I Wanna Be Your Superhero

The time has come, as I always knew, hoped and dreaded that it would.

Entourage has begun it's final season.

Believe it or not, I'm more emotional about this than I was about Harry Potter.

I think it has something to do with the moment of the thing. Harry was an era. Vince and the boys, they're just a moment. A very distinct moment, that is now over.

Last season ended on a low note, even for Entourage. Vince was being arrested for coke posession after Eminem kicked the crap out of him. Sloan had just asked Eric to sign a prenup, Turtle's tequila deal was running away from him, Ari's wife had kicked him out and Drama was, well, Drama.

When we open for season 8, Vince is on his way out of rehab (relieved exhale), Eric and Sloan broke up (again, this story line is boring and they should get married already), Turtle's tequila was actually doing quite well, as was Drama's impending cartoon, Johnny's Bananas. (This is a bizarre flip in Entourage-land, when Turtle and Drama do well, and Vince and Eric don't.) And Ari's wife asked him for a divorce.

As much as I've appreciated the extra time with the boys, I think that the show was given a satisfactory conclusion in season 6, Vince leaving to shoot Ferrari in Italy, Ari getting the agency back on track after the disaster that was Andrew, and Eric choosing to stay in LA with Sloan rather than go to Italy with the boys.

Because for all that Vince gets the attention, Entourage is really the story of the team behind the man. This is Eric and Ari's story.

And if this story ends anywhere but with those two happy with the women they love, Doug Ellin will be receiving many angry letters from me. (Except he probably won't. But I will whine about it, a lot.)

The Star Spangled Man With A Plan

There's something very, very right about the Marvel Studios movies of the last five years. I love Christopher Nolan's Batman Triology, I think they are master films. But somewhere on his quest to create a grim and gritty reality, Chris lost the, well, fun of seeing a guy in tights fight evil.

No fun allowed!

Marvel has yet to lose the fun. Their movies are bright, colorful, fast moving and at that, pretty remarkable bits of film making. Captain America: The First Avenger, directed by Joe Johnston and starring Chris Evans as Cap himself, continues well in this vein.

Evans has proven himself in the action adventure field fairly well. In fact, last year I dubbed him "Comic Book Man," having been the only good thing about The Fantastic 4 movies, and playing sell out Lucas Lee in Scott Pilgrim. But he's perfectly in his element as Captain Steve Rogers. CGI'd down to look like a skinny weakling for the first forty five minutes, Evans still shines through as the Brooklyn kid with a heart of gold who just wants to serve his country.

But then things get fun. The fangirl in me loves the Marvel Studio movies because they do very well on the hottie front! Not to sound like a bad stand up, but sometimes you just need a little eye candy, amirightladies? Now even once he's suped up on Dr. Abraham Erksine's (played to lovable perfection by Stanley Tucci) syrum which turns him into the perfect physical soldier, he's no Chris Hemsworth, but Evans is dreamy in that All American, throw a baseball, drink a beer, backseat of a Chevy kind of way. (As opposed to the Broody Norse God running through the rain kind of way...*sigh*)

Seriously, Sexiest.Thing.Ever.

Captain America ups the hottie ante, though, with Sebastian Stan as Roger's best friend James "Bucky" Barnes, and wait for it...Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark!

Close Second

Yes, that's right, not only is Howard Stark a prominent part of the film, but he's played by the absolutely smoldering Cooper, (who I've been mildly obsessed with since I saw him in The History Boys on Broadway.) If this is a fictional universe where Dominic Cooper is Robert Downey Jr.'s father, I WANT TO LIVE IN THIS UNIVERSE!

But back to the movie. Captain America fights The Red Skull, played by Hugo "Agent Smith" Weaving. Seriously, folks, when he opens his mouth even when he's playing an elf king or in this case a deranged Nazi scientist who's face has been mutated to look like a well, red skull, my CSD kicks into high gear and I immediately expect him to start dodging bullets and asking if he can speak to "Mr. Anderson." But still, he was awesome.

Rounding out the cast were Tommy Lee Jones as Agent K, um I mean Federal Marshal Sam Gerald...OK look, he was playing Colonel Chester Phillips, but really he was doing his Tommy Lee Jones thing, and doing it real well and Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter. I even almost forgot about that time she went to the fair with Dawson Leary she was so good. (I said almost. This is Dawson's related CSD, the deepest kind)

Of course, like all of these movies, Captain America was a set up. There's an End Game. And that End Game is The Avengers. And that's what's up next. When Steve brought down The Red Skull's plane in the middle of the ocean, his friends searched for him. They found the Tesserae (do I have that right?) but no Steve. He wound up frozen for 70 years, and was awakened in modern New York, by Nick Fury. The credits roll.

But this is Marvel, so you've got to stick around until the very last frame. After the credits we see Steve beating a hanging punching bag, which he then punches right off the ceiling. Fury enters the room and gives Steve a message. "It's time to save the world."

Then we see it in all of it's glory. The trailer for The Avengers, with it's amazing tagline "Some Assembly Required." I was too busy gaping (and I kind of had to pee) to take you through it blow by blow, but it looks fantastic. Plus I got a tingly when I saw Chris Hemsworth as Thor again, so we know that's not a passing thing...

I Open At The Close

There's a quote from Neil Gaiman that I've always loved, that I think pertains so perfectly to the way that the Harry Potter series has touched me, and so many other people in my generation, "I would not be the person I am without the authors who made me what I am -- the special ones, the wise ones, sometimes the ones who got there first. It's not irrelevant, those moments of connection, those places where fiction saves your life. It's the most important thing there is."

We were children, all of us when J.K. Rowling first took us away from our world and drew us into another one entirely. A world where pictures moved and spoke, where broomsticks flew, owls delivered letters, and a small, ignored boy could be the most special person to ever live.

That was over a decade ago. And a full decade ago we saw that world for the first time. When we met the visual interpretations of Harry, Ron, Hermione and all the rest of them.

And now it's over. I mean, it's never over, because as Mr. Gaiman said, we all carry The Wizarding World with us. All of it Quidditch and wandlore, and horcruxes and hallows.

Can you guess that I just got in from seeing the second part of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows? I'm having trouble processing the movie. One of the things that I've always loved about Harry Potter in general is how it borrowed from, well, everything that came before it. The films just as much, if not more so, than the books. And everything about this movie was carefully crafted and borrowed.

The clash of green and red light between Harry and Voldemort, as well as the glowing reappearance of Professor Dumbledore reminded me, in a clear and distinct manner of Star Wars, much as Snape and Narcissa Malfoy's redemption always reminded me of Darth Vader's decision to save his son and soul over his own life.

As Voldemort's forces storm Hogwarts, suddenly I thought of Middle Earth, and Sauron's allies marched towards the riders of Rohan.

But there were other strange parallels that only the pop culture inclined would notice. When Snape demands that the Hogwarts students not aid Harry, I could only think of Alan Rickman demanding that a henchman bring him the detonators. And I thought I could see the glee behind Maggie Smith's eyes as she cast her final spells at Hogwarts.

But the greatest victim of my crowded mind, was The Dark Lord himself. Voldemort is played, after all, by Ralph Fiennes, who I'm pretty sure has never played a good character in his entire career. Or at the very least gave it up some times in the early nineties. Because, really, how do you move past playing the guy who camps on his Warsaw mansion balcony and shoots random Jews in his yard for sport? I'll tell you how, he plays Lord Voldemort. And in one moment in the final movie, he shoots a killing curse at a Death Eater when he's just pissed.

But there's so much more to what Harry Potter means to me than just it's exciting my pop culture sensibilities. As Harry prepared to go to the Forbidden Forest and sacrifice himself, Hermione hugged him and Ron smiled. I thought of Katherine and Jen, and Jenna, and Katie and every other friend I've ever had who knew what was better for me than I did. When Harry spoke to the ghosts of his parents, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, I thought of the adults who guided my way in subtle and unsubtle ways. Of my parents, and teachers, of David, the boss who took a chance on me when no one else would have.

I don't know how to separate criticism of Harry Potter from my own experience. I love this story too much. It's too much a part of me, or at least how I see stories. So it's over now. I'm ready for it to be over, but it keeps going because it's in me, it's in millions of people. So maybe that's all there is to say.