C. A. Bridges

It was announced that the U.S. Government was going to change the anti-piracy notices on new DVDs and Blu-rays to include not one but two unskippable 10-second notices to further harangue the people who didn’t steal the discs, telling them  not to steal.

Obviously, this is either a mistake or part of a larger scheme. Of all the people the studios and government might want to harass and shame, why pick on the only people still giving them money? Why make legal movies and TV shows even harder to watch, and pirated products (which have no notices, no commercials, no previews, no time-wasting menu graphics that are keeping you from watching the damn movie you paid for) even more attractive?

It’s almost as absurd as the “You Wouldn’t Steal a Car” video — also unskippable — before some movies, which, in a fit of almost crippling irony,  may be using music from Dutch composer Melchior Rietveldt without his permission. (Also? If I could click on the car and get one without taking yours away? And you keep yelling at me not to when I haven’t? I just might, now.)

The studios can’t be that stupid, so I assume the studios have decided that DVDs and Blu-rays are simply no longer cost-effective and streaming is the way to go and therefore they’re going to lower the demand for discs by making them increasingly unwatchable. Future changes may include unskippable half-hour documentaries on how piracy leads to record profits for movie studios  the complete downfall of civilization into a brutal, post-apocalyptic wasteland, “Don’t Steal, Dammit!” frames inserted every five minutes into movies, “shame placement” programs where anti-piracy diatribes are written into the actors’ dialogue, and a point-of-sale rollout program where, after purchasing, an agent follows the customer from the register to their car yelling in their face the whole time, “You gonna steal that? Huh? You gonna pirate it? Answer me! I can shoot you, you know! I can totally shoot you, you legal owner, you!”

Later programs will instruct cashiers to physically rip purchased Blu-rays from the customers’ hands and spit on them.

I wish them luck in their new, ineffectual effort. It’ll give me more time to get some reading done.

Spoiler: There isn’t much.

I’m not sure if I’m ready to stick Joss Whedon’s Marvel’s The Avengers at the top of my favorite based-on-a-comic-book movies or even at the #1 superhero movie spot (although it’s damn near). It would have to share space with the first Superman movie (largely on Reeves’ perfect nailing of Supes, and nostalgia), the second Spider-Man movie (great themes, the first perfect superhero movie fight scene, my love for Spidey), the second X-Men movie (better script, better acting, Nightcrawler), the first Iron Man movie (almost flawless) and Batman Begins (first version of Batman that villains might actually fear).

But it was far and away the most fun I’ve had in a movie theater in a very, very long time.

So why pick on it? Well, my love for Whedon is well-known. Many excellent reviews and essays have already been written — check FilmCriticHulk, and theonetrueb!X’s look at sentiment as a theme — and I’m sure PopMatters is already gearing up for a collection. But I’m known for my amateur script-doctoring, so my self-appointed, unrequested task is to analyze this movie and see how it could have been improved, in my own unfair and uninformed way.

MAJOR SPOILERS ahead, probably, for those ten or twenty unfortunate people who were in a coma over the weekend and therefore did not see the movie. Doctors are, even now, feverishly working on ways to pipe The Avengers directly into their brains.

WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THE AVENGERS MOVIE

1. Um.

2. I’m thinking…

3. Oh! Here’s one! How come it took days and days for Tony Stark to plummet from his tower, leaving his VII armor plenty of time to zoom after him and encant him, but the letters that got knocked off the same tower during the Loki-Thor fight hit the ground almost immediately. There’s this experiment with differently-weighted falling things, see…

4. Yeah, that was movie-time and not really a deal-breaker. Give me a few minutes.

5. The Galaga scene on the helicarrier. Yes, it was funny, but it was a bit too obvious. It’s across his whole frickin’ screen! How could anyone NOT have noticed that? I’d have preferred a more subtle version, with his Galaga-playing almost hidden among a sea of different windows and apps, with only the quiet music to tip off the observant viewer. (Also, the sound effect was wrong for the action, so, you know, that.)

6. Banner in India. The movie has already gotten some flack for the repetition of the If-you-want-slums-you-want-India trope, and frankly it deserved it. How about Sub-Saharan Africa, or Somalia? Even the second Hulk movie ended with Banner in British Columbia.

7. Hawkeye’s bow. I’m sorry, there’s no way a bow with any power at all can be “snapped” from folded to full-length. I kept thinking he was fighting with a Nerf Bow. Which, granted, would have been awesome.

8. Captain America’s helmet. The WWII one was better. He’s a soldier, dress him like one.

9. The attacking army. Which was not so much. I mean, yes, there were hundreds dropping through the big floaty hole, but I expected thousands just pouring out of there. Maybe the LotR movies have spoiled me, but when I hear “army” I think masses, waves of warriors. And they weren’t so much an army as a marauding force. They didn’t seem to have any tactics other than “shoot stuff.”

Which was understandable, since no one was leading them. I thought that was Loki’s role, but even after he got away from Thor he didn’t do anything leadery. Might have been nice to see him try to direct the battle, only to find out there wasn’t actually anything under his control, foreshadowing the stinger scene later on.

10. The resistance. There wasn’t one. I’ll grudgingly accept the lack of military presence — there were tanks, eventually, and one nuke-carrying jet, so maybe the shadowy council nixed the idea? — but no New Yorkers took any swings at invading aliens? Really? Have you been to New York? I’d rather have seen some indication of a civilian resistance that Cap could have guided before going back to the super stuff.

11. The big floaty snake things. I guess these were troop carriers? And we saw, as they went down, they were capable of a great deal of destruction, but before that they were mostly galumphing past for the heros to beat on. They should have had a clear agenda for the heroes to thwart.

12. The waiting army. When Stark flew the nuke through the portal, there should have been thousands, hundreds of thousands, of warriors waiting. The Earth should have been in dire danger of being swarmed. It should have made the audience gasp. Instead there were a dozen or fewer ships, with a big mothership thing in the distance. Ehh.

13. The 3D. I’m not a fan of 3D but I heard good things about this one, so, after seeing it in 2D first, I went back and ponied up the dough for my cheap glasses. It was… OK. I was impressed when it worked, which was a lot of the time. But the final battle looked worse, I thought. The flying warriors looked even more CGIish, and it was more difficult to make out what was happening. I think it’s because in an active scene like that, the movie’s choices as to what’s in focus and what is not is just different enough from what I would naturally be focusing on made it jarring.

And that’s pretty much it, really. The first hour dragged a bit with the necessary exposition, but I don’t think there was a solid five minutes anywhere in the movie that didn’t have something cool in it. Everyone got not one but several hero moments, with the Hulk getting even more (which makes sense, he’s bigger). I can’t count the number of ways Hulk was handled correctly, from the humor to the motion-capture to the easily-discernable Mark Ruffalo features to the pudginess. He was pudgy! And had chest hair! And a personality! And yet somehow looked more menacing than the weight-lifter cut of the first two movie Hulks. Oh, the humor and the action and the teamwork at the end and Black Widow and Steve Rogers vs Tony Stark and and and…

If it’s not clear, I love this movie to an absurd degree and plan to see it again in the theater a few more times. Doesn’t mean I can’t poke at it…

It was announced today that Tor Books, the largest science fiction and fantasy publisher, will from this point on publish its ebooks without DRM restrictions. This means that once you buy the book, you can convert it and read it on any platform. Kindle, Nook, ebook app, whatever. This is a huge deal. It’s also the direction the publishing world is going.

Baen Books, about which I have unabashedly gushed for decades, has been selling non-DRMed books since day one, in multiple formats. In many cases if you buy the hardback of a new series, you get a CD containing all the rest of the series. You can even get all those CDs for free here, by permission. And they’ve prospered.

What prompted a big company to do it? Couple things. One, I believe the saner heads — if not the upper management — wanted it and finally presented the case. DRM doesn’t prevent piracy. Any book you want, you can find a pirated copy if you try. No, DRM only annoys the legitimate buyer, who just wants to read the book she paid for how she wants to. Two, there’s a huge public outcry against DRM. Three, J. K. Rowling, who probably counts as a Big Six publisher all by herself, finally released the Potter books in ebook form and without DRM. Not much of a danger for her, since she has a built-in, worshipful audience who wants to shower her with money and because people willing to get pirated copies already got them the weekend after each book came out.

And four, and this is a big one: the publishers are fighting Amazon and Apple for control over pricing. And if they can’t win that, the least they can do is take away either of those companies’ monopolies on their products. Buy a Kindle book with DRM and you have to read it on a Kindle or Kindle app. But without DRM, you can read it wherever you like.

So hooray for Tor! Now we just need to work on all the other problems. As someone who has been reading ebooks since they existed, and someone who has paid my actual cash for the thousands of books on my iPhone and Kindle and computer, I have only a few requests.

Pricing: I don’t expect ebook prices to be absurdly low. You’re a business, you have to cover your overhead, and successful books need to help cover the losses from less successful books. I get that. But don’t expect me to pay hardcover prices, especially when no major retailer sells hardcovers at full price. Personally I’m comfortable at the $9.99 – $12.99 level for new releases. Remember, that seems low to you, but I’m paying for something that costs you nothing to replace, whereas I can’t resell it myself. Procuring and editing and presentation still may be a substantial percentage of an ebook, but there is no print run. You can’t tell me the 20,000th ebook sold cost you as much to produce as the first. You get a bestseller and ebook sales quickly become all profit.

Also, drop the price as soon as the paperback comes out. When the paperback has been out for months and the ebook is still hardcover price, it makes you look either incompetent, greedy, or contemptuous of ebook readers. Pay attention.

Quality: Proofread the damn things. The number of typos I’ve found in New York Times Bestseller books is staggering, much less the midlist books.Sir Terry Pratchett’s “Snuff” was rife with errors. This month’s “Sacre Bleu” by Christopher Moore has a duplicated page. The retailers can’t fix them, only the publishers can, and unless there’s an embarrassing outcry, for the most part you don’t. You don’t want to be in the position where the pirated copy is more attractive and dependable than the retail one. Yes, there’s extra copyediting and that’s another non-profitable position you have to fill, but reputation is important for a publisher.

Availability: Get me the ebooks when the printed book is published. Mostly this happens but occasionally there’s a lag. The novelization for “The Cabin in the Woods,” available in paperback last week, was available as an ebook in the U.K at the same time but not in the U.S., where it still shows a June 19 release date. I’m assuming this is a clerical error — and Titan, usually a company I quite like, is looking into it — but it’s annoying. A few years ago Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, HarperColins and Hachette announced they’d be delaying their ebooks for four months after the print release, undoubtedly pleasing book pirates everywhere. How is that working out for them? (Oh, right, it’s part of a price-fixing lawsuit against them now [PDF]).

The regional problem is a bigger one. If a book is released in the U.S., it might not be available overseas, even though the Internet goes everywhere. This gets really frustrating for readers who want to hand you fistfuls of money, but can’t. However, regional rights are both more complicated and a significant source of income for authors, and existing contract can’t be changed, but maybe you could look into speeding up the sales of those rights so a book can drop worldwide on the same day?

See? I’m not asking for much. I want a fair price for a quality product I can read on any device I like, when I want to read it.

Tor’s off to a good start.

So, I like the books. Not great literature, but fun and quick, addictive reads and just enough social commentary to add some weight and, most importantly, they are the perfect antidote for the Twilight series. And the movie trailers looked good and Jennifer Lawrence was a great choice for Katniss and I was excited to see what they had done. So much so that I braved the crowds to see a movie on opening night, something I do maybe twice a year.

And… I don’t know. There were exciting scenes and moments I got misty and times I felt like cheering and when the credits rolled I felt mostly disappointed.

Spoilers abound so I’ll put the rest after the jump. Guard your eyes!

(Photo: Lionsgate)

Part of it, I know, is the necessary cuts to cram the book into a movie. Even at that, it runs two hours and twenty minutes. And changes had to be made to show us what, in the books, Katniss just tells us. I understand that. I just don’t understand some of the choices made, especially the things that were cut that have deeper significance in the following books.

Part of it was the directing. The constantly moving camera was, frankly, annoying. When used properly it’s a great effect to put you right in the moment. Overused, it just gives me headaches. Note the different in the use of the jerkycam between “The Bourne Identity,” when it was used to great effect during fight scenes or chase scenes, and the use in the sequel when the director used it in every damn scene. Honestly, jerky focusing during a conversation in a diner doesn’t make me feel like I’m there, it makes me feel like I’m having a stroke.

Similarly, scenes were cut short, constantly. It’s not coincidence that the most gripping scenes where the ones where the actors were allowed time to act, and we were given time to process it. The Reaping scene. Rue’s death. The cave. Otherwise scenes ended just as the last word of dialogue did, with no time for reactions or tone. That may have been due to the time crunch; maybe the scenes were shot but then pared down to save every last second. All I know is, it managed to feel rushed and lagging at the same time, which is kind of impressive.

And part of it was the score. This movie needed to feel epic. It needed to move me at the right times, and get out of the way when it wasn’t needed. Nope. I should have felt grandeur during the parade, I should have felt more excitement in the forest, I should have been on the edge of my seat at the end, and I wasn’t. A score makes a huge difference in a film, and this one was lacking for me.

Here’s the stuff I would have liked to have seen included. Again, for all I know it was shot and got cut — and your mileage may definitely vary, many peolple love the movie just as it is — but this is what the Armchair DirectorTM would add:

In the beginning, as Katniss is heading off to hunt (and why is she putting her sister to bed in the morning, anyway?) her sister should have kissed her fingers and waved at her. Katniss could do it back, then simply nodded at her mother. We needed to know it was an affectionate, nearly intimate gesture, not used for just anybody, so it means something later.

Her mom should not have been so lucid. Katniss should have had to bring her out of it a little, so we’d understand why she was snapping at her mom after the Reaping.

The pin was too random, so it had no emotional impact, and it has to. We lost the mayor’s daughter scene so try this: when she trades in her bird, make the Hob more black market than flea market, and have the old lady treat her with the kind of sarcasm you only use with someone who’s earned your respect. Later, after Katniss is being taken away, the old lady should contrive to press it into her hand, whispering “for luck.”

No problems with the Reaping scene, or the heading-to-Capitol scenes, other than the jerky camera. We should have seen Katniss watching more old scenes, though, including some that looked old.

Loved Haymitch and Effie and Cinna. All of the casting was spot-on, in fact. And am I the only one who saw Josh Hutcherson (Peeta) and thought “Young Wash”? If they ever do a “Firefly” prequel…

Caesar worked for me, as did Seneca and the president. But the crowd scenes seemed too sterile, like the throne room scenes in “Thor.” Everything was so shiny and the crowds were so contained, it screamed CG to me. And, sadly, the Girl on Fire costume simply wasn’t as impressive as it sounded in the book. The parts that weren’t flaming were supposed to be gently glowing, like old coals in a fire. They had on black jumpsuits with a flamey effect.

When she sees the forest in her window, Katniss should have unconsciously touched her pin. Mockingjay pin (at this point) = home.

During the Games, since we lacked the insight into Katniss’ head we got scenes from other POVs instead. Which is fine, but if they had to do that, they didn’t do it enough. We should have seen people gasping, people betting on the outcome, people lined up in the streets watching, people glued to the show in their homes and at work and everywhere else. “The Truman Show” did this perfectly, you really got the sense the whole world was watching, partly because they kept going back to the same people watching so each spectator got his or her own little story arc. We also should have other districts watching their children dying and mourning quietly with grim acceptance because what else can they do? So when Rue died, and District 11 watches Katniss treat their own with respect and love, we really understood when they snap and riot.

Say, when the other tributes were waiting under the tree for Katniss to come down, and one was throwing knives into a lizard, did you wonder why she didn’t just throw a knife into Katniss while she was climbing before? I kinda was.

Needed more mention of the mockingjay pin. Rue trusted her because of it. Since it’s never mentioned in the entire Game in the movie, the point of Cinna sneaking it onto her jacket is wasted. Also more on mockingjays in general. Even a quick mention: “Oh, mockingjays. My dad used to sing to them, they said no one could attract them the way he could.” We’ll need that, later.

I may be remembering it wrong, but my impression from the book was that in the beginning of the Game she was fighting to stay alive. But after Rue’s death, she was fighting to get back at the Capitol. I missed that, in the movie.

Most of the rest of the Game I’d leave alone, except for this: We needed to be unsure whether she meant her affection for Peeta or not, and we needed to be uncertain how serious he was. And we needed to be uncertain exactly why she was going to eat the berries, but we should absolutely have believed she was going to. In the movie there was no suspense, no build up, no music to help build tension, and we knew before she started that she was faking it.  No suspense.

I also think having Peeta relatively uninjured at the end was a mistake, since you lose the Katniss-screaming-for-him-in-the-hovercraft scene that way, which is what clinched her in the hearts of the viewers.

When they arrived at District 12, I would have ended the movie with Katniss and Peeta smiling and holding their hands up high as everyone cheers, and I’d have rolled credits. BUT, I would have continued to show scenes alongside them, suggesting that the movie is over (happy ending!) but showing what happens afterward anyway, i.e. Katniss running to hug her sister, food and supplies being offloaded to the happy citizens, and Peeta truly realizing for the first time Katniss was faking it. Katniss would hug her family, hug Gale, look around and see… Peeta sneaking away. And that’s where you end it.

There were so many places where emotional connections were made in the book that were missing here, and frankly I want ‘em back.

Stuff I liked: The whole cast. District 11, and how filming it in North Carolina lent an authentic feel to the area. Katniss’s authentic-looking archery skills. Most of the story. Cinna. I did enjoy the movie, but it could have been much more and I miss the movie it could have been.

Jane Espenson’s hysterical webseries “Husbands,” staring Cheeks, Sean Hemeon, and Alessandra Torresani, was one of the best things about 2011, and they’ve started up a Kickstarter to raise $50K for a second season. Since it’s only a few hours old and they’re already halfway there, I’m going to go ahead and call it now: more Husbands is guaranteed.

Which is a good thing. Their 10 2-minute shorts combine into the funniest sitcom pilot I’ve seen in a long time, easily better than just about any shows currently on the air. (Watch ‘em all here!)

But you might want to get in on the fundraiser anyway, since they’ve giving away cool goodies such as autographed pics, screen credits, an appearance, lunch with Jane and Cheeks and more. Go get in bed with them, quick!