Two for three...not bad...

Media, yes, we got media.

We got lots and lots and lots and lots of media...

Superman: Earth One - It's been ten years since Marvel launched the Ultimate imprint and universe with the goal being to give writers a chance to play in a new sandbox and readers to jump into the storylines without having to know decades of history and back story. In general the Ultimate imprint has been wildly successful eventually needing a ten-year reboot thanks to the Ultimatum crossover.

DC has tried a couple of versions of their own alternate reality imprint. The first was the All-Star line including an All-Star Superman  (awesome, phenomenal, rocking) and All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder (atrocious, horrible, so poor that it's worth reading).  They had plans for a couple of other lines that never materialized. (One of the major complaints of the All-Star line was the lack of cross-title interaction and continuity.)

Recently, DC announced the launch of another new imprint: Earth One focusing on their iconic heroes during their formative periods and released not as single-issue series but rather as complete graphic novels. Again, a chance for new readers to jump on without needing to feel the weight of fifty-plus years of continuity and for more of their best creators to play in the same sandboxes.

The reason that the Ultimate line worked was because it had great stories.

The reason that at least Superman: Earth One doesn't work is that it has absolutely nothing interesting to say.

This is the origin story of Superman, an alternate world Clark Kent who actually doesn't want to be a hero. We see Clark signing a professional football contract, solving amazing chemical problems (which, in reality, my AP students should kill) and getting a job in the lab, and trying to get a job at the Daily Planet. He's avoiding being a hero, however, because he doesn't want to be singled out as being different. He knows he's an alien and doesn't want to risk being found out. (Does anybody else see the contradiction there?  Pro football...miraculous scientist...newspaper reporter...all so very low profile jobs, huh?)

Clark's parents, however, want him to step forward and use his powers to help more people. His hand is, of course, forced when a Lobo-like (but far less entertaining and chucklesome) bounty hunter shows up on Earth One to kill the last Kryptonian. Hence, Superman - in the same suit, with the same powers, having the same origin - is born.

It's boring and pointless.

The world doesn't need another Superman origin story. That's why All-Star Superman took care of business in four panels and eight words.

You already know the story, so Morrison didn't belabor the point. Sadly, J Michael Straczynski does.

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The Hurt Locker - I'm only getting in here a year late, I know.

In case you needed someone new to say it, The Hurt Locker is outstanding. At every possible turn, the film avoids choosing the predictable route. The unassuming third man in the team, the one with whom we identify doesn't turn out the way that it appears he's going to. The main character doesn't take the turn that we expect. The countdown that moves our time forward doesn't end up with what we might all expect.

It's a phenomenal film and one that I hope shows a leap being made by Kathryn Bigelow (even though her early career highlight of Point Break was impressive) because this is the work of a director absolutely at the top of her game. Bigelow maintains a desert palate throughout the film, leaving us with nothing to see other than the characters themselves, allowing us to focus on the different reactions to warfare that those characters have.

Where lesser films would take the easy way out and have one of the secondary characters simply and openly ask Jeremy Renner's Sergeant James why he has a death wish, Bigelow lets the characters' actions step to the fore and speak for themselves. Entirely devoid of anything remotely resembling exposition or even a scene in which the characters discuss what is going on. Where writing teachers say to let show not tell, this is why. That way when the one example of exposition - the scene of James speaking to his son - does appear, it has a striking emotional impact.

Every member of the cast knocks their performance out of the park - from the tiny parts of the most well-known actors (Ralph Fiennes, Guy Pearce, David Morse) to the less well-known lead actors, and Bigelow is again to be praised on this.  Whatever she did creates a visible and real-feeling bond among the men who risk their lives every minute of their tours of duty and who are looking for meaning in their time along the edge of life and death.

Easily a deserving choice of Best Picture last year.

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True Grit -True Grit might, however, be better.

The Coen brothers remake of a John Wayne classic (that I have to admit I haven't seen but that is now on hold at the library for me) captures the sparse beauty of the West (though I do believe that Oklahoma is a little flatter than portrayed here) mirroring the absolute moral certainty and strength of character of the film's lead character - Mattie Ross.

Make no mistake, this is Ross's film. She drives the action and puts her stamp on every action taken by Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon, the two characters with whom she spends the most time in the film. Bridges' portrayal of Rooster Cogburn - drunken, one-eyed, fat, clearly well past his prime but with the film's titular true grit - is excellent, putting on the mannerisms and stilted movements of a man who has let his gifts slip nearly away. Damon's Texas ranger - initially reminiscent of his Matthew McConaughey impression but professionally toned down - doesn't quite seem to be the fifty that he must be according to the film's coda but does carry himself with an outstanding mixture of confidence, bravado, and restraint.

I have heard in some reviews that the film's climactic action comes too early, leaving a ending that is a little too declining in action for some reviewers' tastes. (Interestingly, this is the second Coen brother western - No Country for Old Men - to have that same complaint levied against it.) Admittedly, the film's closing - after the climactic confrontation - is stark and plain, but that is very much in keeping with Mattie's composure and character. To end any other way would have been selling the story short, would have been in changing the tone of the entire film.

The acting is spot on from every actor, and it will be a disappointment if Hailee Steinfeld's Mattie Ross is not considered in the lead actress category.  Even the smaller parts - Ed Corbin's bearskin-wearing itinerant dentist, Josh Brolin's Tom Chaney, Barry Pepper's Lucky Ned, Dakin Matthew's over-matched horse trader - are brilliantly well acted.

I would have no qualms putting this up against Inception, Black Swan, and The Social Network as the best film of 2010.  (And if The Town gets a nomination, as some are predicting, it'll be a travesty.)