Movies: The Men Who Stare at Goats

…directed by Grant Heslov, written by Peter Straughan (script) and Jon Runson (book), starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, & Kevin Spacey.  The Men Who Stare at Goats chronicles the efforts of a small-town reporter named Bob (McGregor) to uncover the story of the Army’s efforts at developing and using paranormal and psychic powers.  After an interview with a veteran of the Special Forces’ First Earth the Battalion and being cuckolded by his wife, Bob heads for Iraq to try his hand as a war correspondent.  There he runs into Lyn (Clooney), the Army’s former top psychic, who has his own mission in the desert.

We learn about the First Earth Battalion’s founder,   Lt. Colonel Bill Django (Bridges, reprising the Dude in some respects), who came back from Nam and conducted extensive research on all the New Age stuff you could hope for, and convinced his bosses at Fort Bragg to start the psychic/paranormal soldier program.  Django wants to train Jedi-knights – warrior monks of peace who can convince the enemy to move beyond conflict through reason and telepathic manipulation - and enlists Lyn and others in this pursuit.  They’re interested in remote viewing, precognition, phasing, and of course physical psychic manipulations (hence the goats).

No New Moons Here

Like the majority of red-blooded hetero American males, I stayed the hell away from New Moon this weekend.  Of course that didn’t stop the wife from going, nor did it stop the film from bringing in a near-Batman-like box office haul.  It’s not that I won’t go watch the occasional romantic comedy or chick-flick now and again, no, what it comes down to is a lack of respect for and dumbing down of the whole monster mythos genre.

The clincher for me was the scene in Twilight in which the girl and vampire-boy Edward ascend from the overcast forested shadows into the sunlight.  And what happens?  His skin sparkles like diamonds.  It’s so beautiful, says the girl.  No burning death, weakness, not even a little smoke.  Nothing but sparkly.  And this, my friends, is an insult to true horror fans everywhere.  It’s not that we’re against reimagining the folklore and mythology around traditional creatures like vampires and werewolves; shows like Buffy, the Blade movies, and even the Underworld movies have done this in some respect.  But do try to understand and  respect that  mythology and folklore, so any changes you make have some resonance, instead of seeming like a poorly conceived plot device designed to make teenaged girls sigh. 

Scifi-ish Shows We’re Tracking

Well into the fall TV season, and we’re recording/watching three Science Fiction-ish shows on the big networks:  Fringe, Flash Froward, and V.  The latter two being new shows (sort of), while the first is back for a second season.  Of course part of this is to fill the void left by the end of Battlestar Galactica, and part of it is curiosity about big media’s ability or desire to deliver attempts at genuine science fiction to the masses.

Fringe seems to me like a true successor to The X-Files; something a lot of shows have attempted but none have really pulled off.  It has the paranormal investigator overlay, the quirky and interesting characters, and a good blend of humor, gross-outs, and conspiracies.  The two leads (Anna Torv and Joshua Jackson) have good chemistry and John Noble as Dr. Walter Bishop (Jackson’s dad) is great.  The writers outright steal a lot of the successful themes and tropes from Chris Carter and the X-Files, and have probably studied that show’s successful seasons of plot development like PhD students.  So far this has entertained rather than annoyed me.

The Kids’ thoughts on the Hobbit

We finished reading Tolkien’s The Hobbit this week – the first full-length book I’ve read to the kids.  It was a the obvious choice, as this was also the first book my Mom read to me.  It’s been a while since I’ve read that book and several things stand out after so many years.  Tolkien wrote in  long, descriptive, balanced sentences.  Very nice to read aloud.  The sense of place and history, the sheer amount of description is palpable in The Hobbit.  Of course this has become one of the prevailing themes of fantasy fiction, so no surprise there.  Finally, Bilbo is just a great character.  And now onto the girls’ thoughts as recorded be me with a few questions here and there…

One favorite part is when Bilbo went to talk to Smaug.  He saw the weak spot by getting Smaug to roll over by telling riddles.  Bilbo was pretty brave there.  I was afraid Bilbo might be found by Smaug, and he’d attack him and eat him.  I thought this was the scariest part.  Instead he just got a little burnt.

October Good for Lovecraft

Any month is a good month for the fiction of horror master H.P. Lovecraft, but October provides an added aura of foreboding.  Not that many of Lovecraft’s stories are particularly Halloweenish, and he was more apt to include ageless alien demi-gods in his fiction than ghosts or witches or the like, but there’s something about a gray stormy evening with a cold autumn wind blowing that makes passages of nameless horror especially tasty.  For this reason I’ve been re-reading at least one classic Lovecraft story each October the last few years.  (Having read virtually all of them the first time back in college.)

Video Pick: Donnie Darko

Written and directed by Richard Kelly, starring Jake Gyllenhall, Mary McDonnell, Maggie Gyllenhall, Jena Malone, Patrick Swayze.  For years, people whose opinions I value have recommended the 2001 film Donnie Darko highly.  Last weekend we finally sat down and watched it, so now I understand why.  This is one of those movies that defies convention:  Is it sci-fi?  Is it psychological thriller?  Teen drama?  You can tell the studio was having a tough time pinning Donnie Darko down as well – the trailers and on the DVD were just awkwardly awful.  (Note the dueling themes of the promo materials below.)

Pseudo-Horror Promo

The movie starts with young Donnie (Gyllenhall) waking up on the side of the road beside his bike.  He smiles to himself and pedals for town, and your immediately asking yourself what’s going on with this kid.  Writer/director Kelly quickly proves adept at holding back certain details of character and plot points until just the right moment, which adds to the mystery and suspense.  It turns out, Donnie has been taking psych meds to deal with his emotional and mental problems as well as seeing a shrink.  The Darko family is otherwise a fairly standard suburban crew.  Older sister Liz (M. Gyllenhall) is taking a year off before going to college, younger sister Samantha seems a decent kid, and Mom and Pop are supportive and perfectly normal.

So when Donnie gets into an argument with Liz, curses at the dinner table, and acts like a total dick to his mom, you have a tough time reading him.  Is he a spoiled kid or does he really have issues?  Turns out, it’s the issues.  That night a voice rouses him to a trance-like state and entices him from his room, telling him he needs to get out of the house.  Donnie follows, sees the source of the voice in the distance (a mysterious yet sinister figure in a bunny-suit), who tells him the end is nigh, about three weeks from now.  Donnie wanders off and ends up sleeping at the golf course.

Books: Moving Pictures

…by the indomitable Terry Pratchett

In Moving Pictures, the denizens of Pratchett’s Discworld inadvertently find themselves awash in movie madness.  Yes, those scatterbrained alchemists have figured out how to transfer captured pictures (painted very quickly by captive demons in small camera-like boxes) to film.  They quickly find it necessary to move from the city of Ankh-Morpork to an arid outpost without much going for it but the everpresent sunshine (to avoid the wrath of the wizards at Unseen University).  That outpost’s name: Holy Wood.

Very soon people (and trolls and dwarves and talking animals) find themselves drawn to Holy Wood for unexplainable reasons.  It seems right.  They know they can make it.  And they want to be in the moving pictures. Among them are perennial student-wizard, Victor Tugelbend, a dude who can’t sing, can’t dance, but can handle a sword OK and looks great in front of the camera, Ginger, former milkmaid from the-little-town-you-never-heard-of, who looks great in an evening gown, and Gaspode the talking wonder-dog.  Soon Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler, Ankh-Morpork’s most celebrated salesman of sausages-0f-dubious-origin, arrives and proceeds to set himself up as the mogul.  A group of dwarves suddenly discover an overwhelming urge to sing the hi-ho-hi-ho song.  A troll changes his name to ‘Rock’ and whittles off bits of his nose to increase his appeal and versatility.  These folks literally find they have stars in their eyes.

Books: Shadow’s Edge

…by Brent Weeks

Shadow’s Edge is the second book in the Night Angel trilogy, which chronicles the struggles of Kylar Stern, assassin, Logan Gyre, aspirant-King, Vi, another assassin, and others against the sadistic Godking, Garoth.  The Godking’s forces successfully invaded Cenaria at the close of Book 1, Into the Shadows (see review), bringing a lot death (and presumed death), mayhem, and misunderstanding to the major characters.  Kylar’s mentor, master assassin (or ‘wetboy’ as Weeks has unfortunately designated killers with magical talents) Durzo Blint is gone, and Kylar soon swears off killing to pursue his childhood love, Elene.  This means leaving the city and fleeing in search of a more normal life.

Unbeknownst to Kylar, his best friend Logan is not dead but rather imprisoned in the Hole, which is the most brutal dungeon in the land, filled with the rapists and cannibals.  Logan has to survive down there without revealing his identity and completely losing his humanity.

When the Sa’kage (the city’s vast underworld crime syndicate) soon learn they can’t bargain with the brutal Godking, they begin to oppose him and help form the resistance.   For that they need Kylar, who has now absorbed an ancient magical forces called the ka’kari and has become nearly immortal, and they need an heir to the throne – Logan.  A fairly straightforward plot that still manages to get bogged down for nearly half the book.  Some of the subplots turn out to be far more interesting – at least until the book’s climax.

Books: Gaudeamus

…by John Barnes

In Gaudeamus, the reader gets a rare combination of authenticity and weirdness that combines science fiction, detective fiction, and a good dose of self-deprecating humor.  John Barnes uses the technique of casting himself as the 1st person narrator and his buddy Travis Bismarck as the protagonist.  This allows Travis, a private detective with a storyteller’s mentality, to pop in and expand upon his increasingly strange tale of secret government research and extraterrestrial game wardens.  Meanwhile, the author/narrator frees himself to tell character-revealing back stories, comment on society, and scoff at his buddy’s story while secretly hoping it’s all true.

You can cast it as metafiction or an ironic and over-the-top nod to creative non-fiction.  Barnes use of the p.o.v. shifts between himself and Travis illustrates the allure of different types of storytelling, and it stands up to inspection also.  In other words, Barnes could (and does seem to) claim that hey, this is all true – it’s what my friend told me, and here’s the back story from my perspective.  It’s the kind of narrative technique that would spark a lively debate at your college writers’ workshop – if, that is, they could be bothered with something that has sci-fi overtones.  I suspect Mr. Barnes would find this amusing.

Imagine Greater?

Did you notice this over the last week?

The Sci-Fi Channel decided to rebrand to ‘SyFy’ in an attempt to capture the ever-elusive “broader audience”.  In the process they have, naturally, pissed off the majority of Geek Nation.  Their marketing shclubs have issued statements  like this:

“We spent a lot of time in the ’90s trying to distance the network from science fiction, which is largely why it’s called Sci Fi.  It’s somewhat cooler and better than the name ‘Science Fiction.’ But even the name Sci Fi is limiting.”

Or…

“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular.”

Ouchie.  Talk about your blatant negative stereotyping.

I guess the suits at NBC/Universal (show us the U.S.-Mexico game on a channel we can watch!) in all their sagacity know programming better than the average dysfunctional geek.  They are flush with success coming off their best ratings year ever, and like a big bank loan exec. circa 2006, they feel invincible.