1. And my first full-time semester of teaching is officially over! Overall went pretty well, so far as I can tell. Very instructive, and I had a pretty good batch of guinea pigs students to work with. I have quite a few ideas for improvements next semester.

2. This has been a hard year on interesting Black actors: we’ve lost James Earl Jones, Carl Weathers, Louis Gossett Jr., and, as I’ve recently learned, Ken “Oogie Boogie” Page (thus putting an end to my dream of having him voice King Boo in a future Mario movie) and the legendary Tony “Candyman” Todd. The latter, of course, was one of the great horror actors of his generation, alongside the likes of Robert Englund, Malcolm McDowell, and Brad Dourif. I almost want to say he’s the first of that crowd to go; a sad herald of things to come.

3. The really frustrating thing about the latest folly from Sony is that, of all Spider-Man’s villains, I think Kraven the Hunter actually has the most potential as a solo story. In fact, it should be a pretty easy story: you have the heir of a Russian crime family who finds he prefers the savage purity of darkest Africa to the hypocrisy of the human world. He becomes the world’s greatest hunted, so great that no animal is a challenge to him any longer. Then you could have him dragged back into the civilized world, perhaps to take on a rival crime family. That right there – master hunter turns his skills on the Russian mob – could be a really cool comic-book thriller. But of course modern Hollywood is all-but incapable of perceiving actual story potential.

4. On that subject, the first teaser for the new Superman film dropped.

Overall, I’d say it’s…well, it’s not a self-evident train-wreck in the making. It looks like there is at least some notion of who Superman is and how he should be presented, with shots of him hugging Pa Kent in Kansas, being awkward as Clark Kent, protecting children, and so on. So, I think it’s safe to say this at least will be better than anything Zack Snyder came up with.

On the other hand, I don’t like them bringing in the Justice League already, filling up the screen with Green Lantern, Mr. Terrific, Hawkgirl, etc. Why can’t we just let Superman have his own film? Have a smaller-scale story of him just being Superman without also having to coordinate among the other heroes?

That, and stuff like the framing scene of him being beaten up and bleeding, or shots of an angry crowd throwing stuff at him seem to me to be striking the wrong note (though Krypto’s presence is welcome).

5. Also, when did we decide that Lex Luthor should always be cast as young as possible? I completely expect Nicolas Hoult to be better in the role than Jesse Eisenberg (if only because it’s really, really hard to imagine anyone being worse), but I don’t like that trend. Luthor should have real weight and presence to him: a man in the fullness of his powers, not looking like an arrogant college kid. In any case, Hoult’s never impressed me as being particularly charismatic or having much in the way of screen presence: it’s always just “oh, yeah; the guy who played kid!Beast in X-Men.”

For Luthor you want someone like Ralph Fiennes or Benedict Cumberbatch (granted, perhaps a little too obvious of choices), or, heck, Adam Driver, who is also young looking but actually has the screen presence for the role (and lord knows he needs an actually good movie to be in).

6. Of course, the big question is “is Hollywood in general, and James Gunn in particular (the Guardians of the Galaxy guy), even capable of making a Superman movie? Do they understand what a genuine heroism, integrity, and idealism look like?” I’m very doubtful, to be honest. I remember one of my thoughts on Man of Steel was that things like Clark casually stealing clothes off of a line or wrecking some jerk’s truck in a petty fit of temper were not so much conscious efforts to undermine his character as illustrations of the fact that the filmmakers had no idea what right and wrong even are. I fear we’ll get something similar this time around

But I could be wrong, and all that being said, this looks a lot better than I expected it to look. I still doubt I’ll go see it unless the reviews are very positive.

7. Finally, in case I don’t get a chance to say it later, a Merry Christmas to y’all, and y’all have a good night. And remember: it’s not “Peace on Earth and good will toward men,” it’s “Glory to God in the highest and on Earth peace to men of good will.”