Why the first 19 seconds of the new Star Wars trailer are better than Episodes I-III combined.
Yesterday I talked about what bugged me about the new trailer but today I want to talk about what I loved in it. The opening pan shot with the speeder traveling past a wrecked X-Wing and Star Destroyer was freaking awesome but more importantly showed a major flaw in Lucas’s last three excretions Episodes I-III. (Universe image from our movie t shirt category)
One of the great missed opportunities in the prequel series was actually showing the consequences of a galaxy wide war between the Separatists and the Republic. You know, wrecked buildings from orbital bombardments, hungry refugees desperate for a crust of bread, the steady decline of the infrastructure as more and more resources are diverted into this all encompassing war. However instead life on Couruscant continues as always with everyone living in luxury and enjoying all the food and high brow culture the French aristocracy held onto prior to the Revolution. At no point does it even seem like anyone is remotely inconvenienced by all the robots and clones dying in space.
However by showing the probably result of 30 years of fighting between the Rebellion and the remnants of the Empire the trailer made it look very much like they are going to keep the next film as gritty as possible, something I relish. Remember when Luke met Han in the seediest bar in the universe or how the Rebellion had to freeze their gonads (or what passes for gonads on aliens) on Hoth due to lack or resources? It’s that sort of struggle that makes a movie great, not watching sperm ballet in a lavish box seat. Well done thus far.
the Infamous Dave Inman
Some thoughts on the new Star Wars trailer
I, like 99.999% of the nerd world, recently saw the new Star Wars trailer and am very excited. I like where they are going with the guy from Attack the Block and loved the Mark Hamil voice over. I have my fingers crossed rigidly in hopes of a reboot that washes out both the hatred I feel for Lucas for Episodes I-III and the hatred I feel for JJ Abrams for the last two Star Trek train wrecks.
However, like I did with the first one there always has to something that bugs me about it and as much as I hate to say it in this case it’s Harrison Ford. Don’t get me wrong. I love Han Solo and thought his inclusion in this film as a veteran rogue giving advice to a new group of swashbucklers would be awesome. However the instead opted to stick him in with only the wrinkles on his face showing any sign that time has passed. He is even dressed exactly the same (you would think that sometime in the past 20 years he might have picked up a hat or found his old Def Leppard t-shirt. 
Chewbacca looks exactly the same and has the same crossbow. Don’t Wookies get grey hair at some point? There was a lot of grey on Itchy from the Star Wars Holiday Special. Sorry Disney. Lucas created it so it is still canon. Happy Life Day! Chewie image courtesy of our collection of Star Wars t-shirts). It looks like they are going to stick Han Solo in like he’s been smuggling “spice” since the Emperor died.
But really the problem is that his cameo felt as forced and awkward as a catheter made from a firehose. It felt like going to a wild 6 keg frat party at college and have your uncle show up and hang out. You are glad to see him but he just seems really out of place and kind of hampers your enjoyment. It just felt odd. Also what was up with his line “Chewie…we’re home”? Wasn’t he a general in the rebellion at the end of Jedi? Also wasn’t he supposed to marry Princess Leia? Was that the best line they could think of for him? Maybe if they wanted to ramp up the cheese factor.
Anyway regardless I am very excited and will write more on it soon. Thanks
the Infamous Dave Inman
Op Ed: Does the Joker want to Rape Batman?
Here’s Babs looking fit.
In the wake of the controversy of the variant cover of Batgirl #41, I have discovered many articles. One link lead to a headline posited by a (self-identified) feminist Twitter activist who’s name was blocked on the screen-captures. She said, “Show me the cover where Batman is the Victim of the Joker… Show me Batman helpless, stripped of all agency.” This was followed by several followers posting what they thought met that request. The only one that I thought came close to the Batgirl cover was one of Batman #674, showing Batman tied to a chair with a power drill being wielded threateningly by the (off-panel) Joker, in vaguely the direction of Batman’s genitals. This still doesn’t equal the Batgirl cover to me on a few levels: 1) Batman has agency, his facial expression is fierce there, defiant—He is still fighting. 2) The Joker is only implied and not shown, we are actually made to side with the Joker as the angle forces us the viewer to see things from the Joker’s perspective. 3) The Joker has never sexually assaulted the Batman—He has sexually assaulted Batgirl/ Barbara Gordon, in the pages of 1988’s “The Killing Joke”, which the cover in question was referring directly to. (For more Batgirl, Batman and the Joker, please redirect to our Batman Hoodie category.)
So to me, this all begs the question: Does the Joker want to rape Batman? We know next to nothing about the Joker other than that he’s a violent psychopath who is locked in a mutual obsession with the Caped Crusader. Even in the Joker’s own short-run series or when referred to by other villains, most notably his sidekick/ not exactly girlfriend Harley Quinn, he is oddly non-sexual, at least when immediate pain and power are not involved. And in the Killing Joke, he didn’t rape Barbara, and he didn’t know she was Batgirl, he just shot whoever answered the door and got lucky: it was Commissioner Gordon’s daughter, whom he then stripped naked while she bled out and took photographs of her to show to Jim later, in order to torture Jim, not to do anything with Barbara.
The Joker in films is often depicted as sadistic, delusional, deeply narcissistic and more than a little… Effeminate. The idea of the “Gay Serial Killer” is an unfortunate reminder of old prejudices we still see in cinema, most often in Film Nior, which Batman has it’s roots firmly in. In 2008’s “The Dark Knight” Heath Ledger won an Oscar© for playing the most infamous nemesis as a spooky, kooky, sometimes dressed-in-drag anarchist who tells Batman: “You complete me”, arguably the most quotable line from a romantic comedy in the 20th century.
Backing up for a second, the first cover in the thread that I mentioned wasn’t Batman and the Joker, but Batman and Harley—A female Joker who is less threatening than the real thing. She has Batman tied up on the floor, his bat-manhood shoved toward the viewer, and it’s still not about her threatening him, sexually or otherwise. It’s about making Harley Quinn a desirable object in the foreground for the assumed white-hetero-male demographic, and about making Batman a fetishized self-insert wish-fulfillment character. The viewer is supposed to say, “Yeah, I’d let her tie me up anytime. Crazy chicks are great in bed.” It’s not about Batman at all, and it’s not about him being threatened with sexual assault, because the person who commissioned the cover or who drew it decided, consciously or subconsciously that women either don’t or can’t be a sexual threat to men, at least not if the woman is hot enough.
But nobody is saying that Batman wants the Joker to tie him (or anyone else) up. Nobody ever saw Batman stripped naked, without his cowl and cape and armor, bleeding and violated and unconscious at the mercy of someone who was doing it in order to say… Emotionally harm Selina Kyle/ Catwoman. Batman has endured great horrors and losses, he’s that kind of Hero, he’s dark and he’s human and he comes from tragedy, but he’s not a woman. And yes, men can be, and unfortunately are raped and sexually assaulted, by both women (of all levels of attractiveness) and by other men. But women are sexually assaulted a great deal more often, and usually by men who are close to them—not strangers in alleyways with weapons. Women in comic books are harmed so often in order to get an emotional response from the Male hero that writer Gail Simone started a website about the trope: Women in Refrigerators.
Back to the Joker: it has been posited that during the death of Jason Todd, the Joker takes a sexual pleasure either from the brutality of Todd’s murder at his hands itself, or simply in molesting Todd’s unconscious/ dead body (off-panel) after the fact. Does the Joker get off on anyone’s pain, or does he get off because he knows he’s indirectly causing Batman trauma? Or because Todd was a pretty teenage boy in tights? Maybe all three. Also, on Batman: The Animated Series, especially in films such as “Mask of the Phantasm”, the Joker laughs hysterically, even euphorically whenever Batman causes him physical pain, even imminent death. This can be interpreted as more than just common madness—The Joker is aroused by Batman beating him, conquering him, physically overpowering him and having to give in to Batman’s darkest desire: to finally kill the Joker. There is undoubtedly something psycho-sexual there.
Not the face of an individual with healthy gender or sexual expression.
How do I answer my own question here? The Joker doesn’t much care for sex, and he gets off on power and abuse, regardless of whether there are sexual overtones or not. He may desire a sexual relationship with Batman, but it doesn’t come off as one where he wants to particularly assert himself. He is playing a game with Batman, and playing chicken with Death, hoping he can get the Dark Knight to go off the rails and break his one rule. There’s the same sexual tension between the Joker and Batman that someone with a car-crash fetish has when they don’t hit the breaks, or a storm-chaser goes through when getting too close to a level 5 twister: the Joker wants to lose himself in Batman, and in so doing, have Batman be lost as well. (Joker Poster – “Bats” can be found with our other Posters.)
In that case: nice try with those covers, but no cigar. Batman doesn’t lose anything from the Joker winning some of the time, because that is not representative of the relationship that they have as characters. Barbara Gordon was dealing with PTSD from her encounter with the Joker when I last read her, and rightfully so. I think that’s what the woman who had her Twitter handle but not her picture erased was trying to say: there is a double-standard in how female super heroes are treated vs. how male super heroes are treated in comics. You can’t show me a cover of Batman being reminded of that time the Joker took his power away—because that never happened to Batman. But it did happen to Batgirl, and in a Batman book.
Women in Comics: Bitch Planet
I can’t tell you how many girl crush #’s I’ve used to say that I love Kelly Sue DeConnick. But here I go again. Let me add gratuitously to the pile of praise heaped on to Image Comic’s intersectional feminist baby: Bitch Planet!
“What happens to Women Without Men?”
I’ve read the first 3 issues and it’s a self-aware Quentin Terantino-style retro women-in-prison exploitation series but set in the near future… In SPACE!!! (Terantino XXX and Girls in Prison from our extensive Movie T-shirts library.) The things that make BP so good are twofold: 1) Its use of diverse female characters to tell actual women’s stories of alienation, personal discovery and fighting the Patriarchy are as relevant as they are fun (and violent!). 2) After the first 2 issues setting up the setting and cast, each issue is using a special guest artist to highlight and tell a character’s personal story, interwoven into the larger narrative. This starts in issue #3, “The Secret History of Penny Rolle”, my personal favorite of the trio. In it, Big, bold and BAD Penny is taken from her loving home at a young age because her grandmother (and assumedly also mother) is a single, black, morbidly obese woman, which in this near-future dystopia is enough to make her considered “Non-Compliant” in the eyes of the state and nation: you don’t look like you should look or act like society wants you to act, you go to jail.
Girls and Women’s Tarantino XXX Tank Top – Cherry Bomb
Still, Penny is my hero because when forced to look through a magic-tech mirror (SPOILERS!) to see her most idealized self, she sees exactly who she is already: a big, angry, woman of color fighting to be free even in her cage. Because God don’t make no junk, and honey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
So, ladies, gentlemen, friends all across the gender spectrum, are you ready to party like it’s your last night before being shipped to Bitch Planet? Are you mad about the status quo? Are you ready to be Non-Compliant?
Insurgent Review
Or, good looking young white people against the world.
As it turns out I have a very good memory for movie plots. I tend to remember films very well and if I don’t just having someone describe a scene or a character is normally enough for me to more or less recall the film in it’s entirety. This stems back to the good old days when my dad would take us to the drive in to see such child friendly films as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or Orca the Killer Whale (one might think these films might not be appropriate for kids but I needed something the get me through the 1st grade. My father ladies and gentleman. Dad of the year).
The point is when I see the second in a series normally within about 10 minutes I have placed all the events and characters from the last film and can enjoy (or not enjoy as the case may be) the sequel but as this movie rolled along I found myself lost without a paddle. I could not remember much about the film or any of the characters and while I am not involved in the production of films as a fan of movies a film that has been more or less completely forgotten 12 months after viewing is not a blueprint for success. I’m just saying. Most annoyingly I could not remember the defining moment of Tris’s life in the killing of her friend Will. All I could remember was a really, really bland character jumping into a hole and a crowd of people all wearing the most boring clothes ever.
So I did what I usually do in circumstances like this and read the Divergent review I wrote back in March. After being stunned once again by what an awesome writer I am (my modesty is pretty stunning as well) I was able to piece together most of the plot. Of course the killing of Will I still can’t place and at the time was pretty inconsequential. I’m pretty sure somewhere between the first film and this one they decided to give Tris more of a back story and angst in order to avoid having her be named the least interesting character in cinema history (barely edging out the steering wheel from Driving Miss Daisy, a plank of wood from the dock of On Golden Pond, and any character ever played by Kristin Stewart).
For some reason I seemed to have liked it although I am at a loss as to why. Perhaps in comparison to the rest of the dross masquerading as film in the Young Adult category at the time it was a particularly shiny and appealing carbuncle but all the curses that plague YA films seems to have come home to roost. There was a time when Divergent could have unseated the Hunger Games off my personal throne as the best of the worst but that ship seems to have sailed.
Of course all the problems I had with Divergent have had no resolution and have only gotten worse. Again, why would anyone join any faction other than Dauntless? If you join any other faction why don’t you just spend all day bent over waiting for the inevitable wedgies that are coming your way? SPOILER ALERT They did sort of answer the question of who is this enemy that requires a giant wall and 20% of your population in the military with a big fat nobody but that just opens up more questions than it answers.
BIG SPOILER ALERT Honestly parts of this film seemed OK but the thing that really, really climbs up my ass is the worst sci fi fall back trope cop out ever: when the story gets stuck you just turtle up and claim the whole thing was just some kind of bizarre science experiment. Yep, the same thing that in my opinion ruined Maze Runner and any number of other crappy movies. You see people who don’t understand that science is actually a functional part of science fiction seem to think they can do anything if they later claim the whole thing was a giant Petri dish. The entire city of Chicago and it’s bizarre faction based social experiment that resulted in the death of hundreds of people was all some scientific experiment to produce the Divergents who are supposed to save the world by…doing something?
(Image from our funny t shirt collection)
It’s actually worse than that. So the main plot point is there is a magic box that only a 100% Divergent can open. But the evil boss lady more or less has all the Divergents executed and since Tris is the only 100% Divergent around the whole “science” experiment could have fallen apart when she fell off a train, got a knife stuck in her by one of the Factionless, or been shot in the head by one of the several hundred rounds shot at her by the Dauntless while she was running away. The thing about science experiments is if you set them up to fail and only succeed by the most random happenstance that is pretty much begging for fail. This entire plot could have failed about 800 different times. Also who sets up an experiment to run 200 years? Wouldn’t that time be better spent using 200 10% Divergents then waiting for the one 100%?
What was in the Magic Box, you ask? Only the “Congratulations you’ve survived our science experiment. Now walk outside and see what the rest of the world has for you” message. I seriously wanted to punch someone at that point.
1.5 of 5 Bleh.
Another Brick
So worth seeing? I hate saying this but not really. I had hope for this series at the beginning but rather than refining the film and filtering out the bad the lame parts have grown to clog the plot up like algae in your swimming pool filter. The action is sort of OK but everything that sucks about YA films is now here in spades, like they reviewed the first film and decided they need to add more to make up for the lack in that one. Tris was slightly more interested by being haunted by guilt (plus I liked her with short hair) and the Simulation parts were kind of cool if you dug Pink Floyd’s the Wall but other than that there isn’t much to recommend it. 1.5 of 5 phasers.
The Infamous Dave Inman
Women in Comics: DC, Batgirl Controversy, and Nothing Nice To Say
DC was my first comic book love, starting with Catwoman Year One on a grocery store spinning rack when I was about 9 years old. The women of the “Bat Family” have continued to enthrall me over the years, but around 2012, I stopped and dropped many of my formerly favorite titles due to changes in tone, direction and creative teams. Feminist dynamo was fired, then re-hired, then voluntarily left the Batgirl title, and things haven’t been the same since. I made no secret of the fact that I’m no fan of Dan DiDio’s practices as head of creative at DC or of the New 52.
Batgirl Flying shirt from out Batman Hoodie and T-Shirt collection.
I wanted to have something nice to say about DC and feminism—I met Babs Tarr, the current artist on Batgirl, and San Francisco resident, and she seemed really cool. But I don’t like the book any more than I did before and I don’t buy it, or any other DC titles anymore. They’re boring retreads of continuity with constant re-branding instead of hiring actually diverse creative teams. And anytime I’ve seen Batgirl in the news, it’s because of some new, unfortunate decision.
I read the Killing Joke a few years ago, and it’s a great book, but 2 things it is not: It was never meant to be in main Batman continuity, and it was never about Barbara Gordon. This is why making it the focus of the “Batgirl #41: Joker Variant Cover” was a bad idea to begin with. The cover showed a terrified Batgirl with blood-like makeup smeared over her face as the Joker threatened her in a sexual manner with phallic handgun. The sexual assault overtones are enough to make this inappropriate for a cover in a Teen or Family aimed female-led comic, but the fact that it isn’t about Barbera or the batsuit at all made it way over the top, making her an object, de-powered. Girls and women are not props to be used to evoke feelings in men, and especially should not be depicted that way in their own books.
Jupiter Ascending Review
Rocket boots!
My fandom of the Wachowski siblings tends to jump around a lot. It seems to me they always come up with some amazing concept and about half the time make something mindblowingly brilliant and the other half the the time trip on an unresolved plot thread from their last movie and fall on their face in the execution. Naturally I love the Matrix and V for Vendetta but all the other Matrices and Cloud Atlas all kind of sucked in weird ways.
However there is no one who can say the Wachowski’s lack ambition or vision and their films for good or ill don’t push the envelope. As for Jupiter Ascending it kind of reads like a mini map of the Wachoski’s total filmography: cool and up at times, lame and laughably silly at others. I walked into the film hoping for something great and was at times very satisfied yet at others bitterly disappointed.
Where this film rules is in some of the visuals, the scope of the story (truly the term “Space Opera” can be applied here), the acting (far beyond what the film called for), the art direction, the subtle details, and just plain being one of the few original sci fi concept films in current memory. 
Most of our science fiction derives from books, comics, or TV shows but let us not forget some of the great original concept films that defined our most beloved genre: Star Wars, the Road Warrior, Alien, Robocop, E.T., Avatar, District 9, Escape From New York, Time Bandits, etc. It seems these days Hollywood is terrified of doing a film that does not have a built in fan base and so we are stuck with a lot of retreads and sub-mediocre source material. I applaud the risk the Wachowskis are willing to take on something like this. (Image courtesy of the Star Wars t shirt category)
Image courtesy of the Jupiter Ascending official site
Plus the visuals were all great. Kind of a super advanced steam punk aesthetic. The universe created is potentially huge and contains a plethora of small details that could each in turn be fleshed out into it’s own movie. The costuming and sets were great. And of course my personal favorite: the rocket skate boots. Not only did they look and act super cool but they kind of looked like they could actually work. I sure as hell want a pair.
Where it falls apart is in what I like the call the “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” stage of script development. Wouldn’t it be cool if we wasted 20 minutes of the film having the main character go through a Brazil-esque bureaucracy for no reason? Wouldn’t it be cool if a billion year old human society were ruled by a 15th century backstabbing English royal family? Wouldn’t it be cool if we injected the main characters huge Russian immigrant family into this epic story to weight it down like a meal of pasta and assorted fishing weights? Wouldn’t it be cool if the main character started off as a housekeeper and then at the end after being named queen of the planet and insanely wealthy decide to keep on scrubbing toilets for…no reason at all? These and many more wouldn’t it be cool ideas are the ones you write on a dry erase board during the early concept meetings then steady erase them as you realize they are too ponderous, too complicated, or most importantly too off point for the film. Apparently the Wachowskis accidentally used a Sharpie instead of a dry erase marker.
Ming was Mother Theresa compared to this guy.
I also had a problem with the ridiculous level to which the evil of the villain and his plan was portrayed. Remember in Time Bandits how David Warner played the physical manifestation of Evil and in the end turned into a black powder so evil that if you touched it you would explode? Well that evil is a mild fart in a sewer compared to the evil that is the bad guy here and his plan. SPOILER ALERT In the movie they spoke of “Harvesting” planets without going into the details of what they needed all the humans for. At one point there is a scene where a chariot is being piloted by a human incorporated into the machinery and I thought “Hey, that’s kind of cool. Maybe they need humans to become cyborg slaves. Sort of like Servitors from Warhammer 40,000.” Nope. They need to literally torture humans to death in order extract their immortality elixir like high tech vampires and at that point I completely stopped taking the story at all seriously. I’d give my father more credibility when he’d play the “Got your nose” game by grabbing my nose and sticking his thumb out of his fist (plus the one time he actually cut off the end of my nose). Kind of silly fun but ultimately irredeemably comically stupid.
Speaking of stupid I’m also going to dump all over the character of Jupiter. One concept that did not get written in permanent ink on the idea board was making her a strong willed intelligent female capable of getting herself out of trouble. In this film she is a dope who listens to and agrees with anything any male tells her and constantly is in need of rescue by Channing Tatum. Also they injected an awkward and stupid romance into this film with all the subtlety of a colonoscopy performed with a harpoon gun. It’s unfortunate as I am a fan of Mila Kunis and have come to like Channing Tatum. I honestly believe they are both capably of better roles and also that they delivered way more acting than the script really called for.
3 of 5 phasers. OK
But for all that I can say: rocket boots. If all you want is great visuals and some decent action (although of course the fate of the universe once again devolves into a fist fight between two muscle boys. Why is it evil super villains and their good guy nemeses can never seem to recruit more than three guys each? When I move into the evil super villain stage of my career I’m going to have an army of henchmen big enough to overthrow most third world countries) this film will entertain you. If you want to take your sci fi seriously and are hoping for a new Matrix prepare for disappointment. However I am going to ask each of you to try to see it in order to support the much needed sci fi movie industry. We can’t have Tom Cruise carry it entirely on his shoulders. 3 of 5 phasers.
the Infamous Dave Inman
Women In Comics: Braga #1 Mini-Review
Rat Queens Special: Braga #1
Image Comics’ “Rat Queens” has courted controversy and critical praise for its intersectional feminist take on the oft-male-dominated Dungeons & Dragons inspired tales of high-fantasy action. For the uninitiated, the best-selling book was created last year by Writer Curtis J Weibe and Artist Roc Upchurch, who was asked to leave the book about an all-female and racially diverse cast of 4 merry mad mistresses of magic and mayhem, when he was arrested on domestic violence charges against his wife in December. Upchurch was then replaced by artist Stjepan Sejic.
(Targaryen In Red from our Game of Thrones t shirts collection.)
A one-shot side adventure focusing on a background character, the Orc maiden frienemy of the main gals, and leader of another adventuring party, Braga, was published in the interim. Braga just so happens to be a Trans* woman, as the issue reveals, with stunning art by female relative newcomer, Tess Fowler.
Girls Do It Better T-Shirt – DC Comics
The story of Braga herself is fairly straightforward: born the eldest son of an Orc chieftain, “Broog” as he was then known, was always rebellious, favoring peaceful negotiations over his father’s war-mongering ways. Broog’s younger brother challenged him for the throne, gouging Broog’s eye, but losing his good arm in the fight, and Broog left the land in his care. There are hints at a love story, left mercifully ambiguous, and overall, it’s a story of being self-defined in every possible way: it’s like any other Rat Queens tale: diverse, colorful, gory, smart and fiercely contemporary, with just enough sexy and silly to keep it afloat.
Even as Trans* characters seem to be having a “moment” in pop culture, I can not recommend this story enough. Rat Queens #9 is on sale from Image Comics now, as are Braga #1 and the first 6 issue collected graphic novel.
Movie review: Kingsman the Secret Service
The secret is it’s not total crap.
All three of our regular readers must have notice I backed off considerably on my movie reviews in recent months, leaving a lot of the real blogging to the well written Jae. The fact is I started this blog to help promote my t-shirt web site and it kind of took on a life of its own. I found I enjoyed writing and espousing my opinion on movies and pop culture and what should have been 2-3 paragraph mini posts turned into 3,000 word epics.
Then a few months ago the consultants I hired to help me with this blog and my site promotion read me the riot act on what a huge waste of content that was. Phrases like “Keyword phrase embedment”, “link density”, and “optimal content length” were bandied about and I shifted my style to breaking up posts into multiple smaller posts with cross links in order to get the best Google love. However I found that I really don’t function well as a writer under those strictures and the actual writing turned into more of a chore than something I enjoy. At the same time my actual job (you know, the thing I do that makes money) got busier as Jae was showing her considerable talent as a writer and queen of social media I more or less opted out of writing on this blog.
However yesterday while writing my tribute to Leonard Nimoy I was reminded that when the muse takes me I really enjoy writing. Last night my mind was aflame with things to talk about, new turns of phrase, and the need to express myself creatively so I decided this morning to just write these reviews when the mood and time are right and leave all the structured writing to Jae. This will also give me the opportunity to keep seeing all the movies (something I quite enjoy) and continue to be the pretentious movie blow hard all my friends have learned to despise. So keep an eye out for these post, although in the interest of having a real job I will probably keep them somewhat short and sweet. I don’t plan on doing the elaborate story recaps or detailed star/black hole rating system. I think I will keep the 0-5 Phaser system in continued tribute to the great Mr. Nimoy.
No sparkle here.
So Kingsman: the Secret Service. I did not expect much from this film. When I saw the trailers I pretty much expected it to be yet another Hollywood “youthification” of a beloved movie genre. Remember when vampires were creepy old dudes with Eastern European accents who crawled out of the grave and burst into flame in daylight? Or when radical revolutionaries were people who had read a book once in a while, not some chick with a bow who won the worlds most deadly reality TV game show? Well, into the dipsy dumpster with all that content related nonsense. Now all you need to have in order to be an iconic movie figure is youth and bland Caucasian good looks.
And so it seemed with Kingsman. This looked like a remake of James Bond done with the young love child of Doctor Who and Jason Stratham 
(one of the good looking Doctor Whos. Not the current guy). Young hot dude. Check. Older fatherly figure with good looks. Check. All white people in main good guy roles. Check. A charismatically cartoonish evil villain who overshadows all the other acting in the entire film. Check.
But as I watched the film I realized I wasn’t reacting with contempt as I expected and I think it has to do with the fact that secretly I really never liked James Bond that much. For the same reason I really don’t like Superman I find characters who are so unbeatable truly boring. I like my heroes flawed and human. I think I like Daniel Craig’s James Bond the most because at one point he got tied up and some weirdo beat his testicles for a while. That’s the kind of adversity I need in a film. Also he got shot in the last one by a hot chick (oh, the irony) and ended up an alcoholic bum on a beach. My kind of tragic hero.
So it was here. Eggsy (Taron Egerton) did not emerge from his mothers womb with a Bowie knife clenched in his teeth and kill a terrorist hit team that was taking over the hospital before cutting his own umbilical cord. He starts the film as a typical dumb teenager getting into trouble and getting his ass beat. In time through one of my favorite movie tropes ever the training sequence (thanks to seeing hundreds of Kung Fu Theater films) he gets to be a bad ass but even then you never get the feeling he is so overpowered that his life is not in danger and therefore you feel a real connection with him. He perseveres through a series of luck and determination like all great heroes and never seems like he could kill a platoon of soldiers with a carefully aimed fart. Nor did he cause women to fall into bed and spontaneously orgasm with one smoky glance across a darkened restaurant. The one time he got hooked up he had to work really hard for it and as a man who has to work really hard to get laid I appreciated that.
Plus there was a lot of other great stuff in here. As a tribute to Samuel Jacksons acting ability he started the film with a lisp I found distracting (sorry if it’s real and to all my readers with speech impediments) but by the end of the film I totally bought it and him as an excellent villain. His hench woman had blade runner legs that seemed dopey at first but kicked ass by the end of the film (and I was totally in love with the actress Sofia Boutella. Sofia, I know we have never met and I am nothing more than a broke opinionated movie nerd but if any of that is some bizarre fetish for you marry me). Plus let me say whoever they hired to do the fight choreography kicked serious ass. One fight in particular will go down in movie history as one of the greats. If you have ever wanted to see white trash homophobic racists meet a bloody end this is the film for you. The camera work and editing were nigh priceless and I appreciate wire work rather than more lame CGI.
4 of 5. Kind of great.
So I quite enjoyed the film. It dragged a little in the last half of Act 2 (oh, look at me Mr. Educated Film Critic) and they shoved in a clincher at the end that turned Eggsy into exactly the super human who bores me stupid but really I quite enjoyed it. The story is very comic booky but good comic booky (and comes to us from a comic book. What a coincidence) and zero of the characters annoyed me, the plot did not travel through any swamps or toxic waste dumps, and the action was both super fun and reasonably believable. 4 of 5 Phasers.
the Infamous Dave Inman
Farewell Mr. Spock
I’m sure by now you have heard the news regarding the death of Leonard Nimoy yesterday. Most of the nerdosphere heard it within about an hour. I was going to write this last night but honestly needed some time to collect my thoughts and feelings regarding the death of my all time favorite actor.
Readers of this blog back when I did a lot more writing on it and most of my friends will have gleaned that my childhood was not exactly a Norman Rockwell-esque wholesome love and kisses with fireworks on the 4th of July clone of the Wonder Years. My father was an abusive alchoholic rage monster who’s one contribution to my upbringing was a desire to “make me tough” with a Darwin/Nietzsche approach and my mother was so wrapped up in surviving him that she more or less left with zero attention. My so called peers and friends were to a kid hierarchical bullies with me inevitably at the bottom of the pile and my teachers oblivious to the crap I was dealing with. Each day was a miserable struggle with the only the question of whether school, after school, or home would be the most awful.
The one ray of light and hope in that experience was always for me Star Trek. The crew of the Enterprise was the friends I always wanted and Spock was the father I dreamed of having (with Kirk as the fun crazy but loving uncle who took me out to do stuff my mother (Nurse Chapel) would not approve of). When things were at their worst I could tune into any given episode and suddenly cease to feel like I was traveling this universe alone but instead had Sulu and Checkov piloting the ship with Spock as my eyes, Uhura as my mouth, Scotty as my heart, Bones as my immune system, and Kirk as my brain (plus a raft of Red Shirts to protect me from my enemies). For the 50 minutes or so the show was on I ceased to feel despair and loneliness.
It goes deeper than that. In spite of the craptacular example of what a male is from my father I have grown into a man of honor, honesty, integrity, kindness, generosity, temperance, and level logical thought and everything I know about courage, friendship, loyalty, fair dealing, and problem solving I can lay fairly at Gene Roddenberry’s feet. They provided me with an example of what a good human is at a time when I was surrounded by horrible ones and for that I will be eternally grateful. (This might give you an insight into why I am so constantly furious at the JJ Abrams reboot but we’ll save that for another day.) Every one of my current interest, hobbies, business, and all things that shaped me into who I am now stems from Star Trek.
So we come to the death of my dream father Spock and more importantly the wonderful man who played him Leonard Nimoy. I was such a fan of his that I would religiously watch In Search Of just to hear his voice. Many actors have been cast to play Vulcans and they do so to a greater or lesser extent but in general no one has ever matched Leonards ability to play actual unemotional punctuated by emotional bouts. Most people play Vulcans as just coldly angry but Mr. Nimoy managed to transmit his desire for non-emotion while plagued by his human side. Truly there will never be another one like him. For me he was the father/best friend I always wanted and the person Mr. Nimoy was always seemed not far from that ideal.
I admit that when Spock died at the end of the Wrath of Khan I cried like a little girl and even now thinking about it in context of Leonard passing I find myself tearing up. At the time I knew that the crew I grew up with was never going to be as cool and complete as it was in the past and I felt a piece of my childhood that I cherished dying as well. I feel that even more strongly today and am more sorry about Mr. Nimoy passing than any other celebrity I have ever been a fan of. However, I think his very last Tweet to be apropos of my own experience and feelings:
“A life is like a garden, Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.”
Farewell my dear friend.
David Inman
Feb. 28th, 2015
