Author Archives: Bob Evans

The Word ‘Enemy’ is Dangerous

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A friend retweeted a Twitter posting where a conservative supposedly defined ‘woke.’ The tweet contained nothing that any linguist would consider a ‘definition’ but rather a word-salad screed about what they considered the dangerous aspects of ‘woke’ including unsupported assertions of ‘death cult’ and the like. My friend commented in his retweeting that it is was important to know ‘the enemy.’

Now, I am not going to get into the futile and unproductive argument over what is ‘woke.’ In my opinion that term is used as carelessly as ‘fascist’ was deployed by many for decades prior to our current social political crisis.

What I am fascinated with is the term ‘enemy.’ An enemy is someone or faction that you cannot reasonably work with without degrading or corrupting your own standards. The overuse of ‘enemy’ in domestic political terms leads to a breakdown of governance.

If you want to tax high income people at a greater rate than others, that doesn’t make you an enemy. Policy, in general, isn’t the basis for enmity but rather disagreement. It is possible to have serious, vigorous, and even heated debates and arguments over policy without being enemies.

However, when you describe your political opponents as wanting to ‘destroy civilization’ and ‘end the nation’ then you make it impossible to work with them. Your very language has placed them beyond the pale of acceptability and that chains your own actions.

Look at the war in Europe. Many people on both the left and the right see the vital importance in assisting a democratic and free nation in defending itself against a brutal, savage war launched by its dictatorial neighbor. And yet that assistance to held captive and withheld because to actually do the work to get it out requires working with the ‘enemy.’

On a less critical issue, keeping an insurrectionist out of the presidency, political aid is coming from those who served with the insurrection in his previous administration. I have no love for Pence. I know that given the chance he would harm those I care about with his deluded sense of morality, but I will not label him an ‘enemy’ making it impossible to work with him.  I will accept his assistance but never forget what it is he is and what he would want to achieve.

The word ‘enemy’ is dangerous and should be applied quite carefully.

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Unreasonably Interested in The First Omen

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20th Century Studios

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It is my contention that aside from The Omen released in 1976 there hasn’t been a good film in the franchise. Despite this I am interested in seeing the newest film in that continuing horror series the prequel The First Omen.

Despite not being any sort of believer in Christian theology The Omen, along with the Exorcistremains among some of my favorite horror films. Omen II almost was a good film but just missed the mark in the scripting stage, Omen III turned out so bland that even though I have seen it twice I can’t recall a single scene from that feature. I haven’t seen Omen IV, and 2006’s remake of the original proves how vital important the original stars and direct were to that film’s lasting quality.

So, with that sort of personal track record of responses why am I interested in a prequel that from the trailers looks to violate established canon?

I do not know.

I can say that I am fascinated by Ralph Ineson as Father Brennan. He strikes me as the perfect modern casting to follow Patrick Troughton, but one or two actors are not usually enough to pull me into a theater. neither the director nor the team of writers are familiar to me and as such created no draw and yet I am going to see this movie this weekend. It’s a gut feeling, a sense, that perhaps, just maybe, this one will work.

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A Giallo and Horror Weekend

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This weekend my sweetie-wife and I enjoyed a couple of Italian movies on Blu-ray disc that she had checked out of the library. Remember, your local library can be more than just great books to read.

First up is Mario Bava’s 1966 horror movie Kill Baby, Kill.

A doctor is summoned to a remote Carpathian to assist a detective investigating a series of bizarre deaths that the locals believe to be the result of a murderous ghost. With the aid of a local woman who has just return from college the doctor quickly find himself in a world of ghosts, mediums, and witchcraft, all swirling around a young girl’s mysterious death years earlier.

Bava, a director with flair even when his budgets are slashed, is in full form and glory with Kill Baby, Kill. His characteristic use of colored lighting that has no diegetic source adds depth to the frames and mood the scenes. Available on Blu-ray disc with its original Italian dialog track, this movie speeds along quickly wasting hardly a frame of its brief running time. I was most pleased that the resolution was not some hand-waving Scooby Doo gimmick but that this was rather an actual supernatural propelled piece of horror. While sedate and decidedly not explicit compared to modern movies Kill Baby, Kill remains an effective, atmospheric film worth seeking out.

We followed that up with a giallo. Gialli are Italian crime films of the 70s that feature particularly lurid sensationalized convoluted plots with often a saturated color pallet.

The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail is about a woman who collects on a million-dollar life insurance policy after her estranged husband dies in a mysterious air disaster. Suspicious of events the insurance firm dispatches an investigator to ferret out if the woman is responsible for the crash. When people associated with the incident are viciously murdered the press, the police, and even Interpol become involved. As with many classic giallo this story has lots of twits and reveals, both in plot and in female skin, until the resolution of the mystery with the final and largest twist. Some movies of this genre try too hard and create final solutions to the mystery that do not follow logically but The Case of The Scorpion’s Tail works out quite logical even if some of the information is withheld from the audience. After all, with giallo it is not about solving the mystery but experiencing it. Along with Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace this film would make an excellent introduction to giallo.

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Re-Reading Dune Messiah

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More than 30 years ago I read Dune Messiah, the first sequel to Frank Herbert’s novel Dune.The continuing storyline did not quite capture my attention and I did not proceed down the course of the following novels. Now with the release of Dune part 2 completing Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of the novel and its box office and critical success I decided to re-read Dune Messiah and see if I had a different reaction to it this time around.

The first thing I noticed was that in the passing decades I had forgotten nearly everything about the sequel novel. Vague aspects of the story’s final ending floated in my memory but of the actual plot and events, nothing.

Dune Messiah picks up a dozen or so years after the ending of Dune. Paul Atreides’ Jihad has swept the galaxy and the fanatical legions of Fremen have slaughter billions and destroyed hundreds of worlds for their Messiah. The vast powerful forces of the galaxy spanning human imperium, economic, political, and religious have crafted a plot to eliminate Paul and reclaim control of the empire. Paul, plagued by prescience, knows some aspects of the plotters plans but also sees that any misstep and error will lead to even more slaughtering and death than he has already unleashed on the galaxy.

With even more mind-bending concepts, Face-Dancers, people with such utter control over their muscles that they can assume the appearance of any person, and people reanimated after death and imposed with brain washing conditioning, Herbert’s sequel is challenging to read and even more challenging to adapt to a visual medium that the first novel in this classic series. The book makes more explicit Herbert’s premise that charismatic leaders are a danger to everyone, their enemies and their followers. While the reader may sympathize with Paul who never intended to do evil it remains clear that evil is the product of his actions no matter his intent.

With the most recent adaptation fresh in my mind, it was easy to ‘hear’ the voices of the actors playing in my head as I read the book and adding a few new member’s to the cast. I expect that should Villeneuve adapt this to the screen that Peter Dinklage will once again become part of a fan favorite franchise.

I can say that this time around I enjoyed the novel more than I had in the late 80’s when I first read it. Partly because of Villeneuve’s adaptation and partly because I have become more aware of the social and cultural antecedents that Herbert drew upon for his inspiration. I do not feel that this go around I wasted my time.

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Believe in Something, Do not Simply Oppose

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The title of this post is deceptively simple. Particularly when it comes to politics, everyone believes in something and by believing in that thing they come to opposes those who do not.

But therein lies the trap.

Once you are fixed on those who oppose you, it is so much easier to keep them in your sights than to question yourself or your fellow travelers. This sets you up to follow your fellow travelers down terrible paths because each and every one of you continue to stand firm against those you oppose.

My first election was back in 1980 and I voted Reagan over Carter. I did not believe Carter to be a bad man, but I did believe that he was in over his head. My political path went along with the GOP but even then, I took care to keep my own head. I never supported the more religious aspects of the party and there were times when my votes when to the Democratic politicians over such issues. I have always known that I supported equality, the right to choose, and other programs that set me apart. I cannot be dogmatic.

Knowing what I believed to be right and wrong made it possible for me to see that the GOP had taken a terrible turn when it embraced torture. My conservative friends saw me as a ‘one issue’ voter when I walked away from the GOP over that, but it is not that the ‘one issue’ was torture but rather it was right and wrong. (I had argued passionately against the invasion of Iraq.)

The follow the crowd mentality that continued to support the party after the torture debacle is *in part* what helped the party to fall into line behind Trump.

My conservative friends who have spent their entire political lives opposing the Democratic party have lost their way. If you could travel backwards in time to 1990’s and warn them that as they supported the impeachment of Clinton and the endless investigations of the couple that in the future, they would support an obvious conman and fraud who gave support to Russia as it invaded its neighbors they would steadfastly and with utter confidence tell you that would never happen. That their support of the GOP has limits. But of course, it doesn’t because the GOP continues to oppose the Democratic Party. Fixate on your opponents and you will lose yourself.

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The Doomsday Machine is not Dead

CBS Home Video

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Season two episode six of Star Trek (The Original Series) gave us The Doomsday Machine, where Kirk and company battle a automated weapon that destroys planets. Hampered by a traumatized Starfleet Commodore they eventually deactivate the mechanism leaving floating derelict in space.

With a hull of neutronium the machine had been impervious to the Enterprise’s weaponry the victory had hardly been assured.

You might be forgiven if you assumed neutronium was a fantastical substance invented by delirious writers much like ‘Vibranium’ or ‘Adamantium’, but you would wrong.  Neutronium is matter that has been so compressed by immense gravitational forces that the protons and electrons have merged with the neutron at the nucleus of the atom forming pure nuclear material with nearly unimaginable densities, Neutron stars have nearly enough mass to become Black Holes, but not quite.

It is unlikely that the ‘Doomsday Machine’, even though it was ‘miles long with a maw that could swallow a dozen starships’ possessed stellar masses of neutronium. (That would make for an interesting battle, fighting a machine with the gravitational effects of a star.) To maintain its shape and function the mechanism would need to counter the immense gravitational forces generated by the neutronium hull.

When the Enterprise departed the battle volume the machine still retained it shape. If it was truly and utterly dead, it should have collapsed into a sphere, but it did not. Something inside the doomsday machine still functioned, fighting the terrible crushing force of gravity.

It was not dead. Now, there’s a space for some fan-fiction or a tie-in novel.

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Movie Review: Late Night with the Devil

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A clever concept that can’t quite connect.

IFC Films

Late Night talk show host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) desperate to reverse a slide in ratings night books a parapsychologist (Laura Gordon) and supposedly demon possessed subject (Ingrid Torelli) for a live television event on Halloween night 1977 and gets far more than he bargained for.

Utilizing the ‘found footage’ conceit Late Night with the Devil is comprised of broadcast footage and off-air recording captured by the studio cameras to recount the events of Delroy’s final program. This setting circumvents many of the issues with found footage films by giving a rational and reasonable answer as to why the cameras are not only there but why as horrific events unfold people continue to operate them. Sadly, while having a quite intriguing concept and a talented cast, LNwtD, is hampered by both budgetary constraints and a script that needed another couple of passes.

The film opens with effectively a prolog telling the audience the backstory for both the central character of Jack Delroy and the possessed girl Lilly. In my opinion, this prolog blunders in two aspects, the greater error is attempting to leaving Lilly’s nature mysterious. The audience will have almost certainly seen trailers for the film and even if they had not, they purchased their tickets expecting to see a horror film. Trying to leave the question of Lilly’s possession as an unknown doesn’t create any suspense as that is our expectation before we have even walked into the theater. The second lesser failing is that the prolog tries to tell us two different backstories, Lilly’s and Jack’s, and the best prolog are simple and direct. They inform us of the one thing we must know in order to appreciate the story from the start. Splitting the prolog dilutes it and starts the movie of in a flabby manner.

The budgetary constraints appear in the final act of the film. If you do not have the budget for a VFX spectacle then you shouldn’t try to have one. The real tragedy is that if the directors had forsworn the effects and gone for a more ground simpler approach the horror would have hit harder, felt more real, instead of what looked like VFX that could be done at home pulling the audience out of the reality of the film.

I can quibble with some of the decisions here and there. The used of hypnosis by the skeptic to attempt to disprove the possession but these are minor things more about taste than failings of the film. A more subtle approach to backstory and exposition is something that always appeals more to me than more direct expressions but again that is a matter of personal taste. I am disappointed that Late Night with the Devil did not live up to my personal expectations, but neither was it insultingly bad. The film lands in the dreaded mediocre middle of horror.

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Vernor Vinge, Rest In Peace

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I do not often post about the passing in notable people here. While there are artists of all arts that I enjoy, admire, and are fans of, I rarely feel any great emotional tug when they pass. Losing a parent at a young age can impress upon you with great force the truth that everyone dies.

I do want to make a note of the passing this week of SF author Vernor Vinge. He was a celebrated author, often credited with popularizing the concept of the technological singularity, the point where advancements in technology change humanity so completely that what exists on the other side is incomprehensible to those before the event. The reason I am making this post is not because of his talented writing, his impact on the field, or even his influence on the wider culture but because I had the good fortune to have met him on a few occasions.

I cannot say I knew him. Sharing a few panels at local SF conventions is not enough to truly know a person, but I was acquainted with Vernor.\

He was a kind man, a local celebrity who did not throw that weight around at conventions. Even away from the dim spotlight of small local conventions he remained a friendly and approachable person. Our paths crossed at San Diego’s airport once as he was flying out to an eclipse and my sweetie-wife and were departing for a convention. The time we shared before boarding our flights was pleasant and affable.

It is strange, perhaps, that such a kind and seeming decent man created one of the most chilling and evil cultures in literature. The Emergence from A Deepness in the Sky and their viral form of slavery frightened me in a manner rarely found from pages of text. The book and those villains were so compelling that I was unable to resist reading it on the bus home from work, despite the intense motion sickness reading on a moving vehicle provoked.

Vernor was talented, kind, and he will be missed.

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All my Life I’ve Thought of Death

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I seriously cannot think of a time in my life, no matter how young, when I did not think of death. Oh, I don’t mean that it is every though in my head or that it is even a daily thought, but I feel certain that a week has not gone by that I can recall where it did not enter my mind.

I was nine when my father passed away. A terribly early age to have such a crashing trauma visited upon you but even before cancer took him I had repeated thoughts of death, so that tragic terrible event is not the genesis of my morbidly.

I don’t know how young I was when my puppy ‘snowball’, was killed by a passing car but that was my earliest encounter with death in the real world. Yet, I think, I feel, that the repeated visitation by thoughts of death preceded the dog’s passing.

I think my thoughts, my fascination with death, and with ghosts which have always been my most love form of horror, started before watching my puppy die on the road in front of me.

What I think really started this line of thinking, one which continues to the very day, is prayers.

As a child I was raised Southern Baptist, but the religion didn’t take hold. As an adult I have a lot of favor for a friend’s take on religion; “It’s Santa Claus for Adults.”

As a child in the 60’s I was taught a prayer say each night before climbing into bed.

Now I lay be down to sleep.

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

I was boy with an active imagination that phrase If I should Die before I wake, proved to be a powerful catalyst.

My memories are very clear on this. Me in bed, wondering if I was going to die before I woke up. The clause had to be there because people did just up and die in their sleep for no reason at all. To this day I can be drifting off to sleep and the that seed planted when I was far too young to understand flowers, and I wonder about dying in my sleep.

Be aware of what you tell children, particularly those with powerful imaginations and vivid dreams for you may be implanting concepts that they will never shake off.

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Peer Pressure Isn’t Just Teenagers

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We tend to think of ‘peer pressure’ as something that is a trouble for teenagers. A scene in a badly scripted After School movie where the bad kid Tommy tells the good kid Jimmy that if he wants to be cool Jimmy needs to take a drag on the joint. Of course, it doesn’t work like that in real life at all. It’s not so much as pressure from one or two people as much as it is the Fear of Missing Out. People are doing something, having fun, being social. It’s rare that anyone verbally chastises someone into participating but rather the need to maintain the social life, to be accepted, to be with the group instead of outside it that sweeps people along. It’s far less ‘pressure’ as it is a swift river’s current. it can be fought but it is so much easier to flow with the waters.

This applies to adult as much as it applies to teenagers. It is a major component of why so many rational normal Republicans now move with Trump.

Oh, there are the true Trumpists, authoritarians and neo-fascists for whom the dream of state power is a one that frightens the rest of us, but I do believe that they are the minority. The trouble is that to maintain their social lives, their social contacts, and to avoid being ostracized by their friends and peers far too many simply swim with the current. They have lived their entire adult lives with the concept that the Democrats are not just wrong but evil. It’s beyond their imagination and conception that they are now the anti-Americans. So, despite their criticisms of Bill Clinton for dodging the draft, breaking the law, or unproved accusations of sexual assault and grifty financial dealings, or their charges that Obama was an unready novice with over inflated ego, they have wedded themselves to Trump. The hypocrisy of their support is unseen they are drowned in the swift river of the need to be accepted by their peers and our nation is worse off because of their weakness.

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