or Nightwing makes the game worthwhile since each one has unique gadgets and different fighting animations. My hope is that Rocksteady continues to pump out the DLC on a regular basis, maybe adding a new side mission or two in addition to the challenge maps because I don't want to have to wait another two years for the next sequel, which will be interesting since the next step up would be Arkham State, and I can't imagine what the scope of that game might entail.

WWE '12, on the other hand, feels like a mixed bag of a game, albeit one that's starting to grow on me. THQ, the folks in charge of both the WWE and UFC license, always appear to have the best of intentions but somehow manage to fall just a little bit short in their sports entertainment endeavors. Their latest addition is an attempt at a reboot by turning away from the Smackdown vs. RAW name they've employed for the last seven years. Unfortunately, it's not a reboot that is successful in reinventing the game, but there are some improvements that don't have me completely hating it as much as my initial impression led me to believe.

Let's look at the positives first. The game has the WWE presentation down. It looks about as perfect as fake fighting which attempts to portray itself as real but also tries not to be real ever can possibly get. The entrances capture every nuance of each wrestler, the moves are easily identifiable, and the level of customization has never been higher. As a visual experience, WWE '12 is the best wrestling game ever produced. THQ has also improved the WWE Universe mode, where you can customize and book three different television shows that build to the monthly pay per view, over last year's initial foray. To top it all off, both The Rock and Brock Lesnar are in the game, which is what really sold me on buying it the first week. The latter is an especially popular guy to make as a created superstar, so it's pretty awesome that we get the real deal this time around. Yet, the game is far from perfect.

One of the main reasons why I don't purchase games too often is because the replay factor on the games I like is really high. WWE or UFC games lend themselves to both long or short periods of play time, so playing one match or a series of them isn't a problem. But WWE '12 changes the gameplay to the point that I almost took the game back the day I purchased it. Cooler heads prevailed since the new grapple system clearly requires a learning curve that I was too stubborn to accept. Even though it was a blow to my pride, I switched the difficulty to Easy for the time being until I start to improve.

At the same time, there are still a ton of problems with playing the game. Running strikes and grapples are nearly impossible to vary thanks to the new tap and hold methods of implementation. Most of the time when I attempt the secondary running strike or grapple, I still end up attempting the standard one. For a game touting that players will have to vary their attack when facing the AI, this doesn't help. The reversals are also spotty (or I just stink at them) despite hitting the right trigger at the prompt on a fairly consistent basis.

By far the worst aspect of the game is the new dynamic camera system that's supposed to approximate WWE television presentation. Instead of the standard elevated camera utilized in the past, the game now takes the approach of WWE TV by showing most of the match from the hard camera side. While this works for their show, it completely robs the player of any depth perception and destroys any possibility of a match that flows as a quality wrestling showcase. Instead, there are tons of missed moves and comical pratfalls that makes playing more frustrating than fun. The camera also doesn't adjust when folks uninvolved in the action, like a tag partner or manager, stand in the way. In an effort to portray realism (ironic considering the subject matter of pro wrestling) by not having tag partners become translucent, they wind up interfering in huge way. Additionally, the referee is always in the way of the action in the match, which I don't remember ever being a problem in a WWE game before.

I guess I still need more time with WWE '12. Maybe getting used to the new control scheme will alleviate some of these problems. Once UFC Undisputed 3 comes out in February, though, I doubt I'll continue playing WWE '12.

Frosh
Monday, November 14 - You took the Fahrenheit 451 final and I checked your agendas. These should be entered into the grade book by the end of the week.

Tuesday, November 15 - After receiving a list of words from The Sniper, you worked with a partner to predict the usage and utilize words in context.

Wednesday, November 16 - You continued the work from the day before and also determined the definitions of a new set of words based on the way they were used in context.

Thursday, November 17 - Having completed the assignment from the previous two days, we read The Sniper together as a class.

Friday, November 18 - We read the story called The Last Spin, which served as an introduction to our Juvenile Justice unit we started the following week.

Monday, November 28 - After completing a quick write discussing punishment differences for adults and people your age, we determined the characteristics of a child, an adult and a juvenile. Our goal was to figure out for ourselves the factors that make up a juvenile and how to differentiate between the three different concepts.


Seniors
Monday, November 14 - You completed the final timed writing and turned in your books for the last annotation check. Please make sure to finish reading the book even if you didn't complete the annotations. Missing out on that 25 point annotation check is one thing, but if you don't finish reading the book, it will seriously hinder your ability to do well on the culminating paper.

Tuesday, November 15 - After turning in the final article selection assignment, you received a final work day to complete the CD Creation project.

Wednesday, November 16 - We discussed in-text citations and how to properly implement them in your paper.

Thursday, November 17 - You turned in your CD Creation project. We then continued reading through Beowulf.

Friday, November 18 - We completed reading Beowulf and you received time to complete the dialectical journals, which I will collect on Wednesday, November 30.

Monday, November 28 - You received the guidelines for a properly formatted works cited page.

"Vaya con Dios."

Over the weekend, I took in some live theatre (spelled with the "-re" at the end to make it sound both classy and fancy) in Los Angeles and attended Point Break Live LA. For those unfamiliar, Point Break is Oscar award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow's movie about surfing bank robbers and the FBI agent on a mission to stop them. It's a movie that is both awesome and incredibly ridiculous and not something one would normally associate with a sustainable stage translation, what with so many scenes taking place at the beach or in mid-flight during a spontaneous afternoon skydive.

The other thing Point Break is known for is Keanu Reeves and his ridiculous acting because he is terrible. Everyone else in the movie is either competent (Lori Petty) or having a whole lot of fun (Gary Busey), so their personalities work well with their performances, but Keanu is on another level. His line-readings in the movie, along with his truly awful acting, make for a cult classic performance and a unique stage translation. Instead of having an improv actor/comedian play the role of former college football great turned lawyer/FBI agent Johnny Utah, the crew at the Dragonfly casts the role from the audience members present. The audience member reads the lines from cue cards, which allows the individual to embrace the inner Keanu-ness of the part.

Everything is interactive, as the audience members become part of the play when the actors rob banks or run through the crowd to simulate the truly awesome chase scene. The foot chase between Johnny Utah and the bank robbing, surfer, Zen ringleader Bodhi is my favorite scene in the entire movie because the latter at one point throws a dog at the former, and they recreate that moment as faithfully as they possibly can in a theatre setting.

My only complaint is that, for the sake of streamlining the story and theatrical brevity, the cast and crew cut out a large subplot involving a separate gang of surfers who deal drugs and run guns. Some of my favorite moments come from that subplot, including Anthony Keidis shooting himself in the foot, Tom Sizemore complaining about having to wear the surfer attire and sport a stupid haircut while working undercover, and the fact that there is a character named Warchild. Still, as an experience I would enjoy attending again,
this was tops.

Frosh
Friday, October 28 - We explored irony through Alanis Morissette's song, "Ironic." In groups of no more than three, you took the existing situations in the song and modified them to be truly ironic. See, 'cause the song is only true to its namesake in that the situations described aren't, making the whole thing an exercise in irony. Crazy!

Tuesday, November 1 - After going over direct and indirect characterization, you began finding examples of both for a single character in Fahrenheit 451, taking note to use the acronym STEAL (speech, thoughts, effect, actions and looks) when finding indirect quotations.

Wednesday, November 2 - You finished Fahrenheit 451 and turned in your last batch of annotations, which I graded and returned to you. Meanwhile, the class received a work day for the Censorship Project.

Thursday, November 3 - We read through the afterword of the book and used that to discuss some major points about the novel, including how much ownership an artist has over art after its release.

Friday, November 4 - We continued our discussion and also read through the coda.

Monday, November 7 - You received a day to rehearse your Censorship Project.

Tuesday, November 8 - All students began presenting for the Censorship Project.

Wednesday, November 9 - Lather, rinse, repeat the previous day.

Thursday, November 10 - And after wrapping up the presentations, we reviewed for the final on Fahrenheit 451.

Seniors
Friday, October 27 - We started reading Beowulf with an eye for focusing on how it serves as a transition between pagan and Christian cultural beliefs for the Anglo-Saxons while also demonstrating Anglo-Saxon heroic ideals. As such, during our reading, you'll keep track of the truncated version of the story through a dialectical journal. On the left hand side, you'll summarize the section we completed in three to five sentences. On the right hand side, you'll write down the section of the heroic journey that the story falls under and two sentences dedicated to either how the section serves as the transition between the two cultural beliefs or how the section demonstrates the heroic ideals.

Tuesday, November 1 - We continued reading Beowulf because that guy is pretty cool.

Wednesday, November 2 - In an effort to better incorporate quotations into your writing, we went over TLQ guidelines, which stands for transition, lead-in, quote. The idea is that quotations should not just get dropped into your paragraphs because that's lazy. Instead, since quotations are meant to back up whatever point you're trying to make, they should be integrated seamlessly into your writing as a way to strengthen your argument.

Thursday, November 3 - This was our third timed writing day, and I asked you to incorporate a quotation into each of your three paragraphs using the TLQ guidelines from the day before.

Friday, November 4 - You received a work day for annotation or your CD Creation project.

Monday, November 7 - We continued reading Beowulf and discussed the battle with Grendel.

Tuesday, November 8 - You received the guidelines for the culminating paper, which is due December 6. The prompt asks you to trace a theme throughout the course of your novel, making sure that you support it with outside sources and valid thesis statement.

Wednesday, November 9 - We expanded on the idea for thesis statements, discussing the ATC3(or 4) format that leads to a valid thesis statement. The catch is to make sure the sentence flows and makes sense. The easiest way to figure out if it does is to read the sentence aloud to yourself after the fact.

Thursday, November 10 - You earned a work day and I forgot that your final article selection was due, so I pushed it back to the following Tuesday.

COMICS and Costumes

With DC's relaunch of their entire line of titles, I decided to pick a few of them up to test the waters of reading comics on a regular basis again since I'd given up the habit and switched to trade paperbacks for the last few years due to the cost of individual titles. Not surprisingly, comics are still expensive and for some unknown reason that I'm sure DC and Marvel will both regret given the hindsight of enough time, they charge the same price for issues digitally. But having a solid, new jumping-on point for an increasingly insular and serialized world helps, thus COMICS.

Action Comics - Grant Morrison is my favorite writer, and he's attempting to bring Superman back to his Golden Age roots where he fought for the poor and downtrodden against the wealthy and powerful. Unfortunately, this has also led to a costume downgrade where he merely wears a t-shirt and jeans with work boots and a cape...and that's strange. I'm not a huge fan of Rags Morales doing the art duties, but I'm intrigued enough in a somewhat depowered Superman that isn't Smallville that I'll stick around for as long as Morrison steers the ship.

Batwing - The dialogue is corny, but I enjoy that Batman is helping establish a global identity for his brand of justice, establishing that the Batman Inc. storyline from a few months ago isn't entirely dead.

Stormwatch - This felt like writer Paul Cornell was breaking the cardinal rule of writing of "show not tell." There was way too much expository dialogue that didn't really explain all that much. There's no problem with dropping the reader in on the middle of a story and allowing them to catch up, but this issue didn't present the opportunity for that catching up. There was a lot of standing around and talking, but without witty dialogue and then very little action.

Batgirl - This...this was awful. Batgirl is portrayed as weak and ineffectual, her roommate is right out of Stock Modern Hippie Characters 101, and the villain is stupid. Plus, the police are stupid, especially in the final scene. DC made a lot of waves in taking Barbara Gordon out of her wheelchair-bound persona of Oracle and placing her back in the cape and cowl of Batgirl, and even that was glossed over in a lazy fashion. However, in the comic's defense, it wasn't the WORST thing I read this week.

Detective Comics - This was the absolute worst thing I read this week. Jim Lee's redesign barely works when it's drawn by Jim Lee, and it completely misses every mark when drawn by anyone else. NOT EVERYONE IS GOOD AT DRAWING UNNECESSARY SEAMS, JIM LEE! However, the art is better than the nonsensical story, which is filled with an over-the-top climactic scene at the end that literally saw me say "Ew...!" A review I read described this as an issue of Spawn where someone went through the script and just did a Find and Replace on Microsoft Word to insert Batman and the Joker's names. On top of that, none of the characterization felt true to the core of the characters. The Joker has friends? What? Has writer Tony Daniel ever heard of the Joker? I'm glad I had to buy this digitally because that allows me to delete the issue and never have to read it again.

Justice League International - My big problem with the launch of Justice League last week was the fact that it had seven characters on the cover, three and a half of which show up in the actual issue. The whole thing amounted to a Green Lantern/Batman conversation with Superman showing up acting like a jerk on the last two pages while Cyborg isn't recognizable as his namesake. It takes time to introduce these characters, you say? Well, not according to Justice League International, which does a fine job of introducing each person, gives them distinct personality quirks and creates an intriguing arc of playing Booster Gold as the leader of the team because he's an easily manipulated patsy. This is not rocket science and it's been done before to great success in the past. Justice League, take a cue from your B-team, and get it together.

Animal Man - The art is appropriately keeping a foot in two worlds by presenting Animal Man as a down-to-Earth superhero who's been out of the game for a little while while also managing to up the creep factor when he enters a dream sequence. This felt like everything an Animal Man comic should be by making him a relatable family man, an animal rights activist, and a superhero greatly in tune with his power. Animal Man wins the week.

Frosh
Last Monday, August 29, you took the Animal Farm re-test. This is next on my list of things to grade as soon as I finish up the dialectical journals.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, August 30 through September 1, we discussed everything Animal Farm. While you were given a list of discussion questions, I focused more on the questions you had first and foremost. The answers you provided still wound up covering much of the information that I would have liked to have covered had we just focused on the given questions. This is one of those occasions where everyone wins. You also turned in your annotated Animal Farm books

Then on that same Thursday and the following Friday, September 2, we began covering the Jane Shaffer essay terms.

This past Tuesday, we completed those terms and I assigned the Animal Farm plot chart which you worked on for the rest of the period. By the way, the climax is when Boxer gets taken away to the slaughter house. It's at that point that everyone has their dreams crushed, and the animals are resigned to a life similar to or worse than the one that Jones provided previously. Soul crushing, right?

Wednesday and Thursday, you watched The Russian Revolution in Color, the content of which is self-explanatory to anyone paying attention to the title. You took notes on the aspects of history that you could connect to the plot of the book.

You're going to use those notes to complete two chunks (a concrete detail sentence followed by two commentary sentences) on two separate Animal Farm characters where you compare what happened in the book to the events of the Russian Revolution. Depending on your class period today, we created at least one chunk on Old Major and either started or completed one on Mr. Jones. The two chunks are due Monday, September 12.

Seniors
Our look at philosophy continued on Monday, August 29, when we discussed Plato and Aristotle in depth. The thing to remember about those two and Socrates is the following: Socrates asked why. Plato explained why. Aristotle explained how we got to why.

Tuesday, August 30, we read and (somewhat) discussed the Allegory of the Cave. It's amazing how relevant this remains almost two and a half millennia later. In fact, a recent story I first saw on Gizmodo discusses a very similar occurrence that happened recently. These lab chimps saw daylight for the very first time in over 30 years, and their reaction of joy and contentment is something to behold. Notice how they relish the moment and attempt to take everything in by looking around their new, natural surroundings. AND THEY HUG! I've probably watched that video five times just to see how happy the chimps are feeling the sun on their skin. It's amazing.

You took the first lit terms test on Wednesday, August 31. Retakes will be allowed on Monday, September 12, and Thursday, September 15.

We discussed the idea of the cave on Thursday, September 1, and you worked on the questions associated with Plato's dialogue.

Friday, September 2, you completed the first and easiest part of the lit project by having your book or order form for your book. We discussed annotation and how to be successful when attempting to annotate. Check out this list if you're ever confused.

• examples of lit terms in action (especially the proceeding three)
• motif
• theme
• symbol
• unfamiliar words (define them)
• commentary on what happens (explain your thoughts & opinions)
• important/notable passages (briefly explain why you think said passages are notable or important)
• character development (note new characters, character descriptions, or major changes to characters)
• ask questions (provide answers later, when possible)
• chapter summaries (describe three important things that happened)

This past Tuesday, you received the article selection guidelines and were asked to write an article selection-style precis on the Allegory of the Cave using MLA format. This serves as practice for the article selection assignments you'll be completing over the course of the lit project. The first of those is due Thursday, September 15.

Speaking of September 15, that's when you'll be taking your next lit terms test, the terms for which you received on Wednesday and Thursday. Once we finished going over those terms, you received time to read and annotate. Hopefully, you used that time productively. Here are the terms:

1. Symbol
2. External Conflict
3. Internal Conflict
4. Denotation
5. Antagonist
6. Protagonist
7. Point of View
8. Foreshadowing
9. 1^st person pov
10. 3^rd per. Limited
11. Dramatic Irony
12. Verbal Irony
13. Tone
14. Setting
15. Mood
16. Connotation
17. 3^rd per. Omniscient
18. Situational Irony
19. Irony
20. Simile

Today, the practice article selection assignment was due. After turning that in, we discussed advertising slogans, something to which no one is immune, myself included. As promised, here's a compilation of Mac Tonight commercials. Apparently, Mac has been revived in CGI form for a Singapore ad campaign that informs customers that McDonalds is now open 24 hours. Maybe he'll get a similar revival in the states sometime soon.

If you're interested in seeing a picture of me in that infamous costume, I posted one over at my Facebook page. You'll also find that my dad knew exactly where it was in the garage and fished it down. My mom is quite the craftswoman since that moon head has survived almost 24 years, which is pretty impressive for paper-mache and cardboard.

Ten on Tuesday (One Day Late)

1. Clearly, the "Ten on Tuesday" name shouldn't be taken too literally.

2. Finishing a post on Tuesday wasn't possible since yesterday was Back to School Night. This was the first Back to School Night in several years and I much prefer this format to the Report Card Night we've employed at Alta Loma High School for the past few years. I tried to address a few major points for each of my three different classes.

3. For journalism, I emphasized the idea that the Brave Times is a student run paper and that remaining timely and relevant are the staff's biggest priorities. Additionally, the main focus of the grading deals with whether or not someone has met their deadlines. A staff writer, for instance, needs to make sure to turn in each draft for both of his or her articles on time or there will be a 5% deduction of the possible points on that particular issue.

4. The emphasis for the seniors focused on the lit project. Besides the fact that everyone has to have a copy of their book by Friday, I also made sure that parents knew the lit project due dates would be posted on School Loop and that the project accounts for roughly 60% of the semester grade. Granted, it could be more and it could be less, as I don't like to lock myself into numbers like that on account of the fact that teaching English isn't an exact science. Also, puns!

5. The biggest turn out this year by far was in the Frosh Honors classes. My goal was to introduce myself and hopefully communicate my style and philosophy to the parents in the nine minutes allotted. I covered that we're smack dab in the middle of our Animal Farm unit and engaged in a fairly lively discussion earlier that day, as well as the fact that we'll (tentatively) be starting Fahrenheit 451 the week of September 26. Also notable was a parent's cell phone going off during the middle of the nine minute period immediately following my discussion about my cell phone policy where I ask students to sing a song in order to keep their phone. Said parent was very relieved that I did not ask for a jaunty tune.


6. Images from Zach Snyder's currently filming Superman reboot, Man of Steel, surfaced today and, wow, do I hate Henry Cavill's new costume. I've discussed my distaste for the new Spider-Man outfit, but, geez, removing the iconic red trunks from the Superman costume does not work in a real world setting. (And, while Cavill isn't wearing a cape in this picture, that's not a point of contention since it has appeared in pictures elsewhere which means that it was either removed between scenes or, knowing Snyder, will probably become a CGI eyesore later.) What works on the page does not always translate well to film, which is part of the reason that oft-referred-to spandex from the comics transmogrifies to stylized rubber on the silver screen. I'm not a stickler in the traditional sense that whatever appears in the source material automatically must make its way into the movie because that's just a road to unhappiness and discontent. It's a different medium, and as long as filmmakers stay true to the character concept, I accept and anticipate the changes they make as a means to allow the character to work in the new medium. Lots of people complain that "wearing the underwear on the outside" look of Superman, Batman and others turns the characters into cornballs that no one can take seriously. This is such a ridiculous argument: it's acceptable that a guy can fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes among other abilities, but trunks on the outside of a character's pants?! Oh, ho, Heavens to Betsy, you've destroyed my delicate suspension of disbelief. Those red trunks serve a purpose aesthetically because they force the eye towards the important part of Superman's outfit -- the symbolic S shield. Instead, there's now a giant blue blob that distracts from the fact that this guy represents truth, justice and the American way.


7. Speaking of costume changes, Justice League #1 hit comic book store shelves and digital newsstands everywhere today in DC's half-hearted attempt to reboot their entire universe. In my mind, the company misses the boat in more ways than one if they're trying to lure in readers who have never thought to pick up a comic book before. Case in point with this particular issue: there are seven characters on the cover of this comic book, yet only three actually appear, and one doesn't show up until the very end. Geoff Johns wants to present the first installment of a longer story, I'm sure, but if the uninitiated fan finds this cover intriguing when they see it in the supermarket, while visiting Barnes & Noble or walking by the newsstand, won't they be disappointed by the fact that less than half the characters he or she figures are promised on the cover actually show up? Heck, if someone decides to download the DC Comics or Comixology app for their iPad just to try this out, I'd wonder if they would think the endeavor was worth it.

8. All of the superhero talk comes courtesy of the fact that I'm currently reading Grant Morrison's Supergods, which is really fascinating in how well he deconstructs the characters from their infancy to today. Also, I just really like superheroes.

9. It's slow going through that book, though, since I'm currently climbing a mountain of grading. I hope to reach a summit of some kind by next week, at which point I'll make grades public through School Loop.

10. In other news, the Blu-ray edition of the Star Wars movies will hit shelves next week, and George Lucas can't seem to leave well enough alone as he's gone and added a bunch of unnecessary changes to something he added a bunch of unnecessary changes to the last two times he's released it for public consumption that used to be perfectly fine on its own. One of the big changes occurs in Return of the Jedi, where Darth Vader used to let his actions speak for themselves. Instead, now we get this.

That's just ridiculous.

Enjoying & Improving

"If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." 

- E.B. White

The world is such a vast and wonderful place that is full of disappointment and misery, that the dichotomy between the two extremes often makes it hard to function. Thankfully, I've chosen a career that allows me to experience both ends of the spectrum, and keeping this blog allows me to detail the constant struggle of how I plan my day.

Enjoying the World
Besides my review of Captain America, I never finished up discussing the rest of my upcoming summer movie choices. Of the three left, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2 earned my dollars, while Cowboys & Aliens managed to pass me by. From the two I saw, the latter far outclassed the former, but who didn't see that coming? At the same time, it feels unfair to compare the two movies as they are in such different leagues despite being effect-driven blockbusters where extraordinary things happen every few seconds.

The Potter franchise, due to the connection with the books, has a heart and soul that big clunky robots that appear to be made out of random assortments of jagged metal could never have, especially considering that the closest thing to heart in a Transformers movie is a fart joke. While easier to follow than the previous sequel, Transformers is clunky, loud and way too long. Meanwhile, Potter manages to close out the series in a fashion suiting an eighth movie of an extremely long, albeit uneven, narrative. Captain America won the summer movie competition, with Potter and Thor trailing close behind.

Improving the World

Jim True-Frost plays Mr. Roland
Pryzbylewski on The Wire.

Last year, I continued my habit of being late to parties by finishing up season one of The Wire going into the beginning of the school year, and it's only appropriate that I finished the fourth and am just over halfway through the fifth season of the show as we start the academic calendar. Also appropriate? Each season focuses on a different section of a (sort of) fictional version of Baltimore and its corrupt systems while exploring the destruction of an American city. The first season focused on the drug trade and police, the second on the dock workers and their unions, the third shifted over to politics and real estate, and the fifth explores the media.

The fourth season that I recently completed watching still has a finger in the political pie, but the main focus is on the schools. Former cop Mr. Prezbo takes up teaching math in an urban middle school, bound and determined to make a difference only to find that the system in place prevents too much substantive change from taking place. Prez struggles to work within the confines of a broken patchwork of educational landmines and makes many of the same mistakes that first-year teachers always make.

This year, I'm taking on something completely new in teaching Frosh Honors English, and while I've gained plenty of experience going into my eighth year at ALHS, the fear that I'll fall into old habits or won't live up to the expectations of others constantly gnaws away at me. But I'm also hopeful that I can make an impact on a brand new set of students. As a product of Alta Loma High School's GATE program, there's a lot to live up to in my own mind. My ultimate goal is always to improve in some small way on my effectiveness as a teacher compared to last year. Living up to that goal this year will be difficult because I'm on a different stage.

As a goals go, it's lofty and vague (I'll get into some more specific goals later in the week), but it'll do for now.

The Sentinel of Liberty

My wife and I were also Captain and Mrs. Captain
America before such things were cool. (Halloween 2009)

Remember when I said that Thor was a great movie and that Chris Evans would have a tough time edging out the performance Chris Hemsworth delivers? Well, Captain America: The First Avenger is the BEST movie and Chris Evans does it.


When you look at the character of Steve Rogers, there are a number of things to admire. The one that always stood out to me is that he makes me forget about the petty nonsense that bogs down this country time and again. He isn't dictated by party lines and doesn't attempt to support one side over the other. Instead, Captain America attempts to showcase what makes the United States great. Where Superman represents the human ideal, Cap always represents the American ideal. 


Steve Rogers is a good man who strives to be better despite the fact that he's physically incapable. To any kid that was scrawny or weak (Me, I'm looking at you.), that is relatable. Chris Evans, who doesn't quite fit that bill of scrawny or weak if someone has ever happened to catch him in anything he's ever done, masterfully pulls off the pipsqueak part thanks to healthy dose of CGI. But there's a vulnerability and strength that's a difficult part to pull off, both in the before of being a strong-willed weakling and the after of confident and idealistic hero, especially considering Evans has to become someone that is inspiring, authoritative and carries a wealth of experience by the end of the film before he goes off to lead the Avengers. He hits every note perfectly, though, and it filled me with joy. I haven't smiled this much during a movie since The Incredibles.


There are three things that I really feel it's important to note, and the third might be a slight spoiler for the end of the film if you're at all unfamiliar with the Captain America mythos.


First, the unsung hero of the film is Stanley Tucci and his performance as Dr. Erskine. He's fatherly without being preachy and recognizes the true hero that Steve already is prior to getting the Super Soldier Serum. The way Tucci shows Erskine figure this out and relates the importance of remaining a good man to Steve shapes so much of what Captain America is about that his importance can't be undersold. His point alone really had me close to welling up.


Second, it's important to understand that Steve Rogers' preexisting virtue is what sets Captain America aside from every other Marvel Movie Universe character: Rogers doesn't need to gain super powers to become a hero because he already is one. He literally jumps on a live grenade to save the folks around him. There's a character in the army training scenes before he gets picked where the jerk keeps pushing Rogers around because, as many of the characters note, he's a bully. Hodgson is Tommy Lee Jones' pick for the project, but Erskine instead picks our boy without any kind of comeuppance coming his way. He shows up briefly later on in the film in Europe, and, for a moment, I thought how sweet it would be to see that guy get punched or even made to flinch by the newly awesome Captain America. It doesn't happen, and I'm really glad it didn't because that's another reason why Cap is a great man. He doesn't need to lower himself to that guy's level because he knows he could take that guy in a heartbeat, and, more importantly, he's better than that.


Finally, the ending is suitably tragic. There's always a hint of sadness surrounding any character study of Captain America because he's a man that lost everything and everyone he ever knew, a man out of time, and yet he continues to fight the good fight. Joe Johnson really hammers that home in Cap's final address and in the coda, which I expect will stick around through The Avengers.

Ten on Tuesday

Because I've desperately wanted to blog but lacked the focus to do so lately, I decided to steal an idea (while giving credit, mind you, so it's technically not stealing nor is it plagiarism but it's also easier to write steal than give this kind of long-winded explanation) that I saw an old college friend borrow from someone else (language alert on that last one). The original idea is to discuss ten things (on Tuesday) going on in my life as a means of catching up, but I'm just going to modify it to apply to ten things that I've done or been thinking about. Sure, most people will be reading this on Wednesday (if ever), and a Five on Friday idea would be much easier, but it's still technically Tuesday as I begin to write and Friday would be a much more difficult day to attempt this, which leads to number one.

1. Coming on the heels of our anniversary weekend trip to Las Vegas, the wife and I are headed out there for a truncated one night stay to show some friends how to do things up right. Never in my life did I expect to be the kind of person that could show Vegas newbies around town, but with our trips over the last few years coming about every six months, I guess it's time to accept that my wife and I are those people.

2. Aside from the time I spent lesson planning with Ms. Windt last month, today was one of the most productive of the summer. I replaced my car key battery, took Spider-Man (the dog) to get his vaccinations, saw Transformers: Dark of the Moon, got some quality reading time in, and went to the gym. This is what passes for accomplishment during the summer.

3. Spider-Man (the dog) has been having a bit of a rough time today due to said vaccinations or just the visit to the vet in general. Either way, dog vomit is annoying but also a great name for a hardcore punk band. He's fine now, thankfully.

4. Speaking of lesson planning, thanks to mine and Ms. Windt's foresight, we have the first four weeks of Frosh Honors English planned out. This is an amazing feat. Trust me.

5. A trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man leaked today. When it comes to comic book movies, I really try to give them the benefit of the doubt until their release, but so many things bug me (HAH!) about the choices Marc Webb and company are making for the film that I'm beginning to wonder if the director got the gig based solely on his name (See what I did there?). The costume hasn't wowed me mostly because I don't like the rounded off red section that remains disconnected from the belt, however, I understand the need to set the costume apart visually from the Raimi movies. I don't even mind that Sony has chosen to reboot a franchise whose last movie came out just four years ago. Despite the so-so box office returns, The Incredible Hulk was a short-term reboot that fixed and addressed the problems with the Ang Lee original. What kills me is the idea that we, the audience, have such short-term memories that they need to once again do another retelling of Spider-Man's origin. The same applies to the upcoming Superman reboot, Man of Steel. You know those "Previously on..." segments at the beginning of one hour dramas? That's how long it should take to tell the origin of any comic book character that's had a film in the past 25 years. Comic books have told interesting stories about superheroes for nearly 80 years now and have done so without needing to constantly spend a third or more of their content space devoted to the origin of the character.

6. CM Punk really is the Best Wrestler in the World right now, and I'm glad I spent money watching him put on a classic match at WWE Money in the Bank. I won't bore anyone by recapping his recent phenomenal storyline here; it's hard to appreciate if you're not a long-term fan. However, Punk's exit that night (a screencap of which I included) was one of the greatest in recent memory. By the by, if anyone knows a way to get me a copy of the shirt he wore to the ring for his match that night, I would really dig it. The current asking price for an XL on eBay has been in the neighborhood of $250, since it was a limited edition deal that was only available at the show in Chicago. But I figure the many people who will see this are industrious and/or richer than I am, so it never hurts to ask.

7. Why isn't there a Dunkin Donuts presence here in Southern California? Granted, not having access to yet another donut chain is probably good for my wallet and waistline, but I am a glutton for movie tie-ins, especially comic book movie tie-ins. After getting a Thor Big Gulp cup back in May, I assumed that 7-Eleven would handle all of my Marvel needs by handling the Captain America stuff, too. Then I could have a matching set of Avengers cups prior to the team finding their way to the big screen next summer. Unfortunately, Dunkin Donuts scored that particular license, and none exist in a 50 mile radius. Seriously, I looked. It doesn't help that the franchise still advertises in California, thus rubbing it in my face that I can never drink a Captain America Coolatta. I don't even know what a "Coolatta" is but if Captain America puts his name on it, then it can't be bad.

8. I also wanted to devote an entire entry to testosterone replacement therapy and it's use among UFC/MMA fighters, but I devote too much space to the latter subject on this blog as it is, so I'll just speak to the former here. It's cheating. Men that do genuinely need testosterone replacement therapy fall into two camps: those who are later along in life (usually in their late 40's to early 50's) and experience a genuine drop in their body's level of testosterone and those who have artificially boosted their level of testosterone through the use of steroids and damaged their endocrine system to the degree that they now need to bring their body's amount up to normal levels. If fighters fall into either of the two camps, they should no longer be professional fighters. Period. Here's what most people seem to forget about the use of steroids in mixed martial arts: they don't make a fighter stronger, granting an incredible Hulk-like physique. They aren't a super soldier serum that will suddenly make scrawny Steve Rogers into taller and buffer Captain America. A person taking steroids will not wake up with more muscles the next day or the next week. Steroids allow people to recover from workouts faster so they can workout more without the fatigue and muscle soreness associated with working out. It doesn't matter if a fighter tests positive for steroids on the day of their fight, as is the norm for testing with almost every state athletic commission these days. Should a fighter test positive on that day, that person is an idiot who didn't get the full use out of the steroids in the first place. Taking steroids during their training camp is where the benefit lies. This is why UFC should pay for truly random out-of-competition testing for their fighters as condition of the new health insurance the company has provided for them. Anyone who claims a need for therapeutic use should be shown the door, which sadly includes Chael Sonnen, a fighter I happen to enjoy a great deal.

9. Noticing gray hair in my beard is really cool because I feel like I'm one step closer to that distinguished professorial look I've always wanted to achieve. Next stop, corduroy jackets with suede elbow patches!

10. Man, Transformers: Dark of the Moon was an awful movie. However, Sam Witwicky's mom is still the most entertaining character in the entire franchise. Even if Shia LeBeef fails to return for the next one, I sure hope his parents make an appearance.

TNS Update: Midsummer Night's Movie Reviews

Of the eight movies I discussed previously, I've now seen four of them. Let's discuss.

The Hangover Part II - I own the DVD of the original movie, which was a very funny, enjoyable and quotable film. Unfortunately, like I suspected, there was no difference between this film and the sequel. The plot hits all of the same beats as the original, goes for the same jokes and never once attempts a single thing that could be confused for original. Considering how surprisingly great I found The Hangover to be, and how fun Todd Phillips films usually are, this was a big disappointment. And poor Justin Bartha; would it kill them to include Doug in the festivities? Just once?

X-Men: First Class - While I still think that Thor has won the summer so far, in terms of superhero movies, this one is a close second. Seeing a Sixties era X-Men movie without mainstay characters like Wolverine or Cyclops would have sounded like crazy talk ten years ago. But now superhero movies are mainstream enough that this not only exists at all but is also neck and neck with X2: X-Men United for the honor of best of the X-Men films. Kevin Bacon oozes charm as Sebastian Shaw, Michael Fassbender plays Magneto like a cross between James Bond and Charles Bronson, and James Macavoy plays Professor X like the arrogant jerk he needs to be in order for him to be the benevolent and wise leader he'll later become. It's not a perfect film, mind you. January Jones proves that her range is solely that of Betty Draper from Mad Men, and, in a larger mythology that works as an allegory for both the Civil Rights Movement and LGBT equality, killing off one of the two minority characters and having the other one become a traitor in the first third of the film seems to show that someone misses the point. Still, this is a movie worth seeing and an argument can be made that it's the best of the X-Films.

Super 8 - My formative years were spent watching movies like E.T., The Goonies and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and JJ Abrams does a great job paying homage to those movies while never feeling derivative. The best part about the film is the chemistry between the group of friends, and that's something that's been missing from movies lately. Too many movies play adolescents off as either mindless stereotypes or mini-adults. The actors and Abrams find the balance of smart kids that don't sound like adults when they talk or interact with each other and still sound believable when having conversations with actual adults. It's a lost art that many movies I remember fondly from a long time ago got right, so I enjoyed that Super 8 nailed it in the midst of telling a simultaneously frightening and touching story about loss and hope. In short, this movie made my wife cry which is a category usually reserved for films like The Notebook.

Green Lantern - There's been more debate about this movie than any superhero flick I can recall. The two camps boil down to "It was completely terrible" or "It wasn't as terrible as people say." Either way, it fell way below my personal expectations. For me, many of the problems surrounded the fact that there felt like scenes were missing throughout the film. For instance, our supposed hero Hal Jordan and the bad guy Hector Hammond meet for the first time on screen at a big party more than half-way through the film, and it's a scene played as if the two know each other. There are also hints that Hammond has an unrequited crush on Carol Ferris, Jordan's love interest. However, none of this is ever spelled out or clarified. Not only does it make the bad guy come off as more sympathetic, but it doesn't give the viewer a reason to root for Hal Jordan. In fact, despite Ryan Reynolds doing a passable job and being a solid pick as Hal Jordan, the character comes off as a jerk who doesn't care about anyone or anything around him until the story gets to the point where he has to save Earth. Usually, this is known as a character arc, but his change of heart is completely false and arbitrary, meaning that Hal Jordan is a lousy hero in what is supposed to be a superhero movie. And it's not Reynolds' fault; this is clearly a writing or editing problem.

Nothing ever exists in a vacuum. On its own, Green Lantern as a summer popcorn movie has lots of explosions, some nifty special effects and really cool things that should be present in a movie about an intergalactic police force that gives every member a magical ring that can create anything the wearer wills. Unfortunately, Green Lantern exists in a world with Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Thor, The Incredibles, Kick Ass, the first two Spider-Man films, Hellboy, Hellboy II, and the aforementioned X-Men movies (the first, second and First Class). Granted, not everything can or should be The Dark Knight, but there's a lot of room for variation where storytelling makes sense. The last decade in superhero movies has shown that it's possible for a film to be both a special effects extravaganza AND tell a great story. When the two aren't mutually exclusive, it's fair to be disappointed when a film fails to have both. Instead, Green Lantern gives us redundant voice overs, thin characters with motivation lost on the cutting room floor, and a bad guy borrowed from the Fantastic Four sequel all in a very transparent and arrogant notion that it's setting up a sequel that may or may not happen due to relatively poor box office performance.

My favorite take on the film appears here, but know that the language may not be appropriate and that spoilers abound.

The Digital Domain (or Here is the cake I own. Now go away so I can eat it.)

Jim Lee's redesigned Justice League
includes lots of raised collars.

This week, DC Comics (1) announced that it will be restarting all of their series at issue #1, introducing costumes redesigned by Jim Lee in order to "to make characters more identifiable and accessible to comic fans new and old." The press release announcing this new initiative implies that the characters will be rebooted to some unknown extent since the company plans to tell stories that are "grounded in each characters' specific legend but also reflect today's real world themes and events" and also stated "[t]his was a chance to start, not at the beginning, but at a point where our characters are younger and the stories are being told for today's audience." The line will begin with a new Justice League drawn by Lee and written by DC golden boy and Chief Creative Officer, Geoff Johns. Finally, starting in September when DC launches all 52 "new" series, all titles will be available digitally on the same day as release, a stark contrast to both DC and Marvel's current digital stance.


(1) It always strikes me as odd whenever I call DC Comic by that name because DC stands for Detective Comics, it's old flagship title. When you say or type DC Comics, you're actually saying Detective Comics Comics. And I am a nerd.


So what does this mean? There are two things to consider here: the creative side and the business side. And the two overlap to a degree since I fall into the category of lapsed fan that DC would love to bring back to the fold, although that is actually up for debate.

From a creative standpoint, this appears, like many ideas brought about by Dan DiDio, the co-publisher of DC Comics, to be a quick fix plan that hasn't been thought out very well. If the plan were given much consideration beyond "let's blow everything up and start over but only sort of," then I'd imagine that the architects of the plan would have more concrete answers for their chief fan base about the kinds of things they care about, namely continuity and timelines that allow the readers to know what "counts." This is mostly because comic book fans are a bunch of negative, self-hating, twenty to fifty-something sticks in the mud who are overly concerned with making sure that the stories they read change the status quo but also keep everything exactly as it was when they first got into comics.

In gambling to bring in a new audience, the DC brass also risks losing the existing one. Providing such a short time before everything changes forever again doesn't allow for the excitement of the new line to take effect or for the fans of the current status quo to see their stories wrapped up. Plus, no one who follows trends in the comic industry honestly believes that the status quo will change. Between Crisis on the Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis, there have been four major events since 1985 that have reconfigured the timeline to make everything more reader friendly that has only caused things to be more confusing. There used to be a multiverse, but the first Crisis changed it all to one Earth. Zero Hour attempted to make sense of the timeline that resulted. Meanwhile Infinite Crisis brought the multiverse back because Superboy punched reality (2), and Final Crisis...well, I don't know what that did except make Batman a cave man and a pirate (3).


(2) Seriously.

(3) No, seriously.


See, all of these "fixes" tend to not fix anything when the goal should be to just tell decent stories that are exciting and out of this world and make them available to the largest audience possible. And starting from scratch could do that, but it makes the existing audience feel like a bunch of chumps for not being good enough for the company already since what they like will be abandoned to attempt to capture new customers. To placate them and prevent their departure, DC has stated that some of the existing continuity will still be around. DC wants to have its cake and eat it, too.

The comic industry needs a shot in the arm if it hopes to survive because they face an actual crisis similar to the one the music industry failed to confront ten years ago. They need to grow a new audience but are afraid to lose the one they have. However, the audience they have is old, getting older, and shrinking.  While their characters are more popular than ever thanks to the boom of superhero movies, toys and cartoons, the medium from which they originated isn't faring so well because it's often cost-prohibitive and daunting to become a new fan. Instead of embracing the new audience by catering to the different ways they take in content, they've shunned it and only focused on the direct market. The comic book industry has become the Ouroboros. Add to this the fact that the violent content in some comics isn't necessarily inviting to the kids that would otherwise might want to become fans, or at least it's not to their parents. The answer might be to embrace digital content and market it effectively, but DC, in going the with same day digital release, still isn't doing that because they (and Marvel, too, for that matter) haven't managed to figure out that digital content should be cheaper. Instead, they're charging the newsstand price for new issues and exorbitantly higher prices (in comparison to the original cover price) for older issues.

The numbering of a series and whether or not Superman wears a turtleneck ultimately doesn't matter. The first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man that I bought was in the high 200's; Action Comics and Detective Comics were both in the 400's when I started  wanting to read about Superman and Batman. The fact that the stories were accessible and good is what kept me coming back and the numbering didn't keep me from reading. Having convoluted stories that required me to read five other concurrent issues just to understand what was happening to the one character I cared about is what forced me to stop buying comics on a regular basis. Digital distribution does matter, but it has to be incorporated in such a way that it doesn't deter new customers from trying out the product. I originally bought an iPad over a Kindle because I wanted to be able to read comics on it and felt it would be more cost and space-effective compared to purchasing single issues at stores. This doesn't mean that comic book stores have to die in order for comic book companies to live, either. Just like books will always exist in a physical format of some kind, so will comics. But avoiding progress and the new audience that progress can bring only serves to make things worse for everyone involved who stand to make a living in the industry.

Top Numbered Somethings - UPCOMING SUMMER MOVIES! And shouting.

Summer time means that it's blockbuster season at the movies, where stories take a back seat to special effects, spinning cameras and explosions...so many explosions. I'm a big a fan of loud, stupid movies as anyone, so here's a list of movies I plan on definitely seeing, in order of their release date, along with how horrible I imagine they will be.

The Hangover: Part II - Let's be perfectly honest: this looks terrible. Everything about the trailers suggest that it is the exact same movie as the first one with an added layer of Asian racism since it takes place in Thailand as opposed to Las Vegas. I hope that my low expectations mean that it's better than my initial impression, but there's nothing I have other than hope to back that up. Alan will be weird, Stu will scream and Bradley Cooper will try to play it cool. Meanwhile, the characters should probably be dead or destitute, if any of these events actually happened.

X-Men: First Class - Here we have an X-Men film set in the 1960s with mutants in their original blue and yellow superhero outfits and a Magneto that uses his powers in a tremendously original and awesome way, judging by the trailer. For a comic fan like me, it's like the producers consulted me on how to approach the X-Men correctly. At first, it sounded so weird and out there that I couldn't help but predict doom and gloom for it because of the track record for the previous two films. Wolverine and X-Men: Last Stand were just so awful that another trip to the well, and a prequel at that, felt wrong. However, each trailer and clip released online look pretty cool and the reviews coming in have been positive, comparing the film to the J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek. Overall, I'm tentatively excited for this one and think it might be the dark horse movie of the summer.

Super 8 - Speaking of J.J. Abrams, his latest film looks to be what would happen if the alien from E.T. was a monster and the dad from Friday Night Lights along with his kids have to fight it. Abrams channels Spielberg in terms of look and tone and possibly Cloverfield in terms of story. The secrecy surrounding the plot has made the hype for this one out of control, and I wonder if it can deliver. So it might be horrible. Or it might be awe-inspiring. 

Green Lantern - The first trailer made this movie about a guy that gets a power ring that can make anything he can imagine look way too much like Iron Man, and Ryan Reynolds, while a good actor who gets way too much heat from most people for being a 2011 Ben Affleck, is no Robert Downey Jr. Fortunately, every single piece of footage since that initial trailer has allayed all of my fears because this looks like one of the top two movies to beat. In fact, it feels like this one might be too faithful to the source material, and the big problem appears to be that it's stuffed to the gills with all of the weirdness that took the comic 45 years to accumulate. I'm hoping that it's an accessible movie for those not in the know about the history of the Green Lanterns, but even if it isn't, it'll still be enjoyable to me. And ultimately, I am the only person that matters.

Captain America: The First Avenger - Here's my number one because everything I love about America can be summed up in this character. Plus, Marvel Studios have done a great job so far of creating the kind of expanded film universe that people never thought they'd be able to see accomplished on screen. It's a Captain America movie that takes place in World War II! That is amazing. Go back in time and tell 16 year old me after having suffered through things like Steel and Batman & Robin that Marvel movies like this would exist but also be quality popcorn flicks and I would have been amazed that you used the ability to go back in time to tell me about trivial Hollywood news, but I also would not have believed you.

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon - And now we've come to the Michael Bay portion of the show. All indicators point to the fact that this will be the worst of the Transformers movies and they've all been awful. Michael Bay is good at two things: spinning the camera around and blowing stuff up. He's also good at disregarding anything that would make sense in a film and taking something that seems relatively simple (robots turn into cars and fight each other) and convoluting it with wacky human hijinks that involve Shia The Beef.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 - Considering all that's left in terms of the story of the final Harry Potter book is a gigantic battle at Hogwarts, I don't think this will be bad. The last film saw my wife and I fall asleep in the theatre, but it seemed to cover all of the parts of book seven that I hated anyway: namely, the 250 pages of pointless camping that JK Rowling insisted was so important to the development of the characters even though it was completely unnecessary. But I don't think of raucous battle scenes when I think of Harry Potter movies, so I'm tentative to think this will be great.

Cowboys & Aliens - Jon Favreau has earned enough credit from me as a director that I'll follow him into something new like this, and it's got a title that can't be beat. I hope that if sequels ever arrive that they just keep adding to the title with some new group: robots, astronauts, zombies, cavemen. It would be pretty tremendous and the cast is pretty awesome, too.


Frosh
The final week before, well, finals was focused mostly on you finishing your Score TKAM assignment. Monday and Wednesday were devoted to work days in your groups where you should have spent time justifying five of the ten song choices you matched with the scenes provided along with a justification for the cover your group created. I'm writing this now after having collected the assignment, and it seems that a few groups only heard what they wanted to hear based off some of the justification papers I see. That's too bad because you earn a majority of the points based off those justifications.

Tuesday, you took the final on To Kill a Mockingbird.

Thursday and Friday were spent watching the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird. Despite the numerous plot changes, its 50 year pedigree and being in black and white, it's a film that manages to stand up today compared to many other film adaptations of novels. In fact, I'm surprised that Harper Lee's novel hasn't received the remake treatment, but I think that's more of a testament to Gregory Peck's performance. There isn't an actor alive today that could pull off Atticus Finch in such a distinctive and convincing fashion. Perhaps George Clooney might be able to do it, but, knowing how Hollywood operates, it'd probably go to Matthew McConaughey or Sam Worthington.

And then you took your department final and turned in your Score TKAM project on your respective final day.

Seniors
On the last regular Monday of your high school career, you turned in your Table of Contents assignment and took your Cuckoo's Nest final.

Tuesday, you turned in all of your Cuckoo Final Project components. You also presented that day and on Wednesday. The presentations varied, but some of the originality the groups displayed really impressed me. From singing to sort-of puppet shows to metaphorical recreations of the ward to quarter hour long multimedia lectures, there was a width and breadth to the proceedings that I hadn't seen before. Good job, overall, and I look forward to using some of what you folks did as examples next year.

Thursday and Friday were the final days of class. We watched Milos Forman's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and signed some yearbooks.

And that's that with that. You're done. There will be an entry devoted to the idea of "done" later since I don't want it to get bogged down by including it with my usual account of the day-to-day happenings in class.

The Mighty...?

As you can see, I was Thor before being Thor was cool.
(Halloween, 2008)

As is my wont, I saw Thor last weekend and decided to write a little bit about it since I like comics and I like movies and so I expect way too much out of comic book movies despite being easily impressed with them whenever they don't feature extended jazz dance scenes. I'm looking at you, Spider-Man 3.


Thor is a great movie. There are no two ways around it.

So much of a high-concept popcorn flick like this really depends on quality performances and Chris Hemsworth stands head and shoulders above the rest. He’s tremendous in a way that will be hard for Chris Evans or Ryan Reynolds to top this summer. He’s so outrageously charming playing this brash, privileged, spoiled dude who’s just as talented as he thinks he is, but that also has to learn humility and sacrifice. This is also due in no small part to Natalie Portman, Stellan Skaarsgard and Kat Dennings treating Hemsworth like, well, a god, but Hemsworth’s performance is what makes it work. There’s so much complexity in what could be a role that many would play as one-note.

Tom Hiddleston’s turn as Loki should also be noted, and I think he’s going to get a lot of notice once people view the movie a second or third time if they’re unfamiliar with Loki’s character. It’s clear to see how he sets events in motion and works as a master manipulator.

Most of all, Kenneth Branaugh adds a grandeur and gravitas to Asgard that is on par with just about any other fantasy movie epic. He takes something that really shouldn’t work in the scope of what the Marvel Movie Universe has established and makes it fit without appearing hokey or out-of-place.

Really, the only complaint I had was that Volstagg should be way fatter.


Frosh
Monday, May 2, was Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's birthday, but it was also notable because we continued through the trial of Tom Robinson. This continued Tuesday and Wednesday, culminating in a quiz covering chapters 17-21 of To Kill a Mockingbird on Thursday. During the reading, you kept track of the facts presented by the four witnesses of the trial (Heck Tate, Bob Ewell, Mayella Ewell and Tom Robinson) based on what Mr. Gilmer or Atticus asked them.

Thursday, you had a work day.

We read through chapter 25 on Friday and discussed the symbolism of both the roly-poly and mockingbirds. That symbolism will be important and can serve as the basis for a really great thesis statement.

Monday, you turned in your character chart and themes worksheets for chapters 12-21. We read through chapter 27, which set up Bob Ewell's half-hearted rampage through Maycomb County. The guy gets fired from the WPA (Works Progress Administration, a jobs program enacted during FDR's New Deal) for laziness and then he's too much of a coward to follow through on any of his threats. Not that following through on them would have made him a better person or a better character in the book, mind you, but it's still the principle of the thing.

On Tuesday, you received the guidelines for the Score TKAM assignment and determined your groups. Your group will receive one jewel case from me, but anything beyond that is your responsibility should that one become lost or damaged.

Yesterday and today we finished To Kill a Mockingbird in class. The final two chapters are easy to read and short, but I'm selfish in that I love reading them in class together because they're just so touching. Boo Radley is one of the most affecting and effective characters in literature, especially given how little time the reader gets to spend with the real character as opposed to the perception of him. After finishing the book today, the plan is to revise some of your thesis statements since that assignment is due Monday, May 16.

Seniors
Last Monday, May 2, we read the critical essay I affectionately call Cartoons & Cuckoos. This is an excellent example of analysis that takes one aspect of a story and thoroughly picks it apart to study its effectiveness. Plus, it's fun. I think we may lose sight of the fact that, ideally, reading is fun and discussing and writing about it shouldn't be a chore but should be an enjoyable thing to do. Your results may vary, of course, but there's no harm in enjoying the literature you read and possibly making connections between it and, say, the cartoons you enjoy, which is what Natsu did in his essay.

On Tuesday, May 3, you received the guidelines for what amounts to your semester final in the Cuckoo Final Project that is due Tuesday, May 17. The presentations begin that day, too, and I'm hoping that everyone gets really creative with how they decide to relay their work.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent working on the project in class. Wednesday, you signed up for presentation times, and Thursday you received the questions I collected yesterday for bonus.

Friday was devoted to taking the quiz dealing with chapters 15-25.

Monday and Tuesday of this week (along with this week's Thursday and Friday) were also work days for the project. Hopefully, everyone is taking full advantage of the class time they are receiving.

Yesterday was all about discussion of chapters 15 through 27, a large chunk of the book. Days like this are why I dig my job. The highlight of fifth period involved the class making analogies between baseball and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for the benefit of one particular student. Unfortunately, said student hasn't been reading, but everyone else seemed to enjoy debating whether or not Nurse Ratched is the pitcher or the umpire in this scenario. Sixth period's discussion lead to the idea that normal doesn't exist. There's a societal perception of normal, but no one ever really fits into it given their own personal life story and history. Recognizing this as a theme for Kesey's book as well as universal truth for life is what makes teaching English enjoyable for me. I hope you get something out of it as well.