Blackmoor Vituperative

A fellow named Andrew Godoski has written a defense of the movie Starship Troopers over on Screened. The gist of his argument is that people dislike Starship Troopers because they don’t get that it’s satire. Critics gave it bad reviews because they didn’t get that it’s satire. People who complain about the plot, or the acting, or anything else don’t get that it’s satire.

“You just don’t get it, do you? It’s satire.”

Well, in fact, I do get it.

First, critics are idiots. Anyone who needs to be told that the Starship Troopers movie is satire is an idiot — it’s obviously satire.

Second, the reason why a lot of people dislike Starship Troopers is because, in addition to it being a stupid movie (it’s fun, but it is a stupid movie), it takes a classic work of science fiction and basically craps on it. It’s like making a movie based on The Jungle and turning it into a 90-minute hot dog commercial (and not a satirical one). Starship Troopers the movie is to Starship Troopers the novel as the Phantom Menace is to the original Star Wars.

Paul Veerhoven can make good movies, and he has. Robocop was great fun. Black Book is brilliant. But Starship Troopers is not one of those movies. It’s entertaining in the way that many bad movies are entertaining (and many are), but it is by no means a good movie.

Personally, I am done with Game Of Thrones. I gave it a fair shot, I think. The only part of the show I actually like is the opening credits. I made it to the eighth or ninth episode before I gave up on the show. I kept thinking, “it has to get better”. Apparently, it doesn’t. If I wanted to watch people I dislike doing things I dislike, I would watch the news. In fact, it reminds me a great deal of Desperate Housewives (although the scenery in Game Of Thrones is obviously much better).

Eh. It’s easy to be a critic. Game Of Thrones is a well made show, I will definitely give it that. Top marks for production, and the actors are genuinely talented across the board. That’s why I watched it as long as I did.

Saw X-Men First Class this evening with some friends. Had a lovely time. I wouldn’t say it’s a great movie, but I enjoyed it. I would compare it to League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

1. Based on a comic.
2. Changed in minor ways for no apparent reason.
3. 3/4 of the movie is what would normally be the first 1/4 of a movie.
4. Ensemble cast,
5. half of which are filler, and
6. only a couple of which are actually interesting.
7. Glacial pacing — a good portion of the movie is, frankly, padding. The movie could have been called “Waiting for Magneto to come back”.
8. Plot holes you could drive a Nautilus/Blackbird through.

Magneto was very well-played by Michael Fassbender, and I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised at James McAvoy as Professor X. I also liked Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw, but a lot of the time I wasn’t sure he was really the best choice for the role. He just seemed “off”, somehow: I can’t quite put my finger on it. Far below these was Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, who at least elicited some pathos, if not genuine interest. No one else really bears mentioning, other than Oliver Platt, who was utterly wasted. I can only assume that most of his scenes were cut.

I know that abuses of power happened in the good old days. I know that rights were trampeled, people were railroaded, and that race or social connections meant more than evidence of guilt or innocence. Still, it’s worthwhile to recall that there was a time when people knew right from wrong, even if they didn’t live up their own ideals.

I’m not sure how much weight to give a silly television show’s version of what the United States used to be about. And I know there were no “good old days”. Still, it’s enough to make me wonder if maybe one or two things used to be better than they are now.

Well, it turns out that Adrianne Palicki will not, in fact, play Wonder Woman in a new TV reboot of the classic Linda Carter series.

David E. Kelley’s “Wonder Woman” television series has failed to find a network pickup at NBC, says a story at The Hollywood Reporter.

The series was planned as a reinvention of the iconic DC Comics title in which Wonder Woman (Adrianne Palicki) is both a vigilante crime fighter in Los Angeles, a successful corporate executive (as her alter ego, Diana Prince) and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life.

The pilot was written by Kelley and directed by Jeffrey Reiner (“The Event”) and also featured Elizabeth Hurley, Pedro Pascal, Tracie Thoms and Cary Elwes in the cast.

With NBC declining to give the go-ahead, it is unlikely that the comic book adaptation will see the light of day as a series.

(from SuperHeroHype, NBC Passes on Wonder Woman)

Not much I can add to that. Sorry, Adrianne. Better luck with your next project.

I received an interesting email today from the Czech Republic. They are using the graphics I put together for Sharing is not piracy and Copying is not piracy for a campaign against the new copyright law in the Czech Republic.

I love the Czech Republic. I wish them luck.

I ran across this at Gary Corby’s web site. Very cool. I found this very helpful. I never know what typeface to use. I stay awake long nights, fretting over it.

I had the strangest dream last night. I was teaching French at a Catholic school, but I was neither French nor Catholic. The students were nuns, and they weren’t paying any attention to me, just taking turns sitting on the desks and pushing each other around around the room.

RavenCon is over. Sunday is generally slow at cons, and today was no exception. Even so, I enjoyed the panels I sat in on. I don’t have any final thoughts, really. I think it went pretty well.

Favorite thing at RavenCon 2011 that had nothing to do with me: pretty young women in corsets. (Yeah, so sue me.)

End of the day Saturday, and I think it’s gone pretty well. I was able to sit in on a few panels, and that was fun, because they were panels I thought up and I wanted to hear people talk about them. Superheroes and the law, for example. There was only one serious hiccup today, when an equipment delay caused a filk to run late, which caused the next filk to run late, which caused the next panel to run late…

This actually wasn’t a big deal, due to some quick thinking by the affected panelists, who came up with a feasible solution. I mean, yes, we had people hanging out in the hallway for 30 minutes, and the delays in the panels almost certainly made someone miss a panel or performance they wanted to see, but it could have been considerably worse.

Now, I made a point of putting nearly all of the presentations in one room, and all of the filk in another, hopefully to prevent this kind of situation. I think next year I will make an even greater effort to restrict all audiovisual programming to one room. The time it takes to break down and move the equipment is just too long. I’ll also move the filk related programming to a larger room next year. The room I was told to put the filk in was too small for the audiences.

Other than that, there were no major issues. People got to where they needed to be, when they needed to be there, and for the most part the equipment got there as well.

I am a trifle disappointed in the parties. That’s kind of a mean thing to say, because the parties I was able to find were held by very nice people and had a great selection of drinks and goodies. But still, there were only maybe 2.5 parties total this evening, and 1.5 of those shut down before midnight. RavenCon is just not a party con.

I had a weird experience when I decided to call it a night and head back to my room. The doorway to the hallway our room is on was blocked by eight or so teenage girls, sitting around playing cards. When I walked up, intended to step gingerly through them and on my way, one of them informed me that this area was off limits, and “girls only”.

“Well, my room is down that hall,” I said. “Do you mind if I go to it?”

“No, it’s not,” the girl assured me. I was not sure whether to be annoyed or amused. I had never encountered a situation quite like this, and wasn’t quite sure how to deal with it. I was just baffled.

“This is the fourth floor,” another girl added in a haughty tone. I looked at the numbers on the nearby door, and son of a gun if she wasn’t right. Whoops.

“Oh, wow. I’m on the wrong floor,” I said. “Sorry, sorry.” And I sheepishly headed back to the elevator, wondering how I’d ended up on the fourth floor, despite my being almost completely sober.

Which just goes to show, teenage girls still have the ability to make me feel like an idiot. Some things never change.

Friday night’s programming is complete, and I think it went pretty well. For those who came in late, I scheduled programming for RavenCon 2011. This included coming up with panel ideas, contacting guests to ask them to volunteer for panels or suggest new ones, and scheduling the panels so that the whole schedule would be full for people who pay to come to the con.

It’s only Friday, but so far it’s gone really well. Nearly all of our guests responding to my emails in a timely manner, and all but one eventually responded with the names of panels they would like to participate in. As far as guest response goes, it’s gone better than I expected.

As a lark, I participated in a riff of Star Crash, Mystery Science Theater style, with Rob Floyd of Team Fantasmo. I had fun doing it, we had a pretty good crowd, and they seemed to have fun, too. That pleased me.

There has really only been one blemish on the weekend so far, and that’s the aforementioned guest who never replied to any of the nine or so emails I sent them. I still have not heard from this person, but two other people have come to me all aflutter asking why that person is not on more panels. Well, the fact is that person is on four panels (suggested by other guests who said they would be sharing the panel with this noncommunicative guest: the artist who did his book covers, for example). They are also featured in an interview (which was my idea), making five.

So: five panels, which is 20% more than the minimum I aimed for. If this guest wanted to be on more panels, they would have said so. Frankly, I have little sympathy for anyone who complains to me about it. If they want to complain, they should go complain to the person who never responded to their email.

Other than this extremely minor hiccup, Friday went really well. One or two panels had an excessive number of panelists, and one panel had no one in the audience, but this sort of thing is bound to happen. I learned a lot from this year, and next year will have fewer occurrences like this.

I consider Friday a success.