Mongol: review

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It’s hard to argue with the weight of critical opinion, not to mention Oscar nominations. But I will argue.

Mongol loses points for being, essentially, a love story. We have lots of love stories. Anybody can be the subject of a love story. Complex love stories can also be woven into to tales of great human events. But love is not what’s interesting about Genghis Khan. Sure, he loved his wife. And liked his other wives. But he also united a bunch of nomadic tribes, conquered a whole bunch of Asia, and created an empire.

Genghis Khan was a great military tactician, master of alliances, a leader who could inspire loyalty in not only his own people, but in those who had recently defeated. He created an effective systems of administration, and helped create the Silk Road, which was important to several civilizations. The movie didn’t really get this. There were battle scenes, but they were personal. Genghis Khan was probably a good warrior, but that’s not what elevated him above all the other warriors of his time.

There was one large battle, but the movie attributed the victory more to mysticism and thunder than anything else.

The acting was quite good, and some of the sequences were compelling, but the geography quickly got lost. As action moved back and forth, over the years, there was no sense of how large an area was being covered, or of the relationship between the different locations.

Review: Crank 2, High Voltage

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I love this movie.  I’m unable to say why.  I can link superlatives together, describe awesome over-the-top scenes, but the magic is in the attitude.  From the opening credits which took the last scene from the first movie and did it 8-bit video-game format, we knew exactly what level to take the movie.  Everything after that was crazy-ludicrous.

At some point, when a shoot-out in strip club is the obvious next scene, there are, for no apparent reason, strippers shooting automatic weapons.  It’s not the last time strippers show up to a firefight, and no explanation is given.  You don’t need one in a movie like this.

This is the kind of movie where you can take a living head out of the tank of fluid in which it was living, and drop kick into the pool.  It makes perfect sense.  And, when Chilios calls the doctor and finds out that one way he can re-charge the internal battery that is powering his temporary artificial heart is by rubbing up against someone else, you think: of course.  Of course that would be it.

The movie may not be a great movie, not in terms of storytelling anyway.  But it is art.  There are so many moments here, like being trapped in a police car by protesting porn stars.  These are the moments I can talk about.  But the greatest scene, for me, was the completely incomprehensible shift to classic Japanese monster movie.  No reason, it’s just that they could, and it works.

Two final words: Chicken and Broccoli.

Polymorph

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I just finished watching Polymorph, a straight-to-video cheapie made in 1996, for a budget that must have been under $100,000.  It was a pretty standard mish-mash of alien body-snatcher, psycho drug dealers, and the band of attractive interns that alway seem to attract killing.

I gave it five stars on Netflix.  The acting was actually pretty good, the action kept moving, and the denoument worked.

[Next day] I had to come back and add a note to this “review”.  This movie grew on me overnight.  Sure, it’s barely more than a student film in terms of production quality, but the plot, which seems pretty simple, has a bit of depth.  It takes the viewer on a journey, a fairly short journey maybe, but one that undercuts your assumptions.  And, though some of the conflict scenes were pretty over the top, and some of the emotive stuff a bit messy, it felt as if it was at least trying to imitate real life rather than other movies in the genre.  The balance of forces was perfect for the tension built.

I started watching the movie as if were a Sci-Fi original (don’t know what we’ll do when they change their name to Syphyllys Fy), using it as background while I worked on my laptop.  But, soon enough, I was engaged.  Put the laptop down and wait for what happens next.  A lot of movies with much higher production values fail this simple test.

Save Dollhouse? Only if you promise to make it better!

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Betty Page Shows How to Handle a Whip

Last night, someone mistakenly thought that Eliza Dushku would look convincing as a dominatrix.  She didn’t.  She looked like that mousy girl who shows up at parties and tries to get attention even though she’s actually not that smart.  So she tries dressing in ways completely out of character and is just more awkard.

But she did the right thing for most of the show, stood around a waved.  Dollhouse is going off the rails, after a very brief period of actually being good.  It’s a shame because there were actually a couple good scenes in the episode:

  • Helo finding out that his lasagna-bearing neighborly girl-friend is actually a sleeped doll.  That scene was very compelling, even sad.  His character is great, because he sort of has that “beautiful mind” level of obsession, but when he turns around it turns out that even the person he trusts is part of “them.”
  • Echo doing the interrogation of the staff.  Usually Eliza Dushku (spelling may vary) seems out of her depth, but she seemed to carry this segment off pretty well.  But, as some sort of compensatory effect, Sierra crossed over from cool to ludicrous.  Only Victor was still engaging.

But there were so many bad parts:

  • Dominic was not that convincing as head of security, he was even less convincing as an NSA plant.  It’s not the actor’s fault, the scripts gave him wildly inconsistent motives from show to show, and the explanation for being an agent was too thin for even this kind of show.
  • Echo was once again, at the end of the show, lauded as being ‘special’.  Why?  Because she gave Tofu an idea?  She is seriously becoming the stupid one that everybody likes so they act like anything she does is just brilliant.  Even though everyone knows better.
  • That chip.  In this universe, apparently, anybody who is technically smart can identify a piece of average-looking electronics as “super-secret NSA” stuff.  Not only that, but why do these fall off of agents and get found?  Do they flake off the skin?
  • The gun shot.  Really?  He shot her, blood splatter across the window, and it turned out to be a small puncture wound?

McDonald’s Versus Long John Silver

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Once again I’ve got “Give me back my little fish” stuck in my head.  I’m not sure that’s the actual lyric, but it doesn’t matter.  You know it, the McDonald’s fish song.  Long John Silver tried to bust out with a new series of commercials that pretty much attack the McDonald’s Fillet O’ Fish sandwich.  The commercials went product to product, using the best line-that-should-have-worked: “Is that even fish?”

We’ll set aside for a moment the one astonishingly bad idea, the theme of splashing the customer with water.  Everything else about the commercial should have completely sold us on how much better and tastier the LJS product is.  More fish-like.

But with fast food, the actual substance rarely matters.  McDonald’s isn’t selling us fish.  If you want fish, go to a sea-food restaurant.  McDonald’s is selling a combination of magic and crave-satisfaction.  Setting the actual food product aside, would rather get splashed with a bucket of water while holding a tray full of food?  Or would you rather eat something, with obvious satisfaction, while the magical fish sings to you?  And, to top it off, your friend comes in and watches you with envy?  Because he’s not in the secret magic-singing-fish club.

McDonald’s wins with the most important fast-food demographics:

  • Kids love magic.  They don’t care if what they eat is closer to real food, as long as it’s breaded, salty, and reminds them of a magical singing fish who wants part of its body back.
  • Stoners need satisfaction.  Late-night stoners and drunks want something that will give them that sense of satisfaction you see on the guy’s face, as he stares down the singing fish.
  • Parents want their kids to shut up.  See point #1
  • Cubicle rats want something they can take back to their desk.  Something that doesn’t seem too messy.  The fillet o’ fish may not be food, but it looks tidy.  LJS splashes you and your food with a bucket of water.

I Didn’t Know it Was Supposed to Be Embarrassing!

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I’ve been looking for a new roommate, which can be a painful process.  Like dating, but without any possibility of sex.  I was corresponding with one woman, who seemed really interested, and she asked me my age.  I told her.  She said, and I quote:

“Thank you for your honesty, but…”

WTF?  Okay, there are several things wrong with this.  First, was she looking for a roommate or romance?  Maybe a new BFF?  Whatever, apparently it had an age cap.  The funny thing is, a lot of people would accept that as perfectly normal.  Why allow anyone who is outside my generation into my world?  Why not live in the eternal world of Gap commercials, interacting only with people who are within a few years of my age?  Because it makes you parochial.   Or provincial.  Whichever.

I’ve always had a lot of friends who were older, younger, more conservative, more liberal, and from many different cultures and backgrounds.  People who believe they grow best in a world populated only with near-them clones are usually due for a shock.  At some point, they will encounter a world of people who don’t share their beliefs, their predilections.  I was at dinner once with a bunch of people.  A woman, visiting from out of town, came from a sequestered liberal environment.  She was not the most liberal person at the table, and she wasn’t in the minority.  But she went into shock because her beliefs were not held by everyone in the group.

Of course you might say that, even if you want friends who are different, you’d like a roommate who is pretty much the same.  But that brings us to the second f’d up thing.  She thanked me for my honesty.  Implying I was admitting to something less then pure about myself.  My age is higher than hers, so I should just be more embarrassed about myself.  Really?  She’s in her 20s.  Should people outside of that bracket be hidden away?  Trotted out only for family gatherings where they can be socially placed and excused?  It’s not just her, I really see this in a lot of twenty-something culture.  They see the world as a playground that is only ruined by older people.  I was like that, myself, as a teenager.  But then I grew up a little, joined the world of adults.

The Manliest Movies? Not So Much

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Another campus humor website has posted a list of the 64 Manliest Movies to Date.  The list is not a bad collection of guy movies, but “guy movies” and “manly movies” are not at all the same thing.  Worse, the commentary shows a bit of confusion about what movies appeal to women.  Also, the list falls apart as it climbs to the top.

First, manly implies toughness.  Adventure is manly.  Heroics are manly.  Horror isn’t manly.  To enjoy horror, you have to let yourself be frightened and vulnerable.  Die Hard is manly.  Braveheart is Manly.  Gladiator is Manly.

Boobies, while awesome in almost every way, are not manly.  Even Woody Allen likes boobies.  A movie with boobies is a guy move, but not necessarily manly.  Porkys is not manly.  It’s funny, it’s a guy movie, but it’s not a manly movie.  Gator is a manly movie.

Also, really bad movies are not manly, not matter how much blood and gore is involved.  The remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre just sucked.  Boondock Saints is just ludicrous.  Not manly.

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My co-workers tend to put post-its on their office doors when eating lunch.  Most of them say “lunching”.  I wasn’t sure why the world needed to know exactly why my door was closed, especially since there is no incentive to be honest.  I could say “lunching” but actually spend my time with the door closed cruising the internet.  Or reading a book.

But assuming that information is actually a good, I decided to post up not only what I was doing, but exactly what my meal consisted of.  Usually salad.  But then I began to realize that people would now know how boring my lunch really is.  Except that my salad is a little different each day, it’s still basically salad.

Still, the total lack of a sticky-note seems unfriendly.  Just a closed door.  So I’ve taken to putting a blank sticky-note on my door when I’m eating.  If anyone asks, I’ll say I originally planned to write “reject the narrow-minded constraints of textualism”, but then realized the note would be objecting to itself, and this was the closest I could come.

But nobody has asked.  Yet.

Why Rush Limbaugh Hates America

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I Love America.  This includes many pieces of America that, taken individually, I don’t like so much.  Some, I loath.  But altogether, put it in a big pile, and I’ll keep it.  Fight for it.  Whatever.  Here are just a sampling of the many pieces of America:

  • Giant balls of twine and three-story lava-lamps, huge fiberglass dinosaurs in the middle of nowhere.  A ranch of Cadillacs half-buried.
  • Religious fundies who hate the “War on Christmas”.  Other religious fundies who believe Christmas is a tool of the devil. (Satan/Santa)
  • Gun-toting rednecks
  • Hippie chicks with un-shaved arm-pits
  • Courses in multi-culturalism that reduce each culture to pop spiritualism
  • Courses in home management in college
  • Republicans who have integrity and really believe their economic religion helps more poor people than any other method
  • Exploiters of every stripe who whip up American sincerity and make a buck
  • Democrats who served honorably in every branch of the military
  • Chickenhawk politicians who sound righteous as they send people off to war, having never served themselves (this started long before the current Neo-cons)
  • Strident athiests
  • Flag burners
  • Get-off-my-lawn old veterans
  • Illegal immigrants
  • First, second, and third generation immigrants
  • Racists
  • People who claim not to be racists, but always find other reasons to hate people from other cultures or ethnic groups
  •  People who you assume are racist, but turn out not to be
  • Dennis Hopper
  • John Wayne
  • Martha Stewart
  • American Idol

The exact mix keeps changing, but it’s still my country and I always want the best for it.  When President Bush decided to invade the wrong country, resulting in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers, I wanted something better.  But, like most people, I did not root for failure.  I wanted the war to be over quickly, I wanted stability to return.  I wanted few casualties.  Because, though it was a bad decision, the best thing for our country was an easy resolution.  I also knew that was not likely.

A lot of sock-pundits on the right accused liberals of rooting for the failure we eventually felt.  No, we just foresaw it.  Nobody wanted it.  But, they project thoughts into our head.  We can play that game, maybe THEY were rooting for failure so then they could prove that we were rooting for failue!  Who knows what dark threads take hold in the human soul?

Now Rush Limbaugh is openly rooting for failure.  Why?  Because he doesn’t love America.  Not all of it.  He has picked the parts he likes, and will only love an America if it fits that model.  That’s sort of like only loving your kid if he goes to the same college you did.  Rush believes in “Individualism and Capitalism” and whatever.  As if those things are going away.  We haven’t been the capitalist country he espouses since before WWII.  And we aren’t any closer to pure socialism than we were eight years ago.  But the diseased economic religion of tax cuts and minimal regulation has produced a huge bill.  If we don’t pay it now, it will only get bigger.  Rush is apparently rooting that our efforts to save the economy will fail.  That is the most unpatriotic thing I’ve heard in a long time.

Condorcet and Robot Cockroaches

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Condorcet came up with a theorem about juries and how, if a group of people share their knowledge on a topic, they will come to a better decision than the average of the decisions each would make as an individual.  Of course as soon as this sounds great, they start coming out with limitations:  group-think can reduce the value of decision-making.  If, like the Republicans insist on doing, one large sub-group all decides to think the same, then the overall decision loses power.  There are other problems, groups may tend to make correct choices if there is an objectively correct choice, and if the group has some level of knowledge, and if all members of the group participate, but otherwise it’s likely that the group will not only make a wrong choice, they are more likely to stick to it.

But the real problem is that some powerful alien force can introduce robots.  This article explains how scientists model Condorcet’s theorem among animal communities. But they don’t just watch the animals, they create convincing robots which infiltrate the bug communities and convince them to do something self-destructive:

José Halloy of the Free University of Brussels used robotic cockroaches to subvert the behaviour of living cockroaches and control their decision-making process. In his experiment, reported in an earlier issue of Science, the artificial bugs were introduced to the real ones and soon became sufficiently socially integrated that they were perceived as equals. By manipulating the robots, which were in the minority, he was able to persuade the cockroaches to choose an inappropriate shelter—even one which they had rejected before being infiltrated by machines.

Just imagine if some other power tried to do the same thing with us?  They could send robots into our world, disguised as humans, and convince us to make self-destructive choices, such as ignoring global warming, invading Iraq, and giving away our civil rights.  That would make a good story, wouldn’t it?