Monthly Archives: March 2022

The Desperation of the Oscars

 

I am not going to talk about violence at the 94th Academy Awards but rather about the Academy’s pitiful attempts at popularity with its fan voted unofficial categories.

Viewership, interest, and respect for the Oscars has been waning for a number of years. As massively popular films, nearly always genre franchise movies, fail to achieve artistic recognition while smaller quieter films, nearly always dramatic films with a historic or social commentary goal, are showered with accolades. With the collapse of the mid-budget film leaving theaters with small artistic projects and massive franchise spectacles the Academy’s bent toward the dramatic while sidelining the genre opened a chasm between the films it honored and the ones beloved by the viewing audience it desperately wanted.

In 2018 the Academy announced its plans for a new category, Best Popular Film, a brazen attempt to have their cake and eat it too by giving blockbuster franchises a ghettoized Oscar. The backlash to the patronizing proposal proved as predictable as Newton’s laws of motion and the new category never appeared.

Instead, this year that unveiled the brilliant idea for a twitter poll drive for Fan Favorite Film and Fan Favorite Moment. Not actually new categories mind you, but a pat on the head for the comic book fans, a seat at the kiddie table while the real films are recognized elsewhere.

Had the Academy looked to the recent past with Fan driven award, particularly when there is a small but devoted and determined coordinated base of individuals, then they should have seen the outcome of their twitter voting.

Sunday, the Fan Favorite Film went to Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead, and the Fan Favorite Moment went to ‘The Flashe enters the Speed Force.’ (Mind you I go to comic book movies, and I have seen both versions of the Justice League movies and I had absolutely no concept of what scene won this momentary award.)

The Academy’s desperation for acceptance while remaining elite and aloof doomed the entire enterprise to failure. There are already several fan voted awards and it is wrong for the Academy to dilute their brand by trying to be popular.

Either widen you voting audience so the nominated and winning film appeal to a wider population or stay in your elite rarified air, but you cannot win trying to do both.

 

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Series Review: HALO

 

Adapted from the 2001 Xbox game HALO: COMBAT EVOLOVED Paramount + debuted yesterday the pilot episode of their Sci-Fi series HALO.

While I have played the game and its sequel I have never dived deeply into the lore or worldbuilding for HALO and as such my interpretation of the series is not a comparison but as a new viewer.

Set in the distant future of the mid 26th century, HALO is concerned with both a conflict between the Interstellar human government, breakaway rebel/insurrectionists colonies the war between the humans an alien coalition known as the Covenant. The story centers on a cybernetic warrior Spartan 117 ‘Master Chief,’ part of an elite unit of cybernetic fighters.

When the Covenant attack the separatist world of Madrigal, the Spartan intervene and discover in addition to a sole survivor of the massacre that the aliens were seeking some device on the colony. Factions with the human government splinter and contest each other for the best methods in dealing with both the Covenant and the Separatists with Master Chief, acting on an element of his reawakened humanity, finding a measure of independence from his programing.

HALO boasts impressive production design and special effects with many of the game elements both faithfully reproduced visually and credibly for today’s discerning audiences. The storyline is not a direct adaptation of the game’s plot and I believe I read somewhere that the show runners have no intent to adapt the already existing lore and story from the games.

The pilot episode seems to be unable to make up its mind what it wants in terms of tone. The action sequences are fairly well staged and fast paced but with the tangled political plotlines leaving the viewer without any clear faction to support the action is undercut. In the pilot it is unclear if any of the factions deserve the viewers sympathy or emotional investment.

Pablo Schreiber performed quite well as Master Chief but with and without his helmet. However, I found Natascha McElhone’s performance as Dr Halsey, creator of the Spartan Program, stiff and unconvincing. Several times we have her looking directly down the camera lens and I was at a loss to understand just what emotion or thought she was attempting to convey. This may be a directorial issue as I had no such troubles when she was in the American version of Solaris.

The episode’s dialog is best described as serviceable. While the exposition is not as heavy handed slapped into your face as JMS’s on Babylon 5 there were repeated instances where the characters spoke more for the audience benefit than from any inner need.

Overall, there is enough there to hold my interest and bring me back for another episode, but the series has failed to truly hook and me and leave me with anything more than a mile interest. Hopefully that will change with more and better episodes.

A gentle reminder that I have my own SF novel available from any bookseller. Vulcan’s Forge is about the final human colony, one that attempt to live by the social standard of 1950s America and the sole surviving outpost following Earth’s destruction. Jason Kessler doesn’t fit into the repressive 50s social constraints, and he desire for a more libertine lifestyle leads him into conspiracies and crime.

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Nordic Noirs

Nordic Noirs

 

My sweetie-wife a few years ago introduced me to Nordic Noir crime shows and I have grown to really enjoy them.

Here are a few that we have watched and I have enjoyed. Some are available on Netflix, some on Amazon, and others we watched on disc thanks to my region-free player.

The Bridge (Bron/Broen) A Swedish and a Danish detective team up when a murder victim is found on crossing the border in the middle of the bridge between their two nations. The second season has very silly virology, but the lead character is utterly fascinating.

Arctic Circle A Finnish/German co-production the series is centered on a tiny town in the far north of Finland in the Lapland area. Another storyline that has suspect virology this series is great for its small town feel while having an international plot.

Rebecka Martinsson Another Finnish production, this one adapted from a series of mystery novels about the titular character a high-powered lawyer with a screwed-up life that returns to her Lapland hometown and becomes intwined in murder investigations.

The Chestnut Man A Danish series this show follows a pair of investigators, one on load from Interpol, as they attempt to unravel a series of grisly murders where all of the victims were mothers.

The Valhalla Murders an Icelandic series about murders tied to a foster/adoption home.

Trapped another series from Iceland, this time am ocean ferry is forced into port during a storm and the local police must untangle the murder mystery during the tempest.

Bordertown Returning to Finland this series about a cross border murder investigation between Finland and Russia.

The Killing is a Danish show with a twenty-episode story arc investigating the murder of a high school girl that becomes deeply entangled with city politics.

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An Abominable Adaptation: Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers

 

Before the essay gets rolling the subject and point of this piece is not to debate Heinlein’s novel Starship Troopers and whether it is or is not fascist. If your comments are about the novel and politics, save them. That’s not the issue at hand.

Verhoeven’s 1997 film is a piece of political satire, a cinematic tradition with a distinguished and proud linage including the likes of Doctor Strangelove” Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb. Satire has a rich history and can be a great tool for arguing a case and it is not always about humor and laughter. Swift’s A Modest Proposal isn’t funny, but it is excellent political satire. So, the fact that the film Starship Troopers isn’t a comedy does not remove it from the category of satire.

What makes this adaptation abominable isn’t that it isn’t faithful to the novel threadbare and nearly non-existent plot or that the film is a satire where the novel is not. The issue is that it targets its satire directly on the novel’s argument while presenting itself as an adaptation of the novel’s argument. This is disingenuous and a perversion.

Consider a hypothetical counter example. Let’s stipulate a satirical adaptation of Orwell’s classic novel 1984. The setting is already very close to satire and Gilliam used it as a jumping off point for his own comedic satire Brazil but importantly created his own work rather than abuse another artist’s. So, in this 1984 adaptation we not only make it satire we make the target Winston Smith and ridicule his character and his outlook, raising Big Brother to a benevolent force concerned with the happiness and safety of its citizens. This would be a perversion of Orwell’s work and in my opinion it would be immoral. I think it is wrong to take another artist’s creation and twist it, mutate it, and abuse it to make it attack itself. We could do the same thought experiment with countless classic works, sch as transforming Fahrenheit 451 into a defense of ignorance and illiteracy but I think the point is made.

Obviously not only can you attack viewpoints itis good to challenge other ideas and themes. My understanding is that Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War is in part a direct answer to Heinlein’s Starship Trooper. Verhoeven often returns to the idea of fascism and the dangers it presents. I applaud him and his stand as an anti-fascist but inverting another artist’s work is a dishonest and disrespectful method. It is far better to craft your own piece and argument such as with The Forever War or Brazil than to engage in blatant distortion.

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Streaming Review: Black Crab

 

I’ve been busy the last two weeks looking after my sweetie-wife and her hip replacement but now I am back for regular updates.

Saturday evening, we watched the Swedish film and debut feature from director/writer Adam Berg, Black Crab.

Noomi Rapace stars as Caroline as woman impressed into military service in the near future and on the losing end of a bloody atrocity filled war in the far north of Scandinavia. She joins a small squad and their near suicidal mission to cross frozen seas carrying mysterious cannisters that will determine the fate of the war. However, her motivation isn’t from duty or patriotism but rather to reunite with the daughter she lost at the start of the war and who is now at the location the cargo must be delivered to.

The cinematography and sound design of Black Crab are impeccable. The beauty, stillness, and constant danger of their quest is captured in image and sound that resonate even on the small screen. The squad tactic and firearm utilization look at appear grounded and realistic with Berg avoiding cliche displays of impossible skills but rather turning a more harrowing portrayal of what a firefight must actually be like. Rapace delivers a subtle and nuanced performance that always remind the viewer of his conflicted and troubled character without a need scenery chewing.

Ber and co-writer Pelle Radstrom made some interesting choices that I think were done to keep the piece apolitical. The characters speak in Swedish, but their location is the far northwest coast of Norway, and the ‘enemy’ is never seen clearly or is their nationality identified. The greater political motivations of the war are utterly irrelevant to the Rapace’s character and are therefore absent from her story.

Halfway through the film a mild science-fictional elements is introduced and drives nearly everyone’s motivation from that point onward save for Rapace and her absolute need to reunite with her daughter.

Black Crab’s greatest weakness is the film’s final act. The set-up and action unfolds in a manner that makes the story ultimate resolution both predictable and cliche. The film’s message appears to be that war is a stupid suicidal affair both for individuals and humanity in general. Hardly an original premise. However, I do not regret the less than two spent watching Black Crab, and your mileage may of course vary.

Black Crab is currently streaming on Netflix.

 

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The Past is Not Today

 

I can’t be counted as among the great fans of historical fiction. There are plenty of historical dramas, comedies, and even some fantasies, I’m looking at you Tim Powers, that I enjoy but it is not my primary genre of fiction.

However, if your historical fiction, be it fantastic or not, gets some very basic things wrong, so wrong that I am noticing, then you are in trouble.

It is important to remember that the people of the past, while still very much people, had utterly different world views than people today. The further into the past you set your fiction the further removed from modern thinking and speaking will be the characters actions. And that doesn’t get into the little trick of language that are more modern than you might expect.

‘Hello’ as a general greeting is a product of the telephone and as very nearly ‘ahoy.’ (Something C.L. Polk dropped into her Witchmark series without explanation that I just adored.)

‘Point of no return’ is a turn of phrase coined with the coming of the age of aircraft.

‘Hands of time’ is something you only say once clocks have become common.

And the ahistorical element that bugged me last night.

People conquered by Imperial Rome did NOT become citizens of Rome. That was a vastly tiny number of people they became subjects of the empire. Getting that wrong displays, a vast ignorance of Rome, its history, and its people.

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