How to Train Your Dragon review Pt 2: Swag and Final Thoughts

Here is the second part of my review of "How to Train Your Dragon," in which  I review the swag I got at the preview screening and give some final thoughts on the movie and the experience I had watching it.

How to Train Your Dragon review part 1

Here is my latest review: The new, live action version of "How to Train Your Dragon, coming out on June 13, 2025!

Gladiators NYC and I got free passes to an advance screening of the provided we tell people about it. I thought it was great! 

"Black Lighting" TV review

Black Lighting is a very good TV show from the CW network. It is well written, directed and acted, convincingly portraying the drama of a retired-crimefighter-turned-high-school-principal who turns back to his life of vigilantism when the growth of local organized crime threatens his daughters.

Now that I got the capsulized description out of the way, here is where I put a personal spin on this.

It was 1977 (I think). Reggie, Thurman, Sparky, and Billy were leading the Yankees to their first world series in decades. Elvis had just died. The Bronx was burning, but the battles of the Civil Rights movement appeared to be pretty much won, as far as I could tell. Just about everywhere you looked, whatever group or classification you looked at included a black person, even if it was one of the first back people in that group or classification. This included comic book superheroes. And comic books had just gone up in price to 30 cents.

A year or two earlier the Legion of Superheroes had been confronted by Tyroc, the first black superhero in the 30th century, but now here was one who fought crime in today's inner city! And he had his own comic book!

Written by Tony Isabella and drawn by 18-year-old Trevor Von Eeden, the story told of  Jefferson Pierce, a former Olympic athlete returning to his high school to begin his new job as a teacher, only to discover that the 100, a ruthless crime organization run by a giant albino named Tobias Whale (a thinly disguised rip-off of Marvel's Kingpin), had taken over the Metropolis inner-city ghetto known as Suicide Slum.

To battle this menace, his old friend, a tailor, made him a suit with a belt that gave him electrical powers. He wore a loose-fitting shirt that was open to the navel with a high collar and a mask built onto...wait for it...a fake afro!

(At least that was how I remembered it. A quick visit to the Wikipedia entry tells me that some things were a little different than I remember, but we this is the personal part of the review, after all.)

At the time, I was attending Manhattan Country School, a small private school aggressively engineered for diversity and founded under principles espoused by such great men as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and John Lennon. In this environment, I thought that anything "black" was cool, and since superheroes were cool, black superheroes were the coolest! I collected every issue of this exciting new comic, cut up the covers into Colorforms (like I did with all my comics), and then taped them all together into one large book (This being the first comic of which I was aware of getting the very first issue and I wanted to collect the whole story). I took red and blue pens and colored in the red and blue colors on some of the pages to make them brighter and even used a black ball-point pen to ink over the lines in some of the pages to make them darker. I read that collection over and over again, and practically knew it by heart.

I missed some of the issues after number five or six, and never really found out how the story ended. I do remember the old tailor having some sort of mystery, perhaps in organized crime, and he got killed or something, and the hero's powers (the ability to send an electrical charge through metal or project an electrical force-field around him that could deflect bullets from his belt) getting more and more augmented as the story went on, which was starting to concern the hero. I also remember that he was accused of killing someone, which he did not do, making him a fugitive from the law. This was about par for the course at the time, I thought, as Spider-Man, Batman, and Captain America were fugitives from the law for crimes they did not commit in comics I owned at the time.

Eventually his book was cancelled, and I next saw him in an issue of the "DC Dollar Comic" World's Finest in which he was actually working with Tobias Whale to bring down the 100. One thing I noticed about all successive artists of Black lightning after Trevor Von Eeden was that none of them got the shirt right. All the other artists made it fit his body skin-tight, with but some blousing of the sleeves. Black Lightning was supposed to have a loose-fitting shirt! Like a pirate! It was the 1970's! It was cool! Between that and the fake afro he had a sense of realism and being fashionably with the times.

As the hero, Jefferson Pierce put on a more "street" persona than he had in his civilian identity. He was tougher and spoke with more of the contemporary dialect and slang than did the stuffy schoolteacher (though to be fair, Jefferson Pierce did slam a drug dealer's face into a wall). In one story he used a bit of science to defeat a particular villain's powers, and even said "bet you didn't expect a STREET superhero to be SMART, did you?"

I enjoyed that comic. I liked the idea of black superheroes so much, I even created a team of them! There was Black Goliath, a professional boxer whose wife was an insect-inspired superhero (I forget the name). The Spark was a rip-off of Marvel's Electro, the Zinger was a speedster, and there was another character who had a suit like that hero in the Legion of Super Heroes whose who wears a helmet with a face-sized visor. I even drew the first page of a Black Goliath story, in which he was a boxer whose trainer was telling him he needed to hit harder. He then spotted a drug dealer in an alley and punched him in the stomach. I got as far as the trainer starting to tell him something, and yes, this was a rip-off of the first appearance of Jefferson Pierce at his the high school. And yes, I was inspired a bit by the movie Rocky, and yes, Marvel Comics already had their own Black Goliath, What do you want? I was ten!

So when I saw that there was going to be a Black Lighting show on TV, I had to watch it, and had to review it. So I wrote what you see above, saved it, then set it aside for a day as I went to work, went back to it, wrote a whole review about the show, bus somehow it failed to save, and when my laptop shut down for an update, everything I wrote was gone. So here we go again...

The show takes place some years after whatever the DC TV Universe equivilates to the story in the comics that I read. He is older, has two teenage daughters, has been married and divorced, and has been principal of a suburban, minority-neighborhood high school long enough to have an "understanding" with the local gangs, that his school was of limits. And he is bald and bearded.

His superhero identity has been "retired" and is even referred to as an "addiction." His powers appear to be within himself, rather than coming solely from his suit. When he does return to crimefighting, the old tailor gives him an updated costume; a bulky, armored affair with neon lightning bolts, goggles, and the now-ubiquitous superhero voice modulator. When he fights, he avoids killing people by his own hand, but he seems to have no compunction against using a bad guy as a human shield and letting other people's bullets kill him. And there is no fake afro.

I didn't mind the advancing age and family developments. I could see how having children might mellow him out from a ruthless vigilante to a realpolitik community man. But I missed the silk shirt, the lithe, athletic movements, and the fake afro.

I did appreciate the effort taken to give the characters "realistic" dialogue within the framework of TV standards and practices. Certain words and uses of grammar that are more often heard in the black community flowed naturally from the actors' mouths without a big deal being made of it. This sense of naturalism was welcome to this liberal-guilt-ridden child of the 1970's. It felt like the effort was taken to represent a realistic dialect without descending into stereotype.

There are also some dramatic elements I find interesting and worthy of bringing to TV, such as the choices faced by young people between fun and responsibility, the battle Jefferson Pierce faces, not against crime, but against his own urges to fight crime as a superhero, which is interpreted as an addition by his ex-wife, and how he tries to convince her (and himself?) that it is not.

I had a much more nuanced review of the show in my original version, but it has faded with time from my memory. Also, I have been cast in a play recently (ironically the play is being produced by a Black church in Brooklyn and is about the slave trade in early America) and rehearsals take away from my TV-watching time. But I could not get out of this review without sharing this picture:

This is a picture of Richard Roundtree and Victoria Principal from the 1974 movie "Earthquake." I have a hard time not thinking that this outfit may have inspired the costume design for Black Lighting just a little bit ;) There is some discussion about it at Comic Book Resources. However, the proverbial horse's mouth says otherwise. Tony Isabella himself says so in his blog, which is quoted in this thorough article about the whole backstory behind Black Lightning and includes a bunch of developmental sketches of the hero.Apparently Trevor Von Eeden never saw the movie, and developmental sketches show a variety of designs that show more influence from Marvel's Power Man. Still, the similarity is amazing!

So, like many TV and movie adaptations of superhero comics, there are changes from the original, and some aspects of the original that I liked are completely different, but there is enough of the original intact that I do recognize the original in this new version. As a TV show, it creates enough interest beyond simply being the first black comic book superhero adaptation on TV (not he first black superhero show on TV, that would have been M.A.N.T.I.S, I think) that it is worth watching.

And finally, I give you this from Saturday night live, the best representaton of Black Lighning's costume ever on TV:

Ant-Man & Fanstastic Four are the same movie. So why...

...in fact, almost all superhero movies are exactly the same frickin' movie. If you have seen any number of them, you should know this by now, but for the record, let me break it down for you...

1. Protagonist has a problem.
2. Protagonist tries to do something because of the problem.
3. Protagonist gains the ability to become a superhero.
4. Super-feats occur.
5. Villain threatens something protagonist cares about.
6. Protagonist defeats villain with more super-feats.

To add depth and meaning to the story and give it a more satisfying payoff, often the villain will have something to do with the hero's initial problem and/or the way the hero gained his ability to be a superhero.
 
I could list of all the examples of movies in which this pattern is played out, but I have to get up in the morning and I don't feel like staying up that late. However there are a few movies that do attempt to deviate from that, and are better than your average superhero movie in that regard. "X-Men 2" and "Batman Forever" are among them (though a case can be made that Catwoman was the protagonist in the latter, in which case, it reverts back to the formula).

The latest two superhero movies, "Fantastic Four" and "Ant-Man" fit the formula like they came out of the same cookbook. In both movies, co-protagonists (on the one hand, the students, on the other, Hank Pym and Scott Lang) are having trouble with authority. They all do something about it, in these cases, making unauthorized use of some high-tech.  Their powers are revealed, and then the true threat is revealed. In both cases (Dr. Doom and Darren Cross) the threat was involved with the incident that gave the protagonists their powers. In fact, the villains in both of these movies wind up with powers of their own from the same source as the heroes, and they wind up battling it out with those powers.

So why did one movie set new levels on enjoyableness while the other  was a mercifully brief waste of time?

It was the ingredients, and the skill with which the chef combined them.

Ant-Man, from its Latino music over the Marvel studio logo, was set as an urban comedy, with inner-city low-level underworld types with hearts of gold bringing their ethnic flavor to every scene. This was not just comic relief, but the undercurrent of the entire film. From Luis' rambling non-sequitors to Kurt's Eastern-European accent and syntax to the reactions of Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, there was hardly a scene without a laugh. Add to this the tension between the protagonist and the female lead, the realized comic potential of an ant-sized man discovering the world around him for the first time, and constant insect references, and it is very possible that you could be laughing from beginning to end.

And yet, all this comedy did not detract from the gravitas of the conflict. Rather, it helped us grow sympathetic to the protagonist and actually care that he would come out ahead.

On the other hand, "Fantastic Four" deftly avoided taking advantage of any opportunity for humor. This made the movie mercifully short, for the previous version of this franchise had padded their films with all sorts of attempts at humor, many of which fell flat.

It is not enough to have humor in a movie, it has to actually be funny. "Ant-Man" took advantage of certain cinematic techniques (in a couple of notable instances, quick-cutting to follow a story, and having actors lip-synch the narrrator, even when such words would have never come out of such a character's mouth) etc; The earlier "Fantastic Four" movies used very few cinematic tricks for comedy, and the jokes and gags came accross as pedestrian. A waste of time really.

So if you are not going to have humor, you need to have...something else, something to make us care about these characters and what they do. If they are supposed to be heroes, we should sympathize with their need to do heroic things so we can cheer at their successes and feel tension when they come near to failure.

And I must have missed the Stan Lee cameo in "Fantastic Four."

So that's how two movies that tell the same damn story can be so different in how much you enjoy them.

One other weird thing about "FF": At the very end, after the credits, there was a tile card that said, in bold letters with no serifs, how long it had taken to produce and how many people it employed. But why was that important to say? We obviously know that it employed lots of people, we had just sat through six minutes of double-column credits. Are you that insecure about the reception of this movie that the best thing you can say about it is that it kept some people off the unemployment rolls for a while? WTF?

And let's face it, if you were to take out the stupid pop-culture references, "Superhero Movie" was every bit  as satisfying a superhero movie as just about any superhero movie. More so, even, than "Fantastic Four."




 

Asterix at the Movies...

I just saw "Asterix in Britain," the latest adaptation f the Asterix graphic novels fro Europ by Gosciny and Uderzo.

It was fucking brilliant.

The problem with many "satires," "parodies," and "pastiches" in recent years is hat they seem to work on the assumption that merely mentioning, evoking, or referencing a popular movie, TV show, commercial or "meme" is enough to et a lough, as if that was comedy. That is not the case. you have to use it in a way that says something about the subject that you are parodying, and you get bonus points for saying something about what you are referencing as well.

It also helps if the actors are talented, the story is moving, the script is well-written, and the editing is paced properly for the material.

Comedy has rules. A running joke is used three times, and the third time goes wrong. Characters reveal their true natures under stress. Hang a lampshade on an obvious plot device. Someone getting thrown out a window is funny. Cultural differences are funny. Important people being taken of their high horse is funny. People from different walks of life falling in love is funny. British people are funny. A bit with a dog, and love conquers all.

"Asterix" used all these rules, and used them well. It also referenced everything from James bond to "Pirates of the Caribbean" to "Shrek" to "300" to "Downfall" and did it well. My GF could barely contain herself in several scenes, and had never seen an Asterix comic in her life.

The film is a worthy companion to the recent "Adventures of Tintin" in to category of "recent adaptations of classic popular cult European graphic novel series that never quite hit the mainstream in the US but are really, really good," and is flat-out one of the funniest movies I have ever seen.

For those of you who need more: The story is loosely based on the graphic novels "Asterix in Britain" and "Asterix and the Normans." It follows the adventures of Asterix, a Gaulish warrior in the time of Julius Caesar, and his friend Obelix as they go to Britain to help fight the Romans. They decide to bring a nephew with whom they are charged with turning into a man, but who would prefer to be a bard and spends all his time wooing maidens and singing…badly. They are also charged to bring a magic potion which gives great strength to the Britons, and in the course of the adventure the barrel is lost. They happen to run into a allow from India time and again. Asterix and Obelix have a falling out. A lampshade is hung on an obvious plot device. British people are funny. People are thrown out of windows. Cultural differences occur. People are thrown out of windows. People from different walks of life fall in love. There is a bit with a dog, and love conquers all.

See this movie. Now.

Here is it on Amazon.com...

Here are some other movies in the seres...

Comedy of the Awkward.

Tonight, in a fit of “Dammit, I just wanna,” I watched most of “Parks and Recreation” and all of “The Office” and “Community” on NBC (Channel 4 in NYC) tonight. These shows are part of a trend I like to call “Comedy of the Awkward.”

When my generation (specifically, me) was growing up, it was the era of “Free to Be You and Me.” Time was not spent on training us to behave and get along in society. We did not learn how to “fit in” and “get along.” We were allowed, nay, encouraged to “express ourselves.” There was no need to go into something with a preconceived notion, to blindly accept authority, to follow the rules. We could just “be ourselves,” say what we thought, and ask questions.

(…and just as a non-sequitor aside, don’t you hate it when something that your ex-girlfriend who is no longer talking to you got you interested in comes on TV and now the person you would have enjoyed talking about it with won’t talk to you? Yes, freestyle wrestling is on TV right now. Anyway…)

We were told never to assume that people are what they seem to be, not to judge a book by its cover. Trained that all people are just the same, only different, to be fair and honest and generous, to say what we mean and accept people at their word.

All this made us completely unable to get along with people who somehow missed the whole point of the 1960’s and ‘70’s, the people who went to school, got jobs, and went to work, who basically came before us and set up and ran the world that we would have to move into when we got out of the shelters of our progressive schools and enlightened families.

So there we were, uncomfortable in our new suits and constricting ties, awkwardly attempting to fit into the social scenes that we were not brought up in, squirming as we heard the jokes and assumptions that were made about different ethnicities, genders, financial status, sexual orientation, etc. Suffering the indignities foisted upon us by schemers and scammers, opportunists and assholes. We slowly, awkwardly, tragically came to realize that all that wonderful, utopian stuff we had been raised to believe has a snowball’s chance in hell at being accepted by the rest of the world just on the basis of its rightness.

And so, our life would be filled with awkwardness. Everything we would say and try to do would be misunderstood and wind up getting us in trouble. We would have to accept the fact that we are different and unique, and learn to either reject that and embrace the mainstream, or revel in it and fight that good fight, never compromising, even in the face of Armageddon.

And so Amy Poehler has to deal with people who don’t recognize her female political heroes and a judging committee for a beauty pageant that only sees the “hot” one. John Krasinski faces office rebellion when he finds himself having to decide how to distribute the raises for the year. Gillian Jacobs learns that helping someone live their dream does not always mean that you are going to get warm and fuzzies from them.

And this kind of comedy would not exist if it weren’t for my generation thinking that the world could ever be a different, better place.

So, the Incredible Hulk, Eh?

Well, I first saw this movie sneaking in after the first 15 minutes or so. I came in during a chase scene where Banner was running from the soldiers under General Ross trying to catch him, the scene that ended with the first appearance of the Hulk. I figured I had missed some of the initial character set-up and I didn't know if the origin of the Hulk had been shown, and I had not seen the Ang Lee movie, so I was willing to take the movie on its terms at that. I thought the the movie was awesome! The Comic Book Superhero Movie genre has finally hit its stride, with Dark Knight, Spider-Man, Iron Man, X-Men 2, and now this.

Then a few days later I saw the entire movie. It seems all I missed was the montage of shots that covered the origin and a little set-up of Banner in Brazil. There was very little dialogue, very little character development or even exposition to get you into the character and scenario. It's ;like the filmmaker assumed you knew the origin already and this was just a quick reminder.
From what I hear tell, the Ang Lee film was all about how childhood abuse had built up much anger in Bruce Banner, which was the source of his great rage as thew Hulk. This movie did not even touch anything regarding anything about any possible psychological background for Banner, and was the weaker for it. It acted as if all the background was either known by the audience already or was being hidden so that the reveal would be the shock.

This workled a little bit, such as when Betty Ross first called General Ross “Daddy,” if you did not know the connection there it was a worthwhile reveal. But still, as the movie was set up as if you were plopped into the middle of a story, as a stand-alone feature it would have been strengthened by just a little more character set-up.

That having been said, there were many reasons that it did work as a Comic Book Super Hero Movie. As a genre, the CBSHM plays best to comic book fans, especially those familiar with the character. By the time the movie is made, it can be assumed that the character is popular enough to support a movie. That being the case, there must be a reason the character is popular. Therefore, the best CBSHM's are true to the character and trust the source.

The source for this movie, and character, seems to be as much the 1970's TV series with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. The references are legion: Banner says “Don't make me angry, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry. There is a clip from another Bill Bixby TV show, “The Courtship of Eddie's Father,” playing in one scene (although I think “My Favorite Martian” would have been a more appropriate homage). Lou Ferrigno has a cameo appearance. Banner is referred to as a “Fugitive” no less than twice (“The Fugitive” was a TV series that predated, and was conceptually much like the Hulk TV series).When Banner changes into the Hulk, at one point we see the close-up on his spot-lighted eyes just like the TV show; we see the shirt split across his back; we even see the Hulk pull the shirt off his chest, Ferrigno-like.

The action is astounding. I often have problems with these sorts of action movies when the director feels we have to have everything close-up, in your face, to give a sense of the drama. Michael Bay (Transformers) and Joel Schumacher (Batman Forever) are particularly guilty on that score. This time, however, the director trusted the drama of the actual action, allowing us to see the Hulk battle his adversaries, much the way Fred Astaire and Gene Kelley and Jackie Chan were always allowed to be seen in action. Yay!

However, weakness is shown when the movie assumes that all viewers will be familiar with the character, and thus necessary set-up and development is set aside. So this is an awesome movie , but could have been just a little bit more.

Narnia: Deus Ex Machina...well Duh!

I saw the latest Chronicles of Narnia movie, “Prince Caspian” the other day. First off, it fulfills the requirement of a wizards and warriors fantasy movie quite capable. There are magical creatures, court intrigue, lots of armor and action, noble heroes, dastardly villains, and courage, resourcefulness, and faith wins out in the end. The four children from the first movie travel back to Narnia a year later their time, 1300 years later, Narnia time. They find the ruins of their old castle, and that the country is overrun by humans who have taken over the land from the magical creatures, much the way the White Man took over America from the Native Americans. The human prince who is supposed to fulfill a prophecy by becoming king escapes a murderous rival and resolves the differences between his people and their enemies.

Yes, the story very satisfactorily plays out the formula. The good people live, the bad people die, but only because they are killed by other bad people or by good people in a fair fight.

One thing that did seem remarkable, was that after many more centuries than the US has beenin existance, the conquerors of Narnia had not neither subjugated, assimilated, nor exterminated the original inhabitants. In a similar ammount of timejust about every people that Rome conquered had fallen into one of these categories. Further, in the resolution of the film, rather than the two people reconciling and learning to live together (a very modern, American idea), the had-been conquerers are sent packing. You'd think after several hundred years, and at least 9 kings (Prince Caspian was to be the 10th of that name), they would have started to identify the land as their home.

But the ending, oh the ending. The denouement is so “perfect.” It has Aslan, the magical creature and savior, meting out justice to one and all and making sure that every dilemma is resolved by his use of magic and wisdom. This is the very definition of Deus Ex Machina. After all, the whole Chronicle of Narnia is a Christian parable, and Aslan represents Jesus Christ. So there it is.

Captain Zorikh
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The Fall: A different sort of Fantasy movie

Everyone in the world is going to see Iron Man, Speed Racer, Indiana Jones, Chronicles of Narnia, The Hulk, etc., etc. this year, but I want to encourage you to seek out another movie that is every bit as visually inventive, fascinating, and fantastic as any of those movies want to be: The Fall.

The Fall is about the relationship that develops between a young girl and a man who tells her a story. They are both in a hospital, having suffered injuries from falls. The girl has a broken arm from picking oranges, and the man is paralyzed from the waist down from a stunt accident while making a movie. The man starts to tell a fascinating adventure story that draws the girl in, and a friendship grows between them,. The film takes place around the turn of the century, when movies were just getting started, and the story the man tells takes place in an adventure-fantasy world, and is seen visualized through the eyes of the child, who interprets everything through what she knows, her family, the people in the hospital etc. However as the story develops, the man's depression and pain starts to be revealed.

The images are truly fantastic in this film. The production traveled all over the world to find sites to shoot, and they found some amazing, surreal locations. If there is any use of CGI, it is subtle and used to show things that would simply be too dangerous or difficult to convincingly show in real film.

The story told by the man is of an adventure in which an escaped slave, an Indian warrior, Luigi the Explosives Expert, Charles Darwin and his companion monkey Wallace, a primitive mystic, and a masked bandit go on a quest to exact revenge on the evil Governor Odious for wrongs he has done them. The adventure takes them to amazing places and they do amazing things, all within their characters.

The view of the story through the girl's eyes is fascinating. While the hospital is in California, and the storyteller is American, the girl is apparently from India, and her interpretations are thus drawn form what she is familiar with. One of the most blatant examples is the “Indian,” which although described by the man as having a wigwam and being married to a squaw, is seen in the mind of the girls as a turbaned, bearded, sword-wielding warrior from the Asian subcontinent.
The title refers to several falls that occur in the movie, those of the two protagonists that put each of them in the hospital, several that occur in the film, and at least one fall of a character's standing in another's eyes. Those who like looking for symbolism will find much to play with there.

This movie was made in 2006 and has taken several years to get an American release. The poster for it is as abstract as parts of the movie may feel, and I fear it may not get many viewers outside cities like New York. It is based on a 1981 Hungarian film called Yo Ho Ho which I now hope to see sometime.

In the midst of all the “Summer Blockbusters” and franchise movies and “Eagerly Anticipated” epics, I hope many, many more people take the time to see this movie. You can get your fill of fancy costumes, spectacular sets, and fantasy concepts, and still have a thoughtful movie worth thinking about that says something about the role of fantasy and friendship in life.

Captain Zorikh
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Doomsday ain't what is used to be, only more so

When I was much younger I was into role-playing games and wargames. I was also very concerned about the threat of nuclear war. A friend of mine told me “The Road Warrior” was the most awesome movie ever, but I was too young to go see it on my own, and my mom wouldn't take me. Then I found the game Car Wars. And I thought that this must be what the Road Warrior is about. Then finally I was old enough to see the movie in a revival theater in a double feature with Blade Runner (which I had also never seen).


I was totally blown away. This may have been my first post-apocalypse movie ever, and it was certainly the most exciting. Who knew the end of the world could be so exciting? The fast pace, the sense of speed, the production design, the action, it all left a very big impression on me. I watched that movie every time it came to the revival theaters (this being years before owning a VCR. I hunted down every bit of information I could fins about it,and when I was at a friend's house who had cable, snuck down to the living room to watch Mad Max for the first time.


I can quote chapter and verse on those movies. I would talk about nothing else for years. I even adapted Shakespeare's MacBeth to tell the story of the Nightrider. At one time I had three different Road Warrior T-shirts. My girlfriend called me her “Little Road Warrior.”


I then hunted down post-apocalyptic films like a fiend. 42nd street gave me “Warriors of the Lost World” “Warriors of the Wasteland,” and “Steel Dawn.” Revival theaters gave me ”Night of the Comet,” “A Boy and his Dog,” and repeated showings of “Mad Max” and “The Road Warrior.” TV gave me “Damnation Alley,” “Dead Man Walking,” “The Day After,” and “Weeds.” Videotapes gave me “Defcon 4,” “Radioactive Dreams,” “After the Fall of New York,” “Wheels of Fire,” “Six String Samurai,” "Gas-s-s-s-s-s or We Had to Destroy the World in Order to Save It,"and many more. I still have yet to find a copy of “No Blade of Grass.” I would judge every movie by how realistic the post-apocalyptic landscape was, how believable it was that the world had gone to hell, and how exciting it was compared to “The Road Warrior.”


In time, the Cold War ended and the fear of nuclear holocaust faded. With it, the post-apocalypse genre fell out of favor. Recently, however, it has come back with a new scourge: zombies/plague.


I am not the sociologist/historian to fully analyze the whys and wherefores of this development, but I suspect it has something to do with th acclimation of the world to the AIDS epidemic and the popularity of the zombie movies created and inspired by George A. Romero. There is probably something about the purity of zombies as an adversary: they have no soul so there is nothing wrong with killing them (again,) they are unstoppable, and they are ugly; like vampires without the sex appeal. Thus they can appeal to horror fans who don't want their terror interfered with by soul searching and sexual tension.


There is also something appealing about exploring the story of last survivors of mankind. They pick through the ruins of the old world, using familiar items in unfamiliar ways. Stylings frequently have a s&m/punk/heavy metal look, which is exciting to look at. There is usually a lawlessness that resembles the Old West, and who doesn't like a good western? There is also the opportunity to explore fright and terror, as with the collapse of civilization, there is nothing stopping the rampages of the truly depraved.


So put the appeal of the post-apocalypse film together with the modern concerns about disease and the popularity of the living dead, and you've got a new genre of film, the zombie/plague post-apocalypse film, who's most notable entries include “Land of the Dead,” “I am Legend,” “28 Days Later,” and the “Resident Evil” series.


Now put all these films together into one, and make that film not quite as good as the best of them,. And you've got “Doomsday,” which I saw last night at a midnight screening. Just about everything in it is borrowed/stolen from another movie. All of Scotland in quarantined due to a plague, like New York in “I Am Legend.” 20 years later, the land is scorched, like in “Reign of Fire,” and the plague appears in London, like in “I Am Legend” again. A team is sent in to Glasgow to find the doctor who had stayed there working for a cure, like the search for the last fertile woman in “After the Fall of New York.” They travel in large armored vehicles like the ones in “Damnation Alley” with a crack military team equipped with two-way video devices, like in “Aliens.” Also like in “Aliens,” most of the team is killed and their vehicles destroyed early. The survivors are led through a “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” type culture but escape, and find another society living in a recreated medieval culture (one of the few bits I could not place the inspiration of). There is a “Gladiator” fight scene, and then our heroes escape again, which leads to a “Raiders of the Lost Ark” type storehouse, which leads to a highway battle scene that is straight out of “The Road Warrior.” There is also a subplot involving the government that echoes “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes” and “Dr. Strangelove.”


In the near six decades since the post-apocalypse film first appeared, action, horror, and violence in films has seen a steady increase in intensity. This has been due to improving technology, makeup technique, and the drive to one-up each previous film. “Mad Max” and “The Road Warrior” were breakthrough films in that regard, and future car chases and post-apocalypse action films were all compared to them, frequently failing.


“Doomsday” does not fail in trying to be harder, faster, and more intense than any similar film before it. Where earlier movies may have tastefully or strategically looked away from a beheading or a body on fire, this one showed it right on screen, front and center. With the fast pacing and quick cuts of the car chae, the pace was made even faster and the cuts even quicker. However, this extreme graphic violence and frenetic camera work and editing did not really improve the film. Instead it distracted from the story and sometimes made it too confusing to know what was going on.


I must especially say this about the car chase scene in the end. Several notes that were hit in “The Road Warrior” were blatantly copied, but were either lost in all the chaos, or were simply not done as well or were too obvious.


The thing that I thought was most specifically interesting was the medieval culture. As a well-known medievalist, I of course dug the idea of a post-apocalyptic society that chose to bring back an age of chivalry. However this culture was not one of goodness and hope that the heroes had been looking for. Instead it was ruled by a cynical madman, and ultimately was just as ruthless and evil, in its own way, as the Glasgow cannibals. Whereas in every medieval movie you would see a skeleton in a cage hanging from the castle walls, in this one, you actually saw people on the verge of death in cages right next to them. The cruel Darwinian philosophy of the ruler of this kingdom was just an excuse to kill, in as entertaining a way as possible, outsiders. The modern primitive tribal punk s&m-styled culture in Glasgow also killed outsiders in as entertaining a way as possible for them, they were merely more simplistic about their reason, their hatred of the outsiders.


So the film gets point for effort, and for showing that they know what they were trying to do, and the film did not lack pace. But if there was a lesson in there, something about a warning for the future and about how it is bad to kill people, or even let them die, that in that way we lose our humanity, but it was kind of lost in the graphic violence and hyper-kinetic editing.

Postscript: since I originally wrote this review, I saw another review that pointed out that this was a "tribute" to post-apocalypse movies. Ok, there it is then.

Hipsters on the Hill

First, let me say that “King of the Hill” is the most respectable of the Sunday night cartoons. The characters in it all based in reality. Although they are caricatures, they are not impossible characters. As such, you can come to truly like and respect them, as opposed to simply being amused by them, as you would just about everyone in “The Simpsons,” “Family Guy,” and “American Dad.”

The lead character, Hank Hill, is the “anti-Simpson.” A reviewer pointed out that he, and the show, genuinely represented middle-class virtues. This is true. The man works hard in one of those jobs that you never think about but society as we know it could not live without. He sells and delivers propane. He believes in his product, and doing his job well. He accepts people for who and what they are, warts and all. He tries hard to see the good in people, no matter how little he understands them. And he genuinely appreciates things that he likes because he likes them, not because it is “cool” or “hip” to like them.

In tonight's episode, Hank's wife Peggy sells a house in a largely Mexican-populated neighborhood to a “hipster.” This hipster had wanted a house that was “real,” in other words, a neighborhood with no white, non-ethnic people, much like the neighborhoods I have moved into every time I have moved since I was 18: Harlem, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint. This, of course, was immediately followed by a wave of young people with questionable fashion sense playing kickball, skateboarding, and opening art galleries.

It seems that “real,” meaning “non-white” implies that there is a phoniness to white culture. That you can only be “real” is you are in a minority Perhaps this attitude is in the tradition of middle-class teenage rebellion against the apparently stifling limitations of middle class culture, against the emphasis on moderation and predictability that the suburbs became when WWII veterans came home, got married, and started raising kids. They felt that by moving into an “ethnic” neighborhood, the could get more “real.”

The truth is that, yes, suburban life is limiting. The culture that has built up there is largely a product of commercial marketing. But if you want to find a place to live that is not so much, just moving into one with no white people is not the answer.

The tradition of young people with artistic inclinations moving into ethnic neighborhoods can be traced to the American Bohemian movements of the 20th century. Artists have always lived on the edge of poverty, and thus have sought affordable housing, and showed a willingness to “rough it” in exchange for cheap living space. These spaces frequently turned out to be abandoned industrial and blighted ethnic ghettos. In the 1950's and early '60's, this took them to neighborhoods of New York City like Greenwich Village. In the '80's it was the East Village and TriBecCa. In the '90's it was Williamsburg, etc., etc. What would happen then is the process we now know as Gentrification.

Gentrification is the process by which a “real” neighborhood becomes a product of corporate capitalism. First come the artists, who hold events in the loft spaces of converted factories, etc. Then come the coffee shops and stores set up to serve the artists. Next come the wealthy people who want to see what the artists are doing. Then come the children of rich and middle class people who want to be artists. Then follow the entrepreneurs who open more fashionable coffee shops and boutiques to serve the reich people coming to see the artists and the children of the rich and middle class. By then the landlords have realized that they are sitting on a goldmine and start raising the rents, pushing out the original tenants and the first wave of artists, who now can no longer afford to live in the neighborhood they “revitalized.” By the time that's done, the only businesses who can afford to open there are large corporate chain stores like Starbucks and Victoria's Secret.

This process has become so efficient, streamlined, even, that it can bypass some of the steps, such as the artists moving in, and go straight to the children of the rich and middle-class wanting to live like artists, and that is what happened in this episode of “King of the Hill.” And looking at this particular story, that is what I find annoying about hipsters. In their worst manifestations, they are not really artists, they don;t really want to be artists, they just want to live like them.
There are three types of people. There are those who do things, like artists, cowboys, and recreational bowlers, for instance (doers). Then there are those who think it would be interesting or fun to do these things once or twice (tourists). They take art classes, go to dude ranches, make a date with friends to go bowling. Finally, there are those people who think it would be fun or cool to be the person who does these things. Those are hipsters. They are annoying because the ruin it for the rest of us, the doers and the tourists.

Doers can respect tourists if they have an interest in setting up an industry for them, That's why art classes and dude ranches exist. They take the tourists' money, give them what they paid for, and everyone goes home happy. Then the hipsters come in.

The hipsters walk into a place and say “Look at me! I'm being hip because I am doing this!” without truly digging what it is they are doing. The bad haircuts, aggressively out of shape bodies, and thrift-story little league t-shirts that don't fit are all symptoms of this. Real artists don't have time and money to get haircuts, work out, and buy clothes, that is why they look the way they do. By imitating this look, they are practically insulting the artists, as well as driving up the price of second-hand t-shirts. When they take over the ballfields to play kickball, they are not doing it because they really enjoy kickball over any other recreational sport, it is because of the irony of playing a kids game as a grown-up. They are not saying “I love this game,” they are saying “I love being being the person that plays this game.” When they do suburban middle-class things class things like set up lawn chairs and drink beer and have Tupperware parties, it is not because they are seeking the serenity that comes from a satisfying suburban middle-class lifestyle, ti is because it is fun to be ironic, and it is ironic that these “rebel artists” are doing suburban, middle-class things. And when they moved into the Mexican immigrants neighborhood, it was not because it was all they could afford, it was so that they could say “Look at me! I'm cool enough to hang with ethnic types and I'm bringing hip culture with me!”
Hank was in the neighborhood because one of his co-workers wanted him to say some words about his daughter on the occasion of her 15th birthday (a celebration in Mexican culture). There he discovered the best fish tacos he had ever tasted and other aspects of Mexican immigrant culture that he really liked. However, the hipsters had come in, acted like they were “bro's” of the locals, and playing their weird, depressing music in the local cantina. Then their presence raised the property values, and Hank's friend had his rent raised.

When Hank discovered that the fish taco he had enjoyed was now replaced with salmon, he realized that his wife's success as a realtor was spelling the end of a way of life of his friend. Peggy realized her mistake and together with their friends, they made the neighborhood appear as white and normal as any normal, white neighborhood. They showed up at the doorstep of a hipster couple with a casserole saying “welcome to the neighborhood!” They put on sweatsuits and went walking for exercise while pushing a baby carriage. They had their middle-aged white guy in an undershirt act like he had just bought the house next door. Soon the hipsters packed up their lawn chairs, art galleries, and kickballs and moved out.

That's the sort of outcome that could only happen on television.

Captain Zorikh
http://www.captainzorikh.com
http://www.bigapplecon.com

Thoughts about Golden Compass

"The Golden Compass" was a "big event movie" by all standards. It had massive media push, a first-rate cast, cutting-edge special effects, and an incredible display at the San Diego Comic Con. By all appearances, it seemed like it would be reaching for the same audience as "The Chronicles of Narnia." It presented a world of early-20th century technology and culture with fantastic creatures and young children on an amazing journey.

But the buzz about the movie was that it was based on a book that was an anti-religious answer to "Narnia." Now I will admit right here that I do not read as many of these epic fantasy novels as some people do. Lately all my reading has by necessity had to be about Captain Marvel, comic book history, and American social history (to see why, go to my website http://www.captainmarvelculture.com). My big reading years for fantasy and sci-fi were in High School, when I worked my way through the Foundation, 2001, and Dune series. I started "The Fellowshiop of the Ring" in 7th grade but found it hard to get into somewhere around the Inn of the Prancing Pony. I read a lot of medieval and Arthurian literature after high schoool due to my involvement in the Society for Creative Anachronism and some courses in college. So I have not read Narnia, Compass, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or most other famous and popular book series that everyone else seems to have these days.

"The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" was read to mne in 3rd grade, though, and I do go to most fantasy movies when they come out. I read much of the criticism, and engage in discussions with fans and active readers of these series. I am aware that Narnia was a Christian parable, that Aslan represented Jesus Christ etc.

I am not a Christian, and am critical of certain effects that religious faith has on society. I have seen dogma get in the way of everything from simply having a good time to scientific inquiry to life-saving medicine. I have also seen faith unite people and inspire them to suffer through adversity and do deesds of great good. I also recognize that the story of Jesus fulfills many of the hallmarks of a Campbellian universal hero. The return from death, near death, or seeming death of a great and noble warrior/leader/king/hero is always a crowd-pleaser. Therefore, I can enjoy Narnia as such a magical fantasy adventure.

If the Golden Compass was a story that critiques religion and promotes science, that point was kind of lost in the translation to the silver screen. The establishment of certain story elements, such as everyone having an animal that represented their soul, talking polar bears, flying sorceresses, the seemingly magical "dust" that connected universes, and the McGuffin of the title, the Golden Compass itself, all set up a fantasy world where science as we know it did not apply. Thereofre when the religious establishment in the world of the film tried to stifle scientific exploration of "dust," it seemed as much like a coflict of the state religion against the true faith as much as anything else.

The rest of the movie fulfilled all the requirements of a Campbellian hero journey, and a magical child's adventure, that any science vs. religion debate was just lost.

That having been said, the writing felt a little stilted and unrealistic. I mean would you really trust someone who came along and gave you all that exposition that Sam Elliot gave when he meet the girl? The repeated special effect of the use of the Compass go tiresome. The Polar Bear fight was awesome, though.