Films and Feelings

     The thing about any figure as iconic as The Wolf Man is ... you already know how his story ends because there's only one way it can end. Much in the same way that any "King Kong" movie has to end with the ape falling off of the Empire State Building. Any other ending just feels incongruent. Grafted from some other story. The equation can only produce a single sum. As Maria Ouspenskaya warned us in the original Wolf Man, "So tears run to a predestined end."       I'll break the film critic's seal here a little and say that, if you love the Wolf Man figure, then you already know what happens to him at the end of Leigh Whannel's film, and you already basically know why.       But I don't for a second count that as a bad thing. Reinvention is easy. Doing your homework, that takes commitment. And Whannel's new film does its homework.     Here, our Wolf Man is Blake, a loving father living in the city with his daughter, Gi...

     So here’s a question I’m sure no one’s asked yet: what is the point of fantasy?          Ask your resident D&D enthusiast or aspiring fantasy writer what it is about the fantasy genre that excites them so much, and you’re bound to get a variety of answers, but the topic of escapism tends to be a common thread. Sometimes the trash compactor of the real world just stinks so much, and you just need to vacation in someone else’s world. You can only stew in real world politics for so long before you just have to unwind by tracing the Jedi lineage or memorizing the rules of alomancy.  This is where you commonly run into thoughts that fantasy nerds are just incompatible with reality and are deliberately shirking any responsibility from participating in it. This mindset has a lot in common with the nostalgia stigma we discussed with “Roger Rabbit” and “Detective Pikachu.” It is also a very elitist perspective born out of the same attitude...