Superheroes! So damn hot right now!

With the success of Iron Man 2 and the looming madness of Marvel’s continued Avengers franchise and Christopher Nolan’s third Batman film, it’s clear that superhero films aren’t going anywhere — pretty good for a film genre that almost died out a little more than ten years ago.

After the crippling disaster that was Batman and Robin and the trail of the dead superhero franchises that paved the way to Joel Schumacher even getting the job in the first place, at the turn of the decade superhero films looked to be going the way of the Western or the Las Vegas prostitute who is accidentally murdered in a night of carnal pleasures, taken out to the desert and buried next to a coyote den.

Then came X-Men, Bryan Singer’s mostly mature look at comic book heroes, and everything changed. Now, superhero films are more often than not targeted to the parents of children instead of the bright-eyed toddlers wearing Superman underoos.

As I went and saw Iron Man 2, I wondered if children were even able to absorb any of the film’s plot (and subsequently, wondered if this will damn the comic book industry when it eventually finds itself unable to bring in new, younger readers to replace the ones dying of heart failure as the years of Taco Bell and Mountain Dew diets finally collapses their arteries). A part of me pines for the days of family-friendly superhero movies — the “gee wow” masked heroics that I watched as a kid and that formed me into the lifelong fan of comic books that I am today.

Then I watch a film like Supersonic Man, a 1979 Spanish/Italian child-friendly superhero film, and I drop all notions of chasing Christopher Nolan away from Batman with pitchforks and torches. I even come close to committing sepaku in shame for even doubting Mr. Nolan.

In Supersonic Man, directed by Juan Piquer Simon, Antonio Cantafora plays Paul, a private detective sporting a wickedly awesome porn star mustache. The mustache isn’t the only thing Paul has going for him, though. Paul is secretly Kronos, an extraterrestrial from a distant galaxy who was sent to Earth to guide us stupid humans towards world peace.

Naturally, this means donning a brightly colored costume and using god-like powers to tangle with giant robots and unitard-wearing evil geniuses played by Cameron Mitchell.

When Paul twists a ring on his finger and repeats the clearly non-copyright infringing oath “May the great force of the galaxy be with me,” he is transformed (literally — his heroic identity is played by another actor, Jose Luis Ayestaran) into Supersonic, a superhero sadly lacking a mustache but who does have the amazing abilities of flight, super strength and the transubstantiation of guns into bananas.

As a superhero, Supersonic will gladly save a person’s life, but as Paul, he’ll even more gladly mock his adoring fans for believing such silly things as superheroes even exist. At that point, he’ll fly away to catch criminals in a net, take them into a secluded field and then torture them by making them look at his gaudy costume.

Supersonic fights sharks, steals champagne from restaurants, gives booze to recovering alcoholics, hides from flamethrowers behind his girlfriend and all around blows as a superhero. He can single-handedly destroy gigantically impressive space stations just by flying through them as supersonic speeds, so I guess he has that going for him.

Supersonic Man is a silly relic from the past — proof that Europeans, for all their highfalutin snobbery, are not above aping America’s pop culture and removing everything that was remotely fun or interesting about it.

Supersonic Man is bad cinema at its worst – only recommended to those who are either masochistic or mad scientists in need of a torture device to pry the secret identity out of captured superheroes. I’m just kidding. He doesn’t recommend Supersonic Man to anybody.

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Val Kilmer, why has thou forsaken me?

Val Kilmer is a man who has always fascinated me.

On one hand, Kilmer is an undeniably talented actor — delivering over the course of his 25-year career more than a handful of memorable performances. In fact, for my money, before Christian Bale irrevocable damaged his vocal cords, Kilmer was my pick for best Batman in a live-action performance (that “live-action” qualifier exists due to the near unbeatable job done by Kevin Conroy in Batman: The Animated Series).

On the other hand, Kilmer’s well-publicized eccentricities and self-destructive behavior on film sets have left his career a little worse for the wear as of late.

Besides a short-lived stint as the voice of K.I.T.T. on the Knight Rider remake, Kilmer’s resume in the last few years has consisted of straight-to-DVD films and television mini-series — with a few little-seen gems sprinkled in like marshmallows in a bowel of stale Lucky Charms.

Kilmer’s very funny performance in the upcoming MacGruber has the potential to break the actor out of his career rut but as long as he continues to star in films like Double Identity, the recently released straight-to-DVD stinker by writer/director Dennis Dimster, he’ll continue to waste his talents.

Double Identity (which also goes by the name Fake Identity in certain markets) is a bland thriller in which Kilmer stars as Dr. Nicholas Pinter, an American doctor working in Chechnya who finds himself over his head in trouble after he is mistaken for a world-renown spy.

Instead of doing the sensible thing and hopping on a plane to America as soon as possible, Pinter embroils himself more and more into the cloak and dagger shenanigans thrust upon him — until he is neck-deep in bullets, shallow graves and thick European accents.

Izabella Miko, who recently appeared in the Clash of the Titans remake, also stars as Katrine, a femme fatale whose sudden appearance in Dr. Pinter’s life is the catalyst for the unbelievable amount of trouble he finds himself in.

The movie, a sub-standard spy thriller set in the dreary corners of East Europe, fails to leave an impression. In fact, I struggle to remember much of the film’s actual plot — the unremarkable action scenes, twists and turns failed to register in my memory.

In fact, the one thing I took away most from Double Identity was the fact that Val Kilmer is not only a talented actor trapped in the body of a career washout, he can’t grow a beard to save his life.

Kilmer, who has packed on a few pounds since his days playing a teen heartthrob in the early ‘80s, has chosen to hide behind a patchy beard and a look of detachment as he sleepwalks his way through the film’s coma-inducing plot.

While I would love to say there was a sign of Kilmer’s genius nestled deep in the gray, lifeless folds of Double Identity’s running time, there wasn’t much of anything on display when it came to Kilmer.

Watching the film, it became obvious that Kilmer must have taken on the project either for the paycheck or for the chance to take a trip through Europe. More so, watching the film it became obvious that there was not reason to be watching the film at all.

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You wish your mom was like mine.

I love my mom. Not only did she (along with my dad) do a great job raising me and my two sisters, she has continued to be an active presence in my life after I’ve left home. Case in point: Over the last six months, she has not only humored my desire to construct costumes for events I’ve hosted at the Alamo Drafthouse, she’s jumped right in and made the projects her own.

Growing up, I was always one of the lucky kids when it came time for Halloween. While other parents would go out and buy their kid a cheap rubber mask or slab some grease paint on their face and call it a costume, my mom spent the weeks leading up to Halloween working on designer costumes for me and my sisters. And since I didn’t like to wear any type of make-up or face paint as a kid (I have bad memories of not being able to get werewolf fur off my face after a fall festival at my pre-school), she specialized in masks and costumes.

As a kid, I was everything from a Killer Tomato to Batman to Venom to Ghost Rider to Mike from The Blair Witch Project and all of those costumes were made from scratch. As you can see, I was a movie/comic geek from the start. My mom even found a creative solution when I wanted to be a werewolf for a different Halloween but didn’t want to glue fur onto my face again. Instead, she glued fake fur onto a hockey mask — allowing me to have my very own custom removable werewolf mask.

I wish I had pictures of more of those costumes. Once I can find some (I know they exist somewhere) I’ll update this blog.

One of the benefits of living close to my parents in the last few years has been my ability to tap into my mom’s creativity a lot more often than I was able to in college or the years immediately following. When I hosted a double feature screening of Best Worst Movie and Troll 2 at the Houston Alamo Drafthouse last August, I envisioned a wealth of costumes for the night. I had seen a live production of Everything is Terrible earlier in the month and I wanted to capture some of the comedy troupe’s magic. I wanted to do my own production and that meant troll (or goblin, as the case may be) costumes.

Since I didn’t have any way of making latex masks, I decided to do the next best thing – use paper mache. Turning to my mom for help, I put a layer of paper mache over three large balloons. I also used some plaster to help keep the masks sturdy. Since August is a busy time of the year for me at work, my mom volunteered to tackle the masks’ paint jobs. I left her with a copy of Troll 2 along with several pictures I had printed off the Internet. As I would go visit her, I grew more and more excited at the masks she was assembling.

She had taken the basic look of the goblins from Troll 2 but added her own artistic touch to them. Using material she had around the house, she gave the goblins a full set of hair, neck bibs, green-stained teeth and an evil glint in their felt eyes. They looked like the monsters of the movie but they also looked like something she could have come up with. It was like my mom was a musician doing a cover version of The Rolling Stones.

Big thanks to www.wonderbros.com for taking photos at the Alamo event.

Not only did she make the troll masks, she made me an almost exact replica of the outfit worn by Peter during the opening scene of Troll 2.

I don’t have any pictures (yet) but imagine a felt hat and a vegetable vest. Taken by the idea that the goblins of Troll 2 were vegetarians, my mom made the vest out of material that featured a selection of vegetables as its decorative pattern.

The costumes being a hit at the screening, I immediately went to work thinking up our next collaboration. I didn’t get another chance to work on a costume with her, though, until Halloween.

My friends Mandy and Cliff Holverson are a pair of Houston make-up artists. Every year they throw a Halloween party at their house. While my costume last year (of which my mom helped brainstorm) was kinda creative, it lacked a sort of oomph.

This year I was determined to come up with something more unique. For the last several months, I had my heart set on a Kuato costume from the film Total Recall. Every day I would look at the Tyler Stout / Mondo Tees Total Recall poster that hangs on my living room wall and my resolve would only grow. I imagined grand plans that involved robotics, voice chips and more paper mache. Unfortunately, time quickly passed and before I knew it I was a week away from the party without having even begun my costume.

Naturally, I turned to my mom for help. We brainstormed a bit and I left my parents’ home with an idea on how we were going to get the costume ready in a week. While I searched around for a plastic baby mask and a muscle t-shirt, my mom went to work constructing the body. The body is made out of panty hose stuffed with cotton. Veins are painted on and muscles formed with thread and glue. My mom, always attentive to details, even painted finger nails onto the mutant growth. I bought the baby mask and my mom touched it up with some paint, added eyes and sewed it onto the body she had made.

Since I couldn’t find a muscle shirt (I thought The Situation was supposed to be one of this year’s top costumes?), my mom actually painted one. She bought a pink shirt and added a full six-pack of muscles to it. You can’t really see them very well because Kuato ended up being sewed on right over the muscles but if you look carefully, you can still see the nipples my mom painted on. Who knew she apprenticed under Joel Schumacher.

The costume came out amazing. I borrowed an old army jacket to hide the fact I was wearing a pink shirt and enjoyed the compliments that came at the party. On the drive home, though, I realized I had wasted my good Halloween costume idea a week before Halloween. Pictures were already on Facebook and the cat was out of the bag. I was hosting a horror movie marathon at the Alamo Drafthouse on Halloween day and I needed something really creative that would surpass the accolades I had already received from my Kuato costume. I needed Sharktopus.

If you haven’t already been convinced my mom is beyond awesome, not only did she readily agree to help me build a Sharktopus costume within a week, she did it with glee.

Together with my dad, we brainstormed ways we could build a Sharktopus mask. I originally envisioned doing something similar to this hyena costume my mom helped me make when I was in high school.

We quickly settled on an easier tactic. I constructed a quick prototype of how the mask would work out using butcher paper and duct tape and we were off.

The costume would be made out of three parts. The first was a mask made up of grey vinyl and a thin white material. Using the butcher paper prototype as a pattern, we cut out the front of the mask out the white material and the back out of the grey vinyl. My mom sewed the two pieces together while I started working on the tentacles.

Four tentacles were made by taking pool noodles, cutting them in half and then sewing grey cloth coverings for them. Suction cups were made out of felt. My arms and legs formed the four remaining tentacles. For these tentacles’ suction cups, we used felt glued onto plastic furniture sliders.

By that point, the rough shape of the mask was in place. For the front, we cut a hole for me to peer out of and placed red mesh over the hole. Teeth were built out of foam and painted red. Felt eyes were glued onto the back of the mask and gills drawn on with sharpie. A fin was sewn/glued onto the back of my mask.

For the torso, I took a grey long-sleeved shirt (with suckers attached) and my mom painted a white belly onto the front. Grey flippers were made out of remaining pieces of vinyl and sewn onto the shoulders.

The last touch was suggested by my dad. I took some invisible wire and attached it to the tips of my two front tentacles. The other end of the wire was wrapped around my wrists so that when I moved my arms my tentacles would also move.

Her goblin costumes received compliments from the cast and crew of Best Worst Movie and Troll 2, she won a trophy for her Kuato costume and the Sharktopus suit was a hit at the Drafthouse on Halloween. Even still, my mom doesn’t quite get how popular her costumes are. I’m trying to convince her to go into business making costumes for movie geeks now that she’s retired from her life-long career as a nurse.

In the meantime, though, you can be sure I’ll be using her to build more costumes for upcoming Alamo events or just for the heck of it. I already have a great idea for a costume that combines two characters from two off-beat Christmas movies.

If you have any questions on how any of these costumes were made or would like to see additional pictures, just let me know.

Feel free to use any of these pictures but please give credit where credit is due. Or else I’ll sick Sharktopus on you.

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Hulk smash puny Gladiator comparisons.

Watching the recent batch of animated movies based on Marvel Comics’ line of super heroes has been, in a lot of ways, like a series of drunken one-night stands.

In 2006, when the first film Ultimate Avengers was released straight-to-DVD, fans of Marvel Comics were lonely and desperate for a bit of (animated super hero) action. While Batman and Superman had enjoyed their time in the spotlight during the glory days of Bruce Timm and his team of animators, Marvel’s pantheon of heroes were several years away from their time dominating Saturday morning cartoons. They had never, in fact, even had an animated movie to call their own (unless you count that 1980’s Japanese cartoon loosely based on The Tomb of Dracula).

Fans were desperate and willing to go home with just about anybody.

So when Ultimate Avengers appeared in video stores nationwide, fans devoured it. Parades were held and dreams forged of future movies staring everybody’s favorite four-colored heroes.

As the dust settled, though, and fans woke up in bed next to Ultimate Avengers and it’s sequels and spin-offs — they realized the movies were, in fact, terrible films. They were poorly animated and, even worse, downright boring at times.

With the seventh film to be released from Marvel Animation and Lionsgate Home Entertainment, though, fans need not worry about having to go all coyote ugly and gnaw off their own arm to escape Planet Hulk.

The film is, surprisingly, pretty downright badass.

I’ll admit to not having read all the issues of The Incredible Hulk this animated movie is based on. While I only browsed a few stray issues of Greg Pak and Carlo Pagulayan’s original comics, I know enough about the story to realize that Planet Hulk, the film, is pretty faithful to Planet Hulk, the comic.

When the rest of Earth’s super heroes get tired of the Hulk, the green raging behemoth, a few of the world’s most powerful heroes (including Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Mr. Fantastic and Black Bolt — the latter two covered in shadows perhaps due to licensing rights issues) get together, put Hulk on a shapeship and send him hurtling into the depths of space.

When he crash lands on a planet ruled by a tyrannical despot calling himself the Red King, the Hulk is sentenced to a life as a gladiator. Before you can say “Russell Crowe,” the Hulk is trussed up in armor and given a sword so that he can battle all sorts of alien menaces — including robots, rock men and even Beta Ray Bill — everybody’s favorite horse-faced Thor clone. The Hulk enters into an uneasy alliance with his fellow gladiators and, together, they attempt to earn their freedom and — if the rest can convince the Hulk to give a damn — overthrow the king’s rule.

The movie combines elements of the aforementioned Gladiator and John Carter of Mars, mixes it up with some good old fashioned super heroics and concocts a cartoon that is action-packed and, sometimes, surprisingly violent.

During the gladiator combat, limbs are severed, eyes exploded and blood splatters the ground with the frequency of a comic book purist’s cries of “what about continuity?” while reading Jeph Loeb.

That’s not all — a sub-plot of the film deals with a mysterious weaponized spore that transforms people (including children) into hideously deformed zombies that need to be put down with extreme prejudice. This film is not for the kiddies.

While there’s plenty of action to be had in Planet Hulk, the plot is not completely bare either. While not exactly high concept, the storyline moves along at a brisk pace keeping even the most novice of super hero fans entertained — even if they don’t exactly know what’s going on.

This movie seems to be made entirely for fans of the genre. That’s to say, there isn’t a whole lot of exposition.

While a lot of movie watchers (especially those buying a movie called Planet Hulk) are familiar with the origins of the Hulk and don’t necessarily need the tale retold for the umpteenth time — very little explanation is given to some of the ancillary characters that make an appearance in the film.

When Thor and his Asgardian-powered alien pal, Beta Ray Bill, make an appearance, there is absolutely no explanation given to who these characters are — audiences are assumed to either know who the two hammer-wielding heroes are already or not care as such.

Likewise when the Hulk goes from a rampaging monster at the beginning of the flick into an unlikely anti-hero that can not only be reasoned with but is prone to cracking (admittedly deadpan) jokes, audiences are expected to just go with it.

For fans of Marvel, though, filmmakers fill the movie with plenty of easter eggs — including appearances by members of the Guardians of the Galaxy, a cosmic superhero team.

The animation, while not up to the standards of most of Warner Brothers’ DC Comics animated movies, is a big step up from the earlier Marvel cartoon flicks.

On Blu-ray, the film looks downright pretty in places — with color that pops and a fluidity to the action.

The Blu-ray comes with a wealth of special features including two audio commentaries, a half-hour featurette about the making of the film and a short segment about the history of the story.

The disc also comes with a preview of the upcoming Thor: Tales of Asgard animated movie — a film that looks to be just as entertaining as Planet Hulk — even if it won’t come out until 2011. With the animation looking pretty finished, I have to wonder what’s going to take them so long to get the next movie released. My guess is that they are waiting to coincide with the Thor live-action film.

In addition, the Blu-ray comes with bonus episodes of Wolverine and the X-Men and the motion-comics Spider-Woman and Astonishing X-Men, the latter of which was written by Buffy the Vampire Slayer mastermind Joss Whedon.

A few (terrible) music videos are also included — serving as little more then a promotion for Marvel’s line of motion-comics.

A digital copy of the film is also included.

While Planet Hulk may not be a perfect film — it’s pretty entertaining. Especially for a movie released by a studio that doesn’t exactly have the best track record for making animated movies.

While probably not recommended for the youngest Hulk fan in your house, Planet Hulk should be a welcome addition to the collection of any fanboy or fangirl you know. Hulk smash, indeed.

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The eighties may hold a place in my heart when it comes to the films released during a particular decade but it wasn’t until I got a good look at the last ten years worth of films in preparation for this list that I realized just how good of a decade the aughts were when it came to movies.

Crafting this list was incredibly difficult as there were a ton of really great movies that came out between January 2000 and December 2009.

From the wealth of comic book movies that overran theaters to the mainstream-ification of and easy access to independent cinema to the constant stream of films from visionary directors hitting their stride, I was never more then a few weeks away from a incredible film experience at the movie theater.

While I put a lot of thought into this list (perhaps too much thought), I can’t guarantee it won’t change with time and perspective. Besides my own evolving tastes, there were also a lot of great films in the last decade that I missed out on and am slowly catching up with thanks to Netflix.

Ten years from now a list of my favorite films of the aughts could look very different. But in the meantime, here are ten of my favorite films from the last 120 months.

10. Avatar

While James Cameron’s box office record-breaking movie may have just been released a handful of weeks ago and at the tail end of the decade, it made such an impact on me at the theater that the film managed to sneak its way onto this list — even if at the very bottom.

Avatar may not be a perfect film — there are some serious issues of originality in the story — but the special effects and sheer spectacle of seeing it in the theater more then make up for any defects in the movie’s plot. Cameron knows how to craft pure, concentrated epic and Avatar delivers the goods in spades. Awe-inspiring in its scope and beauty, the film has a very strong possibility of loosing a lot of its impact on a home theater system so out of all the movies on this list, Avatar has the biggest chance of being squeezed off upon future reflection.

In the meantime, though, Cameron can rest easy with the knowledge that he delivered a movie that once again made going to the theater an event worth looking forward to. Avatar may not be high-brow cinema but it is blockbuster at its finest.

9. Stardust

The majority of film fans may prefer director Matthew Vaughan’s crime film Layer Cake to his attempt at fantasy, but for me Stardust took the cake when it comes to fantasy films of the last decade. An adaptation of one of my favorite books from one of my favorite authors, Stardust took a lot of liberties in its translation to the big screen — but it managed to retain 100 percent of the novel’s tone and wit.

Actors Claire Danes and Charlie Cox are pitch perfect in their roles as “star”-crossed lovers who find romance while on the road — kind of like a Hans Christian Anderson version of Midnight Run if Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin were lovers.

A grown-up fairy tale in the vein of The Princess Bride, Stardust was an unmistakable box office bomb when it was released in 2007. While it has not yet found its audience on DVD, I remain confident that Stardust will be discovered in the next ten years — turning it into a true cult film and not one of those manufactured cult movies that studios love to license merchandise for.

Plus, I’m so gay for the film’s theme song by Take That.

8. About Schmidt

Jack Nicholson, for my money, had no better role this last decade then as Warren Schmidt in Alexander Payne’s 2002 movie About Schmidt.

In the film, Nicholson plays a man who, after his wife dies, decides to head to his daughter’s wedding a bit early in the hopes he can persuade her not to marry a man he considers an utter loser. Hope Davis, Kathy Bates and Dermot Mulroney fill the supporting cast.

A somber reflection of a man beset with loneliness during his twilight years, About Schmidt is painful for me to watch because of how much Nicholson’s character reminds me of my own father. Watching Nicholson in emotional pain as Schmidt makes me think of my own father going through such pain. That, though, is the power of Payne.

Payne, the director of Election and Sideways, excels at working with actors to create characters that are so believable they instantly become synonymous with real people in your own life.

7. Shaun of the Dead

In the last decade, Edgar Wright has quickly become one of my favorite directors. Shaun of the Dead, the movie that, for the most part, introduced him to American audiences, is a brilliant parody of zombie films that rises above the dreck that the parody genre has devolved into and becomes something much more.

The film is really a romantic comedy that just happens to have zombies in it. Not content with just being a single love story though, Shaun of the Dead contains three love stories (a man and his woman, a man and his best friend, and a man and his mother) and gives them the proper emotional weight to make audiences actually care when zombies crash through walls and start eating the innards of the film’s heroes.

But even more the romance and violence, the movie excels at humor — righteous, laugh-out-loud humor. Shaun of the Dead is a great film and I can’t wait to see what Edgar Wright has for movie fans next.

6. Moulin Rouge!

I’ve gotten a lot of grief over the last eight years due to my love for Moulin Rouge. Yes, it’s a musical. Yes, it’s unbelievably sappy. Yes, it’s loud and obnoxious. These are all the reasons, though, why I love the film so much. It’s a grand exercise in excess — combining everything I love in movies: dazzling effects, an earnest love story and a great soundtrack.

Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman are fantastic in the film — providing both their acting chops and singing voices to breathe life into Baz Luhrmann’s crazy vision of a fantastical Paris where poets, prostitutes and dukes mingle in vibrant nightclubs.

Even if I have to turn in my Man Card, I will always stand in proud support for my favorite musical of the last decade.

5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

One of the biggest transformations in my movie inclinations from the ’90s to the ’00s was my increasing distaste for Jim Carrey. The rubber-faced actor went from one of my idols to a guy whose movies I generally avoid — with exception.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a brilliant film — largely due to the involvement of writer Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry. A mindtrip of a film about a clinic that specializes in selectively erasing people’s memories to help them cope with loss, the film proved to be a perfect vehicle for Carrey’s talents.

What I love about Gondry as a director is the clear growth of his skills on display throughout the course of his career. While a lot of filmmakers will stagnate with their work, Gondry’s evolution as a storyteller is obvious in everything he does. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was a clear progression of Gondry’s work as a music video director but even more so, it was a great story brought to life in a visually stunning way.

4. Amelie

Amelie, or Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain as is the film’s full title, is my favorite romantic film of the last decade.

A wonderful exploration of destiny and optimism, the movie is beautifully filmed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and stars the lovely Audrey Tautou as a innocent girl seeking true love in the streets of Paris. Utlizing a Rube Goldberg series of events, the film’s plot sends Amelie from a series of adventures helping others achieve happiness to the film’s final adventure — a shot for Amelie to find her own happiness.

Jeunet’s whimsical style is a perfect fit to this impossibly cheery movie. There is no way you can watch this movie and not smile — unless you are secretly a demon-hearted gorgon of hatred.

3. The 40-Year-Old Virgin

While Judd Apatow has been producing movies and television series since the early ’90s, The 4o-Year-Old Virgin is the film that introduced the world to Apatow and his pals — paving the way for the majority of comedies that have been influenced by Judd in the last five years.

What sets Apatow’s comedies apart from the imitators, though, is the heart and soul that shine through every minute of the director’s admittedly long films. The film’s star, Steve Carrell, broke through and achieved true fame with his role as Andy Stitzer, hapless loser and lifetime geek. While there were plenty of dick and fart jokes to be had at Andy’s expense, the reason this movie is so high on my list has more to do with the emotional weight found in the film then the huge laughs provided by Carrell and his supporting cast.

Apatow has been responsible for a lot of great films these last ten years. The 40-Year-Old Virgin, though, is simply the best.

2. The Dark Knight

There is really not much to say about this film other then the fact that I love the movie like most people love their first born child.

A life-long Batman fan, The Dark Knight is, in my opinion, the perfect Batman movie. It is so well-crafted in its story, production value, acting and execution that I seriously question the need for any more Batman movies. That is, of course, unless Christopher Nolan wants to do more. Please say you do, Mr. Nolan.

The Dark Knight is my favorite super hero movie in a decade where there were a lot of really, really good super hero movies. A comic book nerd through and through, I would have made The Dark Knight my favorite film of the decade if it wasn’t for that little film that kept nagging in my ear…

1. 25th Hour

I did not see 25th Hour when it was originally released in theaters. In fact, I didn’t see it until almost five years after it had been released on DVD. Since then, I have watched it almost every six months — a total of well over half a dozen times.

25th Hour is my favorite film of the last decade purely for that reason — I can watch it over and over again and it never looses its freshness or appeal. Edward Norton turns in an amazing performance as Monty Brogan, a man facing immanent jail time for narcotics possession. Looking at his last day as a free man, Monty goes out for a night on the town with his best friends (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper) and his girlfriend (Rosario Dawson).

Everything from the film’s writing (Brian Cox’s final monologue is one of the most heart-wrenching scenes I have ever witnessed in a motion picture) to the direction from Spike Lee to the beautiful music by Terence Blanchard makes 25th Hour my favorite movie of the decade.

Scales used to be my greatest fear. Nothing was more embarrassing then watching the doctor keep adding more weight to the scale during the annual checkup.

While I’ve always struggled with my weight, in recent years I’ve been throwing the fight more often then not. While I haven’t weighed myself in a while, I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m also at my heaviest.

I can make a promise today, though, that I will make a serious change in my lifestyle. Faced with the hereditary threat of diabetes, the embarrassment of being constantly short of breath and a future of forever having sex in the dark, I’m ready to make the changes necessary so that I can live a healthier life.

I’ve come up with a few ideas that will help me improve the quality of my life. Most of the ideas revolve around improving my diet and increasing the frequency of exercise. Other parts of my plan will be pulled from past brushes with a fit life.

When I was in scouting as a youth, I trained one year to attend Philmont Scout Ranch. A massively mountainous backpacking camp nestled in New Mexico, the trip involved months of practice hikes. I would walk around my neighborhood for hours – the entire time carrying around a backpack filled with 60 pounds of encyclopedias.  

It was during that summer of walking endless loops around my neighborhood that I discovered rock and roll.

I would listen to Q 94.5, the local rock station, on a tiny Walkman during my practice hikes. Previously lacking anything resembling knowledge of music, it was during that summer between middle and high school that I discovered Ozzy Osbourne, KISS, Metallica and Led Zeppelin.

Looking back, that summer was one of the bright spots of my youth. Too young to have a job, I spent my days in carefree bliss – daydreaming while I walked the streets of my neighborhood. Even McAllen’s dry heat couldn’t bring me down.

The summer did have it’s own bad spot — an accident of disgusting proportions.

One morning during my third lap around the neighborhood, I began to feel my stomach grumble. Soon, pain was radiating through my gut – causing me to take a break and analyze the situation. I was about a mile from my house and nowhere near any public toilets. And I knew without a doubt that a toilet was what I needed.

Fearing the worst, I began to walk home as fast as my chubby little body could go. Even if I were able to sprint back home without collapsing in an asthmatic heap, you’ll remember I was weighed down by a sixty-pound backpack.

I soon realized that I wasn’t going to make it back home in time and was faced with a decision to make. Stuck in the middle of suburbia, there was no bush to squat behind. I was going to have to poop in public and I could either do it on my own terms or not.

I decided that the best way to handle the situation would be poop my pants a little bit – instead of possibly risking a massive uncontrolled mess. Unfortunately, upon letting a little pressure off of my anus muscles, I discovered that I didn’t just have to poop – I had diarrhea.

Needless to say, there is little in my life that is more embarrassing then being an overweight teenager walking home with a backpack full of encyclopedias with poop running down my leg.

I trained for four more months without having a similar experience. While I was still left huffing and puffing during some of the hike’s steeper climbs, I was in the best shape of my life.

Unfortunately, upon returning home from the camp, my life soon got off track and all the training went down the toilet.

In getting my life back on track, I hope to regain some of that vigor I once possessed. After all, how am I going to be Batman if I have the physical stamina of the Penguin?

Postscript

I wrote that essay on January 15, 2009.

That week, after writing the essay, I did something I had never done before in my life — I followed through on an oath. In the past I’ve made plenty of promises to loose weight in get into better shape. I’ve bought new running shoes or perused the pages of a book about the Atkins diet but nothing has ever stuck. Within a week of any promise I made to myself, I was back to eating whole pizzas and sucking down two-liter soda bottles. This time it was different, though.

Maybe it just took putting the proverbial pen to paper, but something finally clicked in me that I needed to get in better shape. Since January, I have developed better eating habits, adopted a daily exercise routine and, to date, have lost sixty pounds. Thankfully, I have yet to poop myself again. I’m not done loosing weight yet, though, so there’s always a chance.

My dog looks afraid that I'm about to eat her. I'm so heavy, I'm afraid I might try to eat her.

Here I am sixty pounds lighter and no longer in danger of eating my pet.

Crime may get you a movie deal, but it will also come back to bite you in the end.

I slowly stalked my prey through the music section. I didn’t hide the fact that I was following him. I wanted the kid to know. And know he did.

He watched me from the corner of his eyes as he absent-mindedly browsed through the rap CDs. Coming up right up to him, I asked if he enjoyed the magazine.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said without much conviction.

“The pornographic magazine. Did you enjoy it?”

On retrospect, I realize that my little Dirty Harry impression was probably taking it a bit far. In fact, it was my attempt to intimidate the perp into a confession that attracted the attention of another customer.

“Oh no, you didn’t,” I heard a woman scream into my ear. “I didn’t just hear you accusing that young man of stealing a magazine. Where’s your evidence? What have you got?”

Startled by the conversation’s intruder, I turned to look at the woman who was making the scene.

“I’m just trying to talk to this gentlemen about a magazine he was about to pay for,” I attempted to explain.

It was no use. The woman had officially made the problem her business and launched into a fiery sermon, unrelenting in it’s busting of my chops. Looking away from her, I noticed that the kid had slipped away from my grasp and was high tailing it out the store.

“Look, he got away,” I told the woman.

“Good for him. Even if he did steal that magazine, it’s not like he hurt nobody.”

I hate that excuse. “I wasn’t hurting anybody when I tried to steal the candy bar.” “Nobody’s gonna get hurt if I read the book in the store instead of buying it.”

Sure. You’re right. By pocketing a CD from a store, you’re not causing genocide, spreading plague or giving anybody a Charlie horse. What you are doing, though, is ensuring that the cost of merchandise will steadily rise in order for the store to recover the loss of revenue from stolen products. Employees will be paid less, leading to more counter jockeys attempting to steal themselves. It’s a never-ending circle of crime.

In the end, I never directly brought a perp to justice. I was able to hand over video surveillance of two kids stealing a DVD boxset that led to their eventual arrest but I wasn’t there to enjoy my victory.

I saw with my own eyes a kid stuff a video game down his pants pocket but, when I confronted him about it, the kid pulled a Criss Angel and made it disappear. His parents even volunteered to frisk him. The game had vanished.

Now, several years out of the retail game, I still fantasize about catching a shoplifter and bringing down the swift hammer of justice. As I walk through Wal-Mart, I can spot the likely signs of criminal activities — empty packages lying on the floor, kids walking around with huge puffy jackets even though it’s 90 degrees outside, and customers carrying single DVD cases into the depths of the clothing department where they will most-likely rip open the packaging and stuff the disk down their pants.

I’m not a moral lighthouse of derring-do or anything. I have my vices just like everybody else on the planet. I just ask myself everyday, What Would Batman Do? Batman wouldn’t steal; he’d drop shoplifters off of rooftops and break their legs.

Read more stories of my college days

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a Ghostbuster.

Riding high off of the release of the second movie and the wonderful Real Ghostbusters cartoon that was airing on Saturday morning television at the time, I was obsessed with all things ghostly. I would go to the library at least once a week to check out a new book on monsters, taking copious notes about the type of beasties I would be up against in my new job.

I formed clubs with my friends at my school dedicated to the furthering of arcane knowledge. During lunch, we would sit on the jungle gym set and discuss the types of ways one might become a werewolf or practice our séance skills.

Eventually, I acquired an authentic Ghostbuster jumpsuit, a neighbor agreed to lend me his replica Proton Pack and containment unit if I asked, and I now possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of supernatural creatures. The only thing standing in my way was the complete lack of ghosts in my neighborhood.

My career goals have always been a bit lofty. As a kid, I was unhampered by reality when choosing a profession. A few years after my flirtation with ghostbusting, I decided I wanted to become a vigilante like Batman. I didn’t have the athletic skill or the patience to train and hone my body to become an unstoppable crime-fighting machine so I did the next best thing — I designed a killer costume.

Taking arm pads I had bought for football (the fact that I only played football in 7th and 8th grade should give you a sad idea of how old I was at this time), a homemade ski mask, cameo pants and my favorite t-shirt, I was almost done with my homemade vigilante costume. I was only missing a few ingredients. First, I needed a trademark — some kind of distinguishing feature that would become my calling card. Looking around my room, I settled on an African Safari hat my grandparents had given me as a gift. The final piece of my costume puzzle was technology. I grabbed a broken walkie-talkie and duct taped to my leg. Next I wrapped myself in a quasi-translucent white poncho. Why the poncho? In case it rained while I was fighting crime. Plus, I imagined that, when wrapped in the raincoat, I became translucent myself — kind of like the Predator.

So, decked in my vigilante costume, I prowled my neighborhood looking for criminals to bust. Back then; the street I lived on was still being developed. There were a lot of empty lots full of dirt and construction material. As I darted from wooden pylon to wooden pylon, hiding behind giant piles of grass still unplanted, I stalked my friend OJ.

Meanwhile, OJ saw me spazzing out in an abandoned lot dressed like a crazy homeless person and decided to see what I was up to. Surprised at being discovered despite my cloaking technology, I took a page from the Bible of Batman and decided to throw a smoke bomb. Not having any smoke bombs, I instead grabbed a handful of grass and threw it on the ground to distract from my exit. OJ took this as an invitation to a grass war and soon we had begun throwing handfuls of sod at each other. Our behavior drew the attention of an elderly gentleman who lived across the street. He poked his head out of his door and yelled at us to stop our shenanigans. We were creating a mess with all the grass and were nothing but common criminals, he shouted.

Surprised at being yelled at by an old man, I beat a hasty retreat back to my house before a real crimefighter showed up to bust me. I had set out to become a vigilante but had only succeeded in becoming a common criminal. And that, my friends, is the story of my life.

Read more tales from my childhood

In which my dad takes a stance against man-children who cut lines.

It was Friday afternoon and I had just gotten done with my afternoon job organizing the supply closet in the JROTC building. I was sitting on the couch reading the weekend entertainment section of the local newspaper when I noticed a small blurb announcing a comic book convention.

I’ve been a fan of comic books since the days of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures. My first real experience with superhero comics, though, came when my father brought home an issue of Uncanny X-Men that he had bought for me at the airport during a business trip he took to Dallas.

Since that issue, I’ve had a strong interest in “funny books.” Going to a convention dedicated to comic books only naturally seemed like my kind of fun.

According to the news brief, the convention would have a dealer’s room with two comic book artists available for autographs and sketches. I looked at the artists’ names and didn’t recognizing either of them. This did not deter my excitement though. Even if the artists were not famous (to me), they might be someday (or even better — they may someday die a tragic death that would cause everything they touched in life to go up in value).

I decided I would get the artists’ signatures and would hoard them away — waiting for the day that their value would increase enough for me to cash in on a sizable profit.

Because my parents had not forked over the money for me to attend driving school yet, I needed a ride. I went to ask my mother, a supporter of the arts even if she didn’t necessarily appreciate some of the dorkier varieties it came in. I figured I could convince her to drop me off at the convention while she ran some errands.

When I told her about the event, though, the first thing out of her mouth was not the “sure” I expected. Instead, she gave me a half-distracted afterthought of a response: “Your father can take you.”

My father could very well not take me.

My dad, although a wonderful guy, is not the most understanding of “alternative lifestyles.” When we dropped off my oldest sister at school in Austin, my dad nearly had an aneurysm watching the freaks and geeks of The Drag prowl their beloved territory.

It wasn’t just junkies and hobos my dad had a problem with, though. I had long learned not to ask him to give me a ride to the comic book store as he couldn’t grasp the affection grown men could have for video games or collectable action figures. I was positive he would not be keen on taking me to a convention that celebrated the idea of adults playing with their toys. This could only end badly.

Nevertheless, Sunday found my father and I begrudgingly driving to the hotel that would house the convention. Neither one of us thought this particular father-son bounding time was a good idea but my mother insisted we attend together. My father and I remained silent during the trip, the two of us concentrating on the radio.

When we arrived at the hotel, we exited the car and walked towards the conference room.

A smug look appeared on my father’s face when he saw a couple of small children excitedly talking about Batman. While at first it seemed that my father’s claims that comic books were for kids seemed to have been validated, his smug expression soon turned to a frozen look of horror as we entered the conference room to find a smattering of 30-year old men, their common bond seeming to be obesity and pony tails. These living, breathing “Comic Book Guy” impersonators were gathered around old toys and boxes upon boxes of comic books. The din of hushed conversation about whether Black Cat or Catwoman was hotter was only overpowered by the attendees’ collective labored breathing.

The few children that were present clung to the hands of their fathers, men who eyed mint condition Boba Fett toys with the kind of hunter’s gleam that is usually reserved for barflies trying to pick up women.

A lone woman browsed through a dealer’s selection, her every move studied by love struck geeks too nervous to even breathe near her.

After scanning the room quickly, I made my way to the first artist’s booth.

I was low on cash and was not interested in the dealer’s floor. My primary objective was to collect the two artists’ John Hancocks and leave with a minimum of monetary damage.

I picked up a book from each artist and stood in line for my first autograph.

Mike Grell, illustrator/writer, was a grizzled old man hobbled over his sketch pad, fervently drawing a buxom image of some warrior woman for a sweaty man dressed in a too-tight Star Wars shirt. The line of those waiting for an autograph seemed to crawl as Grell switched between drawing sketches and signing books. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched my father move from booth to booth, staring in pity at the men who had devoted their life towards recapturing their childhood.

When I finally got within reach of Mr. Grell, he was working on a sketch. I stood patiently, watching the pro masterfully work his pen and pencil.

As I waited, a large figure filled the space to the right of me. I turned to look at who had just cut in front of me and saw the largest Mexican I had ever encountered.

Covered in bristle-like hair, the man-child resembled a cross between Danny Trejo and Louie Anderson. He asked Grell in a voice that rang out like Giant Man himself, “Are you signing comic books?”

Grell looked up at the individual and, after allowing himself a double take, nodded a quick yes and reached for the man’s book.

Faster then the Flash, my father appeared at my side. He whispered into my ear in a harsh tone, “You can’t let people cut in front of you! Speak up for yourself.”

I gave my dad a quick nod in agreement but that was not enough for my old man.

“You need to stand up for yourself,” he warned. “Otherwise, people are going to walk right over you for the rest of your life.”

Mr. Grell took only a few extra seconds to sign the Man-Child’s book before he turned to sign mine but those few stolen seconds seemed, to my dad, to be a personal attack on everything our family stood for. As I walked away from my fuming father, I stood in line for the second artist.

I cannot remember the other artist’s name for the life of me, but I do recall that he was Brazilian and he worked with a speed and rhythm that seemed uncanny.

It appeared to me that the artist could sketch with one hand while signing with the other. As I waited, the line in front of me quickly melted away.

The whole time, though, I was distracted from watching the artist work by the shadow of my father’s anxious figure as he supervised the proceedings. He had tired of the dealers’ floor and had taken active interest in my quest to gain autographs.

As the artist finished a quick sketch of the Flash, the same Mexican Man-Child appeared out of nowhere to stand at my right again. This time, it appeared he was hypnotized by the artist’s speed.

He clutched his comic book to his chest as his eyes followed the artist’s rapidly-moving hands.

The artist finished his sketch and looked up to call upon his next task when he saw the Man-Child. Standing next to this 6-foot-five, 300-plus pound mountain of a man, I naturally disappeared into the background.

My hair could have been on fire and the artist would have only noticed the comic book desperately clutched in the Man-Child’s sweaty hands. The Brazilian asked if the Man-Child would like the book signed. He mouthed a hushed yes before handing the artist the crumpled book.

My dad witnessed the Man-Child’s repeat offense and the dam broke. Exploding into a gnashing of sound and fury, my father roared, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Not comprehending what was occurring, the Man-Child only managed to mouth the word “Wha-?” before my father was in his face.

“You’re cutting in front of the boy again! That is the second time you’ve cut line. I don’t know how you people were raised to behave, but in a civilized society there’s such thing as waiting in lines.”

“I didn’t cut in line!” the Man-Child said, clearly confused by what was happening.

“Don’t give me that! We all saw you.”

By this time, the room had undergone a complete hush. Every eye was focused on the furious form of my father and the confused heap of fat and hair that stood next to me, already beginning to quiver with an untapped rage.

The artist tried to calm the rolling rock that had been unearthed but to no effect.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t see your son.”

“You stay out of this,” my father replied. “Get a real job!”

He quickly returned to his angered belittling of the Man-Child.

I quickly offered my book to the artist who signed it with a defeated aura.

We left shortly afterwards.

During the car trip home, my dad talked my ear off about how I needed to stand up for myself. It was my duty as an American to speak up against the injustices of life. He wasn’t going to always be there to look out for me, he warned.

I couldn’t have despised my dad more then I did during that trip home. I spent the ride steaming inwardly as I buried my nose in my comic book.

When I was young, it seemed as if my dad was always attacking innocent cashiers and waiters who got on the wrong end of his short fuse. Not satisfied with piss poor service, my dad would always demand perfection when it came to a job. He was not afraid to return hamburgers to the cooks or call out slow service with an almost gleeful fury. It was often an embarrassment to eat out with my dad. Going to the store was not any better. My father would often compare stories with my uncle about their exploits at terrorizing stock boys and cashiers.

Flash forward three years and I’m standing in line at the local on-campus café. The waiter has to be the stupidest girl ever to work food service. As she stares at me with a vacant expression in her eyes and her mouth hanging ajar I can’t help but verbally assault her, asking for quicker service and at least a quarter of her concentration. I have turned into my dad in more ways then one.

I have inherited his impatience, his sense of humor, even his snore.

Now, as I find myself living away from home and visiting him only on the rare occasion, I realize that my dad was not the bad guy that I made him out to be when I was younger. In his own way, he was merely trying to teach me valuable life lessons that I could take with me into my future. He was a real-life superhero, trying to impose upon me a sense of value and a code of living that I would use to define right and wrong — to learn about truth, justice and the American way.

My dad didn’t understand all of my hobbies, but that didn’t matter. He supported my interests even if it meant having to be face-to-face with a sad reminder of the loser comic book nerd I could potentially turn into — that is, without the ethics he was imparting upon me.

I have found that the love for my father and the memories I have with him (such as our first and only comic book convention) more then make up for any slight embarrassment I felt as a kid.

My dad won’t be around forever, but the memory of him telling the poor Brazilian comic book artist to get a real job will be. And in the end, that’s what’s really important.

Read more stories of my childhood.