Dogfish Head Beer for Breakfast Stout

Of all meals, it is perhaps breakfast that has best withstood the test of time. Everyone loves breakfast. Ron Swanson loves breakfast. Our society invented brunch, a whole new meal, just so we could have breakfast again. And I'm pretty sure that breakfast-for-dinner pre-dated brunch, but, whatever the chronology, we're up to a potential three breakfasts per day. We live in the Land of a Lot of Breakfast, and all I want is a bagel and a cup of tea or two. And a vegetable juice. And perhaps some bacon. Okay, I like breakfast, too. I won't be a contrarian on breakfast. Which is probably why Dogfish Head's Beer For Breakfast Stout didn't immediately scream "cheap stunt" to me. That and because Dogfish doesn't do cheap stunts. Even when their experiments fall flat, I'm usually glad they tried. And when they have a beer that they tell you up front involves scrapple, you believe them.

BFB pours very dark: syrupy dark.

Light on the nose, but there's an unmistakable smokiness, reminiscent of pork smoke. But not midday barbecue pork. More like first-thing-in-the-morning, bacon smoke.

The smoke comes back on the tongue. BFB isn't classified as a rauchbier, but could nearly pass for one, disrupted only by the hefty malt profile and quite a bit of coffee. Smoke, bread, coffee. It's almost like there's a theme happening here.

It's heavy-bodied, almost like one of those counter-intuitive breakfasts that puts you right back to sleep, but in a good "it's a long weekend" kind of way.

What might've been a novelty concept in another brewer's hands turns out to be a satisfying beer here. Hearty and comforting, BFB makes for a good breakfast, but I'll recommend it as a nightcap instead. Beer for dessert. There: we're up to four breakfasts now. Thank you, Dogfish Head.

Grade: A-

Suicide Squad

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW

Somewhere there's an alternate universe where alternate me didn't previously know about Suicide Squad's last minute re-shoots. Or that, for a time, there were two competing cuts of the film that stemmed from WB's anxiety over the critical response to BvS. One cut was of director David Ayer's grimmer original vision, the other was a lighter and more colorful ode to the well-received (and outstanding) trailers from earlier this year. But once I knew about them, it was hard not to see it. A victim of the struggle between the grimdark that WB had initially embraced for the DCCU and the lighter fun that moviegoers turned out to actually want, Suicide Squad is a confused and conflicted offering whose back-and-forth tonal disparities hurt an otherwise engaging flick.

The final cut is a mix of the two that were screened for test audiences, plus bits from the re-shoots, and that shows in choices that might not have been so odd if not for their placement together. In one moment, Enchantress is darkly conjuring her doomsday weapon while ominous music swells, in another she's shimmying her shoulders while monologuing for Amanda Waller. Meanwhile, El Diablo, a metahuman with pyrokinesis, states at various points that his powers came "from the Devil," but it's still jarring when he turns into an enormous literal fire demon in the climax. And a few members of the Squad get two different introductions, one loving and indulgent with lots of neon highlights, the other grimmer and stingier on time.

I don't know which cut deserves credit for the soundtrack. We should probably just thank Guardians of the Galaxy.

Despite the tonal problems, Squad soars with some excellent character work. Ayer and the actors push through limited screen time to outline some decent motivations and the film allows just enough space to showcase some strong personalities (it's almost like they're out of a comic book). Please excuse the bullet points.

• Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn was a worry for me going in because Harley is one of my favorite characters in comics and I recommend Amanda Conner's run on her book to anyone who will listen, but Robbie brings all of Harley's charm to the screen without making us sick of her. Actually, Squad could've used more of her. I had also worried, based on the marketing (and Hollywood's preoccupations) that Harley's ass would be at least as prominent a character as the rest of her. Her ass is certainly present, but not as much as I had anticipated. Still, it could take a backseat (I see what I did there) in her solo movie... or her team-up movie with Poison Ivy.
• I have personal problems with Jared Leto. I might explain those problems in writing one day. Until then, I will remember that he had the fearlessness to follow Ledger. And that the Joker's aesthetic probably wasn't entirely up to him (I don't see Joker sitting still long enough to get tattoos, do you?). And though he seemed to try too hard to put his own spin on the character, somewhere around the Ace Chemicals flashback, he had me buying in. The Joker-Harley relationship is horrifying and tragic. The romanticization of it is creepy and a bad-read and diminishes Harley. The spirit of that weirdly engrossing relationship is here, poking up through the rushed backstory. It's a highlight of the film. But then I recall Leto's moronic pranks during filming and I'm back to rolling my eyes. People will like you more if you stop trying so hard, Jared Leto. 
• Will Smith is impressive as Deadshot. 
• I didn't know much about Jay Hernandez or El Diablo going in, but his emotional trauma provided a nice touchstone, while also grounding a character that would've been crazy overpowered for this team. 
• Joel Kinnaman had a tough act following Tom Hardy's departure, but he holds up well in a role that could've been little more than hard-ass military dude trying to boss around a bunch of comic book villains. However, I wonder if either cut of the film had June Moone stay dead following Rick Flag's killing of Enchantress, adding meaning to that sacrifice. Still, I'll look on the bright side: Moone wasn't fridged. 
• Finally, holy shit Viola Davis. A movie that's not trying would depict Amanda Waller as a stoic government agent with access to a lot of important secrets. But Waller requires presence. She requires unspoken authority. She requires awe-inspiring dread and a Machiavellian will to play anyone and everyone like a fiddle until she doesn't need them to play anymore. Batman should be a little afraid of Waller. So I shouldn't need to tell you how gratifying it is to see that Davis nails the Wall. I know that Bruce Wayne/Batman is supposed to be the connective tissue for the DCCU, but that role could just as easily fall to Waller. And I kind of want it to.

Not all characters get the lingering lamp shade treatment. It's a very large cast. And I'd like to spend more time with each of them. The ones who are still alive, anyway.

I liked this movie. But I wanted to really, really, really like this movie. And that, I believe, is the DCCU's primary hurdle right now. The bulk of the audience for these movies was given grandiose adventures by the DCAU of the 90's and early 00's. Add in what Marvel's done with their properties in recent years and it's easy to see how an underwhelming movie becomes OMG TEH WORST MOVIE EVAR!!!1!!

If this sounds a lot like my thoughts following BvS, it's because I feel the same now as I did then: this is going to be a process and I'm willing to stomach some growing pains if the larger universe can grow in the right direction. There are some great elements here. In addition to Batman and Wonder Woman, we now have Harley, Waller, Deadshot, and the Flash. Meanwhile, Squad largely ditches BvS's cynicism. And while the tonal problems keep the movie from achieving more, the fact that WB is shifting its direction so openly, if also awkwardly, is a good sign.

Grade: B-

Infomocracy

"You would think, with all the access to Information, that people would pay more attention to what their governments do in other centenals, but you know what they say: you can give a voter Information, but you can't make him think."
--Malka Older, Infomocracy

In a semi-distant future, a social mega-network named Information provides the infrastructure for people to do seemingly everything, from business to play to politics. Using one of the global micro-democracy's decennial elections as a stage, author Malka Older follows a handful of political operatives and social network bureaucrats to examine the intersections of information and democracy and what humanity does at those intersections.

As a guy who loves information and people having access to that information, I find Information (a kind of Facebook-Wikipedia hybrid for everyone and everything) to be bloody fantastic. As a guy who loves privacy and the scrupulous use of information, I find Information to be bloody scary. That dichotomy is something that Older explores in Infomocracy's better touches. In an early scene, one of our lead characters, Ken, a political operative whose principles appear to be flagging, checks the personal Information of a flight attendant who has allowed some of her Information to be public. While he doesn't pick up much beyond what is public, another lead character, Mishima, an agent for Information, frequently uses her considerable skill and access to peruse Information in a way that someone like Ken would never think to. In a smaller, more personal story, where the stakes didn't have to be--literally--worldwide, there would be room for Older to explore this tension between the usefulness and creepiness of near-unlimited Information.

Such a story might also give us more time with Mishima, a fantastically drawn character who, in less-skilled hands, might've become a competence porn figure. Her hyper-competence and workaholic nature are balanced by her mistrust and paranoia, faults that she not only possesses but acknowledges (if only to herself and, later, to Ken) in a refreshing take on an old trope.

Information, like information, is neither good nor bad but can and is used for both. Its indispensability makes it both revered and distrusted, depending on which character Older is working with. It doesn't matter so much what types of information one makes available, it's who's using it. And why. With a tool so big and necessary, the micro-democracy, and therefore the world, is ripe for hi-jacking.

In an election year, you'd think--or at least I had thought--that the micro-democracy and election-hacking would be the most intriguing items. Curiously, this wasn't the case. The idea and execution of the elections were interesting, but the shadowy machinations were a bit too shadowy. It would help to know what the stakes are: who the political parties are (policies, like some characters, are sometimes only briefly outlined) and what the characters behind the conspiracies stand to gain or lose. The techno-thriller that takes up the last act of the book loses momentum because I know that I should be outraged by the scheming (and in theory, I am--election-hacking is bad) but my level of investment was not what it might have been.

Still, Older has constructed a wonderfully flawed and detailed society. And there were clearly a lot of details left on the cutting room floor, such as how the world gave itself over to the micro-democracy and how Information managed to become the conduit for that democracy (the theme of "who's really in charge here" is a nicely subtle one throughout the book). Having had experience rendering too much exposition, I appreciate Older's wisdom in not bothering to explain everything.

Indeed, she seems to want to share a lot more. By giving us a world-spanning, high-stakes, high-concept sci-fi thriller, she leaves us with the broad strokes, sacrificing some of the juicy detail that might be better provided from an on-the-ground viewpoint of someone living in the micro-democracy, under Information. More time with someone like Doumaine, an under-utilized character who is working to undermine the micro-democracy until he mostly disappears for the second half, would give us a new take on Older's society, fleshing it out. If Infomocracy has one flaw, it's that there's too much to show and too little space to do it in. But maybe that's what the sequel will be for.

Grade: A-

Anchor Argonaut Collection: Flying Cloud

Lot of beers lay claim to flight. Fish. Dogs. And I guess that's about it. But now Anchor has unveiled Flying Cloud, the first of its Argonaut Collection that I've had the pleasure of drinking. Now, I love beer, as all good-hearted people do. But if I were going to assign flight to an alcoholic beverage, beer would not be first up. Beer is heavy. Even the light ones are basically alcoholic bread. So "flying" is not what I feel like doing after having a beer or two or seven. And yet so many aspire to flight. I admire the ambition. As to what alcohol would fly? I don't know. Champagne? It's light, it's fluffy. It's an overrated experience that seems to get more expensive every year. The cork achieves liftoff. So, yeah, champagne gets to have flight.

Flying Cloud pours deep black, with a head that's a bit closer to brown. Not sure how these colors make for a "cloud," but... it's named for a boat? Huh.

It comes at you with a very malty nose, but it also includes a syrupy-chocolate smell that's very enticing.

The Cloud is very dry, with just a little coffee coming through. The beer also puts every bit of its 7.4% ABV on the tongue. That's not a complaint.

It's surprisingly light-bodied for a stout, with a hint of carbonation. I was initially worried that I had found this one at the wrong time of year, but the lightness balances the rest in a way I don't usually expect of a stout.

Despite the body, this is still one to hold onto until late fall, when it will be more welcome. Dark and dry with a slightly-above-average ABV, Flying Cloud already feels to me like a solid go-to, at least it would if not for Argonaut's limited nature. Craft beer can be such a tease sometimes.

Grade: B+

New Holland Night Tripper

I don't like coffee. The look I get when I tell people that is just about worth the near-constant caffeine-deficiency. "You've just had bad coffee," they tell me. "So have you," I sometimes reply. They shrug it off and tell me I'm wrong. Delusion brought on by addiction is a sad thing to witness.

But that said, context matters and sometimes the bitter coffee bean is more palatable. Desserts, obviously: tiramsu, ice cream. But what I love more than dessert (or, better yet, as a dessert) are stouts and porters, many of which have coffee bonded deep into their DNA. And I don't know if it's the thick body or the alcohol or the fact that it's cold enough when I'm drinking them that I just don't care, but they work in that context. I don't demand that all coffee rise to the heights of a Founders Breakfast Stout or, in this case, New Holland Night Tripper (both, coincidentally, Michigan-natives). But aiming for even a standard coffee stout-level experience would give Starbucks a lot more of my money (though probably a lot less of everybody else's).

Night Tripper pours that sexy none-more-black shade of black that's standard among the style only because nature cannot produce a darker color. It's topped off with a thick, tan head (yes, I read that, too).

There's little scent here, but given Night Tripper's coffee-heavy bent, it's probably for the best in terms of this review (if New Holland cares about my grade, which they almost certainly don't).

As I sometimes fear, the coffee is strong in this one. But, as stated, it works well here--allowing the beerier elements to stand and be counted while being just present enough to augment the favor, rather than dominate. It runs at 11.5% ABV, but doesn't taste it.

Heavy bodied, Night Tripper finishes dry and tantalizing, if not thirst-slaking (but, then, this is beer--it's not meant to do that). I find that stouts often leave the drinker with the sense that they'd like more, but don't need it. This continues the tradition.

Overall, a welcome addition to the style, even if it doesn't push any new boundaries (or perhaps especially because it doesn't). There are times when that's welcome and times when it's not. But a beer that does an ordinary thing to near-perfection usually is.

Grade: A-

Heavy Seas Winter Storm

In a city that's also home to the likes of Brewer's Art and Union Craft, Heavy Seas could all too easily come off as the shallow yet popular kid among the more substantial Baltimore breweries. But as luck would have it, that title still belongs to Natty Boh,* allowing Heavy Seas to persist as the flashier brewery in town. Sadly, that flash obscures some decent brewing tradition. For all their overwrought pirate-imagery, much of Heavy Seas' output (their Rye Porter, their Small Craft Warning pils) is built for light palate-refreshers or, more likely, some early evening sessioning. Among the never-too-complex but perfectly-pleasant lineup, Winter Storm fits right in.

Winter Storm pours dark brown, a few shades shy of black, with a dense head (yes, ha ha, dense head).

It smells nutty, and a bit malty. Despite being labeled as an Imperial ESB, this one is introducing itself as a nut brown. Not that I'll ever complain about a brown ale.

Some surprisingly sweet malt is up first, followed by caramel, and then malt again. The taste is not so heavy on the alcohol.

Winter Storm rests medium-heavy. Somewhere between a fall and winter beer, making it about right for the weird November we're having.

My feelings on Christmas ales are pretty well-documented. The entire style could afford to turn the clock back a few weeks and take some notes from this ESB (maybe with a few more notes from the better porters, while being less... nutmegy). Malty with some satisfying heft, Winter Storm comes off like a sleepy pirate, wishing everybody happy holidays a few days too early. Fortunately, the beer is good enough that you don't really mind the seasonal creep.

Grade: B+

*Note to my fellow Marylanders: National Bohemian is now brewed in North Carolina and Georgia. So we can stop pretending that it possesses some kind of noble, local allure and accept that it is instead just a bland "eh, I'm already drunk" beer.

Goose Island Matilda

It's helpful to remember that beer experimentation (or beerimentation, as no one calls it) predates the craft movement. If not for some German monks tossing hops into their beer 1,100 years ago, beer might've continued to look very different from what we know today (yes, the majority of beer's existence has been hop-less). Likewise, Belgian brewers, deviating from proud tradition, began toying around with their own pale ale style around World War II--recent enough to be new, but still several decades ahead of craft brew's love affair with the style. Chicago's Goose Island, perhaps as a result of their relationship with their ownership, tends to keep their experiments down the middle: nothing too unexpected but usually pleasantly palatable (all due respect to their exceptional Bourbon County line, which predates the new ownership). And they take an unsurprisingly low risk-high reward tack with their Belgian Pale Ale, Matilda: a beer that should, ideally, be a happy union of wheat and hops.

Matilda pours pale orange, with a decent head for a Belgian.

She smells mostly of wine, perhaps a chardonnay (that's a kind of wine, right?), with a slight plummy aroma.

The plums return on the tongue, in concert with a wheaty, malty aftertaste. The tartness is accompanied by an unexpected fizziness--not quite hopiness (we're getting to that), but close enough that I mistook one for the other at first.

For all its flavor, Matilda retains a light body that's complimented by a medium-to-heavy hop profile that lends a bit of effervescence, ensuring some memorability, though at this point that's not totally necessary.

A happy, if not ecstatic, marriage of styles gives Matilda an even, balanced profile that's pleasant throughout, offering a welcome invitation to continue drinking, all the way through its 765 milliliters.

Grade: B+

Harpoon Octoberfest

I'll probably never understand civilization's madness for pumpkin-flavored things. It's an aggressive, leathery taste, trying to be sweet and savory at the same time and failing at both. And yet it ends up in everything this time of year: pies, coffees, cupcakes, and, bleakest of all, beers. I agree that the closing of the sweat box that is August and September and the approach of October's humane crispness is worthy of celebration. But we've got to find a better flavor to mark that passage. Luckily, the Germans (yes, the Germans have beaten us in the flavor department... let that sink in) have found the perfect alternative, at least for beer (there may be no similar aid for pie) with the usually-welcome Märzen style. And it, represented here by Harpoon Octoberfest, is here to rescue us from the hegemony of the pumpkin.

Harpoon Octoberfest pours heady and darker than one usually sees in the style--promising some deeper flavor than we're likely to get.

Light caramel peppers the nose--sweet and dark--with strong hints of the malt that's to come.

Indeed, malt dominates the taste, along with some light hops. But it's the malt that's most present, perhaps at the expense of some of the other potential flavors, such as the aforementioned caramel.

Thin-to-medium bodied, Harpoon leans on a dry feel that forces your mouth to ask for more, whether or not you particularly want it.

A thin, though ultimately pleasant, beer, Harpoon hits the usual Märzen notes, but with little further exploration of the style's possibilities. And though Märzen typical has more to offer, Harpoon Octoberfest isn't entirely a disappointment and worth a glass or two before it disappears in the winter. And at least it's not bloody pumpkin.

Grade: B-

Happy Oktoberfest, everyone!

Siren Maiden 2013

I don't care for barleywines on the whole. Too cloyingly sweet while at the same time too heavy on the palate and in the stomach. However, it remains a generally popular style with segments of the population and its hard not to see why: boozy and fruity is always a popular combination and, in a pinch, a glass of barleywine can easily replace a rich slice of cake for dessert. That said, it's not so grossly overrated as its dimwitted and nostalgia-fueled cousin, mead, which we will not speak of again.

Last year's offering celebrating the first anniversary of Berkshire's Siren Craft Brewery pours ruddy red and a tad watery.

The somewhat high ABV (11%) hits the nose immediately but does so fairly pleasantly--a rusty, well-worn booze smell that doesn't trend toward cloying the way other barleywines do.

Malty and very dry, the Maiden lands somewhat heavy on the tongue but not overly heavy, once again playing against type by not becoming a meal beer after a single glass. This light heaviness, unfortunately, is also just enough to hide the alcohol which, in this style, seems unnecessary.

The body sits less heavy in the stomach, allowing room for more, perhaps, if one feels the immediate need. I did not; maybe as winter advances it will call to me again (or perhaps I could obtain this year's model).

A lighter imitation of the style serves Maiden well, though will likely prove wanting for barleywine enthusiasts. Nevertheless, the style once again proves versatile, both for flavor and body, and while Maiden be as thin as barleywines go, there's not too much to be upset about here. Also not too much to recommend it, sadly.

Grade: B-

Revisiting The Dark Knight Rises

Two years ago, I watched and reviewed The Dark Knight Rises. Now, removed from the hype and most of the emotion, I look at it again.

Even if the rest of this movie sucked, it earns points for Tommy Carcetti/Littlefinger being the CIA agent at the beginning of the movie. The fact the neither of them could charm/connive their way past Bane is enough to make him worthy as a villain.

People, for whatever reason, don't like Anne Hathaway and I truly don't get that. Because she trades on affectations and haughtiness, I guess? Have these people never met actors before? Is Hathaway supposed to hide her true self? Not everyone can be Jennifer Lawrence. And, frankly, Lawrence is far too relatable and endearing for me not to be suspicious. Anyway, the only thing wrong with Hathaway's Catwoman is the heels, and that wasn't really her call. People who aren't won over by the information-trading scene in the bar were never going to cotton to this character.

John Blake knows who Batman is from the beginning (he even has a suspicion that Bats was involved in the death of Harvey Dent). In a movie where every other character gets nine minutes of exposition, we're just supposed to accept that Blake recognizes another orphan and correctly pegs him as Batman. You know what would've been amazing? An honest, effective cop like John Blake hunting down the Batman. The Dark Knight sets that story up and it's completely abandoned here. Yeah, he's been retired for eight years, but what if Blake is on the heels of Bruce Wayne, heightening the drama of his decision to put the cowl back on? You can keep Bane and most everything else, but what if Batman actually had to face the music? It's hard not to feel like the first two movies pointed that way, before the third opted for a standard super-villain plot.

Thomas Lennon plays the doctor who examines Bruce. He was also the doctor in Memento. I don't know about the rest of you, but I like to imagine that he's the same character and that all of Christopher Nolan's movies take place in the same universe. Lennon does, anyway, and that's good enough for me.

Did this need to be another city-wide hostage movie? I get that you need a big threat for the final act, but note that the strongest movie of the trilogy is the one that doesn't threaten to blow up Gotham. And I also get the desire to bring this back around to the beginning with the League of Shadows, which wants Gotham reduced to rubble. But somewhere in here, there's a smaller, more intimate story to be told about the breakdown of the victorious--if compromised--Batman, against whom a shattered, weakened organization seeks to enact its swan song revenge. If you're thinking that's too bleak and too small scale for a summer blockbuster, I'd counter that it's also too bleak and too small scale for an Oscar bait stab-all-hope-to-death movie. It's not that I don't love the gritty reboot of the "some days you just can't get rid of a bomb" sequence (because I do), but Batman almost works best on the margins, without hype and without earth-shattering spectacle. In the dark, if you will.

Revisiting Bane's voice: the real problem is the inconsistency. In scenes like the plane heist or the speech out front of Blackgate, he's fine. But during the hit at the stock exchange, for example, it's like Sean Connery hepped up on painkillers. And it's especially a shame because Tom Hardy comes off genuinely imposing throughout his performance.

As long as we're talking about incoherence: Gordon's speech about institutions becoming shackles is almost entirely incomprehensible to me. Which is too bad because it sounds nice. But he whispers most of it over Hans Zimmer's characteristically bombastic soundtrack before transitioning into a yell at the end of it. It's an odd transition. And it seems so unlike Gary Oldman to make weird choices with his words.

Lastly, Bruce should've died. I mean, obviously, he can't hide anywhere in the world and his means for escaping are pretty meagerly defined. But even apart from that, there's an indulgent aspect of his surviving the blast. It worked for me at the time, but two years later, it just feels like the filmmakers are trying to have their cake and eat it, too. Once again, there seem to be few real consequences to Bruce's decision to be Batman, a thematic decision that might work for some superhero stories, but this series has gone out of its way to underline that vigilantism casts some very dark shadows.

This dichotomy extends to Blake's inheritance of the cowl. While Robin's Blake's fate relies on the imagination of the viewer, a trilogy that took pains to outline the downsides of vigilantism can hardly expect to be able to promote any excitement around a potential new Batman. I wonder if Nolan & Co. were aiming for fan indulgence, rather than trying to make a lasting statement. At the end of a popularly received trilogy, it's hard not to take the bait of rewarding one's fans, but when you've made your bones on gritty realism plausibility, this ending is just too easy. I don't know what the answer is. Kill Batman outright? We could completely upend most of the story as I slip into fan fiction mode, but neither you or I want to go through that (short version: Bruce doesn't rehabilitate after his fight with Bane, but is found by Blake, who helps him strategize from the cave to help the cops fight the League of Shadows; maybe Batman shows up in an exoskeleton suit, ala Kingdom Come). As a broad arc, it fits the character nicely--take everything away from him, give him the worst possible situation, and he still Batmans his way out of it--but it almost belongs to another, less self-serious take on the character.

Previous grade: A
New grade: B

I still like it. And though it's the weakest of the three, I can watch the full trilogy without feeling like it goes out on a sour note (Rises was never going to top its predecessor). But without needing to love it like I did in 2012, an ending that seemed like it had struck a perfect balance before plays a little muddled to me now. A few flat notes among some strong, undeniably Batmany work hurt the film but don't drag it down entirely. Overall, it's a strong enough series that I don't need another Batman film ever again.

Not that I would refuse one...

Snowpiercer

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Snowpiercer is the closest thing the world will ever see to a Bioshock movie. And in all likelihood, it works even better than a straight adaptation ever would. Director Joon-ho Bong presents forth a fairly straightforward journey from the tail of a train to the head of it that's never less than visually fascinating. Meanwhile, the simplicity of that forward momentum provides plenty of room for a story that is at turns gruesome, darkly funny, infuriating, and heart-wrenching.

Seventeen years after the world's botched attempt to reverse climate change, the last of our species is stuck aboard a perpetual momentum train, traveling across a dead and frozen Earth. A long, steel box houses a few drops of human decency struggling against the most corrupted, degraded tendencies of our species. The difference between the two factions doesn't even have the courtesy to be distinguishable by class, which, while clearly demarcated, does not necessarily confer morality or decency on one side or the other (the citizens of the tail come off slightly better, if only because they have the misfortune to be aware of their miserable lives while the well-off citizens of the head thrive in ignorance of those consigned to the rear cars). These would be somewhat less bleak equations, if the occupants of the train didn't also happen to be the last of humankind.

Chris Evans' Curtis leads a team of rebels to take the engine of the train. Car by car, they fight for the dignity of their comrades in the tail and the children that are, now and again, taken to help run the engine. They bloodily force their way out of the slums of the tail, through the kitchen (where they learn what their food is made from), and into the opulent digs of the upper class, which includes a terrifying indoctrination center for the children of the head, where Curtis guns down a delightfully repugnant Tilda Swinton.

I'm not sure when exactly I started thinking that Joon-ho Bong was perfect for a theoretical Bioshock adaptation, but by the time Curtis and his surviving rebels are making their way through the upper class cars at the front of the train--decadent, beautifully-appointed, totally at odds with the way people in an enclosed and delicate ecosystem should be able to live--I realized this was that adaptation. And it's not too long before Ed Harris' Andrew Ryan Wilford shows up, completing the parallel. Snowpiercer, happily, chooses to end not long after killing its mad god-king.

Instead, it turns out that Curtis' revolution is just the most recent in a long line of orchestrated uprisings to maintain the delicate balance of population and resources. Curtis, at least for a time, was being led by the very forces he was trying to undermine (would you kindly...). Realizing that there is no future for the people in the tail, or any hope for any interruption to the rotten status quo, Curtis opts for the last best hope. And instead of a scavenger hunt and a disappointing boss battle, we get an uplifting sequence in which the train crashes and a couple of surviving children stumble out into the cold, spying a polar bear in the distance (which I think symbolizes good eatin').

There's a balancing act to a story that relies on humankind being its worst. In particular, it's difficult to stick the landing in a satisfying way. It can be all too easy to close out on a hopelessly bleak note or go for the contrived and improbable hopeful ending. Bioshock gave players a choice between the two. Snowpiercer wisely opts for the least crushing finale possible. Yona and Tim (seventeen and five, respectively, with little-to-know working knowledge of the planet they've never set foot on) are not set up very well. And it's only a few lines of dialogue spoken twenty minutes before the end that gives the audience any hope for the Earth itself having any hope for survival. But they've survived the train--no great environment for a kid--and, if Curtis' uprising represents anything, it's that a chance of a hope is better than giving in. At least there's some humanity in that.

Grade: A

How To Fight Presidents

"The desire to be president is a currently undiagnosed but very specific form of insanity. Only a person with an unfathomably huge ego and an off-the-charts level of blind self-confidence and an insatiable hunger for control could look at America, in all of her enormity, with all of her complexity, with all of her beauty and flaws and strength and power, and say, "Yeah. I should be in charge of that." Only a lunatic would look at a job where you get slandered and scrutinized and attacked by the media and sometimes even assassinated and say, 'Sign me up!'"
--Daniel O'Brien, How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country

The worst aspect of school is that I don't get much time to read for pleasure. I mean, I do still read for pleasure. I just feel guilty about it in a way that I didn't before.

With How To Fight Presidents, Cracked's Dan O'Brien has constructed a better written, more entertaining counterpoint to Christopher Hitchens' assertion about voters getting the mad, narcissistic politicians they deserve. Not in the sense that Hitchens was wrong, just that we might as well embrace the inevitable. As long as this land has a job with that much responsibility and people who are "crazy ambitious and obsessed with power to an unhealthy degree," this is the system we're going to have. Not that this is always a good thing--and O'Brien is quick to lambast the likes of Van Buren, Fillmore, and Buchanan--but at least it's sometimes an entertaining thing. In the long run. You know, after we've had time to process their horrific insanity.

Unfortunately, that process takes so long that by the time we've done it, we've also thoroughly sanitized these men (all men, so far--I wonder if part of the appeal of a female president is to see if the insanity manifests any differently). By the time we're ready to learn about an historic figure, we've eliminated all of the worthwhile information, shamefully cutting the most savory chunks of history from our cultural awareness. By bringing tidbits such as Zachary Taylor's bizarre cherry-fueled death to the masses in digestible form, O'Brien is truly doing the Lord's work.

O'Brien highlights a lot of facts about presidents that the dutiful nerd already knows. Like Andrew Jackson's crazed duel lust (that is, a lust for dueling and violence more generally). Or William Howard Taft and the bathtub. Or the fact that Teddy Roosevelt was basically President Batman, while his fifth cousin, Franklin Delano, was Iron Man (making James Madison... Ant Man? O'Brien never says).

However, I was less familiar with Calvin Coolidge's Norman Batesian disposition. Or John Quincy Adams' disturbing fondness for literal self-flagellation. And while I could've surmised LBJ's dick-centric egotism (who couldn't have?), O'Brien presents a few juicy more details to back that up (okay, I'll give you one: Johnson would casually pee on secret service agents' legs when it was a convenient solution).

If any of these revelations are surprising, it's only because of the aforementioned sanitized history that we were all fed in school. We get the dull falsehood about George Washington and the cherry tree, not the discomforting admission that Washington enjoyed being shot at while in battle. This is the most demanding, scrutinized, personally devastating job on the planet and not only do these men think they can do the job, they think they can get a majority of the electorate to agree with them.

Presidents are insane. We need them to be or we'd have no one else willing to do the job. It's our solemn, patriotic duty to enjoy the ride.

Grade: A-

Slow Getting Up

"I am meat, traded to the highest bidder: the only bidder. Fine, I'll be your meat. I'll be whatever you want me to be. Just give me a helmet."
--Nate Jackson, Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival From The Bottom Of The Pile

Last fall, I watched PBS' League of Denial. I didn't do the swearing-off football thing. I didn't tell myself I'd never see the sport the same way again. But I did predict that it would be harder for me to watch football and ignore what I had already sort of known: that these men kill themselves and each other for my fleeting pleasure. I had said and written as much myself prior to that. But after absorbing League of Denial, I now had too much human evidence bouncing around in my skull to go back to how things used to be. I may still watch, but with different eyes, I told myself.

Ten days later, I was apoplectic over the Bears' chronic inability to stop allowing easy first downs (that was the game at Washington, for anyone keeping score).

In Slow Getting Up, former NFL role-player Nate Jackson gives a first-hand account of how injuries took him from middle-of-the-road receiver to formerly-serviceable tight end. And how, even toward the end, he couldn't quite face the obvious warning signs that his dream (a word he uses a lot) was dead.

"I still believe in the beauty of the game. This above all else is true. But to be a fly on the wall, or to be [Jackson's rehab trainer] Derek, is to be struck in the face with how delusional a man scorned by his lover can be. Here I am telling him all the reasons why I hate her, in between sets of an exercise specifically designed to lead me back into her arms. I am sick."

That first sentence is easy to overlook. Football, like any decent sport (not you, curling), is beautiful. It just happens to have a staggering human toll. I tell myself that the players know what they sign up for, that they take it as a job hazard. But even with the possible (major) exception of what players know about concussions and other head injuries, Jackson's story indicates that a player can't possibly account for everything his body will endure. We worry about the obviously gruesome injuries (like Navarro Bowman's during Sunday's NFC Championship game). But who anticipates Nate Jackson tearing nearly every muscle in his groin clean off the bone? And in a universe where "there simply isn't time to pay attention to the individual athlete's body," where things move "too quickly for... conscientious objections to keep pace," how often are other, more minor injuries allowed to fester and conspire with other injuries to dismantle world class athletes?

For the record, Jackson never suffers a concussion and credits this miracle to the shortness of his career, writing of guys with longer tenures in the game, "they stay healthy longer, play more, smash skulls more, die younger." I guess if you have to choose one or the other...

Jackson was a notch above the average NFL'er: one of the guys you don't think about, the guys whose short rides give us that unglamorous statistic that says the average NFL career is about three years long. Three years of service (closer to eight, in Jackson's case), with a body degraded a decade or more beyond normal because of a commitment to the game they love. And it their commitment. It's only for the fans in the sense that they have to say it's about us. It's their competitiveness that straps on the helmet, not the fans. We just benefit. The owners do, too.

It's not fair to compare our blindness to theirs. For Jackson and his compatriots, the destruction is so much more intimate. It's not us at a training camp in Arizona, making one last Hail Mary attempt (I see what I did there) at a career via the short-lived United Football League, running a standard fade route and feeling his hamstring explode one last time. We get to keep on watching from a distance. And now so does Jackson. He has no regrets about pursuing his dream. And he shouldn't. Anyway, it's not like he could convince a younger version of himself not to go through with it. They all think of themselves as invincible, the same way others view them as disposable, the same way fans view them as an abstracted combination of the two. And so the games go on, distracting us from... themselves.

I haven't gotten round to watching the game differently, as I predicted. At least, that new eye hasn't developed the way I thought it would. But seeing guys like Nate Jackson as something other than invincible, disposable meat, put on this planet for my entertainment, is a start.

I wonder if that'll make the games too hard to watch.

Grade: B+

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

"Loss is the standard trajectory. Something appears in the world--a baby, say, or a car or a house, or an individual shows some special talent--with luck and huge expenditures of soul and effort you might keep the project stoked for a while, but eventually, ultimately, it's going down. This is a truth so brutally self-evident that he can't fathom why it's not more widely perceived, hence his contempt for the usual public shock and outrage when a particular situation goes to hell... Billy suspects his fellow Americans secretly know better, but something in the land is stuck on teenage drama, on extravagant theatrics of ravaged innocence and soothing mud wallows of self-justifying pity."
--Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

When you put on a convincing enough show, you run the risk of deluding yourself. I'm not talking about telling a lie so often that you begin to believe it. No, the show is the thing you put on to enhance reality (a halftime show at a football game, say) or distract yourself from that reality (the football game itself). The problem is, between the two, there's not much left to enhance or distract from and, after a point, the reality and the show become indistinguishable. And we cannot acknowledge the show, lest risking that it all come crashing down. Whole economies are built on the fantastical puff we've constructed: war, business, Hollywood. The show is what makes the world go round. Best to stay the course. So Ben Fountain slyly demonstrates in Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.

When Bravo Company become national heroes via a video captured by a Fox News imbed, they're given the star treatment and a victory tour through the States... just before being sent back to Iraq. The pomp and circumstance provide ample rumination material for 19-year-old Billy Lynn, whose real world experiences boil down to the war and the things he did to get sent to the war. That relative inexperience--along with one hell of a hangover--notwithstanding, Billy demonstrates impressive observational skills and possesses a fine ear for bullshit, if only because he hears it often enough.

Two days before redeployment Billy and the Bravos are the props guests of Dallas Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones Norm Oglesby at a Thanksgiving game. America's heroes (for the time being), hosted by America's team (hahahaha), enjoying America's game (so appropriately war-like that Billy wonders why we don't send the players--"well rested, suited up, psyched for brutal combat"--to fight the war). The Bravos, being late-teenaged/early twenties, are hungover, party-ready horndogs, preferring (given their druthers) a lack of sophistication. That's precisely what's charming--and human--about each of them. But to the nation they are icons, heroes that America is starved for in the age of terror. Never the twain shall meet, save for a brief subjection to a gross, confusing, and exploitative halftime show that opens a couple of the Bravos up to the early stages of PTSD. In America, the more garish and over-saturated an event is, the less open it is to doubts of patriotism.

Between exploring the bowels of the immense Texas Stadium, receiving showy receptions from the wealthy attendees, and witnessing the clunky process of acquiring a movie deal, Billy gets a crash course in how most things seem to be coated in a thin layer of bullshit. Once again, that's not to be confused with lies. Everyone in the book is refreshingly honest. Bullshit is the constant in Billy Lynn. That and the most pointless kind of capitalism. The concourses of Texas Stadium are as much a shopping center as a sports venue. Combined with the airports and arenas and hotels that the Bravos pass through, America comes off as little more than "a mall with a country attached," as Billy observes. Young Billy is barely able to process the psychic onslaught at Texas Stadium. Everything has a listed value and nearly everything is for sale and "nothing looks quite so real as a fake." That's the sweet spot of bullshit. 

It's hard to peg a solid chronology in Billy Lynn. George W. Bush is still president and the Cowboys still play at Texas Stadium (the reader pines for what Fountain might've done in describing the monstrous carnival that is that stadium's replacement) and not only is the war still raging, it hasn't gone to hell yet. Admirers tell the Bravos totally straight-faced that the public supports the war (though we must account for some of the aforementioned showmanship). Anyway, we're probably looking at mid-2000s, a time when the Iraq War seemed a semi-reasonable idea when argued by the right people. It wasn't so much a war built on lies as it was built on bullshit. And we're not smarter than we were ten years ago, we've just wiped those layers clean. Mostly.

Buttressed by some truly lovely writing ("the manager himself, a slender, oleaginous fellow with the unctuous patter of an undertaker murmuring pickup lines in a bar"), Fountain lays out an American experience that's soul-punchingly honest, if a little hard to remember through the fog of... whatever we've been doing since. Candy Crush, probably.

I don't know if anyone will remember the minutiae or the day-to-day psychology of that era. Billy Lynn offers a decent entry-point into all that (for anyone with the stomach for it), but it would be unfair to say that's all it is. Billy Lynn is about America, Iraq War or no. And it will happen again. There will always be a Billy Lynn, just as there will always be a Norm Oglesby. All that will change are the nouns. At least we get good stories out of them.

Grade: A

Anchor Christmas Ale

 
I first had Anchor Christmas a couple of years back. I wasn't impressed. Christmas beers are hard, either nothing special or too heavy on the nutmeg. A few manage to get it about right, but for the most part it's nice packaging around something that would work just as well any time of the year (I'm looking at you, every brewery that puts out a passable porter/stout and tells me it's holiday-themed). But in the spirit of seasonal forgiveness, I decided to give Anchor another chance to get me drunk this Christmas.

The winter warmer-style beer pours medium dark; I'd call it mildly translucent.

It smells heavily of malt (in deference to the style), with light hints of some vague spice.  Let's call it clove?

Nutmeg (here we go) hits the tongue first, but is soon washed away by dry, hearty malt, which dominates the flavor until the end. The post-malt swim is short and dry, like the ghost of a beer.

Medium-bodied, the beer feels like it's aiming for heaviness, but falls a little short. It's makes for a decent session beer, good news for those who run the family-presents-meal marathon today.

Overall, this one is mild and inoffensive, but short and pleasant enough that a second may well be in order for a Christmas afternoon.

Grade: B

The Disaster Artist

"I'll do my own project and it will be better than everybody else. You think this movie we just saw was tragedy? No. Not even close. I will make tragedy. People will see my project and... you know what? They will not sleep for two weeks. They will be completely shocked. You watch."
-- Tommy Wiseau, per The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made, by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell 

I'm not going to try to explain The Room. Because I can't. Anyone who claims they can adequately explain the film in less time than it takes to watch it is lying. But as a psychological case study meets film-making how-not-to crash course, The Disaster Artist is worthwhile. At the very least, it's entertaining.

Greg Sestero is a struggling actor and much-too loyal and forgiving friend, which, combined, help to explain how a good-hearted guy with potential and a wild dream fell into the orbit of Tommy Wiseau and thenceforth into The Room. First brought on as a line producer, Sestero eventually inherits the role of "the Mark," best friend and cuckold-maker to Wiseau's protagonist "Johnny." With ghostwriter Tom Bissell, Sestero spins a yarn of the inept production of a bad movie and a decade-long friendship with the incomprehensible Wiseau. 

Alternating chapters are dedicated to Sestero's stop-start acting career. These chapters make for a decent story and the reader feels for his frustrations, but they are fraught with a burning question: Where's Tommy?

Luckily, Tommy is never more than a page or two away from calling Sestero, or showing up at the apartment he's let to Sestero, or moving in with Sestero. All the while, Wiseau manipulates the poor kid (at least twenty years his junior, though no one's totally sure of Wiseau's true age, likely not even Wiseau himself) into hanging out with him--and no one else, ever--or indulging him in his self-evidently awful "feature movie" project. These traits--the manipulation, the neediness, the pitiable misconceptions about himself and the world around him--veer from funny to sad to terrifying at a pace that leaves the reader marveling at Sestero's hardiness.

The world has plenty of people who exhibit these behaviors, of course, but few of them have a bank account that an uncircumspect teller would describe as "a bottomless pit." However and whenever he attained his fortune (Half-Drunken theory: Tommy Wiseau is an exiled heir to the Habsburg throne, allowed to keep his money in exchange for never returning to Austria), he has been insulated from ever having to embrace anything like reality. Sestero calls The Room a testament to "unrelenting drive and determination," proof that a dream--however ill-concieved--can be made real. But it helps a lot when you're able to put up six million dollars of your own money to ensure that that dream is realized.

And by all appearances, Wiseau believed that The Room would be a genuine masterpiece, a modern day Sunset Boulevard, a comparison Sestero makes in regard to his relationship with Wiseau, except that Norma Desmond's pretensions to talent and fame weren't entirely delusional. It's hard to know what he'd make of this book. Or the title. But when his film continues to make money hand over fist, it's hard to tell him otherwise. It's not Avatar, but people on multiple continents continue to line up to see The Room--and convince their friends to join them--in a way they don't for films that they think are well-made. Blame my generation's love affair with irony (though I'd argue that many people's love for The Room punches straight through irony, passing into total sincerity), but Tommy Wiseau has done very well for himself, if not for the reasons he might think.

There's a lost chance toward the end of Disaster Artist, when the world premiere of The Room brings Wiseau's dream to life, to explain how that first small, cobbled together audience interpreted the film and how it shifted from that into the cult hit acknowledged in the introduction. All we get is a beaming, tearful Wiseau and a dashed-off "proud of you, buddy" from a guy who's spent the previous 300 pages catering to everything that the cult is dying know. But maybe that's not Sestero's story to tell. As he observes, "The magic of The Room derives from one thing: no one interprets the world the way Tommy Wiseau does."

Wiseau is a perfect little mystery: an indeterminate origin, an unfounded self-confidence, a palpable disconnect with human experience; the money might help explain those last two things but where did that come from? Sestero takes a stab at unpacking the mystery, outfitting Wiseau with a thin biography informed by vague, sparse, and largely unverifiable facts. This biography does provide an plausible source for The Room's funding, but the explanation for how that money was generated is not a tidy one, by Sestero's admission.

The Room should be some kind of Kaufman-esque hoax (Half-Drunken theory: Tommy Wiseau is Andy Kaufman), but if it were a hoax, we'd know. Wouldn't we? No parody could be this perfect; we'd see the strings. There'd have to be some kind of wink to the audience. But there isn't. The Disaster Artist seals it--this movie really, somehow, was allowed to happen. Real human beings experienced and endured Tommy Wiseau in all his paranoia, poor judgment, and financial schizophrenia (sometimes a miser, sometimes spending lavishly and nonsensically).

Tommy Wiseau exists and the way he interacts with the world is every bit as bizarre as fans would suspect, while simultaneously so disappointingly benign. He wears his insecurities on his sleeve, making for an awkward obsessive whose every short coming is telegraphed. And his failure to assimilate is not through a lack of trying; at heart, he's more American than you or I. Wiseau is not a mad villain, just mad. And if The Room brings joy to audiences, he can't be a totally awful filmmaker. Just kind of an awful filmmaker.

The Room is still a terrible movie, after all.

Grade: B+

Batman: Arkham Origins

WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS

It would be easy--if accurate--to complain that Warner Bros Games Montreal has done nothing new with the Arkham franchise. On the one hand, Batman: Arkham Origins does give the impression of stagnation, as though the series has already become afraid to try anything new. On the other hand, more Arkham is fine by me.

Given a new studio at them helm of this installment, a brisk change of pace may have been unnecessary, anyway. It might even have made a great big glowing target of WBGM (God, the acronym is somehow just as cumbersome as the full name) because any significant change would've proved--at best--controversial among the fan community. So in Origins, it appears, the studio chose to prove they could deliver the same beloved product, plus a couple more things. In that, Montreal succeeds.

And Origins does tempt fate, allowing Batman to glide and run around "old Gotham City," which players will remember as the setting of Arkham City. And it looks here exactly the same as it did in the previous game if a bit less, um, decayed: same courthouse, same steel mill; a few buildings missing, a few more added, and Batman cannot interact with this portion of the city precisely as he did in the previous game. But it's undoubtedly Arkham City. The player can explore this area (and a brand new half of a city, as well) using the exact same orgasmically-intuitive game mechanics they've become accustomed to. If nothing else, it would be ballsy to remind players of a game they love while giving them a game they don't. Not going to lie: I smiled a bit, reliving old memories.

While we're tempting fate with a new studio trying to replicate near-perfection, we've gotten new voice actors to replace the near-unreplaceable Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill. But happily, Roger Craig "Ezio Auditore" Smith's Batman is a reasonable facsimile with a flawless criminal-intimidation voice. Meanwhile, Troy Baker (who you will not recognize from here) ratchets Hamill's unmatchable rendition into a younger, more eager Joker. Both are solid enough and talented enough that I almost wish they had been allowed to break free with their performances rather than imitate what's already been done. Origins gave me that feeling frequently.

At this point, I realize I haven't gotten to the Batmanning. But that aspect is mostly the same as it was before. Crime scene reconstruction is a fun, only occasionally tedious, addition. And the Batplane quick-travel is a nice relief when having to traverse a game world that verges on over-sized. Otherwise, no big surprises here. Players who didn't like the Riddler's scavenger hunts still won't like them, and still don't have to do them. And players who love fluid fights and challenging predator sections (that is, every player) will still love those. It feels good to be back in the cape and cowl again. 

Side note: a brief jaunt into the challenge rooms left me disappointed, coming off as more a series of structured stunt-performances requiring none of the creative criminal-bashing I loved about the previous games' challenge rooms. Maybe opening up a few more rooms will improve that experience.

Joker aside, Origins opts to showcase the more obscure segments of Batman's rouges gallery. From semi-knowns like Black Mask and Deathstroke to out-of-left-fielders like Copperhead (now a chick!) and Anarky (whose inclusion is worthwhile solely for Batman's walk-out on a mopey manifesto). Bane, in a pleasant surprise, is a decently well-constructed villain: an enormous, hyper-intelligent tactician with a mercenary focus on killing the Bat. However, it's tarnished slightly by reverting him to the over-muscled, lumbering Bane we know from past games for the climactic battle, which is somewhat more thrilling than previous final Arkham boss fights. On that note, boss battles are decent this time around (special mention to the Mad Hatter section), but nothing like the spectacular Mr. Freeze fight from City.

True, Batman's early years--being hunted by cops, the slow-building trust with Gordon, his first meeting with Joker--have been done before. Sometimes better than this. There's nothing new or canon-shattering here. We even get a brief Knightfall retread. Montreal is not trying for the road less traveled here. But if it works, it works. And Origins works.

If Rocksteady never gets another shot at the franchise, at least Arkham is in steady (hm...) hands at Montreal. If it ain't broke, yadda yadda. This can get old quickly, and Montreal will need to do something of their own eventually. But so long as future games avoid the trap, I can live with evolutionary lull for one installment.

Grade: B+

Doorman review

Full disclosure: I donated $20 to the Indiegogo for this project. I also stand to gain nothing from it's potential success, save some measure of pride. So take this review as you will. 

A person toiling much below the upper-middle class strata assumes a sponge-like experience, absorbing abuse and humiliation as an understood aspect of earning room and board on this cosmic rock of ours. Some among us use that fodder to fuel outside projects that, at bottom, provide a catharsis and a bonding point with our fellow drones. At the other end, a select few create something like art. Doorman is closer to the latter.

It's hard to do a spoiler-free review of a ten minute film. So if this seems short, there's the reason. The Doorman project is best understood as a pilot, introducing the world to the filmic version of Doorman's truly excellent blog, with more to follow, should the festival scene prove fair. The pilot is funny, stuffed with pathos, and even features a touch of redemption toward the end--the kind of minor, fleeting victory that provides working slobs with just enough energy to keep us coming back for more. Minor nitpick: that redemption comes a bit too easily. But within the time constraints, Doorman gives the story all the breathing room he can. The blog has too much material for a feature length, so one must temper expectations (and I would watch a three-hour epic of this).

In a world stocked with Sharknadoes and Adam Sandler's Fuck It, They're Paying Us Anyway 2, it's beyond refreshing to get a project that has a more than a few sprigs of heart thrown in. You can't watch it yet. But I hope one day you can.

Grade: A-

Dogfish Head Sixty-One

Dogfish Head Sixty-One, essentially their famous 60-Minute IPA tossed with Syrah grape must, pours dark red, almost purple in the right light.

It smells softly of grapes (there's red wine DNA in there, after all), but lacks a strong nose.

Those grapes are apparently saving themselves for the mouth, hitting the tongue first and last, with dashes of sweet malt in between.

Sixty-One has a pleasantly dry finish and borders on the thick-bodied, but its hop character is disappointingly low, given its roots in the "continuously hopped" IPA (and being from a brewery that's never feared hops... or anything else, really).

Dogfish Head once again earns points for an appealing idea, but the final result is flat enough to leave the drinker wanting for the original 60-Minute IPA.

Grade: C+

Man of Steel

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Man of Steel: in which Hollywood continues to insist on re-telling origin stories. I don't want to lean too hard on this point, as the temptation to re-tell Superman's iconic origin story must be strong, if only because it's the most obvious way to get the audience to identify with a character, something that's hard for Superman generally. And MOS handles Superman's origin reasonably well, but as with The Amazing Spider-Man before it, even when done well (and this is the most thorough film adaptation of the end of Krypton and Clark's youth in Kansas, narrowly beating out Superman: The Movie), there's a distinct feeling of deja-vu that brings the pacing to a crawl.

This origin has been told a thousand times. Grant Morrison told it in one surprisingly poignant page in All-Star Superman. Mark Waid's excellent Superman: Birthright tells the whole story with pathos, managing to fit the brunt of Superman mythology into a psychologically-realistic package. Some small examples: MOS ends with Clark getting hired at the Daily Planet, with no mention of a journalism background; S:B has Clark working as a reporter before becoming Superman is ever a thought in his head. S:B also features Clark fleshing out his identities (Superman and bumbling Clark Kent) with John and Martha, the Kents studying acting and costume design and working out all the kinks of Clark's plan before he goes and does it; MOS has Clark receive his costume whole cloth from the ghost of his dead Kryptonian father.

Side note: I wasn't a fan of them killing off Jonathan Kent again, and especially not a fan of Clark accepting that that was how it was supposed to be because he "trusted" his father; a personal thing, just rang false to me.

Now, are these metrics not fair because I've read the source materials? Yeah, probably.

But as though to apologize for treading old water, director Zack Snyder does what he was hired to do--the action in MOS much improved from the deeply disappointing Superman Returns. Especially worth highlighting is Superman's battle with Zod's lieutenants in Smallville, which earns special attention as perhaps the most exciting fight scene in recent superhero history. Many reviewers have focused on the relative lack of heart of the second half of MOS, and that's fair, because even viscerally exciting action will lose its soul if it goes on too long--something that Snyder can and will do unapologetically; he levels Metropolis with surprisingly little pathos. But at least this action is something new for the character on film. This is what we wanted after SR and Snyder doesn't disappoint.

But when the action is done, we're left with the character we were introduced to and kind of like (he is saving our asses, that helps) but, like the people he protects, we still don't really know him. He's not as accessible as Iron Man, not as fantasy-worthy as Batman. The focus on his Kryptonian backstory comes at the expense of Clark the human being (Ghost Jor-El tells him that he is equally from Earth and Krypton, which gives short stick to the place he was raised in and planet he identifies with); the Kryptonian aspect should be largely superficial not just because that makes the most sense psychologically, but because it's what makes us like him. We Superman fans revere Clark, not Kal-El. Warner Bros. is almost certainly going to expect sequels and the "who" of Superman has time to be fleshed out, but that needed to be done here, especially given a worldwide audience that has no innate reverence for the character. Henry Cavill mines a few moments of likability, despite a grin that often looks too much like a smirk; I'd love to see what he can do with a deeper script.

A related point: We know Superman wants to protect us, not dominate us; motivation is what makes him the hero and Zod the villain (quick word: Michael Shannon is a lot of fun in the villain role). And that's important because that knowledge is the difference between Superman and Nietzschean Superman for the viewer (that goes for superheroes in general, actually). But it's easy to identify with General Swanwick at the end of the film; this guy is asking us to trust him, when we don't know him. In light of the news out of the NSA these past weeks, could we trust him? Should we? MOS never gets into that, save a cameo from a Predator drone (funny: Gen. Swanwick complains about it costing $11 million dollars days after a major city is reduced to rubble). Again, probably a good basis for the sequel and that's what a character like Lex Luthor is meant to do. But a large problem for Superman the last few decades has been relative tone-deafness and I wonder how much longer his stories can afford to ignore present conditions.

Despite largely mediocre reviews, MOS is almost certainly going to warrant that sequel, if only because Warner Bros. really wants to get a jump on that Justice League project. And MOS may prove a decent base for a larger DC Universe. It's not hard, at this stage, to imagine some of the other heroes coexisting with Superman--Wonder Woman and Green Lantern in particular (watching Metropolis get flattened gives me some pause about Batman, but they're not going to attempt JL without him). However, we need a further look at this Superman first. Because for all the pretty, pretty fireworks, we've only just absorbed the first rays of yellow sunlight of why the hell we should care.

Grade: B