Rating: 2.5

The Avengers is the fruit of perhaps the greatest marketing gimmick of all time. Make no mistake, this film is so far from any sort of progressive artistic endeavor that we should all hesitate to grant it the rank beyond fan fiction. Fan fiction being the rehash, the ode to, the celebratioTHn of that which has come before and the promise of more after — what you love will be perpetuated, drawn out and squeezed of all its life so the loyal may lap it up off the floor.

The Avengers is painfully close to that definition, though it is not quite there yet. Jamming Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, The Hulk and others into a brisk, shallow narrative, Marvel has created the illusion of freshness. For better or worse, it appears there is more to be squeezed from this series.

That may be because The Avengers is not without merit. Often it is a penetratingly funny, engaging and an admirably constructed film. The leads, who we “know” from a dizzying array of loosely connected prequels, banter with each other at a mile a minute, and the film’s greatest sense of friction arises when the heroes prod each others’ borderline self-righteous chests.

Robert Downey Jr.’s Stark/Iron Man is what we’ve come to expect. His tongue is razor sharp, and his narcissistic wit is held up high — the flagship of his character. It’s the other scientist, though – The Hulk/Bruce Banner – that is the best thing going on here. Mark Ruffalo plays the human part with a rare sense of emotional verve — we sense, magnificently, that there are various emotional dimensions at work in his superhero soul (and the CGI Hulk definitely “smash good”).

The other characters more or less blend into the backdrop of the scenery, which is not so much the fault of the actors as it is a deficiency of their dulled character types. We know everything about Captain America at one glance: He is a statue of leaden moralism. Thor is not far off, except that he is a demi-god and thus can’t really die. Which makes one wonder, where is the threat? The others are hardly even worth mentioning they are colored so gray.

Where the film ultimately fails is in its devastating emptiness. Throughout the explosives and the carefully constructed development, Joss Whedon, the director, teases toward something more — a potential heart underneath the 200-million-plus hauberks. But as the credits roll, it becomes clear that The Avengers is slick and leans to a point of anorexia. There is really nothing else there.

It is inevitable to conclude that The Avengers’ success is not justified by what it achieves on screen. It is a special sort of monster, less a film than an unrepentant celebration of our own commercial obedience, and the immense glorification of our deep cultural excesses. The film moves at lightspeed, and impresses itself skin deep. The Avengers 2, with more, will be out tomorrow.

JAMES O’HARA can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

Everyone is dying. The world, scratch that, MY world is ending. It’s May, and all of my dear television shows are reaching their season finales.

As I write this, my roommate and I are struggling to load the seven-minute preview of tonight’s “Grey’s Anatomy” season finale. And let me tell you — I’m already willing to sacrifice my own firstborn child to save the character that is getting killed off tonight.

This year is bringing its game, I tell you. With producers and television companies realizing that building up suspense and anticipation is the key to maintaining viewership, I’m about ready to road trip to L.A. and break into multiple buildings and steal the scripts for next season’s round of shows.

Perhaps it’s due to my increasingly demanding academic and labor schedules, but I’ve been watching a lot of television lately. It was only a mere year ago that I started watching “Grey’s Anatomy,” giving me plenty of time to start “How I Met Your Mother” once I caught up to the current season months ago.

If I revealed my complete television schedule, I would probably be reprimanded by my mother and school officials. Hey, I want distractions from my real life and problems and to project my emotions onto fake Hollywood-created scenarios.

The next couple of weeks are the ones that are going to kill us emotionally. No, not because the second round of midterms passes through, or that our semester school friends are already in summer, but because our television shows are breaking up with us for a while.

Two days ago, my heart exploded and my brain oozed out of my nostrils when I watched the “Smash” season finale. It continued to stab me in the heart as I replayed the ending scene 10 times after and had to force myself to go on a walk to clear my mind. It resulted in hours of debriefing and discussion on what the hell happened and what’s going to happen next.

I’m not completely caught up on “How I Met Your Mother” yet, but from the many Facebook statuses that took place the other night, I’m guessing the season finale provided the much-needed jolt of “wtf” and “omg” to an entertaining but repetitive show.

What is it that gets me so invested in these shows? Is it the extremely relatable characters that so accurately represent my inner emotions and outer turmoils? Is it because I’m too bored with my own life to notice that my life is equally dramatic and emotional?

And what is with Hollywood and screwing with our faiths, emotions and everyday lives? How dare they lead us on, making us love characters and television shows, only to cancel them a couple of amazing seasons in? I definitely was not the only one ready to lobby to save “Community” a couple of months back.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life after this quarter ends. Not only will I lack an excuse to not hang out with people because of “homework,” but I won’t have any television to watch when doing said homework. My life is so hard.

There’s a silver lining, though. I do own every single boxed season of “Gilmore Girls.” And I have Hulu Plus and Netflix to entertain me. But is it worth it, to fall in love with yet another set of characters and story only to be broken up with them eight seasons later? Yes. Because I have nothing else to do.

ELIZABETH ORPINA can be reached at arts@theaggie.org. Please e-mail her column suggestions, as she’s running out of ideas and the copyreaders are getting angry when she asks them what they want to read that week (since they’re the only ones that do.)

Patti Smith hit the stage last Wednesday, May 9 at the Mondavi Center in Jackson Hall. Smith read from and promoted her memoir Just Kids, sang some of her own songs and from other artists and talked about her life.

Smith wore a white dress shirt, a black tie and a black coat with brown boots. Smith’s appearance resembled that of a boy and she addressed how Allen Ginsberg, author of Howl, thought that she was a boy when he first met her. Smith said that she and Ginsberg met while she was getting a sandwich and didn’t have enough money to pay for it. Ginsberg saw this and told her that he would pick up the tab. While they ate, he realized Smith was a girl and said “I thought you were just a pretty looking boy.”

Smith’s humor created a light vibrancy in Mondavi Center — especially when she talked about the kinds of food she and Robert, her ex-lover, would live off of.

“I liked anchovy sandwiches,” she said. “But Robert didn’t like them. We would make lettuce soup and put bouillon cubes in there.” Smith spoke about how she and Robert would listen to the History of Motown together and how she knew when he was on LSD because he would listen to Vanilla Fudge over and over again.

With the audience’s loud laughter, she went to grab her water bottle and asked Lenny K if he would open the top for her and digressed to another one of her sporadic thoughts. “One thing I didn’t like about the women’s movement,” she said, “was that women didn’t want men to open the door for them anymore. I like men to serve me.”

At the end of Smith’s performance, before the Q&A session, she sang Bob Dylan’s song “Boots of Spanish Leather.” Smith’s rendition of Dylan’s song was emotionally filling. Smith composed herself, sat down next to Christopher Reynolds, Professor and Chair for the Department of Music and answered the audience’s questions.

One audience member asked Smith how her sense of mortality affects art. “I just turned 65,” she said. “I seek to be more disciplined, organized, healthy, prolific, attentive, loving to children and [to] be present. I have a feeling I have a long life, but I think now it’s time to get serious about my work.”

Smith doesn’t consider herself to be anyone special and said that she was lucky to have made it big in her career. Smith made it clear that she didn’t go to New York City when she was younger because it was the “cool thing to do” but went because living costs were cheap in that time.

When she answered the question of “What’s your advice for young artists?” she stated, “Go to Detroit and [remember] what’s important is to do great work. If you want to achieve fame and fortune, go to New York and get ten roommates.”

Smith has lived an adventurous life, but she quit public life in 1979 to have children. “I developed discipline, and I believe that things are only in the way if you think they are,” she said.

After being asked about her late husband, Smith briefly talked about how Russell Crowe reminded her of her late husband Fred, who was “private, stoic, loved Beethoven, was a great musician and gave her two children.”

Even though it was a touchy and emotionally-charged subject, the fact that she answered the question proves that she really does love her fans and thinks that they’re important enough to hear her story.

With silly stories of her two children Jackson and Jessy, Smith closed up the Q & A session with her song “Because the Night,” which was a song about when Fred was her boyfriend.

Smith’s humility and sense of humor is noteworthy making her extremely relatable. She’s very human and genuine making the hour-long wait for her autograph worth it.

KARINA CONTRERAS can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

THEATRE/MONDAVI
Studio 301: RENT
Tonight through Sunday
8 p.m., Sunday matinee at 2 p.m.
Wyatt Pavillion, $16 (general)/$14 (student)
Studio 301 Productions brings the world-famous Tony-and-Pulitzer-Prize-winning rock musical RENT to Wyatt Pavillion starting tonight. The show is directed by Mitchell VanLandingham with musical direction by Elizabeth Tremaine and stage manager Marissa Saravis.

The Memorandum
Tonight and May 19 at 8 p.m.
Wright Hall, Lab A, free
The UC Davis Department of Theatre and Dance’s Institute for Exploration in Theatre, Dance and Performance presents The Memorandum, written by Vaclav Havel, translated by Vera Blackwell and directed by Alejandro Torres. The production will integrate projections, live video, wacky props, physical comedy, artificial words and the festivities of a massive office party.

Faith Prince Acting Workshop
Tomorrow, 1 to 4 p.m., $35 at the door
Arene Theatre in Wright Hall
Tony Award-winning actress Faith Prince and acting coach/director Natasha Burr will teach a workshop on auditioning and the entertainment business. Participants must have a memorized monologue or song to work on.

POETRY
Poetry Night Reading Series: Dana Gioia
Today at noon
The John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st Street
Dana Gioia, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning poet, essayist, translator, and critic. He received his B.A. and M.B.A. from Stanford University and an additional M.A. in Comparative Literature from Harvard University.

A Small Evening About Love
Sunday, May 20 at 7 p.m., free
The John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st Street
Linda Bair and Jore Morejon present “My Hands/ Tus Brazos,” a passionate exploration in dance of love in a long term relationship. Poetry will be performed by Jill Stengel, Corey Rue and others. Readings will be by Ann Murray Paige and Dave Griffin. “The Break-Up Letter” will be a hilarious look at ‘leaving and leaving and leaving.’

MUSIC
Operation Restore Maximum Freedom XII
Saturday, May 19 from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Plainfield Station, 23944 Country Rd. 98
All ages, $10
KDVS presents its 12th annual music festival this weekend. This is a non-profit, community based, multi-genre music festival where all proceeds from ticket sales go directly to bands and the venue. There will be shuttles and bike runs back and forth to Plainfield Station all day. For more information at www.kdvs.org.

ART/GALLERY
Flourish Davis
Saturday, May 19, 7 p.m.
The John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st Street
Flourish Davis is a benefit and silent auction event in support of the arts. The Cultural Arts Committee is throwing a landmark launch party and silent auction to help Davis flourish artistically.