OK, you guys, must be R-rated or lower. Think of our Family Friendly Certification!
For a large number of you, the answer should be that horrible movie with the giant rubber fish. But, sadly, none of you feel at all guilty about liking it.
So, come on, you can tell us. We won’t judge you.
OK, I couldn’t even type that without cracking up. But….
What movie do you feel most guilty about loving?
INT—CABIN HIDEOUT—DAY
HARVEY stands in front of the TV in his tattered robes. He is freaking out.
On the TV is news coverage of the death of TIM.
NEWS ANCHOR(VO)
A Missing CDC doctor has been
found dead in a river near Atlanta,
an apparent suicide.
HARVEY
That’s fuckin’ Tim!
Oh my fuckin God!
Just then TED enters the cabin, returning from his hunting trip.
TED
What the fuck are you on about?
HARVEY(POINTING TO TV)
It’s Tim! They got Tim!
TED
Shit! Is his journal still here?
HARVEY(DROPS TO HIS KNEES)
It’s fuckin over! We’re Fucked!
They’re gonna find us!
TED
Keep your shit together! The Journal
Is the journal still here?
HARVEY
Yeah it’s over there on
The counter…Fuck! We gotta run!
We gotta keep running!
Ted walks over the counter and picks up the journal, leafing through it. Then he holds it up.
TED
Fuck that! This right here is
how we win. Now it’s time to
take it to them. It’s time
we go on the hunt!
HARVEY
What? Do you understand what’s goin
on here? The two of us against all
of them?
TED
You’re right. We need backup. And
I know just the guy.
Ted walks confidently back to the door, puts his hand on the knob and turns back to Harvey.
TED
Now get your fat ass up. Tie yer damn
robe shut, and get yer ass movin!
Harvey gathers himself and rises, he foppishly arranges his clothes and ties his robe shut. He strides over to the door and huffily follows Ted out.
INT—STRIP CLUB—NIGHT
Ted and Harvey enter a strip club. Music blaring ‘Girls L.G.B.N.A.F.’ by Ice T. Strobe lights flash, a crowd young men crowd the stage, ogling the strippers. Many of the customers are black men, at seeing this Harvey cowardly hides behind Ted. The duo make their way through the club maneuvering around naked dancers and half naked waitresses. They make their way to a VIP booth guarded by two hulking men.
TED
Good evening gentlemen. I need just
a minute with your boss back there.
GUARD 1
Unless you hiddin some titties and
a vagina under your clothes I you
ain’t getting in.
TED
That’s funny. Harvey, this guy is funny
Ted smashes the giant man in the face and as the second guard moves to step in Harvey drops to the floor and starts gnawing the leg of the second guard. In the background a gunshot goes off and the fighting ceases. ICE T. emerges from the shadows surrounded by a bevy of naked women.
ICE T.
What in tha fuck is goin
on out here?
Ice T. walks up menacingly and the pistol whips his own guards.
ICE T.
Getcher damn hands of my man Ted.
These some dumb ass niggers, they’re
always fuckin up. Now what the fuck
you want Ted?
TED
We’re goin huntin for some Deep
State fucks. Figured that would
Be something you’d be interested
in.
ICE T.
Only if they’re dirty cops. Got a whole
new image now. I’ve evolved.
TED(POINTING TO HARVEY)
They’re even dirtier than this fat fuck.
ICE T.
Damn! That’s pretty fuckin dirty.
TED
So, you in?
ICE T.
Oh hell yes.
This article is inspired by the many mentions on this site of Star Wars, Marvel, Disney and how their SJW leanings may be hurting their business. I have a theory that centers on trademark and copyright law about how in the cases of Marvel many of these crazy SJW stunts are actually evidence of Disney playing the long game and in the case of other properties such as Star Wars and The Muppets show that the company is largely being propelled by a few divisions while the rest coasts or bumbles around aimlessly.
I will start with a basic and not at all legally sound explanation of trademarks and copyrights. Trademarks are basically legal claims towards branding, brand names and mascots can be trademarked in perpetuity as long as they remain active. This can be confusing because characters can have works that exist in the public domain such as certain books or films but still be trademarked characters. This is possible because the copyright of the work which features that character can expire without the characters trademark expiring allowing that particular book or film to be reproduced for free while other uses of that character would still be protected by trademark or copyright.
Copyright is the other half of the equation and the concept is pretty clear from the term, it is the right to copy something. Copyright protects specific works rather than brands the way trademarks do. The original post colonial copyright in the United States was 14 years with the option to renew for another 14 years; by the early 20th century this had expanded to 28 years with an option for a renewal of another 28 years. In 1976, this was expanded to 75 years for corporate owned works or the life of the author plus 50 years, and in 1998–with a major push from Disney–it was expanded to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication for corporate works or the life of the author plus 70 years.
The impact copyright can have on media franchises can get very complicated. A great example of this is the Wizard of Oz franchise. Wizard of Oz started out as a media franchise in the early 20th century with books, plays and silent films but it is the 1939 film that has become the definitive version in the minds of the general public. The original wave of books, plays and silent films are all in the public domain which means free of copyright but the 1939 film is still under copyright.
There are distinct elements to the 1939 film such as songs, plot points and design elements such as the ruby slippers that are not public domain. The shoes were originally silver but were changed to red to showcase the then still novel format of technicolor film. The books status as public domain allows anyone to create a sequel or new interpretation of Wizard of Oz but the copyright protecting the distinctive elements of the definitive version along with the lack of a young Judy Garlands has prevented any of these from becoming seen as legitimate entries of the franchise, including two attempts by Disney. The extension of copyrights benefits almost every media company but I would argue that this is a major element of Disney’s business strategy and is used to add value to their merchandising and theme park divisions. The affect of this is most notable in the Disney Princess franchise which earns Disney millions from trademarked versions of public domain characters. It is also used recently in their live action film division through the remakes of their animated films.
The deeper use of the ins and outs of copyright laws hasn’t really expanded to companies they have purchased, such as Pixar and Lucasfilms which is responsible for Star Wars and allegedly more Indiana Jones. The exception to that I would say is Marvel. I think the difference is because of the age of Marvel places much more of the companies value closer to entering public domain. Marvel started in the late ’30s with characters such as Captain America, Sub-Mariner and other members of The All Winners Squad with the majority of Marvels most famous characters from the ’60s or ’70s. Marvel began their version of using the ruby slipper like leverage before they were bought by Disney and it has accelerated since then. I think that a major reason Marvel even still publishes comics is to strengthen their copyrights covering more and more situations making it harder and harder to write a story using their characters without infringing on a copyright. Evidence of this is how their publishing strategy changed after the success of the X-men and Spider-man films.
Marvel’s top property for decades was X-men to the point where often any book with an X on it would sell better than most of The Avengers solo books. Marvel began to shift the focus of their comics away from the X-men with events such as House of M removing power from many mutants and towards the Avengers adding Spider-man and Wolverine to the line up. This was done without any certainty that the sales of the comics would be maintained. Before this the Avengers were a team of former A-listers who had been surpassed in popularity by Spiderman and the X-men who previously were too valuable to be in The Avengers. This shift took place because the film rights to many of their characters were no longer owned by Marvel, because they were sold off during a bankruptcy. The Avengers film rights were the ones that didn’t sell and adding their star characters to the franchise helped move the focus to the avengers.
Another example is the comics recent focus on The Inhumans. Marvel intended to replace the mutants with the inhumans because of their loss of the film rights. They did things like making some of the recently depowered mutants inhumans, retconning characters who were assumed-but-not-certain-mutants as mutants, and even in a few cases retconning characters who had previously been retconned to be mutants to cash in on the xmen’s popularity. The Inhumans before this were supporting characters in Fantastic Four who had never sustained an ongoing series more than a couple years. They also had major event series around this time which connected them with all the other ongoing comics. Marvel’s emphasis was no longer on selling comics but using the comics to lay down more copyright, and retrain and test what people think of the characters to prep for future movies and tv shows. They do something similar in the cartoons which feature upcoming characters such as Nova and Amadeus Cho.
I also believe that much of their SJW recasting of their characters is Marvel woke-proofing their franchises. Peter Parker’s adventures will eventually become public domain even if eventually is a long time from now (especially if it counts as 70 years after Stan Lee’s death) but Marvel can keep the trademark of Spider-Man in perpetuity and they just have to change who the public thinks of as Spider-man. They have tried this with several characters but the only major character they have made significant progress with is Spider-man and the upcoming animated film starring Miles Morales (a half black half Hispanic alternate universe character) Into the Spiderverse will reinforce this.
Ok, that title has nothing to do with the post.
As has been noted, the Jack Link’s ads seem like they are focused at us, and with just a tad bit of editing we have a trailer for a STEVE SMITH movie.
You cannot step in the same river twice
-Heraclitus
Travelling salesman makes his way back to his hometown after leaving in a huff twenty years earlier because of a fight he had with his father. A prodigal son story, but Tora-san is not your typical character. Vulgar, heavy drinking and incapable of following social norms, this semi failure of a salesman is a combination of Dice Clay and Forest Gump. He is exactly what his hometown needs and he gives it to them good and hard.
The creation of writer/director Yoji Yamada, Otoko wa Tsurai yo ran for an incredible 48 installments from 1969-1998. Western audiences and critics have largely failed to embrace Yamada’s masterpiece which stands in contrast to the love Akira Kurosawa (Yojimbo, Seven Samurai), Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story), Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer) and other Japanese directors have received over the years. Wanting to see Japan as subtle, cinematically pleasing and inscrutable or violent and grotesque, Western audiences just couldn’t find a place in their hearts for Yamada. Otoko wa Tsurai yo presents Japanese as people with simple, base desires and flaws that are universal. Tentacle porn can be amusing, but it doesn’t really help you understand what the average Japanese person is thinking.
The plot for the 48 installments is simple: Tora-san, played by Kiyoshi Atsumi, returns to the Shibamata area of downtown Tokyo, falls in love with a woman known as the “Madonna” character and causes all hell to break loose with his antics. The “Madonna” shows interest in Tora-san, but his awkwardness with women destroys any chance he had with her and she ends up getting together with another man whom she was destined to be with. The series is a love story despite the crude jokes and domestic violence.
I am Tora-san. I may not step out of your bathroom, patting my stomach and compliment you for having the fanciest toilet I’d ever seen. “That’s the sink, you idiot!” I haven’t bitch-slapped my demure sister for no good reason other than being drunk off my ass. I’ve yet to make jizz jokes at formal dinner parties where my sister is being introduced to her ultra conservative potential in-laws. I have mistakenly asked my mother-in-law, at first meeting, if she was still born. I’ve asked the elderly check out lady at the supermarket where she kept the breast milk. (Bo-nyu is breast milk, To-nyu is soy milk. Whoops.) We all fuck up and Tora-san is a ninth degree black belt in it.
We don’t toss Tora-san in a pot of boiling water for a couple of vital reasons. First, he is an injection of chaos into what can be an oppressive and stratified group-centered society. Tora-san’s outrageous behavior gives the audience a look at the Honne (real feelings) of average people. They may look stoic, but all Japanese people have wanted to crack a relative in the head at some point. Many have a great spooge pun pop into their head during a meeting, but they keep it walled off behind their Tatemae (social face). Tora-san is a vent that releases some of the steam in a country that has 30,000 or so suicides a year. Good on him.
Another reason we accept Tora-san is that without him, the star-crossed lovers would never end up together. Love, it seems, needs someone to smack it out of its reluctance. The “Madonna” can’t hook up with her true love unless someone kicks him in the balls and tells him to stop being such a pussy. While Tora-san’s advice may be awful, following terrible advice is better than whining like a bitch in the corner.
At the end of each installment, Tora-san leaves Shibamata in an act of temporary self-exile. He has to leave of his own accord or he wouldn’t be allowed back. Pushing people to their limits and then backing off, giving them time to digest what happened, is a skill sorely missing these days. Being 100% pure, concentrated chaos, Tora-san realizes that prolonged exposure to chaos would destroy his family. He leaves Shibamata and crosses the Sumida river until his services are needed once more. You may not be able to step in the same river twice, but you can piss in it multiple times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4mb5PbkxxY
I once again entered the local hipsterplex to watch The Death of Stalin. The trailers before the film established once again that as a glib I was a stranger in a strange land. There was a trailer for a sad looking rodeo movie and a documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsberg which received audible applause from the audience. After the applause I couldn’t help but wonder what the rest of the audience thought of the film and of Stalin. I assume they all disliked Stalin but likely had blinders on for certain aspects of why he was terrible which is a trait I believe the film mostly shared.
The film is directed by the creator of the HBO show Veep. I haven’t seen any of that show so I can’t comment on the similarities. The film’s tone reminded me of a more cosmopolitan take on Monty Python, less loose, less cutting. The Python connection is reinforced by the presence of Michael Palin as one of the minor cabinet members Molotov. The film brought forth a couple chuckles but it didn’t really have any laugh out loud moments. The film mostly explores what totalitarian power does to people, the mind games, the unsure standing and most of all constant fear.
The film begins with a concert performance where Stalin calls the control board and asks them to call back, they do so only to find out he wanted a recording of the performance; unfortunately it wasn’t recorded. The reaction of the control board to this simple misunderstanding is the first example of the constant fear, the crew close the doors and prevent the orchestra and most of the audience from leaving this goes on for a while and a great deal of drama happens for a recording Stalin is likely only to listen to once. Stalin falls ill maybe a quarter way through the film and immediately the now open struggle for power begins before he is dead. In the film there are three main people in the straggle for power and they are arguably the three main characters of the film. They are Simon Beal as Beria, the director of security forces, Steve Buscemi as Khrushchev, head of the party and Jeffery Tambor as Malenkov.
Steve Buscemi’s Khrushchev is pretty much Steve Buscemi, a bit neurotic but not to Larry David levels. Khrushchev has the main character arc of the film. He starts out as one of many ministers and isn’t particularly powerful within the dynamic of the group, but he rises to the occasion and ends up leading the group against Beria. The film seems to present him as the good one, the smart one, the reasonable one, and the film is largely about how the totalitarian system of the Soviet Union under Stalin corrupts him through the horrible things he must do to survive.
Beria is portrayed as the villain, the one who gets things moving and forces a power struggle. He plots, he schemes, and seems to have been preparing for this for years. He is shown as being the most linked with Stalin’s system of terror and violence, but the most willing to openly distance himself from Stalin and the past. Simon Beal’s performance as Beria is tonally inconsistent; at times he is just goofy and slapstick as the rest of the group, but there are other moments where he seems to come from a darker and much more serious movie.
Tambor’s Malenkov is quiet, nervous and confused. He doesn’t seem very intelligent and reminded me of Lurch from the Addams Family, which made it funnier for me when Beria compared him to Boris Karloff. His character isn’t very active throughout the film and the performance doesn’t go very deep because of that. He inherits the position of leader once Stalin dies and it seems like he was put in that position by Stalin as a political pace car for the rest of the ministers.
Strangely, but not super surprisingly, the film doesn’t really address communism, there are hints towards it but for the most part the focus is on the idea of Stalin as a dictator who rules by murder and fear. The film goes into the constant cautiousness and the double think it requires to survive in Soviet Russia, but it never really explores how or why this system came about. One instance where a better understanding of how the filmmakers feel about this would have improved the film, is when we are shown the shabby conditions that Khrushchev and the others live in. Is this to show how even the powerful are poor under communism? Or more likely is this shown as a contrast to the wealth Stalin lives in and how a dictatorship is the ultimate system of inequality?
Ultimately, the film has left me inspired to show my appreciation for this platform to ramble about movies by starting a coup of my own and rise up against the Eternals in The Vortex and post the first and almost certainly last Waterfall Insurance links. I also thought I would try something else new and stay on topic.
Hello boils and ghouls, it’s your old pal the Cryptkeeper here…no wait, that’s not my name. Sorry, sometimes I get caught up in the moment.
Though I gave up the regular movie review beat, I still thought I’d bang out an article like I did last year on our experiences at TFW. To celebrate, one of the below links will go to a hardcore porn site – the rest are safe. This is your NSFW warning. You’ll never know which one it is until you try. C’mon, don’t be a pussy.
This one will be a bit different in content, since many of you would have already read my post on this from last year, and thus are already familiar with the context. For those of you who are new to the site within the past year, or didn’t read my previous write-up, in brief, TFW is the southwest’s largest horror convention, and my wife & I spend the weekend there every year.
Like last year, I’ll have a few images in the text, but most all the photos will be at the bottom of the article. It’s mostly just pics of costumes & the stuff we bought, because almost all the celebrities this year charged extra for photos with them, and the few times I tried a creepshot, it came out terribly. The other photos are mostly terrible as well due to the fact that this is literally the only time of the year I ever take photos of anything, so please understand and forgive. The only ones I really regret it on are two cosplay photos of Tippi Hedren & Spawn, which were both good costumes but when I reviewed the pics afterward, you can barely see them due to bad backlighting. It was too crowded during the main hours to take shots, so I tried to snag a lot of them in the hotel lobby. Also as before, I had trouble formatting them into a row, so you’ll have to forgive me & simply scroll down the photos in a line at the end.
The guest lineup this year was fabulous. They had all of the original cenobites (minus the chick from the first film, because she never does any conventions, ever – so the guest in her place was the chick from the second movie, which was still a good horror film). To round that group out, we had a *very* special treat – Mr. Clive Barker. He doesn’t do a lot of these kinds of things, so we were overjoyed. In addition to his prolific painting and film work, if you haven’t read any of his fiction, I highly recommend it. His Books of Blood is one of my favorite collected works of short stories ever. If you dig fantasy/horror short fiction, check it out, seriously.
Also making appearances were Ron Perlman, Adrienne Barbeau, Billy Zane, Phil Fondacaro, Tommy Flanagan, Brad Dourif, Tom Savini, Matthew Lillard, all the kids from the new IT movie, Charles Band and a shit-load of people from the various Friday the 13th films. The Friday night party was themed Camp Crystal Lake, so they were heavy on those guests (as this is the 13th year of TFW). Since I’m honestly not crazy about that film series outside of the first two movies & a few creative kills, I didn’t much care about their presence. If you don’t recognize the names of anyone just listed, check the links – I promise you’ll recognize them or at least have heard of their work.
The weekend got started off right, with Adrienne Barbeau flying in Thurs. night to attend a screening of Escape from New York at the Texas Theater, and do a Q&A afterward. The print they used was fantastic, better than my dvd, and Adrienne was an engaging speaker. She said she has done so much voicework that she has frankly forgotten most of it, and only recalls that she took some particular job once every year when some check shows up for $0.96 and has “Judge Dredd” written on the memo line (she was uncredited as the voice of the computer in that film). She tossed that out as the example, but said she just gets checks for tiny amounts every day for random old things she did. I thought this must be a strange thing, to go to your mailbox every day and be like, “Huh, I got 8 checks in the mail totaling $5.72.”
So the next day the spousal unit & I took a half-day off of work & rolled into the convention in mid afternoon, though it doesn’t open until 6. On the plus side, in their fruit-infused water jug up front, the fruit was cut into the shape of skulls.
Also amusingly, the little cute Asian girls they have working there had to wear wound makeup and have silly horror accessories, like this photo of an attractive young lady with scissors sticking out of her head. I’ve often wondered what they think about that, because the racial breakdown of the con attendees is about 70% white, 25% hispanic, and the rest is miscellaneous. Like seriously, my wife is one of maybe 20 Asian people there actually attending, and I can always count the numbers of black folks on my fingers. I have no idea why that is, but it’s true. Less amusing was the eyeroll-inducing naming of the food on the menu. I mean come on, Trembling Turkey? Blood-Dripping Buffalo Wings? And what the fuck happened to the Southwest Shrimp Cocktail, didn’t warrant a new name because it’s already so awful?
The convention started off poorly – it was so fucking crowded that Friday night, I panicked. This thing frankly outgrew the convention space last year, and this year was worse. We try to do signature hunting on Fri. night & Sun., when it’s less crowded. Well we spent an hour in line for Clive Barker, only to be told that he was leaving to do his scheduled photo shoot & wouldn’t return to the signature line that night due to feeling poorly.
So the first hour was a waste, but it kind of worked out. If you recall last year, we purchased a crocheted Count Orlock. Well the same vendor was there and she had a big crocheted xenomorph, but only one of them. She told us it had been a right bitch to make, and she was never going to make another one, so we pounced on it. If we hadn’t been forced to do a little browsing on Friday evening, I’m certain someone else would have bought it & then I’d have had to have killed my wife and myself, and possibly my extended family as well.
We did get the rest of the cenobites, Adrienne, and Billy Zane that night. A few anecdotes – the cenobites, despite being English and therefore you’d think reserved, will talk your ear off, even if you’re actively trying to exit the conversation. Nicholas Vince, who played Chatterer, was dressed in nice proper business-formal attire, except for some weird Pinhead Hello Kitty cufflinks, and to his delight my wife was the first to notice them that evening. Of course it’s because she’s fucking Asian, so she saw the Hello Kitty shit immediately somehow. Also, Barbie Wilde, the female cenobite, was selling her horror fiction books, and apparently is a very nasty-minded girl. Everything was a sexual innuendo or reference, and we all had a good laugh when, midway through our conversation, we could hear someone in another row (a worker, we believe, trying to repair something in a guest’s booth) said, “Damnit, I thought sitting in this chair would make it easier, but I think I was having more success on my knees.” Barbie, my wife and I all just looked at each other for a second before bursting out laughing. The photo you see is of the nice mahogany & etched brass puzzlebox we purchased to collect all their signatures on.
Also true fact: Billy Zane was just a leeeetle-bit of a dick. The best line in Zoolander pertains to him; “You should listen to your friend Billy Zane – he’s a cool dude”. Well we purposefully waited until there wasn’t anyone in his line, so that we wouldn’t be holding anybody up, and I asked him, “Hey, I know this is a bit unorthodox, but could you possibly sign this, ‘You should listen to me – I’m a cool dude’?” He smiled and kind of laughingly said, “Absolutely not”, then just stared at us. We thought he was joking for a second, because he said it kind of jovially, but then he said, “So…you just want me to make this out to the two of you or what?” So we said sure, and that was that. I mean hey, celebrities don’t owe me anything, I know that. But perhaps a, “Sorry man I don’t do personalizations to that extent” could be used instead of, “Hahaha NO”. Anyway he seemed nice enough in every other way, so maybe he’s just sick of that request. He was in a tracksuit & cowboy hat, and so looked kind of like a Russian gangster.
Phil Fondacaro’s line was short enough I was able to chat with him a bit. I asked him if it was just an outsider’s perception, or if there really were fewer opportunities for physically different actors like himself & Warwick Davis, with the advent of digital effects. He said absolutely, but it’s something of a mixed blessing because as he’s gotten older, and especially for someone who is physically limited to begin with, it’s a relief to not have to wear all the latex and costuming that he used to. A lot of the stuff that’s added in post now were the most cumbersome things to wear and act in, so the digital revolution isn’t all bad from his perspective. Of course the photo I got signed was of him as Vohnkar! And if you don’t get that reference, you’re no true child of the 80s.
Saturday was given to drinking, shopping, and making merry. It still sucked, because I had to wake my ass up at 7:30 to get in line for Clive Barker. Keep in mind the convention didn’t open until 11. So over three hours I sat there, but was 10th in line and so assured a chance to meet the great artist. Still, it left me a bit depleted for the remainder of the day.
We learned our lesson from previous years, and brought some beers, a bottle of bourbon (Larceny, which was very good for being as affordable as it was), and a bottle of Fireball. The hotel doesn’t care as long as you don’t get belligerently drunk – like David Arquette from a few years back. We were there and we saw bizarre things from a man still supposedly on the wagon. At least he drunkenly bought me a beer while we were both waiting at the bar. Anyway I attached a bunch of photos of all the shit we bought below, and some of the costumes we encountered.
That evening we spent a bit of time in the karaoke party, & went to a screening of Takashi Miike‘s live action adaptation of the manga, As the Gods Will. Now granted I wasn’t exactly sober, or anything even really resembling sober, by the time I saw this thing, but I still have no fucking clue what was going on. A weird doll was playing red-light, green-light with a class of students, and when it caught them moving their heads exploded, then the survivors went to their gym & dressed as mice and a giant maneki-neko was eating them, and it just got stranger from there. We finished out the night hanging out with all our friends on the patio, and there was a dude giving away free cigars for some reason, so that went well with the last of my bourbon (yes, the bottle was killed, with the able assistance of a couple of our friends).
Sunday was recovery day, so we went to the Ron Perlman panel. He’s a fun speaker – extremely foul-mouthed and self-deprecating. We snagged his signature and called it a weekend. As of the time of my writing this (Monday evening), yesterday was the saddest day of our year. This is our biggest event, and we get to spend it with a lot of great friends, and get a lot of great merchandise and add to our already ludicrous collection of autographs. Monsters everywhere, blood and guts, toys, movies, games, it just doesn’t get any better for the dedicated horror fan. And now it’s a whole other year until it comes around again. Oh well, less than six months to Halloween.
Czech-born filmmaker Miloš Forman died on April 13 at the age of 86. Libertarians who want to think about anti-authority political messages in any of his movies would probably gravitate to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The People vs. Larry Flynt, both of which have fairly obvious messages on the subject and are movies which would be better known to Americans. But I have a soft spot for one of Forman’s early movies made back in his native Czechoslovakia: The Firemen’s Ball.
The Firemen’s Ball was made shortly after Forman had finished Loves of a Blonde, both of which are set in smaller towns without much going on. In The Firemen’s Ball, the story centers around the now-retired chief of the local fire department. Last year was the 50th anniversary of his service with the department, but the department couldn’t be bothered to commemorate that event. Now, however, he’s dying of cancer. This was the bad old days when doctors thought the ethical thing to do was not to tell people they were dying of cancer, although to be fair to doctors back then, 23andme has shown that a lot of medical types still don’t want people to know about their possible medical conditions. Back to the movie, with the old guy dying, the current firefighters decide that the right thing to do would be to hold a big shindig in his honor and give him a ceremonial fire-ax.
Or, at least, that’s the plan. We see right from the beginning that anything that can go wrong with the idea will: one of the firefighters, like a senior citizen who has gotten his first copy of Print Shop Deluxe, gets the idea that having a banner look singed will be a nice visual touch; the attempt to singe it leave another fireman dangling several feet off the floor. They set up a raffle, and items meant to be raffled off mysteriously go missing. Young people have other ideas about how they should be celebrating, and so on.
Two incidents, however, linger much longer. First is when one of the firemen comes across a photo of a western beauty pageant, and thinks the idea of a pageant to determine which local girl should give the old fireman that ceremonial ax would be a brilliant idea. The only thing is, none of the girls look like either Ginger or Mary Ann, and worse, the boyfriends of the girls who didn’t get picked want their girlfriends in the contest. Whether the girls want to be in the pageant is another story.
And then a fire breaks out. It’s here that the real uselesness of these hero first responders is shown for what it is. A poor old man is having everything he owns burn to the ground, and the fire company first has difficulty getting to the fire and then has the most inappropriate compassion for the poor guy. Don’t let him look at the fire — but move him closer to the fire to keep him warm!
It becomes clear over the course of The Firemen’s Ball that the whole point of the ball wasn’t really to honor the old chief now that he’s dying; it’s about the individual firefighters trying to make themselves look good in the eyes of others. It’s a subtle statement on Communist-era “solidarity”, and shows how having power and prestige be prime motivators can warp actions in any government or bureaucracy. And when the chips are down, the state isn’t there to help you, but you make you fit what they want.
With that in mind, it’s easy to see why The Firemen’s Ball was banned by the Communist authorities (it was made in 1967, a year before the Prague Spring and Forman’s subsequent emigration to the States after the Soviets quelled the Prague Spring). Forman, for his part, always claimed that he wasn’t making an anti-Communist movie, and frankly, his claims on this are plausible. I grew up in a small town where my father was a member of the local volunteer fire department, and as I watched The Firemen’s Ball for the first time, I couldn’t help but think of the similarities between the small town in the movie and the one where I grew up: the penny socials, the generations of families being prominent names, the extremely petty politics, and on and on it goes. The Firemen’s Ball could just as easily have been about any small town anywhere.
Ted’s rating: 5/5
Criterion released both The Firemen’s Ball and Loves of a Blonde to DVD, although their website states that The Firemen’s Ball is currently out of print. However, as of this writing Amazon has it on streaming video, and free for those of you who already have a Prime membership and can do the streaming thing.
I’m back again for my 2nd article. I have listened to the feed back on my Young Karl Marx review and have attempted to craft a better and more reviewish review. I will start by explaining what my level of familiarity is with Ted Kennedy and the Chappaquiddick incident. It is low–I’m 26 and didn’t pay attention to politics or the news in general until a couple years ago, and my early impressions of Ted are from pop culture. The impression I got was that he certainly wasn’t diet Kennedy, but he was Kennedy the lesser. Most noteworthy for his ability to live an average lifespan as a Kennedy. I learned a little more when he died: the Lion of the Senate nickname, his failed presidential run, brief mentions of the Chappaquiddick incident and his years of public service to both our country and the Soviet Union. Now to the film.
I haven’t read any other reviews, so I don’t know how other places view this film, but an important distinction to make is this isn’t a film about the Chappaquiddick incident featuring Ted Kennedy. This is a film about Ted Kennedy set during the Chappaquiddick incident. What this means is that the film is focused on his struggles and is framed from his perspective and his desires. The film opens with a Kennedy family photograph and zooms in a young Ted. The film then cuts to an interview talking about living in JFK’s shadow, and that is the major theme and struggle of this film. Living in his brother’s shadow, his father’s and the public’s expectations. Answering the question, “Where does Ted fit within the Kennedy legacy?” Jason Clarke plays Ted Kennedy, and he mostly does a good job. There are a few moments where you can tell he is ACTING!! His Mayor Quimby accent comes and goes and, in a few instances, even veers toward Bing Crosby territory, but it isn’t too distracting. Kate Mara plays Mary Jo Kopechne, the former campaign staffer of Bobby and the girl who dies. She does an OK job of playing her, but there isn’t much of a character for her to play. Mary Jo’s story before she dies is that she must decide whether to join Ted’s future presidential campaign, and she is the only one of the “Boiler Room” girls who is reluctant both because of what happened to Bobby but also because of who Ted is. We learn hardly anything else about Mary Jo. We only see her in the film within the prism of what she can do for the Kennedy’s.
The film also establishes early on the role of Joe Gargan in the Kennedy family as someone who is either a brother or a fixer, depending on what Ted needs at the moment. The film also gives him the role of a conscience; he’s the person who is trying to steer Ted not towards what is good for Ted or “The Kennedys” but towards what is right. He is belittled and ignored and almost none of his often-good advice is taken. Joe or Joey is played by Ed Helms, who–I don’t know why–has always kind of creeped me out. He did an OK job, but I felt he was kind of distracting in the role. I think he is the most famous person in the cast, and I couldn’t unsee Ed Helms. The other major family presence is his father, played by Bruce Dern who I assume is Laura Dern’s father. Joe Sr. is portrayed first as creepy and later as sad. He is first introduced as a voice over the phone and his health hadn’t been addressed at that point in the film. You hear heavy breathing; it sounds almost like someone masturbating and it reminded me of Frank Booth from Blue Velvet. He utters one word before the call ends and he almost chokes out the word alibi. The first time you see him, the film builds up tension in the manner of a horror film and the sounds of his approach are almost industrial. He is in a wheel chair, shrunken, twisted and largely silent, and he is given an aura of fear and reverence. The big scene with Joe Sr. comes when Ted finally decides to stand up to him and tells him that John and Robert were great men–not because they were made great men by their father but because they were. He tells him he, too, is a great man; he just has to find himself. His dad tells him that he will never be a great man. Ted hugs him and they both cry.
The film visually looks great. It is filmed the way many 60’s films are: lots of pastels and lots of Norman Rockwell influences in the framing and poses people take. The film occasionally strays from the cheery 60’s palette and gets dark and ominous. The camera, unlike Ted, keeps returning to the water and gets all it can out of it. There are horror movie touches scattered throughout the film: his dad, the bridge, the water. The first example is towards the start of the film, where the camera lingers on the Chappaquiddick sign in a way that it might as well say Camp Crystal Lake. The film deals with the fallout of the car accident for the bulk of the film, and it never properly conveys the tension of the situation. Despite a death, it feels less tense than even a film like The Post. The film seems more concerned with Ted’s inner struggle than the exterior struggle of the event. There are countless lawyers and advisers throughout the film who, just like Joey, are giving good advice and are ignored by Ted, who instead fucks things up. One of them was Clancy Brown playing Robert McNamara who, growing up watching Highlander as a child, I was excited to see.
The film ends with most of Ted’s lies coming undone but with almost no legal repercussions. Ted has asked Joey to write a resignation speech to read at a press conference, but instead decides to give an adviser-written speech designed to illicit sympathy and save his career, with Joey reduced to holding his cue cards so he can go “off script”. The film at the end includes some real footage of people reacting to his speech. The opinions are mixed, but most are saying they would still vote for him. One that stood out to me was a woman who was asked if she thought he should run for president and she replied, “That kind of thing isn’t up to me.” I think that attitude sums up a lot about how we ended up where we are and the success of Dynasties like the Kennedys, Bushes and Clintons. The film tries to do the opposite of a “warts and all” approach, and looks at a tragedy through a “feels and all” approach and asks should he have been punished or should he have continued on and found a way to give to the world and make good instead. The film also gives Ted the benefit of the doubt in the most important moment of the film. We never see him drinking and it seems like maybe he might just be tired. The crash and Mary Jo’s death are never shown in a way that doesn’t obscure the clock and ambiguity is allowed to creep in. I think this kind of corruption isn’t anything new, but the way it was brushed aside by corruption and pushed out of the limelight was a major public moment of the elites being above accountability that I’m not sure had even been so brazen. It reminds me of recent events in many, many ways, and the Ted Kennedy of this film is probably Jeb Bush’s spirit animal. I’m not sure I would recommend it. It has good elements but at least how I interpreted it gives a lot of support in the direction of the film for Ted even though it shows his many flaws. I don’t know enough to say if it is historically accurate, but I can say it makes me disgusted with the Lion of the Senate nickname.
Thanks to an unusually eclectic set of parents, I was raised on classic cinema- my father always said that he knew he had acculturated me correctly because I was the only kid my age who knew who Spring Byington was. Of all the great movies we watched, I always favored Frank Capra’s. The themes were all different, but had a certain commonality of the Little Guy rising despite the entrenched forces of corruption. His vision of America is one that I came to adopt, a place where opportunity was there for those willing to grab it, a vision informed by his own experiences as a penniless immigrant who rose to the top of Hollywood through sheer effort and skill.
Fortunately, SP shares my taste for old movies, and when we were poking around Amazon a few nights ago, she came across the wonderful You Can’t Take It With You, which she hadn’t seen in… let’s say a long time. It featured a very typical Capra cast: a young Jimmy Stewart, the always hot Jean Arthur, crusty and foreboding Edward Arnold, flighty and dance-y Ann Miller (15 years old, playing a 20-something), avuncular Lionel Barrymore, and of course, a dotty Spring Byington. Fun extra feature: a very young Dub Taylor playing the xylophone. Another bonus: if you want to see where Michael Richards got the Kramer character from, look at Mischa Auer’s Kolenkhov.
In any case, one memorable scene had us high-fiveing in delight, something that reflected our own beliefs (and those of many of you) perfectly. And it even had Charles Lane, a Jew from Milwaukee who made a great career of always playing the same WASP-y character. So, with no further ado, the perfect Frank Capra analysis of taxes, as explicated by Barrymore and Lane. Have a fun April 15 (yes, yes, I know, the 17th this year)!
Taxation Is Theft, and Fuck Off, Slaver!