Goodwill Book Shopping

            While I sit here hiccupping I shall relate a random incident that happened to me recently that I hope does have some entertainment value.

            I was at a Goodwill looking for old copies of books the add to the pile of books I have to read but have not knuckled under and read making my room look more fit for a very literate serial killer.

            All that said, I did find a trio of books I though to buy.  They are fantasy novels from the early 90's based in the Dungeons and Dragons world of "Dark Sun".  This was a desert wasteland setting, probably meant to feed of the nerds who recently discovered Post Apocalypse fiction thanks to "Road Warrior" and "Beyond Thunderdome".  TSR, the makers of Dungeons and Dragons mostly did their own thing creatively but they also knew a fun image of imbeciles going through the desert searching for power has an appeal to disaffected youth (as the zombie genre has been doing to diminishing effect for a decade now), TSR mostly just added dinosaurs and bug people.

This is the first of the three I bought.  What I am amazed by is that this novel is still in print.

            Anyway, I had the three books and was in line and I looked over to the VHS display they had next to the front door, a young woman was flipping through them and pulled up an erotic yoga tape and then held it up for me to see.  This was weird and random, so I glanced behind me and saw the guy she was trying to motion to and said, "I think I intercepted something," and pointed her out to him.

            At this point she is mortified because she has been trying to goofy flirt with her husband (the guy I made pay attention) but had mostly been accidently hitting on me.  "Don't be embarrassed, it is funny, the sort of random thing you laugh about later."  As she turns crimson.

            I believe people need to remember that other individuals can see what is going on.  You're not online or anything and thus it won't get you sent to a gulag or fired, but it is awkward to do stuff like that with so many people in the direct line of delivery.

Poem, "9th Street"

"9th Street"

8          9th is the first street off the coast

8          where the Greedy recruit raw meet

8          and then the raw meat becomes roast.

7          Money changes hands swiftly

7          one hears a deal they snap on

7          others hear differently

7          and somewhat inconsistent

7          a penny or dime was here

7          and now missing wear, go bare

7          a hundred times a minute.

8          That crate?  Does it have Nine Bottles?

8          Isn't it supposed to be 10?

6          One was cracked in shipment

6          nothing else could we do

7          so we gave it to the crew.

7          A refund to the buyer,

7          To whom we almost sold short

7          What is next to do in port?

8          Unloading barrels of liquor.

8          And spirits, but also quicker

8          some other solid goods: hardtack,

8          salted pork, and pickled fatback.

9          Sign there, then here, then lets grab a beer

9          leave this paper with my friend named Greer.

9          He will make sure your numbers are clear.

9          He'll seal it, mark it, make it secure.

9          Checked for rightly flecked inking stealthy

9          the spots that will make us all wealthy.

9          While we do drink ourselves unhealthy

9          Untouched in banks hard work does mature

-Josh

A Letter to John Green

To Honorary Doctor John Green,

            I had a dream with you in it.  And I understand how terrifying and unpleasant most letters from fans must be when they start with those words so I will assure you this isn't one of those.

            In the dream we were having dinner at what I think was a burger diner.  I did most of the talking as you seemed rather distracted, might even say you looked the sort of person who is being rendered uncomfortable by the necessity of being polite.  I talked to you about being a fan of crashcourse and how when I was in high school and undergrad I had wanted to write biographies for use in middle and high school social studies programs but for one reason or another I never managed to parlay that drive into results.

            I told you how I admired you and other people on youtube that have managed to put out more and more engaging educational material, and you told me that you liked what you were doing and offered a bit of encouragement, and then you got up to leave because you wife was there to pick you up.  Since I have no idea what she looks like she did not appear in this dream (though I gather she looks less pregnant than she had before so congratulations on that).

            So as soon as you left the table and were out the door, I got the check.

            I don't know why I thought you would be interested in hearing about a dream in which a guy compliments you and then you stick him with a bill.  Maybe a laugh?  Maybe you are making the face from the dream, uncomfortable by the necessity of politeness' demands.  Either way.

            I also find it strange that I have been getting Mental_Floss the magazine for years and only a few months ago subscribed to the youtube channel... and then never watched a video, only finding out that you hosted the thing via a mention in the crashcourse hot dog eating contest video... Life is funny.

            I will soon be entering into grad school for the last time that I can foresee.  Finishing out one Masters and more than likely the second... Don't really know where I am going with this sentence.  But, whatever.

            Please continue to make things I like.  In exchange I will continue to enjoy them.  That is the only trade I am prepared to offer.

Hope you are well,

Rocketboy1313

Incongruous Soundtrack

            Music plays a huge part it what we perceive on screen in movies and television.  Shows have blamed various drops in quality on the loss of good music direction/production ("Star Trek: The Next Generation" is the example I can think of, dropping a talented musical presence just as the rest of the show was shifting into gear).  This is a tool I think can be used in other ways though.

            Prevalent in theaters there are a lot of remakes and adaptations of older movies and books, but these productions lack an identity of their own because they are just doing what was done before with slightly better special effects or lighting budgets.  I actually think that one of the stronger ways a movie can distinguish itself is through a drastic change in the anticipated musical choices to accompany the scenes.  The best example currently would probably be "The Great Gatsby" released last month.

            I do not care for the book of this story, I find it to be well written, but the subject matter and the characters are just so spit inducing bad that I can't muscle through it.  This movie has those same issues, but it does something to distract you: music.  By putting in a soundtrack that is not just another 1920's production the film wakes the audience up and invites comparison to other things.  Rap music in the modern day based upon singing about drug dealing and casual misogyny evolving into an industry that sings about being rich and how awesome it is.  This is juxtaposed against a world of rich, misogynistic assholes who are miserable, and one of them got his money from alcohol distribution during prohibition.

"How about we don't make just another forgettable remake?" -Luhrmann

            All of that aside it gives you something else.  "The Great Gatsby" has a look, a feel, expectations, and a lot of previous iterations that were the book.  The Robert Redford film from ages back is a bland and joyless movie with no sting or identity beyond being an adaptation of the novel... basically beat for beat.  But the modern Baz Luhrmann directed version has an authorial stamp that distinguishes it in the minds of people.

            Luhrmann's "Gatsby" will be remembered for sucking, but so will its unique presentation.  This style was applied to the director's other period pieces, "Romeo + Juliet" which took the dialogue of the original play and set it into the modern world, and "Moulin Rouge" which took a period setting but with modern music adapted into it, taking typical troupes and a lot of music people knew but presenting them differently enough to grant the work a memorable (albeit kind of shit) collective whole.

            If I could make another example, "A Knight's Tale" directed by Brian Helgeland takes a story from "Canterbury Tales" and adds a rock soundtrack... to great effect.  It shows how sport was a popular thing and instantly draws your mind to the music the stadium plays during lulls in a game to keep the crowd up and interested.  It is granting you a perspective and identifiable mentality to the audiences in the movie.  It is drawing you into a film that is at its core very cliché.

Though I imagine the reasons people saw this movie might vary.

            This sort of thing is sorely missed in a lot of movies that really needed it.  "Troy" was a god awful film starring a huge cast, tons of costuming, huge numbers of extras, and fight scenes that were really cool.  The dialogue and music did nothing.

Though I imagine that the reasons people saw this movie might vary.

            "Troy" did try to change its source material up, changing a story involving very active gods and magic and making it very terrestrial, but did nothing to fix the real problems of Homer's "Iliad" (the story this all turns on).  The real problem is that the work was translated very literally by people who have no ear for normal people.  The movie has speech that is stilted to the point of being unbearable; terribly clunky and formal.  People in ancient Greece did not talk in formal English, soldiers in that time spoke the equivalent of soldiers today, like regular people in a stressful situation far from home.  People going to a theater want to watch a movie that sounds legitimate, not like it is out of time.  One might say that the movie, "The Immortals" (while visually and story wise being balls to the wall insane) is vastly easier to watch and be taken in by because the characters sound like people.

Though I imagine that the reasons people saw this movie might vary.

            Imagine a movie in which you saw warfare in the Classical Age via dialogue and music that elicited the feel of a war movie set in World War II or Vietnam?  Playing "The Ride of the Valkyries", "The End" by the Doors, or "Ohio" by Neil Young.  The juxtaposition of music between modern war and classic war might make the audience think about how the people at war in "Troy" were just like those kids who went to war in our own time, and that the greed of kings like Agamemnon is a thing that is as old as history and is STILL AROUND.  Then you could loosen up the words to have them flow naturally instead of like they are being written by a Professor of Classical Literature who is masturbating to the thought of Homer blindly reciting this all to a group of Greek Aristocrats.

            For other examples of music working with genre to make something unique isn't hard, and I think it is going to be done more and more as directors and producers have to try to express their own creative interests in a movie world that will only let them do so via adaptation.  "Firefly" was a science fiction show with western music and themes, "Cowboy Bebop" was jazz science fiction, and "Samurai Champloo" was Samurai hip hop, all of these were original properties with a blending of music and themes, while "Scott Pilgrim Versus the World" was indie rock Superhero, an adapted work which took a lot of the source material and (I think) elevated it with music you can actually hear (I have no idea how some authors have the audacity to produce comic books about music the reader cannot hear).

(This is the gayest blog post I have ever done...)

"Man of Steel" vs "Star Trek Into Darkness"

"Star Trek Into Darkness" and "Man of Steel"

            Two of the biggest movies that came out this year, and two that I liked, were "Man of Steel" the start of a new Superman franchise as a creative collaboration of David S Goyer, Christopher Nolan, and Zack Snyder; and "Star Trek Into Darkness" which is a project by JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof (I think, I am cutting out several writers, but this script has a Lindelof-ish taste that I can't shake).

            The movies sort of parallel each other in some ways, a collection of 50+ year old science fiction characters battling against an evil mastermind in a gigantic spaceship, that villain kills a father/father-figure of the protagonist, and ultimately the movie ends with a knock down drag out fight in a major metropolitan area devastated by the conflict.  Both have large ensemble casts and play with big ideas ("Steel" deals with "Eugenics, conspicuous-consumption of natural resources, stagnation of societal evolution, militarized-revolution begetting fascism and abandonment of outward-looking intellectual curiosity" -Moviebob, while "Trek" deals with Eugenics, preemptive war, drone strikes, and the socio-political ramifications of its own interstellar navy: Starfleet).  The point is I think that neither completely realizes the ideas they are shooting for, but for two entirely different reasons.

            "Steel" doesn't fully explore its ideas because it is setting up a franchise that will address them.  Christopher Nolan is big on three act structure, and is very capable of delivering a social essay in the form of a movie.  Since he is producing, and the Warner Bros. studio is pleased with the movie and furthering the franchise in this direction, the ideas that were not fully put to use (because they somehow managed an origin story with a highly complex villain) and did not have time even with the epic length.

            "Trek" fails because it has Lindelof as a creative driver.  Lindelof makes stories that I like to term as "Studded".  Much like a denim jacket with shit tons of glittery bits of metal pressed into it, the ideas and symbols presented in "Trek" are not really a matter of function, but instead of flash.  Things are presented and dropped not because they have value to the story, but because the audience will go "Oh, okay".  That bit of familiarity, that bit of meaning is analogous to seeing the Virgin Mary in a piece of toast, it is meaningful because of what the audience brings to it, not because the toast wanted you to have a religious experience.

Cumberbatch plays a cool character that just keeps getting betrayed, to the point where he is far more sympathetic than he really should be.  Actually, he kinda has a Jesus thing going on because he has blood that can heal you if you get it transmitted to you.

            Now I do not want to blame JJ Abrams for why "Trek" fell short.  He is not a "Trek" fan he is merely a mind-blowing-ly competent director of visuals, pacing, action, and acting.  JJ can't be expected to delve into the mythos and make sure to draw a clear line between well developed story with homage to classic stuff, and functional story studded with references to instill the material with associative weight and strength, that is the writer's job... THEIR ONLY JOB on a "Star Trek" movie, or any movie with an established lore.

            To go back to "Steel" almost all of the ideas hinted at and introduced have appeared in the comics and cartoons.  But at the same time they picked very specific aspects to focus on.  Superman's world is a rich science fiction universe to draw on, with god like aliens, doomed civilizations at their zenith, and the perils of scientific rationality taken to dangerous extremes for any number of reasons that are unethical.  "Steel" is the introductory paragraph to a bigger message using the familiar aspects and iconography of Superman to explain and explore the issues, it is actually only held back by a lot of movie conventions.  You know what character didn't really need to be in the movie?  Lois Lane and the entire Daily Planet crew.  I like them well enough, they are well cast and promise to hold their own in future movies, but pretty much nothing in this has anything to do with them needing to be there, and number of characters could have served Lois' role in the story, and done it better (I am looking at Richard Schiff who played the underused Dr. Hamilton, he could have followed Superman into the ice cave to find the Kryptonian ship, he could have asked to be brought along to Zod's ship when Superman is taken up, he could have talked with Jor-El and worked to modify Clark's Ship into the weapon used against the Kryptonians, Lois did not need to be there.  In fact everything she does would have worked better as the cold opener to a second movie, but movie conventions say that you need Lois, you need the love interest for Superman to save... Whatever.)

Shockingly, this Emmy winning actor was cast to play a character I consider to be rather prominent in the Superman universe and is used far too little in this movie.

            Lastly the big difference is the endings, which I won't spoil really.  "Steel" ends more ambiguously, Superman's relationship with the government is murky, his place in the world is still being felt out, and he is left burdened with how the fallout of the movie's events will play out in the future.  "Trek" just sort of ends.  They tie up the loose ends, no lasting effects are felt, there is no indication for what will happen in the future.  Even events set up in the first half of the movie (an impending war with the Klingon Empire) are not mentioned, even though the movie's epilogue is a flash forward to one year after the events of the film proper.  The bad guy gets an unsatisfactory conclusion (in a way it is quite horrifying) and a lot of bad precedent is set, a get out of jail free card that will end up ignored in the future.  I still liked "Trek", it was fun.  But it has issues, and I don't feel they were intended to be followed up on.

My Thoughts on "Spec Ops: The Line"

            "Spec Ops: The Line" is a video game I had 70% spoiled before I played it, I knew there were going to be instances in which I would face a hard decision and then another, and nothing gets better from that point on.  I heard about the symbolism and the complex nature of the problem.  I heard about depth and how the game goes meta, changing how the player visualizes and experiences what is going on.

Spoilers for this game are sort of everywhere online.

            The art looks good.  Each character suffers degrade from the injuries they have taken, making the damage done to you and the crew very visible reminders of the violence done to an by the player.  The music is classic and evokes that anti-war protest tradition that was not as popular in its heyday as the country has been lead to believe.

            I typically do not play shooters, I know when the controls are a little too loose but while I have been told that "Spec Ops" is not an ideal shooter gameplay experience I liked it a lot, there are very few points in which I felt the gameplay was too difficult or sticky for what I had to work with.  I like that the ammo was not pouring out of every vending machine and that the limited weapon selection meant that I had to work on my aim a bit, a big departure from "Saints Row the Third" which had me spraying bullets like mad to take down any one target.

            Overall this game really delivered, while the gameplay is fun I really appreciated the dark subject matter and the condemnation of war and the glorification of war that has become so prevalent in our culture.  Violence has weight.  Violence has visible effect.  Shit goes down.

            If you haven't played this and you have any disposition to play a violent game that ridicules violent games it is shockingly cheap to pick up and well worth the time to play.  I would go so far as to make sure you play it first, then watch the videos I linked to in my first paragraph to make sure you get everything you can out of it.

  

Also, gorgeous setting in Dubai.

My Thoughts on "Superman vs. The Elite"

"Superman versus the Elite"

            This is a fun movie with a clever philosophy clash that elevates it above most action pieces.  In it Superman is confronted by a team of young superheroes who grew up idolizing him.  At first Superman works with them, helping to lead and educate them on how to handle disastrous situations.  After several encounters a difference of methodology begins to take shape.  Superman, being them most powerful hero on Earth does not kill human opponents, he does not think he has the moral authority to do so being that he is an alien at that if he did, then he would just be a tyrant rather than a good Samaritan.  The Elite do not have such restrictions on themselves.  They see terrorists and dictators and violent criminals as targets for violent dispatching.  When the Elite begin pushing this further and further Superman tries to stop them and ends up in a full on showdown.

The movie is based on this comic from the 90's, which in turn was written as a reaction to the very adult "The Authority"

            This is one of the best Bruce Timm animated productions made since the end of the Justice League series, the animation has a modified style, the characters each have their own look and distinct abilities allowing for very diverse and easy to follow action.  The voice acting hits the same super high standard all of the productions reach, and most importantly it does try to have the discussion of whether might makes right.  And I really think it holds together right up until the final confrontation and the resolution.

            I did not really get what prompted the Elite to have a showdown in Metropolis.  They could have just said, "Superman, we respect you a great deal, and if you want to go on saving lives and averting disasters, please do.  But we are not as powerful as you, we feel we have to get down and dirty in order to force the world to be better.  If you don't agree that is fine, but if you try and stop us, you will actually be helping terrorists and third world dictators to continue their crimes against humanity.  Even if you think our measures are extreme, you should just step aside.  If you think we are about to turn into the monsters that we hunt, then go ahead and stop us, but right now all we have done is taken out permanently those who were definitively and demonstrably evil."

            What spurs the main conflict in the movie is a war between two countries, both of which have been developing super weapons (giant bug monsters and ray guns) instead of developing their countries' infrastructure.  They go to war and the civilian casualties are so horrific Superman steps in to try and halt the violence.  Superman is nearly killed by the highly advanced weapons and the Elite save him by killing a large number of troops (who had it coming, seriously they tried to kill Superman).  The Elite get admonished by Kal-El but then go beyond that, the Elite attack and kill the leadership of both countries and force peaceful capitulation.  Superman is horrified, but the world looks up to the Elite for the actions they took.  Then for no real reason, the Elite and Superman decide to fight each other to prove who is right.

            And, up until they started fighting Superman for no real reason, the Elite were right with what they were doing.  You don't win wars through delaying action and hoping for peace talks, you typically win by inflicting a measure of harm that keeps the other side from continuing, and in this instance neither side could do that without costing millions of people their lives.

            The battle is actually really cool too, they teleport to and from the moon, cars are flying, Superman appears to go crazy and start killing all the Elite.  Truth is Superman was illustrating his point, the whole battle was a big publicity stunt in a way.  Superman had complete control of the situation the whole time, with robots and fail safes so that it could appear that he was killing the Elite and disregarding the safety of the public so he could show the world of a superhero just using his powers to dominate (ruthlessly protect) the world rather than just trying to be helpful.  Unfortunately Superman's reasoning is wrong.

He goes a little nuts.

            Superman ultimately only wins the argument because he is so powerful that he can prove his point without actually killing anybody, and that is a luxury that no one else has.  I understand his reasoning, that in general "might makes right" is a poor philosophy that the Elite are perpetuating, but even Superman has met beings he would willingly kill:  Darksied, Brainiac, and General Zod are all examples of that.  Hell, in Superman/Batman #5 Batman nearly talks Clark into vaporizing Luthor in the Oval Office.  In other words, might makes right is still the philosophy at work, its just a more soft power approach than what the Elite ascribed to.

            There is also another point: Superman takes away the Elite's powers at the end of the movie.  I also very much disagree with Superman taking away the Elite's powers.  There was no trial for their actions.  Superman just decides to take their powers.  That isn't okay by his own logic.  That is the same as the government taking away people's freedom to travel or work certain jobs without trial.

            What is more, the movie kind of knows that Superman is wrong, and goes out of its way to show the Elite as all very Hedonistic loose canons.  One of the team members drinks too much, another is a jealous and temperamental, another is very lusty.  The team leader, Manchester is portrayed very unevenly.  As a child Manchester was homeless and lived with his little sister under a bridge and stole to survive, when one day they are caught by the police and his sister falls into the path of an oncoming train Manchester uses his powers for the first time to stop the train from killing his sister.  The accidental catastrophe which follows is tragic and really informs the character, who lies to Superman telling him what happened, but not that people were killed on the train by the untrained force of Manchester's powers.  In context of trying to save his sister those actions are justifiable, but are shown in the movie as indicative of future villainy, which is really unfair considering he is a child at the time, and probably only told Superman the lie because he was ashamed of what happened.

            So, yeah... Good movie, I liked it alot, but its message gets really foggy toward the end as it continued to shave of the depth and complexity of the argument in favor of a very paternalistic Superman being right because he is so powerful you can't disagree with him.  I give it a 7 out of 10.

(This review was spurned into existence mostly in reaction to this video, by Solkir, on the Agony Booth)