You don't need to be the World's Greatest Detective to know what the new Batman movie is about: What Richard Pryor and emo-Spiderman have to do with Bane

***This post contains no spoilers. Sorry to get your hopes up***
As I'm writing this, hundreds of thousands of fangirls and boys are reveling in the fact that they just saw Christopher Nolan's conclusion to his Caped Crusader story arc at the midnight showing, while millions more are lining up to see it today. Despite my self-proclaimed status as a comic book nerd ever since Thanos was resurrected in the pages of Silver Surfer, I'm not one of those fans that will see Batman today.

I'm sure these would have been hanging from my wall if they were around during my teen years.  And as a side note, it's amazing that I didn't get beat up more often.

Namely because Batman: El caballero de la noche asciende doesn't come out in Mexico, where I am currently writing from, for another week.  Despite this tragic turn of events, I know exactly what the new movie is about thanks to the "third-movie-inner-demons" plot outline that has become so ubiquitous in the super-hero mythos that it's amazing it was never described by Joseph Campbell.  Basically, the super-hero trilogy goes like this: part one is the origin story, part two is the established super-hero that has been ramped up, and by the time the third film rolls around, filmmakers assume that the only way to make the sequel to the sequel "bigger and badder than before" is to make the super-hero battle his or her own inner existential threat.  What better way to illustrate the point than with two cinematic gems: Superman III and Spiderman III.

The most fortunate of you have probably just finished years of self-hypnotism classes in order to purge these movies from your mind, so allow me to remind you how these two movies can illuminate the finer plot points of the new Batman movie.  In Superman III, the man of steel is turned into an dark version of himself by synthetic kryptonite created by Richard Pryor, who it turns out is a idiot-genius after taking an introduction to computing class.  In Spiderman III, the friendly neighborhood webslinger is corrupted by an alien symbiote that falls from outer-space.  In both cases, the protagonist becomes a dark shade of his former heroic self, accompanied by a gamut of horrible actions: Superman grows a five o'clock shadow, blows out the Olympic flame, straightens out the leaning tower of Pisa and has a fling with the villain's therapist.  Spiderman for his part turns emo, becomes a womanizing jerk as well as a horrible dancer.  Both heroes are forced to battle their dark selves, Superman in a metaphysical junkyard battle between the doppelganger and Clark Kent, and Spiderman by discovering that the symbiote's only weakness happens to be church bells.

There are countless other examples of the hero turned villain for the third movie.  In X-Men United, Xavier's mutants have to face the Phoenix force, manifested through Jean Grey.  In Karate Kid III, Daniel leaves Mr. Miyagi to be trained by the bad guy.  And in Land Before Time III, Littlefoot becomes an insufferable hipster, wearing his Keffiyeh everywhere and only drinking Pabst blue ribbon.  In fact, if you want to compare apples to apples, the appearance of nipples on the batsuit in Batman Forever should be evidence enough of Batman's corruption in the third movie (of sorts).

 

 So what does all this have to do with Christopher Nolan's coda?  I think it should be obvious by now: Bane is really just a manifestation of Bruce Wayne's dark side that will be overcome in a metaphorical final battle to save Gotham.  I'm sure that all of the carnage in the trailer is just part of a dream sequence, but it's always possible that I'm wrong.  To be honest though, all signs point toward Bane just being the yin to Batman's yang, so don't be surprised if Christian Bale turns out to be playing the surprise double role again (I know I promised at the first that there wasn't any spoilers in this post, so you shouldn't click on this link unless you know how The Prestige ends; and if you didn't, then I guess I just ruined it for you anyway).   

This foolproof theory can of course be extended to other threequels.  Many fans have been clamoring for Iron Man 3 to be based on the "Demon in a Bottle" arc, where Tony Stark dramatically succumbs to  alcoholism, which is guaranteed to translate into a surefire blockbuster.

Not depressing in the least bit.

Rocky's favorite songs pt. 10; "Kick Drum"

What started out as a way to post all of Rocky's favorite music videos in just a few days has obviously taken a little longer than that. One of the reasons I took so long on this final one was because I wanted to post the video of her dancing. It's not going to happen, but just know that she always sings along, and she knows to wave her arm slowly above her head on the introspective bridge of the song.



The first time that Rocky heard this song, she said "This song is magic!!" Thanks to Mark for introducing us to The Avett Brothers, they're definitely a family favorite.

Rocky's favorite songs pt. 9; All the pretty girls

Because it's been over two months since Rocky's birthday, because I'm sick of this series and because today is the fourth of July and nothing is more American than breaking a piñata, here's the second to last song, with a bonus video of Rocky's interpretation. I dare you to try and listen to this song all the way through without tapping your feet or dancing around a little bit. Go ahead, give it a try.



I told you that you wouldn't be able to do it.



A huge thanks to Derek for introducing us to fun. We had to pick this member of the band (Jack Antanoff) to piñata-zize, because he is the lead singer of another group (Steel Train), which was Rocky´s first ever concert (in utero).

Rocky's favorite songs pt. 8; Hey, Hey

I've been out of school for a week and half now, and I really don't have any more valid excuses as to why I haven't updated this in forever. So I'm resolving now to put up the final three music videos for my Rocky series so that I can finally move to other things that I've been meaning to write about.
This song is the one that started it all. It was Rocky's favorite song since she was old enough to know what a song was and has always called it "Hey, hey". Aside from having a seriously infectious beat, I think her predilection for the song stems from the fact that she really thinks it's her song; i.e., it opens "I'm on a rocky road...". Also, it was the soundtrack to her breakout hit zombie movie that she always asks to see. Enjoy.

Update: Unfortunately, for some reason this reason is blocked from embedding, so you'll have to go to the link to see it on Youtube.

Rocky's favorite songs pt. 7; Rocky's all right, Daisy's all right

When I originally started doing these, I was going to post a video a day, and it was going to be over in a week and a half. Five months later, and there's still a few more songs that Rocky feels should be on here. On top of that, because of my blogosphere dormancy, I've been forced to look at the Train song every time I check in on my blog over the last few months. I don't know that Cheap Trick is a huge improvement, but at least it's a change of scenery. Rocky riffs on this song by inserting her name into the chorus in place of "mommy", saying "Rocky's all right". Then she names everyone else in the room the same way, concluding that they're all just a little weird.



On a completely unrelated-but-worth-mentioning-anyway note, I'm pretty sure that I saw a red-breasted sapsucker outside my office yesterday. Not a big deal, but I was excited.

Rocky's favorite songs pt. 6; Radio

Rocky's obsession with the song can be directly attributed to my mom and my younger brothers and sisters. My mom and my three youngest siblings came to visit us for a week in the summer. They drove back to Utah five or six days before us, and they took Rocky with them so that she could have some good hang-out time with all our family in Utah. Apparently the had the Now! music compilation number 31-ish repeating this song for the entire 15 hours that it took them to drive home. Now when we walk into the grocery store and this song is playing (which is just about every time), Rocky shouts "Radio" and starts doing her bum-dance.



I'll admit that this song is catchy, but it's definitely one of those songs that loses considerable appeal if you actually listen to the lyrics. Also, I liked it much less after having seen the video. I feel like it's my obligation to show you a video with the "animation-through-constantly-repainting-over-and-over-thing" done right.

Rocky's favorite songs pt. 5; We will Rocky you

Before I introduce this song, I have to provide an addendum to song #3: After seeing the Joseph video again, Rocky stated "Jojo has a diaper-change" (for Rocky,the poop-catcher itself and not the action are called diaper-changes).

Ever since Rocky heard "We will rock you" on the radio, she is constantly walking around the house with improvised "drumsticks", beat-boxing the sound of two bass drums and then a symbol: bumm-bummm-tsizz. It's not exactly the same as Queen's version, but it is pretty dang good for a two year old. I struggled to choose between these two videos, so I decided to put them both up in all of their glory.



It's no surprise how Señor Mercury became an international rock star when you look at that hair/glasses/teeth combo. Just like with David Bowie, Rocky told me that she liked Freddie's hair the first time she saw the video.

Rocky's favorite songs pt. 4; David Bowie

We borrowed David Bowie's greatest hits from the library a couple of months ago, and now Rocky asks us to sing "David Bowie" to her at night sometimes. After seeing this music video, her only response was "I wike his hair Daddy". Actually, I like his hair too. I've always wondered what Carol Burnett would look like with a mullet, and now I know.

Rocky's favorite songs, pt. 3; the Jo Jo song

In all truth, what else needs to be said than Donny Osmond in a loin-cloth? A: nothing. We checked out this version of Joseph from the library a couple of months ago. Now, Rocky asks us to sing the Jo Jo song to her every night before she goes to bed. Marci knows all the words, but I usually just hum the tune and then say "go go Jo" a few times.

Right about the same time that we got this from the library, Rocky mysteriously began talking to "Jo Jo" every time that she pretended to talk on the phone. She's either pretending that she's talking to her friend Joel whenever she picks up the TV remote, or she's talking to Donny. In a loin-cloth. With really bad hair extensions. Bum-bum-bummmm.

Rocky's favorite songs, pt. 2; School of Rock(y)

I don't consider myself that much of a Stevie Nicks fan; in my ignorance, I always just assumed this was a Fleetwood Mac song. Rocky, on the other hand, was singing along to this song when it came on in the car before the end of the first chorus: "Ooohh, baby, oohh, baby oooohh". As far as music videos go, this one is definitely the lamest of the bunch, if it can be considered a music video at all. On the pros side of the list though, check out those boots that give Stevie another nine inches to her stats sheet. Also, what doesn't say consummate sex symbol like a cockatoo and frizzy hair back-lit by a blue light? HOT!!!!

Rocky's favorite songs, pt. 1

Rocky loves music, and always knows exactly what she wants to hear to satisfy her aural cravings. I'm going to post the music videos to her favorite songs (in no specific order) once a day for a few days so that Rocky can share what she loves. It will also be nice to have all the videos in one place for the times that she needs to be kept busy doing something other than tormenting her sister.
This first video is by the male acapella group at the U of O called On The Rocks. Another of their videos for this same song went viral, and now has over seven million views. Consequently, they've been invited to be on a new acapella group TV show that starts in a few weeks, so you'll have to look for them. It's a cover of a song called Bad Romance (the original singer is Lady blah-blah, or Lady Gaga or something; apparently she's kind of famous). Rocky asks for this song by saying "I want romance", and really, how can you say no to that. After watching the video today, she said "I can't see romance, where's the romance daddy?"

Rocky's Babies

Here's Daisy and Rocky's latest featuring Rocky's current favorite song.




You can go to Marci's blog for the details on why Rocky picked the names that she did.

How Daisy combats writer's block

I have about ten blog posts swimming around my head, and I don't have the time for any of them right now, so this isn't officially a post, it's just a reminder that Daisy is ridiculously cute, especially when she's not doing anything (which is all the time).



Daisy got her shots today and slept most of the day. So now when she should be asleep, she keeps herself busy by destroying an innocent piece of paper. She's probably noticed that every time her dad isn't paying attention to her, it's because he's reading something for school. Therefore, she has taken it upon herself to destroy all the paper in the house so that there is not anything competing for her attention. Sound logic, if you ask me.

Paul the prognosticating octopus or why I love soccer, Pt. 1

Well it's been over four months since I've posted (even though I did write a post the other day, but I couldn't get the video to work and I never published it; I'll try to get it put up in a few days) and there's been plenty of stuff that I've wanted to write about, and hopefully I'll get to them before I go back to teaching. The main reason I haven't written despite not studying and not teaching is that we've been absorbed in Spain's amazing run to the World Cup finals.
I consider myself a huge soccer fan, but the truth of the matter is, I don't really pay that much attention to it most of the time. But then, every four years, the greatest sporting event in the world takes place (note: not the Olympics) and I live and breathe soccer for a month straight. In four years I'll probably have some real responsibilities/something resembling a career, so I'm pretty sure that I'll never be able to follow the World Cup so closely again. Luckily for me, Spain has had their best World Cup tournament ever, so it's been perfect that we've been able to support "La furia roja" so much.
I love soccer because it is so much more than a game or a sport. There are some people here in the US for whom football or basketball stops being a game and becomes a way of life, but it's never on the global scale that soccer is life for billions of people around the world. The World Cup is able to freeze entire continents in its tracks and make whole countries hold their breath at the same time. The craziness that is soccer is also able to create national heroes/villains in the most unlikely of places. In Germany for example, there is an octopus names Paul that correctly picked all of Germany's games as they steamrolled their way through the tournament, and he/she/it quickly became a celebrity in the fatherland. Before the last semifinal though, it picked Spain to beat Germany, and it was easily swept underneath the carpet because Germany was also supposed to pound Spain. But a beautiful header from Carles Puyol ensured that Paul kept a perfect record and sent Spain to their first ever World Cup final.

Announcing...

After much hoopla and brouhaha, it is my great pleasure to announce the arrival of Daisy!!!!! She was so eager to see this big world that she had heard all about, and for that reason, she rushed through that whole labor thing so fast that the doctor hardly had time to get into the room to catch her on the way out. Not only is she the most beautiful I've ever seen, but in a paradox that would knock Confucius on his back, she is beautiful and she looks like the squinty old guy on Big Trouble in Little China, as evidenced by this picture:


You should go to Marci's blog here to see the rest of the pictures and videos that we put up.

¡Guau, Guau! ¡Cra, Cra! ¡Miau, Miau!

Here's Rocky's latest foray into multimedia. She wanted to take a more active approach to contributing to my class. The chapter we just began is about the environment and nature, so she decided to just whip up this little instructional video of animal sounds in Spanish. She knows a few more animals with their corresponding onomatopoeias than she shows off here, but she was having trouble finding the motivation to perform.



For the record, frogs in Spanish don't say rib-bit, they say cra.

Forbidden doughnut, ummmmmmmmmmm

** Spoiler alert** This post involves scrumdiddlyumptious doughnuts that helped us announce a surprise that should not be a surprise to anyone that reads this blog because it's been a few weeks since the bomb was dropped. But, just in case you didn't get the memo, consider yourself warned for the proverbial un-bagged cat.
On our way home from Eugene, we stopped in Portland at the world famous Voodoo Doughnuts and picked up two dozen for our families. Voodoo Doughnuts are famous for their doughnuts that have eclectic (to say the least) toppings and flavors. They all have special names, but I don't know what they are, so all the pastry purists out there will have to excuse my crude descriptions.

They have the pentagram doughnut because it's made out of devil's food cake mix.



The Fruit Loops doughnut that isn't as good as I thought it would be, probably because by the time I tried it, the Fruit Loops were a little soggy.



The marshmallow doughnuts that have marshmallow cream, topped by grape, strawberry or pineapple drink mix.



They even have a maple bar with bacon on top that I've heard is bangarang. Probably their most famous doughnut though is a voodoo doll doughnut that has raspberry jelly in the middle for blood. We had the doughnut artistes put extra jelly in a voodoo doll so that it would look pregnant, and then they wrote "It's a girl"...Because Marci is...And it's a girl



Surprise!

In honor of the chairman

Rocky is getting really good at her animal sounds, but there's still a few issues to sort out. According to her, all cows and cats are inherently communist, because of instead of saying moo and meow respectively, they both say mao.
I'll post a video of the phenomenon when I get it on film.

Part II: I posted this earlier today, and I was planning on posting a video of Rocky performing animal sounds when I got home. Instead of the confused cat and cow sounds, I got Rocky's adaptation of "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands". She came up with the sound effects all on her own, and so then I changed the wording to go along with her interpretation.

Did you here the one about the little girl?

Okay, so here's a riddle for you:




How do you get an adorable little girl to look like one of the most vile, despised despots of all time?





Give up?





You just add a bunch of snot!!!

This is an older picture from a few months ago, but I just wanted to point out that this is not the first time, nay not even the second time that Rocky has had an uncanny resemblance to a certain German führer. You can see the other two times on Marci's blog here and here.

Happy Halloween!!!!!

The long awaited teaser trailer: