The Keeper of My Nerd Girl's Heart

It’s not like ideas just drop out of the sky. Here I sit, hoping that something will strike me with the force of lightening. I’d even settle for a little static electricity. Anything that meant I had a new idea for a story. I could always work on one of my “novels”, and I did that yesterday, but sometimes they’re too big for me to wrap my head around and I just want to do something easy (ha ha) like the short story.

Before I get too deep in this drama in my head, I’d like to discuss the Green Lantern movie. Look, I haven’t seen it yet, and I have been positively biting my nails over it because it looks bad, and I really really don’t want it to be bad. But that was back when I thought that Geoff Johns, comic book writer and keeper of my nerd girl heart, had written it. Well, he didn’t. I’m not entirely sure why I thought he had, maybe because I heard him talk about it a few times, and it’s possible that he helped in the early stages, breaking down the story, but he didn’t actually write it. I know he visited the set on one of more occasion, and I have heard him defend it somewhat, but then, it is a movie born out of a DC comics franchise for which he has written some amazing stuff, so maybe he felt obligated to praise it.

And maybe, like me, he cringed every time he saw a trailer for it, and wondered what exactly was going through the producers’ minds when they cast BLAKE LIVELY as Carol Ferris. I’m sorry, but: NO.

Just say no to Blake Lively, people. OK, to be fair, I’ve never seen her act in anything, so maybe I can’t say definitively that she’s a bad actress, but I can for sure say that she is miscast as Carol Ferris. Just one look at the clips of her in the trailer show that she’s out of her depth. Which, come on girl, it’s a freakin’ superhero movie, not some masterpiece being shown at Cannes, you shouldn’t have to work so hard.

So, here’s my next question: why didn’t Geoff Johns write this movie? He is the current writer on the Green Lantern comics, and he’s proven that he can take this character to a wider audience. I can’t tell you the number of people I heard at comic con who would start their questions with: “First of all, I was never a Green Lantern fan until you came onboard, Geoff.”

Also, Green Lantern has a ton of characters, and Geoff has proven over and over again that he handles large ensembles really well. He’s also great at balancing characters with plot. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he knows how to move a story along and how to sock you in the stomach and keep you interested, but what he does so well is get you invested in the characters. He makes them real, even when they can leap tall buildings in a single bound. And that’s the heart of it: if you don’t care about the characters, then what’s the point?

OK, rant over. I return you to your regularly scheduled programming in which I don’t know what I’m doing. Remember how I said I wanted to write something more humorous and less melodramatic, well maybe that’s tripping me up. I don’t know, maybe my brain just needs a rest. Either way, I’ve written my word quota for today, so I guess I’ll have to figure this all out tomorrow.

Goodnight.