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Tuesday, November 25th, 2014
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10:21 am - Toxicology report is out for Michael Brown
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"Delta-9-THC = 12 ng/ml in blood.
11-Nor-Delta-9-THC-COOH = 45 ng/ml in blood.
Comments: Delta-9-THC detection in the blood defines impairment."
Delta-9-THC is the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis. It peaks rapidly after smoking/vaping and is gradually metabolized into 11-Nor-Delta-9-THC-COOH. The -COOH form is what remains in the body for weeks to months and can be detected in skin, in hair, and so on.
The presence of Delta-9-THC in the blood means that Michael Brown smoked within a few hours and was actively under the influence.
Impairment differs widely from person to person with MJ and isn't as linear as alcohol in its effects. In addition, metabolic responses also widely differ, much more widely than for alcohol. 'Experienced' smokers build up a tolerance and metabolize faster and can appear to be less impaired. The level of the -COOH form in the blood is highly variable and generally can't be said to provide evidence other than, "Yes, marijuana was used."
All that being said, any way you slice it, 12 ng/mL in a 296 pound man is a hell of a lot of weed.
In contrast, Trayvon Martin, a much more slight, wiry 158 pounds, had 1.5 ng/ml of the active Delta-9-THC and 7.3 ng/mL of the inactive 11-Nor-Delta-9-THC-COOH.
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| Sunday, October 12th, 2014
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12:32 pm - Funny review of Edge of Tomorrow that I came across:
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Check-in girl: "What movie would you like to see today?"
Customer: "Do you have the movie where Tom Cruise dies over and over again in more and more painful ways and it's even more hilarious each time?"
Girl: "Yes we do, it's called Edge of Tomorrow. Would you like to see that in our IMAX theater?"
Customer: "Would I ever!""
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| Tuesday, October 7th, 2014
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1:39 pm - Less Deadly Ebola
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Previous Ebola outbreaks had 70-80% lethality. They killed so fast that everyone in the distant, bushmeat-eating (monkeys, apes) little village who was exposed died before they could move to another area.
But this outbreak is different. This strain of the virus kills less and kills slower. It's about 50-60% lethal and has a longer incubation period, longer viral load building period, and longer infectious transmission period.
That, plus our ever more connected world, gives infected people greater time to infect others and move father to spread the disease to other places.
It is the basic paradox of epidemiology. By becoming less deadly, a disease can become more deadly.
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| Sunday, October 5th, 2014
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11:22 pm - Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks
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As expected, the new Equestria Girls movie again proves that the finest musical theater today is to be found in children's cartoons.
But aside from that.
I had the opportunity to see the new movie in the theater for its limited release. I was hoping to see it on a big screen with an excellent sound system, and it turned out that the nearest theater I could see it at on the only day I would see it upon was newly built. I realized from the angles inside the building that it was a Century theater and that I had been in others stamped from the same mold. They clearly have architectural patterns that they stamp down whenever they have a clear area appropriate. But from the lack of wear on the fixtures, the perfection of the sound system, and the newly installed build-your-soda machine, I could tell that the place was fresh as the raspberry Coke Zero I devised. So in this I received my wish.
The first brilliance of the movie was in persona. The characters, large and small, are tropes. They are exemplars. They are their traits; flaws and strengths both. And like watching an X-Men movie, we want to see them live up to those traits because we like those traits. We're watching the show and have bought in to their faction. To do otherwise is to cheat us. This movie doesn't cheat us, it rewards us.
Now, Hasbro released eight shorts all related to the movie. The first six set up various useful parts of the movie and act as prequels. Many minor plot points of the movie will be lost if someone doesn't watch the first six. (The last two are extra-continuity and are just good songs that don't exactly fit into the plot.) With the advent of the internet this is growing more and more. It has a benefit in that it ties together the greater experience. But it has a penalty in that it keeps the story from being self-contained. I felt that a kid who went to the movie without seeing the first six shorts might really lose the basic thread of the movie and that is worrisome from a technical story-writing standpoint. I suppose I will look into it.
But the second brilliance relates to the story, and specifically to the song called, "Under Our Spell" but which should really be named after its first line: "You Didn't Know That You Fell."
In the last movie, everyone had been factionalized and stuck to their own cliques - jocks versus socials versus geeks versus band versus stoners and so forth. But they learned the power of friendship and overcame an evil demon with it and that's no longer the case. Everyone is happy with each other and friendly to one another (except maybe Sunset Shimmer). We are in an idyllic state with everyone pulling together for the next school spirit event, which is a musical talent show of the school's bands all getting together with proceeds going to charity.
Soon enough, conflict re-enters in the form of three mahou shoujo (magical girls) who taunt the kids of the school into changing their talent show into a Battle of the Bands. They take a cooperative enterprise for charity, and they turn it into a competition. And not a normal competition, either. A negative competition. A competition that is all about Pride. One that's not even only about being the best, but about being above all the others. (Hasbro released the Battle Of The Bands villian vamp song widely to raise interest and so that people wouldn't think that the movie was going to be about what happens in the shorts.)
And so, throughout the movie, we see the broad theme of cooperation versus competition. And more specifically the question of negative competition versus positive competition. The villains use the idea of freedom from the whole in a negative fashion to break people apart, but the main characters also engage in struggles about how to best add their individuality to a positive cooperative enterprise and be rewarded for their efforts.
It comes to a boil in the song, "You Didn't Know That You Fell." 'Fell' being the critical word.
It is a fall from grace. The commission of sin, the temptation into evil, the exit from the Garden. They Fell, and it was so easy. Facilis decensus Averno. At first, our heroes are immune to the temptations of the lessers, but soon enough, they too feel the strain of their own flaws. We are all fallen, and we live in a fallen world. And while one might re-achieve some measure of grace, we can fall again and not even know it.
It reminded me of the feeling the United States had after 9/11, when everyone was pulling together; and how it lasted a little more than 24 hours before the political mudslinging and seeking to tear down for advantage began.
It's always strange to see a Judeo-Christian message covered in today's popular media, especially one like this. Bill Whittle has an excellent essay on the Judeo-Christian nature of the balancing strain between cooperation and competition and how both are required - one to do things greater than any one person and the second to find better ways of doing things that conflicts with the first. For the life of me I can't find a link and will have to buy his book.
To my mind, it's well worth it to watch the six shorts and the movie just to get to that song.
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| Sunday, August 17th, 2014
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9:57 am - The Trouble With Tanks
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This is a mild essay that has been burbling a long time, and was brought to the fore (again) with the recent Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Specifically the scene where Drax the Destroyer, a generic brick type tank, has an extended fight with the main villain of the piece. It should not really be a surprise or a spoiler for me to say that in the early middle of the movie, a single character alone in a composite cast is unable to defeat the primary villain of the piece. But the contemptuous manner in which it was physically portrayed prompts this piece.
A digression along similar lines:
My favorite character in the old 'New Mutants' comic book was named 'Karma'. A Vietnamese refugee, her special power was that she had a particular type of physical mind control. She looks at you, you lose control of your body, and she's now moving it. The tougher you are, the worse her control and the more she has to move her own body to focus on yours, resulting in a harmonizing effect (for those of you familiar with old Glorantha spells). In the case of mooks, she could sometimes control several, but all would act in unison with her in a mook-pyramid effect similar to the end of the excellent movie 'Push' which everyone should go see/rent/Netflix/purchase.
The problem with this story-wise quickly became obvious. If the enemy was a single megavillain Karma's powers could not work because she would look at the villain, take over his body, and the plot would be over. That would be boring, therefore it was never allowed. In any such plot she could only look at the villain, grimace and say, "He's too strong!" then collapse in backlash agony. When this got too stupid, her character was put on a bus to nowhere.
Roleplaying gamers amongst you will recognize the same thing with 'save or screw' magic spells. As characters grow in power and gain more access to spells that instantly neutralize an opponent, the enemies gain more and more immunities/resistances/defenses to such attacks. As games evolve, we commonly see rules fixes changing the nature of these spells to do points of damage plus milder status effects as opposed to 'save or screw'; plus the addition of various powers to protect against such screws. Some examples are:
Disintegrate changing from save-or-dust to save-or-take-2x-level damage
Mind Blank style protections to negate Holds, Charms, Dominates making them just as useless as Karma
4th ed D&D 'shed mark' powers, as authors realize that it was way too hard for a marked enemy to escape the conditions for sustaining a mark
4th ed D&D 'multistage villains' where videogame style the first body 'dies' when its hit points are expended and it spawns the next villain, moving to the second stage of the combat. (And conveniently the second stage is considered an entirely new creature so marks, status effects, and multi-power locking effects are all gone.)
Which brings us back to Tanks. Let's use some primary examples - Colossus, who is invariably done poorly, and Superman, who can often be done well.
Think back. When has Colossus of the X-Men ever won a fight? Flat out, just won? Was bigger, stronger, smarter, and tougher than his opponent, duked it out hammer and tongs, and came out the victor? I can think of very very few occasions; very close to none over twenty plus years and many different adaptations. Oh, sure, he contributes to the team. He soaks up bullet and drugged-dart fire while people hide behind him; he throws Wolverine in the fastball special, and he has a particular gimmick - I think it's a mutant power - to always be underneath a non-flying enemy who has been catapulted into the sky so he punches them back up as they are falling.
But he himself never wins. Never of his own accord due to his grit, determination, well-trained skills, and/or clever application of powers.
Let's look at Superman. Thankfully, Superman is different. Often, the beginning of a Superman story will have him trashing a villain who might otherwise be impressive against others, but is not to him. He wins. Flat out. It's just a lead-in to something more serious, often a problem that can't just be punched, but he does win in a way that Colossus only wins against mooks.
Superman is also commonly put up against events that can't just be punched. A collapsing building. Busted railroad tracks. A bomb somewhere in the lead-lined sewers. A stolen isotope or biological weapon.
Superman also willingly limits himself. He could punch out or kill Lex Luthor any time but he will never do it until he can prove Lex Luthor guilty of a crime.
Superman's moral structure helps create stories that get around the trouble with tanks. For example, take the iPad Superman game, covered here on livejournal. Superman defends Metropolis from incoming meteors and killer robots. They can't hurt him, because he's Superman. But they can knock him around and stun him and when they do, meteors and robots get down to the surface. The game ends not when Superman dies, but when Metropolis is destroyed.
This is an example of setting different goals for tanks. When one writes a Superman story, the goal should (almost) never be, "Can Superman punch out the villain?" Because that answer is usually 'Yes,' that's where the story ends, and that's a quick, boring story. Other goals must be introduced through moral structure, personality, relationships, what-have-you.
Side comment again: The only valid plotline where a tank is allowed to straight-on defeat a primary villain is the loss-retraining-victory plotline common to martial arts movies. It's the one where the hero first encounters the villain, shows some skill, but gets trashed. He then finds an old mentor/trains on the Warworld/fights for survival in the Savage Land/discovers an Achilles Heel to the villain's technique/executes a training montage to take a level in badass and then returns for a final controntation. Bonus points for emotional callbacks to power his endurance. Superman vs. Darkseid in the recent Animated series is the prime example here.
I wish it was different, but it is not. It is the shackles of story structure. Without it, we wouldn't have stories, and then where would we be? All that I ask is that it be done with some respect. That it be done well. Love your tank for what he does.
FISS forever.
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| Sunday, June 29th, 2014
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12:46 am - How To Train Your Dragon 2
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Spoiler alert, etc.
Unlike the way the early trailers lead one to believe, the main villain is not Hiccup's estranged mother.
Instead, we introduce a new villain named 'Draco Bloodfist' which is a name with plenty of topspin.
And while Hiccup is the same peace-loving hippie he was in the first movie, determined to bring people together and show them that dragons are smart animals and can be trained and so forth; this movie while simple had a delightful hidden subtext.
"No. Some people are villains. You cannot talk to them and make them better. Just no."
I was surprised to see that coming out of Hollywood. Even more hilarious in that light is the final narration, which is basically a declaration of peace-by-the-sword by Hiccup - that they'll spread their peaceful ways and if you don't buy in, why, we've got giant dragons to make it so!
Talk about your neocon agenda. I was hearing a funhouse version of the Bush Doctrine there. In fact, it's easy to see the whole movie as a US-Islam battle, with the dragons being Technology.
I should probably just relax and watch the pretty lights and not be annoyed by the main character's tactical failure to exploit the enemy's formation with his superfast distance-fire-spitting dragon.
Side points: One of the hilarious things about the old West End Games Star Wars Roleplaying Game was the NPCs. Specifically, almost every NPC who had force points and a lightsaber... also had parts missing. It was an acknowledgement that people who have duels with blades that casually lop off and cauterize wounds eventually lose a few. They carry on that tradition here in How To Train Your Dragon 2 and it gives it a tiny verisimilitude.
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| Saturday, June 21st, 2014
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7:05 pm - Edge Of Tomorrow: A Perfect Movie?
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I live on the border between a gentrified community and a community where, shall we say, it is common to speak back to the movie screen. Thankfully, I have an excellent theater within five minute's drive that serves both these communities.
And at the end of the recent X-Men movie, Days of Future Past, the heroic time travelers reset history and make the entire timeline that started the movie unhappen. It's what the whole movie has been about. It's what the beginning was about. It was shown in the beginning. And in case the audience didn't figure it out from the visuals, it was then explained. Verbally. In painful detail.
Yet, at the end, a fellow in the theater spoke aloud, saying, "What the hell is this trippy shit?!?" Murmurs echoed him. It was clear that they Did Not Get It.
It had been Told, not Shown.
That did not happen today at Edge of Tomorrow.
In this case, repetition served both as device, as plot point, as underlying black comedy, even as theme. Even the repetition repeated. Which is the point, I say again.
Everyone Got It.
And as I watched it, I began to notice something else. The movie was simple. In fact, so simple that it had a brilliant simplicity. And because of that I was able to notice something about the craft of the film.
It was perfect.
No scene went on too long. No jump cut was clumsy. Special effects were tailored towards desired effect. Camera angles all served their immediate and then their greater purpose. Repetition, repetition, repetition. Clumsiness in word and deed became artful because it could be corrected... with repetition. Even the music that played over the ending credits was suited brilliantly to what had come just before and served for a spiritual capper to the film.
In terms of craft, I feel it was a Perfect Movie; like Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade; like I am told the recent True Grit is, like the last hour and twenty minutes of John Carter Of Mars where the actors have figured out their characters and the director has figured out what film he is making and it is a nonstop thrill ride of pulpy planetary romance such that none dare leave their seat even for a moment to use the restroom.
I dare thee to say otherwise.
Again.
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| Saturday, May 24th, 2014
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10:04 pm - The X-Men Are Like Your College Friends
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You're still friends, you still keep in touch, but life has taken you in different directions. You only meet once every year or two, say, when they're in town for a convention or when you're in their town for a work trip. You hear about their new work and events in their life, yes, and also you see the things again that you've always known about them. Which, since they are old friends, you mostly like although the same parts that mildly annoyed you before still mildly annoy you. You have the chance to air out all things you love about one another, the old interests, the old stories; now with a little more experience to look back upon them fondly, to say 'what if?' and expound, explore, elaborate. Make it something new and fresh again, if only for the length of the meal, or the coffee.
Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver the other gold.
That's X-Men: Days Of Future Past.
Everyone reading this posting knows the story. It can't be spoiled. Worse than that, they know that this is a 'Status Quo Is God' time travel story. We begin in a crapsack future where all hope is lost. The only escape is going back in time to change the past and set the future on a different past. Make all this 'unhappen' and start again from another branch. Push the reset button.
To some people it might be a new story. To us, it's just not. So the story of it, the plot, the progression of events, is a little boring at times.
Axis of Awesome teaches us in 'Four Chord Song' that 40 of the top pop hits use the same musical progression for the harmony. The only difference between them is the melody that they weave around the continuous harmony. The particular choice of lyrics. The emotion brought to the music in the precise stresses given by the musician in each individual performance. Yet the framework upon which it is hung? Exactly the same.
So ignore the plot, such as it is. We are looking for the expressions of the characters we love. We want to see their might, their mettle, and their flaws again, because it's been a year or two. We want to see them interacting with each other, as we might if we all went out to dinner and got to hear them talking amongst each other while we waited for stuffed pizza from Giordano's. We want to see them talk about new things, be new people, but also be themselves, pitch-perfect.
Pitch-perfect.
That's what we're shooting for, and it's not easy. If you get it wrong, it's like reading Sherlock Holmes in 'The Seven-Per-Cent Solution', written by some other guy, about Sigmund Freud helping Holmes beat his drug addiction or something. Or like reading those authorized Elric short stories by other authors; or maybe even the horrors of Amber Roleplaying Game character diaries when the Elder Amberites show up. The tone drops into the uncanny valley and makes it even worse than it would be if it was just wrong because you see the wrongheaded effort to be right.
Not all, but many many portions of the movie are pitch-perfect. And that makes them a delight. Quicksilver is especially wonderful, and it will be hilarious to see him in the next Avenger's movie after this.
Other things: Superhero fights are mostly good. Serve their purpose. Worth their time. And now you're thinking with Portals(TM)!
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| Thursday, April 24th, 2014
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9:40 am - Yet Another Joke Only Three People Will Get
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“This problem could easily be solved by the total elimination of all carbon-based life forms.”
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| Monday, April 21st, 2014
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2:25 pm - A few weeks behind on Agents of Shield
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So you can laugh at me if this is all resolved already.
I just saw the Lady Sif episode and the (first) shoot-the-Clairvoyant episode.
And they did in fact name-drop the Kree. The Kree are the highly-technological aliens who continually fight the shapeshifting, organic Skrull (known as the Chitauri in the movies because the Skrull rights might or might not be sold along with the Fantastic Four rights to Sony).
'Captain Marvel' who was the Marvel hero of that name, was a noble Kree alien whose name in his language was 'Mar-vell'. His story is more of the soap opera type of the time, with little following, kept up primarily to maintain copyright on the name of 'Captain Marvel' and to confuse things for the hero we all know and love who shouts, "Shazam!" (Or maybe 'Kimota!')
But he has family and relations who have been known to show up from time to time and there have been Kree princesses and there's a 'Noh-Varr', also from the Kree empire, who had an interesting bit in Marvel's Illuminati (I haven't read the other stuff.)
Anyway, long story short, I think Skye from Agents of Shield will turn out to be an abandoned Kree princess. It will explain her technological gifts and something of her individualism, as well as her ability to survive being gut-shot until she got shot up with an alien chemical.
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| Monday, April 7th, 2014
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4:01 pm - Captain America: The Winter Soldier
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The reviews told me that it was intended as a political thriller. At least, as much of a political thriller as you can get in a superhero movie. And at that, it succeeds. It's not exactly layer upon layer of Machiavellian plotting, but as I said, it's a superhero movie.
It differs from a political thriller in that the main characters are not powerless. They are not able to casually succeed in 'win-space' as I believe Robin Laws and Rob Heinsoo put it - that point in most superhero movies where the hero is simply exercising his abilities in glee or practice or demonstration and is not truly challenged like Iron Man versus Afghani terrorists with paltry small arms.
They can be and are challenged, at and above their level. The innocents of the world, whom they protect, both hinder and protect them as happens in the best political thrillers. They must trust no one. And the nature of the superhero genre allows challenges, and the stakes, to be all the more frightening.
Strengths? Many. The subject matter is topical and easy to understand. Captain America is Captain America, and that is a damn hard achievement. The primary main characters have an easy and relatable way about them which again helps draw us in. We call back to the strength of the previous movie and the strengths of the character.
Partran has mentioned that the great strength of the Marvel movies is that they love their characters and seek to bring out what they love onto the big screen; while the DC movies hate their characters and focus on the changes they want to make to the characters, then use the big screen as an excuse.
Weaknesses? Few. It's a little long for what it is. The climax smacks a little much of red-key-red-door videogameyness/plot coupon collecting, while the secondary climax is more proper for the political thriller. Georges St. Pierre as Batroc the Leaper could have been used a little better and a little longer, but I think I was already complaining about length and this isn't a Batroc movie.
Finally, the main villain's last words were, "Hail Hydra," instead of, "You may have defeated me, Captain America, but the Hydra has many heads!"
What can you do?
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| Friday, March 14th, 2014
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8:37 am - The Malaysian Flight
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is it just me, or is the real world starting to resemble REAMDE?
First the encryption virus that you need to pay in bitcoins to decipher.
Now a missing jet with signs of hijacking, a sudden turn, disappearing from view.
All I can say is, I want me some villain points, damnit! (Actually I prefer the hero version, but I'll take what I can get. I've already got physical lim disads on my sheet!)
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| Monday, March 10th, 2014
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12:50 pm - (Don't) Let It Go
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While I generally liked the recent Disney movie FROZEN, I did not like the showstopper song, "Let It Go."
For one, it used that part of computer animation that is the simplest. Geometric shapes and structures. It may look impressive, but that's the easiest thing to do with computer aided animation. In another movie, a sequence like this might have entailed an evil queen raising her foreboding castle/wall of thorns and this is clearly reminiscent of that and intended to be, but turned around.
It's turned around into a song of female empowerment, and that's great and all. After all, in a way the big villain of the piece is Elsa's father, who goes about trying to protect his daughters exactly half the wrong way. After the accident, he may mean well and he figures out one important matter of convenience thing but everything that happens thereafter is really the fault of his decisions.
But as is clear from Elsa's revealing dress and bodily motions, contrasting from her noble, queenly reserve at the coronation (a queenly reserve whose powers we were taught about in Disney's recent BRAVE, I'll mention), it is also a sexual/emotional/adult awakening. With tragic results!
Elsa realizes her sexual power to build and create! For herself! But ends up harming her country and nearly killing her sister, showing that these powers are ultimately destructive. At least at this point in the film.
Where's Professor X when you need him, I guess. I liked other stuff, especially the Fixer Upper song as it resonated with my personal feelings about us all being humans from the scratch-and-dent pile at the store.
I guess I'll stick with (Don't) Let It End, by Styx.
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| Tuesday, December 24th, 2013
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4:05 pm - Dhoom 3 Review
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I only occasionally come across Bollywood films, so this is not a review of Dhoom 3 as a Bollywood film among other Bollywood films. Rather, it is as a thing unto itself, and how its elements work.
Dhoom 3 is an action comedy melodrama buddy-cop villain-protagonist musical. In general I like these elements and so in general I like the movie.
In Bollywood films; as in Broadway musicals, Disney films, and most episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic; we have the ability at any time to either interrupt, blend with, or enhance the action with a musical number. The question is not 'why are you having a musical number in this very serious/very funny/very dramatic picture?' You are having musical numbers because that is the genre. Comic books and martial arts movies have fight scenes, porn shoots have money shots, shonen manga has characters digging deep for new levels of power, Yu-Gi-Oh resolves conflict via games, and Bollywood films have musical numbers.
The question is 'if it interrupted, did it interrupt interestingly? If it blended, did it entertain? If it enhanced, did it enhance strongly?' The musical numbers in Dhoom 3 do all three; interrupting so as to establish character, generally blending with the melodrama to provide emotional purpose, and enhancing the action by providing stings to stunts in a method that's meaningful to the villain protagonist character.
They are well done in and of themselves; I found the tap-dancing segment especially smouldering for the way it used the smouldering villain-protagonist tap-dancing very intently while he was surrounded by darkened yet more vivacious tap-dancers thus making him smoulder all the more.
As far as action goes, stunt-based action can usually go one of two different ways; ultra-realistic old-school and therefore intense (like the recent Punisher movie with Thomas Jane and John Travolta) or ultra-fantastic over the top where sadly, part of the goal is to be as unreal as possible. I could quote a list of movies that you didn't like and don't remember here but suffice it to say that a stunt that is heavy on CGI and way out beyond the possibility of what we imagine as 'real' usually makes us say 'eh' rather than 'Awesome!'
It's only when an ultra-fantastic stunt serves another purpose that it becomes worthwhile. Thus, the fabulous bare-chested pose-heavy fighting techniques in 300 are deliberately stylized to evoke pictures of warriors that we have from actual Grecian friezes and urns and so forth. By connecting to things we've seen in fun mythology books and were dragged to in grade school museum trips, we come out with a deeper emotion. As the enemy in the Edward Norton HULK movie takes strange serums and gradually becomes capable of super-soldier maneuvers, we see the progression in his feats that leads to obsession; it foretells his descent into Abomination.
So the interesting thing in Dhoom 3 is that the musical addition to the action sequences serve to link the action sequences to the melodrama sequences, as they use the same music. They give us an emotional backdrop for the stunt as opposed to just the stunt itself which would look a little goofy over-the-top impossible and thus boring alone. It brings you back to 'awesome!'
The melodrama and romance are nice. Being a student of Penn and Teller's Fool Us, I knew how a certain magic trick is usually performed and was delighted to have the plot point prove my knowledge valuable and correct; although another moviegoer might feel jaded about it. Katrina Kaif pulls off her set-piece role well, and the comedy relief sidekick's motivational speech at a down point in the film was something you simply would not get in an American film and for that I loved it.
It does have a near three hour running time. It's designed to have an intermission like movies used to have back in the day but we don't have that here in the States; a big intermission sign came up and then the movie just kept going. Because it has the time it needs, it can develop the villian with all the backstory it needs. The buddy-cop duo don't need such introduction, nor do they have to be as deep as the villain. We know their motivations. They are cops. They are after the bad guys. Proceed to excitement.
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| Monday, December 9th, 2013
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1:10 pm - Let's see...
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The Obamacare website never had a payment interface written...
The PPACA law contains verbiage for the government to make direct payment to insurance companies to make up for shortfalls in enrollment in the first year...
Instant single government payer for everyone kicked off their insurance who can't get in their first payment by Dec 15 (the first deadline) or march 15 (The putative last deadline). The government will just pay for it all!
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| Friday, November 29th, 2013
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10:49 am - The Knockout Game
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Roger the Shrubber: Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say Ni at will to old ladies. There is a pestilence upon this land, nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress in this period in history.
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| Monday, November 18th, 2013
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12:00 am - Review: Thor - The Dark World
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The great brilliance of the two Thor movies now is that they remember that comic books are inherently comedic.
Think about that for a moment. Even grimdark Batman at his grimdarkiest has comedic moments even if the humor is also dark. Usually Batman plays the straight man but he also gets in some quips, some put-downs, some insults to jibe his opponent's spirit as well as his face. You can see the pattern over and over again.
It may be related to the beat-structure explored in Robin D. Laws' 'Hamlet's Hit Points' where every scene is examined for 'beats' - whether the mood raised or lowered by the end of the scene. One of the lessons learned is that three downbeats in a row is relentlessly depressing. So depressing, in fact, that it makes us want to put down the book, or leave the theater. It's too much, and we need hope to continue engaging.
"But we're dealing with a serious topic!" shouts the author. "We need to keep on message!" No, you don't. Even in times of war, disease, and death, human beings seek to lighten their mood. Jokes are told on the battlefield. Bodies are arranged humorously. While I was on the operating table having a lump of fatty gristle removed from the skin under my neck I cracked the slightest of jokes - I mentioned that this was like being in a medical TV show where I was patient of the day - and got the primary doctor, the trainee, and the nurses all cracking wise about Gray's Anatomy throughout the procedure.
Humor, light or dark, is a defense mechanism. A coping mechanism. It engages our joy to battle our hurts.
The examples are manifold, but the recent Speed Racer movie is a wonderful example. For all the brilliant colors, the movie is pretty darn serious. It deals with the death of a brother and the thought of surpassing his memory. It deals with treachery and corruption in the highest places and the revelation of societal manipulation through fixed sporting events - sporting events that the main character has devoted his life to excelling in. The sporting event that killed his brother in fact.
If you didn't lighten the mood, you'd probably die. That's why Spritel and Chim-Chim are there. Monkeys are funny and so are little kids. They enter a scene, they lighten the mood. it's not so serious. Back to bright colors. Zoom! We can resolve it all with an automobile race! That'll show 'em!
Back to Thor. The great innovation of the first Thor movie was that the second act was a romantic comedy. That doesn't mean it wasn't serious. Love is serious. But it's also funny. And guess what, the love of a beautiful woman redeems the man. Who'd have thought?
The second movie focuses more on quips and dialogue for its comedy. We draw a villain and a relatively stock situation - ancient power source released, ancient villain, convergence of a thousand spheres, Voilodion Ghagnasdiak is looking to destroy the universe, wait a second, that was Michael Moorcock there. Same difference anyway.
The problem that many have noted is that no one knows who Voilodion Ghagnasdiak, aka Malekith, is. Sure, his name is cool, but he's nowhere in any mythology anyone has read. To quote from 'How Underdog Was Born' a name needs to have what's called 'topspin' in order to be relevant. 'Underdog' is a great name for a superhero because it's also something we commonly use in other contexts. 'Captain' and 'America' both have great topspin. 'Hulk' has good topspin because we use it to describe anything massive, and 'Thing' has awesome topspin. 'Thor'... topspin mostly for mythology geeks. And Malekith? El zippo except that his name begins with 'Mal-' for evil.
So we have to draw this new guy in broad strokes, tell stories about him, give him some stuff he's done and will do, build him up from nothing because we have nothing to build on other than 'generically evil'. And that's competently enough done, but not exactly special. And that means we have a movie that isn't exactly special.
Until they break that mood. And that's what makes it special. Timing and dialogue, jokes and jests flying in the face of the world's demise. The movie always has an upbeat ready for when we might get too bored or lose the thread. It gives us something to hang on for. I mean, it would be nice if we were hanging in there to root for Thor to save the world, but come on. We're really hanging on for the next quip about the ludicrousness inherent in the situation that this setting places them into. It'll come mostly from Loki, or from Darcy, but it can even come from Thor himself who handles it sometimes with mild physical comedy, sometimes with a dry smile.
I like dry smiles, and I like Thor.
PS: Now we know what happened to Mr. Eko after he died on the island in LOST. (He plays The Undying, Malekith's lieutenant.) And The Collector's cameo is de-lightfully goofy, and wonderfully meant to set up Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet in Avengers 3.
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| Wednesday, November 6th, 2013
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4:20 pm - Psych Lim
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One of my (many) psychological limitations is idiots who screw up what 'well-regulated militia' means in the Second Amendment. A famous editor of a firearms magazine recently got it wrong, and so even though I have posted this before here and elsewhere, here goes.
The word 'regular' and its derivations - well-regulated and irregular - have a specific and well-known meaning as relating to things military. Here are some examples:
Theodore Roosevelt fought in the First Irregular Cavalry of the United States.
On Wikipedia, the official standing army of a country is known as its 'Regular Army' as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_army .
Sherlock Holmes employs the Baker's Street Irregulars, a cadre of street urchins who mostly spy for him but are sometimes mobilized into a dangerous slingshot-wielding force.
In the United States an officer upon commission is considered a 'Reserve Officer.' This has nothing to do with the twice a month Reserves; instead it means that he is subject to the 'up or out' officer promotion rules wherein each officer has a set period of time and number of chances to be considered for promotion and if he is passed over he cannot renew his contract and is released when it expires. However, at each successful promotion a Reserve Officer is also considered for promotion to Regular Officer. If they are so honored, then they are immune to the 'up or out' requirements - they have military tenure, so to speak, for their 20 years of military service, because of their perfection in the role of officer.
The first of the Green Berets (US Army Special Forces) five primary missions is called 'unconventional warfare' (UW) which is performed by training irregular forces to conduct insurgency actions in an occupied military zone.
The Civilian Irregular Defense Groups in Vietnam (CIDG) are an example of this Green Beret training.
In Disney's The Ballad Of Davey Crockett, written in 1954, is the line, "Andy Jackson is our gen'ral's name, his reg'lar soldiers we'll put to shame" - crowing about how Davey Crockett and his pals are better than any normally-trained soldier.
It's obvious just from context that 'irregular' means hastily put together and poorly trained and 'regular' means well-trained, skilled. Even the most average dictionary will have amongst the examples for the base word 'regular' the possibilities 'to regulate the digestion' and 'regular as clockwork' so as to indicate something working properly, not only the action of controlling something with rules.
These and many other examples can be found nowadays with a simple google search. This is not rocket science. This is perfectly common, everyday, current English. It's just from a portion of society, the military and its surrounding scholarly theory, history, and even fiction and games; that some people don't interact with.
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| Monday, September 23rd, 2013
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7:08 am - An Egyptian court on Monday banned the Muslim Brotherhood ..
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"An Egyptian court on Monday banned the Muslim Brotherhood from carrying out any activities in the country and ordered the seizure of the group's funds..." -Reuters
"Fetch your service revolver, Watson. The game is afoot!"
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| Monday, September 16th, 2013
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10:04 am - At this point
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I question the timing. Funny this happens just a few days after a clear electoral rebuke to those two Colorado state reps, getting recalled for rushing through a gun ban.
There's a William Goldman novel where it's implied that the bad guys use drugs to gin up crazies for this sort of thing. By this point I'm ready to get my tinfoil hat on and become a believer.
(More seriously, 'agitprop' is short for 'agitation propaganda' and attempting to gin up crazies to attack your opponents and serve your ends is a classic political technique. It's why muslim crazy attackers always have crazy histories - so they can be discounted even though they make valid trouble - and why the libs put out that George Bush assassination play and movie.)
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luagha
