The Future Is Flux

First things first: Viacom's MTV has never managed to rise above anything other than a channel that was after CBS and in front of the USA Network on my cable system, a station where this particular train did not and would not stop. This has always been the case, since its inception in the early 1980s.¹ But hey, this is Virginia, and we always have an exception. ("My Lord Your Honor, the rule in Queen Elizabeth's Case is more accurately applied here, rather than the more modern rule adopted in 1700...")

For a brief moment, in the mid-to-late 1990s, MTV managed to catch my attention for a short while. What monumentous occasion produced this? Three things, House of Style, Beavis and Butt-head, and Aeon Flux. The first was, of course, for Cindy Crawford, first introduced to me by way of Denis Leary. The second was simple appeal to the more base, coarse, and downright malevolent humor lurking beneath the surface of all young men. The disruptive effect of screaming, "I am the great Cornholio" in what's supposed to be a serious setting cannot be overstated.

That leaves us with, as it was once put, Frau Flux.² I vaguely remember Liquid Television, on which a variety of Aeon Flux shorts by Peter Chung aired. Thinking back on it, I was probably drawn into the fact that they were animated, involved copious amounts of gunplay and random violence, plus (usually) a skyrocketing body count. It didn't hurt that Frau Flux wasn't so bad looking, but more on that later.

The program was later extended into its own series, with a more or less coherent plot, detailing the adventures of Aeon Flux, a combination assassin/spy. Getting any deeper into would require a lot more space, which I don't intend to do. Keeping track of the plot on any other level than Aeon versus Trevor Goodchild (head of the more-or-less enemy state and Aeon's occasional, er, companion) would require a degree in the inner working of Stanley Kubrick's mind. Like I said, difficult to follow from episode to episode. Strange and off-the-wall themes pervaded every episode, along with some fetishistic behavior that I didn't much care for at the time. Tongues in the ear are not my forte, you see.

Anyways. The program suffered the fate of every program that I like, and was not renewed. A few years intervened, and then I managed to get the more-or-less complete series on VHS from something called 'Amazon.com'.³ I coughed up for a copy of the MTV-produced book tie-in, and then eventually law school intervened, disconnecting me from the world of Aeon Flux forever. Or so I thought.

Fast forward to 2005. I've heard vague rumors of an Aeon Flux movie in production, but I shrug them off. Comes now a copy of that dreadful rag Entertainment Weekly in a trial subscription someone signed me up for.⁴ I'm idly flipping through the thing when something approximately like this shows up. Lo, it was Charlize Theron as Aeon Flux herself.

Charlize Theron is an actress of which I've maintained a slight interest since seeing her in Mighty Joe Young and Men of Honor.⁵ On the other hand, I would never have considered her for the part of Aeon Flux. In fact, about the only actress I'd consider for it is Lara Flynn Boyle.

However, you go into production with the actress that you have, not the actress that you want, to paraphrase Donald H. Rumsfeld. That leaves us with Miss Theron and a movie in post-production. Therefore, I suggest that if you've got an interest in the property, point your browser over to aeonflux.com, where there are a few things to do courtesy of Flash. Me, I got the wallpaper. For better or for worse, I'll probably be ambling into the theaters on this one, if only to perhaps relive part of the pre-war era, where I didn't have a care in the world other than the next race or the next paper that was due. Heck, the movie couldn't possibly be any worse than Stealth.⁶

That which does not kill us makes us stranger.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Swanky Conservative.

----

¹ Cyndi Lauper & Captain Lou Albano fail when measured against the General Lee, Airwolf, and the Knight Industries Two Thousand, you see. In the more modern era, vintage Liz Phair, Sheryl Crow, and Lisa Gerrard might manage to win out. However, much like the number of Frenchmen required to defend Paris, who knows? It's never been tried. Ha ha.

² Yes, I own a copy of The Herodotus File. I hope nobody ever finds it; that's arguably one of the things I'd rather not have to explain. Nobody would believe that it wasn't some sort of pseudo-fetish mag. Meanwhile, a continuing injustice in the world is that Jessica Simpson's reality series is on DVD, and nobody's compiled all the Aeon Flux episodes for DVD. Perhaps MTV will pull its collective cranium out of its ventral cavity and do that to coincide with the theatrical release. That is, if they can do something other than drag down the culture, for once.

³ Either Das Boot on VHS or the Aeon Flux set were among the first purchases I ever made from Mr. Bezos' little kiosk. Go figure.

⁴ In the words of Wolverine from an ad for Damage Control, "Somebody dies!"

⁵ Hey, she's blond haired, blue eyed, and is a product of the ruins of the British Empire. What's not to like? She also did well in a turn as Britt Ekland in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, one of the most depressing movies that I think I've ever watched. Geoffrey Rush, however, managed to cement his place as one of my more favorite actors with this production. "Walsinghaaaaam!"

⁶ Since this picture is almost certain to have a political angle, I expect several juvenile and poorly-veiled jabs at either George W. Bush and/or the Republican Party in general, courtesy of those political sophisticates at MTV. I never thought I'd long for the days of that annoying Tabitha Soren or that creepy-looking Kurt Loder. At the same time, it would mean the return of Serena Altschul, who wasn't all that bad looking.

In other news, I want the ninety seconds or so of my life back that the trailer for Stealth attached to Revenge of the Sith has stolen.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Putting the 'Country' in 'Country Pundit'

Friends and neighbors, your humble correspondent is a life-long fan of the old television program, The Dukes of Hazzard. Heck, who wouldn't be? Fast car, good hearts, "two modern-day Robin Hoods", and a fight against a corrupt local bureaucrat who has his pudgy little fingers in everything.

Why do we care, you ask. Put shortly, I'm going to be out of town and on the road this weekend, 'cause I'm headed to DukesFest at the Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee. Yep, that's right. Your correspondent, a man of (desired) wealth and (questionable) taste is going to be surrounded by a lot of people from Flyover Country, and he will love every minute of it. It's not every day that I get the opportunity to revel in something like this, so I'm rather happy to be going.

I'm hopin' to get an autograph of John Schneider---that's all the budget's going to allow--and probably some pictures of various General Lee-configured Dodge Chargers, along with soakin' up the atmosphere provided by lots of fans of this delightful series from the early 1980s. As Hunter Thompson wouldn't have put it, those folks are good people.

In honor of this nifty occasion, I've gone and taken a ubiquitous Quizilla quiz, yielding the following result:

You are Bo Duke. You are caring and carefree. You
suffer from the "Peter Pan Syndrome"
and it doesn't look like you'll be growing up
anytime soon.


What Dukes of Hazzard Character are you?

Y'all have a good weekend; I can't guarantee any sort of weekend schedule. If all goes well, perhaps I'll have a report or two for public consumption in the near future.

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Narnia Fun

A chap named Colossus has compiled the "Top Ten Signs that Disney is Involved in the New "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe Movie"

Sample quote: "9. Instead of turning dissenting animals to stone, The White Witch turns them into little barrels of oil for her monstrous white SUV."

Read the whole thing.

Tip of the Executor hat to the Llama Butchers.

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J-Pod Strikes Back Out

The loathsome John Podhoretz writes:

In its second week at the boxoffice, ROTS's take fell 50 percent from the first week. This is significant because it indicates word of mouth on the movie is lousy and that those who went to see it the first week aren't making a return trip (second and third viewings are the reasons a movie takes the leap from success to blockbuster).

Bah. I may be the only refutation of Mr. Podhoretz, but I can say with confidence that I've seen The Movie three times so far, and I intend to go several more times. Three viewings either surpasses or ties my record for Attack of the Clones, and stands second in the overall personal record of "Number of Times Seeing a Movie in Theaters".¹

Maybe Podhoretz is just trying to be the contrarian. I don't know for sure, despite reading most of his annoying verbiage on the subject. Enh, who cares? Not every contributor to the National Review is on the order of John Derbyshire, who himself is not faultless.

----

¹ The holder of the all-time record is The Phantom Menace, with between seven and ten viewings, all at the same theater. I saw it numerous times hoping that a good movie would somehow emerge. Much like the kid shoveling manure in hopes of finding a pony, I too was disappointed in the end.

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Not Something You See Every Day

This, from robotech.com:

In honor of the United Nations' 60th anniversary this year, the United Nations (UN) will debut a special Public Service Announcement (PSA) at MIP TV 2005. The 60-second spot, produced by Harmony Gold, is part of a broader effort to increase awareness of the work of the UN during this special period culminating with the 60th opening session of the UN General Assembly in the Fall.

All grumbling about the UN aside, this PSA is something I'll be taking a look at when I can get it downloaded.

"[The UN] feel[s] this is a unique way of contributing to the UN's message of peace at a time when the world really needs it", said Harmony Gold (owners of the Robotech franchise) Chairman & CEO Frank Agrama. Somewhere in there is Irony with a capital I. Being lectured on peace by the wardens of a series where approximately six to seven billion people are slaughtered in a few seconds and a thirty-year interstellar war pretty much blowtorches Earth is going to be interesting.

On the other hand, the Robotech franchise (or more properly, the early Macross line) has an odd relationship with the UN, as does other mecha-centric anime from the late 1970s and early 1980s. A common thread running through the backdrop of several series is the unification of Earth's government, be it under the "Earth Federation" of Mobile Suit Gundam or the United Earth Government/United Earth Defense Council of Robotech. Something that you're likely to see pop on a not-intermittent basis is the phrase "UN SPACY".

What does that mean, you ask? I had to learn it from a Gundam type, who made it pretty simple:

U.S. Navy
U.N. Spacy

It's a contraction of sorts, for United Nations Space Navy. A lot of Gundam stuff for the Earth Federation sports this decoration, especially that by Kunio Okawara. More or less enthusiasm for the UN (or its general concept) and (in the case of the early Gundam series) a deep loathing of militarism would appear to be a common thread in a lot of the late 1970s/early 1980s stuff I tended to watch. One can understand both of them, because Japanese people were writing the scripts. I suppose these folks weren't too happy about having been hit with atomic bombs, and they were likewise unhappy with the glorification of the military, which I suppose led to the militarist party of Tojo et al being put into power. That, of course, wound up in 1945 with two wee little events in the skies over a pair of Japanese cities. Why Japanese nationals would be inclined to like the idea of a singular global government is beyond me, but then again, I'm in Virginia, which is close to half a world away from Japan, in more ways than one.¹

Go figure. I've got a frame of this thing downloaded, and it appears that the initial characters are going to be something I've not seen before, apparently from this Shadow Chronicles project that's supposed to be the latest entry in the Robotech universe. Me, I'll stick with the Macross Saga, 'cause it has Lisa Hayes.

¹ On the other hand, the Gundam universe seemed to establish, at least indirectly, that the Earth Federation wasn't exactly the nicest government either, at least by objective standards. Forced deportations from Earth were reportedly a facet of its social policy.

UPDATE: I've now seen the ad. Here goes:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

TITLE CARD: "ROBOTECH salutes the work and people of the United Nations on its 60th anniversary".

We see a seemingly ethereal woman drift down from the heavens while your average anime fighter PILOT stares up, goggle-eyed. He is standing next to a Veritech Alpha fighter in Guardian configuration.

PILOT: Ariel! This world is not safe for you. Many humans will still have to be convinced that we can all live together in peace.

ARIEL: Peace. It's amazing how beautiful this world can be when it is at peace.

PILOT: Yes, and how violent it is when it is at war.

As these last two lines are spoken, the camera pans from a green mountain range with pine trees and the like, to a shattered urban landscape, covered by reddish clouds in the sky. ARIEL turns her head back towards the PILOT, placing her right hand on the left side of the PILOT's head. The camera zooms into the PILOT's face as he closes his eyes.

ARIEL: Humanity has the greatest potential in itself, to educate, to heal, to provide. Together, you can do this. Together, you can succeed. Together, we will survive. There are many voices, but it is all one world, a world where there is a need for peace now. And in the future.

As ARIEL speaks, the scene transitions to a sepia-toned static illustration of a classroom with children being instructed from a chalkboard. A UNICEF sign hangs prominently over the chalkboard. Transition to a medical tent, where a WHO logo adorns a tent pole as a man sporting a blue "UN" armband treats a patient. Transition to an airfield(?), where men in what appear to be blue ballistic vests carry blue boxes, apparently food. One of the men is handing a blue box to an individual. The ballistic vests sport a wreathed insignia---half of the UN logo---surrounding an unidentified emblem. The letters "WFP" appear above the emblem.

The static illustrations switch back to the PILOT's eyes as ARIEL begins the "Together" part of her speech. The camera cuts to ARIEL's eyes, which are a shade of purple as are her hair and eyebrows. The camera then cuts to an external view, sweeping past two mounds---potentially the final resting places of SDF-1, SDF-2, and Commander Khyron Kravsher's vessel?---to ARIEL and the PILOT, who is now sitting on the foot of his Alpha.

Two forward-swept wing transport land in VTOL fashion in the background and the camera pans upward to a trio of the same aircraft flying in a vee formation. Camera continues panning until the blue sky turns to black.

The black sky then displays a color illustration of the planet Earth, wreathed in the UN leaves. The caption reads, "UNITED NATIONS IT'S OUR FUTURE.", along with www.un.org

END TRANSCRIPT. All intellectual property rights remain with the holder, ostensibly Harmony Gold. No claim is made against those rights. The use of names and other indicia from other Harmony Gold properties is solely for identification purposes and does not constitute a claim of right against the holder of the property.

OK, now that the ersatz legal disclaimer is out of the way---don't sue me---a bit of response. I don't get this ad. Harmony Gold's intent was to reach children with this message, but I am not convinced that it succeeds. Do children these days know what UNICEF is, and are they going to catch it in the illustration? Ditto the World Health Organization and the World Food Program. The images are kind of quickly displayed, and obvious to me only because I have the luxury of starting and stopping the PSA with QuickTime. Of course, the closing message is absolutely unmistakable, but it's sort of presented as a definitive conclusion, without a whole lot of support.

Of course, I don't know how a kid thinks, and they'll probably catch up on what the message wants them to get pretty easily: UN gooooood. (Napster baaaad!)

If I were a UN officer, I would appreciate the thought, but I'd also thank my lucky stars that the organization didn't (apparently) pay for it.

A quick bit of surfing confirmed a suspicion I had, and provided some additional information: The pilot made me think of The New Generation's Lieutenant Scott Bernard, for some reason. That stands to reason, because a source I've found says that it is a "redesigned" Lieutenant Bernard, and that the woman is Ariel, also redesigned from The New Generation. Of course she looked a little strange; she's an Invid---evil alien race---given human form. (The Invid can do that. Considering that their leaders are apparently able to, sort of like the later Zerg of StarCraft fame, able to warp space and time to travel around across interstellar distances simply by thinking about it, reshaping mere flesh and blood wouldn't be too hard.) Also, The Shadow Chronicles takes place after the end of the "Third Robotech War", wherein Earth is liberated from Invid subjugation. If I understand things right, the series will cover Lieutenant Bernard's search for the Robotech Expeditionary Force, a powerful group dispatched some twenty-five years earlier on a mission of armed diplomacy.

See here and scroll down for a description of the effort; whoever's writing that site is not amused. Me, I'm just looking forward to seeing Admiral Lisa Hayes again.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Movie-Going Humor

I'm guilty of laughing at several points during Revenge of the Sith, usually when laughter was appropriate. I like the interactive audience experience, except for the guy who keeps talking how he saw this or that on the web when he was surfing around in search of Star Wars porn. Ew.

Anyways.

I found a list of things to do in order to disrupt the movie-going experience, similar to the list of things to do while watching Return of the King.

Here you go. I just about spewed soda on my laptop while reading several of these, and I was nearly reduced to tears of laughter amidst near-continuous sniggering. I highly approve.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 01:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Uncomfortable Analysis

That cursed Ith! She notes today the Revenge of the Sith review by Orson Scott Card, of Ender's Game fame.

Mr. Card's review is both brutally honest and a welcome read; catch it and let me know what you think.

Ith also says something that lands close to home: "So I'll redo "Revenge of the Sith" in my head, pretty it up, and then I'll go see it again and mesh the two together."

That's interesting, now that I know that other people do it. For the sake of discussion, I'll call it "compression". Defined, it's the process by which one takes a movie and selectively edits it in memory so that only the good---as defined by the individual---parts are retained. To personalize this:

Star Wars does not suffer from compression. The whole thing's an enjoyable ride, from "There'll be no escape for the princess this time" to "Great shot, kid! That was one in a million!" This was amply demonstrated to me over the weekend; I saw this movie in its original VHS release cut with a friend and his wife. She derived great amusement with the fact that she caught me either mouthing or mumbling lines throughout the entire movie.

The Empire Strikes Back operates much the same way, with only a little fudging around the Dagobah sequences. I've never placed any faith in Yoda; I don't like the cut of that fuzzy little hunchback's jib.

To inject other examples, The Hunt for Red October is almost compression-free. From chunks of Marko Ramius' discussion with Borodin to "Welcome to the New World, Captain", I remember this movie. Ditto RoboCop; I've only seen it a few times in eighteen years, but I still pretty much remember large chunks of the film. Admittedly, the dialogue isn't supremely complex, and much of it can be handled with random expletives and "I'd buy that for a dollar!", but that Dutch degenerate Verhoeven managed to make an impression.

I haven't had to redo the first three movies in the Star Wars series, and I haven't had to redo HFRO in my head, either. This is, in my viewpoint, an example of good film-making.

Not so The Lord of the Rings and the Matrix series. FOTR is the least compression-free movie of the bunch to me, but even it can be cut down to whatever happens in Lothlorien. That, and perhaps Boromir's demise, 'cause I really liked that character. Subsequent movies in the series have failed to make much of an impression on me. Note to future directors: If you wish to do so, then I suggest using Cate Blanchett in white.

The Matrix films worked the same way. The first one had some rather memorable moments, and I've fumblingly tried to normalize use of snippets out of that movie into routine conversation. Unfortunately for the Wachowski Twins, they failed in their efforts for more memorable scenes in later films. Reloaded's been cut to a single sequence or two, mostly involving Agent Smith. Revolutions got cut to the Bane v. Neo/Trinity sequence, Trinity's little tantrum in the S&M club, and Neo's disgusted exclamation while in the subway tunnel. Considering that I made those cuts pretty much an hour or two after seeing the movie, that's pretty bad. Of course, I was disgusted with the whole thing, but never mind.

So where does Revenge of The Sith fall? I don't expect to remember enough of it to start reeling out chunks of dialogue, but it's certainly a pleasant memory across several scenes, unlike The Phantom Menace.

Ugh. I really need to get busy with the work of the day.

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A Bit of Issue with the Senate

The Republic Senate, that is. I had been surprised to discover that Kenner had released an action figure of Senator Mon Mothma, of Chandrila.¹ Naturally, I decided that I had to find her in the current picture. That, as they say, didn't work. I had two sets of eyes watching the movie several times in total, and we saw nothing of the Chandrilan senator.

Being thwarted in our collective efforts, we turned to the wisdom of the Internet Movie Database, which confirmed the presence of the character in the movie, played by an actress named Genevieve O'Reilly. Ms. O'Reilly was also noted as having played "Officer Wirtz" in the latter two of the Matrix pictures. None of this helped, and we were a bit stumped. Nobody remembered an Officer Wirtz from Zion or the Matrix itself, so we figured that Mon Mothma was another one of these "If you look at the left side of the screen whilst occluding your eye to the seventh house of Jupiter, you will see her shadow for approximately 0.75 seconds during the sequence where Senator Skywalker makes her observation about thunderous applause" kinds of characters.

However, trust the Internet to bail out the semi-obssessive fanboy in need of a fix. The IMDB message board for Ms. O'Reilly saved the day, telling us two things:

1. The scenes with Senator Mothma (no relation to Senator Mothra, from the island planet of Toho) were cut.

2. Officer Wirtz was in the Zion scenes, with spoken dialogue in Revolutions, asking "What are they doing?" in response to an action taken by the sentinel horde.

A quote, relayed second hand or so, from Rick McCallum (Mr. "George Doesn't Think the Technology's There So That's Why We're Still With VHS" Producer dude in the blue denim shirt a couple of years back) suggests that there'll be deleted scenes on the forthcoming DVD release. I certainly hope so; it seems a waste for Ms. O'Reilly's character to not make the screen.

At any rate, now that that mystery's solved, off to less profitable things. I'm just glad I wasn't somehow missing a giant chunk of the film. See here for one more-or-less authoritative fan source of information WRT the character. The Star Wars website offers The O'Reilly Factor and the 'Databank' entry for Senator Mothma.

I'd vote for her.

¹ We do not recognize the new regime in place. So far as this publication is concerned, Kenner is still making the Star Wars toy line. Hasbro, on the other hand, manufactures the G.I. Joe and Transformers toy lines. Your correspondent is, if nothing else, not about to change terminology simply because twenty-odd years of corporate mergers have intervened.

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More Star Wars

Enough? Never! I'm finally around and coherent for the ending of a movie series that has been present in my entertainment world since the Carter Administration, and there's no way that it'll ever be rivalled. Four out of six were solid pictures, and I could, during a moment of weakness, find something nice to say about Attack of the Clones, pushing the ratio to 5:6. That's got the original Star Trek cast beat, and that's sayin' a lot.

Besides, I'd rather write about Star Wars than Senate nuclear options or Social Security reform, because lots of other people whose lives revolve around Karl Rove's checklists are doing that for fun, profit, and traffic. Revenge of the Sith beats Republicans led by Frist any day, if you will.

Having perused a list of the little action figures from the current movie, I saw that Hasbro Kenner's released Governor Tarkin. Yeeeeeeee haw. A buddy of mine invited me over to his house to watch a VHS copy of the original Star Wars cut, and I was reminded of just how cool Wilhuf Tarkin is. We could use him against the Islamists. Of course, I'll have to get one or two of 'em for the collection.

Ith over at Absinthe & Cookies is reminiscing about Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the very first Star Wars novel other than the one penned by Lucas himself as part of the Star Wars marketing effort. It was written by Alan Dean Foster, a 1970s sci-fi heavyweight, and was reportedly so poorly received that it took Lucas another twelve years or so to greenlight another Star Wars novel. (That novel would be Heir to the Empire, which was written by a guy whose jacket photo had him in a Colonial warrior's jacket from Battlestar Galactica. Sweet.)

I found a copy of it several years ago in a flea market, and didn't share in the majority opinion. If I remember correctly, the novel was clearly a product of the post-Star Wars, pre-Empire universe, so things weren't so fleshed out that Foster couldn't maneuver a bit. I do seem to recall a bit of Luke trying to figure out how best to score points with Leia, which at the time made all the sense in the world. The novel certainly wasn't high literature, but from Foster, what could you expect? He had a style all his own, and I remember the thing reading similarly to his novelization of The Black Hole, which would have been published about the same time.

And yes, our resident Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, was a right monster in it. None of this touchy feely compassionate stuff about him; this was the Vader fully on His Majesty's Sith Service, and thus at least one or two all-out slaughters ensued. In summation, it was a decent novel that, while not being on par with Timothy Zahn's work in Heir to the Empire, was a good read for a trip or something. I doubt it deserves the whole part of opprobrium that's dumped upon it nowadays. I dare the modern fans to stand it against The Courtship of Princess Leia and tell me that Splinter is bad writing. That particular work, in my opinion, started the long slide that Star Wars books have been in for quite some time. The first batch of "academy" novels by K.J. Anderson didn't help much either---except for Admiral Daala, huh huh huh---and the X-Wing series was too uneven to really sustain a lasting interest. Tremendous savings on my part, though.

In related news, a recent purchase---support the war economy!---was the current model of Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber. Wal-Mart (boo hiss!) had them for fifteen bucks, so I couldn't refuse. It's a solid low-cost toy, with color-changing blades. That little feature sold me on it over a Kenobi saber, but now I've still got to get one of those, too.

I'm not entirely sure why I'm so fond of the Anakin Skywalker model. It's probably because the thing was the first 'saber I ever saw, and so I've had an attraction to it as a result. Conversely, I've never really been fond of the one made by his son; the thing looks too fragile. Qui-Gon Jinn's was also pretty nifty, but it seems like you could lose it pretty easily. Darth Vader's is just unwieldly, in my opinion. However, the ones made in the late 1990s, prior to the release of Phantom Menace, were superior; they were scaled more for people of my age group, as opposed to children. Nowadays, the lightsabers are made for kids, not fully-grown adults. (There's something uncomplimentary in there, but I'm not going to say any more.) What I need is an adult-scale lightsaber that can be fiddled around with, instead of costing $500 or so. Suggestions are, of course, welcome.

Thus ends yet another long post in the blogging world on Star Wars. Now, where's my statute of Admiral Piett?

Posted by: Country Pundit at 10:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The Evening Outrage

John Podhoretz continues to dig himself a hole in my viewpoint. Didn't notice the "airport terminal", and I don't care that the Old Republic didn't have ultrasound. There's probably a logical fallacy somewhere around Podhoretz's assumption that just because we have ultrasound that the OR would as well.

But of course, it's John Podhoretz, so obviously his criticism is dead-on accurate, and he stands in the ranks of film criticism right beside Pauline Kael. Note to the so-called "J-Pod": When in a hole, stop digging.

Next, we have the marginally funny Warren Bell commenting the following:

I deliberately avoided the political overtones of Revenge of the Sith. Enough has been made of it already.

The so-called political overtones are not there. I discussed this with Boy of heterophobic (Caution; journal not necessarily work safe) and we agree that the people reading modern politics into the picture see it because they want to see it. I suppose that it's a desire to feel persecuted or rebellious against evil Hollywood; rise up, man the barricades, and demand that Senator Frist exercise the nuclear option! (Which, incidentally, I can't care a whit about.)

Mr. Bell continues:

Heroes on both sides? Utter nonsense. If there are heroes on the Separatist/Droid side, we never see them. The notion that there are heroes on both sides sounds an awful lot like "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," and it's indicative of the grade level of Lucas's political sophistication.

He is right about one thing: We never see any heroic figures in the separatist army. As best as I can remember, we get some wheezing Montgomery Burns of a droid with a biological heart in General Grievous, and then a lot of so-stupid-it's-implausible droids who serve as 'saber fodder for our heroes.

That is, unfortunately, the first and last time that Mr. Bell is accurate about anything in his post. It's not much of an intellectual effort to realize that on any side of a conflict, you're going to find soldiers who do things that would be considered heroic. In World War II, Audie Murphy performed actions that we in the United States would consider heroic. I doubt the officers and men of the Wehrmacht would see it in the same light, but there you have it. Murphy was a war hero, and I do not dispute it.

On the other side, consider the actions of Günther Prien, commander of U-47. On 14 October 1939, Prien led his ship into the Royal Navy anchorage at Scapa Flow. While there, he was able to torpedo the battleship HMS Royal Oak, and then return to the German submarine base at Kiel. This was no small action; Scapa Flow was one of the most, if not the most, important Royal Navy bases. It constituted a major victory on a variety of levels for the Germans, and won Prien tremendous fame. He was hailed as a public hero when he returned to Germany, and reportedly remained Admiral Karl Doenitz's favorite commander until the loss of U-47 in mid-1941. (For a good account of the Scapa Flow action, see here.)

Setting aside for the moment the fact that Prien sailed for National Socialism, a question for Mr. Bell: Do you not think that Prien's actions were heroic? Merriam-Webster includes in its definition for hero the following: "an illustrious warrior, a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities, one that shows great courage"

I don't know anything about the noble qualities---or not---of Prien, but sneaking into the British equivalent of Naval Station Norfolk and sinking a capital ship sounds rather courageous and like an achievement worthy of praise. And then of course grit your teeth, clench a fist, and curse the man for his success.

Enh. Perhaps J-Pod is blinkered to the point where everything comes to him through an ideological lens. He reportedly wrote a book that hailed George W. Bush as the greatest Presidential speaker since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, so that may be some indication that Podhoretz is overly sensitive to perceived criticism of the sitting President. As for Warren Bell, I'm not sure what to think. It's rather juvenile I would think to believe that only one side's soldiers are capable of heroic deeds.

Oh well. My new Revenge of the Sith litmus test is humming along just fine, and more names are being added to the list of those who get ignored. Warren Bell, you just wrote yourself on there. Mr. Podhoretz, you've inscribed your name not only in blood, but with hammer and chisel.

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Trailer Review

Four trailers stuck out in my mind:

Mr. and Mrs. Smith - Neither Brad Pitt nor Angelina Jolie make my list of preferred actors & actresses. Although I liked the latter's performance as Francesca Cook in Sky Captain, she's just never caught my fancy. Until now. Er, right. She's right attractive, as a matter of fact. Gratuitous gunplay with a gorgeous woman can always catch my eye. Consider both of them caught. According to some IMDB reports, Nicole Kidman was going to be in the Angelina Jolie role. Curses.

Bewitched - It has Nicole Kidman. 'nuff said. That being said, I used to like watching the original series on television in various re-runs, and I was rather interested in seeing how well Miss Kidman would compare to Elizabeth Montgomery, who was arguably one of the best-looking women on television during the original broadcast run of the series.

One of Australia's finest---alongside Cate Blanchett, of course---does very well, thank you. She'll go very far in covering up for that blathering idiot Will Ferrell. Michael Caine's presence ought to add to the success. Did I mention that Nicole Kidman's a babe in this? Combine it with a touch of white magic, and well, hellllloooooooo nurse, to quote one of the Warner Brothers.

War of the Worlds - This might be good. I really enjoyed---and was often scared by---the late 1980s Paramount syndicated show of the same name. I'm not much of a Tom Cruise fan---any man who'd leave Nicole Kidman---but this might actually be good. I'm sort of hopeful about this, even though I doubt I'll ever get to hear that creepy "To life immortal!" again.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe - I have high hopes for this, and it looks to be done well. I'm eager to see how this one plays out, with special curiosity as to the way Lewis' Christian themes and imagery survive the Hollywood process. I just wish Jadis had gone to one of my favorite Australian actresses. Tee hee. Hopefully this will be well done and do well; I'd like to see The Voyage of the Dawn Treader put to film.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention one other picture's trailer.

Fantastic Four - I barely understand this particular Marvel franchise. Most of the comic books I read when I was younger were moldering back issues of the Marvel Battlestar Galactica book, Transformers, and the various Robotech series. At any rate, Jessica Alba is miscast as Susan Storm Richards. From a visual perspective, Jessica Alba doesn't match what I've found to be the more or less image of Mrs. Richards; the color scheme seen in the movie doesn't work. Oh well.

Johnny Storm looks interesting, and Reed Richards looks like Reed Richards should. Ben Grimm will be weird to watch on screen. Nevertheless, I'll probably shell out for this flick as well. I can't remember the last time all the trailers to a movie came away with me thinking "I'll go and see it". Interesting.

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Revenge of the Sith

Just got back from the midnight show at the local theater. First in line, first in theater, and all that. Yee haw. That'll be something to tell the grandkids, assuming that I ever have any.

Revenge of the Sith is easily the best of the three new pictures, and compares well with the first three. The Empire Strikes Back it ain't, but that's OK. I won't spoil anything for the hordes of people who haven't yet seen it, so don't look for plot details just yet. I'll say this, however: Anyone trying to link either Darth Vader or Chancellor Palpatine to George W. Bush will have an impossible task; Junior's not capable of the kinds of things that we see these two get up to. It's nice to shatter a meme in the making, after all.

This movie pretty much seals Darth Vader's claim to be the ultimate [redacted], state of the [redacted] art, with apologies to Private W. Hudson, USCM.

John Podhoretz, you may be all that and the proverbial bag of chips in writing for magazines, but you, sir, fail miserably as a critic of the Star Wars saga. For once, I wasn't rolling my eyes and averting my gaze at an awful picture, so by that (admittedly vague) test, Revenge of the Sith wins. Mr. Podhoretz joins Stephen Moore in the column of National Review columnists who I won't be paying attention to.

I had several vocal cheers, several exclamations of surprise (or laughter) and was generally impressed with the film. It took Lucas twenty-eight years, but he finally managed to hold my attention from the director's chair once again. The one thing that stuck out at me was that certain headgear for a particular officer class looked inaccurate, but I'll leave it to the people who keep close track of these things. Setting that aside, I was impressed by several recognizable homage shots, and a touch or two of Spielberg in a particular action sequence. I also appreciated the way the movie managed to illustrate a tremendous amount of activity spanning nigh-on twenty years in just a few minutes. More testimony to the power of the moving picture, I suppose.

Gimme a black cape and similar robes any day. Just have Miss Portman waiting in the wings...

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The New Blue?

NYPD Blue is gone, and I shall miss it. My father and I had agreed yesterday that Tuesdays were going to be something less now that we didn't have Blue to watch and discuss. We'd also agreed that the follow-on Blind Justice wouldn't be the replacement.

At seven minutes after ten tonight, we reversed the decision and watched the pilot episode of this new Steven Bochco police drama.

Having done so, a few observations:
-It certainly isn't Blue. I miss Mike Post's opening theme, and then the usual cues for the series. I also miss Bonnie Somerville's Detective Laura Murphy, who was exceptionally easy on the eyes.¹

-Had Detective Jim Dunbar been employed by the Bureau of Criminal Investigation (part of the Virginia State Police) and received his injury, he would have been sent home on disability. No ifs, ands, or buts.

-What's with the quasi-infra-red imaging that Det. Dunbar uses to figure things out? It reminds me of the xenomorph's view in the Aliens versus Predator series of games.

Nothing further, your Honor. Pop and I have decided to give this program a chance to replace Blue, but it'll be hard. more...

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01 March 2005 Sci-Fi Babes Voter Guide

JohnL of TexasBestGrok has mercifully ended the poll wherein Katee Sackhoff was getting slaughtered by Grace Park. Thus, here comes the new issue of the TCP Voter Guide:

A. I recommend a vote for Captain Shane Vansen, United States Marine Corps. She flies, she shoots, she's accustomed to zero-g. What more could you ask for, other than S:AAB on DVD? (See here for some photographs of Captain Vansen.)

B. Special Agent Dana Scully, Federal Bureau of Investigation, is in the regrettable position of playing second fiddle to a fighter pilot. I'm a sucker for fighter pilot gals (see Deering, Wilma) and she's too bloody short to overwhelm a woman in uniform. Besides, I was more interested in Marita Covarrubias for a season or two.

I'm sorry, Dana. Visit the Order of the Blessed Saint Scully the Enigmatic for your Scully needs. Geez, it's been years since I've typed that name.

C. Jessica who? Sister, you're no Susan Storm Richards.

Click here to vote for Captain Vansen. After all, we support our troops. At least, those who will be our troops. Or something.

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Bother

Tonight is the final episode of NYPD Blue. Well, there goes the remaining television program that I once used to watch. It's been an impressive decline since the 1990s, when I used to eagerly watch The X-Files, Space: Above and Beyond, The Practice, NYPD Blue, and probably a lot of other programs that I used to watch.

Hrrm. ABC and Fox seem to have been my television homes, but sadly for them, no more. Why's that? Because I'm in their coveted demographic.

Television becomes even less important now than ever before. Cultural disconnect? Oh yeah. Do I mind? Not so much.

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Hail Oscar

Yee haw. The Oscar crowd has seen fit to correct its 1998 mistake (i.e. Oscar for Gwyneth Paltrow, not for Cate Blanchett) yesterday evening, and Cate Blanchett goes home with the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, for her role as Katherine Hepburn in Martin Scorcese's The Aviator.

Take that, Sideways. As for the other winners, I don't know and don't care. Late last night and this morning, it snowed something like half a foot or so, and life is great at the moment.

NB: A quick search of Technorati seems to indicate that the Italians are very excited about our Oscars. That's weird. Usually, when someone mentions the word "Oscar" to me, I think of (variously) the letter "O", a Soviet SSGN, or the type of fish my folks used to keep in the early 1970s. Obviously it's a problem of branding.

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New Portishead Album(?)

Oh, joy. If you're one of the people (like me) who once upon a time liked to listen to "the Bristol sound"---vaguely defined as trip-hop---then the subject will mean something to you. The eerie sounds of Beth Gibbons used to echo through part of my college career, and I'd always wondered what had happened to them.

According to a news post on pheadweb, Portishead frontman Geoff Barrow told an outfit called "BBC Music 6" that their third LP was nearly completed.

I went and checked this for myself on the BBC Music 6---some sort of music channel that simulcasts to digital radio, the Internet, and something called interactive TV---site and found the following from Geoff Barrow:

"We're actually into it as we speak. We took some time off for Christmas, but generally we're doing another record, yeah. We got together, sounds cool, so we're gonna go with it."

Music 6 noted that Barrow "told us it's already well on the way to being written".

I don't understand British music journalism very well, but there may be some sort of disconnect between the fan site, Geoff Barrow, and the Music 6 people. At any rate, it'll be a Good Thing if I get another Portishead album in the next couple of months or so. Three albums, one of which was a live one, in eleven years is lagging behind even Liz Phair, and that takes some work.

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The New Sci-Fi Babes Quiz Voter Guide

JohnL of TexasBestGrok has the new poll up. The TCP Voter Guide is below:

A. I recommend a vote for Tricia Helfer's Number Six. This recommendation is not made on the basis of having observed her in the new Galactica, but rather web-based observations.¹ In fact, I've never seen the new show. Not having the SFC will do that to you, although it appears that Katee Sackhoff might be cute. Nothing, however, will beat Maren Jensen in blue on the bridge.

B. Kristanna Loken fails for two reasons: 1) She's made out in public with the entertainer, Pink. That's disgusting. If women are going to do that sort of thing together, both of them need to be good looking. Loken skates perilously close to not making the cut, and Pink fails miserably. 2) Her acting, and thus the T-X, made less of an impression on me in T3 than Claire Danes did. Given that Loken wore tight leather, didn't say anything (for the most part) and was blond-haired/blue-eyed, that's saying something. Coming up second to Claire Danes in overall appeal isn't something that just happens. Indeed, it takes strenuous effort to be less appealing than Miss Danes. (Admittedly, I have a bit of a favorable lean towards Miss Danes, although I've certainly never really watched anything she's in other than T3.)

C. Seven of Nine not only represented audience pandering but booted my favorite character off of Voyager. Yes, I was more taken with Jennifer Lien's Kes than I was Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine. Blond hair, blue eyes, pointed ears, and a honey-laced drawl that could melt titanium win over sheer forward weight, catsuits, high heels, and a domineering personality every time.²

For the forgoing reasons, dear readers, I suggest that you vote for Six and don't go on to seven or ten. Thank you. I'll be here all week.

UPDATE: Hah! Téa Leoni wins the poll, with 24 of 69 votes cast. Liv Tyler finished second with 21 votes, Annabella Sciorra was third, and Natalie Wood was fourth. Not bad for someone who's been dead on the order of 25 years. Yay for Mrs. Duchovny, even if she is reportedly "grieving" over the re-election of George W. Bush. Well, I didn't vote for her brains, and I for darned sure didn't vote for her body, so it doesn't look like I'm out too much. A year or two at Camp Country Pundit could probably correct any errors in thought, and "we have the technology" to improve the latter issue as well. more...

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Latest Sci-Fi Babe Poll

The latest sci-fi babe poll over at TexasBestGrok is up. Subject: "The Women of Asteroid Disaster Flicks".

After careful review, the proper choice is (B), Téa Leoni as Jenny Lerner in Deep Impact.

(D) Annabella Sciorra is the wrong choice because she was last hot in Jungle Fever with Wesley Snipes. (A) Natalie Wood is wrong because we don't know anything about her, other than that she was supposed to be hot. (C) Liv Tyler is wrong because Armageddon is that bad of a movie.

Although I never actually saw Deep Impact, Mrs. Duchovny (much to Bree Sharp's disappointment, I bet) was one of the reasons that I thought about going. I've never actually seen her on screen for any other thing than a random episode of The X-Files, so where the attraction comes from, I don't know. Maybe I ought to rent/buy Jurassic Park III and watch that, although I've never seen any of those. (On the other hand, that could cause problems; Laura Dern, despite her fog-headed nitwittery, is good-looking.)

On review, the thing that once caught my eye about Fox's wife was this picture. I don't particularly know why, but it did. Anyone who's got an explanation can go right ahead and tell me; I'd like to know. Use e-mail, because I've never figured out how to nuke the comment spam.

Meanwhile: Neener neener, JohnL, Wilma still won.

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New TBG Sci-Fi Babes Poll

The latest poll of sci-fi babes is up over at TexasBestGrok. I recommend a vote for Kirstie Alley's Lieutenant Saavik from The Wrath of Khan as the best-looking Vulcan babe.

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