Where pop culture meets geek culture and they make out a little.
Archive for August, 2009
This Week in Normality (Saturday Edition) — Bring the Pain
1890 days
by kilian
in Random Normality
Good day to you, faithful reader, on this last Saturday in August, in the year of our lord two thousand and nine.
I won’t go into all the horrid details about my Friday…the first day of the fall semester for me, in fact, and how everything that could possibly conspire against me posting this week’s articles did, in fact, conspire against me. I mean, I guess a comet didn’t crash into my car and I didn’t lose a limb in a lumber mill accident…but aside from those two things, everything that could conspire against me did. Suffice it to say, by the time I got home last night and had the kids fed and asleep I had just enough energy to stumble into bed.
So here we are…
But aren’t you glad you had to wait?
Isn’t the anticipation of what this week’s Normality Restored would bring you even better now that you have had to marshal the reserve to wait a full day more?
Just go with me on this.
And, you know what? It’s fitting, having to make you all wait so long. The waiting, no doubt, pained you faithful Normalinauts endlessly. I imagine you all suffered from severe cramps and headaches all night, unable to sleep, wondering when…dear god when!…you would find the weekly succor you so crave on Fridays.
It was, of course, cruel of us to have unleashed such wanting on our adoring fans. But such is the fate of the faithful on this week in which we Bring the Pain!
And this week’s theme was inspired by the newly released Tarantino film Inglorious Basterds, of which Stoker has written a…dare I say, glowing?…I dare…GLOWING review.
Tengu takes us back to his childhood to reminisce fondly, and not so fondly, about the work of filmmaker Paul Verhoeven.
Mustardseed, in his continuing attempts to prove he is the most literary of NR contributors, highlights Blood Meridian, the oft overlooked debut novel from now Pulitzer Prize winner, Cormac McCarthy.
What I have learned about, if not people at large, at least those associated with this website is that you tell them the theme is blood and violence, then they come out of the woodwork.
Stoker, for instance, was not content to just review a movie, oh no! He also felt compelled to give us all a taste of the, definitely not for the squeamish, Bendis graphic novel Torso.
And lastly, though certainly not least, a new guest contributor shares with us all both, the joy of Peter Jackson’s early work, and the savory taste of gore in general.
Glorious Basterds
2
“Once upon a time in Nazi occupied France…” a group of bad asses led by Lt. Aldo Rain (Brad Pitt) throw down the gauntlet and scalp a shit load of Nazis. At least that is what the trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s, “Inglorious Basterds” wants you to think the film is about but Basterds is so much more than a simple bloody war movie. The film is an homage to the C war movies of the past and a love letter to film as a whole. The movie’s main story line actually centers around a Nazi propaganda film and a plot to blow up or burn down the theater that is premiering it, taking out every member of the Nazi high command in one fell swoop.
I am one of those who believe that there are very few directors who do talking and excessive violence quite as well as Tarantino and he is in rare form with this new release. I cannot even begin to describe the scene in which two of the Basterds, and a British soldier, are meant to meet with a German film star in a Nazi filled bar, because the speeches contained within that scene are so brilliant. Let’s face it, though, a writer can write the best scene in the world but without the right actor to deliver the lines it all goes to hell anyway. In this case, the man who delivers those lines best is Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans “The Jew Hunter” Landa. Every scene that this man is in is mesmerizing, he utilizes four different languages in the film (German, French, English and Italian) and manages to be terrifying and yet oddly charismatic in all of them. I have never hated a villain while simultaneously being drawn to him every second he is on screen as much as with Landa (if he is not nominated for an academy award this year it will be a complete and utter debacle).
There are, however, two very important things that anyone going to see this film should know. One; the Basterds are only on screen about half the time, splitting the movie with Shosanna the undercover Jewish girl who owns the theater where the Nazis are planning to premier their film. Two; the majority of the film is subtitled so if you aren’t willing to read your entertainment then don’t bother going (and if you choose to go, don’t bitch about it later).
What really made me love this film was the way in which Tarantino dealt with his Jewish characters. I have grown very tired of the way in which Jews are portrayed in film. It is rare to find a movie in which the Jewish characters are not some absurd stereotype. We often see Jewish characters with long beards, dressed all in black, wearing hats and having peyote while Klezmer music plays in the background. The Basterds are not stereotypes. Not once do we see them engaging in any type of stereotypical behavior; they are first and foremost soldiers. Each is representative of where he is from and so, collectively, they do not continue the absurd idea that all Jews are the same. I do not have the time to heap all of the praise I wish on this film so, “Inglorious Basterds” I give you…
5/5 - Punched in the face by AWESOME!
To War Against The Decline Of His Meridian
3890 days
by Mustardseed Cochrane
in Books
The Phantom Cart by Salvador Dali (1933), used as the cover image for the first edition of Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West.
Blood Meridian could have been nothing more than a catalog of violence, rather than a terrifying meditation on the atrocities committed by the Glanton Gang. Save for one, its characters revel in the murders they commit, and while writer Cormac McCarthy imbues their acts with a certain warped eloquence through his use of beautiful and highly descriptive prose that reflects this macabre celebration, he does not do so to merely glorify the violence. Nor does he judge it as a mindless act. His central proponent for violence, Judge Holden, informs us that war is the only true game, for risking death, it is the only game that “swallows up game, player, and all.” His meditations and explanations of the methodology he uses to vindicate himself and the rest of the scalp hunters’ acts, thereby liberating them from any apprehension they might have in committing them, is perhaps the most terrifying part of the book.
The book is based on the true story of a group of men led by John Joel Glanton, a former member of the U.S. Army during the mid-19th century, who was hired by Mexican governors to kill and scalp Indians on the borders of the United States and Mexico during 1849 and 1850. It follows a nameless protagonist only referred to as ‘the kid’ after he runs away from rural Tennessee at the age of fourteen, meeting up with the Glanton Gang two years later. McCarthy tells us that the kid can “neither read nor write and in him broods already a taste for mindless violence,” something we see in the second page as he has nightly fights with sailors in a bar until he’s shot in the back, just below his heart. He is essentially the perfect initiate for Judge Holden’s philosophy. Yet, that is the central conflict of the book, for while the kid rides and murders with the gang, his conscience is not completely free when he performs these acts. When given the duty of killing an injured member of the gang after everyone else has left, he cannot bring himself to do so. His reluctance undermines everything the Judge believes in.
Judge Holden is described as being about seven feet tall, lacking any hair growth and with the complexion of an albino and the face of an infant. He has traveled the world, speaks numerous languages, including an understanding for ancient and cryptic ones. An accomplished fiddler and dancer, it appears there isn’t anything he cannot subjugate and nor master; even time, as he hasn’t appeared to age when years have passed. He carries notebooks into which he sketches and makes notes of a variety of things he finds along the gang’s journey—a piece of armor, birds, insects—and after he’s done with them he destroys them. When asked why he does so, he explains that he wishes to remove the existence of these things from the “memory of man.” Only the Judge will hold the knowledge and understanding of their existence. As he explains later on, “Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.” His desire is to be suzerain, or overlord, of the world. Nature is the only thing that can undermine him, because it is the only thing that exists independent of man’s will and desire. Nature, and as McCarthy demonstrates, the kid’s refusal to be seduced by Holden’s views and be carried off like a bride, as one of the characters remarks. Since it’s implied that the Judge rapes children, this is perhaps not to be taken as a flippant remark.
If you wish to be disturbed, then in the spirit of our “bring the pain” theme, here is a book whose characters not only “bring the pain,” but are also acutely aware of why they do so. Of some who enjoy it, and of some who are faintly disturbed by the prospect of it. A conversation with violence, so to speak.
5/5 - Punched in the face by AWESOME!
Verhoeven’s Double Feature of Violence
3
As a male adult in my early-30′s who was born and raised in the United States, I have seen/been subjected to (take your pick) a large array of movies that, according to the MPAA “…may include adult themes, adult activity, hard language, intense or persistent violence, sexually-oriented nudity, drug abuse or other elements, so that parents are counseled to take this rating very seriously.” For me, the master of this type of film is none other than director, Paul Verhoeven who is not even a US native, but a son of the Netherlands! With this weeks NR theme being, “Bring the Pain” I thought it appropriate to highlight two of Verhoeven’s “best” (and I use the term loosely and more in reference to box office dollars versus actual content) films.
In 1987, Verhoeven hit the cinema with the over the top, ultra-violent “Robocop” Part man. Part machine. All cop. I recall with clarity seeing the commercials and posters at the local theatre for this film and was determined to figure out how to watch it. It wasn’t until a year later, however, when it came out on video that I was able to take a gander without my parent’s interference. My 10 year old mind was (upon reflection) not ready to watch Alex Murphy get brutally shot up and dismembered by a bunch of crazed hooligans. It left quite the impression and the thought that “Wow, they can do some crazy make-up effects these days.” You might think that Murphy’s horrific death was the most violent part of the movie, but from that scene forward, Verhoeven just ratches up the violence meter. Who can forget the scene where Robocop takes down the would-be rapist by putting a round in the assailants breadbasket?! Or when one of Alex Murphy’s original killers gets tossed into some toxic waste and starts to melt? As violent and bloody as Robocop was, Verhoeven was just priming the pump for his next Hollywood endeavor that would feature our very own “Governator.”
1990 brought with it not only “Hammer Pants” but also Verhoeven’s sci-fi life on Mar’s epic “Total Recall” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger which taught us, if nothing else, that that trying to live on Mars sucks…unless you’re looking for an irradiated, martian hooker. Why does life suck on the red planet? Because the government will go with the lowest bidding contractor when making your atmosphere bubbles, thus allowing radiation to disfigure you. Also, the government will cover up the existence of an alien artifact that will actually allow the planet to have a breathable atmosphere. But like a porn movie, we’re not here to talk about the plot. We’re here to talk about the body count, and boy does Verhoeven deliver! Immeasurable amounts of Mars cops get taken out. A rat, sentient cab and various sundry scientist get to meet the reaper. Plus a random goon gets used as a handy meat shield. Don’t believe me?
Despite all of Verhoeven’s hard work during this time, in the end, it is Charlie Sheen who ends starring in “the bloodiest movie of all time.”
Robocop gets an NR rating of:
3/5 - Might be worth a try...
Whereas Total Recall gets an NR rating of:
1/5 - Basic shite.
Ness’s Mess
0890 days
by Stoker
in Comics (General)
Anyone familiar with any portion of the life of Eliot Ness most likely knows about his time as the head of The Untouchables. The Untouchables were a group of police officers who made a huge splash during the days of Prohibition. Few people, though, know what became of Ness post Chicago. It is Ness’s time in Cleveland Ohio investigating a series of grizzly murders that Brian Michael Bendis tackles in his award winning graphic novel “Torso.” Bendis is best known for his work on marvel comics superhero books but his true strength lies in the crime tales he told oh so many years ago.
Torso is a roller coaster of a ride as we follow Ness, and two other detectives, trying to solve the killings that have been plaguing Cleveland. Bendis utilizes many unique techniques to tell his story including spiraling panels and news clips from the time. The most shocking and valuable of his techniques, and also the most bloody and terrifying, is the utilization of actual crime scene photos in the pages to the comic. This book is not for the squeamish and I have warned people in the past that if you cannot handle photos of decapitation and decay that this is not the book for you…but if you can stomach it I full recommend this comic.
Torso gives the reader insight into what drives a man like Ness. Torso also gives a unique perspective on the beliefs about homosexuality at the time. The tale deals with corruption like no other book I have ever seen. The reader gets to witness the unraveling of a once powerful man as a killer slips through his fingers over and over again.
It is also important to note that Torso is a graphic novel in black and white so if you are one of those people who needs vibrant colors to read a comic; this isn’t the book for you. If, however, you are the kind of person who is ready to have chills run down your spine, if you are the kind of person who loves police procedurals, if you are the kind of person ready to expand your graphic novel reading prowess, this is the place to begin.
I do not want to give away too much of the plot because it simply would be unfair so I am going to stop here but this is my bloody valentine to all you out there in NR world. Oh, and I hope that the Torso (now called Ness) film comes to fruition soon.
4/5 - Nearly classic!
For the Love of Gore
1
Hey there faithful Normalinauts. Kilian here and, for the second week in a row, we at Normality Restored are pleased to welcome a guest contributor. He has requested that we call him “D. Composition” and I fully honor that request. As a slight, personally advantageous, aside I will say that I am enjoying the guest contributors as it means I do less writing (though more editing) and so we get a wider array of voices here on the ol’ NR.
So without further ado, I present to you…
If I were to walk up to an average movie fan and ask him if he remembered such films as “Deep Blue Sea” or “Resident Evil”, I imagine his response to the latter would be “Not really, but I do remember that guy getting diced by those lasers! That was awesome!” and to the former “Not really, but I do remember the shark jumping up and eating Sam Jackson! That was awesome!”
Sorry for the spoiler, but if you haven’t already seen Deep Blue Sea, chances are high that you either don’t want to see it or you already know about it because of Dave Chapelle.
Dave Chapelle: Samuel L. Jackson’s
I find this to be a commonality with a lot of movies, even when the movie is pretty good (I personally enjoyed Deep Blue Sea very much). We all know the reason for its everpresence. It’s the same reason people love rollercoasters. It’s a shocking thrill rolled in fun. Better the fictional movie characters deal with it than us, of course. It’s a fun way to have all the characters we hate get offed in a film. It works the opposite way with our heroes though (There were too many good times with Chef from South Park before his grisly demise. Gore is like taking a wound, or a death, in a story and turning it up full blast, much to the chagrin or delight of the prospective viewer. The gore can be a little much for some people, but that can be enjoyable too. I always find myself smiling at gore moments if I notice that someone else is cringing while watching. I think anything in a movie that can get a reaction like that is doing something right. I suppose I’ve personally been desensitized to the majority of the gore out there, though. I got started at an early age with a certain stripe-sweatered melty boogeyman with knives for fingers. Who could get these images out of a 7 year old’s mind (or a 27 year old’s mind for that matter)?
Few films, however, can match the feeling one gets when watching Dead Alive (Braindead). Back in the late 80’s-early 90’s Peter Jackson (you know the one…he directed the Lord of the Rings movies, for all you non-existent non-nerds reading this) made a couple of really funny and really gory little movies. Dead Alive is the best of these (according to myself and some friends). A few stragglers aside, it seems to be the undisputed “goriest fright film of all time.” If you’re not familiar with Dead Alive, you’ll either be really happy or really pissed off you’ve missed out for so long.
The movie is about a young man who lives with his old abusive mother. The films opens with the mother getting bitten by a rat-monkey at the zoo and, of course, contracting a zombie-like disease. The ball starts tumbling from there. The protagonist does his best to take care of his zombie-mom despite the infection of more and more, who also end up getting kept in his house. There is zombie sex, a zombie baby, a kung fu priest, a lawnmower scene, and a bunch of gross out stuff that even had me squirming.
If you do decide you want to see this movie, make sure to get the unrated version, because the “safe” version has so much cut out it really isn’t the same movie.
Needless to say, gore is and has been a great joy of mine for all kinds of reasons. It’s always fun to see where the filmmaker is going to take the viewer to get to some new level of shock or creativity. This is why people always talk about the “curb scene” in American History X or the “pen trick scene” in Dark Knight or the “eye splinter scene” from Zombi or the “tooth-pulling scene” from Oldboy. These are the standout moments in film for many because they are so shocking and so memorable.
Nights on Mary Street: Summer 1997-Spring 1998
0898 days
The seating capacity is listed at three-hundred and twenty five, and even if only half of that attended that night, there were still plenty of witnesses. A little over one-hundred people, if not more, who remained silent. There had probably been that many the week before who watched a seventeen year old boy whose leg was trembling in his jeans as he stared beyond the stage lights and into that void from which he was drawing laughter every few moments. I had prepared the material for that previous week.
I had a notebook with the spiral binding smashed down. I poured ideas into this notebook at school, on the bus in the mornings and afternoons. I would try out the material by slipping it in to conversations with friends, strangers. I would make note of what worked and try to understand why the rest didn’t work. Would a slight change in phrasing clarify the punch line?
SUMMER-FALL 1997
I sat outside of the Improv Comedy Club Miami every Monday night for about two months when they hosted Open Mic Night. I don’t remember going home after school. I don’t even remember eating dinner. I would get off the Metro-Rail at the Coconut Grove or Douglas Road stations, then board a smaller bus that went back and forth between the two stations, dropping off passengers on the sidewalks of Coconut Grove.
There had been an opportunity before the waiting, and before the club owner and the event coordinator for the open mic night discoverer I was seventeen. I had heard about an open mic night event and after talking about doing something like that for a while I decided to go to this club and reserve a spot. I arrived early, I gave my name and the young lady at the counter at the front of the club put me down. Then I entered the club and I could see the small stage and the crowd seated at their tables. My group and I found a table at the other end of the club and we sat and waited. Performers started going on and I waited my turn. How would they know to find me? Performers went on, and some received laughs while others found reasons never to come back. I don’t know which would feel worse when you’re standing up there and the material isn’t working: silence or booing? When the last performer left the stage and the host for the night announced the winner of the open mic night, I realized I had missed my opportunity. Don’t think it passed me by, now, because it didn’t. I didn’t once see any of the performers stand up from any table and walk up to the stage. I could have stood up and walked back to the front and asked if Iwas right to wait for my turn out in the audience as I watched each performers’ set. I was afraid. I sat at my table while my friend Idolka held my hand, and the numbing feeling in my stomach spread through the rest of my body. Then the night was over, and the two month wait outside of the club every Monday night began. They had found out how old I was and wouldn’t let me back in. There was even one night where the event coordinator, as a calm as he could remain, told me to leave as I was interfering with the patrons. My two months ended when neither the owner of the club nor the event coordinator were present, and I was allowed to go on. I didn’t get booed off the stage. There were giggles and a few small laughs, and then I was off the stage. While it wasn’t a spectacular set, I didn’t faint, I didn’t freeze up, and I wanted more.
SPRING 1998
My Mom and my brothers took a trip to Disneyworld during springbreak in April. I had already been to Disneyworld, and I wanted some time to myself, therefore I chose to stay behind. This is something I did a few times whenever the family took trips, and it took quite an effort the first few times to convince my Mom to let me stay.
I’m not sure what my exact thought process was that led me to get dressed and grab my bus card to stand outside on Le Jeune Road and catch the bus to the Douglas Road station, there to transfer to the bus into the Grove. It was one of those moments where I wanted something and had wanted it for a very long time, and I failed to see any reason why I shouldn’t try one more time. The timing felt right. I was on my own away from my family, I would be turning eighteen in about three weeks. This needed to be done. I couldn’t have just one brief interlude on that stage.
I think it was one of my friends who called my name for me to come to the stage that night. I had pieced together a rough set over all of those months. It was all rough material, one of the bits being about talking about President Bill Clinton entering Congress as if he was walking to the BeeGees “Staying Alive” while Al Gore and Hillary Clinton stood behind him providing the chorus. I remember looking down at my leg and being surprised that I couldn’t see it visibly shaking as I could I feel it doing exactly that. I remember the man they told me was an FBI Agent, who would sit in the front tables close to the stage and heckle the performers. I remember being surprised when some of the material received a good laugh.
Then I remember the next week. I had used up all of the material in my notebook the previous week, but I wanted to go back again. I figured I could put something together quickly. That was vey naive, as I didn’t have the experience to do something like that. Professional Stand-Up Comedians gather a large body of material from which they can draw from at a moment’s notice and piece together a quick set. I was not a professional.
There’s a sense of hyperawareness when an audience is quiet and there are lights blinding you. It’s almost like a zen experience. I remember walking up to the stage, excited, and walking up to the microphone. I remember the silence of the audience after I said my opening bit (which I refuse to recount to anyone who wasn’t there that night). In that silence came the realization that I was in trouble, and there proceeded a strange calm over my body as I accepted there was nothing I could come up with at that very moment that would save me. My friends tried to console me afterwards. They performed there on a regular basis. They understood.