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Ah, Kick-Ass. Don’t you just love when a comic book thing becomes the hot topic du jour? Well, I don’t, but that’s for another entry.

There are about a billion and one topics I can talk about with Kick-Ass. There’s Hit-Girl and how for some reason, holding a kid at gunpoint or knife point (as seen in numerous films, such as Red Dragon, Dark Knight, etc.) or killing him or her off (e.g. The Searchers, Punisher, Gladiator) to fuel a revenge plot are both completely acceptable plot points and really not even worthy of a sentence, whereas once the kid dares to fight back, society has crumbled. Maybe the paradox is related to the idea that kids are sacred. And if we kill something sacred, well then, we can get really upset at the destruction of the sacred object. After all, Christianity is based around the destruction of the most sacred person and how darn great that was and our culture, for better or for worse, is based very much on Christianity. But whereas Passion of the Christ was adored by many a right-wing nutjob, I am relatively certain that Revenge of the Christ would get the picket-treatment. So yeah, violence and kids is honky-dory as long as the kids are on the receiving end. Got that settled? Cool.

There’s also the use of the gay joke and whether or not the movie flopped. Okay, so aside from the main point of the entry, there are three topics I can write about. But my interest lies in the fact that, upon talking to people, there seems to be a general dissatisfaction or uneasiness around how cartoonish the movie gets towards the end.

Kick-Ass starts with a promise of an uber-realistic to the point of hilarious comic book movie. We get to see what would really happen if someone tried to be a superhero: his costume would look a bit dumb, he would be terrified of jumping from buildings and when he tried to fight crime, he would get the ass kicked out of him. Many fans took this approach as a parody of the mainstream superhero movie genre, or, if I may relabel it, the Marvel movie genre. Indeed, the music often turns into a trope on Danny Elfman’s Spider-Man score and even the first 20 minutes or so are a pretty straightforward parody of the first Spider-Man movie.

But that premise cannot sustain itself. To hold the mirror of reality up to the artificial world of spandex superheroes is an entertaining Saturday Night Live sketch or possible even short film, but such an action feature would wear out its welcome fast. How many times could we watch Kick-Ass get beaten up? How many times can he flinch at the edge of a building? A super-hero in the real world movie cannot work because there are no superheroes in the real world. The logic that makes this idea worthy of our attention and allows it to become a satire would be the very same logic that undoes its ability to progress through the necessary three-act plot and reach some narrative resolution. A real Kick-Ass would just be the recipient of knife-points and spend the interim of his hospital stays looking for lost cats.

Thankfully, for the film and the viewer, Kick-Ass is not a parody of the Marvel superhero movie. It’s a parody of the DC superhero film, specifically Watchmen and Nolan’s Batman films. Why these? Just because I didn’t like them? Nah, were that the case, I would have included the Fantastic Four movies and X3 in there. I say this because Kick-Ass is not a parody of the “mainstream” superhero film; it is a satire of the “realistic” superhero film.

The first twenty minutes may be giving us a fantasy-free variety of Spider-Man, but they are also delivering the promises of Nolan or Snyder with abundance. Nolan strove to give us a real urban hero: a Batmobile that “made sense” for city streets, a believable training background for the protagonist, and villains that reflect the problems of society today and use knives as weapons instead of freeze-rays and killer plants.

However, ultimately, as I pointed out two years ago when tearing Dark Knight a new one, Batman is not realistic. A billionaire secreting financing his own one-man war on crime after secretly training decades around the world is only a miniscule bit more believable than webslinging across Times Square. In fact, people should not fear the man in a giant rubber Batsuit, but mock him. And that reaction is the one of the first “villains” in Kick-Ass. Kick-Ass is a crazy person, a nerd, a loser, an idiot in a playsuit. He does the best one can do with the resources accessible to an actual superhero. And it’s funny.

Such a parody makes sense, after all. Why expose the stupidity of a real-life superhero to a series of films that have genetically altered arachnids, weather controlling mutants, and Jessica Alba trying to act? It mocks a genre for not having something it never pretended to possess. However, to go after a subgenre by giving all that it promised but failed to deliver is to have a more worthy target.

But the film extends its satire. It does not simply show what the “realistic” superhero film lacks; it then exaggerates the necessary trajectory of any “realistic” action film. As the film progresses, it descends from this almost hyper-realistic world into a Tarantino-esque Lala-Land. This progression is heralded in by the introduction of Hit-Girl and Big Daddy. These two, in a sense, are the quintessential “real” superhero. Their outfits are dark, they use lethal force, and, unlike Kick-Ass, they deliver a real plot, real conflict, and real results. Yet they are also the most detached from reality itself. Their very costumes and mannerisms evoke the cartoonish. Hit-Girl has purple hair like an anime character and enters to a perky soundtrack that could very well be performed by Puffy Ami Yumi. Big Daddy talks like Adam West’s Batman, everything from which Nolan strived to detach himself. He also paints the areas around his eyes like Joel Schumacher’s Batmen did. Yes, there may be believable reasons for the character’s choices (colorful wigs and weird speech patterns hide identities), but such reasons do not automatically nullify such evocations. Whatever the logic behind such choices is, Hit-Girl looks like a she could join the Sailor Senshi and Big Daddy could say “old chum” any second.

Furthermore, their larger-than-life traits extend beyond their appearances. They take on dozens of henchmen at a time and live. They can catch guns (and even reload them) midair like refugees from The Matrix. In fact, their arsenal itself seems to rival that of the white room in the first Matrix* film. They even own a jetpack because, you know, that’s so much more down-to-earth than just jumping out the window and flying. I know they were stealing money from the drug busts…but could that buy all of those weapons? And wouldn’t someone be able to trace them?

[*In fact, the parallels to The Matrix are quite fascinating. After all, The Matrix attempts to explain the unrealistic, aerial movements of kung-fu action heroes. But how does it do it? By placing everything within an even larger artificial reality, both literally by introducing the Matrix program and by forcing the audience to believe that sentient robots have taken over mankind. I suppose that is more plausible than thinking a man can jump between skyscrapers. I do not know if I was even being sarcastic in that last sentence.]



But these two are very much like Batman or The Minutem – excuse me, Watchmen: cartoon characters running around a real world, trying to pass. But they manage to appear only more cartoonish and their superhuman acts seem more egregiously, ridiculously powerful because they have purported themselves to be below superhuman. In movies such as Spider-Man and X-Men, storytellers introduce a series of rules and mostly adhere to them. We do not question that Magneto can take on a veritable army because he can manipulate metal. Wolverine can take a licking and keep on ticking thanks to a healing factor. Kick-Ass should not be able to endure such punishment. And, in the beginning of the movie, he isn’t. He actually does go to the hospital (a rare locale for a superhero unless he is visiting his aunt or a district attorney) and he seems pretty out of it by the end of his first “victory.” But yet, he goes on to fight another battle immediately after the torture scene. He admits that he hurts and by all means our hero should be returning to the hospital, or at least his bed room. But no, he still manages to take on Red Mist.

This hole is gaping, but upon looking through it, we can see similar instances in Nolan’s films. Batman should show up in the hospital after certain run ins. While amazing, Alfred can only do so much. And his background of service in the British SS seems a bit more ridiculous in a reality where Joker cannot even use laughing gas, so I doubt they would invoke that bit of character history. Or, to return to the prior point, his triumphs over legions of criminals should be directed with the same anime-esque glee that fills Hit-Girl’s assaults, for they should be just as much as blemish on the believability of Chicago-Gotham as Hit-Girl is on Manhattan. The aforementioned jet-pack, the bazooka that ends the movie with an exclamation point (a long line and a dot), and its ilk are all things meant for the funny pages, but so is the contraption Bruce used in his Hong-Kong adventure, his tank of a Batmobile, and even his Batarangs.

In short, the very act of promising reality in a comic book movie only makes it more cartoonish and unreal than a typical comic book movie. We may not believe people can shoot beams out of their eyes, but once we buy into that fact (one no one would ever question Cyclops when watching X-Men), we can believe that the ability to shoot beams out of one’s eyes makes one a one-man army. But we know there are limits to what the human body can do, even if aided by intense training and the best weapons that money can secretly buy. Kick-Ass more blatantly does what Rorschach, Ozymandius, and Batman have already done: made the human superhuman while still trying to pass them off as human. A girl with a sword must be just as competent as Superman, which is even less plausible than the concept of Superman himself.



Sure Kick-Ass may appear more cartoonish than Dark Knight or its ilk, but that is only because it so enthusiastically owns its cartoonishness. But in flaunting its own implausibility, it manages to show that art can never be life. Especially when that art involves wearing a cape.

Last week, I, like most Americans my age, found myself in a rapturous stupor over the nirvana that is Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s video for “Telephone.” And then I, like many, listened to “Telephone” around a bajillion times, all the while thinking about the video. One of the roughly bajillion things I loved about the video was how Gaga says “We did it, Honey B!” at the end of the video. She sounds more like she just won the dance-off to save the youth center than that she just succeeded in poisoning dozens of people.

In short, she adopts the tone of a supervillain. A Batman villain. And then, an epiphany: Lady Gaga would be a perfect choice to play Harley Quinn.

We have a woman who dresses in outlandish costumes, who performs her entire life as if it were an eccentric burlesque, and who rarely appears without makeup. Nearly every video involves her joyfully committing homicide. In “Paparazzi,” she murders costumed her – I mean, pop stars – one after the other and then proceeds to pose lasciviously for the mug shot camera. In “Telephone,” she theatrically dons a chef’s outfit (or Gaga’s idea of an outfit, which is plastic top and nipple tape) to prepare poison. She even dreams of having “a bad romance.” She is Dr. Quinzel sans the squeaky voice.



Of course, having our favorite very very bad bad girl don a domino mask and greasepaint to play our favorite fictional bad girl is not without impediment. Aside from having to shape the character to suit the needs of the actress, there is the issue of how she could fit into the already established Gotham of the prior two Batman films.

[Note: For the rest of the entry, I’ll be talking about Nolan’s Batman franchise, Ledger’s Joker, etc. While I still remain less than a fan of these, I’m putting aside any judgments for the sake of the entry. This entry would not profit from constant Nolan/Ledger-bashing, but should also not be read as a change of heart on the films.]

While the character of Harley Quinn as is perfectly complements that of the Joker, she would be as much of an aberration in Nolan’s Gotham as Chico Marx would be. She is a predominantly comedic character, serving often to temper Joker’s darker scenes. While, of course, one could argue that such comedy in the face of horror only further twists the situation, this route was not the one taken in Dark Knight. Admittedly, we received bits such as the “pencil trick” or Joker in drag, but nothing so far as for him to beat a man to death with a rubber chicken or anything to that level.

Furthermore, Ledger’s Joker (I speak of this Joker as a character that, to an extent, is independent of Ledger in so much that a subsequent actor would be drawing directly from this Joker than any other incarnation of the villain) simply lacks to inclination to create Harley Quinn. That prank was one for Hamill’s Joker. The Diniverse Joker had different goals and motivations than Dark Knight’s antagonist and fooling his psychiatrist to make her a clingy, demented girlfriend fits into such an agenda. Raising havoc as a two-person vaudeville act fits his modus operandi. Harley, however, fails to find comfortable lodgings in the social philosophy espoused by Ledger’s Joker. Just as Joker was reimagined to fit Nolan’s needs, so must Harley be recreated and reformatted to appease this universe. Even the staunchest of Dark Knight fans could not (or at least should not) argue that vastly different Jokers would inevitably create vastly different Quinns.



Oh, and there is one other bigger problem: Joker. The aura that lingers around Ledger’s performance threatens to make any actor who attempts to play the character next appear presumptuous, disrespectful, or even heretical. Putting the Joker on film with anyone else besides Ledger behind those scars risks alienating the devoted fans.

Now comes my favorite part: what I would do!

I am going to be fair and play by Nolan’s rules. The character has to be semi-realistic and threatening. And she has to be a product of Ledger’s Joker. Personally, I might add a few more jokes or quirks here and there, but nothing that would stretch beyond simply a writing decision; this screenplay would not be part of another reboot.

My Harley came to me as I listened to “Paparazzi.” This Harley Quinn has never even met the Joker. She’s just a fan. A obsessive, crazy fan. Think Squeaky Fromme and John Hinckley meet the crying Justin Bieber girl. She followed Joker’s crime spree from Dark Knight in the papers and instead of panicking, reveled in the brilliance of each act. Maybe she understood his angle, maybe she didn’t completely get it. Maybe she was so blinded by the spectacle and explosions that she never paid attention to whatever he was saying about soldiers dying vs. old man in car crash. This could allow for different concepts to be explored in this film instead of just rehashing the conceit of Dark Knight.

So she goes on a crime spree to prove her love to Joker. Every bombed building, every mutilated face, every corpse is a Valentine to Mr. J. He could be dead or in jail, but either way keeps him off screen and makes her character even more twisted. Just like the Justin Bieber girl, she is convinced that Joker does love her back, except the situation is a lot less cute and a lot more disturbing when we’re dealing with a thirty year-old instead of a toddler.

And, I even play by Nolan’s rules so much as to allow for commentary. Where Dark Knight’s villain led to an investigation on terror and the subsequent war against it, this sequel’s Harley allows for a contemplation on the meaning of celebrity and fandom. Michael Jackson’s death led to a simultaneously circus and sanctification of the former pariah. Sarah Palin’s words about Barack Obama resulted in people sending the President death threats. And, were the filmmakers particularly ballsy, they could even comment on the cult of Ledger/Joker that formed in 2008. This direction would also coincide with Gaga’s own work, which often scrutinizes our relation to stars, fame, and pop culture.

I leave you with a possible scene. Like I said, I would keep this Harley grounded…but as her motivation would revolve around the necessity of creating a show to impress another, I would allow her for a bit more theatrics than the prior Nolan villains…

A street in Gotham. Two or three police cars at one end, speeding towards Quinn at the other. She puts one hand into a gun shape (an act often performed Gaga in her videos). The other holds a trigger to three explosives (a button for each one). She presses one button and simultaneously points at one car. The explosive goes off as she pulls the “gun” back. She does the same with the second and third car. There. Showy, but still nothing more than what someone in the real world could do with a little imagination and some high quality demolition expertise.

So, Mr. Nolan, in the very likely chance that you are reading this (I’d rank it around 97%), I offer a truce between us. You pay me a few million to write the screenplay and I’ll apologize for whatever I’ve said about your prior movies. Though, I did really like Memento. That seems totally fair, right?

Let me state the obvious. It’s Oscar season. I’m a (fledgling) pop culture blogger (not too fledgling if you count two years of column writing though). I’m going to be writing in excess about the Oscars. Might as well start now.

[Oh, by the way, I fully acknowledge the irony that I will continually call the Academy every iteration of "stupid" and "worthless" and yet still get infuriated by their every action. Just should put that out on the table early.]

This past June, the Academy created quite the buzz when they announced that there would be not five, but ten Best Picture nominees. Granted, I think this revelation ignited more sensation than it really warranted. Let’s face the truth (Hi, Truth!), even if ten are nominated, the race is still almost always between two or three films anyway. This superficial vicissitude only means an increase in token films that have as little of a chance of winning as a red shirt has of surviving a voyage to Deygon-7. Now, instead of simply the token “Little Indie That Could” (The Little Miss Juno Award), there will also be the token “Comedy” and “Animated Movie” and the like.

Before we go on, let’s just mention that this has now rendered the already questionable “Best Animated Picture” (The Pixar Award) to the status of utterly worthless (“Hmm…I wonder if the one animated picture nominated for Best Picture will win”). Hopefully it will just disappear. Let’s face it – all it ever did was fail to appease the people who were noticing that Pixar continually got overlooked for Best Picture. We doing that? Good. Oh, and anyone thinking they’ll dare nominate two animated films (like, let’s say The Fantastic Mr. Fox along with Up instead of just Up)…please check up on your idea of reality. Though I do indeed hope I have to eat my words on that last statement.

However, there is another genre of film that the querulous masses lament is constantly overlooked come Oscar time: the action film. Ever since the Academy made its proclamation, nerds nationwide have been in a constant rejoice over the fact that there may now be an action film among the best picture nominees. And what has been the favorite these past seven or so months? Star Trek.

It was mentioned when the press release first journeyed from the computer screen to the pupils of every geek in the world. Speculation over three films: Star Trek, Up, and The Hangover finally getting nominated. The first two have persisted as favorites all the way up to speculation over the ten in the past month. The third lost steam…though its Golden Globe may help it recover some. Now, I can’t comment on The Hangover. I haven’t seen it. I know, I know, I’m a pop culture blogger…but this ain’t a full time job. If any of you wish to change that so I may see The Hangover and weigh in quicker, I am more than willing to take you up on your lucrative and exceedingly generous offer. As it is, let me say that Up certainly deserves a nomination and is currently my runner-up for picture of the year (which I gave to Inglourious Basterds).

Then there’s Star Trek. I admit, I took a while to get to the meat of this entry. It’s like the first hour of Deer Hunter. Anyway, Star Trek. For a while, I’ve tried to deny it. I would think, “That’s just wishful thinking! Of course, they’re not going to nominate Star Trek!” But every day it seems that more and more critics are predicting it. And, to be honest, I’m beginning to think they’re right.

Star Trek in no way deserves to be considered as even a candidate (despite how token such candidancy may be) for Best Picture. It was fun, yes. It was enjoyable, had some humorous moments, and the acting was good. It was a solid summer blockbuster. Solid summer blockbuster does not translate into great cinema. Granted, I’m not ruling out such a possibility that an action film can be deep and meaningful or even simply just use the camera brilliantly or whatever prerequisite for a nomination. The Matrix certainly should have been among 1999’s candidates. Hell, I’d have to give 2002 another look, but I wouldn’t automatically rule out X2: XMen United being among ten nominees. But Star Trek? Just because a movie delivers a few thrills and somehow combines premiering in 80-degree weather with not turning my brain into Jujy Fruits doesn’t mean it’s among the year’s best films.

So Star Trek delivers a solid sci-fi romp. Good for it. I gave it a good review when it came out and even defended it against people who wanted a more traditional Star Trek film. Hell, I defended its summer-blockbuster-ness. It does accomplish what it sets out to do. That does merit praise. That does not automatically merit this type of praise. Jennifer’s Body (a wrongfully maligned film from this year) also accomplishes its intended purpose. It also felt like a worthwhile use of two hours of my time. Jennifer’s Body is thankfully not in consideration for the ten nominees. Not every film that fails to screw-up is automatically a laudable landmark of cinema.

Essentially, Star Trek being considered for such honors feels a bit like high school. The attractive, successful jock, the guy with all the girls and popularity and good looks, is not completely destitute in the smarts department. He doesn’t ace his algebra test. But he gets a B. He may have some plot holes and a predictable story line and some cheesy dialogue and – oops, back to my analogy. Suddenly, he’s a Renaissance man! Not only is he an Olympian Adonis, but his lack of flunking makes him a disciple of Athena as well! Helios be praised!

Are our expectations for summer movies really so low? Does a little quality in one suddenly make us desire to crown it with every laurel in sight? Or are we (and probably the Academy) so likely to rally around Star Trek because of another scorned son?

Now, any of you who know me personally or read my column back in the old days (P.S. I love you, new readers!) know I have nothing but contempt for Dark Knight. I was quite relieved to find it did not receive a Best Picture nomination last year. However, I also will freely admit that it did not get the nomination for the wrong reasons. What do I mean? Dark Knight was terrible, but it was also cheated. The Academy still apotheosized Heath Ledger. And, to be perfectly honest, of the five best picture nominees, one was worse than Dark Knight (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), one was only a little better (The Reader), and two weren’t exactly stellar (Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon). Dark Knight was not nominated, but for the wrong reason – it was an action film. A summer blockbuster. (And yes, Gladiator won early this decade, but that’s because it was sword-and-sandal epic and that has a history, etc.)

Ironically, if Star Trek is nominated, it will be for the exact same reason: because it’s a summer blockbuster. And now the Academy owes a summer blockbuster some love. Yes, this film lacks the pretentions of Dark Knight, the Introduction to Ethics speeches, and the dead actor…all the things that would have been perfectly Academic reasons for Dark Knight to be nominated and all the things that deluded a people into believing it to be the second coming of Kane. For better or for worse, it’s a more run-of-the-mill action movie. It aims lower, but it hits its mark. Star Trek was just a good action movie and, aside from a few genuinely great movies, probably the best thing to come out in the four month span of mind-mush. But allow me to reiterate, that’s all folks.

But I suppose the time has come for awards to be more democratic. Good is the new great. Let’s more evenly disperse accolades among seasons, genres, and qualities. About time we keep the masses happy. I mean, it’s not like the actual film nerds were ever all that happy with the Oscar picks anyway.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But, in this case, I guess my advice would be, “If it’s broke, please don’t take a mallet to it and bang on it repeatedly until it’s pulverized to mere atoms.”