However, there’s one key component of the show that I don’t quite understand: Almost every character is trying to be king of the world (or Westeros). Hence Game of Thrones. 

We see this motivation a lot in summer movies. In The Avengers, the main bad guy wants the world to bow to him. In fact, as Netflix reminded me when I added The Avengers to my queue a few minutes ago, the Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes version of The Avengers has the following plot: “Their impossible mission: thwart Sean Connery’s diabolical plan to bring the world to its knees by controlling global weather.”

Why are all of these people motivated by taking over the world? Don’t they know that once you get to the top, people are going to try to do everything they can to knock you from the throne? It puts the biggest possible target on their back.

I guess I just don’t buy it. People are motivated by plenty of things–money, influence, sex, fame, etc–but complete control of everything in the world? Sure, you could get all those things, but the job of running the world must be exhausting. And I’m sure it breeds the most extreme of paranoia.

So yeah, I don’t buy it. Whenever I see a character in a movie or a book who wants to take over the world, I lose my ability to suspend belief. Give me a real, human motivation and I’m all in. You’ll see that in my novel, which doesn’t exactly have bad guys, but it does have people who are willing to take less moral and ethical paths to get what they want than other characters.

What do you think? If  you had the option to be king of the world, would you take it?

My favorite superhero movie of all time is The Incredibles. I honestly didn’t think we’d ever get a live-action movie that could come close to matching that movie. But then Spider-Man came out and it was really good, and it was followed in 2008 by Iron Man. I was elated when walking out of the theater having seen Iron Man. So elated, in fact, that I dressed up as Iron Man when I got home and wrote a blog entry about it.

I watched all of the subsequent Avengers-related movies after that (The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America), and I enjoyed all of them. Iron Man was still my clear favorite, with Captain America coming in second, and the other three are tied for third with their various successes and shortcomings.

So it was with a mix of trepidation and excitement that I saw The Avengers tonight. Really, my anticipation for this movie went well beyond Iron Man. I read The Avengers comic books when I was a kid. In some ways, I was hoping to see these characters come to life on screen for over 20 years.

And then it happened. It all came together. The film is brilliant–it’s big and bold and cinematic, and yet it’s funny and charming and captures the little moments with perfection. It is a movie that you must see on the big screen. I might even see it again, ideally in 2D (I saw it in 3D tonight, and I don’t know, I just can’t get into 3D).

I even had an Avengers moment during the movie. There was a woman sitting to my immediate right who decided about 2 hours into the movie that it was time to read and respond to e-mails on her phone. She wasn’t subtle about it–she held up the phone at eye level, and I couldn’t avoid the glare of the screen. This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine, and it’s downright inconsiderate to everyone behind you in the theater. I never say anything when I see this happening, but hell, I was watching an amazing move about superheroes, so I tapped her on the shoulder and asked her to stop e-mailing.  She grumbled to her boyfriend for about 5 minutes after that, but she did turn off her phone. It felt good.

Have you seen The Avengers? I’d love to know your thoughts. No spoilers, please.

But consider this: Say I created a time machine that allowed me to travel back in time. I travel back to 1983 and steal the script for Back to the Future from Robert Zemeckis, and I tell him that he can’t write another word. Let’s just say he believes me and abides by my demands. You know what would change in the future?

Absolutely nothing. From your perspective.

From your perspective–and from the perspective of everyone in the world except for me–everything would be exactly the same. The script would still exist, Zemeckis would make a great movie, and I’d still be writing this blog entry.

The only thing that would change would be that from my perspective, I would have created an alternate universe that came into existence the second I arrived in 1983. In that universe, everything changes from that moment on.

But who cares about that universe? You care about your universe. The one you occupy right now at this moment. One that can never, ever change as a result of anyone other than you traveling back in time.

Time travel movies aren’t really time travel movies. They’re alternate universe movies. Doc Brown even explains this in Back to the Future 2. Except in his explanation, the alternate universes can join back together. Nope. Doesn’t work that way. Your reality is your reality, and it can never change unless you are the time traveler.

Why does this bother me? Because traveling back in time to “fix” things is used in movies and TV shows all too often. Frankly, it’s just too easy. It’s lazy. It’s a cheat. And it doesn’t change anything from anyone’s perspective other than the time traveler.

This whole thing was triggered when I saw the poster for Men in Black 3 the other day. “Back to the past…to save the future,” it reads. Rather, it should read: “Back to the past…to save the future of the time traveler and the people in the alternate universe that he created. As for the people in the universe he left behind, nothing will change.” But I guess that isn’t as catchy?

Coincidentally, the novel I’m writing (57,500 words and counting–9 days to go!) hinges on time travel…but only forward time travel. None of these backwards time travel shenanigans for me. So far I’ve described the book as, “The Hunger Games + Harry Potter + The Time Traveler’s Wife + Oryx and Crake.” It’s time to roll out a better pitch than that, so here’s my first attempt at it:

In the near future, exponential population growth is causing the world–and its inhabitants–to perish. Just as things start to get really bad, a husband-and-wife scientist team discovers a way to send people to the future, thus relieving the Earth of their burden until it has time to recover.

Governments around the world agree to financially incentivize their citizens to choose time travel, but people are hesitant to trust the unproven technology. As a show of confidence, the two scientists decide to send their only son to a boarding school 71 years in the future with the promise that they’ll catch up with him…someday.

Thus begins the journey of 16-year-old Daniel Gold, who will soon discover that although the Earth has a bright future as a result of the time travel remedy, his own future is complicated by the trials of young love, friendship, and a battle to claim his right to live in a world that doesn’t want him.

How do you feel about time travel? Is there anything in your life worth creating an alternate universe for, even though nothing will change in this universe?

You’ve seen or heard this type of adoption humor before. It’s a fairly common joke in movies, sitcoms, and online memes.

I’m writing today as someone who is not at all sensitive or ashamed of the fact that I’m adopted to say that this type of humor needs to stop. Especially in mass media.

I’m not proposing this for me. I’m proposing it for every adopted child out there and every family that has an adopted child.

This type of humor pervades the misconception that adoption is a stigma. The stigma has diminished over time, but it’s still lurking out there in the form of this type of “humor.” Plain and simple, adoption is not at all a bad thing or something to be ashamed of.

Circumstances vary from person to person, but in every adoption, at least one or both parties involved are acting out of love. Most biological parents who put their child up for adoption do it out of love so that their child can have a better life than the one that they can offer. I know that some adopted kids struggle with the idea that someone gave up on them early on in life, but even those kids have adoptive parents (or as I like to call them, parents) on the receiving end who choose to love them as their own. That’s such a powerful choice to make.

Can you comprehend how selfless those choices are? Those acts of love are absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.

You might look at these memes and think that everyone knows they’re just jokes. The thing is, though, kids don’t know they’re jokes—kids can sense when there’s a greater truth or message behind a joke. Humor can be a wonderful way to break down barriers, but only if everyone is in on the joke.

Plus, not all adopted kids have parents like mine who didn’t put a stigma on adoption. I’ve always known that I was adopted—there was never a special sit-down chat where my parent’s “broke the news” to me. If you’ve gotten to the point where you’re “breaking the news,” you’re essentially telling the kid that adoption is a secret that you have to hide as long as possible.

Here’s an example: I watched a movie called Kung Fu Panda 2 a few months ago. In the movie, the titular panda goes on a quest for his “real” parents (another ridiculous concept, in my opinion. An adopted child’s real parents are the ones who raised him and parented him. Rather, the correct term is biological parents). The panda’s father is a stork who has hidden the adoption for his son’s entire life. A number of jokes are made about the panda not realizing that he’s adopted.

Kung Fu Panda 2 is a kids movie. Somehow the writers of this movie thought that it would be a good idea to convey the idea that adoption is a dirty little secret that you should hide from your child, and that if you’re an adopted child, you should be ashamed (as the panda is when he finds out). Eventually the movie gets around to the idea that the panda is grateful for the life his father gave him, which was a nice touch, but that’s literally at the very end of two Kung Fu Panda movies rife with adoption humor.

This topic is close to home for me because I know how…well, how normal it can be to be raised in a household where being adopted is openly discussed and shared (my brother and sister aren’t adopted). This stigma doesn’t have to persist. If we stop making adoption jokes, the stigma will go away.

If this message resonates with you, I’d invite you to share this post. Share it with anyone: family, friends, adoptive parents, adopted friends, and the writers of Kung Fu Panda 2. Let’s all choose to stop making nonsensical jokes about adoption so that we can remove all stigma or shame from adoption forever. Let’s all make adoption seem like the very normal, loving act that it is. I’m sure you know some adopted kids—do it for them.

How have the people in your life approached adoption? How have you?

After devouring all three Hunger Games books the day they came out, I’ve been excited about the prospect of the movie for quite some time. The movie is a solid adaptation of the first book. It plays a bit like a highlight reel of the book, and in certain places it adds things that the book could not due to the limited first-person perspective in which it was written. The main character was particularly well cast, and both Stanley Tucci and Woody Harrelson are fantastic in their adult roles. It’s worth watching even if you haven’t read the books.

That said, the director made some interesting choices when it came to filming and editing some of the action sequences. I don’t know what it is, but in recent years it seems that some very acclaimed directors have pieced together action sequences–particularly close combat–with a combination of shaky cam and a myriad of quick cuts that have left me confused and disoriented.

Michael Bay is notorious for this, but it bewilders me that a director with the talent of Christopher Nolan (director of the latest Batman trilogy and Inception) does the same thing with his action sequences. Go back and watch Batman Begins and tell me if you have any idea of what happens in the close-combat action sequences.

I’m not a movie director, so I don’t understand the difficultly of filming a believable action sequence. After all, you can’t have actors actually hacking at each other with swords or throwing real punches. They have to pretend, and the director has to use his tools to create the illusion of reality. However, a 15-second action sequence with upwards of 25 cuts and shaky cam is just lazy to me, and it’s a disservice to your audience.

Again, no spoilers, but there is a fight scene in The Hunger Games in which some characters are battling with each other, and you have no idea what’s going on. It’s as if they each have a camera strapped onto them and the director is switching between the three cameras every millisecond. And then, for one second, the camera switches to an overhead view of the action, and it’s this amazing moment of clarity because you finally know where everyone is in the scene and what they’re doing.

I challenge more directors to shoot action scenes with clarity in mind. Can you think of any examples of action scenes that you loved or hated based on the way they were filmed?

Also, you might recall that the Tournament of Josh ended on Sunday. I kept the poll results hidden until now, so it’s my pleasure to announce that the winner is…Josh! Specifically, Josh C. from Virginia, for the 99% poster seen here. Other Josh, you may no longer use the name “Josh” in the comments section. “Imposter Josh” is fine. Or David. I don’t think we have any Davids here.

Also, for your viewing pleasure, Trev submitted his version of the Charlotte meme. He probably would have had a good chance at claiming the name “Josh.”

Every once in a while I put a movie on the top of my Netflix queue even though I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like it. I’m a sucker for sci-fi action movies and romantic comedies, so many of them fall into that category. I know I’m going to rip them apart, but I have to see them anyway.

I’m particularly critical about rom coms because I love the genre so much. I even wrote a rom-com screenplay a few years ago because I thought I could do better than all the cliches and contrived plot twists that dilute the market. Most rom coms follow the exact same structure: two people that you never end up liking lie to each other for most of the movie, suddenly realize that they actually love each other, and create false urgency by chasing each other down at the end to profess their love. Blah.

So I’m happy to report to you that for the first time since Definitely, Maybe, I’ve stumbled upon a rom com that absolutely surprised and delighted me: What’s Your Number?, with Anna Faris and Chris Evans.

In the movie, Faris plays a 20-something who realizes that she’s slept with twice as many men as the national average, and so she vows to track down those men to see if they have more potential than when they dated in the hopes that she can find love without having to increase her number. She’s assisted by her neighbor (Evans), a promiscuous man who is really good at locating people.

Here are 5 reasons why you should rent this movie:

1. You’ll laugh. How many rom coms have you seen where you chuckle once or twice and that’s it? They’re all rom and no com. I belly laughed a half dozen times in this movie, and I was often smiling, chuckling, or even chortling. Chortling, people!
2. You’ll believe in love. I think maybe this is why I watch rom coms. I want to believe in true love. Not that I don’t believe it–I see people around me in love every day–but effective rom coms like What’s Your Number? make me feel like true love is possible for me.
3. You’ll like the characters. Not only are Faris and Evans extremely likable, but they’re surrounded by a supporting cast of people who you would like as your friends. How many rom coms have you seen where the woman’s best friend is ridiculously annoying or the guy and his group of friends are absolutely disgusting? Not in this movie.
4. You’ll feel the chemistry. There are three back-to-back scenes in this movie where you can feel the chemistry. The tension is palpable, and you will 100% understand why these characters fall for one another. That is so rare, and it was a joy to watch.
5. You’ll watch something that you haven’t watched before. This goes back to what I was saying about cliches. There are a few predictable elements to the movie, there’s a tiny white lie that’s addressed right away, and there is a chase scene at the end. But the character doing the chase actually acknowledges the ridiculousness of the chase during the chase, which felt fresh and new. I was really, really impressed by the writing. In fact, screenwriters don’t get enough credit. I’m going to IMDB this brilliant person…Gabrielle Allan, Jennifer Crittenden, and Karyn Bosnak (the original novelist), I salute you!

Have you seen this movie? What did you think? Have you been pleasantly surprised by any rom coms lately?

In Percy Jackson’s world, the equivalent of Hogwarts (don’t worry, I’ll get to Hogwarts in a minute) is something called Camp Halfblood, where teenagers spend all day clashing swords and shooting bows and arrows. Because those are important skills to have in 2012.

The surprising thing to me about Camp Halfblood is that not only are the children genuinely trying to hurt each other as they train, but their instructors are actually encouraging them to hurt each other. These aren’t plastic swords or Nerf arrows–they’re real! Why are those activities in the curriculum? Why would parents let their kids attend this school?!

Okay, on to Hogwarts. Let’s start with Quidditch. On paper, Quidditch looks like a lively game that’s similar to handball, but with flying players. But in reality, it’s an extremely violent game where you fly around hundreds of feet off the ground and try to knock opposing players off their broomsticks. And even if they don’t plummet to their death, getting hit in the head with a bludger will break your face. Why would you sign up for this game? What parent would let their child play Quidditch?!

Finally, here’s the big one: The Triwizard Tournament. Tell me, parents, would you sign your 14-year-old up for a competition that will require them to (a) fight a dragon, (b) swim through an enchanted lake for upwards of 20 minutes without a breathing apparatus, and (c) run through a maze? (Okay, the maze wouldn’t be all that deadly if Voldemort hadn’t gotten involved.) None of that seems like a good idea.

Despite all that, would you still let your child attend Hogwarts? I’m homeschooling Biddy, that’s for sure.

1. Midnight in Paris: The whimsy of this movie delighted me from the first scene to the last, and the theme of nostalgia has stayed with me like no other film’s theme this year.
2. Harry Potter 7.2: The last few Harry Potter movies left me wanting, but this one fulfilled my every desire for closing out the series. 5 points for Gryffindor!
3. Win Win: How such a simple movie made such an impact on me, I don’t know. It’s heartfelt, funny, and extremely well written.
4. The Fighter: Amazing acting makes this movie stands out, and the fight scenes are some of the best I’ve ever seen on film. Amy Adams in her underwear certainly didn’t hurt.
5. Real Steel: The best action movie of the year. It’s pure popcorn entertainment at its best.
6. Captain America: The First Avenger: The best comic book movie of the year. And it’s a period piece!
7. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: This one is still fresh on my mind, but it deserves recognition for such a tight script and some truly chilling scenes. Rooney Mara is a revelation as Lisbeth Salander.
8. Exit Through the Gift Shop: Probably the most fascinating documentary I’ve ever seen. It’ll let you into a hidden world that you know nothing about.

And my least favorite movies of 2011:

1. The Hangover Part II
2. Young Adult
3. Your Highness
4. Buried
5. Everything Must Go
6. The Dilemma
7. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
8. Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief

Here’s last year’s list. What were your favorite movies you watched for the first time in 2011?

a. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

b. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

c. Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol

The answer, clearly, is that the first two were sold out, so I was dragged into Mission: Impossible. Fine, I’ll go see a movie by the director of one of my favorite movies (Brad Bird of The Incredibles) with a great cast, futuristic technology, and an extended scene filmed on the exterior of the tallest building in the world. But only if I absolutely have to.

This Mission: Impossible was released on IMAX screens a few days before it will be released on regular screens. There’s nothing I love more than seeing a movie “early,” so that was a big selling point for me. But I thought it would also be a good excuse to see an IMAX movie for the first time even though the closest true IMAX theater is 30 minutes away from me.

My observations:

• IMAX is really proud of itself. There were 3–count them, 3–promotions before the movie that talked about how great IMAX is. It’s as if IMAX is an excited little kid that can’t stop talking about how high he can jump in his new sneakers. I somewhat expected the movie to be interrupted by more IMAX promotions, perhaps voiceovers during key scenes where IMAX footage was featured.
• It’s not that big. Okay, it’s big. At least, it seemed bigger than normal theater screens vertically. But the way it was hyped, I thought the screen was going to rock my world. I thought that walking into theater would be akin to walking into a theater for the first time when I was a little kid (I’m pretty sure my first theater movie was The Jungle Book, but it might have been Showgirls. Apples and oranges.
• Big action scenes are pretty awesome on IMAX. I have to give both Brad Bird and IMAX credit for this–the big action sequences truly are larger than life on IMAX. I can’t think of a better way to watch that Dubai tallest building scene, not to mention the half dozen other action sequences in the movie.

Bottom line, is it worth the $16? For 99% of movie, no. But based on the trailer I saw today for The Dark Knight Rises, for some movies it’s definitely worth it.

What movies have you seen on IMAX, and what do you think?

Explain to me the logic in this. Why on earth are transparent computer screens considered better technological design than current computer screens?

Here’s how I see it: The only benefit to having a transparent screen is that people on the other side can see through it. So if you’re trying to share your work with someone else, they can see it, albeit reversed.

That said, consider all the things that actually make transparent computer screens considerably worse than even an average modern-day screen:

1. People on the other side can see through it. Think about this for two seconds and then tell me if you want the average passerby in your office seeing what’s on your computer screen at any given time. I’m not saying you’re looking at porn at the office, but odds are next to those spreadsheets and e-mail, you have Facebook or AmyAdamscuddleswithcats.com open in the side window.
2. Transparency means lower quality. In movies, the only graphics on transparent computer screens are blue and green lines and text. So, no more 8-million color HD screens. Once you go transparent, you’re jumping back to the Apple 2E in terms of monitor quality. At least you can still play Oregon Trail in the future.
3. Transparency means more distractions. Picture yourself trying to enter data into a spreadsheet on your computer. Now picture yourself doing that while people walk around in the background, directly behind your screen. It would be incredibly distracting.