🎧 James Gunn's "whole thing" works on me every time.

DNCU Issue #1

Double Negative Cinematic Universe Issue #1

I’m not sure there are many modern characters in pop culture that I relate to more than a talking raccoon.

Truly, Rocket Raccoon is super relatable to me.

No, I wasn’t tortured and experimented on by a mad scientist, and in fact, I didn’t have an abusive childhood or anything quite so intense either. I did, however, have a childhood built on a lot of criticism and negative feedback in order to learn to become a “better” person.

Negativity and insecurity has largely been my fuel and motivation, because I believed that intense self-criticism was the only way to finally become worthy. Whether it be worthy of someone’s attention, time, or just love in general.

I’ve softened up a lot over the years. Having a daughter will do that to you. And now, I find myself struggling with finding the line as a parent with how to raise my child. She’s fragile, and her spirit is easily broken. Just like me.

I had my spirit broken a lot as a kid. Over and over. And the only way to survive it was to put on a tough, unbreakable exterior. I had to try to become scarier than the things I was most afraid of. If left unchecked, one can become a real asshole. Or worse.

But under that rough, mean, prickly exterior is often the most fragile person in the room.

And somehow…the first time I saw this expressed on screen so specifically was from a talking raccoon in a Marvel movie.

A Superhero Auteur

James Gunn is rare. He’s a guy that is an auteur, but he has chosen to do his work exclusively in the superhero genre, a genre that has become increasingly uncool over the last couple years. He’s like, “the people’s auteur” as opposed to a bluechip elite filmmaker who makes edgy films that the mass of culture doesn’t watch. (i’m a big fan of the elite auteurs as well) That said, I’ve gotten pretty tired of superhero movies myself, and while I was excited for Superman, there was an exhaustion to the idea of going to the theatre to watch yet another one of these movies. But somehow, despite that exhaustion, Gunn has this knack for not only making these movies feel fun again, but also…human and relatable.

In a recent episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert, James Gunn was on to promote Superman, and that interview really cemented him as one of my all time favorite filmmakers. He talked about his struggles with anger, addiction, and finally coming to realize he didn’t have to “tap dance until the bones show” in order to be loved. He was also very clear on his main goal of writing stories about hope. The most impressive part to me though, is that I didn’t need to listen to this interview to know all that. I picked up on all this stuff in the work itself.

Based on the box office returns of most of his movies, I’d say that his whole thing, meaning his vibe, his storytelling style, and his emotional intelligence touches a lot of people that watch his movies and TV shows. Critics, though, who watch a lot of this stuff are really starting to see some repetitive themes in his work, and honestly, I get it. Guardians of the Galaxy, Peacemaker, Suicide Squad, Creature Commandos, and Superman have a lot in common. Like, so much that if you look too close, you’ll see what looks like almost a James Gunn template.

And while there are an increasing amount of critics and audience members who seem to have a growing immunity to his whole thing, it gets me every time. Suicide Squad and Creature Commandos are the same story basically, and they still totally worked for me.

I think every artist has an ethos. Every artist has repetitive themes in their work. Tarantino’s repeating themes seem to be just…feet, and Scorsese’s were gangsters and now, aging gangsters. I joke, but these filmmakers all make films that basically say the same things over and over. I think the reason James Gunn seems slightly more transparent than these other auteurs is because he doesn’t jump from genre to genre. His canvas is the comic book world, and his brushes are the weirdest, most obscure characters within these universes that barely anyone has heard of.

Superman

I just got back from watching Superman for the second time because I just couldn’t wrap my head around all of it the first time around. When I first saw it, I was frustrated with the runtime, strangely enough. Modern superhero movies have become nearly 3 hour slogs, and this one is tight 2 hours. Too tight, honestly. I wish it had some breathing room for everything it is throwing at you.

The best part of the movie is the relationship between Superman and Lois and then Lex’s hatred for Superman. I feel like we don’t get enough time with those aspects because it’s a superhero movie after all, so we have to pay homage to a rainbow proton river and Quantumania-adjacent pocket universe that will inevitably lead to a battle against some disposable faceless CGI characters.

Ultimately, though, it had so many new and weird ideas for Superman and the world around him that I was left wanting more, and I suppose that’s the goal.

Despite the many nits I could easily pick with this movie, ultimately, it’s an extremely successful Superman movie. Maybe even the most successful one ever made. I attribute the success of this movie to the emotional competence of James Gunn himself. It is 100% his vision and his sensibility. He adds so much complexity to the character of Superman that I think he cracked a code that no one has been able to crack with onscreen depictions of this character.

Superman is a human in this movie, not a god. Turns out, that was the key the whole time. Smallville got it mostly right in that sense, but that show is about Clark Kent, not Superman. Henry Cavill’s Superman lacked humanity completely, and Christopher Reeves Superman seemed a little too good to be real a lot of the time.

David Corenswet’s Superman, however, is a Superman for insecure millennials. He is constantly questioning himself, but also trying to just do the best he can. I think what works about this film is that he’s constantly getting his ass kicked and requires help from all the people around him to get through the day. He’s not better than us, he’s one of us.

The movie comments on this idea that being kind and hopeful is punk rock, with a fun interaction between Lois and Clark where Lois makes fun of Clark’s very accessible, pop radio music taste. Then the end of the movie is played out with Iggy Pop’s Punkrocker. This seems to be James Gunn’s “whole thing” in a nutshell: wear your heart on your sleeve, be super emotionally transparent, hopeful, kind, sensitive, and shed the tough exterior because it’s most punk rock thing one could do.