Category: Movies

Matt's End of Summer Favorites Part 2: Movies

8/22/2015

Hello dear readers, and welcome once again to my month-long series of mini-lists about some of my favorite things about summer. Already I've already discussed some of my favorite tabletop games that I enjoy on a hot summer day in, but today I'm going to be covering one of my favorite topics in the world: movies.

And in this day and age, what says summer movies more than superhero movies? So yes, today's list, dear readers, is all about...

MATT'S 10 FAVORITE
SUPERHERO MOVIES

Now I hear you asking, "Hey, Matt, 10 movies isn't a mini-list, that's just a list, what gives?" Well, imaginary reader, I'm glad you asked. I'm doing 10 entries on this list because in this day and age, there are two types of superhero movies: Marvel Cinematic Universe films, and everyone else. Unfortunately for the "everyone else" set, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is kind of dominating these days, with their reliable, if usually cookie-cutter, blend of action and wit. So, for the sake of fairness, I've broken this up into two mini lists of five entries each, five from the MCU, and five from everyone else. So first off, let's hit Marvel:

MCU FILMS

5. Thor

Are there better films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Undoubtedly, but the charm of Chris Hemsworth as the God of Thunder in need of some humbling and the layered portrayal of Loki from Tom Hiddleston will always make this an underrated favorite of mine. Also, gotta love the out of nowhere choice of Kenneth Branagh to direct.

4. Iron Man 2

It's possible my wife and I are the only two people who actually like this movie, and I'm fine with that. Taking a darker look at what being a superhero will do to you without losing the Marvel charm, this one may not be one of the most fun Marvel's done, but it's always been a favorite.

3. Guardians of the Galaxy

And from the last film's darkness we go to probably the out and out silliest of the Marvel films. There are so many reasons this one shouldn't have worked, but again, a solid ensemble, a crazy script for them to work off of, and charm to spare (plus a killer soundtrack), make this one of the greats. Keep the fast forward button handy for the villain, though. You can completely skip over his plotline and not miss much.

2. Ant-Man

A strong contender for my # 1, but it's still new so I can't go that far just yet, this is some of the most fun I have ever had at a movie theatre. It's enjoyable from start to finish, witty, and not bogged down too heavily by all the mythologizing that Marvel's famous for. Extra points for making ants (my personal archnemesis at home) cute, and for being a lot better than it should have been given it's troubled production. And hilarious. It's very much that too.

I want there to be a sequel to this so we can see Evangeline Lilly as Wasp, because her character is awesome.

1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

See, Marvel tends to work best when they're doing genres that aren't superhero movies (i.e. Guardians as space opera, Ant-Man as a heist film), and they swung for the fences by making the second Captain America film a 70's conspiracy film, complete with Robert Redford, and scored perhaps their best film. Dealing with matters of trust and government oversight, as well as the personal issues that would arise for a man out of time by more than 70 years, it's one of Marvel's darkest while still maintaining that fun that separates these movies from DC.

Extra points to them pulling off Falcon as one of the coolest new heroes on screen.

THE "EVERYONE ELSE" SUPERHERO FILMS

5. Unbreakable

Ah, back in the day when the name M. Night Shyamalan was something to get excited over. This understated, weird, slow little take on the superhero movie is perhaps too meditative, and would have better made a 15 minute origin story for a much more impressive movie, but it's got some interesting deconstructive points even with its flaws I've always liked.

4. Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker

The DC Animated Universe is the gold standard in non-print superhero fiction. With deep, adult storylines, solid writing and amazing voice casts, it comes about as close as anything to being a truly definitive superhero adaptation. The strange coda of all these connected series' is a short-lived series called Batman Beyond, about an aged Batman training his newest protégé in the future. The series never really had an ending, but the direct-to-DVD followup, Return of the Joker, does it pretty well. The Batmen go up against Gotham's most dangerous criminal, back from the dead, in one of the darkest and most violent cartoons aimed at kids I've ever seen.

Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill have never been better as Batman and Joker.

3. Kick-Ass

It's nihilistic and cartoonishly violent, and not always in a good way, however this story of a teenaged kid in a real world trying to be a superhero is still alternately heartwarming and poignant, in its own weird way. Then there's Hit-Girl, one of the coolest characters ever put to screen.

2. The Dark Knight

I'll never call Christian Bale and Heath Ledger the definitive Batman and Joker (see Return of the Joker, above, for the true title-holders), but they do a damn good job, and this is an amazing movie. Walking out of the theatre the first time, I just remember thinking to myself, "Yeah, that was basically The Godfather of superhero movies". Ledger earned his Oscar, in a scary, scary performance.

1. The Incredibles

But while The Dark Knight is great, The Incredibles are the true champions in the superhero movie front. Pixars loving homage to the silver age of comics (plus a really sly remake of Watchmen aimed at kids) is a strong contender for the greatest superhero movie ever made. It's bright and colorful, while still morally complex, finding the balance of tones that most modern superhero films have completely forgotten even exists. It has some of the greatest animated performances by a perfectly eclectic cast (Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Jason Lee, Samuel L. Jackson), and yet the show is almost stolen by a 3-foot-tall designer of superhero costumes. Edna Mode, you are possibly the funniest character in a Pixar movie.

NO! CAPES!

God I love this movie.

Agree? Disagree? What are your favorite superhero movies? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)

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Matt's Top 5 Un-Romantic Characters # 4, Pat Healy (There's Something About Mary)

2/12/2015

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Hello dear readers, and welcome back to my month long celebration of fictional characters who just don't have a handle on that whole "romance" thing. Yes, this month my list is dedicated to characters who are inept, unlucky, and or just flat-out awful human beings when it comes to love, but who still entertain me anyway. Already on our list we've had a visit from a Disney "prince" (# 5), but in the interest of keeping things moving, let's move onto a scumbag from one of my all-time favorite comedies...

(And yes, I am aware I did this movie for my February list last year, please feel free to check out my entry for then with full back story of the first time I saw it here.)

There's Something About Mary may very well be the hardest I've ever laughed at a movie in a theatre. It's got raunch. It's got slapstick. It's got one helluva cast. Those are the easy things to pick out, the easy things a 13-year-old can appreciate. But the more I watch it as an adult, the more I can see that it has, at its core, a truly sweet center of a classic love story. It just happens to be wrapped in jokes about stalking, the mentally handicapped, animal cruelty...

And genital mutilation, to name a few.

But what earns it a place on this list is one of my all-time favorite movie sleazeballs:

Meet Pat Healy.

There's Something About Mary is the simple story of an amazing girl named Mary who's beloved by all the men around her. Perhaps too beloved, as most of them seem to be stalking her. From shoe-obsessed lunatics to men lying about being crippled to elderly dock workers with sniper rifles, she seems to attract a lot of crazies.

And Brett Favre, though at the time he was meant to be wholesome.

One of the few decent guys after her is Ted (Ben Stiller), a sweet guy who Mary asked to prom due to his sweetness and bravery (and braces.)

Dear god, the braces...

After the aforementioned genital mutilation scene ruins their date, Mary moves away and Ted thinks he's lost her forever. Still, unable to stop thinking about her, he takes the advice of a friend (who SPOILER ALERT is also incidentally stalking Mary) and hires private investigator Pat Healy (Matt Dillon).

Showing off his new dental work here.

While clearly sleazy, Pat is a professional at first and thoroughly investigates Mary for Ted. Unfortunately for all involved, Pat soon sees how awesome Mary is and realizes he wants to be with her too. Considering all the information he's already collected on her about what she likes, he molds himself into her ideal man. A jet-setting, world-traveling architect who loves all of god's creatures and enjoys nothing more than working with the mentally disabled, just like Mary.

The only problem is, he is absolutely none of these things. Even worse, he's a really lousy liar. He constantly contradicts himself, doesn't have any backup plan for when his lies are inevitably discovered, and jumps to some strange places when it comes to solving problems.

Like drugging a dog into liking him only to have to resuscitate it with an electrical wire.

Or cheating at checkers against a mentally handicapped person.

For money.

And that is why they call me Kin Tan Tee!

He is just so utterly awful and smarmy and destructive toward anything that he touches that he can't help but be hilariously awful. Topped off with Matt Dillon's pitch perfect performance mixing smarminess and cheap desperation, and Pat Healy couldn't not be on this list.

Even if he still can't make change for all those Nepalese coins.

So dear readers, who else loves There's Something About Mary? Who are some of your favorite unromantic characters? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)

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Matt's Top 5 Fictional Alien Moments # 1, The Thing

9/1/2014

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Hello dear readers, and welcome back to my (almost) monthlong countdown of favorite alien moments in pop culture. Fiona and I have dedicated our blogs this month to this topic in honor of the upcoming release of our book, The Prospero Chronicles: Splinters, available where books are sold on September 23, 2014.

For one last time on this list, glory in the cover, and it's hyperlink to Amazon!

Already this month I have dedicated an entry to Orson Welles' classic rendition of War of the Worlds (# 5), The Iron Giant, a.k.a. the saddest movie about an alien befriending a young boy not directed by Stephen Spielberg (# 4), the original Star Wars (# 3), and to a favorite episode of The Twilight Zone (# 2), but today I'm going to talk about my favorite scene from my favorite horror movie of all time:

Hey, this looks kinda familiar...

We had a lot of pop culture influences shape and help us design The Prospero Chronicles, but easily the most important was John Carpenter's 1982 adaptation of The Thing. The shapeshifting, body-stealing aliens, the constant paranoia where you couldn't know who for sure was human and who was going to violently transform and take you over. Obviously we did our own spins on the idea and took it in our own directions, but The Thing was always a constant presence (all the more impressive since it's not exactly Fi's favorite movie.)

Not even the magnificent power of Kurt Russell's hat-beard combo could win that battle.

I could go on for a pretty long while about how and why I love this movie, but since I've already done this (and it would make for a pretty damn long article), I'm going to direct you to my entry from my Halloween countdown from last year where I counted down my 31 favorite horror movies here.

And so, instead, I will dedicate this incredibly short entry (by my standards) to my favorite scene.

Not this one, sadly, though it is an awesome scene anyway.

The scientists and roughnecks working US Outpost 31 in Antarctica have already discovered the remnants of a violent, shapeshifting alien lifeform that can take over any organism, copy them, and when threatened transform using any number of parts its absorbed from any number of previous organisms in the galaxy.

Including this lovely... thing.

Incredibly smart and capable of copying humans and their memories perfectly, it has started turning the station staff against each other, singling out people who could be a threat to it (namely, Kurt Russell, because he's the goddamn Kurt Russell). After starting a fight between the men, one falls down, unconscious, apparently having a heart attack. When the station's doctor tries to revive him, things don't go exactly as planned.

I could more or less describe this scene frame by frame, but why do that when we've got the power of Youtube? (WARNING: For those who haven't seen this movie or have weak stomachs, this scene's kinda grisly, has some pretty awesome/a little cheesy 80's effects, and one of the most appropriate uses of an F-word in movie history.)

Seriously, try telling me that "You gotta be fuckin' kidding!" isn't the most appropriate thing to say at that moment.

So dear readers, any other fans of The Thing out there? Have any favorite alien moments in fiction? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)

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Matt's Top 5 Fictional Alien Moments # 3, Star Wars

8/17/2014

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Hello dear readers, and welcome back to my monthlong countdown of favorite alien moments in pop culture. Fiona and I have dedicated our blogs this month to this topic in honor of the upcoming release of our book, The Prospero Chronicles: Splinters, available where books are sold on September 23, 2014.

There's something hiding in this picture. Hint: It's a hyperlink to Amazon.

Already this month I have dedicated an entry to Orson Welles' classic rendition of War of the Worlds (# 5) and to The Iron Giant, a.k.a. the saddest movie about an alien befriending a young boy not directed by Stephen Spielberg (# 4), but today I'm going to talk about one of the all time classics.

A poster so awesome, you can ignore the fact that Luke and Leia don't look a thing like Luke and Leia.

I don't have to go into a lot of detail about this one, do I? Star Wars kind of speaks for itself, and enough words have been expended on it's merits and flaws and creator on the internet that I don't really have to add too terribly much to it. What I will say, is that it's the first movie I can remember watching. I was maybe three years old, right after dad and I had moved to California. He picked up a copy of it from the video store (I think they were just coming out on VHS at the time, but don't quote me), popped it in, and I was hooked.

I'd never seen anything so amazing, so awe-inspiring, that my three-year-old mind was blown.

Mostly by realizing I'd never be as cool as Han Solo.

Nearly three decades later and I still count it among my favorite film series. I spent most of middle school as a full-blown Star Wars nerd, watching the films obsessively and memorizing every little random detail about background characters, droids and vehicles that I could look up on this new-fangled internet thing. I, like so many others, eagerly awaited the prequels, but unlike so many others I actually really enjoyed them.

Though even I know better than to try and defend Jar Jar's existence. I really can't.

I imagine I've always been an odd duck Star Wars fan in that way. I like the prequels, while being able to admit their problems (even Episode 1 has its points, and acting aside, Episode 3 is amazing). I've never gotten the appeal of The Empire Strikes Back. And perhaps most blasphemous of all... I even love the Special Editions.

We'll get back to you later, Greedo.

But the one thing I think a lot of Star Wars fans can agree with me on, is my personal favorite scene in the original trilogy:

Mos Eisley Spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy...

In every fantasy series you're going to get one scene where the hero is introduced to the big, fantastical world that he will soon be a part of, and Mos Eisley set the gold standard. While previous scenes in the movies had introduced us mostly to humans and a few uniform races, in Mos Eisley we get a great alien mixing pot of some dangerous, bizarre and awesomely whimsical aliens, like...

Batboy with see-through eye action!

The greatest band in the universe!

The Wolfman! (who has the magical power to change into a giant lizard)

Satan himself!

And my two personal favorites, Momaw Nadon (a.k.a. that hammerhead alien)

And this mysterious pair of alien knees that just randomly walks past, now framing the most stoned looking droid on Tatooine.

I could go on about this scene at length (especially the hours I spent back in the day learning the names of every character in the cantina, including each individual member of the band), but I think I'm just going to let this article end with the scene speaking for itself. For all the cantina goodness, untouched by Special Edition hands, cue up the clip to 4:30 and enjoy! Try not to get the song stuck in your head.

So dear readers, do I really have to ask if there are any other Star Wars fans out there? Have any favorite alien moments in fiction? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)

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Matt's Top 5 Fictional Alien Moments # 4, The Iron Giant

8/10/2014

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Why look, this picture happens to hyperlink to Amazon!

Already this month I have dedicated an entry to Orson Welles' classic rendition of War of the Worlds (# 5), but today I'm going to talk about a decidedly more family-friendly story of alien contact, about a young boy who befriends a lost alien. I am, of course, talking about...

I'd never seen this poster before Google searching it today, and already it is one of my favorites.

Bet by that description you were thinking I was talking about E.T., weren't you? Well, assuming of course you just stumbled across my blog and didn't happen to read the title of this particular list entry. But still, if you were thinking E.T. would show up on this list, I'm sorry to disappoint you.

Cool bikes, though.

Nothing against the movie, of course, it's as expertly-crafted as any mid-80's Spielberg movie, but I never really made the emotional connection with it that pretty much every other kid of my generation did. In fact, I've found more successful emotionally manipulative movies as an adult than I ever did as a kid, which either means I had a thicker skin back then (unlikely) or probably didn't pay as much attention to things like that then as I do now (likely). Which might be why I have a lot more fun now watching kids movies than I ever did as a kid, as its allowed me to discover some true gems.

Like this guy.

Be warned, I'm going to give a fair SPOILER ALERT for the rest of this entry.

The Iron Giant is a wonderfully odd little film. A callback to B-movies of the 1950's (even setting itself during the period), it's a smart film about a young boy who befriends a giant, amnesiac robot who may actually be the vanguard of a coming alien invasion. It's a great movie about friendship and hate and paranoia with a fairly adult script. Naturally it bombed at the box office, because the studio didn't know how to market it, and because it was a smart animated movie not released by Pixar so people didn't really care.

Seriously, it's a movie with a pipe-smoking commie hunter for a villain, this isn't exactly an easy sell to 90's kids.

If you haven't seen it, you really should because it really is one of the best family films of the last 20 years. You should also probably ignore the second half of this article, because that's when that SPOILER ALERT I put in earlier really comes into play.

If you have seen it, well, you probably know what moment from the film I'm going to highlight here.

The majority of the film is made up of the friendship between the titular Iron Giant and the unfortunately named earth boy, Hogarth. He discovers the giant in the woods one night, and realizing that he's basically a big, scared kid (that sounds a lot like Vin Diesel), decides to protect him and be his friend. They share adventures, hide from government agents, and in general have the sorts of fun kids had before the internet ruined everything.

Ultimately it is revealed that the Giant was actually a very powerful, and very dangerous weapon sent from another world to enslave the Earth, but a bump on the head rendered him amnesiac and adorable.and only occasionally a killing machine.

The kind less kid-friendly movies are made of.

Hogarth successfully teaches the Giant that it doesn't have to be a gun, that it can be just like Superman, and everything is OK, for a while at least.

Then the government guys come back and, well, one thing leads to another and this happens.

Hogarth is knocked unconscious in the fray. Thinking him dead, the Giant goes on a rampage, destroying several army units, and causing the paranoid government agent who'd been following him throughout the movie to order a nuclear strike. Realizing that Hogarth is still alive, the Giant deactivates his weapons. Also realizing that the nuclear weapon will kill Hogarth, the military, and the entire surrounding small town, he bids goodbye to his friend, takes off and sacrifices himself to destroy the missile.

If this weren't tear-jerky enough, he has one last word on his giant steel lips before dying.

"Superman."

I know I cry pretty easy, but this moment gets right into the heart-ripping-out territory, and I will always love it for that (even discounting the fact that he is clearly alive, if in pieces at the end, and possibly remembering his original mission, leaving a very depressing/gritty sequel where he enslaves Earth.)

So dear readers, has anyone else teared up at the end of The Iron Giant? Have any favorite alien moments in fiction? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)

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Matt's Top Five Fictional Pet Peeves # 1, Poor World Building

7/26/2014

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Hello dear readers, and welcome back to my month long countdown of some of my greatest fictional pet peeves. Or, at least, what should have been a month-long countdown, but craziness of all sorts (in both life and writing) have delayed this final entry a few weeks more than it should have been. Sorry for whatever inconvenience this may have caused.

Back to the list front, already we have taken a good look at why I'm bugged by "perfect" characters (# 5), characters whose life revolves entirely around coincidence (# 4), characters who refuse to evolve with their series (# 3), and plot hoops (# 2), but today I'm going to focus on my biggest pet peeve of all: poor world building.

A little history, first, namely that my background is in history. I majored in history in college and very nearly pulled the trigger and studied to teach it. Although I didn't go that far, I am glad for the education, because it's given me a lot of perspective I wouldn't otherwise have (including a constant need to play devil's advocate, which can get pretty annoying sometimes) and a need to see where everything logically fits. Every story element that is introduced has to have some history and internal logic to it that will fit with other story elements, otherwise, well, it takes me out of the story and the last thing I'm generally looking for when I'm in a story is to be forcibly taken out of it.

Much like being taken out of The Matrix against your will.

There's a lot of different ways that poor world-building can go horribly awry and not enough article to put them all in, so I've narrowed it down to some of the ones that bug me most in what I'm calling my Seven Deadly Sins of Poor World Building. So, in no particular order...

1) Oversimplification

Welcome to Tatooine, home of deserts, scum, villainy, and not much else.

Particularly common in genre fiction, whenever characters are introduced to a new planet or race, it has to have some universal traits that can be used to easily describe it in a moment. This is the warrior race. This is the scientist race. This is the desert planet. This is the forest planet. This is the planet that inexplicably rains toads every 23 minutes (okay, maybe I'm the only one who's ever really wanted to see that one. In small doses, this is actually pretty acceptable, as you want your audience to be able to remember this somewhere down the line. However, this is a trend that tends to fall apart most when significant time is spent developing a story element.

Sorry, Star Trek.

While I love Star Trek and the way it has handled its many races over the years, it gets particularly egregious how oversimplified a lot of their races are the more they're focused on. My beloved Klingons, for example. While years of development have shown them to be a deeper, more varied race than on initial appearance, their culture is still pretty monochrome. They have one religion, one language (despite occasional mentions of other dialects), and one form of martial art, for an entire planet that identifies itself as a warrior race, none of which have really changed in centuries. The same problems can be found across every other major race that the series spends time on, and instead of making the universe seem larger, it manages to make it feel substantially smaller.

2) Underthinking "Cool" Elements

So you've got a world, why not fill it with a lot of cool elements that'll make it even more colorful and vivid? Fine. So long as you can properly rationalize them and make them fit into your world and make it seem reasonable that they can exist, this is fine. Introducing an element that sounds awesome but makes people take pause to try to sort it out, well, that teleports you out of the fantastical world you've put them in. For example, let's go back to Tatooine.

We're introduced to the Sarlaac as Jabba the Hutt's preferred method of execution. A giant, stationary terror beast in the middle of the desert that waits for its prey to fall into its mouth? Fine. Cool even. Then we're told that it digests its prey for a thousand years as if this is some great threat. This is where things get fuzzy. How can an animal live this way? How can they know this? No, it doesn't make any sense, and in the time it's taken me to think this through, three redshirts and an unnecessarily popular bounty hunter have fallen in, and I have to rewind to actually enjoy myself.

Sorry, Boba Fett, you're just not that important.

3) Problems of Scale

In line with the last problem, a lot of artists have trouble understanding scale in their fictional universes. You get this all the time in space opera stories, where distances between planets and stars are casually handwaved away with technobabble, but they're not the ones that I tend to have a problem with. No, it's often the smaller scale stories that tend to have this problem.

An exact population of Hogwarts is never stated in the books, but Rowling has stated in the past that she expects the school has about a thousand students. Stretched across seven years, this figure not only makes Harry's class look ridiculously small (being one of forty students sorted in his year), but it makes the school look more negligent than usual, given its limited and oft poorly trained faculty of perhaps 20 people. Magic can only account for so much here.

Things get even stranger in The Hunger Games universe. Much time is spent in District 12, which seems roughly the size of a small town (given the fact that the entire population can show up in a square on reaping day). While this is fine on its own, it gets a little confusing when we start seeing maps that indicate the districts (including 12) to be the size of at least one current US state and seeing the massive populations of other districts (including the Capitol) when compared with 12. Given the high mortality rate from starvation, mining accidents and the evils of Panem, its amazing that District 12 has anyone left alive for the games. Either the Capitol doesn't care much for coal, or it's going to need to shuffle in some new breeding stock ASAP.

You know, assuming the story didn't end as it did.

4) A World Without Consequences

This one is most common in superhero fiction, but can expand to pretty much any story that's liable to be made into a summer blockbuster. In the never-ending battle for cooler setpieces, we're seeing more and more senseless destruction in fiction, with characters smashing through private property instead of avoiding it, even when they should know better. You never see any aftermath, no people's lives ruined due to losing their homes and businesses, no periods of mourning, no years of rebuilding and governmental investigations. You just see characters looking on in a brief moment of awe before moving on to the next setpiece. The next day, people barely look like anything has happened, even if the scale of destruction would be best called a national tragedy.

This is further baffling in fiction where this sort of thing happens all the time in one particular place, with people refusing to move out even though the likelihood of being crushed to death is somewhere around 100%.

You'd really think Tokyo would've given up after at most it's 5th kaiju attack.

5) Ignoring Superman

I call this one Ignoring Superman, but really, it comes down to ignoring any fix-it-all device that may exist in fiction. So often, in the course of creating awesome universes, you create plot devices to save the day. The problem with this is that rarely are these plot devices actually destroyed, meaning that once it's been used, you often find yourself asking, "Why didn't they use X to save the day this time?"

There are so many problems we could fix with this Time Turner. Now let's never use this again.

But fine, set some restrictions on this plot device, and you may be OK. Where this really gets bad is when there is literally no good reason to ignore the existence of a fix-it-all and artists have to try, clumsily, to explain why it is being ignored.

Yup, back to these guys again.

One of the more memorable Batman comic book storylines was No Man's Land, where a devastating earthquake had cut Gotham City off from the rest of the world, and the government decides to make it no longer part of the United States due to some weird combination of religious mania and no longer wanting to foot the bill for this hell on earth city. Batman is doing his best to keep the peace and restore the city. Fed up with seeing part of his beloved country being ignored, Superman breaks into the city at one point to set it to rights, and is kicked out! Not because he's a terrifying god-like being or because he did something terrible, but because Batman doesn't think that Superman 'gets' the problems with Gotham, and can't fix them, and Superman agrees! Yes, this is a unique situation, and yes, Batman does get Gotham more, but for f***'s sake, can't you at least borrow Superman for a bit to, you know, maybe help deal with the massive supervillain problem and bring in much needed medical supplies?

6) Ignoring the Outside World

A lot of fictional worlds are fairly insular places where we only really get a perspective from a particular location, usually a small town or country, and this is fine. Oftentimes it's probably for the best to create a well-developed small world instead of hastily putting together a massive one. That said, there are some stories where a greater perspective would add a lot. I'm probably not the only one curious to see what the rest of the world (assuming, there still is a rest of the world) in The Hunger Games and The Purge universes thinks of the United States' new perspective on murder. These, however, are just cases that I think would be interesting. There are some where it feels like a vitally missing plot point.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort and his Death Eaters violently take over the Wizarding World in the British Isles, creating a pretty awful place to be overall. While this is thrilling and creates a stark, scary final chapter, it does fail to mention one thing, namely that the U.K. doesn't contain all the wizards in the world. Throughout the series we see a massive subculture of wizards existing throughout the world, and I have a really hard time believing that none of them were interested in stopping an evil, genocidal dictator's rise to power in Europe (since the last time that happened, things didn't go very well). Voldemort has England for close to a year, and not once do we hear of international intervention. While this makes for a better story of 'La Resistance', it does stretch credibility and rob us of seeing the awesomeness of a Wizarding World War.

7) Introducing World Elements, Then Completely Ignoring Them

Seriously, Lost, f*** you. I love you, but f*** you.

In Conclusion:

I probably take world-building too seriously. (Wait, who am I kidding, probably?)

Beyond that, though, it's like I've been saying for the better portion of this list. Artists: Just take a little more time, put a little more thought into the story and its universe, and you can make something truly special.

So dear readers, are there any pet peeves in fiction that have always bugged you? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)

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Matt's Five Favorite Underrated Villains # 2, Dr. Facilier (The Princess & The Frog)

3/27/2014

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to my month-long tribute to my favorite underrated villains of fiction. Already I have covered one of my favorite madmen of Batman's rogue's gallery (# 5), a genocidal madman hiding in a comedy aimed at families (# 4) and one of the most devastating evil empires in Star Trek history (# 3), but today I'm looking to draw attention to easily my favorite Disney villain of all time:

I have no idea why The Princess & The Frog isn't more popular. Maybe it had some trouble given its difficult pre-production and Disney's less than stellar track record with race relations. Maybe a more modern Disney fairy tale just didn't sit right for fans of mystical, far away lands. Or maybe it's because it's one of the last 2D animated Disney films in an increasingly 3D world.

I may only be in 2D, but I can still kick your ass.

It's a fun movie, and one of their best-written. It was the first of Disney's most recent trend of movies that are fair in the development of both the princess and the prince as well-rounded characters who both evolve throughout the course of the film (a trend I wholeheartedly support). The development of the relationship between Tiana and Prince Naveen is well paced and believable, and the supporting cast of characters is solid, fun, and relatable. And it has a half-decent soundtrack too.

And some good old-fashioned Disney slapstick insensitivity to the mentally and physically disabled.

But my favorite part of the film has always been in its villain, Dr. Facilier.

There have been a lot of great Disney villains, so I'm not going to blame anyone for how Dr. Facilier got lost in the shuffle. There are plenty of greats to choose from, I just find it a shame that he's given more attention. So, how has he ranked as my favorite Disney villain? Let me count the ways.

1. Facilier is one of the scariest Disney villains. While many Disney villains can easily be called evil, most of them are blustery and a little bumbling. Dr. Facilier is cold and calculating, very rarely letting his anger get the better of him as is most villains' folly. Top it off with his frequent communing with all sorts of dark magic, and he's one of the few Disney villains who I think could sneak into your nightmares.

2. He's got a great sidekick. While most heroes, and for that matter, villains in Disney movies are given sidekick characters that are basically there to sell stuffed animals. Dr. Facilier isn't having any of that. His sidekick is his own sentient shadow, which silently acts as a character of its own, fulfilling Facilier's will in some very cool, and very creepy, manners.

3. He's willing to go that extra villainous mile. (SPOILER ALERT) People die all the time in Disney movies. Those people are called parents and villains. There are some characters who are, by their very nature, immortal, namely the heroes and the sidekicks, because it would sure as hell be depressing if one of those wacky characters got killed, right? Well, Dr. Facilier apparently never got that memo. When attacked by Tiana's friend Ray, a Cajun-accented firefly, Dr. Facilier does what comes naturally to a truly evil villain. He swats Ray out of the air and steps on him, killing him. You can hear the crunch. It's awful. Sure, Ray gets a poignant death monologue a few moments later, but the sheer unexpectedness of this act makes it one of the most evil things pulled off by a Disney Villain.

Hardcore.

4. He's voiced by Keith David. This may be my own bias talking, since Keith David has always been one of my favorite character actors (from The Thing, There's Something About Mary and They Live, among many, many other places), but screw it, this is my list and I want to get it out here. Keith David's sweet, but powerfully deep voice (which he also put to expert use in Disney's short-lived cartoon Gargoyles) gives Facilier a smooth, seductive nature that makes him every bit as fun to listen to as he is to watch. And he has a very impressive singing voice, which brings me to my last point:

5. Seriously, just watch this video. If this doesn't sell you on his awesomeness, I don't know what will.

If you've never given The Princess & The Frog a chance, I'd say give it some consideration. It's a really fun one.

So, dear readers, are there any other fans of Dr. Facilier and The Princess & The Frog? Are there any other underrated villains you'd love to see get more respect? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)

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Matt's Five Favorite Underrated Villains # 4, Sarris (Galaxy Quest)

3/14/2014

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If you haven't seen Galaxy Quest, see it. It's funny. It's smart. It's got the Matt Carter Seal of Approval.

He approves.

Want more than that? Fine. Galaxy Quest is a film about a bunch of washed up actors who used to be on a Star Trek like television show back in the 80's, and are now just a bunch of washed up actors on the convention circuit. One day, a group of people they think to be nerds actually reveal themselves to be aliens who not only believe the Galaxy Quest characters to be real people, but have modeled their entire culture around the show in the hopes that it would help them defeat the evil alien warlord who has devastated their planet. Comical misunderstandings and hilarity ensue, as is natural to a premise like this.

Assuming of course you consider transporter accidents and aliens turned inside out hilarity. Which it actually is, picture aside.

Sure, it's basically Three Amigos in space, and sure, it's basically just a parody of Star Trek and the culture that surrounds Trek fandom, but deeper down it is so much more than these. It's one of the funniest and best-written ensemble comedies of the past 20 years, with an amazing cast (Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shaloub, Sam Rockwell) and a surprisingly dark, adult tone for what was otherwise marketed as a family film (though this probably has more to do with the fact that it was actually filmed as a PG-13, less family-oriented film and was edited down after the fact).

Family film!

My favorite element that inexplicably survived the film's sanitization would have to be the film's villain, Sarris, who in spite of the film's family leaning tone is both evil and pretty damn scary.

As evidenced by his way of dealing with underlings who displease him.

From the start, we get a pretty good idea that Sarris is a bad guy. He's slimy. He's covered in armor. He's surrounded by minions. Those who wish to oppose him live in absolute fear of the man. But lots of villains can inspire this kind of response. No, to get to the truly evil depths of Sarris, you have to look at the stuff they try to sneak on by. Like when the Thermians are first describing their plight, and Jason Nesmith (Allen) is hungover and passing out on them, we hear mentions of terrible experiments being done on the Thermian people, not to mention the atrocities performed on their women.

For the record, these are Thermians.

Further clues are given when we see what remains of the Thermian homeworld. This joke isn't really pointed out, it's more in passing than anything, but it's still something alarming to note.

The ship in the foreground kind of destroys the shot, but you get the idea.

Throughout the film, Sarris demonstrates himself to be a violent sadist, torturing multiple characters physically (electrocuting them, threatening to throw them out an airlock) and mentally (forcing Jason to admit to the Thermian captain that Galaxy Quest is fictional, causing him to lose all hope). And, (SPOILER ALERT), if it weren't for some convenient time travel, he would have gotten away with murdering all the main characters and crashing a spaceship into Earth at high warp. which if Star Trek has taught us anything would be very dangerous.

He hasn't been told he's in a family movie, and he relishes every minute of his pure evil. The true depth of his awfulness is best summed up in this brief exchange from early in the movie, where we are treated to a video of his negotiation with the previous Thermian captain.

CAPTAIN: I have told you all I know. If you have any mercy in you, please let me die!
SARRIS: I will let you die when the sounds you make cease to amuse me.

Dear lord, how the hell was this ever marketed as a family film?

So, dear readers, are there any other fans of Galaxy Quest? Are there any other underrated villains you'd love to see get more respect? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)

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Matt's Five Favorite Underrated Villains # 5, The Mad Hatter (Batman)

3/5/2014

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You know, normally I like to theme my monthly pop-culture lists to something related to the month, but every once in a while I'm completely lost for ideas and have to just make something up. This is going to be one of those months. Not that there aren't some wonderful things related to March, but none of them really grabbed me this time around, so I looked to my current writing project for inspiration. Currently, I am writing a novel I'm calling After School Special, which is about the trials and tribulations of a group of aspiring supervillains in a world that has pretty much forgotten what they are. This has gotten me thinking about a lot of my favorite villains, a lot of whom don't get the praise I think they deserve, and I wanted to dedicate this month to them. (And yes, I'm aware that within their own fandoms a lot of these villains are quite popular or notable, so much of this series is going to involve me shouting to the world villains who I think everyone should be aware of for how scary, intelligent, odd or just flat out awesome they are.)

And so, let us begin this list, with one of the dark sheep of Batman's Rogue's Gallery:

No, I'm not Johnny Depp, but thanks for asking!

There's no questioning that Batman has the most iconic rogue's gallery in comics history (sorry Supes, Spidey!). His list of villains ranks among some of the greatest villains put to page, and some of the most identifiable by the most casual of fans. The Joker. Catwoman. The Penguin. Two Face. Poison Ivy. Mr. Freeze. The Riddler. Bane. The Scarecrow. Hell, maybe even Zsasz or R'as al Ghul if you're a big enough fan of Batman Begins. All of them are easy enough for people to call up because they've been villains of the movies, from the great...

...to the not so great...

Yes, I went after low-hanging fruit for this joke.

...to the, well, I really don't know what to call the Adam West period, so I'll let you make your own joke. In fact, this rogue's gallery is so expansive, that there are many great villains that the films haven't had the time to touch. Sure, they may have silly names like Clayface, Killer Croc, Man-Bat and Maxie Zeus, but they are colorful and dangerous characters who deserve more attention and note than they've been shown.

Okay, maybe not Maxie Zeus.

But why, of all of them have I chosen to highlight the tiny and silly-looking Mad Hatter? Well, for a couple reasons...

The fact that he can look like this certainly helps.

First, because depending on the interpretation, he's one of Batman's sadder and more relatable villains. In the exquisite Batman: The Animated Series, he was a pitiful, meek little scientist who just wanted to impress a girl (named Alice, naturally) who would otherwise have had nothing to do with him. Using some experimental mind control technology and dressing up like his favorite Lewis Carroll character, he makes many people in town act like he's a celebrity, which does, in its own twisted way, impress Alice. However, when she reconnects with her old boyfriend, Tetch loses his mind in a fit of jealousy and tries to brainwash her to love him. As usual in awkward social situations like this, the timely intervention of Batman telling Tetch that brainwashing Alice is the exact opposite of what he wanted gets through to him. Well, that, and Batman beating the ever-loving crap out of him. Defeated and weighed down by a giant, novelty Jabberwocky statue (it's Gotham, just go with me on this one), Tetch sorrowfully sings the Mock Turtle song to himself upon realizing how awful what he did really was.

Being voiced by Roddy McDowell didn't hurt either.

The second reason I've always thought the Hatter was underrated was, well, because under the right circumstances, he could easily be Batman's most dangerous villain. His mind control technology is damned powerful (he's taken over Batman on more than a few occasions), and if placed correctly there is nothing to say he couldn't take over any of the most powerful heroes in the DC Universe. Only his lack of ambition, and absolute madness brought on by subjecting himself to his own technology, has kept him from being among the most powerful villains in the DC Universe.

Madness often prevents the best of us from achieving our goals.

I know he's a bit too silly to ever do in a modern, ultra-serious Batman movie, and it's probably for the best we never got to see Joel Schumacher get his hands on him, but I will always hold a soft spot in my villain-loving heart for this sad little man in his giant, mind-controlling hat.

So, dear readers, are there any other fans of this villainous Mad Hatter? Are there any other underrated villains you'd love to see get more respect? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)

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Matt's Five Favorite "Guy Friendly" Fictional Romances # 1, The Fly (1986)

2/26/2014

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to my month-long tribute to my favorite fictional romances that appear in traditionally "guy" oriented fiction (not that guys should feel ashamed of liking such things, please see the # 5 entry of this list for more of that rant). Already we have covered one of the longest-running dysfunctional marriages in cartoon (and television) history (# 5), a modern sci-fi tragedy (# 4), a double-header featuring one of my favorite action movies and a favorite horror film (# 3), and a classic of grossout comedy (# 2), but to top off the list, I have chosen to feature a love story as only David Cronenberg could have filmed it:

Odds on if you remember The Fly, you remember it for it's groundbreaking and Oscar-winning makeup effects, which really are worth remembering and the Oscar they earned.

Seen here as Jeff Goldblum illustrates why I should have put a "THIS ARTICLE WILL BE GROSS" warning at the top.

However, with these effects being so mindboggling and grotesque, people often tend to forget that at it's core, The Fly is one great big Shakespearean tragedy of a love story. Also, please be aware in advance that this article contains SPOILERS for a very awesome movie that should be appreciated if you haven't seen it, and have the stomach for it.

Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis) is an ambitious reporter for a tech magazine at a conference for scientists who hope to change the world. Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) is a painfully awkward scientist who manages to charm her by looking half-decent and promising to show her something never seen before. Indeed he does do this, as he has more or less perfected a machine that can teleport matter. Remember that "more or less" part I just mentioned, it becomes kind of important soon.

I could show you the aftermath of an attempt to transport living matter, but I'd rather show you this cute bunny.

Seth promises her exclusive book rights if she doesn't share his secret with the world, and eager for the opportunity, she agrees. In the process of testing the machine with all of its ups and downs (mostly downs), the two begin to fall in love. It's sweet and fun, especially since Seth clearly has never been in this kind of relationship before, and Veronica is just coming off of a bad breakup, and the two look like they could bring each other the kind of happiness that normally only an 80's trying clothes on montage could bring. Of course, since this is a horror movie, a complication soon arises.

A complication with the improbable name of Stathis Borans (which sounds like he belongs in Game of Thrones) and easily one of the 80's most punchable beards.

Veronica's ex also happens to be her publisher, and he has become jealous of her and Seth. After he threatens to expose Seth to the world, Veronica goes to try and shut him down (which, she does). Unfortunately, Seth becomes jealous, and while she is out he gets drunk and decides to send himself through the teleporter, not knowing that he had an unwanted hitchhiker with him for the ride.

At first, Seth feels rejuvenated by his experience, more energetic and physically fit than he has in his entire life, and after reconciling with Veronica things are going great. Soon, however, these changes in Seth manifest as violent aggression and psychosis, forcing Veronica to tearfully run from him. When the changes begin to take their toll on his body (after a particularly icky scene involving fingernails and lots of white goo), Seth discovers that he was merged at a genetic level with a common housefly, and is rapidly transforming into a monster.

His first instinct is to keep Veronica at arm's length, but when the changes become too terrible, he calls her to him. At this point this transforms into something other than the monster movie you'd expect, as Seth's humanity is intact, the film becomes more of a film of a couple dealing with a terminal illness that gradually begins to erode at the sanity of the afflicted. By the end of the movie, despite his best efforts to stay in control of himself, Seth realizes that he will probably soon hurt her and tries to send her away one more time. However, by this point, the fly part of him has completely taken over and wants to engage in an experiment to combine the three of them using the teleporter.

Really, it's hard to trust the judgment of something that looks like this.

Stathis comes in to rescue Veronica, though is maimed by Seth in the process. However, in interrupting the experiment, Seth is fused with part of the machine itself, becoming a terrible, pitiful cross of man, machine and pain. His last gesture of humanity after having been turned into a complete monster is to beg Veronica to kill him with a shotgun, which she tearfully does.

God that ending is sad. Have another cute bunny.

Seeing the full, natural progression of a sweet new relationship slowly devolve into jealousy, horror and tragedy has always made this film, and this relationship a favorite of mine, even if it is one I'll always need a box of tissues handy for.

So, dear readers, are there any other The Fly fans out there? Am I the only one it made cry? Are there any other unconventional fictional couples you find romantic? Sound off in the comments below!

And as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)

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Matt's End of Summer Favorites Part 2: Movies

Matt's Top 5 Un-Romantic Characters # 4, Pat Healy (There's Something About Mary)

Matt's Top 5 Fictional Alien Moments # 1, The Thing

Matt's Top 5 Fictional Alien Moments # 3, Star Wars

Matt's Top 5 Fictional Alien Moments # 4, The Iron Giant

Matt's Top Five Fictional Pet Peeves # 1, Poor World Building

Matt's Five Favorite Underrated Villains # 2, Dr. Facilier (The Princess & The Frog)

Matt's Five Favorite Underrated Villains # 4, Sarris (Galaxy Quest)

Matt's Five Favorite Underrated Villains # 5, The Mad Hatter (Batman)

Matt's Five Favorite "Guy Friendly" Fictional Romances # 1, The Fly (1986)

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