Thoughts on Captain America: the First Avenger

As I have mentioned on the show, I am quite cheap/poor, so I don't get to go to the theater very often.  However, I try and catch movies that look interesting when they come out on DVD.  Captain America just came out on the 25th and I was able to score a copy and watch it and I have to say that I was very impressed.  The following review will contain plot spoilers, much as my show does.  If you haven't seen the movie and care about it being spoiled, move on to the next post!

(SPOILER ALERT!!)

I am not a big comic book fan, but I do love comic book/super hero movies.  Sure, they can be silly and sometimes they are awful, but I'll usually go to see them.  This movie was neither silly nor awful.  I didn't know a lot about the Cap going into this movie, but I feel as though I should have been paying more attention and clamoring for this movie adaptation.  A few things I liked:

1. They payed homage to the costume from the comic and iconic comic imagery in a clever, but not derivative way.  Having the newly bulked up Steve Rogers going to USO shows and becoming a figurehead of the war effort before he had done all that many heroic things was a stroke of genius.  It showed where the (later toned down) version of the uniform came from, why he carried a shield in the first place (so he could read his lines from it) and, of course, him punching out Hitler.  Classic.  Also, the song was pretty funny.

2. Steve Rogers is a very likable character.  It's not often that you can root for the little guy and the hero and have them be the same person.  While he doesn't have much of a character arc, he doesn't really need one.  He represents, not just the best of America, but the best of humanity: a humble, self-sacrificing person who puts the greater good above all else and refuses to back down no matter what.  He was a hero before he had super powers, not because of them.  That's rare in modern emo-heroes.

3. Least obnoxious gear-up scene I can recall.  In a lot of comic/sci-fi/fantasy movies, there will inevitably be a bond-esque gearing up scene where the hero (and audience) are introduced to the hi-tech gadgets they will use to defeat the enemy.  I usually dread these scenes because, for me, they tend to highlight the most ridiculous aspects of the source material and bring them front and center.  Examples of bad ones can be found in the Blade movies, Van Helsing, XXX and the Hellboy films.  Decent examples would be Batman Begins/Dark Knight where everything is a little bit more realistic and the first Matrix movie where they downloaded all the weapons they were going to use.  In Captain America, the scene was short, featured an interesting tech guy in the elder Stark (Iron man's dad, for anyone who doesn't know) and seemed realistic.  I helped that Cap basically just uses shield and not many other gadgets.

4. He was more of a good leader than a lone wolf, like many super heroes.  His physical abilities, while impressive, serve as only tools to inspire those that follow him.  The movie shows an awesome montage of the Captain working closely with the men in his unit to bring down the bad guys.  After seeing so many solo heroes, this was a nice change of pace.

And here are a few things I didn't like:

1. Vibranium.  The substance that his shield is made of.  This may be from the comic, but is a super lame name almost up there with Avatar's unobtainium, and it bumped me out of the movie for a few minutes while I though of how dumb that was.  If it is from the comics, they almost have to include it, but some things "sound" better on paper than they do when spoken aloud.

2. The death of Bucky seemed sudden and didn't carry as much weight as I felt it should.  Not much more to say about it.  I can't really explain why I felt this way and I can't think of any way they should have done it differently, but there it is.

So that's my opinion of the new Captain America movie.  In short, I am looking forward to the Avengers movie.  They seem to be giving these characters (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and, to a lesser extent the Hulk) just the right amount of reality and fantasy.  Also, I would like this experiment that Marvel is conducting (inter-movie continuity) to work so that other studios will be able to go the same way.  Consider me tentatively sold!

No Love for the Silver Chair?

I was looking up the Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader on wikipedia this morning because I was curious if it had done well at the box office (I haven't seen it yet, though I saw the other two and will be seeing VotDT soon) and to find out if they planned on finishing out the 7 book movie conversion they had originally planned.  I enjoyed the first film, was a little underwhelmed by the second (though, that is my least favorite of the books as well) and am obviously withholding judgement on the third film until I actually see it, so I wanted to know what was going to happen next.  As it turns out, the next movie to be made with be the Magician's Nephew, the sixth book and a prequel to the events of the rest of the series.

When they first announced they were going to do all seven books as films, I wondered how they would handle the two chronologically out-of-order books in the series (book 5 takes place during the final chapters of book 1, book 6 takes place 40ish years before book 1).  I thought they might start jumping around after the VotDT but I have to say that I'm a little disappointed they are skipping over book 4, The Silver Chair.  It's a good book in it's own right, the actors will be the correct age for it . . . it just doesn't make sense to skip it now.  Oh well.  I look forward to catching up in the series, which, at the very least, has done a good job transferring the images from the books onto the big screen and I am interested to see how they approach the Magicians Nephew.  The book features the mother of the Ice Queen and the owner of the Wardrobe from the first movie as a young boy as well as the creation of Narnia, so there will be plenty to see.  Here's hoping it's good!

Up to date!

So, I have finally gotten up to date with the already released episodes as far as posting the top 5's.  There is one more episode on iTunes and the website, but I think I'll do this where I wait on the blog post until the episode is not new.  The show is heavy on spoilers, but I don't want to spoil the show itself by giving away the rankings before anyone has a chance to listen!

Stay tuned, I should be putting up some other posts on pop culture as I see fit now that I have the episode archives caught up.  Thanks for reading and listening respectively!

If all goes according to plan (which it rarely does) I should have three brand new episodes recorded by the end of the weekend that will get posted whenever Walsh gets a chance.  I'm trying to get 2 out a week, but everyone's busy, so we'll see how it goes.

Episode 7: Be Our Guest

This week, we had both a brand new guest, Kelly, as well as a new method of recording and a slightly different format.  We ranked the films of Christopher Guest and came up with the list below.  You can listen to the episode here.

Christopher Guest Movies, Best to Not as Good as the Best
1. A Mighty Wind (2003)
2. Waiting for Guffman (1996)
3. Best in Show (2000)
4. For Your Consideration (2006)
5. This is Spinal Tap (1984)

Episode 6: You Found Me Beautiful Once

In this episode, Shaun returns once again to show the other end of the spectrum with Top 5 Shows That Should Have Been Cancelled (Sooner).  You can listen to the episode here.  Our lists are as follows:

Luke
1. The Simpsons
2. Heroes
3. Roseanne
4. That 70's Show
5. House

Shaun
1. Happy Days
2. LOST
3. MASH
4. Scrubs
5. ER

This was also the episode that contains my much maligned comments on California's Gold.  Here is a link to what I was talking about:  Huell Howser visits the Baghdad Cafe

Episode 5: Gone Too Soon

Shaun returns in this episode to discuss the Top 5 Television Shows that should not have been cancelled.  You can listen to the episode here.  Our lists were as follows:

Luke
1. Flight of the Conchords
2. Better Off Ted
3. Andy Richter Controls the Universe
4. Firefly
5. Moonlight

Shaun
1. Arrested Development
2. Southland
3. Dollhouse
4. Jerico
5. Northern Exposure

Episode 4: You're Out

In this episode, Shaun's first as a recurring guest (which can be found here), we talk about the Worst 5 Sports Movies.  Watch these at your own risk!  Also, we dare you to disagree.  Here they are:

Luke:
1. Angels in the Outfield
2. Vision Quest
3. Ladybugs
4. Rookie of the Year
5. Blue Crush

Shaun
1. Rudy
2. Fever Pitch
3. The Replacements
4. The Fan
5. Over the Top

Don't think we nailed it?  Too bad there's a comment section where you can let us know . . . too bad for us, I mean.

Episode 3: Play Ball!

In this, Shaun's first episode as a guest (which you can watch here), we discuss the Top 5 Sports Movies which were as follows:


Luke:
1. The Hammer
2. Field of Dreams
3. The Waterboy
4. Remember the Titans
5. Cool Runnings

Shaun:
1. Space Jam ( ! )
2. Rocky
3. Field of Dreams
4. King Pin
5. Endless Summer

Episode 2: Bats on the Brain

For Episode 2, which can be found here, Kevin and I are back.  This time we discuss Batman Forever.  No top 5 list for this week.

While I had fun recording this episode, the list format seems to work a little better.  Still, I think this turned out alright.

Episode 1: Upping the Ante

You can listen to Episode 1 here.  In this episode, Kevin (of POW WoW and Nerdfire Podcast) and I discuss the Top 5 Movie Sequels That Were Better Than the Original.  Our lists were as follows:

Luke:
1. Rescuers Down Under
2. Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan
3. Toy Story 2
4. Aliens
5. Spider-Man 2

Kevin:
1. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Secret of the Ooze
3. Addams Family Values
4. Gremlins 2: the New Batch
5. Star Trek: First Contact

Left out for being parts of trilogies: Terminator 2, Star Wars V: the Empire Strikes Back, Dark Knight

Welcome to the Target Audience Pod Blog!

Hello there!  Thanks for visiting the Target Audience's blog.  I thought this would be a good spot to put all the top five lists for reference if anyone wanted to come back and look through the archives and find out where we ranked whatever without having to search through the entire episode.  If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them here.  Anything that isn't too naughty or spammy is welcome.

See you around!