Night of the Misfit Toys

FILM REVIEW: CABIN IN THE WOODS

 

I have a very complicated relationship with horror movies.  Simply put, I love and hate them.  Some of the absolute best movies that I have ever seen have been horror movies.  Because you are riveted waiting for the ‘boo’ moment, you are emotionally engaged in the film in a manner that I cannot simply muster for the latest romantic comedy.  On the other hand, I rarely go to horror movies anymore.  The genre has descended into torture films differentiated only by the stupidity of the victims, the graphic nature of the ‘kills’, and the buckets and buckets of blood.  It is a lot like pornography.  Sure, there may be a cheap thrill to be had but it lacks any sort of richness or texture, any sense of the depth of the experience and thus really not worth the effort.

The best horror movies though, they really really stay with you.  To this day, I am afraid of clowns because one came out from underneath the bed in ‘Poltergeist’ and tried to strangle the kid (I saw the movie when I was like 9 years old).  ‘The Thing’ (the 80’s John Carpenter version) was the classic study in paranoia in enclosed places.  ‘The Ring’ dripped atmosphere more than any other film that I have ever seen.  ‘Alien’ was a gothic horror story that showed that Science Fiction could be edgy and horrifying as well as uplifting and fun.  ‘The Exorcism’ proved that you don’t screw with the Devil and ‘The Shining’ by Stanley Kubrick was only the best ghost story ever shown on the movie screen.  All of these movies are in my list of favorite movies and every-one of them had an effect on me because they were about SOMETHING! They realized that suspense and psychology were vital in scaring us and that the best horror stories had a central conceit, an idea that a story could be constructed around.  The power wasn’t about individual scenes, but in the entirety of the narrative that terrifies.  Because of this, I can honestly say that I am more frightened of a TV flashing static in a darkened room than by anything that ‘Saw IV’ ever threw at me.

 

 

This is all a very long way of saying that I enjoyed ‘Cabin in the Woods’ so much that I am going to call it one of the best movies of the year.  What I cannot do is spoil anything about it.  I won’t tell you about any of the characters or about any of the story because to do would constitute a crime.  Believe me, I can’t tell you a thing about the story because it ruin the many surprises that this movie has.  Suffice it to say, nothing is what it seems and the story is one of the best horror stories in recent memory.  Indeed, it is the first horror movie that has both feet in the 21^st Century that I have ever seen.  

The two things that this movie has going for it is first the story.  As mentioned before, this movie is about something.  It raises the stakes beyond just life and death for a bunch of teenagers.  It makes it an all-out battle between the forces of good and evil.  It gets you invested into the story in a big way.  The other thing is that the dialogue is great.  Horror movie dialogue hasn’t been this good since ‘Army of Darkness’.  Though this movie is a horror movie, it was seldom that I was actually frightened.  I was glued to my seat for the story though and the dialogue was a key piece of it and there were several absolute laughs out loud moments, something that I think some horror movies should do more often.  The scene with the speakerphone caused me to nearly spit out my soda that I was drinking.

All and all, I cannot recommend this movie more highly.  The movie was the product of Joss Whedon, creator of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, ‘Angel’, ‘Firefly’ and several other projects including comic books and that pedigree really shows here (there is even cameos from Buffy alumni in this movie).  In two weeks, Joss Whedon is coming out with ‘The Avengers’, an eagerly anticipated movie that will make hundreds of millions of dollars.  I will see it of course but I have a feeling that I will have enjoyed this movie more. 

 

MUSIC RECOMMENDATIONS – SPRING EDITION (08 APRIL)

 

It is a new spring of a new year and I find myself separated from my family for just a little while longer.  As horrible as it is, one very small benefit (that I would gladly trade away) is the ability to listen to music in my car as loud as I want whenever I want.  Given that my car has a sun-roof and I have an hour’s worth of commute daily, I get to listen to a lot of music.  Here is a choice sample of music that I am paying attention to right now (the picture is of bizzaro band Man-Man):

 

 

GREEN DAY:  Only one of the biggest bands in America whose albums sky-rocket on the charts and rake in the cash.  But what about their music?  I am almost 40 and these guys were getting their start right about the time that I began to REALLY care about music so I have had an opportunity to see them throughout their entire career. When they started in 1987, they were a fun kind of ‘bubblegum’ punk that was precious and catchy and they rode that wave for a time before beginning to fade.  But in 2004, they reinvented themselves in a huge way with ‘American Idiot’ and  ‘21^st Century Breakdown’.  These two punk operas are two of the most lyrical and most important albums released in the past ten years.  Not only are the musically awesome, the lyrics and sense of social consciousness that came out of both is something that 90 percent of the bands out there can only aspire too.  If you have never listened to American Idiot all the way through, do so now.  The song below is one of my favorites from 21^st Century Breakdown.

 

 

 

PORTISHEAD:  This obscure English band is a favorite of mine for late night drives on lonely roads after I heard them on internet radio one late night.  They are great examples of the ‘Trip-Hop’ genre, an interesting mix of downbeat electronica, hip-hop and industrial music that seemed to have peaked in the 90s but still exists today in other forms.  Shunning publicity and famous for very long interludes between albums, Portishead is still around and for that and making another album and for that, I am very grateful.  The song below is a great example of their work, ‘Wandering Star’.  Listen to it while night-driving.

 

 

 

VENGABOYS:  Let me explain.  In 1999, there was this Strip Club / Brothel outside Camp Casey in Tongduchon, South Korea.  At this club, at 1900 (one hour after they opened), every dancer in the club (a combination of Korean, Filipino and Russian girls) came down a winding staircase and climbed onto the stage dressed in outlandish garb and danced in unison and sang along with this song.  If you were pulled onto the stage and danced with them, you got a free drink.  I saw this sight dozens of times both when on Courtesy Patrol and when out on the town with my fellow Soldiers.  I do not condone the business that was going on there then and certainly don’t now, but I have this Vengaboys song and the sight of two dozen Strippers and two dozen Soldiers gyrating on stage forever etched in my memory. 

 

 

 

LED ZEPPELIN:  It absolutely boggles my imagination that there are generations of kids who do not know who Led Zeppelin was and what they accomplished.  Sure, they know ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and they might be able to hum a few bars of ‘Kashimir’, ‘The Immigrant Song’ or even ‘Dyer Maker’ but they can’t tell you a thing about a band that is the second-largest selling Rock Band in history (only behind the Beatles).  If I was king for a day, I would take any snot-nosed little punk that THINKs they know Rock and I would force them to listen to every LZ album (there are a lot of them) until they acknowledged that these guys did it better and earlier than just about everyone else.  I realize that this is probably the first time that I have actually made the ‘You kids don’t know squat’ argument but I challenge you to go listen to Led Zeppelin IV and tell me that in this case, you don’t agree with me.

 

 

 

MAN MAN:  These guys are just plain WEIRD…and that is a good thing.  I listen to a lot of music and occasionally I fall into a funk because I think that everything is starting to sound the same.  I have had my fill at various times of Punk, Rock, Hip-Hop, Trip-Hop, Lo-Fi, Celtic…eventually I start to lose my desire to listen to anything.  And then I make a discovery like Man Man.  I can’t really describe them as anything other than an exceedingly bizarre cabaret Rock/Hop band that occasionally throws in strange warped chords taken from a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.  The first time I listened to their album ‘Six Demon Bag’, I had to listen to it again because I wasn’t exactly sure what I just heard.  Months later, I am still trying to figure it out but I accept that this is the normal state of affairs with Man Man (who apparently has a hell of a live performance that borders on legendary) and they are the perfect antidote for the jaded music listener.

 

 

 

 

THE VILLIAN

 

I have returned to the scene of a crime.   I stand upon the bridge of my Flagship and the crew is absolutely silent as they look anywhere but where I am standing.  I am not known to be capricious or cruel to those beneath me, but my ‘history’ has shown what I will do for the Imperium and it is best not to be noticed.  Besides, my bodyguard stands respectfully several feet behind me.  They have seen her work once.  That single instance was enough to buy me all the solitude that I require.

In front of me, the results of the moment that made me famous and infamous lie in front of me.  The shattered remnants of Europa Station hang in space, one of the great triumphs of the Martian Imperium of the last war and the starting point for my current trip into the past.  Luna had fallen and the White Queen was dead.  Europa Station was the last major outpost of the Lunar Commonwealth, the flashpoint that sparked the whole Lunar-Martian War.  My Fleet had already smashed the last pitiful remnants of organized resistance of the once mighty Lunar Navy and this proud station that had survived for two hundred years through the Jovian Intervention and the Rim War, laid completely at my mercy. 

 

There were things that we were not prepared to do to Luna and her population.  We needed the Moon and her resources, her industry and its workforce.  It compelled a certain amount of restraint against our ancestral enemies.  Europa Station required no such forbearance.  There needed to be a lesson taught to the rest of the Solar System.  The Titan Code and other artifacts of the past needed to be erased for the New Solar Order to occur.  An even harsher lesson needed to be taught to the survivors of the Lunar Commonwealth and to their former allies like the Ring Confederacy that was no line that we would not cross in pursuit of our new Order. 

I close my eyes and I see Europa Station intact, its weapons silent and dozens of Lunar civilian ships moored to her structure.  I left the intercom on as the Lunar Commander signaled her surrender and pleaded for mercy for the tens of thousands of civilians aboard the Station.  She begged for the families and the children that had sought to escape our advance at Europa.  She offered her life in payment for the two years that Europa Station held against us if only we would spare the families.  I respected her bravery and believed her to be sincere.  In the end, I did not hesitate one moment.

I don’t hide from what I did.  I bear the title ‘The Butcher of Europa’ because I killed defenseless men, women and children twenty years ago.  I have done worse since and before this is over, I may have to do things that will make my name the darkest of curses throughout the entire Solar System.

I once overheard one of my men remarking that I was utterly without a thought, without remorse.  Those words came close to wounding me because they are only half true.  I can do the things that I do without remorse because I do have a conscience.  I know the secret at the heart of the centuries long conflict between Mars and Luna.  I know why the Demon AIs hate us.  I know why the Rim War started and why we cannot go beyond the orbit of Neptune.  I know how Humanity ends.  I will be the Butcher. I will do what needs to be done.  My one hope, the only thing that I have ever wanted for myself is that eventually Humanity learns why I did what I did and understands.

 

THE VETERAN

I looked up into space and watched the fall of the Lunar Commonwealth.  The dome over the capital had been breached during the initial landing of the Martians and I was surrounded by thousands of dead civilians, thinking the Titan Code would have spared them from the hard vacuum of space.  Laser bolts still flashed throughout the city as Imperial assault troops eradicate the last pockets of resistance.  I hide from a passing Skimmer, search lights emanating from its sides as it continues its recon. 

The radio has been silent for an hour, the last message a desperate cry for rescue from a wounded Marine whose squad had been killed around him.  I have been left with my thoughts for an hour, an eternity.  I know that millions of citizens had survived the dome breach and had escaped into the pressurized dwellings, shelters and warrens of the City.  I know that they may be only a single wall away from me, but I feel so alone. 

 

Hours earlier, I watched the last fleet of the Lunar Commonwealth form up in Lunar orbit.  The ‘Purity’ virus implanted into our system by the Lunar Humanity Front traitors had crippled our AIs and cybernetic defenses.  When we received news about the ‘Jupiter Massacre’, we knew that the Martians were coming.  The Lunar Commonwealth had endured for 600 years, standing as a beacon of hope for Humanity through the Collapse and the Dark Ages.  We held the line against the mad AIs of the Dominion during the horror of the Rim War and saved the Solar System.  I was never more proud than at the end.

Three hundred warships of the Lunar Navy, outnumbered, met the bulk of the Martian Fleet and thousands of missiles, torpedoes and countless millions of particle beams were exchanged.  Point defense clusters fired desperately trying to stop incoming projectiles and the electronic noise fouled communications on the Lunar surface.  Lunar vessels, holed and crippled, valiantly rammed Imperial Cruisers.  Citadel Station, flames along its kilometers long axis, fell from the sky and impacted somewhere to the east of us, raising a cloud of dust that has obscured the sight of our ruined home-world. 

The end was appropriately climatic.  The breaching of the Dome and hundreds of assault craft depositing tens of thousands of genetically superior Imperial shock troops into the city.  Skimmers were locked in aerial combat under and outside the Dome and Martian and Lunar armored vehicles traded fire in the streets.  I stood on the roof of Tombaugh Memorial Hospital, my men dying around me as I watched a missile impact upon the side of the Martian Skimmer and it spiraled into the school building that I attended as a little girl.  I saw the Lunar Knights engage in their suicidal charge across the roofs of the Royal residence, attempting valiantly to rescue the White Queen.  And now, I am the final witness to final throes of a dying Commonwealth.

If I stay here, I am dead.  I look into the distance at the burning building that was the Royal residence and I turn away.  I know a few blocks away is a warren that will take me out of the city and to Wyoming Landing, where the foreign merchants have been holding up and waiting for the end of this war.  For all I know, I may be the only loyal citizen left alive who saw the end.  I owe it to the fallen that the true story of their deeds is never forgotten.

 

THE ASSASSIN

 

Cao Tang sat upon a small wooden platform, his dark office illuminated by harsh white light of Venus through the heavily tinted window.  Like most Eunuchs in the service of the Celestial Emperor, he was a large man given to indolence and comforts that were allowed to him given his privileged position.  The voluminous robes did little to hide his great bulk, though the quality of the fabric and the elaborate sigils embroidered into the sleeves indicated that he was high in the Emperor’s favor.

Absolutely none of this was lost to the foreign man on the opposite end of the communications screen that was recessed into the opposite wall of the Bureaucrat’s office.  The foreigner knew that Cao Tang was second only to the Celestial Minister of Trade and that the Eunuch’s favor was necessary to gain one of the coveted licenses to do trade in the famously isolationist realm of the Celestial Empire.  The foreigner nodded his head respectfully and then asked, “Do we have a Deal?”

“Yes.  I believe that the Empire will look very favorably upon your request” replied Cao Tang and he then ended the conversation with a curt nod as the connection was terminated.  With the screen dark, the shadows of the office deepened but Cao Tang did not mind.  He rather enjoyed the dark shadows of his expansive office and he found the muted illumination of Venus to be relaxing. 

Cao Tang closed his eyes and began to think about the conversation he had just ended.  The Emperor’s decision to open the Celestial Empire to the Solar System after three centuries of isolation spawned hordes of merchants hungry for new commercial markets as well as curious tourists who wanted to see the fabled Sky Cities of Venus.  The Emperor had created an elaborate system of restrictive licenses and restrictions that served to minimize the taint of foreign influence upon the Celestial Empire.  There were many that felt that after ravaging of the outer planets by the Rim War and the destruction of the Lunar Commonwealth at the hands of the Martians, there were fabulous riches to be had by the ambitious man. 

The Eunuch fancied himself an ambitious man.  The Martian CEO’s request to grant him licenses beyond the quota was against the Emperor’s will but the Solar System had changed greatly in the past several years and it was time for the Celestial Empire to change as well.  Cao Tang mentally shrugged and told himself that it did not hurt that he was about to become a great deal richer as well.

There was an impression of movement behind Cao-Tang that caused him to turn his head slightly a split second before a sword erupted from the center of his chest, half an inch away from his heart.  The Eunuch’s eyes flew open and he gasped explosively as he attempted to raise his hands to his chest but the searing pain caused his arms to fall limply to the side as Cao Tang’s ability to control his own body failed.  His breathing heavy, he managed to gasp a single word, “…why?”

 

 

A small hand grasped his shoulder and pulled him backwards and there was a soft voice in his ear, one that the Eunuch thought he recognized, “The Emperor is not forgiving of those that would so casually risk the serenity of his realm over something as petty as money.”  At the utterance of the word, ‘money’, the sword twisted in his chest and Cao Tang’s heart ruined itself on the edge of the blade.  The Eunuch’s body violently spasm and then fell forward off the bloody sword.

Cao Tang’s body was half on the wooden platform and half on the floor, a spreading pool of crimson emanating outward across the floor from his sodden robes.  The last thing that the Eunuch saw was the featureless white clouds of Venus through the viewport.  Cao Tang never saw the man that killed him.

 

THE HERO

 

You have never been a Slave?  It is something that I barely describe.  The confusion and the terror as the Raiders entered our Dome.  The press of the bodies and the stink of the ship’s hold as our minds came up with all the horrible things that would occur when we arrived.  The wrench of my daughter’s hand as she was pulled away from me and the pain of her scream greater than the beating that I received for fighting back.  The searing of the laser branding and indignity of being caged almost drove me mad.

The Slave Market was busy that day as dozens of us were brought to the platform.  Harsh Jovian overseers mingled freely with merchants from the Islamic Free Cities of the Belt.  Behind them stood the Martian Imperials, genetically tailored citizens of the most powerful and cruel nation in the Solar System.  The cacophony of sound grew louder as we were presented and the bidding began.  I was already thinking like a Slave, wondering which of these bidders would be cruel and which would be kind, hopelessly ready to surrender to this fate.

The blast caused the entire station to shudder and could have only come from space.  The power flickered momentarily and from the side passage, laser fire flashed out and crumpled the guards on the top balcony observing the proceedings.  The buyers panicked and raced in all directions as laser fire continued to emanate from the side passage, a weird strobe effect whose intensity brought me to my knees. 

I covered my face and then lay upon the platform as the Slave Station was liberated.  I cannot honestly say how long it took or who did what to who.  I just have single images.  There was a large grizzled woman in the uniform of the former Lunar Marines, a laser rifle to her shoulder as she cut down guards racing into the Slave Market.  I remember a bald Celestial man in black calmly dispatching the Jovian Overseers as they attempted to escape.  I remember the eerie cry of the Spacers as the first of their ‘warriors’ reached the platform which I had prostrated myself.  If you are looking for a true accounting of what occurred that day, I could not say.

 

 

One thing that I remember with perfect clarity is when the fighting was over.  The smell of smoke, burning synthetics and death heavy in the air and the muffled quiet as the sounds of fighting faded to nothing.  A man exited from portal to the slave pens, his patchwork uniform slashed and in tatters from edged weapons and burn marks from where his shield-belt had failed to completely stop incoming fire.  In one hand, he held a bloody sword.  The other hand held the hand of a tiny girl, her bald head seared with the laser branding of a slave and tears on her cheeks as she frantically looked around the room and her eyes finally found mine.  The girl was my daughter.  The battle-scarred man released her hand and smiled at her as she raced towards me and as we embraced, I heard him say softly, “I told you we would find him”.

I know what they say about Captain Artemis Roddenberry.  That he is a menace to the shipping lanes of the Martian’s New Solar Order.  I have heard all the sly jokes that he cavorts with Spacers and how their strange unnatural ways have made him unfit to be amongst humanity.  I have heard the grumbles as people just wish he would give up fighting the system and accept that the war has been over for twenty years and that the good guys lost.  It seems that everyone says he is a pirate, thief, criminal, coward, murderer, pervert, traitor, rebel and terrorist.  But I say differently.  Too me and my daughter, he is a Hero.

 

ABOUT THAT BOOK I AM WRITING.....

 

As some of you may have been following, I recently submitted two short stories for potential publication.  This has been only a single milestone in the process of getting a novel published.  In celebration of this fact, I thought that I would share where I have been on this journey and where I will be going as well as give you a few writing samples.

One of the promises that I made to myself on my last Afghanistan rotation was that after several years of talking about it, I was finally going to start my journey to becoming a writer.  The one thing missing was a really good story idea.  I knew that I was going to write Science Fiction because that was what I enjoyed but I did not have that great seed that I could wrap around.  To be sure, I had ideas, but no solid theme.  About mid-way through my year at CGSC, I finally seized upon a good story-line:  What happens when the good guys lose a war?  What happens when they refuse to put down arms and essentially become outlaws and bandits in a universe that has moved on?  And what happens when they find out that the MAY have not been on the right side after all?

As I have begun to write on this idea, I have found that my initial approach was to approach this in a somewhat light hearted manner if you can believe it.  I wanted to make an honest to goodness space adventure and while I think that I am in the process of achieving that, something happen along the way.  The story began to get serious.  It got serious because a lot of what I feel on a personal level as a Soldier and a Father got wrapped up into these characters and the situation they find themselves in.  Honestly, the humor and whimsy are still there, but the backdrop which all of this story plays out began to get very dark and very grim.  In the process, my idea has solidified into something that I now desperately want to write about.

 

 

The setting of my universe is the Solar System a thousand years from now.  Humanity is in space but it has not left the Solar System.  The brightest and most progressive light of Humanity has been extinguished and in its wake are two totalitarian powers and a number of weaker states that are in thrall of the larger powers.  And out beyond the orbit of Neptune lies a threat that wishes to enslave and kill all of Humanity.  Yet, a few people hold the torch for freedom and for goodness and chief amongst them is Captain Artemis Roddenberry. Hero or Terrorist depending on who you ask, Roddenberry and his crew seek to survive and do justice wherever they can. 

In order to introduce you to some of the characters of this story, I have done a number of pieces of flash fiction.  Call them character introductions, they are portraits of the characters that appear in the book and have helped me find the voice of the characters and they were immensely useful in creating and fleshing them out.  I am going to post four of them and I would be much obliged if you would comment and let me know what you think.

I have numerous pages constructed for the first novel of what I hope to be a long series.  At this point, I am learning the ropes and perhaps considering doing a self-publishing option on Kindle but I am still undecided on that point.  Hopefully, you like what you see.

 

FILM REVIEW: HUNGER GAMES

 

The Hunger Games is about great characters, but it is not a great story.  That is quite a statement considering that the film has earned 70 million USD on a single day and is based off an insanely popular series of young adult books.  The other two movies will be shot and will make a boat-load of money and the phrase, ‘May the Odds ever be in your favor’ will be invoked time and time again.  To understand why I have a somewhat more nuanced opinion about this film than others will have, I will have to speak about another film:  Battle Royale.

 

 

Battle Royale is a Japanese film made in 2000 and one of the ten top grossing movies of all time in Japan (and only recently released in the US on Blu-Ray).  It is a story about a dystopian Japan run by a Fascist government that gasses a couple dozen Japanese students and sends them to an island in order to fight to the death.  The film, like all foreign films, plays to stereotypes and cultural things that are uniquely Japanese and unless you were from there, the subtext would have to be explained to you.  But what it does have that needs no explanation is lots and lots of violence, violence that would make Quentin Tarantino pause and turn green (QT is an enormously big fan of this film).

Battle Royale is not an easy film to watch and I can’t say that I enjoyed it in the conventional sense.  It made me angry.  Finishing the film and watching its bleak ending made me edgy, it made me want to go to Japan and burn buildings down at the senseless carnage just witnessed.  That being said, it was absolutely brilliant film-making.  It did not dumb down the children involved but rather spoke to the motivations and mental states of a bunch of teenagers that were given weapons and directed to slaughter each other.  Some refused.  Some killed gleefully.  Some ran away.  Some committed suicide. Best of all, it studied the interpersonal dynamics of the group and attached them to the carnage that occurred.  The ‘cheerleader’ was gleefully killed by the ‘ugly’ girl.  There was nobility and savagery and it was all so very Lord of the Flies.  It was heart-breaking to watch but utterly riveting at the same time and I have to admit, if you took any high-school class in the US and put them in the same situation, it would probably pretty much happen like this.

 

 

Now, the Hunger Games.   Functionally it is the same story allowing for the difference in setting and having read all three books, I know that what is to come expands the universe beyond just the games.  I will state that I did not find my time wasted by the Hunger Games and there were certainly some arresting visuals in the course of the film.  The best thing though was Jennifer Lawrence in her role of Katniss Everdeen.  Forget Bella and her utter uselessness when the cards were on the table. Katniss is a bad-ass teenager that makes her share of mistakes and can get flustered like all teenagers, but she is also in control of herself and takes charge when the situation is on the line.  Seeing her put her ‘male interest’ in the box and go out to save the day was very gratifying but my favorite scene was when she was leaving home and confronting her emotionally weak mother.  She looked at her and demanded, ‘Don’t cry.  Keep it together this time.  My sister is relying on you’.  Hardcore.  Unlike Kristen Stewart, Jennifer Lawrence is an Oscar-Nominated actress with muted but pleasant looks and great acting chops and she is utterly convincing in the role.  This is one girl that does not need to be saved.  I will go see the other two movies to see JL’s take on the character again.

But as I was watching the story play itself out, I could not stop thinking about Battle Royale.  Every-time the camera pulled away and sanitized the violence, I smirked.  You couldn’t make the Hunger Games like Battle Royale because BR did not pull the camera away.  It did not try to soft-sell the premise that kids killing kids would be anything other than an event of profound horror.  It made you watch and made you suffer the carnage along with the children.  Unlike Battle Royale, the Hunger Games did not go all the way and therefore, I could not buy the ‘feral’ kids as anything other than another clique.  I did not get the menace not the bleak hopelessness from the Hunger Games that I got from BR.  Battle Royale punched me in the stomach and then kicked me in the side right before it brought a cinder block down on my head repeatedly as the final survivors left the Island, real demons and PTSD behind their eyes.  The Hunger Games gave me a ‘happy ending’ and a plot hook for the next trip to the Cinema when the sequel  is released. 

I accept the Hunger Games for what it is and I would commend it as a better diversion than most films and it is probably the real start of the Summer movie season (they start earlier and earlier every year).  But I cannot honestly call it great cinema because I think it shied away from greatness and settled for merely okay.  Go to see Hunger Games for a great performance of an actress that I hope to see more of in the future.  Go rent Battle Royale if you want a truly great story.

GRADE:  B

 

MY CHRISTIANITY

It is not an easy time to be a Christian and that is a shame because now more than ever, we need people who have belief in their hearts and in their minds.  That is a bold statement because most people who are my friends know me to be among one of the more skeptical and at times profane cats out there.  They also know of my love of ‘reason’ and I imagine that they would have a hard time reconciling my statement above with the person that they think they know.  In order to bridge the difference, I think I am going to have to describe what I think ails society and then describe what kind of Christian I am in order for the reader to understand my position.

True Belief is on the decline in this country and in the world and I imagine that some would claim that it is because we are in the Age of Reason.  I have many Atheist friends, though nowadays I think they prefer the term Humanists, and I am familiar enough with the threads of their arguments to know the contours of their ‘reason’ argument.  That being said, I would digress and state that I believe us to be in a Post-Reason Age.  I have been heavily influenced by the French Philosopher Jean Baudrillard and the notion that we live in a post-modern age where the perception of our mediated experiences have erased the distinction between reality and representation.  It is an age where what we perceive to be true outstrips any truly valid attempt to bridge the reality with understanding with reason.  We never go beyond the perception.  Atheists start with a perception and then seek out mediated experiences that merely reinforce that perception and never go beyond that point (the sad thing is that they are the people that are most intellectually capable of ‘bridging the gap’ but they never really do).  I can’t single them out because just about everyone does this in this age but they are the ones that are most vocal on this topic and thus get the mention.  Combine this with a truly vapid and surface mass culture that we have where the vulgar is celebrated and the consequential is merely noted, if it is even noticed at all, we have a recipe for a society in which any sort of belief in the divine is not cool.

All that being said, I am being too hard on both Atheist and Culture.  While I think much of the logic used by Atheist is hysterical and hypocritical (‘we are being rational and tolerant! – quickly followed by rabid mouth frothing disdain about the historical inequities of Christians and the egregious assault against their rights when they pass a nativity scene - never getting the hypocritical disconnect), I honestly think their heart is in the right place and the muscular skepticism that they approach all matters divine is something that contemporary Christians would do well to emulate in their questioning of the Doctrine.  As for Culture, I am too much of a historian to believe that we are living in the ‘End of Times’.  Every age has had its Lady Gaga, Madonna and the entire cast of Jersey Shore.  The hysteria that erupts every time Lady Gaga wears a meat dress to the Oscars says more about the aesthetics and taste than it does about the health of the Republic.  No, I save my true vitriol for my fellow ‘Christians’.

At near every turn in this day and age, many Christians have gone out of their way to disgrace the Faith.  First in my mind is the abandonment of ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesars and Give to God what is Gods’.  In other words, the political activity of the Church and the supporting of parties from the pulpit is something that is absolutely hateful and against the separation of Church and State.  No offense, Jesus told Pilate that ‘My Kingdom is not of this World’ but all too often, many of his ‘followers’ nowadays seem to want to go the opposite direction.  Then you have the men of ‘Faith’ that want to preach on about the vile nature of homosexuality, birth control and abortion (which is actually the one point that I have some small measure of sympathy on) but they are strangely silent on so many other issues like wars and torture of others (‘Turn the other Cheek perhaps’?), the ‘prosperity gospel’ that earning money is good (‘do not collect treasures upon earth for your treasures are in heaven’), hostility to other faiths including the building of a Mosque in Smyrna TN, or really any other issue that involves actual sacrifice, service to the poor and expressions of love for people unlike themselves.  And then you have my tribe, the Catholic Church.  Putting aside differences in Doctrine for a moment, the passivity of the hierarchy in relation to generations of raped children rises to the level of atrocity.   Whether it is the rape of young boys by sexual predators masquerading as Clergy, Mega Church Preachers condemning homosexuals than hiring male escorts and blowing guys in airport lavatories, or taking millions of dollars from businesses (i.e. Churches) and using it to rubber stamp ‘their’ candidates to govern through Christian values, I would say that the Christian Church has everything it can to earn the revulsion of the public through its consistent hypocrisy.

Therein is the true tragedy because the Church is not the Faith!  The Church is merely an organization.  It is a man-made construct that is subject to all the same vices and virtues that afflict the entire body of humanity, including Atheist I might add.  Faith on the other hand is something more personal and more connected to the Divine.  It is that spark of belief that serves as inspiration to go forward secure in the knowledge that there is more to life than what is before us, that the sum of ourselves may actually live forever.  Most importantly, it is a call to action to do good works in this life and there lies to type of Christian I strive to be.

One of the most inspirational things that I have ever heard and which contains almost the entirety of my faith is the Sermon on the Mount.  It is the single statement of Christianity that contains the blueprint of what Jesus meant for Christians to be.  If you follow it, than you are on the right path.  The Sermon on the Mount is one long Sermon that Jesus gave to the masses that is comprised of several different parts including the Beatitudes , the Lord’s Prayer and many other items that are considered by some to be the central canonical teachings of Christianity.  The power of the Sermon on the Mount is that there is absolutely nothing supernatural about it.  No water to wine, no healing of the sick or driving out of demons (as a man of science and reason, I don’t really think those things happened).  No, the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus at his most human, preaching an accessible message that a person could apply and follow and be the better for it.  For those Christians that go out there and disgrace the Faith, I would point them back to the Sermon and ask, ‘What part of this didn’t you get?’  For those Atheists and Critics out there, I would point to the Sermon and excepting the age of the language, ‘What part of this do you find so objectionable?’ 

 

 

I find it utterly baffling that there are those out there that find the Sermon to be objectionable because when you remove the words God and Heaven out of it, it is functionally no different than the Humanist creed.  As for the Christians that seem to have forgotten it, or give more credence to arcane and obscure single references in the Old Testament or in the lesser known books of the later New Testament (written after the death of Jesus), than I would say whatever.  I don’t care what arcane Zachariah-begat-Zephaniah decoder ring you pulled out to come up with whatever flimsy theological rationale that you using to piss on whatever grouping of people (homosexuals, feminist, and liberals) that offend you.  Jesus was a long-haired, peace-loving, tax-paying, prostitute hugging, eco-friendly (dude walked EVERYWHERE), working class Jewish hippy that would have been appalled at what people do in his name in this day in age.  Pardon my presumption but I tend to think Jesus would say, ‘Hey Bra, stop trying to interpret what I said and just do what I said.  Want to listen to Sublime and play Hacky-Sack?’

I think I would like to wrap all of this up by asking what kind of Christian am I.  Well, I can assure you that I am not the sort of Christian that believes himself to be defined by the Pope and the Cardinals, Bob Jones University, ‘The Moral Majority’, opposition to contraception and stem cell research, Creationism or it’s weak sauce little sister ‘Intelligent Design’, Dominion Theology, Exclusion, any involvement of the Church in politics whatsoever, Jerry Falwell, Mega-Churches or the Prosperity Gospel.  Rather, my Christianity is defined by the Sermon on the Mount, the skepticism of Thomas Jefferson, the humanity of Thomas Aquinas, the bravery of Martin Luther, the mathematics and philosophy departments of Georgetown and Boston College (both Jesuit universities), Catholic Relief Services, the Emergency Room of Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, Gregor Mendel and Nicolas Copernicus (both clergy – and scientist that challenged the wisdom of their age), and countless missions and charities of people who actually got the Sermon on the Mount and threw themselves into the world to make a difference and help without reservation and judgment, without attempts to convert, people who let their humility and actions be the message.  That is my sort of Christian. 

I realize that there are those are there that would look at my lack of concern for all the others books of the Bible, my disdain for the hierarchy of my own Church, or my denial of certain doctrinal accepted teachings or my lack of willingness to attempt to remold contemporary society into some latter day Christian theme-park with dismay.  They would dub me a Cafeteria Christian…and they would be right.  I gladly take that title.  I don’t profess to know all the intricacies and mysteries of the Church (though I am willing to bet I know more than most of my critics) and at this point in my life, I am beyond caring.  But I do know this.  I have been charged to be a good husband, a good father and a good human being by Jesus Christ himself in a Sermon that he delivered 2000 years ago and I intend on doing exactly that.  When I face my maker someday, my life will be an open book exam and I doubt that there is going to be many questions about Corinthians I & II or how much I put into the offering plate.  There are going to be a lot of questions about what I actually did, who I loved, who I helped and what I did for my fellow man.  I intend on passing that test.

 

TV SERIES I AM WATCHING - EARLY 2012

Given the nature of my job, I find myself falling into one of my old deployment habits of buying TV series and then watching them when I get off work.  Most shows are one hour long and perfect for decompressing at the end of a long day without the overly burdensome commitment of a two and a half hour movie.  These are three shows that I recently started:

BREAKING BAD:  I am a latecomer to this show which is currently filming its fifth and likely last season.  I watched the first season and now I am wondering why I waited so long to get to it. The series is about a high school Chemistry teacher, intellectually brilliant to the point that he could have gone places but did not because he was too meek and ineffectual.  He discovers that he has Cancer and probably only has at most two years to live so he takes stock of his life and decides to do the only sane thing left…he teams up with a former student and becomes a Crystal Meth dealer in order to leave his family with some money.  Where many stories on TV are about bad people seeking redemption, this one is about a good guy heading downward.  The series plays some of it for laughs with this straight-laced soft-spoken guy getting in over his head almost immediately but this show has the ability to turn on a dime in a heartbeat and hit you between the eyes with just how far off the path this guy is going.  The world he has entered is a dark brutal world where horrific things happen and you cannot avoid it, control it or manage it and there is no way this guy’s story ends well.  It is like watching a slow-motion train wreck and I am hooked, I am buying the second season tomorrow.

 

 

BOARDWALK EMPIRE:  If I had to pick one time in American history to live in, I am not entirely sure I would not pick the 1920’s.  It was where several strains of Americana collided in a breathlessly turbulent time.  It was where the Bohemian debauchery of post WWI society collided with religious moral majority attempts to better society through Prohibition.   It was where the patriarchal power elites of the time had to come to grips with the right of Women to vote.  There were so many narratives and as often is the case in times such as these, there was violence and repression side by side with acts of kindness and charity.  Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t boring and besides, I really enjoy the aesthetic of the time.  Boardwalk Empire perfectly captures this vibe for me with its tale of Boot-Legging, Politics and Crime in 1920’s Atlantic City.  The acting in this show is amazing and much like its spiritual predecessor, ‘The Wire’, the best moments of the show are not the gunfights or the parties, it is the quiet moments where two characters merely talk.  There is a scene where the Kingpin and his unwitting Mistress have a confrontation when she finally finds out the nature of what it is that he does for his money.  They barely raise their voices but the tension and emotion is palpable and it makes for some of the most fascinating TV period.

 

 

WALKING DEAD:  The first scene of this show is a Sheriff driving through post-apocalypse Georgia trying to find gas for his car.  He comes across an abandoned gas station and when searching he is attacked by a zombie who could have not been 12 years old when she was turned.  Her face is horribly disfigured but she is wearing a gown and her hair still has ribbons and bows in it.  The Sheriff with anguish on his face watches her move towards him, pulls out his .44 pistol, and shoots her in the face at point blank range.  This show is not easy to watch.  You could never do what they do on one of the major networks because the camera does not pull away from the bad things.  It forces you to watch as formerly civilized people turn feral, good people make poor decisions and others have to pay for them, people get eaten and other people have to kill horrifying creatures that are wearing the bodies of their former loved ones.  I scoffed at the idea of a zombie show on TV could be good because I knew that it in order for it to be good, it had to be like the above or else it would be cheap and inauthentic.  The Walking Dead had the courage to go there and like Breaking Bad, I am hooked on this show.