October Horrorshow, Retroactive: The Thing

Last week saw a unique event in film. Four John Carpenter films landed in Brooklyn as part of a mini-retrospective at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). The featured films were Big Trouble in Little China, The Thing, They Live, and Escape from New York. All unique films from a unique filmmaker. B-movie schlock artist or perennially misunderstood genius, depending upon who’s doing the watching, Carpenter is a knowledgeable director who draws on his education, talents, and the best aspects of low-grade cinema to craft films that are unmistakably his. As soon as the opening credits roll, one enters Carpenter’s world. Viewer hears music (usually) from Carpenter’s own synthesizer, and the credits themselves are all the same white serif font on a black background, no matter which of his films is playing. Anamorphic lens effects and dark lighting cross among his works. Finally there is the thematic distrust of authority as a conceptual continuity throughout. All of this makes Carpenter’s films easily recognizable to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of his oeuvre. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow, Retroactive: The Thing”

An Aggressive Russia

Much has been written and said the last few days regarding the Georgian crisis from an American perspective, including on this site. Political junkies are rapturous over this fresh event. Veterans of the Cold War have reached back into themselves beyond nostalgia, and have burst forth with condemnations, strangely reassured that world tensions have suddenly returned to a realm they know and understand, a place where America was unequivocal in its righteousness. The consensus from these groups, along with so many others, is that we are watching Russia once again act the part of shameless, ruthless aggressor, punishing Georgia beyond cause, possibly beyond any reasoning beyond that of bold, naked intimidation. From where we sit, here in the United States, the crisis in Georgia exists in black and white, with little nuance. Whereas so much damage has been wrought by such uncomplicated reasoning, here is a situation where the starkness of our perceptions and the starkness of reality are not that far apart. Continue reading “An Aggressive Russia”

Gold Medals and Lead Bullets

Three incredible things happened Sunday night. One: the Russian military pursued a defeated foe out of South Ossetia, demanding the surrender of an army defending a democratic nation. Two: China began to pull away from the rest of the world in the gold medal count at the Olympics. Three: The United States was shown to be powerless to stop either of these things. Continue reading “Gold Medals and Lead Bullets”

The Empty Balcony: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Patrick O’Brian published twenty complete Aubrey-Maturin novels in his lifetime, with an unfinished twenty-first published posthumously. The novels are writ large with swashbuckling tales of life in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. Thick with naval terminology and period slang, O’Brian is quite effective at transporting reader far away from what comfortable chambers they find themselves and placing them smack on the quarterdeck of a ship of war. O’Brian’s novels are far from high-minded and haughty literary endeavor. They succeed as great historical novels through the skill of O’Brian’s narratives, not the cleverness of his prose. Like a true saltwater-in-the-veins sailor, they lose direction slightly when characters find themselves on land for extended periods, but pages fly when O’Brian throws his characters into pitched battles with superior foes (as he always does — O’Brian treats his sailors savagely, always requiring them to beat tremendous odds). Continue readingThe Empty Balcony: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”

Oval Office Thunderdome: The Technology Vote

You don’t actually have to use a computer to understand how it shapes the country.

— Mark Soohoo, aide to John McCain

You actually do.

— Tracy Russo, Democratic blogger

The information revolution has left a mark on the country and the world every bit as indelible as that of the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago. And while no world leader of the time could have been expected to have an industrial-sized loom or steam engine in their offices, today’s leaders should have more than just a passing knowledge of computers and the internet. Continue readingOval Office Thunderdome: The Technology Vote”

Film in the Tubes: The Italian Spiderman Movie

Pundits and scholars made bold predictions in the early ’90’s concerning the new World Wide Web’s ability to disseminate information to the masses, and while they all underestimated what the internet would become, there rose a clamor over the information itself. Good versus bad. Culture versus trash. News versus punditry. We all know which side is winning the battle for hearts and minds. This vast repository we have created for information also has an appetite of its own, craving volume to eternally build the noise to some crescendo that, at this point, remains in the far distance. Along with the opposing sides of quality and worth, there exists the obscure — information that would have been lost to time and degrading videotapes were it not for digitization. Look in any video section on any random humor website, and they are there, somewhere: excerpts from foreign, low-budget schlock cinema that has little regard for cinematic excellence or American trademark law. These inept productions laughably maul such cherished personas of pop Americana as Superman, or blatantly insert footage from Star Wars to beef up otherwise weak productions. Never meant to have much life, these turkeys were turned out for quick cash, and were it not for the great information void of the internet, would have remained in obscurity, instead of rising to the slightly more respectable level of kitsch. Continue readingFilm in the Tubes: The Italian Spiderman Movie”

Bright Light, Big Valley

Excessive weather must be experienced firsthand to understand the true abstractness of the phenomena. Using words to describe the urgency of such moments is difficult, especially in conveying the thin line our psyches walk, knowing that bad decisions, or merely being unprepared, could lead to disaster. What we call normal becomes so through repetition, and does not just encompass things we do, places we see, people we meet, etc. It’s also the environment in which we live. Quick shifts that push the boundaries of our experiences with that environment can leave a person stunned, if only momentarily. Continue reading “Bright Light, Big Valley”

October Horrorshow, Retroactive: 30 Days of Night

30 Days of Night movie posterThe film 30 Days of Night, adapted from the popular graphic novel, was marketed as a modern update on classical vampires. A break from pattern, these creatures of the night were more fearsome, more violent, more bloodthirsty, than any that had been onscreen before. Indeed, the vampires of 30 Days of Night are not Anne Rice’s cultured charmers, nor are they the stealthy apparitions of Bram Stoker, although their physical appearance pays homage to the Dracula of the classic film Nosferatu.

These vampires are more animalistic, with little inclination to wipe away the blood after a successful hunt. They speak a guttural language meant to evoke an ancient mystique, with faces twisted into grotesque snarls. They maintain only a tenuous connection to humanity. In fact, they can hardly be considered human at all, vampirism becoming more than just an affliction or a state of mind. Here it is an addiction that changes a person into something else, a different species born from man, yet not of him. Everything about them is more, but it’s not new. For the characters in the film, it is akin to the difference between legend and fact, where all the cultural knowledge one has absorbed about vampires encounters a reality that lacks the politeness built up by layers and layers of popcorn horror. So, as far as the monsters in the film are concerned, mission accomplished. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow, Retroactive: 30 Days of Night”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Resident Evil: Extinction

Oh, man. Just...oh, man. Resident Evil: Extinction is one of the worst wide-release films ever made. It’s a film so lacking in quality that the fact it found success at the box office has whittled away a bit more of my confidence in the judgment of mankind.

The voiceover after the opening scene is the first indication that a viewer is in for a long, torturous ride. Star Milla Jovovich’s reading of the narration is sluggish and amateurish. That seemed to be a basic theme throughout the film. Normally, I would be willing to forgive much in a failed film if it had performances that rose to the minimum level of professionalism expected from a major release, but this film just does not have it. From bit players to main characters, all are bad. Continue readingShitty Movie Sundays: Resident Evil: Extinction”