Movie: Fargo

This time I watched Fargo. This one, I need to take in two chunks: the movie itself, and the false claims made for it.

The movie itself is pretty good. Proof that any situation, no matter how morbid, is funny if you're watching Minnesotans do it. Not surprisingly, a lot of Minnesotans don't much appreciate the movie and I can't blame them. If you don't find Minnesotans inherently funny, it would probably be pretty boring. But if you do, it is a good dark comedy.

And Margie is one of the best female protagonists ever.

Unfortunately, the Coen brothers engaged in what is my biggest movie pet peeve outside of offensive portrays of women or minority groups: they claimed the story was true, when it is not. Right when it opens, it splashes a screen saying the movie is a true story, only the names have been changed, and the events are exactly as it happened.
It isn't true. It isn't true at all. It isn't even based on anything. The Coen brothers completely made it up, and the reason they did so (according to the DVD documentary) was because they did not think the story was strong enough to stand on its own, but that people would buy it if they thought it was an actual event.

Ooooh. I HATE that. At best it's a sign of unconscionably lazy writing -- the authors don't want to make their story believable, or enjoyable enough that people won't care, so they just slap on this false "notice" so hide the inconsistencies. At worst, it's downright fraudulent. They're trying to get money from people who would pay for a nonfiction story, but not a fictional one.

Blair Witch Project did this to the point of turning their "making of" special into "documentary" on the "history" of the Blair Witch and selling the accompanying book as though it were a nonfiction case summary. Fans believing them did massive amounts of damage to the building and town where the movie was filmed and to the surrounding town.

The Hellraiser franchise has tried to add an element of historical basis to their merchandising, and as a result an acquaintance in the Poser community was nearly sued for copyright infringement when he used photos that were altered to look like and marked as old enough to be public domain but were actually modern merchandising material.

In Fargo's case, this fraud may have contributed to a fatality.

Now, there are those out there who basically argue that people should be cynical all the time, and find any form of "gullibility" to be an utterly unforgivable sin. I've actually seen people say that those gullible enough to buy some unimportant story should be killed for it -- ironically the "gullible suckers" story in that case was false, and it was the would-be executioners who were believing bullshit without evidence.

Anyway, as you can probably tell, I don't think very highly of that opinion. When someone has an extreme, irrationally intolerance for gullibility, especially when it gets to the point of believing that the "gullible" deserve to die, I always wonder why. Who have they cheated, what scam have they pulled that they need to justify it by believing the victim deserved it?

Suffice to say, I'm of the opinion that writers should make stories that stand on their own instead of making false claims. Unfortunately in Fargo's case, the opposite put a very bad taste in my mouth over a movie that would have been rather good otherwise. (If you don't share my pet peeve, though, it is worth a watch. Hell, you'll get so many more MST3K jokes. ^_~)

Movie: Sweeney Todd (Spoilers)

I was warned before borrowing this one that it was a musical. I must respectfully disagree. To me, a musical is a movie with a few song and dance numbers. Your typical Muppet movie is a musical. Oliver is a musical. This, this is an opera with a fear of commitment, down to the unbelievably tragic ending that tries to squash all hope and light in the world. Gee willikers. I am honestly surprised that one more character didn't die. I really really expected her to.

So, was it a good movie despite that? Um.... Not really. Having seen sincerely, eye-peeling horrible movies, I can't in good conscience call it a bad movie, but I can't really call it a good one, either.

So, is it worth seeing? Um... Not really. If you've read the back of the box, you've seen the movie. It's basically two hours of Johnny Depp cutting throats while singing... and he can't really sing so good. So, I guess if you really really like watching fake blood spray out of people's throats... get help, and while you're waiting for them to show, you can watch this.

OK, 'nother thing, and maybe some of you know if such a thing exists: I would really like for there to be a list or a database or something were you can look up a movie and see if there's a rape in it. Because I'm getting frickin' sick of this. Enough of rape as convenient plot widget already. I'm sick of watching them. It's like hack writers have a wheel they spin for "tragic backstory that drives hero to vengeance", and the slots read:

• Raped
• Orphaned at young age
• Wife raped
• Falsely imprisoned
• Sister raped
• Physically abused
• Mother raped
  

and so on. Rarely, if ever, have I seen a movie where a rape was actually necessary to the plot rather than just a cheap gimmick, and it sure as hell wasn't about a guy. Grr.

I would just like to know so I could take all those movies off my list.

Movie: Kagemusha

This week's Netflix offering was Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha. I was planning to ship it back tomorrow and have another movie for this weekend, but I'm thinking about watching it again with commentary track.

So, what did I think of it? OMG, the guy who plays Nobunaga is devastatingly sexy. Every time he came on camera, I just about swooned. Even when he broke into song and dance. And on top of that, his helmet had a dragonfly on it. No one looks good in a helmet, but still... *fans self* I am going to have to borrow more movies with Daisuke Ryu, just so I can look at him. Wowzanoma. *more fanning*

Were there other people in this movie? I'm not sure I noticed. I was waiting for more Nobunaga scenes.

Oh yeah, I guess it starred Tatsuya Nakadai and also had Takeshi Shimura. So, was Shimura-san just born really old? Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the guy. He is one of my favorite actors. Everything from Seven Samurai to Ikiru to, um, Godzilla. (Actually, the original Japanese Gojira was a much better and more serious movie than that hack job they spliced Raymond Burr into.) But I swear Shimura-san doesn't look any older in this movie made in 1980, than he did in the 1952 Ikiru!

So, movie overall. Well, I have to admit. In my opinion, from the ones I've seen, Kurosawa made his best movies between 1950-ish and 1965. The color movies especially don't seem to work as well. In part I think it's because, as I understand, Kurosawa was a very controlling director and a lot of his setups were very artificial. Black and white filmstock hides that much better than color does. The color film shows more of the artists' hand, and I don't care so much for the results.

That said, this is one isn't bad. It doesn't have the really strident, eye-searing saturated colors of, say, Ran or Dreams. Although he did do some very bad things to poor Nakadai's make-up at the end there. Nakadai put up with so much.

It is rather slow, though. Kurosawa takes his time telling a story, and sometimes it works very well, and sometimes not so much. Seven Samurai is half an hour longer than this, and yet it seems shorter because Seven Samurai keeps moving, even if sometimes it saunters. Kagemusha sometimes stops just so you can see how that rifle was loaded.

So, I'd say it's worth seeing one if you're a Kurosawa fan, but I wouldn't suggest it to someone who isn't. Unless you're willing to wait for scenes with Daisuke Ryu. Did I mention OMG? *more fanning*

Whoa!

Who ordered the snow? Anyone? Order of snow?

It's supposed to slow down this afternoon. I think there's enough accumulation that I'll have to go out and shovel. And it was so nice yesterday! So much for cleaning the leaves out of the corner of my driveway. :P

Anyway, Nanowrimo stuff. I won late Friday night, and called it done at 50,000 words plus some change. And the end result of the month is one volume each for both of my Fushigi Yuugi long fanfic series, and a decent seed for the Superhero High story later.

Piers Anthony's "pep" talk arrived today, and since I don't have any Nano spirit to crush now, I figured I'd read it and laugh my ass off. It's about what I expected from him.
The first four paragraphs are insult. Tongue in cheek insult (I hope), but still. One paragraph of tongue-in-cheek insult can be used to good effect; four is serious overkill.
The fifth one is backhanded complement -- i.e. actual insult. "You've got a 99% chance of complete worthlessness even if you succeed, but good for you for trying anyway."
Paragraph six is bragging on himself. "Why, I do this rate all the time, and I'm an old fart." Uh, Piers? You write full time. It's not really that comforting to be told that someone who has up to 16 hours a day writes at about the rate we need to achieve in 1-3 hours. Honestly, it's a little insulting.

The next two paragraphs are really pat writing advice that's been given in better forms by other people.
And the final paragraph... Um, did the Nano guys tell him that this contest starts at the first of the month, and his talk would be coming out at the end? Because he's writing like he thinks this went out OCTOBER 30th.

If someone told me that they had purposely planned for his pep talk to go out the last day so it wouldn't discourage very many participants, I'd believe it.


Now, I need to do a little complaining about how the Nanowrimo organization is run.
First, a little respect for what the organization does. It is not easy to run a site with over 100,000 members, especially one with a ton of traffic in November and then nothing for the rest of the year. It's quite a challenge they've taken on.
That said, they haven't met that challenge very well.

1) The site always goes down the first few days of the month. Always. That doesn't have to happen in this day and age. There are service providers that can temporarily expand the capabilities for one site to keep it up under unexpected high loads, while keeping it low otherwise. Besides, maybe I misunderstood, but last year didn't Chris say if they met their fundraising goals there would be shiny new servers to make sure that never happened again? Because they exceeded that goal by a fair margin, and things are actually worse this year. For example, they never did reenable the forum search. It was disabled to decrease bandwidth draw, and bandwidth use never got low enough to reenable it.

2) They can't keep shirts in stock in the store. I can understand running out at the end of the month, not wanting to be stuck with extra stock. But the first weekend I went to buy one, and they were out of just about every size, most especially my own. I went to the forum to see what the deal was, as saw a notice that they had run out on Tuesday, and got more in on Friday. Since I was ordering on Saturday or Sunday, that shows pretty well how quickly they sold out. Furthermore, I was checking periodically throughout the month, and I never did catch my size in stock. I eventually ended up going one size down and planning to not put it in the dryer until I lose a little more weight in case it shrinks. But if I weren't losing weight, I just wouldn't have bought one, and how many people just don't come back when they find their shirt not available?

This just shouldn't happen at this point. The contest has been running for 10 years. They ought to know from past participation how many participants order shirts and in what sizes. Even with the bad economy, you can make a decent guess. Order half the previous amount and they wouldn't run out so quickly.

Or, if they don't have the capital for that, 1) shame on them for poor planning. 2) Do pre-orders. Put up a notice that this is how it's working, take orders for all sizes everything in stock, and as you get enough to fill an order from the supplier, trigger it and send them out. They could do this until the 15th (or, if previous years give them an indication of a better date, use it), and then sell only the physical stock on hand so they don't end up with extra stock or having to order 2,000 shirts to fulfill one order.

3) Why, now, the press on not just making 50,000 words, but actually finishing a story, even if it means you rush through parts? That's fine for some people, but not everyone. I really hope this vanishes, but if I can't have that, I hope it remains an informal thing and doesn't become another winning requirement in the next few years

4) And finally, my obligatory complaints about the Young Writers Program. As many of you know, the Young Writers Program horrifies me. I see 20,000 kids who are having the joy of writing crushed out of them by well-meaning but hopelessly misguided teachers. One of the Daily Q&A interviews was with a teacher from a school where the entire school has to participate. And then they start editing on December 1 to 'publish' the thing, and the teachers read over it. Oh my God! Did someone look into my own personal adolescent hell and make it manifest?

I cannot in good conscience support a program that I know would have destroyed my own very passionate love of writing as a teenager, which is why I cannot give a straight-up donation to Nanowrimo.

But beyond that, let's go back in time to before the Young Writers Program. Now, I could be wrong with this, so feel free to correct me. But before that, Nano was partnered with a program that built libraries in disadvantaged countries. IIRC, any money Nano had left over after paying their expenses went to this program. I would be completely behind that. Nano would have some of my money if that was the case.

But a year or two ago, Nano decided that instead they wanted to focus on their own effort, the Young Writers Program. And at that point, from my perspective, things really went to hell in a handbasket. Now there's constant struggles for funds to support both programs, and I don't think they're going to make it this year. I can only imagine the legal stuff and extra monitoring they must go through to run an underage forum -- one that allows adults as well so teachers can participate. And what ever happened to the laptop lending library? Did that die before, or did the Young Writers Program kill that, too?

In my opinion, not only is the Young Writers Program antithetical to its stated purpose (i.e. it destroys enjoyment of writing in the very children in whom it's trying to culviate it), but it's threatening the original adult contest as well.

When Engineers Watch Cartoons

I've got a box set of Batman: The Animated Series DVDs, and I need to get another because I'm almost done. The series has survived the test of time well; it's still a pretty fun watch most of the time.

However, as an engineer, the episode "The Clock King" had me laughing my ass off, so I am going to make a terribly geeky entry about it. (With spoilers, of course.)

First scenario, the Clock King locks Batman in a bank vault with a high speed pump that is pumping the oxygen out out of the room. Ooh, this is impressive, isn't it? Especially since the pump isn't connected to anything. It's just sitting there in a box. We even move the box, just to prove it. As near as I can tell, it's diabolically pumping air out of the bank vault and into... the bank vault. Huh.

But it gets better. Batman can't just disable the pump, because the housing is rigged with a vibration-triggered bomb!
Let me say that again. There is a vibration triggered bomb, on a pump. Pumps don't shake at all, do they? Especially not when they're pumping something compressible like air, right?

Clock King, dude, forget the revenge scheme. You need to go patent that vibration-free, connection-free pump thing!

But we're not done. The next one is common to lots of cartoons, though. So, we're in a huge gear works, and we jam up one of the gear meshes.
Now of course when you do this, you never just jam thing up, and yet you also never just destroy the obstacle, strip a gear of all of its teeth, or twist a shaft in half. There are absolutely no weak links in cartoon gear works. No, instead the entire gearworks, every little bitty piece, always rips itself apart in an incredibly catastrophic and often explosive manner.

And yet, it's still fun to watch. I love being a nerd.

Geeky Stuff

First, anyone out there who has been waiting for Ravelry to put those awesome hoodies up in the store, I've gone and ensured it'll happen today. I went and bought myself some T-shirts without waiting for it because I really wanted one of those "Bob in a pile of yarn" shirts and they were going fast. I hope I got an OK size. I ordered by bust without even thinking about waist measurement or shrinkage. *^_^*

Second, could the Nanowrimo people maybe get a few guest pep talkers who DON'T try to grind me into the dirt and make me stop? First Phillip Pullman tells me I'll never write anything worth reading because I just don't read enough fiction*, then Meg Cabot yells at me for having fun and demands I go back to the story that is doomed to failure. Yeesh.

I'm starting to think I should just opt out of the 'pep' talks. Especially when I see Piers Anthony on the incoming list. It's his misogyny; do I really have to have him delivered to my home? :P


*I like reading, and I do read books fairly regularly. But I do not meet Pullman's voracious reader of a fiction. With the limited time in my typical workday, I'm more likely to spend it making something than reading, and for every fiction book I read, I probably read 3 to 6 non-fiction. Nonetheless, I don't think my few and far between finished stories are that terrible. :P

Movie: 1408 (spoilers)

This was bad. This was very bad. This was so bad that I can say exactly one good thing about this movie: the protagonist reaches freak-out point and tries to throw in the towel at about the time a real person (well, me) would.
That's it. That's the only good thing I can say about it.

Special effects, sucked. Maybe the movie would work on a huge screen in a pitch-black theater with a bagillion decibel sound system and nearby stupid easily-freaked teenagers. But it can't stand on its own -- and don't try to tell me that's an unreasonable expectation because I've seen many horror movies that can meet it.

I actually had to pause the movie to have sufficient time to rant during the set-up. So, you're a writer who doesn't really give a shit about anything. The owner of a fairly swank hotel says "I really don't want you to rent this room. If you will stay in a different room, I will give you thousands of dollars worth of freebies, upgrade you to a penthouse suite, AND give you a file that practically writes half of the book you're under contract for with information no one else has." Do you take him up on this offer, or do you insist on spending a night in a room where you "know" nothing is going to happen? OF COURSE you accept the freebies, turn in the book that was half written for you already, and enjoy the sales-heightening effect of being able to write that this room is sooooo scary you were not allowed to stay in it despite threats of lawsuit.

That was where I paused it, but there was plenty both big and small besides that. From as small as, is there actually any library out there that has not updated its microfiche to digital; to the hotel is not going to just say the room is unavailable, because there have probably been other thrill-seekers, they are going to close the room due to a potentially lethal (but unspecified) problem with it. Or it will be perpetually in the state of being remodeled. On the other end, the main guy decides that he'd rather go out the window and try to climb to another room than stay in 1408, when all 1408 has actually done to him is... close a window on his hand, and give some freaky audio-visual effects.

Of course, main guy also keeps drinking the alcohol he's sure was drugged with hallucinogens. Yeah. I'm going to assume the lack of continuity on that bottle is an intentional freakiness of the room and not a collection of 5 million errors.

It's also very obvious that parts that were necessary to the story were edited out. Main guy calls the front desk in a panic, seems to get an amazingly clueless but otherwise fairly innocent (female *snarl*) clerk on the end, and gets disconnected while being connected to the manager. Immediately afterward he finds he is locked in the room. He does not try the phone again. I'm sure there was a shot or scene where he discovers the phone is actually useless and possessed.
And I hope there was originally something else that made the main guy think going out the window was an acceptable solution.
What I really really hate, though, is when they cut something that was in the trailer. They cut something that was in the trailer. So now there's just this zombie scampering around the ductwork without so much as a set-up shot, much less any hint at which dead guy this is supposed to be.


That's the frivolous stuff. There's also some serious problems.
Serious problem 1) Portrayal of atheism. I apologize to my atheist friends, even though I know this is nothing new. I'm afraid the message of this movie seems to be "serves ya right, ya stinkin' atheist". But of course, if you rediscover your faith in God, we'll let you destroy the evil and even get your ass saved. Although somehow serious burns will leave no visible scars but inexplicably jack up your leg something fierce.

Serious Problem 2) Lily, the main guy's wife.
SOB: "Honey, my life is in danger. I need you to call the police now."
WIFE: (whines) "But I want to talk about our relationship."
So, your husband literally walks out on you during the hardest time in your entire life. He vanishes without so much as a word. You can't even divorce him because you can't FIND the S.O.B., all while trying to deal with the trauma of losing your daughter to a tragic long-term illness. He shows up again a year later without so much as a howdeedo. Do you go:
a) "great, sign these papers. I'm keeping everything, you bastard. And I'm getting a chunk of your book royalties."
b) "oh you poor baby, let me take care of you and nurture you and completely put my life on hold to put all of your needs both physical and emotional first."
I'd do a. And maybe punch him in the nose, too.
Mikael Håfström and the (all male) writing staff expect b.

Don't waste your time. There's better horror out there.

It was good enough for Scheharazade.

I am about to pull the cheapest Nanowrimo stunt I have yet to pull in 2 and a half years of competing. The Instant Ninjas have NOTHING on this. (Actually, I really liked last year's Instant Ninjas. I am going to keep the Instant Ninjas in the final draft of Complications of Lycanthropy if it is at all possible.)

First, little backstory. Going into this, I had four story possibilities. The next volume of my Fushigi Yuugi AU, a light steampunk thing, a 'fantasy hidden in real world' deal with Immortals, or this light superheroic thing.
I made the wrong call. Stories are kind of like fruit; they're best if you get them when they're ripe. You can pick them too early; you can let them ripen too long. I picked this one too early.

As a result, I am not having a whole lot of fun. My excitement fizzled after scene two, and it has been a major slog every day. This is not how Nano should go. Nano is supposed to: week one I'm bouncing on the walls thrilled, week two I'm still excited but starting to get angst puppies, week 3 I'm whining like a spoiled toddler, and week 4 I'm doing a happy dance across the finish line.
That's not going to happen with this story. At best I'm going to have a miserable month, at worst the angst puppies are going to maul it to death.

On top of that, this morning I picked up volume one of my FY AU and read a bit, and you know what? That's good stuff. That looks like fun. I shoulda done that one.

So you know what I'm going to do? Mercy, my female Superhero High lead, is going to go home and find that her mother has bought her the latest few tankobon of her favorite manga series. So she is going to sit down for a lazy Saturday of reading Fushigi Yuugi: Ruby Veil and Fushigi Yuugi: Sapphire Veil, and I am going to start writing FY stuff.

I get to keep my 10,000 hard won words, and I get to write something that actually excites me and sounds fun. And if I later decide that FY isn't working after all or this stunt is just TOO cheap, Mercy puts down the tankobon, meets with a friend, and we flash back to chapter 2 and retell the story from her point of view, because I honestly think it'll work better that way. It was originally told from the POV of my male lead, Reno, with the intent of dropping an Everyman into this weird environment and having him learn how to deal with it and eventually find his inner hero. Yeah, that fell flat on its face. Everymen are BORING. Now I really think it would work better to start from the POV of the 16-year-old deep undercover international law enforcement agent *cough* yes it works in story I swear *cough* finding out a new potential cover blower is coming to her school and being right in the thick of all the intrigue right from the start.

Nano participants reading this are saying "sounds normal to me. Go for it."

Well, that set in earlier than usual

Waaah! My Nano sucks, and it's always gonna suck and it's never gonna be any good! Waah!

It is, however, going to be 50,000 words, and that's all that freakin' counts. So nyah! ;P

3672 words and counting.

Movie: Black Sheep (spoilers)

Happy Halloween!

Of course, I wanted some form of horror for this week's Netflix, so I went through my queue to see what I had. I'm not really a big horror person, so it took a lot of scrolling, when my eyes fell upon "Black Sheep" and I knew I had to go for it. I knew it was killer carnivorous sheep. The fact that sheep don't even have upper incisors doesn't stop them. And on top of that, I knew it included zombie were-sheep. Two hours of cheesy goodness, I figured I could point and laugh and have fun with it.

I was pleasantly surprised. It's not Night of the Lepus with a budget; it's actually an absolutely brilliant parody. In fact, it's one of the more skillful parodies I've seen in any genre, and hands down the best monster movie parody I've ever seen. Most monster movie parodies either take it so far over the top that they pass right by funny and land squarely in stupid, or take themselves too seriously and end up as just bad monster movies. This hits just about the perfect middle ground, where it's played straight but you can't take it seriously.

There are two flaws that make me say "just about" instead of just "perfect". First, Experience is a bit over the top at the start. If there were three of her, the movie would have been dead on arrival, but as is she's just kind of annoying until she gets into the nitty-gritty of the story. The second is that the ending depends on juvenile humor that I'm just not into. Up until that, I was thinking about buying myself a copy; the parody is that good otherwise.

Even with that, though, great fun. You should see it. You probably don't want to do see with me, though, because I squee in the middle of Scary Flock scenes and go "OMG, they're so CUTE!"
And when we reveal the Oldfield sheep, my reaction is "Oh wow, what a beautiful Corriedale." Actually, I don't know that it was a Corriedale. The commentary talks about how they just found the tallest, nicest-looking local sheep they could, so in New Zealand odds are that it's just another Merino that's been trimmed.

Oh, and in my opinion, the effects have the perfect balance of good and cheesy. The were-sheep get-up is actually really good. Incredibly good. And yet rampaging sheep are obviously sheep puppets, and the "carnage" scene has something Monty Python-esque. But it works, because... it's a flock of rampaging carnivorous sheep, for God's sake. It is Monty Python-esque.

And I also loved a shot where they basically admit that yeah, sheep don't have upper incisors. (It's actually even funnier with the commentary, because it seems the actor didn't know that until the director points it out, so the actor goes "so, they really can't hurt you at all, can they?" "Well, the lower teeth are really tough so they can rip up hardy shrubs...")

So, great parody movie.

On the DVD promos, "1408" looked really good. The other two horror movies just looked like "victimization of women theater", though; no thanks.
As mentioned, I'm not so much a horror person, but when I do watch I generally prefer ghost stories to monster stories. Monster stories just aren't scary to me, because not only is it never going to happen, there aren't even "true dangerous monster stories" like there are "true ghost stories" (with the exception of the chupracabra, I suppose). But on the other hand I don't generally care for serial-killer horror either, because it's either victimization of women, which I don't care to watch, or it's unrealistic because statistically speaking most serial killers' victims are women. [Yes, I do realize the seeming Catch-22 there. It is possible to make one I'll like (M, you're an awesome movie. I love you, Pete Lorre) but it's hard.]
A good ghost story I can get down with, though.

Speaking of promos, I stumbled across "Changeling" on the front of IMDB. That looks really good. This weekend isn't so great for me, but I may head to the theater next weekend.

We are officially live.

The Nitpickers' Guide to Highlander now officially has a new home at its own subdomain: http:\\www.highlander.jinnayah.com . The old page has been removed except for a link to the new.

Part and parcel with that is a new episode riffing: Something Wicked.

And for those keeping score, my new general page is at www.jinnayah.com . Right now it has basically the same stuff, except less of it. Better organized, though. :)

Movie: There Will Be Blood (spoilers)

Hmm... Where do I start with this one? Oh, I know. I've got a question.

What idiot wrote this thing? My. Gosh. I haven't seen a more pointless or more boring movie in a very long time. No one warned me this thing was going to be told in real time. By all means, please show me every excruciatingly dull second of Mr. Plainview's day. Wait, did he brush his teeth? You can't leave out details like that! *head desk*

Also, there is no reason for an 8-year-old struck deaf in an accident to also become mute. He won't have any volume control, but he will be able to talk -- and in fact probably will more than usual due to frustration at not being able to have two-way communication. Learning sign language so he can understand others makes sense; not being able to talk, doesn't. :P

And WTF was up with the goat's milk? Hey, why don't we spend another 15 minutes or so watching the kid drink that? It's not like the movie's too long or anything.

I don't mind long movies, as long as there's, you know, movie going on. I do, however, mind spending 3 minute takes watching a kid drink his flippin' milk. You know, when it took a full 15 minutes (I checked) before there was a speaking line, I really should have shut the DVD off then and gone and done my dishes or something. There are brief scenes of action, and then long LONG expanses of nothing. It's like they only had half an hour of story, so they wrapped it in bubblewrap and and put it in a huge box with a bunch of foam peanuts.

This was all an excuse to beat a delusion faith healer to death. I'm OK with that, and heaven knows that it's enough to get ya two Oscars, but we could have done that in the first hour.

And yet despite that, for a movie titled "There Will Be Blood", there was shockingly little blood. There was, like, no blood. Because blood implies action, and that's just not in the budget for this one.

Ugh. So, in summary: there's two and a half hours of my life I'm never getting back.

No, Netflix, I'm REALLY not interested in "Patch Adams".

I dunno, maybe Robin Williams does a great job and it's a wonderful movie. But the problem is, I've met the real Patch Adams, and he's a major dick.

Movie: Batman

(Just to warn you, there's a little spoiler for Dark Knight in here too. Because I just can't help bringing that movie up a skosh in comparison.)
This week's Netflix offering is the 1989 Batman, the one with Jack Nicholson as the Joker. Ah, man, remember when that was just the coolest movie ever?

It's not the coolest movie ever any more. Actually, it's... terrible. There's a reason it's out of print. Which is actually kind of a shame, because it would be excellent Rifftrax fodder.

It's bad. It's so bad, I'm not even sure where to start. Yes I do. Jack Palance. Jack Palance is in it. 'Nuff said. I can't even see the name "Jack Palance" without immediately think of the MST of "Outlaw of Gor" (interestingly enough, made the same year as Batman here) and all the goofy hats he wore. But even without goofy hats, he's still here in this movie doing the Jack Palance voice. You know, where he's trying to sound really intimidating but actually sounds chronically asthmatic and constantly gasping for breath.

Maybe you don't know. Good for you. Suffice to say, Jack Palance = bad.

Let's see, what else do we got bad? Oh, I can't do that, I'll type out the whole movie. Hey, how about "You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight? Oh, I just like the sound of it. It's just something I say to all my prey. ... Even though we're an hour and 24 minutes in and this is the first time I've said it. And I'll only say it one other time and that'll be in flashback.... OK, look, so maybe I don't say it very often at all." Or the first gangster boss guy who gets electrocuted with the joy buzzer and it's just... No. Just no. Or Batman walking around in the cape and raising his arms like Dracula so you just expect him to go "blah".

Oh, it hurts. It really hurts. My brain is already heading back with a shovel going "there was no reason to take this out of the 1990s."

Oh, and it really saddens me that it's gotten to this point, but... Well, is it just me, or do all of Danny Elfman's soundtracks sound more or less alike?

Well, was there anything good about the Batman movie, or were we all just high on hair spray fumes in 1989? (You know what I'm talking about. Don't deny it; I've got yearbook photos.)

OK, yes, there were a few good things:
1) Best Alfred ever.
2) The 1990s Batmobile had style in ways the new one can only wish for. Sorry, I just don't care for the wheeled tank -- at least not the one that looks like a wheeled tank.

Also, I regret that sequels never fulfilled the implied promise of Lando Calrissian as Two-Face. :(

Sadly, I think "Batman" had a major effect on most of the comic book movies to follow, and not necessarily a good one. There's the need for a backstory where one was not needed and in Joker's case, did not previously exist. (Well, in Joker's case it was one of many, but anyway.) There's the irrational need to kill the villain at the end. Why? Why did "Batman" do it, even? It's the Joker. You catch him, you send him to Arkham, he escapes in 6 months and goes on a rampage, lather, rinse, repeat. It's practically part of the schtick.

And that leads me to my final thought. Ever notice how in all the modern Batman movies, Batman never kills... except when he does? I can't think of a single one where Batman isn't directly responsible for someone's death. Hell, the "no killing rule" was a major plot point in Dark Knight and it gets broken.

Movie: Everything Is Illuminated (Spoilers)

Yet another Netflix offering: Everything is Illuminated. Overall, very good movie, but let's start with the criticism.

First of all, I almost didn't make it through the first half hour. It's starts out... kind of offensive, honestly, what with the stupid violent half-insane Ukranians who are stuck in 1983. Thankfully, that changes about 1/2 hour into the movie, and by the time the last of the "comedic" elements is dropped an hour in, so are the worst of the stereotyping annoyances.

Second, for the movie as a whole, I found myself thinking that would work better if the character of Jonathan were a young woman. The movie involves the breaking down of emotional walls between the three main characters, and it really seems to struggle getting that to happen. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but there seems to be a sort of awkwardness of "I want to open up, but I'm a man in front of other men, I'll lose face", and it doesn't seem an intentional part of the movie. It doesn't come across as part of the journey; rather it seems an obstacle to the storytelling. I think having a woman in Jonathan's role would have both been a catalyst to more of those emotional reveals, as well as made the ones we do get feel less forced.

However, I'm fully aware there's no way that could have happened, because the original novel about Jonathan Safran Foer was written by a guy named... Jonathan Safran Foer. Oh gosh. I'm glad I didn't know that before I started watching. (I will remark that it must say a lot about the quality of the novel that any publisher even touched it after seeing that.)

OK, major complaints out of the way. The movie starts as a comedy of the type I don't care for, but luckily that changes in what I found a very good scene. Jonathan, Alex, and Alex's grandfather are chatting in a restaurant, and it comes up in conversation that Jonathan's grandmother would not have approved of his trip and that she never wanted him to go to the Ukraine because before WWII, it was "as bad as Berlin. When the Nazis came, she thought it'd be an improvement." Alex, who starts his narration of the movie with a racial slur and speaks of his family's negative attitude towards their Jewish customers with ease and comfort, looks sincerely horrified, turns to his grandfather, and asks "He says that Ukranians were very anti-Semetic before the war. Is that true?" At the same time, his grandfather is absorbed in looking at the 1940s photo of Jonathan's grandfather with an air of great somberness. It's as though in this scene Alex and his grandfather stop being walking stereotypes and start being actual human beings.

The comedic elements start to drop out after that, and once it admits that it really wants to be a drama, it gets really good. I'm really hard pressed to chose my favorite parts. Walking into Lista's house and seeing all the things that she has saved from the remains of Trachimbrod. The reveal about Alex's grandfather, and how he reacts to again coming face to face with his past. Alex trying to open up to Jonathan, and yet struggling (when it works, at least).

Overall, it's worth a watch. Not everyone will like it, but it definitely has its moments.

Movie: The Fifth Element (Spoilers)

Another movie, this time courtesy Netflix instant viewing: The Fifth Element.

To be perfectly honest, this one has me pretty pissed off right now. It would have been a perfectly good, if somewhat cliche, movie except for one problem: the fucking racism! Those of you who have seen it are immediately thinking of one character, and he will certainly be addressed very shortly, but let's expand a little beyond that.

First, because it's brief: Where do we see Asians in this movie? It's 300-ish years in the future, there's 200 billion human beings spread across multiple star systems, surely we have some Asian people running around, right? Well, there's one. He's a Chinese cook with a bad accent, dispensing fortune cookie wisdom from a flying junk -- the boat kind. Yeah.

How about Hispanic people? Pfph. You wish.

OK, how about black people? Well, there's the president. This is good. Maybe a little tokenism, but a step. Then there's... a buttload of henchmen and lackeys. In fact, let's think about the human villains we see, and their racial make-up. Who is not black? Well, there's Zorg, the main villain himself. And.... um... I think there might have been two big thugly white guys with no speaking lines. Otherwise, there's at least 4 and maybe up to 6 black guys, and the shape-shifting alien things turn into one black guy and one white guy.
So, basically, greater than 50% of the villain squad are black guys, and yet they get no intelligence or initiative in the operation. Lovely.

And then there's Rudy Rhod, a role that Ru Paul turned down because it was just too over-the-top flaming. This character makes Snails in the Dungeons and Dragons movie look like a sensitive, intelligent, and enlightened portrayal. If you haven't seen the movie, take the brainless incompetent black sidekick character stereotype that should have been laid to rest in the 1970s with much embarrassment, add "drag queen" to the list of offenses, and then kick it up a notch. I really can not express how offensive this character was. What in the world would ever make 1997 Hollywood think this character was even remotely acceptable? I mean, I'm sitting there watching this and finding myself surprised that we don't have more riots, because if you ever wanted walking proof that racism is not not getting any fucking better, there he is.

Sprinkle with a bit of Nazi symbolism -- be sure to get it around the hero -- and there you are.

Movie: Mr. Skeffington

This one isn't a Netflix offering; it's one from my personal library that I rewatched to decide if I want to trade it off or not. I'll also warn you that I will be merciless on the spoilers for this one, because the biggest problem is the very end.

Of course, there are other problems too. For one, it's way too long. I don't mind long movies. In fact, movies that are less than 90 minutes minimum tweak my switch. (For instance, I love The Corpse Bride, but at 77 minutes I always feel a little gyped.) Mr Skeffington, however, is a full 2 hours and 25 minutes long, and it would have been dragging at 90 minutes. Most of that time is spent watching Bette Davis flirt with people. OK, she's a flirt, we get it. On top of that, either she was talking with a falsetto through the entire movie, or Bette Davis has the second most obnoxious voice in the world. And it's hard to top Butterfly McQueen in that category.

Oh, and I have to say that as much as I love Claude Rains, and as good of an actor as he is, he simply is NOT a poor Jewish boy from New York's south side made good. He's just not. Really, really not. And no matter how hard I try to politely pretend that he is... It's so not happening. (So, where does a poor New York Jewish boy pick up that amazingly sexy British accent, anyway?)

All that time spent, you'd think at least some of it could be used to develop the movie's theme, "A woman is beautiful when she's loved, and only then." But, nah. We'll just say it a couple of times and not actually do anything with it until the very end -- where we'll botch it horribly. More on that later.

Another problem is that the movie is dated to the second. In ways I guess it had to be, but at the same time, those make it more difficult for a modern audience to see the movie the same was a contemporary audience would have.

For example, there's one scene in there where Fanny says to her adult daughter (also named Fanny, confusingly enough) "isn't that dress a little old for you?" Well, when I really thought about it after the viewing, I realized that what Fanny Rachel was wearing was probably quite fashionable and perfect for a lady of around 20 years of age at the movie's release in 1944, while Fanny Beatrix was wearing something that was fashionable for a lady of 20 years back when she was 20 years old, around 1916. So the point of the scene is both that Fanny Beatrix is in denial about her age (via refusing to believe she has an adult daughter), and that she's living in the past, pretending not only that she's still 20, but that she's still 20 in the 1910s.
However, if you're not interested in historical fashion, you probably wouldn't realize that she was wearing a dress from her youth (as opposed to a 1940s dressing gown), or that the evening gown she wears afterward also has the same problem -- young woman's from when she was a young woman.

Another dated issue that messes with things is the sexual double-standard concerning the Skeffingtons' "affairs". In typical 1940s-mainstream movie fashion, it's a little ambiguous about who slept with whom. (I think it would be clear to an audience at the time, but the 'codes' have changed since then, if you know what I mean.) My interpretation is that Job did sleep with his secretaries. I'm not entirely sure whether Fanny slept with any of her suitors or not, although if pressed to chose I would say she didn't due to a line about 'keeping her wedding vows', said to her latest boyfriend -- it comes across as Fanny doesn't realize any contradiction, so I'd said her affairs were emotional, not physical.
However, it doesn't really matter whether Fanny actually slept around or not, because I think the movie is trying to either show the "affairs" as equal, or Job as the greater wronged. It definitely reflects the idea that men "need" sex, and that Job's affairs were Fanny's fault for not satisfying that need, while at the same time condemning her for seeking attention and idolization from men besides her husband and accusing her of hypocrisy for divorcing Job over his affairs.
I think in a modern retelling, either they would both be sleeping around, or Job would be taking his secretaries out just to avoid the stigma of turning up at certain locations alone, with nothing to it beyond that public appearance. Actually, in a modern retelling Job's affairs could be left out entirely, since we now have no-fault divorces.

By far, though, the biggest problem with the movie is the ending. Making Job blind completely guts the theme and resolution of the movie. "A woman is beautiful when she is loved, and only then," remember? It's sexist and old-fashioned, but it's what we've got. We've seen all the suitors of Fanny's past who didn't really love her and now turn away from her since she's lost her looks. She forces herself to go down to see Job despite her fear that he will also look at her in disgust. What needs to happen here is that she walks into the room, he looks up at her, his eyes light up at the sight of her and he tells her that she is beautiful and absolutely means it because he still loves her so much. They could still have him maimed by Nazis and unable to give her anything but love now, but paralyze him or something. Don't blind him. It's not a romantic ending that he can never see her as ugly. The romantic ending would be that he would never see her as ugly no matter what her physical appearance.

And in God's name, I really wish someone had told the writers that the Jamie What's-her-face running gag wasn't funny. Because maybe then they wouldn't have used it to stomp out whatever sweetness the ending had. :P

Movie: Crazy In Alabama (contains spoilers)

This week's Netflix offering was Crazy In Alabama, which was recommended by a guy at church. And I like about my church that, during service, someone can say "there's this woman who cuts off her abusive husband's head and carries it around, and it talks to her like he would -- but it's really good, you should see it." (Services are very informal, and half the "sermon" is the very small congregation discussing what they think the reading meant. Sometimes, it gets a little off track.)

Anyway, good movie. If you haven't seen it, I think it's definitely worth borrowing and watching at least once. I wouldn't mind watching this one again.

First, big good things. It's one of those dramas with a big dose of comedic segments, similar in tone to Fried Green Tomatoes. While watching it, I often found myself thinking of Mississippi Burning, because the movies are nothing alike. They're both dealing with racism and murder in the South in the 1960s, and both have white primary characters, and that's about all they have in common; beyond that, everywhere Mississippi Burning failed, this movie succeeded.

I like that the black characters, although supporting cast, are actually characters, not just sheep-like props. They have motivations and feelings, they take action, they stage protests -- they're people. I like that the "dramatic" portion of the movie has a realistic ending, not a neatly tied-up happy one. The scene where David gets into the pool in memory of his brother while there's a mini-riot going on around him, although unrealistic and a bit overdone, is still very beautiful. Overall, I'd say that Antonio Banderas did a good job at his first time directing.
I also like the sort of play in the title. The officially crazy person is not in Alabama for most of the movie, so you gotta think the "crazy in Alabama" is the supposedly sane people involved in the racist crap. And that's kind of driven home at the end, when they fill in the swimming pool to get around the segregation order, and Willie announces "That's stupid."

Minor bad things: It is so painfully obvious that Lucille's black hair is a wig that it's actually VERY distracting. Melanie Griffith does not have black hair coloring. It's not even a matter of, say, her eyebrows not matching (Storm in X-Men, I'm looking at you), because they do, but she simply doesn't have the skintone. It's just very obvious looking at her that this is not this woman's real hair.
Second, anachronisms. Especially the women on the jury in Lucille's trial. In the 1960s in Alabama, the ACLU was suing to end the exclusion of women from juries. I don't know exactly what year that went through, but even if it was before 1965, somehow I'm thinking that in Alabama they weren't going to put four or more women on a murder trial jury. Delicate flowers of white womanhood and all that southern crap, ya know?
Third, as much as I enjoyed the judge's sentence, this is why we now (unfortunately) have minimum sentencing. I enjoyed it anyway.

Finally, minor good things.
Fanny Flagg (writer of Fried Green Tomatoes) cameo as the roadside dinner waitress. Cool.
Meat Loaf as the evil sheriff, scarily good job on that. I forgot I was watching my favorite singer (which is a good thing, or then I'd RTOT to the MST3K "Meat Loaf: Texas Ranger" bit, and I'd be done.)

And remember, kids. If the lawnmower gets jammed, make sure it is completely off and not moving before you try to fix it.

---

I have to make on off-topic aside, though. Watching movies like this makes me really pisses off at the way the civil rights movement was taught to me in schools. This movie took place in 1965, during the peak of the movement and they repeatedly mention "what happened in Selma". One, I had to look up what happened in Selma (Bloody Sunday) because I had no freakin' idea.
Two, that's a mere 13 years before I was born. And I'm now old enough that that doesn't seem very long. Where the HELL did my teacher's get off teaching the problems of just 20ish years earlier, events they were old enough to clearly remember as recent, as though it was ancient history and all solved now?

I especially remember what I was taught, and not taught, about Rosa Parks. Her motivation for refusing to give her up seat was usually presented as she was too "tired" *coughlazycough* after a day working at a department store, and my teachers usually portrayed her arrest as though it were a surprise to her. Excuse me, but this was an intelligent black woman who had lived her whole life in the South. She knew exactly what was going to happen if she refused to give up her seat. In fact, she was warned that the police would be called if she didn't move. This was not a surprise, it was not an accident, she was not too physically tired/lazy/stupid/whatever. This was a conscious act of resistance. Furthermore, my classes NEVER mentioned that at the time, Rosa was the secretary of the Montgomery NAACP, and very active in women's and minority rights. No, instead she was portrayed as a weak, perhaps even doddering, old lady. (She was 42! Since when is 42 elderly?)

OK, that's my little ranty addendum for the day.

You know what?

I like Neil Gaiman's work after all. I just finished Anansi Boys, and that was really good. Although I think I scared the cats in a few places by giggling. I really like an author who can inject a little bit of humor into the dramatic moments; it heightens the effect.

So, Gaiman fans, what do you think I should read next? What's your favorite, and why (without spoilers)?

While I'm at it, what are your favorite Terry Pratchett's? I like his work in general, but some are better than others and there's a lot out there.

Batman Begins (Contains Spoilers)

I love Netflix. I really do. I enjoyed The Dark Knight so much, I decided to borrow Batman Begins and see how it was. I knew it wouldn't be as good, but I wanted to see how it was.

It wasn't as good. But, I would say it is an above average movie. Granted, I don't think very highly of average. So, let me put it a different way. I thought it was a fun way to spend a few hours, and I could probably be talked into doing it again with a friend, but I don't feel a need to own the movie.

Before I go into some more details, let me lay a few things out on the table so you know where I'm coming from.
1) I actually didn't realize that The Dark Knight was a sequel when I saw it. I knew it didn't have anything to do with the 1990s Batman franchise, and I'd forgotten that Batman Begins existed. The Dark Knight actually works just fine as a stand alone in-media-res kinda thing. Might work better, as a matter of fact. I loved the Scarecrow cameo (especially the "I don't need help." "That's not my diagnosis" joke) when I thought it was just flavor, but it seems kind of lame when I know this was a major villain of the previous movie.
2) I'm not really a diehard fan of any particular Batman incarnation; more a casual fan of the mythos. I loved the early 1990s cartoon, thought the 1989 Batman and sequel Batman Returns were pretty good (then found Christian Slater in tights to be strangely disappointing and yet the only good thing about Batman Forever, and I'd rather just not talk about Batman and Robin). Oh, and I hate Frank Miller. But in general, I'm not terribly attached to any particular version.
3) I'm an engineer. So your movie either has to keep me interested enough to keep my disbelief suspended, or technically sound enough not to be going "yeah, right, here's the 97 ways that won't physically work" if that fails. (And yes, it is completely possible to keep me suspending my disbelief. 30 million sonar-emitting cell phones, sure I'll buy that in the theater even though in my normal life I'm pretty sure that a cell phone can't emit that high of a frequency, and I know the microphone simply isn't capable of picking it up.)

So, that's on the table now. Let's get the bad parts out of the way first.

1) Inconsistent ability levels. I find it really charming to see a hero's first awkward heroing moments, if it's done well. Mask of Zorro, when Antonio Banderas puts on the scarf and wrecks havok on the troop barracks with a constant look of "Oh crap, I'm gonna die!" on his face: pure gold. This movie, not so good. One moment Bruce is kicking the collective ass of several hundred ninjas, the next he's tumbling across the floor with no idea which way is up. Or, my favorite example of ability-level schizophrenia: amazing bad-ass League of the Shadows ninja is standing watch outside burning Wayne Mansion, and is knocked out by Alfred. Alfred. When Alfred Pennyworth hands your ass to you, it's time to turn in your ninja license. (Especially since you know he'd politely say in that wonderful accent: "Pardon me, sir, but I believe this ass belongs to you.")

2) Women as props. Did anyone else notice that Bruce's mom didn't even get a speaking line? (I did notice in The Dark Knight that Gordon's daughter got neither a name, a line, nor a face shot [but she did get a confirmation that her father loves her brother more], and that Barbara Gordon was demoted from Batgirl to stay-at-home Mom.) And the movie makers seem to spend Rachel's portion of Batman Begins trying to show they're not sexist and she's not Mary Jane Watson. "Look, no, I'm a DA and I carry a taser! I'll even use it on the secondary villain! I'm not a load! I'm not Mary Jane! Really!" And what was the deal with her being near unconscious immediately after being drugged by the Scarecrow, so she has to be carried by men, and then awake and alert and jittery as hell in the Batmobile? Prop. Rachel was really a wasted character between the two movies. She had a lot more potential than was ever used.

3) What a waste of a good villain. I like the Scarecrow, or more accurately the idea of the Scarecrow. He's got a lot of potential for really good cerebral stories. Now, I will admit there's a major problem with bringing the character to movies. That costume. In comics, usually (but not always) in the cartoon you could pull it off, but in live action, no. It's just a simple fact: if someone were to come up to you dressed in a scarecrow costume, would you think "terror", or would you think "doof"? Doofy, all the way. No exception here. On top of that, he's just not competent as a villain. He never quite decides how sane functional he is, doesn't actually do all that much, and ends up getting his butt handed to him by Rachel. With "fear" being such a major part of the first half of the movie, I really thought we were going to get into some issues and deep Scarecrow-y goodness, and no, not really.

4) I don't kill. Directly. You know, in line of sight. This is where my suspension of disbelief started to precipitate, I think. Our hero doesn't want to kill bad guys, but he will drives over the passanger compartment of an occupied vehicle with his personal tank and flip pursuing vehicles at speeds over 60 mph. People don't usually survive those things; it's certainly not a sure deal. The Dark Knight addressed some of this head on, the 'you won't kill me even to stop me, and in the meantime how many people have died because of me' thing with the Joker, but in Batman Begins we just don't talk about it.

5) The final great villainous plan, vs. physics. I'll admit, I wasn't on the edge of my seat during the edge-of-your-seat battle. Instead, I'm thinking OK, we've got a weapon that vaporizes contained water. What makes up 60% of the human body? Ew, squishy. No, no squishy. Instead we're blowing up pipes and sending a huge pressure spike into the "main water hub". And the whole time, I'm thinking "Dayum, don't you people have any pressure relief valves in that system?" I can't say for certain that this wouldn't work, but at the same time I'm also thinking that every single pipe segment that explodes is a huge pressure relief. It's really hard to build up large amounts of pressure in an open system. Oh, and someone needs to tell Batman that momentum exists. So, if you don't want a train to reach the main station under Wayne Tower, it's probably wise to NOT put it irrevocably at full throttle and then blow the bridge immediately in front of the building so that the train arrives in the basement instead of 10 stories above ground. But I will admit, that set-up and collision had some awesome effects.

6) The Batman Voice: ur doin it rong. Remember I said about The Dark Knight that The Voice made me want to giggle every time? I'd imagine Batman ordering a pizza with pepperoni and extra cheese and a side of crazy bread, and I'd just want to lose it? He didn't have the voice down yet in Batman Begins. This time I just wanted to offer him a Sucrets.

7) Economic warfare as a weapon to reform a society that is overwhelmed with crime. ... Do you guys really need me to unpack the problem with this one? I just don't see where making people more desperate is going to help things. And yet if the intent was to destroy the society as a whole, history shows that economic hardship is a fertilizer for crime. I don't see any way this would ever do anything except make things worse.

8) 'Secret Identity', Bruce. What, ya need a dictionary? You know, most heros agonize for two or three movies minimum before hesitantly telling their absolute dearest love their true identity. Bruce just kinda drops it to the girl he has a crush on. Oh, and Bruce? That bit from Rachel at the end, about how the man she loves never came back but maybe when Gotham no longer needs Batman he will? That's a blow off. That's a "you better shape up fast, or I'm finding someone else." Which is exactly what she did in The Dark Knight. Don't say she didn't warn ya. I never knew what she saw in you to begin with, except nostalgia.

9) And finally, did anyone else find Thomas Wayne's great contributions to society a little... creepy? I think it's the Wayne Tower as the central hub of everything. Train, water works, center of the city... "I did all these nice things for you, Gotham, and I don't want you to forget that now I own the city's heart and soul." Combined with the completely saintlike portrayal and near hero-worship, and waah. *shudders*

OK, that's kind of a long list, but most of it's fairly minor stuff. Oh, I should also mention that I really don't care for the new Batmobile. Oh, it's certainly practical (except for the constant drastic shifting of the driver's position. Is there a reason we can't aim the guns while sitting up?), but it has no style. I prefer the sleek lines of the older versions.

All rightie, the good stuff:

Lucius Fox. OMG, Lucius Fox! I want to be Lucius Fox when I grow up. Lucius Fox is the new Q. Older engineers tell me that when they were kids, you could tell who was going to grow up to be an engineer. Most boys wanted to be James Bond; engineer boys wanted to be Q. Same thing. Lucius is the one to be. He gets to design all the cool toys and play with them all he wants, but no one is trying to kill him. I love Lucius. (And Morgan Freeman is totally sexy. Got that foxy grandpa thing going. Which is good; I needed a new one after learning of Sean Connery's violent attitude against women. [BTW, the comment at the end of the interview about no complaints from his wife? Not true anymore now that she's his ex.])

Dude, I totally want some of that memory cloth. I don't know what I'd even do with it, but it is AWESOME.

And I loved watching Bruce putting together his Batman gear. I actually squealed when he was making his Bat-shuriken on the grinder. Because dude, he was making bat-shaped shuriken on a grinder!

Oh yes, and the explosions. The effects in general, really. This is the first action movie I've watched since getting a home theater system, even a little one. Oooh. Let me just melt into that for a while. I'm watching ninjas go flying and hearing stuff from behind me. Nice.

Finally, the guy who plays Dr. Crane is kinda sexy. Sort of a poor man's Johnny Depp.

So yeah, basically, I'm into the movie for the toys. :)

The Dark Knight (Contains Spoilers)

I took the afternoon off to pamper myself, and one of the things I did was take in an early showing of The Dark Knight. Wow, that movie is incredible!

Seriously, I think that's one of the best and best made movies I've seen in a long, long time. Both the writing and the visuals are great, and that is really rare. The writing is tight. Great plot development (well, I did think turning every cell phone in Gotham into a sonar-emitting microphone was BS, but I can forgive one.) Characterizations were wonderfully human. (I have no idea how a comic fan would view them, but I thought they all came across as believable people, while still keeping Batman and the Joker Larger Than Life.) Pacing is excellent; no wasted time but it's not rushed either.
I have to take an aside for the Batman voice, though. Every time Batman, as Batman, talked, I had to squelch giggles. As I saw someone somewhere say, it's because nothing normal could ever be said in that voice. He would talk, and I'd imagine that voice ordering a pizza with pepperoni and extra cheese and a side of crazy bread, and I'd want to lose it. Come on, admit it. Imagine that voice saying "crazy bread", and tell me you don't want to laugh your ass off.
The effects were amazing. From the trailer, I was afraid that the computer effects would pop out badly. They only did in a few spots, and no more than is inevitable with this level of use. The Two-Face effect was absolutely incredible. Before I looked it up, I would have laid money that the effect was done with animatronics instead of CGI, which I have to admit means the eye in particular is far too inorganic and hard looking, and the teeth also have a bit of that. But the blend with the real half of his face is amazing.
I feel I should also address the idiot who thought that it was all pro-Bush and basically a propoganda film (except he thought that was a positive). Yeah, I can see where you might get that... if you only watch half of it. It's also helps if you completely disengage your brain for that whole last hour. Did we miss the "no killing" part, Batman's all important rule that leads to major plot points? 'Cause last I checked, Bush was directly responsible for the deaths of, oh, over 100,000 people. Or Batman declaring at the end that he's not a hero? 'Cause you'll never hear Bush do that. How about the convicts turning out to be decent people, or the real life hardship leading Ramirez (one of the bad cops) to become a 'terrorist'? (Ha! If we had Universal Single Payer Health Care, this movie would have been totally different. Well, not really, but it's fun to say.)
There's both liberal and conservative points in here. It might lean a little conservatively, but I wouldn't call it a propoganda film. (300, THAT was a propoganda film.)
That does remind me, though; I also did love the Joker calling his ferry scenario a "social experiment". I bet just about everyone's seen that recent New York Times article on trolling, but if you haven't (or if you're just wondering where I'm going with this), it's common for sociopaths to use that as an excuse when they screw with people just because they can. From trolling scenarios so extreme that they literally destroy families, to real life crimes, that excuse has been used.
And one last thing I really appreciated: the movie was PG-13. That could have been as much of a bloodbath as they wanted it to be, so I really appreciate that there wasn't gore. (Or gratuitous sex, for that matter, but it's the violence I'm concerned about today.) It also proves that you don't have to be gross to be dark, serious, even "gritty" for those who find that a positive descriptor.
I've totally got to buy this when it comes out on DVD.
That "The Day The Earth Stood Still" remake also looks like it might have something going ... although with that many differences, can you really call it a remake?
I've seen the original, and one thing that pisses me off is people saying "Oh, that's such a great passivist movie." That is not a passivist movie! It's blatantly in support of the Cold War arms race. The message of the film is that the only way to ensure peace is to make sure that everyone can be blown off the face of the universe. And remember that when it was made, people were iffy about that astronomical miltary spending thing that was starting up. (See, that's what a propoganda film looks like.)
I'm thinking "if the Earth dies, you die. If you die, the Earth survives" is more to build a movie on.
One last thing that occurred to me, though. Movie theater corporate chains are always wondering why movie attendance is going down. They don't like to admit the obvious: high costs, crappy movies. But here's another thing. It is now completely possible to get better quality viewing in the home than in the theater. I personally can't do it (yet), but with a large screen HDTV and a good quality home theater system, a person could. I'm sitting there in the theater watching, and some of the scenes were we're walking across big white rooms make all the scratches and dust on the film strip really obvious.
I'm thinking its time for theaters to upgrade to some sort of digital projection system. I bet some have, but it'd be nice if the local ones joined in.

Movie Review: 40-Year-Old Virgin

I am muchly enjoying the Netflix subscription, and it's giving me the chance to see movies I'm vaguely interested in seeing but have never gone out of my way for. Now, when The 40-Year-Old Virgin was in theaters, my reaction to trailers was basically summarized by a loud groan. But in the last year or so, some friends told me "No, it's not at all what you're thinking. It's actually a pretty good movie; I think you'd like it."

So, I gave it a try. Now, the geek in me is not offended. When you get right down to it, the movie's message is that you gotta be yourself, and when "normal" people try to change you, you'll just make an idiot of yourself if you follow their advice. Oh, and they're not so normal and emulation-worthy anyway. I probably would have liked it more if not for two things:
1) I'm a woman.
2) I'm a writer.

I understand that the premise of the movie, 3 "normal" guys trying to get their virgin kinda-friend laid by any means, basically dictates the objectification of women, in those segments. But, it's not very well balanced out in the "real relationship" segments. I think this movie could be done in a less offensive way, putting more effort into showing the 3 'normal' guys as REALLY messed up in their attitudes towards women. Maybe if we showed some positive women. Like, plural? (Bechdel's law is, as usual, totally in the toilet.)

I think part of the problem is that Hollywood was tripping over its own messed up ideas of sexuality that it tries to push down our throats. For one, I refuse to believe that sex on the first date is normative. Most of my female friends want to at least be reasonably sure their new beau is not Jack the Ripper, and you really can't be sure of that after two hours. I know that having your boyfriend of 3 1/2 weeks take your teenage daughter to the birth control clinic is not normal, nor is "I love you, let's get married" less than two months in! This movie really needed a more realistic and healthy attitude towards sex, and relationships, and especially towards women, and for whatever reason the makers couldn't bring themselves to do that.

That nicely leads into my second problem with the movie: People just don't act like that. I don't even know where to start. Just picking something at random, the store they work in apparently changed its name from Prohibited Harrassment R Us. One call to corporate HR would clear this place out. Andy is far too intelligent to let someone too drunk to stand, actually drive. I spent half the movie thinking "why didn't they just hire a prostitute", and then a good chunk of the second going "OK, now what if you hire a real prostitute instead of a movie prostitute?" What guy is going to say "I cheat because I'm insecure"? Honestly, who even has that kind of insight into themselves? I don't really see a woman freaking out upon finding out her boyfriend has a huge collection of porn; I personally half expect it in this day and age. And I'm just hitting some random points. I lost count of how many times I said "No one talks like that" or "No one acts like that." It's like watching a bunch of hand puppets try to act out a sex comedy.

Oh, and it is officially the winner for weirdest ending segment I have yet seen. And I saw the 2003 Zatoichi remake with the Japanese Riverdance bit out of nowhere, just to put that in perspective.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

The magic of Netflix brought me "Breakfast at Tiffany's" this week. So, my opinion of this great classic?

It really sucks. A lot. So what exactly is the message here? Everyone's an asshole, so fall in love with the slightly abusive guy who thinks he owns you -- and likes to tell you so. So this is the quintessential Audrey Hepburn, huh? Can't say I'm impressed. But, that's nothing compared to my new hatred for Mickey Rooney. :P

A Harry Potter Observation

First, let me lay out an assumption. Line up all the Harry Potter books in order. It is a fact that the final length of the first was dictated by editorial decree (i.e. Rowling was forced to cut it down to have it published.) There is a large increase length at book 4, without an equivalent increase in actual significant content. Therefore, I'm going to assume that, with book 4, the editor was no longer exercising significant creative control over the content.

Now, with that established, let's look at racism in Harry Potter. Not what the books are supposedly about or the message you're beaten around the head with, but what is actually found in the books themselves.
Book 1: Racists are jerks. So are snobs.
Book 2: Racism is The Huge Evil! Racism causes death and destruction and horrible horrible things! On top of that, slavery is absolutely wrong and slaves are miserable.
Book 3: You shouldn't judge people without hearing their side, or make assumptions just because of their bloodlines. Also, chronically ill people have to put up with a lot of crap and discrimination on top of their illness.

Book 4: French people are worthless and pathetic. Slavic people are walking bricks. Foreigners and non-English speakers in general can be a big pain in the butt. Slavery's actually a good thing in most cases, and people who are traditionally slaves like it better that way, even if they have the rare bad owner. Only nutters in that group want freedom, but we guess they can be OK as long as they know their place. [Anyone remember Dobby asking for less pay than Dumbledore offered? Because, you know, he knows his place.] In any event, they're happiest when they're doing menial labor.

Hmmm.... I don't think this says good things about Ms. Rowling.

How the heck did that happen?

Now that I've finished the first draft of Complications From Lycanthropy, I'm going back to do revisions on Pack Mentality. (It actually doesn't need nearly the rewrite I feared it would at the end of October, when I finished it.)

One of the things I've done is to read back through it and make note of the changes I want to make in each chapter. As part of that, I also made out a timeline of what events happen when, so I can get weather and stuff reasonable and as a general guide. That's not too hard when the characters' lives revolve around the full moon, so most of the events are nicely laid out in relation to one.

Now, one of my frustrations when first writing this is that it's supposed to be following Remus during the first half of Half-Blood Prince, between when Harry saw him in July and then again in December. Only when I'd laid out my brainstorming of how much time happened between events, it just wouldn't squish in there. So I decided screw it, I wasn't going to sacrifice the integrity of my story to squeeze into a canon I didn't particularly like anyway, and just wrote it as it needed to be written.

Now that I've gone back and written out the actual timeline, it drops in perfectly. It starts August 28 and ends a couple of weeks before Christmas. I have no idea how the hell that happened, but it works.

I also am again convinced that Rowling did not consult a lunar calendar in regards to her werewolf character's appearances.

Yay! It's finished!

Finally finished the first draft of Complications From Lycanthropy. Naturally, it's very much a first draft -- a terrible mess that will bear hardly any resemblance at all to draft 2. Now I'm very glad I didn't let many people read draft 1. But I've got all the critical flashbacks well laid out now, and even though the frame story will drastically change, I do have the most important incidents there as well. Go me!

Since the last chunk is all hand-written in notebooks, my plan from here is to spend my usual writing time typing it up, and then switching over to Pack Mentality and starting the first major revision on that story. Not only does that give Complications time to rest, but events in the two stories are shared and influence each other, so having the first draft of Complications done gives me a better idea of how some things should go in Pack Mentality.

It's not only over, it's buried.

When I first heard of a fourth Indiana Jones movie, I was suspicious but open minded.

Then I rewatched Raiders of the Lost Ark, and was convinced it would never work. Harrison Ford went and got really old. The man looks about half dead now. There is absolutely no way in hell he is going to be able to convincingly pull off that sort of stuff.

Then I watched the Rifftrack of Firewall, his 2006 "action thriller". There's a reason "action thriller" is in quotation marks. I'm now convinced there's no way in heaven, earth, and all seven hells that Harrison Ford could convincingly pull this off.

This morning, I just found out the title of number 4. "Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."

*blinkblink*

Ah, so I see we decided to go back to the crack smoking of Temple of Doom instead of going with the formula that actually worked, too. *headdesk*

I think the most polite we could do right now is just look away and pretend this never happened.

Eternally 15 years away...

I've got a little quote for you, and I want you to guess when it was written:

"You may think that undue stress is being laid upon this driving force in her, upon this business ability. But remember that this was fifteen years or more ago, before women had invaded the world of business by the thousands, to take their place, side by side, salary for salary, with men."

Go ahead, guess when that was written. I'll wait. When was 15 years ago before women had invaded the workforce?

... waiting...

1917! Nineteen hundred and effin' seventeen!

*snarls* I'm sick of being lied to and jerked around about women's history.
Why wasn't I taught about Nellie Bly as a child? Why wasn't I told that women journalists were normal in the late 19th century?
Why wasn't I told about the roll of women war workers in bringing about American women's suffrage? Why wasn't I told there WERE woman workers during WWI. Rosie the Riveter was nothing new; she was part of a very long tradition.
In fact, why wasn't I told that since the 1920s if not before, most women have worked at some point in their life. Yes, even during the 1950s.
What else is being hidden back there? I want to know, dammit! I want every 11-year-old girl in this country to know!

You find some really scary/shocking/annoying stuff when you start reading primary sources. >:P

Somewhat different rant, I am really truly sick of the "romantic stalker" storyline. Stalking is not romantic. Ever. It's creepy and stalkers should be forced to have regular talks with Mr. Police Man about why it is not appropriate behavior. And a shrink would be good too.
And the storyline itself is un-freakin'-believably insulting. "Women don't really know what's best for them or what they want. Here, this terribly creepy man knows what you want better than you do. Give up your free will and self-determination and give in to him. He won't go away until you do." And this is supposed to be romantic? Who do I need to strangle?

And off of that, I'm really sick of certain men trying to tell me what women want and what women think. What the hell makes them think that they are more qualified than me on this topic? Last I checked, I'm the one with boobs!

I need to knit me one of these for moments like this, I think. I wonder what ever happened to the stuffed rat creature I used to keep around for when I needed to smack something around and shout "stupid STUPID rat creature!"

Movie: Beowulf

Rifftrax has one up for Beowulf, so we watched that movie this weekend.
Before starting, I remarked that the last thing I'd heard about this movie was "So, Beowulf's coming out this weekend," and then no one ever spoke of it again. I should have taken this as a warning. I have a new concept of hell thanks to this movie. When you go to hell, before they decide which level to send you to, they put you in holding in a Wal-Mart, and every television in that Wal-mart -- everything in electronics, all the advertising TVs, all of it -- is playing this movie. And none of them are synched to each other.

I was expecting 300 only with Danes. 300 was the funniest thing I've seen in years; I laughed my ass off. I mean, the rhino... and the spear... And the guy who just stands there as his head gets chopped off. Nooo! *snickers* And the ninja monkeys. It's just... hilarious. And there's an excellent Rifftrack on top of that. We're trying to figure out how to get a legit copy without actually giving any money to the original creators. Used or something.

Beowulf was... not funny. And not dramatic. And not very good at all. The Rifftrack couldn't even save this one.

So, Hollywood takes the oldest known writing in the English language, a great heroic epic, and shits on it. Beowulf isn't a hero; he's a lying, sex-crazed bastard who sold his soul for power. Which ended up killing a few hundred to a few thousand people. Because God knows that Hollywood hasn't put out enough anti-heroes over the years. *eye roll*

If they were going for a "winners write the history books" theme, they failed. Terribly. Honestly, if they wanted to do that, they needed a story that everyone in their audience would recognize. Robin Hood or King Arthur or something. It doesn't have to be something that everyone knows by heart (although that would be preferable), but the audience needs to be able to go "wait, you're doing it wrong."

I was also not expecting it to be all CGI. I knew it had been heavily CGI'd, which I dislike to begin with, but all... That reduced by half the amount of seriousness I could even give it. I felt like I was watching a drama acted out by Shrek extras. The animation was bad -- and when I say that, please understand that I don't mean the modeling or the texturing, I mean that actual movement. Characters don't even have skeletons, much less a full muscular-skeletal system. And Grendel's mother walks like Futura (the robot) from Metropolis -- I mean the 1926 movie Metropolis. And she kept doing that comic-book real-women-fall-over-when-they-try-to-stand-this way hip cocked farther to the side than is anatomically possible thing. Made me want to strangle someone.

Actually, the overall sexism in the movie made me want to strangle someone. I was expecting this one to fail Bechdel's law, because the source material only had two women -- and that's if you count Grendel's mother as a woman.
But no, the makers added women for the express purpose of denigrating them. Because sexual harassment is funny, you see.
On top of that, we stripped Grendel's mother of almost all of her power. In the source, she's the final boss of the game as far as Hrothgar's people are concerned. You thought Grendel was a problem; pff, try this. In this movie, she's been reduced to a baby making machine. She kills a few guys off camera, but mostly she sleeps with kings and then throws her kids at them later. Thank you so much, movie.

Oh, and thank you too for throwing the nudity double-standard right in my face. I really didn't want to see Angelina Jolie's digitally-created crouch right in the middle of my screen, but it's exceptionally insulting after all the forced efforts to hide Beowulf's batch in the battle with Grendel. Look, either give him 300-style shorts, or just show it. None of this kitchsy crap. The movie's already R-rated anyway...
*shoulder tap*

This movie is PG-13? THIS movie is PG-13?! WTF is wrong with our ratings board?!?! I found a forum discussion afterwards talking about this movie, and there were adults who had to walk out/turn it off 10 minutes in because they couldn't take all the gore. Add on the denigration of women and full nudity, and this should've been a no-brainer R. But what's even more infuriating is that you know -- you know -- that if they'd shown Beowulf's schlong, it would have booted them right into an R, maybe an NC-17.
So, let's check this. Hyper violence bloodbaths, OK. Full female nudity, OK. Full male nudity, absolutely no way!

Because a penis is far more damaging to a kid than any amount of violence, but it doesn't cause any harm or long-term effect to reduce women to collections of body parts that exist solely for the purpose of sex.

If you haven't seen the documentary This Movie Has Not Been Rated, you should go do that. It nicely talks about the absurdity of the American movie ratings board. Although do be forewarned that it contains the sex scenes that were cut out of other movies to avoid an NC-17.

And Beowulf? Sucks. Not even the Rifftrax helps.

Draco In Leather Pants

It's not what you think. ^_~

TV Tropes has an entry called "Draco in Leather Pants", which describes the phenomenon in which fans embrace a character that's supposed to be unlovable, perhaps downplaying their (often glaringly obvious by design) faults to do so. TV Tropes has various theories on this (which leads me to remark that the site has an overall attitude I don't care for, BTW), but they don't include one that I think contributes to at least some cases:

Poor original writing.

Draco's a good example of this, especially when Rowling complains about his following because "he's not a nice man."
I'd say most of the Draco fandom was established sometime during books 1 thru 5. Looking at those alone, what do we see of Draco? Yes, he's a mean kid. He's a thorn in our heroes' side, but not a real villain.
We've seen him with his father twice. The first time Lucius was nitpicking just about everything he did (Book 2); the second Lucius was basically ignoring him so that he could heckle Arthur Weasley, but had bought him the best tickets to the sporting event of the year (book 4).
We've seen him with his mother once (book 4), and she was basically looking down at everything and annoyed to be there.

A passive reader will just take Rowling's "he's mean" and leave it. But fandoms aren't made of passive readers. So instead, let's get into this kid's head for a minute and run around. What do we find in here?
Well, we find a kid from a cold, critical, and terribly racist family. He's spoiled materially, but he doesn't get a lot of affection. Like all kids, he wants his family's approval on at least some level. He's been completely sheltered from the race his father despises, and so has no basis for comparison other than what he's been taught. He doesn't have any real friends. Oh, he has plenty of hangers-on, but on some level you gotta figure even he knows it's because of his family's money and power.
What you've got here is a sad, pathetic, insecure, lonely little boy lashing out in a desperate attempt to get someone to actually give a damn about him. Gosh, I wanna go huggle him now. I'm not going to hate a kid like that. I'm going to hate his actions, and I'm going to think he's an annoying little prick, but as a human being he is a sympathetic character if you bother to look.

If Rowling didn't want that, she did a poor job of thinking out the character.

Soylent Green is made from fail!

One of the current favorite "Global warming isn't happening" BSes right now is that "30 years ago, scientists thought believed the world was getting colder. They don't know either way."

Interestingly, I watched the 1973 "classic" Soylent Green today. You know what one of the major factors of the long-term world-wide food shortage was, alluded to several times throughout the movie? "Greenhouse effect." Global warming drastically changing the worldwide climate in a short time, decimating ecological systems already damaged by wide-scale pollution.
1973, guys.
So much for "everyone thought."

Actually, less than 10% of the scientific papers at that time supported global cooling. But then, as more recently, the media jumped on the one that isn't the fault of the people who pay for commercials. [This is why I do not pay attention to the American news media. For 20 years, every peer-reviewed scientific paper supported global warming, and in the same period 51% of mass media accounts questioned or denied its existence. Either the journalists involved are liars, or they couldn't ID a legit source to save their souls. Either way, they're worse than worthless.]

You know, some days the only reason I'm not a conspiracy theorist is because human beings just can't plan that well.

Anyway, Soylent Green being made from fail. Major problems in this "sci fi" movie:
1) Little if any effort into reasonable future prediction.
2) Minimal tension in the plot, and an "insanity inducing revelation" that's actually rather tame.

First and foremost, how does this movie really feel about women? 1973, the Equal Rights Amendment was a hot topic in America. Women's rights were a major topic of debate, and feminism had already been turned into a bad word, and probably declared passe. [I suspect that "post-feminism" rhetoric started in 1905. I have actually seen it in a work from 1963.] The movie is set in 2022, about 50 years after the movie was actually made. So how did the director predict the advancement of women in 50 years after this landmark and controversial moment?

He didn't. To the contrary, he reduced women to a level of chattel that hasn't been seen since... Ever. Maybe in ancient Athens, if you squint. Women are literally reduced to being furniture; they are called that in the movie. When they get speaking lines. The women we see without speaking lines mostly get shot as innocent bystanders. We are firmly in 100% male fantasy territory here.

I suppose this shouldn't be so surprising, though, since this movie set 50 years in the future looked like it was taking place 50 years in the past, in post-WWI Germany. Babushkas and canvas aprons are the latest fashion for anyone not rich or on the police force. Technology had made no advancements, at all. There were no computers, which by 1973 was obviously the way the future was going; we see one video game, which is pretty blatantly a 1973 arcade game with a niced-up case. Even making terribly generous allowances for the global screw-ups to have unrealistically halted technology in its tracks, it looks as though that happened in 1965 in this alternate word. I'd be more forgiving of "oh, it's our old future" type errors than just not doing anything at all. Pure laziness.

So if you're expecting a sci-fi movie, you're going to be really disappointed. It's actually a cop movie, with Scooby Snacks. As far as world building and special effects go, Soylent Green makes Logan's Run look like The Matrix. It's that bad.

OK, so what about the plot? Does that pull it out?
Um, no. We all know the twist, right? "Soylent green is people!" [Who in God's name ever decided to point a camera at Charleton Heston? *shakes head*] Well, knowing that, there's no point in watching. Honestly, I don't think there was a lot of point if you didn't know that going in. I mean, I go into this thinking "OK, so we're rounding up old and poor people and political prisoners and people who didn't vote for the winning party, and killing them, and making them into Soylent Green, right?"

Um... No, not really.

Well, we're at least "disappearing" and brutally murdering them to make this stuff, right?
Well, no.

Concentration camps?
Um... Well, actually we just take people who died on their own, and reduce the bodies to basic proteins in snack cracker form.

So, no murders to make this stuff? No vast bloody conspiracies? No inhumane treatment?
No, that stuff doesn't really have a good return on investment.

Yes, this is the revelation that drives two characters insane: We take already dead bodies, and we process the living hell out of them, and we sell them as Scooby snacks.

... Maybe I'm really morbid, or maybe I'm practical to an unhealthy degree, but this doesn't quite horrify me so much. I'm not saying I want my Cheez-Its to be made out of someone's dead grandma, mind. But we've got a world here were virtually all sources of food have been decimated. Farms are locked up like Fort Knox and yet produce at such a low rate that a misshapen stalk of celery, two small apples, and a head of lettuce will cost you $220. Even the ocean environment has been destroyed so that plankton harvesting and aquaculture are no longer viable. Why toss away a hundred pounds of protein that isn't being used any more, when it is the difference between life and death for another living human being? It's not like people are being killed to produce the stuff. No murder = no horror.

I almost think the writer realized at the last second that his story had no punch, but had no time to rewrite. So instead he has the post-revelation Heston shout "Next they'll be breeding us like cattle."

Um... Again, no, I'm not seeing it. Humans are a terribly inefficient protein source. On the other hand, chickens (the most efficient food animal) produce a pound of meat for every two pounds of feed. Even if only highly adaptive animals like humans have survived, we're still going to have our equally adaptive rats and cockroaches. So, instead of breeding humans for meet, and given the movie establishes a 50% unemployment rate, I foresee gathering up all the "surplus population", chopping them up, and using them to establish a supply of chickens (or rats, or roaches, or whatever) at a sustainable level to support the now significantly smaller human population. Unless maybe we do the "Modest Proposal" thing and keep it to chomping babies, who haven't consumed much more than has been put into them, and we could get some good work out of their pregnant mothers in the meantime.