This Post Is Going To Be All Over The Place

Among the many trivial frustrations I endured yesterday, which included the horrifying endirtying of a load of washing due to catastrophic clothesline malfunction, and watching the worst two-parter of Justice League I've seen to date (some sympathy, please!) the most exasperating was spending four hours reading the responses to Joan Walsh's article about the psychic debt Barack Obama owes Hillary Clinton for the behaviour of other people. The article itself irked me enough to ruin any chance of a good mood, but the letters took over my day, from the well-reasoned arguments against Hillary's determination to stay in the race, to the occasional trolls who insulted her followers, to the vows of her supporters to vote McCain in November to punish the young women who had "turned their back on feminism" by not automatically siding with the female candidate.

It was a series of monologues, screeching at Joan Walsh, Obamaniacs (or Obama Boys / Obamabots, as the Clintonites would have it*), women, men, African-Americans, Geraldine Ferraro, Keith Olbermann, and anyone else who has dared to disagree with someone else. Racist!!! Sexist!!! Troll!!! Robot!!! Ageist!!! Elitist!!! I'll vote McCain! You fucking idiot! It's not over! Stupid emotional women! He'd better kiss our asses if he expects us to vote for him! You're going to sell us all out and ruin our country just because you're a bit peeved! The horn of Helm Hammerhand shall sound in the deep one last time! Fell deeds awake! Now for Wrath, now for Ruin, and a Red Dawn!


After the third hour of my stupefied click-scroll marathon, eyes dried open, brain pummelled like William Forsyth at the end of Steven Seagal's best film (Out For Justice), I was just as punchy as everyone else on there, and seriously wanted to join the fray, but as I tend to think of the world in popular culture parameters, I would have just ended up derailing the whole anarchic mess by sniping at Battlestar Galactica fans who dare to suggest it is better than Lost, or accusing all those who refused to see Speed Racer of being fun-averse assholes who obviously despise love.

I've said before that I'm wary of talking about things I know little about for fear of being turned into so much Blogger Puree in the comments section, but even in a passive sense, surfing the net can have its hazards. It struck me that that's one of the worst thing about the internet, that you can often find a multitude of different viewpoints, many of them vile, most of them just different from yours, and end up thinking that you have to modulate your viewpoint until it resembles theirs because no one seems to be thinking the way you are. I'm lucky that though I read some pretty annoying talkbacks (including the often horrific Ain't It Cool discussions), a lot of them are frequented by interesting people who I may not agree with all the time, but are willing to express themselves like intelligent people do, instead of being troll assholes.

That's not me saying, "Waaauuuugh! Why are the people being so mean to me?!??!?" It's more that I just like to learn things, and reasonable, calm, non-histrionic people are great accidental teachers, even when I don't always agree with them. It also inspires me to be as calm and collected as them, and to think that once I have that part sorted, I can be as bold as I like with my opinions, and not worry about whether it is contrary to the norm, or perceived by the small-minded as being borne of some idiotic impulse simply because they see the world in terms of Manichean conflict between their opinion and everyone else's. That the more rabid followers of both Clinton and Obama (or Battlestar Galactica and Lost, or Speed Racer fans and the rest of the world) move further and further apart because of some weird need to get into a fight is their problem. Mine is becoming more confident in stating my feelings, having a solid rationale behind it, and then sticking to it until I am proven wrong. I shouldn't need validation, and I shouldn't think that every comment made by others that disagrees with me is probably automatically right, as I have little faith in my own reasoning abilities. I should just, "man up", as they say nowadays.

That said, my distress over delving into the, "You're racist!" "You're sexist!" morass, and seemingly getting lost in there for a few hours, was relieved when I read Warren Ellis' take on it, who not only voices my feelings far better than I ever could due to his Awesome Powers Of The Brain (not self-pity; he did write Transmetropolitan, after all), but is impervious to criticism and more than willing to unleash Arse Eels if he feels his supremacy is being challenged. I mean, that's bound to make you feel bold and strong. What do I have? Chim Chim Cookies? It's grim, but it's not the same thing.


Since then I've found other articles that have talked about the contest while avoiding the obvious namecalling, which is a huge relief for one as insecure as myself. The Economist had an interesting one about the mistakes Hillary and Bill made, and even Salon managed to get Joe Conason to write something that was fatalistic and optimistic at the same time, but at least didn't demand anything of Obama, instead asking the Obamaniacs and Clintonites to shut the fuck up for a bit. What with vicious slime like Joe Lieberman working against his own party like an enormous Judas, it's not a good time to be making threats in order to win concessions when there are people out there who want to ruin the party to settle a score and are so unwilling to make a deal that they must only be crushed with extreme prejudice.


It's silly to get so riled by all of that, and I know that, especially as these things are way more ephemeral than it seems at the time, which is why the thousands of pissy letters written to Salon and Huffington Post end up meaning nothing as they change no one's minds, only occasionally contain any useful information, and are forgotten about a couple of days later. Anyway, I appreciate that politics can bring out the best in people in the real world, and the worst in people when separated by a screen and keyboard (and vice versa). Which is why, even though I am actively interested in politics (especially American politics, partially due to previous studies and partially because I intend to live in America and need to know something about it), and unless I'm really really annoyed by something such as a mean-spirited decision to act like a child over an incontrovertible loss (and seriously Clintonites, it really was), I tend to keep my blog posts and thoughts on a pop culture track, because until I feel more confident about talking about politics, when talking about films or TV shows, no matter how angry the conversations get, and no matter how entrenched the different opinion-factions get, it's only films or TV shows, and it's not ever really about anything that important.

Oh for fuck's sake!

* I'm very disappointed that the Clintonistas couldn't see that a far more entertaining insult would have been Obamatrons.

A Few Words On Patrick Swayze

News is emerging that Patrick Swayze has pancreatic cancer and will be dead in a matter of weeks. Is it symptomatic of today’s modern blah blah world that when I first heard this, about an hour ago, I thought it was a bizarrely unfunny internet rumour? Nonetheless, assuming even the National Enquirer wouldn’t run with this story unless it was pretty sure, it seems to be true.


What an odd celebrity Swayze is. He is quite substantially famous and seems to have been for some considerable time. His level of fame equals that of far more talented, successful and prolific actors. Since his breakthrough in The Outsiders (1983), he’s appeared in 31 films, or a decidedly non-whopping 1.24 a year. Of those only two, Dirty Dancing (1987) and Ghost (1990) could be said to be solid commercial successes, although some of the others have cultish appeal. Perhaps most curious of all, after establishing himself as at least a moderate box office draw with those pictures and a charismatic, even likeable action-movie presence in Point Break (1991), he made only eight movies in the next decade, and among those were such gems as Father Hood, Tall Tale, Black Dog, Letters From A Killer and Forever Lulu. Five pounds to anyone who can prove they saw any of those. (Note: you will not receive five pounds)

So (a) how did he remain famous, and (b) why and how did he translate burgeoning movie success into a career thrown away on duds and non-starters? I suppose the answer to (a) rests largely with Dirty Dancing and its perennial popularity among teenage girls (and former teenage girls), a new generation of whom was introduced to the timeless story by the recent stage adaptation. Naturally, I affect to disdain and despise the movie, but I do have a certain respect for its simple appeal and capacity to tap into the wish-fulfilment fantasy of its audience. Some people have taken their love for the movie too far, of course, but if I were Swayze I’d be looking back on Dirty Dancing’s success with fondness and a certain pride.

Answering (b) proves more difficult. Could it have been his drinking? It’s hardly likely that that would have stopped anyone employing him, considering how many other actors maintain a career while in the grip of addiction. At one point he claimed to have “turned against Hollywood”, an interesting interpretation of the direction his career had taken. Presumably it was being “completely fed up with that Hollywood blockbuster mentality” that led him to take second-banana roles in minor British films. I’m sure he prefers things that way. Or it could be that he was just too ’80s to survive in movies much beyond that decade, his tough-guy chin and immovable quiff made obsolete by the grungey, floppy-haired skinny boys that succeeded him. (Surely no coincidence that his best role came when both chin and quiff were obscured, as Zen surfer Bodhi in Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break. But – oh, sweet irony! – his floppy-haired co-star went on to be a much bigger star. Although mainly when he had very short hair. What am I saying again?)

Or perhaps there’s a more old-fashioned reason: he just isn’t all that talented. It seems ridiculous today that such a thing could prevent someone being famous, but for Swayze it seems to be true. Can there be any other reason why, after the huge home-video smash Dirty Dancing, the Oscar®-winning, mum-seducing, $500m triumph of Ghost and the genuine spiritual experience that was Point Break, the best follow-up he could produce was Father Hood? Nobody wanted to put him in their movies. Before long he was taking roles in quirky films whose quirk factor was only increased by his presence, the sign of an actor who knows his limitations.

It’s unlikely that Swayze would have undergone a late-career boost; although he received generous critical notices for his role in Donnie Darko, it didn’t herald a glut of high-profile roles (despite reports he turned down a crapload of money to star in Dirty Dancing 2). I guess no-one was convinced that playing an earnest aw-shucks ostensible nice guy hiding a shameful secret was much of a stretch for him.

It feels strange to say this of a man who is only in his mid-50s and still (just about) working, but he probably won’t be missed by his fans. His career has existed largely on video and DVD for the past 20 years – on several million worn-out copies of the same movie, that is, not in a Steven Seagal way – and no-one is eagerly awaiting his next project or keen to hear what he has to say about global warming or Amy Winehouse. It’s possible that – again assuming the story is true – the inevitable macabre media frenzy will rekindle his fleeting popularity and trigger a re-evaluation of his career.


Ah, forget it.

The Internet Disappoints Me Once More

Many moons ago I considered starting a chain of posts regarding my favourite movie explosions, because I get a big kick out of film pyrotechnics, and had hoped to start with the crazy bridge explosion from the end of The Long Kiss Goodnight. Sadly, I took it for granted that it would turn up on YouTube, and ended up posting about something else.

Well, as a result of faffing about all day and not getting anything constructive done, I thought hey, time to be lazy and post a YouTube clip and wonk on about it! Easy. This blogging business is a piece of piss. Sadly, the internet has let me down again. Why oh why oh why has no one put the amazing helicopter explosion from Andrew Davis' Under Siege on YouTube? I can find a million clips from Black Dawn, for crying out loud, but only a couple of badly recorded clips from Under Siege. This is as good as it gets; the trailer, featuring a quick shot of the stunt at the end.



His most successful film! It's probably Warner Brothers pulling them down, which is understandable, but very sad for those of us who want to pay tribute to the awesomeness of Steven "Blues and Explosions" Seagal taking out a Huey (or something) with a knife, a can of paint thinner, and a grenade, and then jumping over the side of an aircraft carrier as it bursts into a ball of orange flaming death. It really is something to behold. So, another post ruined, for which I am eternally sorry. To make up for it, I figured I should post a clip that is arguably even better; the gratuitously brutal bar scene from Seagal's masterpiece, Out For Justice, directed by the late, great John Flynn.

Out For Justice was the first Seagal movie I ever saw, and it never got topped, which is kind of a shame, but it was good enough that I would continue to follow his career even when it went wonky and unpredictable. So good that I would buy Ticker, possibly the third worst movie ever made. So good that I would strongly consider buying a copy of Out For A Kill, the second worst movie ever made (the first is Lars Von Trier's pompous burning-turd-bag of a movie, Dancer In The Dark, which sadly does not feature Seagal). So good that I'm going to buy another copy of Vern's Seagology even though I already downloaded the ebook a while back. So good that I actually like his Thunderbox album, Mojo Priest. He's no B.B. King, obviously, but it's kind of a fun album, if you're willing to be forgiving.


There is so much to love in this scene. The outrageous brutality, the stick fight, the running gag with the phone booth. Introducing a killer pool ball is a magnificent touch; the sound effect of it banging against the stone floor being replicated whenever it crashes into teeth and skull is sickening and intimidating. Even better is Seagal's line readings and dodgy accent, something that sounds off throughout the movie but goes totally berserk here. "Anybody seen Rich-EEE? Anybody know why Richie did Bobby Lu-PO? I'm gonna keep coming back til somebody. REMEMBERS. Seeing Rich-EEE!"

My personal favourite moment is when he preceeds an order to the gathered bad guys to stand on the pool tables with the whiny line, "You know Vinnie, ah'm startin' to get inuh bad mood, you know. Maybe it's my moodswings, or my hormones, I dunno. Maybe it's my need to impose my will." Obviously this doesn't faze anyone, and when he fires two bullets into the ceiling to get everyone's attention Vinnie chastises him about it because there might be people upstairs. I love that he genuinely seems confused for a moment, like he forgot where he was. Anyway, check it out.



Enough about Seagal. Turns out this week there was another fight that happened this week, one that gives even that epic battle a run for its money. Conan vs. Colbert and Stewart. Obviously it shows that without writers the show hosts have really started to run out of ideas and only a fight pastiche could adequately fill the air time, but that doesn't dim its brilliance, nor the novelty of seeing TV hosts pretending to kick the shit out of each other, or Colbert's startlingly good impression of Bruce Lee's nimble footwork.



Remember, Steve, don't concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all that heavenly glory. [/Obnoxious Enter The Dragon reference]

Five Random Things That Make Me Very Very Happy (2)

1: Doctor Orpheus from The Venture Brothers.


There are lots of things to love about The Venture Brothers, which is pretty much the funniest animated series on TV right now, but the thing that is 100% guaranteed to make me laugh is Doctor Orpheus. He's an obvious spoof of Marvel Comics' Sorceror Supreme, Doctor Strange, but whereas that character is a confident and worldly force for good, Orpheus is plagued by insecurity, desperate for the friendship of Dr. Venture, and miserable over his inability to gain the attentions of an arch-enemy. Scared that his best years are behind him, and stuck looking after his grumpy goth daughter Trianna (who he loves but doesn't understand), he rents a spacious room in the Venture compound and tries desperately to gain the acceptance of his landlord, even though Dr. Venture is an absolute dick. In the second season he reforms his superteam, The Order of the Triad, but even that is not enough to satisfy him.

He would be a great character anyway, but the hilariously overwrought voicework by Steven Rattazzi pushes him right over the top. There are many ways to deliver the line "Do not be too hasty in entering that room. I had Taco Bell for lunch!" upon exiting a toilet, but the way he bellows it as if delivering a hammy piece of Shakespearean verse is genius. Sadly Adult Swim are good at taking down footage from their shows from YouTube, so if you want to see him in action, I suggest you buy the DVDs. Strongly suggest, in fact. Actually, I order you. Immediately. You won't regret it.

There's only one drawback to this. I'm currently reading Austin Grossman's fantastic novel, Soon I Will Be Invincible (an awesome birthday gift from Canyon), and the main superteam, The Champions, has on its roster a sorceror called Mister Mystic. Whenever he talks, all I can hear is that hilarious voice. I'm sure the character is meant to be taken seriously, but it's just impossible. BTW, you should also buy this book. It's fabtriffic.

2: The news that production on Mad Max: Fury Road has begun again.


When I was but a little boy, of the age where I would skip to school whilst wearing shorts and a cap, eagerly on the lookout for conkers while starlings and blue tits chirped in the trees, I really really enjoyed coming home and rewatching my knackered video copy of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, just to see the Feral Child chop off a guy's fingers with a razor boomerang, or Humongous flexing his outrageous muscles like something out of a Roman gladiator movie, or Vernon Wells getting killed in a head-on collision between a tanker truck and a car.

Okay, I tell a lie. I was actually a teenager. The stuff about shorts and caps and conkers is true though. Maybe that's why the cool kids kept throwing stuff at my head. I also remember playing Car Wars, the Steve Jackson game that emulated the same post-apocalyptic car battle scenarios. Many hours would be spent pushing tiny slivers of cardboard around a flimsy map, trying to beat my game-obsessed cousin, who was older than me and actually knew the rules, thus putting me at a disadvantage. Ah, memories. The worst part of this exposure to all the grimy angry vroom-vroom is that I now think that such a future is not only entirely plausible but inevitable. And I don't even know how to drive! Man, when the world falls apart, I am so screwed. That said, I have a really bad arthritic knee and grey wings in my hair, so I've got that part of the Max Rockatansky shtick going for me.

Loving Road Warrior is not exactly controversial, but some of the guys I knew who were in the year above thought I was mad for also liking Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, as it featured kids and was therefore not as hardcore as Road Warrior. Perhaps they had a point. If I went back to it now I'd probably agree, but at the time it just made me want to live in a post-apocalyptic world as part of a community of warrior children and hang out with a murderous Mel Gibson while trying to avoid Tina Turner. She was on Radio 1 all the time when I was a kid, so I reckon it would have been a common fantasy.


It's been years since I've seen them (mostly because Warner Brothers have not bothered to release proper DVDs, opting instead for barebones cheap-ass versions instead), but I still remember them fondly, and kept wishing directorial maestro George Miller would get the fourth film underway. Sadly for the fans, the project has had its fair share of bad luck over the years: Miller directing one of the biggest flops in film history (Babe 2: Pig In The City) and then being ostracised by the industry; budget trouble; African location shooting proving problematic; Mel proclaiming loudly that the Jews are responsible for all the world's ills (I wonder if he thinks the Californian fires that menaced his house were a plot) and thus expending every last bit of good will I had towards him (until I saw the very entertaining Apocalypto, which has thrown me for a loop). I'd given up on it, especially as Miller is now working on the Justice League movie, but Moviehole have revealed the project is going ahead again, sans Gibson, and pre-production will be done during the Justice League shoot.

Miller is one of my all-time heroes. The closest he's got to making a bad movie was The Witches of Eastwick; when people complain about the Hollywoodisation of a book I get so mad at the implicit snobbery in that phrase, but there is no other word for Michael Christofer's adaptation of John Updike's bizarre novel. All of the risk has been surgically removed, and the only thing that redeems the movie is Miller's muscular direction. I still love it, and have seen it a trillion times, but it's not the movie it should have been. Other than that, he's made some great stuff. Lorenzo's Oil, Babe 2, the Mad Max movies; all great. I even enjoyed Happy Feet lots and lots, and think it gets a ton of unfair criticism. Whatever. The master is back now he has an Oscar in his hand, and hopefully this second wind will see him restoring his reputation as one of the great storytellers of our age (and if you think I'm gonna apologise for the hyperbole, you can forget it), as well as making a movie set in a world that is more relevant than ever. I really cannot wait. Plus, the release of the new movie might spur Warner into giving the original movies a proper big DVD re-release, with all the bells and whistles! ZOMG!

Until then, check out Ain't It Cool's coverage; Merrick has been nice enough to put clips of the final chase sequence from Road Warrior. It's not a clean, speedy scene with nimble cars doing outrageous things; it's more a war of attrition, with outrageous violence and masterful stunts. Cinema at its best.

3: Frank Caliendo imitating John Madden on Letterman:

My only real exposure to John Madden is through playing the game, but you don't need to know what the real guy is like. This works beautifully anyway. The fact that it's an uncannily accurate impression is just a bonus. As with great Moments in Presidential speeches, this never fails to amuse.



4. Vern's work in the field of Seagalogy.

Speaking of Ain't It Cool, one of the site's more entertaining features are the reviews by Outlaw Vern, which are works of chaotic, grammatically dodgy brilliance. For years he has been working on a book of Seagalogy, and it finally got printed this week (I think; well, I found it today, so I'm sticking with that). Criticism can often be such a perfunctory thing that when you come across someone with a singular voice, it doesn't matter if you often disagree with them. It's just good to find entertaining and thoughtful writing about pop culture. Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian, Nigel Andrews in the Financial Times, Stephanie Zacharek and Andrew O'Hehir of Salon, Moriarty from AICN, the AV Club guys; I head straight to them every week.

While they will review most things released, Vern focuses on the long discredited action genre, and treats it with the respect it needs. His particular area of expertise, obviously, is the filmography of Steven Seagal, and he has the same love/hate relationship with him that I do with David Caruso. All you need to know about his credentials is that he thinks Out For Justice is Seagal's masterpiece, and it is, so he gets full marks for accuracy. Yes, I have often disagreed with him, but he makes me laugh even while I think he is horribly horribly wrong.

His entertainingly incoherent writing (almost certainly a pose, a bit like the wonderful Ami Angelwings) can be bought as real actual books or downloads from Lulu, and I heartily recommend them. Wow, I'm really trying to shill stuff out today.

5: We Both Reached For The Gun by Kander and Ebb, from Rob Marshall's Chicago:

Canyon recently recommended I watch Rob Marshall's film version of Chicago, and though a few years ago I would have said, "But the NO!!!", this time I jumped at the chance. Since seeing Once More With Feeling and Guys and Dolls (with Ewan McGregor and Jane Krakowski), I've started to love the genre. Chicago was better than I had expected, and I wonder if the lukewarm reviews it occasionally got at the time had more to do with the garishness of the visuals compared to the starkness of the stage version. As far as I could tell, Marshall did a pretty good job of mimicking Bob Fosse's directorial style, and though it was a little flashier, it worked very well.

Of all the songs in the show, We Both Reached For The Gun is my favourite (with Mister Cellophane coming close behind), but it was the scene itself, with the conceit of Roxie and the attendant press corps as puppets at the whim of Billy Flynn, that appealed to me most. If I'd give the movie an 8, this scene gets an 11. It's just genius.