Dave's Verse

"They cast Ben Affleck as Batman!?" "Zack Snyder is directing a Batman movie?" "Why is the trailer for Batman v. Superman so DARK and SERIOUS? Why doesn't DC make jokes in movies like MARVEL?" If I have to listen to that for another 2 months I might just I'm not saying you can't judge a movie by its trailer, its casting, or its director. I mean, I know right away I won't like a movie if it stars Adam Sander. But I think Batman v. Superman is getting unfairly maligned. And I'm worried that if people go in with too many preconceived notions about the movie it will blind them as to the actual quality of the movie (Like what happened with Man of Steel, people wanted the Donner movie and were mad when they didn't get it). There are legit criticisms of Zack Snyder's directing and Ben Affleck's acting/role choices. Snyder arguably directs for style over substance. I think all of his movies that I've seen look interes...

The Miami Dolphins fired their head coach Joe Philbin today after another humiliating loss to long time division rival the New York Jets. There were hopes that coming into this season, the team could move past the consistently mediocre results it has achieve for seemingly decades and make it to the playoffs, perhaps even winning the division that the New England Patriots have cheated their way toward winning won most of the past two decades. But no. Barring an extremely unlikely turnaround under the interim head coach, the Dolphins will miss out on the playoffs yet again. The disappointment this team's fans have felt has become as predictable as the Dolphins throwing the ball less than 5 yards on 3rd and long situations. We can point to numerous causes for such mediocrity. Certain Philbin and his coaching staff deserve a long of blame. But as bad as they were, it's not like they were coaching a team filled with all-pros at every position. There are problems with starters a...

There's been a lot of talk about the pope since he visited the US. The pope will draw attention because he's the head of a large, worldwide organization. But Francis is probably drawing more attention than normal because he says some fairly progressive things, at least for a religious leader. This has all sparked some debate over what the catholic church should look like moving forward. This piece from Ross Douthat showed up in my twitter feed and I wanted to highlight some things I found interesting. Which brings us to the issue that prompted my column: The debate, encouraged and I think guided in a pro-change direction by Pope Francis, over whether to admit the divorced-and-remarried, people in unions that the church has traditionally considered adulterous, back to communion while they’re still in a sexual relationship with their new spouse. I’ve written at length, as have others more qualified than myself, on why this allegedly-pastoral change would, in fact, represent a...

I've seen The Dark Knight probably around 20 times. It took me until seeing it at an old theater in Nashville over the weekend to realize something about the Gotham of the Nolan trilogy. It has crappy health insurance coverage. And the lack of coverage helped lead to the death of Rachel Dawes, the creation of Two-Face, and the turning of Batman into The Dark Knight. Like all Nolan movies, he drops a hint about what will happen in the movie very early on. After the opening of the Joker heist, we cut to Gotham at night. Two guys are about to make what looks like an illegal drug deal when one of them looks up and sees the Batsignal in the sky. He walks away from the deal for fear that Batman will stop him. Then we cut to Gordon on top of the Major Crimes Unit roof, where he has turned on the Batsignal, waiting for Batman to come talk to him. Detective Anna Ramirez joins Gordon on the roof with a cup of coffee and asks if he, "Ever plans to see his wife again." To which ...

Jeb Bush is running for president, because you know, our economy and politics are purely merit-based. And because his former president brother was in office such a short time ago, he's getting questions about how he compares to his brother, mostly regarding the biggest decision his brother made, invading Iraq. (I'm not sure if that sentence is a mess grammatically or just sounds messy reading it in my head) On some level, Jeb and most Republicans know that the Iraq War wasn't a glowing success. Maybe Dick Cheney is still 100% convinced that it was the right choice and everything worked out perfectly. But most Republican presidential candidates aren't giving a full-throated defense of the decision. In fact, many are implicitly acknowledging that it was a bad decision when they say stuff like what Jeb said : “I would have [authorised the invasion], and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody,” Bush told Fox News television in an interview to be aired l...

Rolling Stone picks up on one of my favorite topics , what rises to the level of a constitutionally protected religious belief: The Satanists announced this week that they're demanding exemptions to anti-abortion regulations — like Missouri's 72-hour state-mandated waiting period — claiming such measures violate their religious beliefs. It's an obvious, and brilliant, ploy to test how serious conservatives are about their supposed belief that a person's "religious liberty" rights mean they can opt out of laws they simply don't like. The Satanists are trying to prove that conservatives are hypocrites whose interest in religious exemptions only applies to situations where they can take away someone's birth control, or ruin a same-sex couple's wedding. This may look like trolling, and on some level it might be. But this gets to the heart of every other "religious freedom" issue that has come up recently. What is a belief that gets prote...

No spoilers The new Avengers movie is a typical Marvel movie, solidly entertaining but not a ton of depth. I felt a bit weird after it because I love Joss Whedon. I expect to love everything he does. But while Age of Ultron is a good, fun movie, I didn't love it. There are no glaring problems with it. No "what about these potholes" bullshit. It feels a bit too big at times. But it's paced well and there's never really a dull moment. It's got a lot of the Whedon-style banter. And each character gets their due, which is probably enough to consider the movie a success in and of itself. But I just didn't have that gut emotional reaction to it. Maybe it's just me and my Batman blinders when it comes to superhero movies. Though speaking of Batman, I think that gets at the problem I have with Marvel movies. Batman has great villains; the Joker, Bane, Ra's al Ghul, etc. Along with Batman's status as a vulnerable non-god, the villains really help ...