Whoa, I think we just got a visit from Dorkgollum...

Well, a lot of superhero movies contain the element of "nobody knows what you've become" at the end... but that's not really in the spirit of the idea.   Nobody knows who Spiderman really "is" either, but it's a pretty straightforward Hero's Journey tale nonetheless.    And people do still know about and applaud Spiderman/Batman/et al, so the recognition factor is still there.

But a story where the main character ends up NOT being a superhero anymore, and is okay with that, would be more likely to fit the paradigm.  I can't think of any examples, but there probably are some.

Another Boy-Takes-Heroine's-Journey example that occurred to me on re-listening to the podcast, is The Family Man, with Nic Cage.   I found it to be a really interesting movie - and a surprisingly grown-up effort from director Bret Ratner, of all people.    And I was honestly shocked at the ending they went with, it was actually pretty brave to go that way.   And it fits the paradigm perfectly.

Actually, this is the thing that I'm most curious about.  Does the Avengers have some kind of affirmative action quota?   

"Lessee, we've got a guy with an almost-indestructible nuclear suit, an almost-indestructible huge green troll, and an actual GOD.   Who else do we need?"

"Well, we have a patriotic kinda guy who's, like a really really strong human."

"Uh, okay I guess.   So that does it, right?"

"Actually, we're required by law to have a woman on the team, so we found one that can do karate and stuff."

"Oh wow, she does karate?  You know we have a NORSE GOD on the team, right?   Allright, fine."   

"And we also have to include this guy who uses a bow and arrow."

"Okay, now I know you're kidding me.  (pause)  You're not kidding at all, are you?"

"It's cool, he's really really GOOD with a bow and arrow."

"Are they, like, nuclear-tipped exploding arrows or something?"

"Umm, not that I know of."

"Jesus.  Okay, if we take Robin Hood, then does that fulfill our special needs quota?   We don't need to have, say, a one-eyed black guy or anything?"

"Now that you mention it..."

^^  That.

Also - get out of there, Scarlett Johansson.  You are not a superhero, you are a cute girl dressed up for Comic-Con.

And there's way too much Hulk on display for my taste in this new trailer.  Hulk still gets my vote for most ridiculous comic hero idea evar.  I'm convinced that somebody dared somebody else to do a comic based on that concept, and somehow it stuck.

But meh, I'll probably see the movie too.   If it's fun, great.   If not, at least this'll be OVER.

Yep.  I confused that one with the original Gone in 60 Seconds - another '70's car chase B-movie that came out a few years before GTA.

Artist's conception of what a cat on a boat may look like.

Director's Trademark - Puts Left Leg on Things.

As that article pretty clearly shows, yes.   Says right in there, multple times, that Burton's movies decentralized Batman and made the villains' stories more prominent.

When we say "Burton isn't interested in Batman" we're not saying Burton isn't enthralled by the trappings of the character, or in making him look badass on screen.   Clearly, he is interested in THAT.

The point is the protagonist of a movie is the one who undergoes a change, and that character isn't Batman in either Burton movie.  Batman starts and ends in exactly the same place both times.   He remains, always, That Crazy Mofo Batman.     This is in no way to say that's a bad thing.  That's a trope almost as common as The Hero's Journey:  The Broken AntiHero, and it happens to be one of my faves. 

The Road Warrior, Shane, almost any Kurosawa film, Constantine, the Priest character... even Nolan's Dark Knight use that trope.    The Broken AntiHero is separated from society, he can be coerced into helping the poor townsfolk rid themselves of a threat, but in the end he moves on, still an outcast.  And he doesn't get the girl, ever.    Or at least, the girl never gets HIM, because he's guaranteed to go off on his own again as the credits roll.

But since the Broken AntiHero doesn't change - he CAN'T change - he's not really a character.  He's paper-thin, if you try to dig into him more than a tiny bit ("His parents got killed, okay?"), you find there's nothing else to them.   And if you try to really explain their pain, they just become pathetic. 

That's what we mean when we say Burton isn't interested in telling Batman's story.  Batman doesn't have to have a "story", but he's a driving force in the other characters' stories.  Their reactions to him, and the way their lives are changed, is the story.

And you're going to hear me say the same thing when Dark Knight comes up.  Nolan got the backstory outa the way in the first film, so in Dark Knight he's not "interested" in Batman either.    Nolan wasn't even interested in the Joker, in the sense that we never learn a single thing about what made him so freakin' crazy.   And again, that's not a negative - the Joker's fun to watch, and so's Batman.  But Nolan's actual story is about the tragic fall of Harvey Dent, the only character in the movie with an arc.   And there's nothing wrong with that at all.

Since they're both nominated for screenplay Oscars and i'd never heard of either one, I recently rented Margin Call and The Ides of March and watched them back to back.  Liked 'em both.

They're actually rather similar, they're both about people living in a world most of us don't (Presidential campaigning/mega-billion-dollar stock trading) and how those institutions can seduce people into doing some pretty awful things.  Not a single Hero's Journey to be found in either flick, and neither movie tells you how to feel about what happens.  Both just show you what the characters do, you have to draw your own conclusions.

Margin Call is especially interesting because - according to the director's commentary - the total budget was an amazing three million dollars.   It has an incredible cast, all of whom clearly did it for love and not money.  Any one of their normal salaries would probably be more than three million.

No doubt in part because of the dreaded Canadian Content requirement, a policy which many other countries have as well.  Just one of the many reasons that makes distributing US shows  more complicated than the Internet Kidz think.

There's an American content rule of sorts as well: it's that Americans don't care what other countries watch on TV.  We're not aware that other countries HAVE tv, except Doctor Who which is shot on location in United British Kingdomland, near France.

This is true.

All the post was done with the Adobe production package that I already had, on the computer I already owned.  I did use funds from the production budget to upgrade my Adobe suite to the then-latest CS3 package, but that was the only VFX expense in terms of actual money used from the budget.

And now I HAVE seen it... I'm on a bit of a "going-to-the-movies" jag for some reason, I think I may have already seen more movies in theaters this year than in all of last year combined.

Anyway, really liked it.  Another on the list of "well, you don't see movies like that much nowadays" in terms of not being a formulaic cookie-cutter affair. Which I'm always happy to see get made, even when I don't happen to like the movie.   

But this one I did.