30's movies marathon - part 3

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932, USA) - This is really bad, but gets WTF-points for turning Poe's crime story into a damsel & man-in-monster-suit movie. Takes place in Paris, 1845, where people are so well-read that they're already discussing Darwin's theory of evolution. Watched: 30 minutes.

Scarface (1932, USA) - Say hello to my little .. oh, never mind the pun. This is actually really good, apart from the comic relief and some attempts at being respectable. Paul Muni is a crazier and better Tony than Al Pacino. Notice the glee in his eyes as he gets his first machinegun.

Hell's Angels (1930, USA) - Bits and pieces of everything stitched together. Some parts are shot as a silent movie, others in a sort of "color". It's the Frankenstein monster of movies: slow, dull, and with a sickly green hue (*ba-dum-bum ching*). Academy Award nomination for strangest German acting in a movie. Watched: 30 minutes, then fast-forwarded through the stuntman-killing action scenes. Not worth it.

I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932, USA) - I am an important made-for-Oscar social drama. Watched: 9 minutes.

The Beast of the City (1932, USA) - The Shield: The Previous Generation. Watched it all.

Limite (1931, Brazil) - It's not that I hate art films on principle. I just think they attract bad filmmakers. Watched: 10 minutes.

30's movies marathon - part 2

The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932, USA) - It is good that the world has a group of clumsy British archeologists to protect us from hundreds of millions of obedient and ruthless Chinamen. Watched: 18 minutes. IMDB reviewers call it "politically incorrect", by which they mean racist.

Mata Hari (1931, USA) - Greta Garbo is a tease, for which she is shot by the French government. Good and weepy, and not true to history.

The Blood of a Poet (1933, France) - French surrealism again. Okay, I get it, it's clever. But - why?! Watched: 10 minutes.

Smart Money (1931, USA) - Small-town gambler learns swindling and street smarts in the big city, (inoffensively named "The Big City"). Charming.

The Mummy (1932, USA) - A reawakened mummy bores archeologists to death. Watched: 14 minutes.

The Old Dark House (1932, USA) - It was a dark and stormy night, in every conceivable way. Makes up for being bad by being peculiar, which is the definition of cult. Watched all of it, and so should you.

Morocco (1930, USA) - Marlene Dietrich's too sexy for this crappy movie. Watched: 30 minutes.

Blacker than the blackest black times infinity

Metalocalypse is a cartoon tribute to metal, and should be played at high volume.



Dethklok is the world's most brutal band. They live the metal dream in Mordhaus, a mountain fortress built like a viking ship:


Dethklok does everything every metal band ever sang about, times infinity. They're that brutal. Their anti-piracy scheme is to visit your house at night, kill your family, and take you away to Mordhaus to be tortured. Dethklok's concerts frequently lead to the death or mutilation of their fans, but that's okay, because the fans don't mind:



Dethklok gets away with this because they're immensely rich and powerful. And because a secret society of leaders believe they'll play a role in a prophecy. Satan is also involved somehow.

Befitting the world's greatest metal band, Dethklok has two Scandinavian members, Skwisgaar Skwigelf and Toki Wartooth. (Yes, Skwisgaar and Toki are common Scandinavian names.) Some of the show's Scandinavian metal references are mean:


I do not approve. Well actually I do. That's hilarious. So is Burzum's, the diner, and Finntroll's, the supermarket.

Dethklok is good for a fake cartoon band, and have released a real-life album called The Dethalbum. Series creator Brendon Small sings the lead vocals. They actually go on tours. This is This is Spinal Tap for metal fans.

30's movie marathon - part 1 ("I bid you .. welcome" edition)

My new movie marathon is movies made in the 1930's. Where on earth do I get them all?! Have I found some kind of buccaneers den of movies? It's a mystery! But however it happens, I always buy the good ones. I don't rip off artists, even when they've been dead (undead undead undead) for half a century.

Dracula (1931, USA) - Creaky, (meaning bad), but every overacted word out of Bela's mouth is gold. Mad Renfield's good too.

The Bat Whispers (1930, USA) - It's a remake of The Bat! NOOO[dramatic fade-out]ooooo[almost gone now]ooo... Watched: 5 minutes.

The Black Camel (1931, USA) - Bela Lugosi (again?) is a psychic charlatan who gets involved with a murder investigation in Hawaii. This sounds more exciting than it is. Oh, Bela. Watched: 17 minutes.

Platinum Blonde (1931, USA) - Romantic comedy with the quips of a Groucho Marx and the satire of a P. G. Wodehouse, only much less so. Watched: 30 minutes.

Chandu the Magician (1932, USA) - Boy, those mysterious Indians sure are mysterious! Watched: 8 minutes.

Enthusiasm (1931, Soviet Union) - Confused documentary about the Soviet Union's struggle against religion, coal shortages and good filmmaking. Workers in the Ukraine fulfill their five-year plan in four years, and then they all live happily ever after.

The Golden Age (1930, France) - Scorpions .. sick islanders attacked by battle bishops .. what? Looks good, sounds bad. Making talkies is hard, especially without a narrative. Watched: 20 minutes.

Silent movie marathon - Part 4

Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (1927, Germany) - Oh .. my .. God. People, machines, buildings. Yes!

The Lost World (1925, USA) - Stop motion dinosaurs and a man in a monkey suit. Not bad, but typical. However groundbreaking, special effects really do work better with sound, color and CGI. Watched: 15 minutes, then fast forwarded to the dinosaurs.

The Unknown (1927, USA) - Circus artist Joan Crawford is sick of men groping her, and develops a phobia about hands. She finds comfort with a man who pretends to have no arms, but is secretly a thief and a strangler. Deliciously macabre symbolism. Sometimes a cigar really is a penis.

Anthology of Surreal Cinema, Vol 1: Entr'acte (1924, France), La Coquille et le Clergyman (1928, France), Ballet Mecanique (1924, France), Anemic Cinema (1926, France) - Huh. Funny! Brain massage. Watched all of it, but the nice thing about surrealism is that you can take a bathroom break without missing anything.

La Chute de la Maison Usher (1928, France) - Not bad, but I like Roger Corman's Poe movies better. Watched: 10 minutes.

The Battleship Potemkin (1925, Soviet Union) - Fine film. Made in that very very short period when Bolshevik doctrine held that the state shouldn't massacre citizens for no good reason.

That's all the silent movies for now. I have learned that I hate silent comedies, and that all silent movies should be set to Shostakovich.

The end of the world, as we know it

The world just ended again. Twice. First with the new mini-series Dead Set, where the survivors of the zombie apocalypse are participants in Big Brother, unaware throughout the first episode that zombies are eating their audience. Nice spin.

Second with Fallout 3, a post-apocalyptic RPG. I'm an impatient gamer. If a game doesn't constantly reward me with points, happy sounds and shiny colors, I lose interest, and go back to something more exciting, like reading a book. But for now I'm having fun exploring the nuclear wasteland of the D.C. area. Based on the game engine from Oblivion, Fallout 3's lush and detailed graphics cover the full range of colors from brown to gray. Broken buildings and roads litter the landscape. Mutants and hopeless people roam about, waiting for you to save, exploit and/or eat them.

I always play the hero in these type of games, even when they give you a choice. "Why, of course I'll save your village from the mutant army without asking anything in return, even though I'm sick, starving, and short on ammo. Don't mention it!" I don't want to explore my inner sociopath. I just don't. Well, maybe I should try it just once. Just for a little while. To see what it's like. Surely that won't make me a .. BAD PERSON?!!

Silent movie marathon - part 3

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926, Germany) - Arabian Nights-based fairy tale. Animated with silhouettes, which looks amazing. Look! Watched it all.

The Bat (1926, USA) - Jewel thief dressed as a bat (if a bat looked like a mouse) baffles the police. Reminds me of a kid telling a story with action figures. Watched: 10 minutes.

Ménilmontant (1926, France) - Drama from the bleak and menacing school of film-making. Life in Paris really, really sucks. Watched it all, not because I liked it, but because it's compelling and doesn't feel old.

The Blue Bird (1918, USA) - Probably a morality tale. There's a bird of happiness which only some people can see, and then there's a rich family and a poor family and one that is normal. They all live on the same street, just waiting to bump into each other for valuable life lesson purposes. Watched: 11 minutes. (Having checked IMDB, I see there's also a fairy involved.)

Oktyabr (1928, Soviet Union) - Mm .. Soviet propaganda, where hysterical mobs of rich ladies beat up workers in the streets. Fairly truthful account, in the sense that, yes, the October revolution took place in October. (Well, it was actually November). The version I saw was with sound effects, which is silly, but it was set to music by Shostakovich, whose '1917' symphony is my favourite of the few positive outcomes of communism. Watched it all, but it lacks focus.

Silent movie marathon - part 2 ("comedy" edition)

Shoulder Arms (1918) - In the words of Captain Edmund Blackadder, Charlie Chaplin's films are "about as funny as getting an arrow through the neck and discovering there's a gas bill tied to it". Now I see what he meant, and - dear God - there's another one coming up. Watched: 18 minutes.

The Pilgrim (1923) - In the words of Private Baldrick, a few seconds later, Charlie Chaplin is "as funny as a vegetable that's grown into a rude and amusing shape". Mm .. Blackadder. Now where was I? Oh yes. Watched: 5 minutes.

Safety Last (1923) - On the bright side: Harold Lloyd is funnier than Chaplin, and I did like this movie the first time I saw it. Watched: 40 minutes.

Days of Youth (1929, Japan) - I .. think this is supposed to be funny. I arrive at this conclusion by a process of elimination: It clearly isn't anything else, so it must be comedy. Watched: 9 minutes.

The Freshman (1925) - Lloyd again. I wish I was watching Horse Feathers. Watched: 8 minutes.

For Heaven's Sake (1926) - Ha ha, Harold Lloyd's black driver is stupid! I really should be revisiting the Marx Brothers soon. Watched: 8 minutes.

Dr Pyckle and Mr Pride (1925) - Laurel without Hardy. At last a funny (but short) comedy. Mr Hyde of Stevenson's novel is an evil and violent man. Mr Pride steals ice cream from children and plays jokes on old ladies. Watched: All of it. All 20 minutes of it.

Silent movie marathon - part 1

It's a shame that silent movies died. The best of them achieved things that have never been possible in talking movies. In this movie marathon, I've dug up a whole bunch of silent movies, most of which I know little about.

Häxan (1922, Denmark) - Part slideshow presentation, part staged documentary about witchcraft beliefs and witch trials. Uses scorn and comic depictions of Satan to expose the foolish ways of the olden days, (why, they even slept naked!) Rationalistic with an aggressive self confidence that will appeal to and embarass modern skeptics. Leans towards exploitation. Watched: All of it.

Our Hospitality (1923, USA) - Buster Keaton comedy with such failed gags as a street with a traffic constable but hardly any traffic(!), and a train where the roof is so low that a gentleman cannot wear a top hat(!!) Watched: 17 minutes.

The Kid (1921, USA) - Tramp Chaplin adopts an abandoned child. The discovery that comedies should be funny must have come later in the decade. Watched: 23 minutes.

Dr. Mabuse (1922, Germany) - Ambitious, unfocused, and very, very long story about stock fraud and gambling. Watched: 25 minutes, out of 4 hours!

Strike (1925, Soviet Union) - Surprisingly funny for a movie that encourages you to lynch capitalists. Watched: All of it.

Glomdalsbruden (1926, Norway) - Love story about a forced marriage in rural Norway. It's interesting how it's the simple stories that benefit most from silence. Basic emotions shine in a way they rarely do in talkies. Watched: All of it.

Nyere norsk film - en oppsummering

Med 26 påbegynte og 5 ferdigsette norske filmer bak meg denne uken erklærer jeg meg selv herved for ekspert på nyere norsk film. Nå skal dommen avsies. Hvordan står det til med norsk film? Ikke så mye verre enn det står til med film generelt. Vi sliter med å lage intelligente filmer, men det gjør alle andre også. Vi sliter også med å lage underholdende filmer, kanskje fordi de dyktigste filmskaperne våre synes det er å sikte for lavt, og overlater terrenget til sjangerformelrytterne? Da blir det opp til flaksen om de bruker formlene kreativt (Switch) eller fantasiløst (Fritt vilt).

De eneste to klare anbefalingene er Kill Buljo, hvis du liker teit humor, og Mannen som elsket Yngve, hvis du liker et godt drama. Resten .. Schpaaa, Switch og Elling var severdige, men jeg er sannelig glad jeg ikke så de andre filmene på kino, hvor det krever usedvanlig mot å forlate en film etter 15 minutter.

Lærdommer:

• I blant lages det ålreite norske filmer.
• Bjørn Sundquist spiller i langt færre norske filmer enn jeg trodde.
• Bra-til-å-være-norsk-sekseren er reell. Trekk fra to på terningkastet.
• Norsk film er på sitt beste når karakterene holder kjeft. Talefilmen er den største ulykken i norsk filmhistorie.
• Før eller senere kommer noen til å få til en okey norsk naturgrøsser.
• Dinas mors død er den mest ufrivillig morsomme scenen i norsk filmhistorie.

Mitt spørsmål til norske filmskapere er: Når kommer den store viking- eller sagabaserte underholdningsfilmen? Sjangeren har hvilt på Hrafninn flýgur lenge nok.

Du er en arrogant, selvopptatt, jævla idiot

Etter en uke med intens seing av nyere norsk film begynner jeg å få et anstrengt forhold til ettertenksom humor om stakkarslige mennesker, grøsserklisjeer i norske naturomgivelser, og generelt scener hvor karakterer snakker sammen, (monologer går greit). I dag skal forholdet anstrenges ytterligere.

Jeg er Dina (2002) - Narm: Et filmøyeblikk som er ment å være dypt alvorlig, men er så klønete utført, overdrevet sippete, eller totalt absurd at det bare blir morsomt i stedet. Ga opp etter: 5 minutter.

Mors Elling (2003) - Nei så interessant er ikke Elling at jeg vil se forhistorien hans også. Ga opp etter: 7 minutter.

Mannen som elsket Yngve (2008) - God musikk, troverdig dialog. Begynner langsomt, men dette er jo faktisk ordentlig bra. Så hele.

Rovdyr (2008) - Hvorfor måtte de begynne å snakke? Ga opp etter: 10 minutter.

Kunsten å tenke negativt (2006) - Optimist vs pessimist er et fint konsept, men det blir ikke ekte, bare en enkel karikatur. Ga opp etter: 12 minutter.

Den brysomme mannen (2006) - Dårlig på en rar og sjarmerende måte, bare ikke rar og sjarmerende nok. Ga opp etter: 15 minutter.

Ulvenatten (2008) - At tsjetsjenske terrorister skulle gidde å holde deltagerne i et debattprogram på norsk TV som gisler er et latterlig selvopptatt filmkonsept. På den andre siden er terrorist-actionthrillere en latterlig selvopptatt sjanger. Ga opp etter: 14 minutter.

Sånn .. da kan jeg la det gå ti år til neste gang. Neste: Oppsummering og endelig dom, av en nå ferdigutlært (eller iallefall selverklært) ekspert på nyere norsk film.

En vandrende målskive for blind vold

Ny dag, ny runde med nyere norsk film. Statistikken så langt denne uken: 12 filmer påbegynt, hvorav 2 ferdigsett. Antall Bjørn Sundquist-observasjoner: 0. Dette er gøy.

Hawaii, Oslo (2004) - Atter et bidrag til haugen av småmystiske hverdagsdrama. Ga opp etter: 18 minutter.

O' Horten (2007) - De 7 første dialogfrie minuttene hvor et passasjertog svever gjennom snølandskapet er noe av det vakreste jeg har sett så langt. (Jeg liker tog.) Ga opp etter: 11 minutter.

Villmark (2003) - Sakte .. sakte .. saaakte trer tjernets ondskap fram. Men naturen er flott. Ga opp etter: 25 minutter.

Elling (2001) - Ettertenksom humor om stakkarslige mennesker, (dette har jeg da skrevet før?), men tross dette ordentlig morsomt. Så hele.

Schpaaa (1998) - Narkogjengvold is bad, m'key? Leker på grensen mot bra, og jeg liker stilen. Så hele.

Ungdommens Råskap (2004) - Ungdom er fryktelig irriterende, spesielt når du setter dem foran et kamera. Ikke gi dem mer oppmerksomhet! Ga opp etter: 18 minutter.

Uro (2006) - Detektimen er ikke hva den en gang var. Ga opp etter: 19 minutter, hvoretter jeg har en sterk mistanke om at vår undercover cop blir tatt av saken og etterforsker på egen hånd.

Men hvor blir det av Bjørn Sundquist? Følg med i fjerde og siste (for Guds skyld!) runde i denne styrtinnføringen i nyere norsk film.

Jævelskap blir liksom rutine når du lever som gangster

I del 1 av denne serien satte jeg meg fore å se alt jeg kan få tak i av nyere norsk film, i et forsøk på å konfrontere mine utdaterte Vibeke Løkkeberg-baserte fordommer. Seks tilfeldige filmer ble forsøkt sett, en slapp såvidt igjennom. I dag fortsetter jakten.

Amatørene (2001) - Spredte tilløp til munnvikhevelse. Min mistanke om at nyere norsk film anser stakkarslige mennesker som en gullgruve for ettertenksom humor styrkes. Ga opp etter: 10 minutter.

Gymnaslærer Pedersen (2006) - Stort tema, liten film. Gymnaslæreren gjennomgår 70-tallets kanskje raskeste kommunistomvendelse, fra småborger til AKP(ml)'er på to minutter (jeg målte). "Neimen jøss, er jeg en kapitalistisk utsuger? Okey!" Arkivopptakene er interessante. Ga opp etter: 24 minutter.

Izzat (2005) - Jeg sier ikke at man ikke kan lage gangsteroppvekstfilm fra pakistanermiljøet i Oslo på 80-tallet, bare at det er en vanskelig oppgave for viderekomne. Sikt lavere! Ga opp etter: 12 minutter.

Jenter (2007) - Huh..? Tittelen er iallefall beskrivende. Ga opp etter: 7 minutter.

Kill Buljo (2007) - Her er det mye kløning og dårlig skuespill, men du verden hvor gøy det er. Teite vitser som ikke irriterer, jevnlige latterbrøl og stort sitatpotensiale. ("Jompa, det e en ting du skal vite. Det e æ som e far din. Nææ, æ bare tulle. Men æ ha pult mor di.") Så hele.

Varg Veum - Kvinnen i kjøleskapet (2008) - Privatetterforsker blir ikke trodd av dumme politifolk. Åjøjemeg. Ga opp etter: 10 minutter.

12 filmer så langt, og minst like mange igjen!

Så kommer du til å tryne noe jævlig

Etter en slengbemerkning om kvaliteten på norsk film og bra-til-å-være-norsk-seksere i avisene fikk jeg nylig en reprimande fra en engasjert seer av norsk film. Da jeg gjerne innrømmer at mitt syn på norsk film er farget av Wam og Vennerød-vitsene i Åpen Post, starter jeg herved et nytt prosjekt: Nå skal jeg gi nyere norsk film den sjansen den fortjener. Som vanlig plukker jeg filmene mer eller mindre tilfeldig, og ser dem med minst mulig forkunnskaper. Rull film!

Tatt av kvinnen (2007): Lovende begynnelse - og så begynner dialogen. Ga opp etter: 10 minutter.

Fritt vilt (2007): Ooh, LotR-flying i fjellheimen. Tålbar dialog og ingen store jag-bort-faktorer, men formel-grøsser til minste detalj. Øksemorder i skummelt hotell, herregud da. Ga opp etter: 40 minutter.

Varg Veum - Bitre blomster (2007): Hvorfor gidder de å gjøre dette? (Skulle forresten ikke Varg Veum være bergenser?) Ga opp etter: 15 minutter

Switch (2007) - Karate Kid på snowboard, med Peter Stormare som mr Miyagi. Noen vil kalle det plagiat, jeg kaller det å stjele fra de beste. Ikke bra, men den første filmen så langt som lever. Så hele.

Lange Flate Ballær (2006) - WTF? Og det finnes en 2'er?! Ga opp etter: 4 minutter.

Reprise (2006) - Er det ikke nok at du er refusert, må du lage film om det også? Joda, er talent her, men det er lov å bruke det utenfor navlen. Ga opp etter: 14 minutter.

I del 2 i denne serien blir det, av filmtitlene å dømme, mer av det samme!

As serious as a German film festival

The Middleman is television for and by TV Tropes-reading movie and TV geeks. All artificial, full of popcultural references and ironic, quick-paced dialogue that screams: "Yes, this is television. We're just a bunch of writers goofing around, come and join us!" This is your reward for knowing your Mario Bava movies and your Wilhelm scream, and your kung-fu and sci-fi and vampire lore. Popcultural trivia doesn't impress your friends and it bombs at parties, but now there's a television show just for you. Actually, The Middleman is well-written and has enough general wackiness to appeal to anyone with a passing familiarity with the genres it plays with, but it's clear who their target audience is: The kind of person who, to the annoyance of everyone around, exclaims "OMG!! this entire episode is based on Escape From New York!!" No really, I like it. I like that it goes 100% synthetic with barely an honest emotion in sight. No halfway caffeinate-it-for-the-kids measures here, just a pure dedication to superficial fun. And let me just say, for the record, that I think it's awesome that the goatee-universe version of our clean 50's comic-book-hero-style Middleman is based on Snake Plissken.

Very little hope, I assure you

The seven movies Roger Corman made from Edgar Allan Poe stories in the 1960's feel like variations of the same universal Poe story. Most have the same haunted mansion visual style, most star Vincent Price as the victim of neurotic obsessions, and premature burials and stern siblings abound. The plots are different from the stories, but the mood and the themes are as close to Poe as you'll get. House of Usher (1960) is the first and one of the best. Definitely the spookiest, with its wonderful ghostly dream sequence. Pit and the Pendulum (1961) is another good one. Vincent Price swoons a lot, which doesn't seem quite right. Premature Burial (1962) probably should have starred Vincent Price, but it does have a lot of premature burials. Tales of Terror (1963) is a bit cheesy. The Raven (1963) is a .. comedy. Yes, they turned Poe's great poem into camp. I gave up when the raven began to wisecrack like a Disney sidekick. Tomb of Ligeia (1964) is different and interesting. No, the word I'm looking for is 'bad', but it's a pity, because there's something unique here.

My favourite is The Masque of the Red Death (1964), which stands apart with its sadism, decadence and Satan-worship, and for once a truly evil Vincent Price. Just brilliant, I love it. Its dialogue was sampled beautifully by Theatre of Tragedy, listen and admire, (it's 3:55 in, I always wondered where that was from):

Did you feel something? Anything?

In today's edition of Watch Random Unknown Movies And Hope For a Gem, all the movies are non-Hollywood movies released in 2007. All of them, except one, suck.

Stellet Licht - Attention film-makers: I don't care that it worked for Kubrick, do not open your film with 9 minutes of silence. Watched: 6 more minutes, and most of them were silent too. IMDB reviewers, on the other hand, were "joyfully, tearfully and emotionally sucked in".

Den Sorte Madonna - Danish take on 80's action comedy cliches. Watched: 11 minutes. IMDB reviewers frothing, demand that director Lasse Spang Olsen be tried at the International Criminal Court.

Nightwatching - Loved the intro, the rest not so much. Self-aware and theatery in a bad way. Watched: 10 minutes. IMDB reviewers are divided between those who didn't like it, and those who appear to share the movie's flaws.

Smother - "Write what you know" does not apply when all you know is that your mom is overbearing and your boss is a twerp. Watched: 5 minutes.

The Wizard of Gore - Ambitious exploitative B-horror, with nudity, blood and guts. This is the most fun I've had all night - this is why I do these things. Yes yes it's crappy, but it's also unique and stylish and surreal. Watched: All of it. IMDB reviewers say it's less gory than the 1970 original, which they see as a bad thing, so that counts them out.

To the honour and glory of the youth of the world

When my first thought upon hearing that the Olympics had begun was that it's time to rewatch Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi-era Olympia, this was not a comment on Chinese oppression. I'm interested in the intersections between Nazi culture and our own, and there are many of them. The strongest fascist undertones and imagery I've seen in a recent movie was in 300, but if we stripped our imagination of every fantasy that Nazis tried to impose on reality, we would be culturally poorer. (Star Wars copied from Triumph of the Will, and its story, like much fantasy, is implicitly elitist.) Olympia is the greatest sports movie ever made, and its lack of overt Nazi propaganda has made some people claim that it isn't "really" Nazi at all. Why, Riefenstahl didn't even edit out Jesse Owens! Which goes to show how easily confused people are by bad ideas in nice clothes. The Nazism in Olympia is not in the occasional shot of Adolf Hitler, it's in the athletic ideals themselves, in Riefenstahl's worship of strength and discipline as something mystical and beautiful. The Nazis imposed these ideals onto real life. We don't, we just enjoy them on TV. It's a gradual difference, morally significant but the esthetics are the same. Which to me is a reminder that nazism and fascism aren't dead, only hiding in our imagination, waiting for new words to escape to reality through. You may not be at risk, but what about your grandchildren?

Well you can't expect everyone to like you

Oh yes, once again with the corporate intrigue and the greedy soulless men in suits. The aborted 1996 series Profit is a charming entry in the psychopathic protagonist genre. It foreshadows the kind of cable series that a few years later would be praised as dark and complex, series like The Sopranos and Deadwood, but Profit is really not that complex: This is soap opera, only better written and with an inverted moral scale. It's fun, but a lot of my enjoyment came from its historical value. They're trying to do something unusual here, but they're not quite there yet. 90's TV conventions make this a "bad deed of the week"-kind of thing. Now if someone made this today .. well, they did, and it's called Dexter. And when the BBC (always ahead) made this in 1990 they called it House of Cards. Both of them are better, but I admire the attempt, and I'm not surprised to learn that one of Profit's creators, David Greenwalt, went on to the Whedonverse, where he co-created Angel. (Speaking of the Whedonverse: Yes! Yes! Yes!!)

Marines make do

Half of my interest in Generation Kill is watching people's reactions to it: Those who support the Iraq war, those who don't, those who have been in the military, and those who haven't. To get the obvious out of the way: This is a great series by the creators of The Wire, and you should watch it for that reason alone. Yes, but how accurate is it? The series portrays Marines in a partly negative and unheroic light, so the best people to point out flaws would be ex-Marines themselves. In that respect, the discussions here and here are illuminating. Scroll past the "stupid Hollywood elitists hate the military"-comments, and you'll find comments along the line of "uh, I was actually in the Marines, and this is pretty much what we're like". The funny thing is that Generation Kill does not come off to me as an indictment of American Marines, at most it's biased against the commanders. It shows regular people making mistakes, it shows civilians getting killed, but that's what you get when you go to war, any war, even the justified ones. The crime of the Iraq war was the decision to launch it, but if you have to fight a war, the people in Generation Kill would be the right people to fight it. What the series does is present the unavoidable chaos and screwups of war, and it does it so well that I think it will set the standard for this genre for a long time.

Random movies, '68 edition

More random movies, all of them from 1968, (why? why not?), which means they're prefiltered by 40 years of film fans and are actually mostly interesting:

I Want Him Dead - Revenge themed spaghetti western. Crappy but fun, like most revenge flicks, (though not up to the Japanese classics).

Petulia - Some sort of sophisticated socialite sex comedy, interweaved with traumatic memories and a touch of sci-fi? Hm what? Watched: 12 minutes. IMDB reviewers say Petulia is underrated and misunderstood. Count me as a misunderstander.

Psych-Out - Haight-Ashbury exploitation, and Jack Nicholson with a ponytail. A lot of fun, but by the time it's all over you'll really, really hate hippies, (this may have been the purpose). IMDB reviewers say the hippie scene wasn't like this at all. Aww.

Spider Baby - Plan 9-style intro speech and bad acting. Watched: 5 minutes, then fast forwarded through the rest. IMDB reviewers say it's a self-parodic cult classic. Okay, but still.

The Night They Raided Minskys - Quick-witted comedy about a burlesque theatre in 1920's New York, telling the urban legend version of how strip tease was invented, (by accident, your honor, I swear!) Works when the plot steps aside.

Danger: Diabolik - Italian crime movie where the hero is some sort of Batman supervillain who dresses like a ninja. And he's a political radical too. Absolutely awesome. IMDB reviewers say it's based on a comic book, which makes sense.

Zooty! Zoot Zoot!

My favourite libertarian skeptics, Penn & Teller, are back with a sixth season of Bullshit on Showtime. In line with my finger argument, Penn & Teller make anger and personal attacks a central part of their exposes of supernatural and puritanical beliefs. The tone is mocking, and will certainly alienate those who sympathize with the victims, but that doesn't bother me as much as it once would have. There's a time for having a calm and rational argument on whatever common ground you have with the other side, and there's a time for rudely demonstrating how little common ground you actually have, as when in the recent episode on internet pornography and those who'd ban it they don't argue that it's beneficial or harmless, but rather that there's no proof that it's dangerous, so let's just go with what's fun, (an argument they then underline with plenty of nudity). Like all libertarians Penn & Teller have their cranky ideas, (climate skepticism is a popular one), but "being right all the time" is a silly standard for pundits and documentarists - I'd rather take smart, witty and interesting. Other themes this season: new age medicine, NASA, sleep and .. uh, dolphin superpowers? What?!

The five-minute movie test

I like to watch the first five minutes of randomly downloaded movies. Find ten movies I haven't heard of, see the beginning of each, and usually one of them will be worth watching to the end. The discovery is more enjoyable for it being random, the movie becomes your own in a sense a "you have to see this!" movie never can. You also get to appreciate the movie on its own terms, not knowing any plot points in advance. I found Altered States this way, a real gem. Of course, most of these movies are shit, but even the bad ones are interesting as little glimpses into the backstreets of movie history. Today's movie: Lawman (1971), which I did give up on after 5 minutes, (it opens with a generic Western brawl and a stranger riding into town, so I figured I could save myself some time and just imagine the rest), but then I found some positive reviews and decided to give it a second chance. Glad I did, it's a fine western, just the way I like them. And now I have five more unknown movies to try out next. (Yes, I do buy the good ones.)

This blog ain't big enough for heroes

Where have all the movie heroes gone? Drawing social lessons from pop culture is a risky game, and so is pretending to know better than Hollywood execs what people will or will not pay money to see. James Bowman fails to convince me that the clean, inspiring heroes of classic Hollywood are gone, but I wouldn't much miss them if they were. There is no such thing as a hero. There is such a thing as a heroic act, but the people who perform them are ordinary, and I would rather that everyone realize their own heroic (and villainous) potential, than believe this to be reserved a distinct kind of pious human. Nor are clean heroes particularly interesting as characters. One exception was Roj Blake in Terry Nation's Blakes' 7, because his heroism was contrasted with the more realistic world around him, and the ordinary selfishness and cowardice of his followers - his idealistic actions were often ineffectual or counterproductive. This is not to say that the solution is to be "dark and gritty", a macho style for teenage boys that despite some original freshness is now a boring cliche. Show me real, flawed people doing good and bad things. Show me that regular, selfish, cowardly people like me can choose to do the right thing. Inspire me, if you like, but there's nothing inspirational about Jesus Christ the son of God with a cowboy hat coming to town to clean out the garbage. Now Judas or Peter, there's a character.