Piranha 3D

My girlfriend wants to see it. She's brave, that's for sure. The first one, from 1972ish, was pretty well-received. Now it's being remade, like every 1970s and 1980s horror movie.

You have to admit that the '70s and the '80s were good decades for horror. But for some reason all of these remakes are horrible. HORRIBLE. The only passable remake in recent memory--at least, in my uninformed opinion--was Rob Zombie's Halloween.

I just needed to make the point that the idea behind Piranha is kind of like the idea behind Aqua-man: lame. Lame, because the agents in question are bounded by a very finite geographical location. Aqua-man is pretty awesome in the water--but useless on dry land. Piranhas are not fuzzy fun friends if you're swimming with them, but if you stay far away from the water...well, there's not much they can do, is there?

Of course, many horror films are more about effects than about plot or character. And what plot one does find within the horror genre is often riddled with logic holes.

Maybe I'm expecting too much...

Long live nostalgia!

A Brief Thought About Michael Emerson

As I've mentioned before, I boarded the LOST boat long, long after it sailed. Actually, I don't think I started watching until after the series finale. I'm nearly at the end of the series, and I must say that the show has had its ups and downs. Seasons 3 and 5, particularly, were disappointing and poorly-constructed, though Season 2, in my opinion, was very well put together.

As I've become engrossed in the series, I've discussed with other fans of the show the lack of character development in later seasons. We meet multiple new characters as the show progresses, but they lack flesh--they're like cardboard cutout characters that are there to answer some questions or raise some questions or maybe probably die, but not before they've become romantically involved with someone.

One delightful exception to this rule, however, has been the character of Benjamin Linus, played with absolute brilliance and poise by Michael Emerson. Linus' character, introduced in Season 2, has steadily and naturally progressed and unfolded--perhaps "unfolded" is the better word, because the way LOST is constructed precludes up-front character development. LOST lives and dies by the flashback--or flash-forward, or occasionally flash-sideways.

It's true, the creators missed fire with Nikki and Paolo and Charlotte and multiple others, but Linus is a home run. In Season 3 I hated him, as I should, but by the end of the season, I began to feel stirrings of pity for him. Throughout Seasons 4 and 5 he began coming into his own dramatically, often providing or sparking much of the emotional conflict especially off-island. Now, in Season 6, he's the most human, the most compelling, the most accessible character left alive.

This is not due, in my opinion, to the genius of J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and Carlton Cuse. I think that Michael Emerson's incredible interpretation of the character is what makes Benjamin Linus so rounded, so alive. Emerson is in constant control of his voice; he obviously knows his scripts and knows his character and makes a conscious effort to adopt his character's voice. He is in constant control of his body; he can evoke arrogance, sliminess, and pathetic sorrow with his posture. He is in constant control of his facial expressions and his breathing; he's a whole-body actor.

Michael Emerson is why Benjamin Linus is awesome. Michael Emerson is an awesome actor, and I want to see more of his stuff.

Long live respect!

I'm Not Reviewing Inception

I went to see it, you see. And I loved it. But I'm not going to review it. Not yet, that is. I don't feel that I've fully comprehended it. Once I see it again, I'll definitely blog about it.

I mean, I enjoyed Inception. And I understood it. But I don't think I comprehended it. I laid my hands on it, but I didn't fully grasp it. I need to see it again before I can wrap my mind around it. Make sense?

No, instead I'm going to talk about How To Train Your Dragon, which I went to see recently at a budget theatre that has movies weeks after they're released. I went to see it with my girlfriend, who is a huge fan of the film, and her sister, who is also a huge fan of the film. So there was some pressure on me to enjoy it, and I don't function well under pressure. I mean, when I'm pressured to do one thing, I usually end up as far away as possible from that thing.

I didn't expect to enjoy How To Train Your Dragon.

The main reason I didn't want to see Dragon was that it's a DreamWorks Animation project, and before Dragon, DreamWorks Animation had produced exactly 0 worthwhile movies, in my opinion. I know they were behind Shrek and Kung Fu Panda, but I occasionally disagree with critical opinion. I've seen far too many DreamWorks films, and, to be perfectly honest, Dragon was the first DreamWorks project I saw that I didn't feel was a waste of my time.

I don't know why DreamWorks can't craft believable universes--subcreations. I love Pixar films in part because they tend to have unique, fresh, full backgrounds. It's like Cobb tells Ariadne in Inception: to be believable, your creation has to be unique and detailed and consistent.

But Dragon bucked that trend. While its creators still couldn't avoid the patented Dreamworks propensity for anachronistic idiom (Hiccup, the protagonist, is a Viking, and he calls something "cool". No. Just--no.), they successfully crafted a believable universe, rich and--for the most part--consistent.

I especially liked the imaginative introduction of the existence of multiple species of dragon. The way DreamWorks usually handles this sort of film would have had the different dragons be wisecracking, farting, and generally disappointing viewers. By making the different dragons sentient yet mute--and more importantly, analogous to and cooperative with various characters--the creators broke of the normal DreamWorks mold. I can only hope that this becomes a trend.

I thought some of the characters were poorly-drawn, and some of the relationships seemed rushed. But that's a children's film for you. When you're selling to kids, you don't need to craft deep, rich, textured characters--archetypes will do.

Oh, and when Stoick (Hiccup's father, voiced by Gerard Butler) is preparing to enter the lair of the dragons that have been plaguing his village, he goes into Leonidas mode. It's quite funny as an inside joke.

This has been more of a ramble and less of a review, but since when have I been organized or focused?

Long live self-denial!

Popular Writing vs. Meaningful Writing

This post was originally part of the Road of Writing post which I just finished. I sorta bridged into this one, and then I realized that I was writing a very long post, so I chopped it up into two chunks. This post is because recently I've been thinking about Mr. S. King and how he likes to construct writer-characters in his books. Misery, of course, centers around Paul Sheldon, a popular, well-known author, and in King's mirror novels The Regulators and Desperation a major member of the ensemble, John Marinville, is a popular, well-known writer.



Central to the personal emotional conflicts for both characters is the dichotomy between "popular" writing and "meaningful" or "real" writing. "Popular" writing, according to King, is the stuff that people buy, the paperbacks that are fun reads. "Real" writing is inherently less financially successful, but garners critical praise.


In Misery, King goes so far as to say that being known for writing "popular" books is one step above being a hack. Sheldon and Marinville hate writing popular material, but they know that writing popular material is what pays the bills. They love writing meaningful material, but they know that all the critical acclaim in the world won't feed them.


Fundamentally, King is discussing the antithesis between commercial and artistic success. To King, the two are mutually exclusive, which betrays a sad lack of faith in the discernment of the American reading public--a lack of faith which is all the more pathetic because it's warranted.


They say that you write best about that which you know. I think that in Paul Sheldon and Johnny Marinville, Stephen King has injected himself into his writing. King's work has often been the center of controversy; check out this column by Harold Bloom, written on the occasion of King's receiving the Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Awards.

I'm not going to weigh in on the artistic merit of popular writing. I don't believe that novels which are popular should be discounted because of their popularity, though; while American readers don't have a lot of discernment, their approval shouldn't be the kiss of death for literature.


This has been a very meandering post. I think I'm done now.


Long live autobiography!

The Road of Writing

I am going to ignore the fact that I haven't posted for over a month. That point is moot.

I recently read Stephen King's Misery, which is a thought-provoking book if I've ever read one. It's quite different from my usual fare. 'S funny: I love psychological thrillers when they're in movie-form, but I really can't stomach book-psychological thrillers. Perhaps because the written word is simultaneously more raw and more subtle than anything one can do with film.

Perhaps I should explain that.

Writing as an art form--the use of words--is communicative. It's a street, if you will, usually a one-way street, and most of the time ideas and conceptions (not concepts--I use the word "conceptions" on purpose) and tones and shades and colors travel from the author to the reader. And the only leeway that the author can utilize is vocabularic. Of course, there's the typescript niche, but words are words. Voice, in my opinion, matters little: Sherman Alexie has a distinct voice, distinct from that of Lee Child, distinct from that of Robert Frost. Writers who rely solely on their artistic voice to nuance their writing become caricatures of themselves. One author dangerously close to this pitfall is Jeff Shaara.

Does this make sense? Words are blunt by nature. Yet everyone has a different frame of reference; everyone comes at literature differently because no two lives are the same. This difference is what provides the shades and tones and colors for which authors hunger.

Film, on the other hand, is a much more middle-of-the-road medium. I'm not a film student, but in my experience natural subtlety is rare in film. Usually when a filmmaker tries to be clever/sensitive, it comes off as studied. Which sorta defeats the purpose.

Now, this was supposed to be one post, and it was originally called "Popular Writing vs. Meaningful Writing", and I was going to talk all about Stephen King and how people rip on him. But I'll talk about that in my next post.

Long live vagueness!

I Do Not Heart Hypocrites

I had a run-in with one, yesterday. Actually, two run-ins. (Run-ins? Runs-ins? Runs-in? I think it's runs-in.)


I had two runs-in with hypocrites yesterday, and both of them reminded me just how much I dislike hypocrisy. The funny thing is, I'm a bit of a hypocrite myself, and I'm fairly certain that the reason I hate hypocrites so much is that I'm one. They say that we hate most what we see in ourselves--the whole opposites attract bit.


Anyway, I'm only going to talk about one run-in, because...well, I won't reveal my real reason for not talking about the other one. Let's say that the other encounter was conducted entirely in an obscure German dialect, and translating it would be too hard.


So a professor comes down to A/V last night--one with whom I have a history...well, perhaps I should talk about the history a bit.


Some profs adopt me as their own special buddy. They act all friendly and respectful and genial, and then they sorta beguile me to do A/V stuff for them, and then they think that I'm their personal A/V assistant. In short, they use me like a five-dollar something-or-other. And I am a spineless fool, so I don't tell them "NO!" at all, really. This professor of whom I speak is one with whom I have this history; she considers me her "inside man", the one who can do her huge favors and stuff.


She comes down to A/V last night, asking if we have extension cords. I don't know what we've got available, so I tell her that I don't know what we've got available. Then she says, "Oh, you've got the stuff I need. I was down here snooping around earlier, and you've got the extension cords." Then she opens the Forbidden Door and walks right back to where the extension cords are stored and shows them to me.


Just thinking about it grinds my gears.


It's events like this that make me yearn with an undescribable longing for my graduation.


The Forbidden Door, by the way, is the door back into the Computer Support office. It's kind of funny. Only us initiates are supposed to go back there, and we've plastered signs ALL OVER, signs like "DO NOT ENTER: IT Personnel ONLY please" or "Please Keep Door Closed" or "Please Ring Bell For Service" or "There is a dragon in here, and he will claw your face off".


And people still go back there. Like my hypocrite professor-friend, who was "down here snooping around earlier". It's like they can't read!


Well, that's enough anger and hatred. My good friend Drew Barnes turned me on to this awesome guitarist Django Reinhardt. He was a gypsy, and he only had two operational fingers. Now, most guitarists will tell you that you kinda need most of your fingers to work if you want to rock out on the guitar, but not Django. He managed to make it work with this:

Django had it goin' on. And here's a sample of his work--one of his best-known compositions, "Minor Swing":





I don't know about you, imaginary adoring fans, but I feel pretty small after listening to that. Can I get a "Holy Crap"?


Long live dynamic genius!

The Two Types of Webpeople

I think there are two types of webpeople: the self-aware and the un-self-aware.

Allow me to explain. Please.

Webpeople I define as those who create and share information or content. So webpeople aren't necessarily individuals; sometimes webpeople are groups or organizations or even institutions.

Self-awareness, in my uninformed opinion, is underrated. If you have a handle on who you are and what you're doing, you're on your way to being awesome. 'Course, there are some other things that contribute to being awesome as well, such as intellect and divine intervention, but as it is, the self-aware have a leg up on the blissfully ignorant.

There are some webpeople  who take the Information Superhighway seriously. They think that a) what they're doing is seriously going to change the world and b) what they're doing will last forever, or at least a long, long time.

These people are not self-aware. These people are blissfully ignorant. These people are often annoying.

Examples (and this is where I'll probably raise some hackles) are primarily political- and social-activist groups, like The Huffington Post or The Drudge Report. But one doesn't have to be partisan to be blissfully ignorant. deviantart encourages thousands--perhaps millions--of untalented losers to create and create and create, fueling their pipe dreams of brilliance or success. So do various other social-networking and open-source websites; the business of today's web is to validate the masses. And as the masses create and upload and comment and flame, they begin to think that what they are doing has weight--that they will be remembered.

To this end, I give you one of The Onion's recent news blips:

Amazing Original Thing To Become Hated Cliché In 6 Months

NEW YORK—An extremely clever and creative new thing will amuse the world for two and a half weeks in June, become passé by mid-September, and wind up as a trite and infuriating cliché by Christmas, sources said Monday. "Positive reviews on Boing Boing will signal the brief 'happy' phase of this exciting new thing's existence, about 11 weeks prior to the first backlash," said Wired magazine senior writer Stephen Levy. "I look forward to watching America fall in love with, make YouTube parodies of, sour on, forget about, and groan legitimately when hackneyed late-night talk show references are made to the thing." Levy estimated that the thing's creator will earn $400,000 from licensing its image for use on T-shirts that will all be donated to Goodwill by next spring.

Prophecy? I think so.

The other type of webperson is in the minority, unfortunately--the self-aware user. Self-aware webpeople realize that few will read their tweets and fewer will care...and the self-aware are fine with that. The self-aware don't create and post because they think they'll make a difference--they create and post because they enjoy it. It's a wry mockery of the earnestness of the blissfully ignorant.

Interestingly enough, "wry" and "mockery" are words often used to describe the efforts of the self-aware. Examples of self-aware webpeople are xkcd or The Onion or Cracked.com. They don't try to change the world. They post and don't care who reads it--or who doesn't read it.

I like to think I'm the latter. But maybe the fact that I'm writing this post says that I'm not.

Anyway, the reason I haven't posted for so long is that I've been watching LOST. It's amazing, but I won't blog about it, because that ship sailed several years ago.

In other news, Burn Notice is amazing. I'm glad it's coming back tonight.

Long live half-hearted appeals!