Wonder Woman with Mom

So, I went to see Wonder Woman today with Mom. It was on purpose. It wasn’t the purpose of the trip across three states to get here, but I knew I wanted to do it while I was here because I credit her with many/most of my opinions about women and I’d hoped she’d like the movie. She said she did. (Dad didn’t want to go. I asked... I knew a 2.5-hour movie was an unlikely “yes” though. I wasn’t sure Mom would go, but she did.)

On the drive back to their house I mentioned that I didn’t understand when people say little girls need to see role models of strong women so they know that being strong and independent and standing up for yourself is a thing that is possible for women to do. I have two sisters. They are both all those things and have been since they were little. It’s always been my assumption that kids, both kinds, are born with a strong sense of self and an inborn sense of what they will and won’t put up with, a sense a fairness and being treated fairly is just sort of there, as well as a sense of standing up for one’s self and the idea that they can do anything. I’ve always seen that as being something that kids have when they’re kids. Some kids grow out of it... but it has always felt like something kids are born with to me.

So, if someone is worried their kids are being socialized out of that... if they’re seeing their little girls turn into princesses instead of generals... that seems to me as if they’re allowing something ELSE to be more important to the kid than they, as parents are. I don’t think my parents ever considered for a minute that it was possible or that it would be put up with for the opinions or lessons of tv, movies, or commercials to be more important to us than they (our parents) were.

I’m not a parent. I was a brother and my two sisters grew up to be: One, a Marine that worked on attack helicopters I think, and the other a scientist who then went into law, specifically intellectual property law in the very narrow field in which she was a scientist. Those are not fields that are typically “for girls” but I’m almost sure neither of them ever considered that as an obstacle but did what they wanted to do because they wanted to do it. We were brought up to do what we want to do and obstacles may be there, but they’re not insurmountable. Most things will eventually yield if you smash yourself against it with all your will and intelligence and determination enough times. That was what we were taught. That’s what we saw our parents doing over and over again. Did they have problems or stresses and were they sometimes tired and overwhelmed? Yep. I’m sure of it. But they didn’t stop as far as I ever saw and they taught us not to either. We lucked out in the parent lottery.

The lesson we learned was if you do your best and failed you’d done all you could have done and now it was time to find out what went wrong, address that, and try again, but don’t half-ass it. Don’t give up. Don’t decide it’s too hard because too hard just means too lazy and lazy isn’t okay.

So, raise strong girls. Raise strong boys who recognize that strong girls are good to have around and they aren’t a threat but an asset. Encourage it, but don’t assume it’s not already there in the very young. I’m sure it is, and remember that they will be who they saw you being and they’re watching. God knows they’re watching and listening and remembering so make sure you’re the person you want them to grow up to be. Model the behavior. Show them what strength is. Show them what determination looks like. Show them what it looks like to not pay attention to the limits other people want to put on you. Let them see you living it and doing it. If you have to, fake it and fake it convincingly. I’m sure there were times when my parents were staring at something like a house and yard hit by a hurricane and a house fire and 3 kids and and and... and they kept on going and just did what needed doing and we kids didn’t know how hard it was. We just saw them doing what needed doing and then it was done. That’s what all three of us learned: boys & girls alike learned it from seeing it, and today, we’re doing it.

So, I was glad to see the movie with her but when I think of strong women I don’t think of Gal Gadot. I think of my Mom, my two amazing sisters, I think of my Granny, and my various aunts, my 103-year-old Great Aunt Annie who raised her siblings and has buried many of them if not all... outlived her parents, and some of her kids even. Those are my wonder women.

Don Jon: Thoughts on a Movie

I watched Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Don Jon Sunday night on Netflix. It's streaming now if you're interested. He starred in and directed this movie about a man who sucked at interpersonal relationships, ostensibly because he had a porn addiction. He watched a lot, a LOT of online porn.

I used to watch a lot of porn, a LOT of porn. It was part of my job honestly. I was an area supervisor type for a nationwide chain of adult book stores. Knowing what I was selling really was part of the job. The thing with porn is it's, and this might come as a surprise to a lot of people, it's having a hard time right now. The big studios of yesteryear, Wicked, Vivid, Evil Angel... they're facing competition from the thing that porn has been accused of being for a long time. Porn is accused of not being real. Real people don't act like that. Real people don't have sex like that. Real people don't do those things. So, when a person sees sex in a porn they try it with their partner, or want to, or think about it... and it doesn't always go as portrayed in the movies.

Competition from online porn, amateur stuff and small studio stuff using real people who do a shot for a pittance and it's only somewhat lit well and the camera work's not all that great and the lighting's barely good enough to see their faces but who cares? A lot of porn is about imagining someone else in there anyway right? The reason Ron Jeremy got work for so long is that men were the primary consumers of porn and they were imagining they were him... and it wasn't that tough. He was a short hairy fat guy... all they really had to switch out was his face. The rest looked about right... except maybe for the giant schlong, but hey... if they're imagining, why not imagine a third leg down there right?

So the upstart porn online now... the amateur stuff, the stuff that's readily available out there, selfies, phone cam stuff on sites I'm NOT linking to but they're not hard to find... that stuff has real people doing things real people do and has people doing things they've seen in movies that maybe they do and maybe they don't do. The lines are blurring though between what's real and what's not real in the world of porn.

I don't know that sexual expectations are the primary thing that online porn is giving people unreasonable expectations about any more. I think it's probably body image. The amateur stuff has all sorts of body types but if you sort by most viewed or by highest rated... what floats to the top is typically not the best sex or most interesting sex but is, in fact, the prettiest people. So now you're not seeing crazy weird sex with unattainable stars from big studios. You're seeing all sorts of sex, regular, leaded, unleaded, high octane and racing grade sex from what appears to be regular people because that's what the sites purport to be, that's what they feel like. That's what they are really... but it's the hottest of the regular people so the average guy or gal is watching it and comparing themselves to the regular people and forgetting the algorithm that sorts their viewing options is skewing it toward the hottest ones.

Is porn healthy? Sure. I think it can be. I've seen lots of couples shop for it together. I've seen guys come in who want it occasionally and check out the toys or lube or movies... not like it used to be... mostly porn is coming online now and not from video rentals if you're 50 or under. I've also known people who got movies all the time, hundreds, thousands of dollars worth of porn over decades. Those people aren't necessarily in healthy relationships, but I don't think the porn is the cause or even a symptom as much as it is an indicator that something is amiss in how they relate to themselves or others. I think porn is a lot like dessert. It can be fine in moderation or to accent a relationship but I don't think a steady diet of just that would be a great idea. Do people *need* porn? Mostly no. Mostly nobody *needs* dessert either but both are pretty commonly consumed by people out there and it's not just people who have problems.

The movie got me thinking about porn and the people who consume porn.

Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America was on TV tonight and I watched it while eating dinner and it got me thinking about what it is I like about hero movies (and superhero movies).

I like heroes because they're, well, because they're heroes. They stand for something bigger than themselves. They ACT on their beliefs and they're good guys. I believe most people themselves are good people. I think heroes are important not for their actions only, but to serve as examples for the rest of us that even if the odds are terribly against us that's no reason to let something go that we think is wrong.

Captain America is that kind of do-gooder hero and I like it. I also like that in the originals his bad guys he fought were the Nazis. One of the things about today's world is bad guys are often harder to tell from ambivalent guys, or people just trying to get by. Nazis... those were easy. They were bad. Today's world of terrorists is harder, more complicated. Not everybody in a turban is a bad guy. Everybody in an SS officer uniform was though. So, what do we do now? We have vague enemies, and tortured heroes are popular, broken people like Batman who is haunted, tortured, by the death of his parents and bent on justice that has a suspiciously vindictive quality to it. His simmering anger always just beneath the surface isn't someone I can look up to. He's someone I would fear if he were in our town. Captain America isn't somebody I'd fear at all. I'd LIKE having him in town.

I also like that the Captain uses a gun. He's killing bad guys remember? Batman doesn't kill anybody and doesn't use a gun and what happens? Gotham falls victim to the same bad guys over and over again. Which of them is a better hero? Batman thinks he is because he won't kill but I think sometimes killing is necessary. The Joker has killed a LOT of people over, and over, and over again and still, Batman won't put him down. Captain America would and that would stop a LOT of suffering and that's something I think is part of a hero's job description. It's something that should be part of ALL of our job description. We should ALL leave the world better than we find it every day. I think that's a real thing.

Sharknado... The Fort Dodge, IA connection

Sharknado just finished airing on SyFy for the second time. It is a made for TV B (type) movie, cheaply made for a specific audience. I say B (type) because it's not the second half of a double feature.

Once upon a time Hollywood was obsessed with giant blockbuster type movies, huge sets, giant stars, huge budgets.... think Ben Hur or The Ten Commandments. HUGE stuff. But there were writers out there writing smaller things who were being turned down by the Paramounts and Universals of the time. Money was being left on the table. It was either go big or go home! Some of that was the impact of television. Why go see something small when you could watch small on television.

But what if you made a cheap movie quickly that was bigger than something that could be on television and fun to watch? And probably wouldn't be able to be aired on television? What if it was at a drive in on a big screen? What if your audience was late teens & early 20s? Those are the questions Samuel Z. Arkoff, born here in Fort Dodge, Iowa asked. He helped form American International Pictures and B movies took off. Beach Blanket Bingo? Girls in Prison? I Was a Teenage Cave Man? Journey to the Seventh Planet? All thanks to Mr. Arkoff born here in Fort Dodge, IA.

I just reviewed Pacific Rim and Mr. Arkoff was even part of the dakaiju movement when it first happened here in the US back in the day with Uchû daikaijû Dogora. A man ahead of his time I tell you!

He knew that sometimes a movie can be for fun. It can be for entertainment. It can exist just to make you smile, laugh, or clutch at the person next to you and gasp in fear. They don't have to be epic or brain-bending all the time. Sometimes a movie can just be fun... and profit!

World War Z where Z stands for Zillions of Tropes (or zix)

Woot! I went to see World War Z. It's got zombies, fast zombies, and Brad Pitt, and zombies. What's not to love? Did I mention zombies? I was as giddy as a school girl! Crap! This is going to Google+ and nobody will read it without a picture. Hold on. I need a zombie picture. When I think zombie I think of +byron rempel who drew this for me (with additional thinks to +Dunken K Bliths who animated it. There.

Now that's out of the way, on with the SPOILERS sort of.

I went to see World War Z, a movie that shares a name with a book that also has zombies in it. I'm not going to talk about how the two are different from each other. I'm not even really going to review the movie. (I enjoyed it.)

I'm going to talk about are tropes I'm tired of seeing in movies.

1) Little girls in movies are worthless. In the event of any trouble in a movie they will either curl up in a ball in the floor of the car screaming, or going mute and catatonic OR they'll have an asthma attack.

2) Little boys in movies are amazeballs! Little spanish speaking boy trapped in an apartment when the zombie hordes broke down the doors some how managed to fight his way free of the zombies, up a stairway full of zombies and garbage the heroes had thrown at the zombies WHILE CARRYING THE USELESS GIRLS (maybe, sometimes they were, sometimes they weren't.) and catch up with them on the roof leaving his family as zombie food back in the apartment.

3) Black men are damned liars. This could also be the UN is innefective because the Secretary of the UN (The movie's token black man. I really don't remember any others at all.) swore he'd protect and take care of our intrepid hero's (with the salon quality hair) family but, of course he didn't. He just waved as the military took them off on a helicopter (where was the fuel coming from?) to drop them on the mainland since they weren't of any use any more... probably because they were useless girls... although they did drop off Tomas the scrappy boy as well... probably because Tomas wasn't white like EVERYONE ELSE ON THE SHIP.

4) Women are stupid. No, seriously. Your husband off in a top secret government mission as a super spy? Best thing to do is call him in the middle of the night on the cell phone. And while you're doing it... why not do it while you're in the bowels of a ship, you know... for best signal reception. Needless to say the noise-sensitive zombies ate everybody on screen because she lay there in bed curled up around the useless girls who were catatonic at the time (probably from drinking jet fuel which the Navy evidently stores with their water. What? I don't know. It was color-dialog to show how tough things were. The actor that did it got paid scale. I'm positive it's his first job all year except as an extra in a soap commercial... in France.) Secondly, in the only safe city in the world that managed to fling up walls in a week who is it that grabs the mic and starts singing at volume 11? Singing their joy and happiness? And attracting every zombie within like 10 miles to climb the walls and eat the whole city? A woman... who was quickly joined by another one. Two women are like stupid-squared or something. (It's also possible the trope here is that the singing people were religious because in the setting it could have been a religious type song, and the trope could have been religious people are stupid.)

5) Scientists are inept clumsy morons. The first one was running with a gun and managed to fall on it in such a way that he killed himself. No shit. Held the gun less than a minute, tripped, fell, died instantly. Scrappy little boys = good. Scientists = clumsy dumb-asses. Exhibit B) The World Health Organization chief ran into or kicked every loud thing in his giant lab of death over... and over... and over again. Seriously. Thank God they didn't give him a gun! Or maybe they should have. It would have been over faster if our world famous super-genius virologist is any indication.

6) The Israeli military folks are tough as hell. If they survive the useless girl trope and grow up to be Israeli military you can LITERALLY cut off their hand with a machete and she'll just keep on going. I don't know how she loads a gun with only one hand but my guess is she uses her power of mean to do it. That bitch could kick some ass. And I mean bitch in the best way possible. She was great. Like Lois Lane in Man of Steel great. No fainting flower damsel in distress in need of rescue here. She was amazing. Damn you Man of Steel for not making Lois Lane Israeli!

So those are things, tropes if you will, that this movie really could have done without. Perhaps they were in the original book. If they were then it had more in common with the source material than I think it did. Those things all could have been done differently. They're too expected. They're too formulaic. They're too tropey. When there are too many of them it kind of gets in the way of my enjoying myself.

Surprise me once in a while would you? It's okay to do something we, the audience don't expect from you. There can be smart women of action who aren't helpless who spend the whole movie curled up in a ball in bed. Lois Lane took on alien supermen just last week!

After Earth - SPOILER LADEN critique

After Earth is the second movie I've seen starring father-son team Will & Jaden Smith. I really like both actors and loved the performances they put in for The Pursuit of Happyness. I had high hopes going into this movie. Two talented actors doing sci-fi! What could go wrong?

Do NOT see this movie.

First off Will & Jaden were, for some reason, using some unidentifiable accent that meant almost every line came out as wooden and poorly acted. More than wooden, rigid would be a better word I think. It was painful to listen to. I strongly suspect if I'd watched the movie muted I would have enjoyed it more. The absolutely awful father-son dynamic was beyond stereotypical "military-father distant from emotional son who needs him" that we've come to expect... not enjoy, but expect. M. Night Shyamalan took that dynamic and stretched it into some exaggerated caricature of the trope. It was beyond ham-handed. It was brutally painful to watch... and listen to with those heinous fake accents.

The science in the movie was absurd beyond belief. We (humanity) have destroyed the Earth. What that means in left-wing hippy talk is we've made it uninhabitable to humans. Wildlife is doing just fine! For some reason people can't live on the planet because it's too inimical to sustain human life but all other life on the planet is bigger, faster, better, meaner, and more abundant than ever before! Herds of bison are back roaming the plains! Baboons & Hyenas roam the forests along with giant, and when I say giant I mean big enough to pick up Jaden and carry him around giant, condors that are... because animals are better than people... kind to the only human. See, the condor's chicks got eaten by a pack of tiger things. Tigers hunt in packs like wolves now... and since Jaden fought off the tiger pack defending the condor chicks Mama Condor must save Jaden's life when the planet does it's nightly freeze. Yeah. It freezes every night, completely. Lakes & streams freeze over & the breath literally freezes on Jaden's face... but life as we know it thrives there except for people. Seriously, the science is beyond ridiculous. All of these evolutionary changes happened in how long? Almost exactly a thousand years. Yup. Twice since Jesus was born the ecology of Earth could completely change to something so completely foreign to what it is now as to be almost unrecognizable. Science happens to other movies!

The tech is also suspect. There are emergency beacons on the ship that evidently only had twelve people on it, 10 of whom died when it crashed on Earth. The beacons can only be activated by holding it up until you get a signal, kind of like a cell phone with no bars. Then you have to press a button and hold it until it sends the flare thingee up to outer-space. Now, if you're attacked by a monster during time it won't go off. You have to hold down the button the entire time. If you're attacked then it means you start over after fighting off the monster.

Monster... a space faring monster that evidently exists solely to hunt humans... and scares them so that they give off a fear pheromone because they're blind and deaf... but they invented space travel? What? Ugh. Dear Lord.

Bad acting. Bad science. Bad tech. Bad monster. Bad movie. Don't go. Don't let anybody you like go. Save yourself.

Movie Review: Fast & Furious 6

I learned to drive when I was in Germany in 1985. I was a Junior in High School. We didn't have driver's ed so the dirty job fell to Mom to teach me how to drive. I had absolutely zero desire to learn to drive. As far as I could tell I didn't NEED to drive. I had chauffeurs that took me places I needed to go and if they weren't willing or able then I would stay home and read. I was okay with that. But Mom felt like being able to drive was one of those life skills a person should have. So, she made me learn to drive. It sounds like I'm exaggerating for comedic effect. I wish I were. I really am not.

You know what happens when you walk and do something clumsy or stupid? You fall. People hurt = 1... maybe. You know what happens when you do something clumsy or stupid while driving people can die. I was living in Germany, home of the Autobahn. Do something stupid there and pile ups of dozens of cars can happen hurting or killing gobs of people. I was scared shitless. No kidding. No exaggeration. I was scared of driving because of what might happen. I've got a really vivid imagination. I can vividly imagine the last few seconds of my life, or someone else's due to my carelessness or someone else's carelessness. I'm looking at YOU Michelle Lizio, driving an old yellow VW bug who ran a stop sign and hit the passenger side quarter-panel of Mom's car while she and dad were out of town! I can't remember the names of the last 10 people I hired at work (not all of them, not ANY of them) but I remember her name! That was my only accident ever and it was in 1986, almost thirty years ago.

Now? Now I love to drive. I'll drive anywhere. Need something taken across the country you cover the gas and the hotels and I'll cover the food myself just for the chance to drive it. I'd rather drive than be a passenger. City size doesn't bug me. Interstates don't but me. Construction doesn't bug me. Rush hour doesn't bug me. Having two people tell me directions bugs me but that's because I normally drive by myself and only have to pay attention to the GPS and it doesn't talk.

So, went to see Fast & Furious 6 tonight. This franchise has some good ones and some really bad ones. None of them are great cinema and this one was no different. It will start with a race. It will end with a race and a fight. In between there will be lots of races, some fist fights, capers, and long odds. They're heist movies with fast cars and excellent green-screen drivers. Leaving the movies I want to leap behind the wheel of a performance vehicle and scream through traffic weaving in and out of other cars, hurling my car around corners and clawing through the gears as the engine roars its frustration at not being able to go faster, further, longer. Even the bad movies in the series make me feel like that.

The movies capture that symbol of car as freedom so well. Not freedom like standing on a hilltop while a gentle breeze wafts the smell of distant lilacs to you on a warming updraft as the afternoon sun paints the wildflowers in their multi-hued colors. It captures the freedom of the eagle soaring through the air. It captures freedom of motion, freedom of unrestrained power pouring from the driver and engine and translating into directed movement. They don't trouble themselves too much with how or why. In the most recent one they were trying to stop some one from stealing a "device" that we didn't even know what was until 9/10ths of the way through the movie. "This 3oz chip is worth more than..." No clue what it does. Don't care. They drove fast and they drove furiously. That's what I go to see them do in these movies and they drove the wheels off their green screen cars and I loved the feeling of it.

Acting? I have no idea. I don't know if there was any acting. While they were talking I was mostly waiting for them to stop talking and start driving. That's the glib answer. The honest answer is they aren't actors. Sure, they have that on their business cards, but all of them play the same roles. They play themselves. They manage to do it woodenly in every movie they "act" in and they did the same here. But again, I don't go for the acting. I went for the races, not even the cars as they don't typically survive to be driven more than once. It's to watch the crazy fake driving. And they drove crazily and fakely. Mission accomplished.

Movies & Me: Entertainment

I'm noticing a trend in movie reviews among normal people, like on Rotten Tomatoes and some of the movie review blogs and podcasts that I listen to. It's always been the case with critics I think, but now normal people are pretending to be critics and that's an annoying trend. Here's the thing about movies. Mostly they're for entertainment. Not all movies are made for the edification of the viewer. Not all movies are high-art to be critiqued as if they were going against some amazing work of art intended to provoke deep thought, or create a catharsis of emotion in the viewer. A movie can exist for the purpose of the viewer to sit in their seat in a darkened theater and have a rollicking good time with no attention paid to deeper meaning or whether or not the acting is even spot on. I know. Acting should be good. But do all roles need to be amazing? No, not really. Not for me. I'm willing to lower the bar a little if I'm going to something where I want to see things blow up or people get into, and then out of ridiculous situations.

I just went to see Drive Angry with Nicholas Cage and I really had a good time. The acting was OK. Will it win awards? Nope. Were the special effects outstanding? I don't remember most of them so that, to me, means they were neither particularly wonderful or particularly bad. I notice bad special effects. One would hope I wouldn't notice amazing special effects. My guess is there were more special effects in Drive Angry than I realized. That means, to me, that they were well used. Things blew up convincingly. It wasn't the horrible Star Wars explosions that even in the newer digitally remastered versions still look profoundly fake.

What I want in an entertaining movie, a movie I'd describe as brain candy, is acting that is good enough. They can phone it in as long as they don't look like they're reading. Johnny Mnemonic the acting was too terrible to stand so I don't want the acting to get in the way of the movie. Sometimes the dialog is just that bad. The acting in The Adjustment Bureau was OK. It didn't take me out of the movie, but there was a missing chemistry between the two leads, Matt Damon and that lady whose name I don't remember and can't be bothered to look up. She's good and all, but they never seemed to really "click" as people destined to be together. I can't even get my head around how it didn't work, but in retrospect it didn't. While I was watching the movie it wasn't jarring enough to take me out of the movie. It would impact the movie's re-watchability though. The concept was cool, snatched right out of a Twilight Zone episode but instead of everyone wearing blue as they did in the Twilight Zone, here they wore hats.

I'm willing to be entertained by something fun and meaningless. I don't need it to stay in my head days later making me think. I like that kind of movie too. Matrix did that to me. It was a fun concept. The Hangover also did it, but because it was so funny, not because it very deep or meaningful or thought provoking. Shutter Island and Inception stuck with me with really cool ideas and a story that was interesting enough to leave me wondering what happened next. Tron 2 didn't do anything for me. It had characters that didn't seem to fit. It had decent effects, but the story was too shallow to hold my interest and the characters weren't likable enough and there were too many things left out there, just mentioned and then thrown away. I don't even know how I'd fix that one. It was one I most wanted to like but I don't think my anticipation raised the bar too high... I've already established I have a low bar for movies I want to entertain me. It just didn't work. First thing I'd do? Trash the hippy Nick Nolte and unhippy him. You can't just have a guy walk around barefoot and let that be how you know someone is all zen and stuff. It's a stupid trope and it didn't work. It didn't work at any level. The movie didn't either. I wouldn't watch it if it came on as an inflight movie and the other option were to listen to a soap salesman who won't tell me about the fight club he's in because the first rule of fight club is... well... you know.

So, next time you go to a movie. Realize that there's a better than small chance the movie was made to entertain you so you can have fun. You don't have to show off how cool you are by tearing it apart. Relax. Let go and just watch the movie and try to have fun harder than you try to poke holes in things. Now. If the way you have fun is to tell how bad something is or point out all its flaws I'd love to see the movie you made that you did it better. Yeah. I know. We're all able to have opinions on things we haven't done but if you're going to wreck my fun by pointing out how stupid I am for enjoying something you found fault with allow me to have fun by asking for your magnum opus... the thing you did where you did it better. You'll say at some point, "anybody could have done it better" or "I could have done better." Put your money where your mouth is. Make a better movie, put it on youtube and let me enjoy it. I'm an easy audience to impress. If you can't, then please, shut the front door and let me enjoy my mindless entertainment would you? You're not impressing me. You're distracting me.

(I am aware there are movies designed to be thought provoking and artistic and make me think. I'm not talking about those movies. I realize they exist. Schindler's List isn't one I would say was made for entertainment value for example.)