Stunning trailer for 28 Years Later

 Complete with a Yeats poetry reading voiceover from... 1905!

Luigi Mangione and the Narodnaya Volya: what's old is new again

Luigi Mangione, the new American Narodnaya Volya

Luigi, the anti-corporate assassin captured rather ironically at a McDonalds, has cited the Unabomber as an inspiration, but the Unabomber's idiosyncratic paranoia did not widely resonate. 

Luigi may be just as nuts, it's hard to say at this point, but he had enough awareness to choose a much more publicly relevant, and widely hated, target in healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. 

On first impression, I'd say he also has a lot in common with the Narodnaya Volya.

In the late 1880's, a group of socialist revolutionaries in Imperial Russia called the Narodnaya Volya set out to effect social change through targeted political assassinations. They believed these selective murders would provide the spark that would ignite the peasantry against the regime, as peaceful means of affecting change had yielded no results.

Luigi seems to be thinking along the same lines. Is he an isolated case, or is he the harbinger of much worse to come?

Already, one healthcare company that was going to raise rates decided not to in the wake of Brian Thompson's assassination. On one level, that's good. On another, it sets a very, very bad precedent: it shows violence and intimidation works. And if you let people know that violence works, what will you get more of?

Go on, guess.

Plotters plotting to bump off important people before Survivor

The outpouring of anger and derision at Thompson's murder, the crocodile tears and laughing emojis, all show that something is truly, deeply wrong with American healthcare insurance providers. 

With Donald Trump, every oligarch's best buddy, about to reoccupy the Whitehouse and make America safe for rapacious billionaires again, it doesn't look like change is going to be forthcoming any time soon. At least, not positive change. Just look at how many billionaires are buzzing around Trump like... oh, you know what. 

We are entering a new Gilded Age, where the rich flaunt their wealth and openly try to buy the political system. According to Robert Reich, "815 billionaires saw their combined wealth sky rocket by at least $280 billion after Trump's win." And new tax cuts are forthcoming... for the rich, naturally. "The net worth of the twelve wealthiest people just passed $2 trillion." Unbelievable. We're going to be talking about trillionaires soon. None of this is good. Wealth polarization is a sign of increasing social instability. Remember, Monopoly the game is and always has been a warning, not a how to.

The assassination of Alexander II of Russia

Ever since The Powell Memo in the Nixon Administration, when Big Business organized to roll back the accomplishments of Organized Labour, 50 trillion has been transferred from the middle to the top. Salaries of executives have exploded, stock buy backs have been made legal again, areas of the economy monopolized, and banks and reckless stockbrokers bailed out and given bonuses, while the rest of the country has been left in the dust. 

One of the great things about FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society is that they provided a safety net for people who fell on hard times. It helped America avoid becoming a completely polarized dystopia. Now these safety nets are potentially at risk, because the insatiable billionaires just can't help themselves. If they aren't careful, they'll cook their own goose. 

And that doesn't even get to the healthcare issue in the US, which is a monstrous, twisted, inefficient and insatiable beast. As former Secretary of Labour (under Clinton) Robert Reich says, "We spend twice as much on healthcare and have the worst health outcomes. Reminder that Medicare For All would save $450B in health care costs and 68,000 lives per year." Take a look at his site. He's a reasonable man with a lot to say. Give him a follow on social media.

When serial killers get publicized, we tend to get more serial killers. When mass shootings are publicized, we get more mass shootings.

Let's just hope this doesn't give anyone ideas.

"Well, that didn't go quite as I thought it would."

Triple review: The Founder, Worth, and Irena’s Vow

Iconic

All three are based on a true story, are well made, and worth a watch... if you’re in the right mood. 

Let’s tackle The Founder first: it starts out as a Happy Commercial for McDonald’s, then careens into oncoming traffic, crashes into a ditch, and explodes, leaving black skid marks all over the road in its wake.

The film follows the story of down-on-his-luck (ain’t they all?) salesman Ray Kroc who's selling milkshake mixers in the idealized 1950’s. Or trying to. His travels often leave him eating in his car at roadside diners and burger joints, where the service is slow and the food equally meh. 

Then, a ray of light: McDonalds calls and orders 8 of his milkshake mixers. Impossible! No one orders eight mixers. Kroc immediately sets off to see with his own eyes the magical restaurant that needs 8 mixers. When he gets there, Ray's stunned: no one comes out to his car to take his order. He has to get out (innovation!) and go up to the window on foot. Remember, this is revolutionary stuff: the 1950's were practically the Stone Age. Kroc orders and BAM his food is right there. I mean, BOOM: Food. Instantly. No delay. And what's more, no plates. No dishes. No cutlery.

Ray’s baffled by awesomeness. 

This is the Temple Mount of American Fast Food. It couldn’t be more revelatory if crepuscular rays streaked out from between parting clouds and bathed Ray in light.

From there everything goes downhill spiritually as it goes up financially. Ray, it turns out, is not the paragon of entrepreneurial virtue we might have thought. Indeed, Ray’s an avaricious dick, the kind of guy who thinks Monopoly is a guide and not a warning. 

The rest, as they say, is spoilers. 

Worth also stars Michael Keaton, this time behind a Brooklyn accent and pair of spectacles. He plays a by-the-book star lawyer who takes on, pro bono, the seemingly thankless task of working out compensation for the victims of 9/11. 

It's even more gnarly than you think.

This is the guy who has divvy out money to grieving relatives according to a financial compensation formula. Putting a dollar amount on someone’s life, anyones life, is problematic enough, but when the amounts are less for some than for others, people get... irked. Spouses of formerly high flying execs (sorry) get far more than the building janitors. 

And there are all sorts of legal issues around same sex couples. 

The whole thing is a nasty business, a moral and legal landmine that Keaton’s character cheerfully steps on. The rest of the picture is essentially about him trying to get off that landmine.

It’s a morbidly fascinating look behind the curtain of the legal aftermath of 9/11. Thankfully, there is a ‘happy’ ending of sorts (circumstances permitting: no one is coming back from the dead here).

Irena’s Vow follows a young Polish nurse from 1939 to 1945, as she tries to survive the horrific Nazi occupation. She’s initially fortunate in getting work as a server at a restaurant for Nazi officers. She’s then hired to be the housekeeper of a German Major’s house. Thanks to her job, she learns what the Nazis have planned for the jewish ‘tailors’ who had been working in the basement of the restaurant, and decides to intercede: she offers them a place to hide… in the Major’s house.

Talk about hiding under the nose of the enemy. 

Sounds outlandish, right? Something a fiction writer would cook up. And to be honest, I kind of balked at it... but the film is actually based on a true story. Truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction. 

This is one gutsy lady.

Irena’s played by Québecois actress Sophie Nélisse, and she’s absolutely riveting. Her performance carries the movie. The only real criticism I have of her character is that she’s, well, pretty much flawless. And the real woman the film is based on may very well have been: she did save a dozen lives at great personal risk. But with our jaded modern mindset, throwing in a character flaw might have made her a little more relatable.

This is a low budget film, but it knows its limits, and never oversteps. Everything looks right for the period. There are a few staging choices that seem a little on the nose, and one awkward scene is even more awkward thanks to the direction and dialogue, but otherwise this is a solid film. 

I started watching it on Netflix, just to see if it was a decent movie or a low budget Canadian throwaway. I only intended to watch a few minutes, but half the movie went by before I even realized it. 

There are plenty of mega budget films (*cough* Multiverse of Madness *cough*) that can’t say the same. 

The Founder is the tale of an avaricious, driven anti-hero, while Worth is about a man who transcends his own limitations to become a better person. Irena’s Vow is about a paragon of virtue who risks her life for the sake of others, because it's the right thing to do. 

As people, they couldn’t be more different. 

Guess which one our extrinsic centred society rewarded most.

Go on, guess.

All I can say is, in a world overrun with wannabe Ray Krocs, I am grateful for the Irenas.

Everyone's a critic

Critics at war!

Normally, people just say to ignore the critics. That's what professionals do, after all. And many people out there are unbothered by criticism and blithely dismiss it. 

Life would certainly be easier if that was so easy. I don't think they're wrong, but I do sometimes wonder just how intense the criticism they have faced has been. 

Creatives working on major franchises, and especially (as one friend put it) 'nerd franchises', are prone to especially intense, detailed, and vociferous criticism. I don't think that's really much different than what is faced by sports team coaches and players, though. 

They have to get a thick skin, ASAP. 

Calm, rational, constructive criticism at its best!

Professional level athletes and particularly coaches are known for being pugnacious, tough and ornery. It's not a field for shrinking violets.

The creative arts, however, is a little more introspective and idiosyncratic. Good writers aren't always like Hemmingway, and massive waves of criticism can wear their creative energies away.

Such seems to have been the case with Stephen Moffat, the showrunner of Doctor Who. Doctor Who, for those of you not in the know, is one of the biggest shows on the BBC, a nerdy cultural juggernaut that specializes in terrifying children and driving them for safety behind the couch. 

Stephen Moffat in the field of creative destruction!

You don't get to that position without having some serious credentials and creative chops. 

And yet, Moffat has said (according to Doctor Who News & Update on Facebook, and on FlickLuster):

"The amount of hate you get could down three passenger jets. I mean, seriously, it doesn't stop... I was vilified endlessly. I was labelled a 'homophobe', a 'misandrist', 'misanthrope', 'sexist', a 'misogynist' and 'racist'. I was against so many people, I could only be described as an 'omni-bigot', because I was treating everyone equally."

When Moffat chose Chris Chibnall as his successor, he joked with him "how would you like me to ruin your life?" Fully aware that "absolutely everything you say or do will be wrong."

Yeah. Doesn't sound appealing.

The common public response is: tough, grow a pair. Entirely devoid of empathy. I'm not so sure that's the best answer, as many talented people who might do a fabulous job will simply not want the hassle and headache. And those who do (*cough* Chibnall *cough) won't be the best option. 

You see what I did there? I snuck in some fan snark. Guilty as the next person. 

This is one reason why I have trepidation about criticizing creative work, even the seemingly god-like show runners of the world's largest franchises. 

I get the passion. I really, really do. 

But we could all do with a little more civility and chill.

Is that a Ben & Jerry's flavour?

Tyson on being and nothingness

 This interview was absolutely hilarious:

Tyson's not really wrong, but wow, talk about different kinds of energy. I want to see more of this on children's programming! Get that man on Sesame Street.

We are all just visiting, everyone dies, and sometimes the best we can do is try and make the world a little better for those who come after. 

I'm glad Tyson, a man who has had a long struggle with his own personal demons and come out on top, made a mint from his last match.

Music!

Illustration for a music poster I did, way back in The Before Time.

Collier's epic review of Star Trek: Picard

Back in The Before Time, in The Long Long Ago, Red Letter Media made a set of feature length Mr. Plinkett Reviews of the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy. 

They were incisive, entertaining, and above all, novel. 

Now? Epic reviews are multiplying at an exponential rate. Soon as fresh content comes out, vast swarms of YouTube reviewers descend upon it and tear it to pieces.

It used to be just Siskel & Ebert. Today there are a LOTS of smart, media savvy citizen reviewers. 

One such is Angela Collier, who's made a long (3 hours, 47 minutes) video on Star Trek: Picard, and why she didn't like it, from the perspective of a TNG fan. This one stood out.

I don't intend to review the review (it could be trimmed down a little), that'd be too meta; I'll just say she makes some great points:

I also hate Section 31. It undermines Roddenberry's vision of the future. 

David Brin on AI (and, sshhh, COVID-19)

Always interesting to listen to. Competition between AIs sounds like the way to go. That Wallstreet AI could become dominant is truly frightening. 

Demons of El Dorado - Part 7, er, 11?

EDIT: Whoops, it's been so long I forgot I already published this on the blog several years ago. I have the remainder in screenplay format, but I've never put it into full prose. Maybe a project for a rainy month...? Or NaNoWriMo...

COAST OF TRINIDAD 

Sails unfurled, the six heavily loaded Brigantines slipped along the lush green coast, towards South America and the Orinoco River. 

Luis sat on the bulwark and watched the soldiers. Their gear was rolled up beneath their seats. They sang martial songs as they rowed. 

They had thirty arquebusiers, thirty crossbowmen, and at least sixty trained pikemen. On top of that were five greyhound war dogs and six horses. Not a significant army by European standards, but then, Cortez had brought down the Aztec Empire with under a thousand men. 

The air, clear and fresh, rushed over them. Beneath the water’s sparkling surface, Luis watched schools of multi-coloured fish darted about like living rainbows. 

He ran his fingers over the leather cover of a book cradled in his lap. It was the diary of a priest, Philip de Riverra, who had accompanied the expedition of Hernan Perez de Quesada into the Orinoco river basin. Professor Martin de Apilcueta Navarro had let Luis purchase it for a few ducats back in Salamanca, from his personal library. Luis thought it might have been of interest to his father, but had forgotten to pass it on. Philip had died of malaria in 1543, and had been demoralized for some time. Much of his writing, according to Navarro, was unreliable, even fantastical, more a product of fever than real events. But it was the best source of first had information Luis currently had access to. Abuljar only spoke to Bartome, and even that he did rarely. 

Luis settled a broad brimmed leather hat on his head, then cracked open the book to a random page. 

He began to read:

“August 5^th, 1542: We have been exploring inland, due South from the third major river fork. Always Quesada choses South. He believes there is yet a civilization to be found in this dark, oppressive jungle. It devours us without qualm, as it would any attempt at establishing order and sanity. The jungle is a beast, an entity, a living force, just one with a thousand thousand manifestations, all guided by an ill will. At first, I saw it as a bewildering, chaotic jumble of vines and trees and bugs and slithering reptiles. But it has personality. Will. And it is eating us up, one by one, felling us with sickness and madness. 

Jose died yesterday of a snakebite. He stepped in between a fallen tree and a rock, and it struck him in the ankle. I tried to suck out the poison to no avail. His death was merciful and quick. Those of us who continue on are wracked by dysentery, the more water we consume the more we expel. After three years, I am but a shadow of my former self. We have no mirrors. Only the rippling reflection in the river, and the man I see there is not one I recognize. 

There is no end to the wretched jungle. It lies over the earth like the rotting corpse of a pagan god. I fear eventually finding ourselves facing a solid wall of curling vegetation, vines so thick they throttle the trees and snuff out the light of the sun. 

August 10^th, 1542: During the night there was a commotion.

We gathered wood before nightfall to make a camp fire, and to cook some of the small mammals our crossbows had felled for dinner. Overhead great shadows flew over us, one after another, but we could not get a good look at their source. The trees are at least eighty feet, and with the sky already dim, it all merged into a single mass of darkness, only with faint speckles of light seeping through gaps. Soon those too were gone, and we were left with the cluster of campfires. We keep them lit throughout the night now, to keep the beasts back. They fear the fire. But some of the men do not like being crowded in beside it, and lay further away, at the edge of its light. I was awoken by shouts of alarm. It was just as well, for I was having that dreadful nightmare again. What awaited me was little better. 

A great black beast had landed on Martin, one of the few of our number still healthy. We could hear it making wet, slurping sounds and grunting. It was a bat, so large and horrific we at first took it to be a demon in the flickering light of our torches. I cannot describe the feeling of horror that seized me. It was the size of a large dog, with thick, knotted black fur, and a flattened, pig like face, with fangs and great veined ears. Sanchez ran his saber through its back so far he nicked Martin. The beast squealed and thrashed about. Martin is lucky we did not set it alight with the torches. Sanchez hauled it off and jabbed it in the neck with a knife until it stopped moving. 

There was much shouting, but none of that woke Martin, who lay in a blissful slumber so deep we feared he would never awaken. There were bite marks on his throat, where the creature had affixed itself. We splashed water in his face and slapped him, until finally he was roused. He described a dream in which he was atop a great, gold pyramid, looking down at supplicating worshippers below. I did not tell him I have had the same dream. I had the men lay the beast out, stretching out its leathery wings, and stepped along the length. I counted twelve feet. We will make sacks out of the wings, or perhaps patches for our boots; when Sanchez cut it open its belly, black blood jetted out; not its own, but Martins. The body we cooked. The meat was tender and delicious. Better than the bugs we’d been eating: big iridescent green monsters, weighing almost two pounds each. Something unholy about how large and distorted God’s creation is here. I hesitate to imagine what form indigenous man would take, here in this hellish jungle.

August 15^th, 1542: The bats left us alone for three days while we crossed a swamp, which was a wretched experience. The leeches concentrated upon my groin, and the filthy brine stank like an open sewer. There were mercifully none of those small predatory fish, and only a few curious crocodiles that our pikes turned easily away. We only lost one porter. I saw the our gold pursuers again, speckles sliding beneath black water, hinting at great hideous shapes. I’d say it was my mind playing tricks, paranoia, but the others saw it too, and fired crossbow bolts. Quesada put a stop to that, as ammunition is in short supply. No one yet has seen what is following us. It could be harmless.

We are but a faint echo of the men who entered this endless green waste. Covered in red welts, our clothes hanging like tents, full of lice, it is a wonder any of us still lives. 

Pity the civilization that fears conquerors such as us. 

August 17^th, 1542:There were two attacks last night. We are once again beneath the canopy, and here the bats seem to prefer to strike. The men nervous, and understandably so. There is talk that we are nearing the end of the world, perhaps even the Gates of Hell. I know that Aguirre reached the coast, through this very jungle, so there must be an end to it. Quesada has given orders for halberds to be set in the ground, pointing up, over us while we sleep, and doubled the night watch. We’re too exhausted to create greater defenses, there’s simply no strength left for it. 

We proceed onward by will alone, the unknown pursuing us, death waiting ahead.

Luis shut the book and listened to the men, who were now chattering, exuberant, eager for the adventure that lay ahead. They joked and laughed in the breezy ocean air. 

He got up and made his way towards Rodrigo and Angel who were at the bow, basking in sea foam. Rodrigo nodded at Luis as he drew near. “Finally got your nose out of a book, eh? As I was saying: we’ll sail through the night.” He put a hand on Angel’s shoulder. “Have shifts set up. de Berrio will send ships after us, if he’s at all like his father.”

Angel grunted agreement. “Once the son of a bitch gets his pants on.”

Iacos Point

ICACOS POINT

 

Booming waves drowned out the shouts of men. Luis was wedged between two soldiers, and rowed like mad against powerful cross currents that threatened to dash them into rocks. All pretense of status and rank had been cast aside in the struggle for survival. 

The fleet surged upward atop a bulging swell and began to shift sideways. 

The stern was partly obscured by mist and slashing water, but Luis could still make out Rodrigo and Angel, who held on to the rudder for all they were worth, their teeth grit, faces showing the strain of a three hour long ordeal. 

Luis struggled not to vomit. 

He wasn’t successful.