Xmas Movies, Things to do, more Imperatives (!), Part One

Alright, with no term papers and finals to worry about, grades in, presents bought and opened, families reunited, and the true Meaning-O'-Christmas realized, I can finally get back to writing. Liberation never tasted so sweet. Lots of stuff to discuss (more on that later - part of my blog is considering secession).

Here are the movies I've seen in the last seven days or so, in no particular order:

Sherlock Holmes. This movie exactly (almost eerily) lived up to my expectations. You (and by you, I pretentiously mean "I") came in looking for Robert Downey Jr. to make some clever deductions, verbally spar with Watson, and smack a few bad guys upside the head. The film delivers with class, and even throws in a couple brilliant exchanges between Holmes and Watson worth the price of admission on their own ("You're aware that what you're drinking is used for eye surgery?"). RDJ is perfectly cast - throw this man a Golden Globe - and while Russell Crowe might have lent Watson's role a bit more star power, Jude Law gives a suitably sharp performance.

Poor Rachel McAdams has been taking a fair amount of criticism for her performance as Irene Adler. IMHO, most of it is a bit unfounded - with such limited source material (remember, Adler was only featured in "A Scandal in Bohemia"), most of her character is left for definition, and the American femme fatale seems like the ideal niche. The only complaint I've taken seriously is that she seems a bit out of place in Victorian England - but it's steampunk, already intentionally anachronistic for effect, so I'll cut her some due slack and recognize the immense difficulty of sticking to a handful of character traits (while also avoiding getting overshadowed by RDJ and Law).

My one major complaint is that the film series (and I say series because Moriarty's absence is screamed at us in the final frame, no spoiler) has blown its load a bit early in terms of scale. An underground secret society (again, no spoiler here) is an integral part of the first film, leaving little room for expansion. Where does Ritchie go from here, the Cthulu mythos?

If you came in looking for Hound of the Baskervilles or A Study in Scarlet, you were disappointed, and I'm not terribly sorry for you. Take your snuff-box, pince-nez, and pocketwatch and go back to the 20th century!

(Yes, folks, we're a decade in by now, we can say that stuff).

Rating: Three and a Half Seven-Per-Cent-Solutions out of four.

Something, Something, Something Dark Side: As far as his profession goes, I trust Seth McFarlane to the ends of the earth (not unlike my trust in Bill Belichick or Quentin Tarantino). If something (something, something) is up in the air, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt - he's earned it. So when Fox decided to fork over Sunday evening, I wasn't opposed (and the Cleveland Show turned out to be less shitty than predicted, so hey, credit's due).

But his ventures into Robot Chicken/Mel Brooks territory have been...well, I can't call them failures, but when everything you do is genre-defining, mortal adequacy rings a bit hollow. There's no doubt SSSDS suffers from occasional delusions of grandeur, though (poking fun at Seth Green near the end of the show only makes the unfavorable comparison more painfully stark).

That said...I enjoyed it tremendously. McFarlane goes to absurd lengths to connect with fellow supergeeks (and those with photographic memories), shot-by-shot renderings exactly matching with the parodied film. It almost hinders his work when you start wondering about his priorities. Spaceballs gets credit for its irreverance, Robot Chicken for its transgressiveness (also Admiral Ackbar Cereal); SSSDS lacks both and worships its subject a bit much, but makes up for it with mixes of Family Guy-tinged character humor. Plus, Star Wars deserves some occasional fucking reverence to remind this generation that a world before Jar Jar Binks existed...and it was beautiful.

Rating: Three Giggitywatts out of four.

In Bruges. Not quite a recent film, so I'll cut down on this one. Colin Farrel gives an astoundingly-not-horrible effort as a troubled Irish hitman. Brandon Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes tear it up as, respectively, his partner and boss. Top-notch dialogue, intriguing twist (don't want to give this one away, it's worth a watch), and a central cast turning in some of their best performances ever. The script nearly took Best Original Screenplay away from Milk.

Rating: Three and a half "YOU'RE an inanimate fucking object!"s out of four.

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Coming up on Fifteen Charisma...
-Recent book purchases
-D&D R&D with B&B

--kd

On the Suspension of Disbelief: Van Helsing and the Gravity-Defying Rope Swing

Now, let's get something straight - it doesn't take much to win my rapt ttention for a movie. I usually don't like excessive prying or pedantry when it comes to my entertainment, either. But sometimes, hilarious abuses of the laws of physics without any plot justification or explanation deserve to be pointed out.

Let's get a second question out of the way - I loved Van Helsing. Like the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it gets categorized as a Shitty Movie, a failed experiment into an intriguing genre. Like the League, I think it gets a bad rap, even if it's easily mocked; give it the benefit of the doubt, and it's a genuinely fun two-hour romp that gets bonus points for creative application of otherwise stale cliches. And like the League, it finds itself in Victorian Europe, albeit around the forgotten, alienated eastern half of the Continent rather than London and Paris.

Okay, onto the subject matter. There are somewhere between six and a million rope swings in the titular flick; Van Helsing's priorities, in order, seem to be:
(1) Kill vampires
(2) Fly through the air at ambiguous angles to equally ambiguous distances
(3) Kill werewolves
..... (1,309) Bang hot Transylvanian chicks. (Seriously, he didn't take advantage of the aerosol chloroform...alright, gonna stop talking now)

Anyway, there are more than a couple moments in the movie where the esteemed fiend executioner bends the laws of physics over and...well, let's just say he followed up on the chloroform spray tactic. Let's replay a few moments in detail:

Scene 1: Leaving Castle Frankenstein (about sixty-five minutes into the movie)
Scenario: Van Helsing and Anna, fleeing the latter's werewolf brother, need to find a way over the ridiculous moat that clearly wasn't there a year ago (remember the flashback? The castle surrounded by rolling hills and a windmill?). Van Helsing pulls out his trusty rappel/grapping hook, fires a perfect shot hundreds of yards away, and prepares to zip down the secured tightrope, damsel in hand. Unfortunately, the werewolf snaps the rope behind them.
What should happen: They hold on for dear life and hit the gigantic cliff under the forest.
What does happen: They land safely in a clearing under the tree Van Helsing shot.
Why it should happen that way: let's say Van Helsing shoots about a quarter-mile away at slightly under a parallel angle. If his tightrope suddenly gets severed when he's halfway there, he's going to end up perpendicular, not parallel, to where he needs to be and about an eighth of a mile below. Unless the tree is over six hundred feet high (almost twice so as any in the world and not easily climbed down from), he isn't going to end up at its base, he'll end up splattered across the aforementioned rock face.
A Terrible But Nevertheless Necessary Explanation: Doctor Frankenstein, conducting possibly illegal mutant tree-growing operations, planted a specimen with a trunk only six inches in diameter, but, say, an eighth of a mile tall. Infuriated not at Frankenstein's scientific blasphemy but at losing the annual Eastern European Gardening Competition, the creepy coroner leads the village revolt.

Scene 2: Outside Dracula's Lair (about an hour and fifty minutes into the movie)
Scenario: This is split into two parts. First, Frankenstein gets 'swung loose' by Karl the Friar (with a K because he's badass) into the Werewolf Cure room right on top of Dracula's remaining wife. Then, after leaving the two of them to battle it out, Anna leaves the room by swinging back to the bridge to rescue Van Helsing.
Problem: Frankenstein swings down, on a rope below the bridge, to reach the room and certainly doesn't have enough speed to reach a point above the bridge before he hits the castle. Anna also swings down (so far down she needs to use a second rope) to reach the same bridge. Picture this in your mind (but don't end up like this guy).
What should happen: Well, either Frankenstein hits the castle smack on the side and plummets to his death, or Anna ends up on a bridge way below Carl. Either way, Van Helsing becomes a werewolf, Anna gets fucked up by Aleera (who gets immolated in turn by her sugar daddy's imminent doom), and Frankenstein is screwed. Carl (the only damn character left alive at the place) uses the suddenly vacant ice castle to corner the European sno-cone market for decades, and feels occasional twinges of remorse at his friends' demise.
What does happen: As described above, Anna arrives in time to save the day and everything works out for the heroes! Well, except the love interest inexplicably gets killed off after the villain.
A Terrible But Nevertheless Necessary Explanation: This is all structurally possible, Dracula just got a copy of The Fountainhead for Christmas and decided to seize his rational self-interest by become the most amazing (albeit surreal) architect in the universe. Fearing accusations of insanity, Carl never speaks a whisper about the Reappearing Bridge to anybody.
Another Terrible And Equally Implausible Explanation: Carl is actually Jesus Christ, the Right Hand of God, and can change the spatial location of bridges or ropes any time he damn well pleases. Unfortunately, he arrived too late to help Van Helsing, The Left Hand of God, squish Dracula in the most epic high-five ever.

Alright, I'll stop there. You get the point; sometimes fantasy takes liberties with physics and bends a few rules under the justification of artistic license. And I'm okay with that, for the most part - I think you can enjoy a movie despite some reality-bending without adequate explanation, and it'd be too difficult to write a damn script around every inconvenience without the whole thing sounding like a series of expositionary footnotes.

But sometimes it's egregious and fun to point out. There's probably a healthy balance somewhere in between.

Other notes about the movie:
1 - When running/walking, some people lead with their head, some with their shoulders, but Kate Beckinsale (sorry, Anna) leads with her quite prominent boobs. Not complaining at all. It's just kind of hilarious, and probably slows her down a bit (which, of course, means we get a longer look).
2 - The Machine Gun Crossbow is fucking awesome, but gets curiously underused later on in the film. Too bad; it's pretty sleek to see in action.
3 - The final confrontation/battle scenes run a bit long (something like thirty minutes passes between the heroes walking through the ice-wall and Van Helsing ending Dracula's shit). By the way, not a fan of Dracula's death; we get a bad angle on the fight scene and he just sorta bleeds out (although the dark skeleton was a sweet touch).
4 - Given the pre-Facebook era of the film's release, I'm not sure whether it sparked or took advantage of the Werewolf Versus Vampire debate. Either way, fuck that shit and every stupid facebook application to which I get endlessly invited - but go, pointless internet debates, go!

Alright, I had a bunch of complaints about the movie, but I liked pretty much everything not listed here. Cool style, interesting subject-matter, adventurous genre experiment; it deserves a degree of credit. Van Helsing himself isn't quite top-ten in my list of badass protagonists, but he's up there somewhere (top-twenty five?).

Fifteen Charisma will update more frequently now that term papers and most finals are behind me. Future subject-matter includes:
-Sherlock Holmes
-something about debate, only because I haven't talked about it much
-the blog's namesake, a D&D character creation rant (I know, you're excited already!)

--kd

The Most Devastating Plays in Football

Reading TMQ unseasonably late in the week, I ran into Easterbrook’s oft-made argument that the krumble (fumble on a kickoff return recovered by the kicking team) is the most crushing single play in football, giving the opposing offense a free shot at the end zone with tremendous field position while definitively shifting nearly all the psychological momentum (or finishing off the unfortunate victims). The Patriots-Bills opener certainly demonstrated the dramatic game- (and in some cases, season-) changing potential of the krumble. But is it the most debilitating stomach punch in the game? In the spirit of Dan Quisenberry [1], Fifteen Charisma surmises:

Nope, these are worse.

5. The Pick-Six

Pick-Six (n, pik-siks); (1) an interception returned for a touchdown

Thoughts From A Fan: “Alright, third-and-two, let’s get this done…pass along the sidelines, good call – oh, shit, where’d fucking Charles Woodson come from…oh fuck, somebody catch him…goddammit, Randy Moss, try hustling once in a while…sweet, Brady just got leveled by a block from a 320-pound nose guard…ugh…I need a beer.”

Why it’s Devastating: You lose whatever field position you had, the ball is turned over – and your defense doesn’t get the chance to redeem you and force a three-and-out back. Any momentum you had from driving is dead and the opposing defense is fired up. Shit is bad.

Textbook example: Ty Law returning Kurt Warner’s dead duck 47 yards in Super Bowl XXXVI. Took the Rams offense out of the game for the next three quarters and sparked the idea that the Patriots could actually win the game. Also, any time Tedy Bruschi touched the damn ball between 2002 and 2005.

Another Textbook Example: Matt Schaub throwing a bullet to a surprised Clint Sessions literally as I was writing the last paragraph. Game over.

Comeback chances? Not impossible – it’s just one touchdown. After all, Warner and the Rams clawed back once the Pats tired down later in the game – but you can’t deny that the pick-six shuts down one side of the field for a few drives unless the situation is truly desperate. In fact, part of the reason it isn’t higher on the list is because it tends to occur late in the game with the offense down by more than one possession (see: Thanksgiving’s Packers-Lions blowout).

4. The Shank

The one that got away.

Thoughts from a Fan: “Alright, we missed the fourth down, but it’s just a 35-yarder, excellent conditions, flawless snap…wait, it’s tailing…no way…FUCK YOU, KRIS BROWN. FUCKING SERIOUSLY? I could have made that! On one leg! With a stubbed toe! Hammered! I need another beer.... “

Why it’s Devastating: Your kicker exposes himself as spectacularly incompetent, you lose essentially free points, you give your opponents field position and the confidence of knowing they only need to keep you out of the end zone to win…it’s a confluence of problems and doesn’t lend itself well to immediate recovery, especially because your deflated defense has to put out the fire and your kicker will be damaged goods for the rest of the game.

Textbook Examples: I don’t remember any because Vinatieri and Gostowski have nailed every big kick in the playoffs. Ha!

Comeback chances: Probably fine, but not if you let the game slip away in the shadow of the uprights. As long as you have a veteran specialist, you can hope he’ll shrug it off by the next time you need to call on him. Then again, you might also be left with a blithering shell of a man. Flip a coin.

3. The Hero’s Funeral March

Hellllooo, Injured Reserve List.

Thoughts from a Fan: “Ooof, tough hit, better rub some dirt on that one…Alright, seriously, get up…this is gonna take a timeout…wait, is that his fibula along the thirty-yard line? I need another drink.”

Why It’s Devastating: Just when the game is looking up, there’s nothing like the chilling sobriety of a brutal, season-ending injury to bring you back to earth. Forget about any pre-existing morale – it’ll get drowned between the anxiousness of hearing back from the team doctors about your star player and the mind-numbing possibility that the game is meaningless and the season is essentially over.

Textbook examples: Brady. MCL. 2008. Twenty minutes into a thereafter lost campaign. The tragically destroyed potential is kinda like Ted Williams’ lost years, minus the patriotism and plus a Victoria’s Secret model.

Comeback chances: Sometimes you never recover. Sometimes you win with a backup for a while (like with the example above). But it’s all a charade; eventually reality catches up and provides the rare double-whammy of despair. Alright, I’m done.

2. The Zebra Stampede

Zebra Stampede: (1) a rampaging herd of distinctly striped African mammals (2) the stupendously destructive yellow flag that cancels out a showstopping play from the good guys.

Thoughts from a Fan: “Good kick return…wait, he’s still going…and going…he’s down the sidelines…holy shit, there’s no way…he could do it! TOUCHDOWN! HA! WE DID IT! Hey, wait a minute..oh, you’re kidding me… EVERY FUCKING TIME! …What do you mean, we’re out of beer?”

Why It’s Devastating: Just when you think you’re in the clear and start celebrating, that tiny yellow BB-weighted sonofabitch ruins your evening. Hurts twice as much because it erases a brief, nascent heroism and replaces it with ignominy for one special individual, drawing the team down into a resentful spiral. At the very least, you lose a touchdown in the most painful manner possible.

Textbook Example: Willie McGinest getting called for defensive holding on Tebucky Jones’ 100-yard fumble recovery that would have finished off the Rams in the third quarter (same Super Bowl). A suddenly ragged Pats defense returns to the goal line, lets in the touchdown, and proceeds to blow the 14-point fourth-quarter lead.

Comeback Chances: Tough one. This can leave a pumped special times exhausted and a fan base shellshocked. Don’t count on help from the crowd (or your own players) for that something extra; everybody is too disappointed to care until something else (often worse) happens.

1. Judgment from Above

The much-maligned Booth Review.

Thoughts from a Fan: “HA! He fumbled it! It’s over! This nightmare is finally over! They don’t have any challenges le – wait…no, no way….not the review from above…” (3 tense minutes pass.) (muffled gunshot, spatter.)

Why It’s Devastating: This combines the momentous consequences of a pick-six or a shank with the debilitating tension of the Funeral March and the injustice of the Zebra Stampede. The forces that control the football world are conspiring against you, and there is absolutely no way to escape your fate.

Textbook example: The Snow Game. Charles Woodson’s hit on Tom Brady nearly ended a dynasty before it started, but the Football Gods saw fit to punish the Raiders for the sins of Jack “The Assassin” Tatum some two decades after the fact. That’s basically the best I can console despondent Raiders fans with, because the Tuck Rule and the associated ruling was horrendous. The Bills’ loss to the Titans in the Music City Miracle was also an unjustifiably painful way to lose (although my sympathy is somewhat limited by the fact that the kickoff return was fucking brilliant).

Comeback Chances: Pack it in. There’s always another game.

--kd

[1] From Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf’s fantastic Baseball Anecdotes: “The Quiz liked to confound reporters when they questioned him. After he gave up a game-winning hit to Angels rookie Daryl Sconiers, someone asked if that was the worst possible way to lose a game. He proceeded to rattle off 20 worse ways, including balking a runner all the way from first and an earthquake causing the center fielder to miss the last out.”

Vault Review: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is widely categorized as a Shitty Movie. In spite of my better instincts, I found it in the abandoned used DVD section of Newbury Comics for a pittance (read: four hard-earned dollars) and decided to liberate it from the sixth circle of Video Hell.

I haven’t seen it in something like half a decade; I figured the poor bastard deserved another chance (and I remembered half-liking it the first time through). But, I don’t want to take two hours to write a full review, so I’ll just sort of give annoying running commentary instead. In fact, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, Al Michaels and John Madden will be doing some guest work for this column (turkey drumsticks not included with Madden; some assembly required).

AL: Welcome, moviegoers, to the 2:15 AM showing of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen!

MADDEN: Strong start with the prologue. Only four lines long, vague beyond imagination, and BOOM! Shitty movie alert right there.

AL: But, it’s 1899 and apparently interesting times in pre-WWI Europe, so we'll give them the benefit of the doubt for gambling on a specific timeline. Also, you’re only allowed to use that BOOM gag five more times.

MADDEN: Deal.

AL: Jesus, while we were talking Europe is already on the brink of war. Not actually an inefficient use of time for exposition, even if they had to use hackneyed newspaper cliches to cut corners.

MADDEN: Oldest trick in the book… Ignoring, of course, the complex, decades-long escalation of imperial competition and assemblage of alliances that actually led to a European conflict.

AL: Fuck it, we can start a world war with a bank robbery and the Hindenberg going down in the docking bay.

MADDEN: Nice humanitarian effort by the as yet unnamed bad guy stopping such a dangerous form of travel before it gets off the ground.

AL: But like with the rest of this movie, an action scene will start while you’re discussing reality.

MADDEN: Looks like Sean Connery’s still got it. I swear, the man’s like Brett Favre…

AL: And looks like Stormtroopers still can’t shoot. For chrissakes, they have machine guns...

MADDEN: Brett Favre… [etc]

AL : Another clever Victorian literature reference as Quartermain fights off the Germans (?) and finds himself in London.

MADDEN: Brett Favre…

AL: What the fuck happened to Captain Nemo?

MADDEN: *coughracistcough*

AL: Glad to see you’re back in the game.

MADDEN: Just in time. Clutch play by the directors here to slam together exposition with zero character development. I guess Skinner is a jackass and Nemo is…still Caspian-ish. (?) . And doesn’t like being called a pirate.

AL: Somewhat ham-handed dialogue by M, who’s suffering a bad case of Gandalf Syndrome, but he’ll recover if the story does.

MADDEN: Mmmm…ham.

AL: Oof, Sean Connery shuts down the romance potential on the ride over to Dorian Gray’s place and kills any interesting-if-awkward love triangle with Mina. That’s going to sting later in the flick when the viewer loses interest over lack of compelling subplots.

MADDEN: Now, I gotta say I like this scene with Dorian Gray. Stuart Townsend turns in a quality performance every time, and the chronological reference is subtle enough to elicit a chuckle without slobbering all over itself.

AL: Oops, more Germans (?). And the Phantom is on the scene! And Tom Sawyer!

MADDEN: This movie suffers just a bit from cramming something like seventeen (!) character introductions into almost as few minutes. There’s no time for development! Sacrifice everything for the (admittedly absurd) plot! Full steam ahead! Throw the women and children off board!

AL: Okay, Tom Sawyer gets credit for an amusing opening line (“They told me European women had strange ways”). Everything from this point is downhill.

MADDEN: Literally every line Skinner has said so far has been fucking annoying, too.

AL: Okay, the team is assembled, Mina is a vampire, Tom Sawyer is a hick, Dorian Gray is “complicated” (a line that seriously ruined an entire fight scene and wiped out whatever cleverness creds he had built up), Alan Quartermain is old, Skinner is amoral and Cockney (probably contributes to the Irritation Index), and Nemo…is on a boat. And has no character.

MADDEN: His notable lines so far? “Millions will die” (special Awkward Points for making M double back in the conversation while contributing nothing useful to the discussion) and “I walk a different path” (referring, of course, to the fact that he’s the only character using a melee weapon in a world of machine guns…except for Gray with his cane, Skinner with a book, and Quartermain with his fists. Or Mina with her teeth. Or Hyde with any part of his body. Come to think of it, the only Gentleman who does use a gun is Tom Sawyer, and he can’t hit the broad side of a Phantom with an early ending on the line.)

AL: Blink and you’ll miss it – another team member gets dragged (in this case, literally) into the mission. Hyde spouts off some improved poetry about England, Jekyll tries nobly to hold up his Hulk-sized pants, and we’re actually ready for Venice this time!

MADDEN: Seriously, Nemo keeps the ‘defining trait per line’ ratio at a solid zero through two more scenes. Exposition, exposition, talking about the Nautilus without bragging…he’s a perfect symbol for how bland this movie becomes (Quartermain sums it up best in conversing: “Thanks for your, eh, contributions so far…”) between the occasional flashes of self-referential humor.

AL: Much like the scene between Sawyer, Mina, and Dorian. Let’s break it down in instant replay.

MADDEN: Alright (maps out the characters on deck and somehow finagles his way into drawing a phallus). Here’s Dorian over here, and he’s got Mina covered. Coach Quartermain decides for a safe play, but Sawyer calls an audible and BOOM! He gets knocked flat. Dorian pursues and gives one of the more well-timed nonverbals of the movie. That’s high-quality players playing high-quality play right there.

AL: And this next scene with Sawyer and Quartermain…

MADDEN: This one just screams “FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP! TRAUMATIC PAST! NAÏVE YOUTH! WISE MENTOR FIGURE! ONE IS GOING TO DIE!” Okay, done screaming now.

AL: Ooooh, Nemo is Indian. Gotcha. Mina is an essentialist uncultured vampire bitch. Also gotcha.

MADDEN: Hellllo, Dorian and Mina…and Jekyll watching creepily from the doorway. Makes you wonder what Hyde would be doing in this situation…*shudder*.

AL: How does nobody freak out when seeing the Nautilus? It’s not like it can just sneak through a gigantic city in Europe. And how does it stay balanced?

MADDEN: Lots of explosions going on all around it all the time do the job pretty well. Hey, we’re in Venice already! Let’s blow some shit up and reveal all the secrets with an hour left to go!

AL: We urge viewers who haven’t seen the movie before to stop here. This is basically spoiler material from this line forward. Please go. Stop reading. See the movie and come back (you, too, can make fun of ambiguous ethnicities and vacuous characterizations).

MADDEN: So if M is really James Moriarty (which explains the “run, James!” from the one-lined martial artist German (?) earlier in the movie). Dorian is evil (the guy with the portrait that reflects his sins? No!).

AL: The villain is stupid, the minion is fatally flawed, and the heroes narrowly escape death…somehow. All is as it should be.

MADDEN: Although the scene where Hyde saves the crew makes no sense. Where the fuck does the water go? Why doesn’t more come in? This goes somewhere beyond suspension of disbelief into the realm of redefining physics.

AL: But at least Nemo said something substantive. “They have to die…for the greater good!” He’s a rational Western utilitarian! And a devout Hindu, I guess.

AL: And we’re in Antarctica for the Big Battle!

MADDEN: Actually, Mongolia.

AL: Whatever, Skinner’s back, so the next few scenes are fucked anyway. Morale scene, plotting scene, bad guys talk and threaten each other, Dorian Gray is evil. Do we believe in miracles? Not at this stage.

MADDEN: Yawn. Get to the good stuff.

AL: Highlights of the next thirty minutes of action: (1) The Hyde versus Mega-Hyde battle, committing possibly the two ugliest characters in the history of celluloid against each other; (2)Mina and Dorian’s sexually charged confrontation, ringing with occasionally chuckle-worthy punnery but mostly caught up in its own ridiculousness (btw, bring a fucking wooden stake, Dorian). (3) Jekyll not really resolving his internal conflict at all and winning by running away (4) Quartermain not killing the villain for no apparent reason despite virtually unlimited time to do so (5) Tom Sawyer heroically shooting the Phantom in the back as he flees. All worthy of more discussion if they weren’t independently hilarious and if it weren’t four in the morning.

MADDEN: All right, let’s sum it up. Good for Victorian literature fans? As long as you’re not too crazy about details. Good for comic junkies? As long as you aren’t looking for Alan Moore’s untouched masterpieces on screen. Good for casual moviegoers who miss the references and just want a straightforward shooter without the frills? Probably not – there’s so many frills the substance gets lost in the mix. That said, there are some laughs, an interesting plot, a cool setting…worth a watch, on the whole. How many BOOMs do I have left?

AL: Three.

MADDEN: BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Okay, fuck it, I’m done, good night.

AL: From Mongolia, this is Al Michaels and John Madden, wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving.

FINAL REVIEW: Two and a half Extraordinary Gentlemen out of four.

--kd

The Historian’s Fallacy, or, Why Bill Belichick Made a Good Call

Before I address the actual focus of this article: The Patriots-Colts matchup was the best game of the year. Better than the Favre Hail Mary against the Niners. Better than that Saints comeback against the Dolphins. Everybody who’s ‘sick of the hype’ should shut the hell up, grab a beer, and enjoy what consistently turns into the most exciting sixty minutes of the regular season (and repeat every year until Peyton Manning is making a living off commercials and bad color commentary).

Onto subjects more pressing: By now, everybody in the country has heard about Bill Belichick’s choice to go for it on 4^th down. Generations to follow will remember it as, ostensibly, the worst choice of his long and distinguished career (well, maybe). But, over the cacophony of emotional reactions from Pats fans everywhere - Irish sports bars erupting in derisive obscenities, agonized elitists throwing their champagne glasses and pocket watches at the television, sunshine patriots waking from their premature slumber to hear their radio’s ill tidings – history and perhaps Gregg Easterbrook will vindicate me in saying:

He made a good call.

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The Historian’s Fallacy (also explained eloquently and somewhat hilariously by the folks over at Cracked), in short, amounts to retrospective decision-making, or more appropriately, Monday morning quarterbacking. The pundits arbitrarily criticizing him for going for it, the same ones that criticize other coaches for not having gone for it when it mattered, are guilty of the Historian’s Fallacy par excellence.

Of course Belichick shouldn’t have gone for it if he knew Faulk would bobble the ball or if he knew they’d be six inches short. Of course he’d punt it away if he somehow accessed a parallel dimension and knew it would have made the definitive difference. But he didn’t; he made the call based on assessing the probability of success against the consequences of failure, and as I’ll show below, he made the rationally sound (even if ultimately ‘incorrect’) decision.

So let’s look at the comparative benefits of the decision, and the drawbacks, doing our best only to use what was theoretically accessible to him at the time.

-If it works, the game is over. Short, sweet, and to the point. If the Pats complete a two-yard slant to a dependable veteran playing the best game of his life, they can roll through the two minute warning, take a knee, and go home with an untouchable lead in the East and a bead on the Colts’ home field advantage. Seriously, two yards. As ESPN’s front-page NFL blogs note, the Patriots have converted on over 63 percent of fourth-and-short opportunities since Brady took over. That’s a phenomenal rate; combined with the fact that Brady and the offense have been rolling all game long, you have to estimate that the rate is, if anything, higher.

-It’s the gutsiest call of the decade. This isn’t an emotional impetus to choose the more ‘heroic’ option – it has some pragmatic benefits. First, let’s assume the play fails. Belichick takes all the heat, while Brady and the defense catch a breather away from the spotlight. As the week unfolds, we’ll see his ‘genius’ label questioned (probably alright for his humility, I guess); ultimately everybody decides he’s somewhere between an inscrutable mastermind and just another human being, and most fans still trust him with the headset. In other words, nothing new happens, and no old questions get answered. Meanwhile, the defense avoids a humiliating barrage of criticism and crushing media pressure, but still get the benefits of Belichick thoroughly working them over to prepare for Drew Brees and the Saints. Second, let’s assume the play succeeds: Belichick earns his reputation for incredibly ballsy and intelligent coaching, adds another footnote to his legend, and nobody in New England second-guesses him again (ever). The defense doesn't get blamed but still needs retooling, so Bill gets to figure out adjustments without harrying questions at every turn. Worth the call on its own? Perhaps not. But certainly tempting when combined with a mathematically favorable choice.

-We were screwed on defense regardless of field position. Peyton Manning just completed an 80-yard drive in six plays and less than two minutes without using a timeout (maybe you remember it – it landed the Patriots in this situation in the first place). He ended up scoring, taking his damn time about it, almost without effort. There’s no feasible way a group of tired, hopelessly cowed defensive backs stops Manning, even if you add 40 yards to the field. Is there really greater than a two-out-of-three chance that the Patriots catch a break in the form of a loose fumble, a dead-duck interception or (exceptionally) bad clock management by Manning? I don’t think so.

-----

There are, of course, potential drawbacks to the decision, which I’ll address point-by-point. I like to think of them being read by Jay Mariotti or Phil Simms (especially Simms – fuck Phil Simms), but you’re free to visualize whoever you want.

“The decision was wrong because it showed a lack of trust in his defense” –ESPN/basically everybody, including Tedi "Still My Favorite Player Even if He's a Fucking Sellout for the Moment" Bruschi, 12:00 onward

The assertion that Belichick showed he had ‘no faith in his defense’ seems to be the most common argument. First – and most obviously – if we assume that that the degree of faith he shows in his squad makes a significant difference, there’s no reason his fourth-down call shouldn’t have fired up his offense enough (or, at the very least, there’s no reason he shouldn’t have believed it would). Every ounce of ‘trust’ he invests in one side trades off with the other. If ‘faith’ is worth forty yards of defense, it’s worth six inches of offense. Second, as mentioned above, we have to assume they deserved that trust before it becomes a sound decision to bet the game on them.

“This breaks every rule of coaching” – ESPN, 2:25 AM

This remark upsets me a bit. Breaking the rules of coaching is not inherently good or bad – yes, those rules (guidelines, if you prefer) are there for a reason, but coaches are alternately praised or jeered for ignoring them only according to their success in doing so, rather than their method or their justification. Plus, convention does not mean success (otherwise, coaches would be rewarded for having no distinguishing features); Belichick is Belichick, he breaks the rules (as Jets fans remind us, sometimes even the actual ones), and he’ll be in the Hall of Fame for it.

“It was a knee-jerk emotional decision that cost them the game.” –ESPN, 2:30 AM

While it would be somewhat cool to imagine Bill Belichick replaced by Harrison Ford, shouting at Offensive Coordinator C-3PO to ‘never tell me the odds’, I view the idea that a seasoned, indubitably successful coach with a history of coldly rational decisions (most of which leave him at odds with fans, and the media, but never his players) suddenly suffered a complete panic attack and gave in to sentimentality with a degree of healthy skepticism. Are we really investing credibility in the idea that Belichick, a man so distant that we collectively question the existence of his soul, decided he wanted a Hollywood ending for the kids? The only reason he even got to that point was clock management – namely, that he mixed up the game clock with his personal countdown timer for the cyborg invasion. Okay, I’ll stop. But this point is ridiculous.

By the way, the idea that Belichick entirely ‘cost them the game’ is out of whack for other reasons. A Lawrence Maroney fumble and a Brady interception, both third-quarter turnovers in the end zone, also killed their chance to put the game out of reach. Peyton Manning playing at the level of Bo Jackson starring in his own video game for most of the fourth quarter probably contributed. Above all, a defense that gave up 35 points to a predictable team with no rushing game is inexcusable.

I don’t want to be accused of denying the opposition their strongest arguments (I’m anything but even-handed, but purely from a self-interested perspective, I don’t like seeing my argumentative credibility compromised). Plus, I’m wicked tired, so I’ll stop here. If you’ve got anything I didn’t address, anything you think I should have looked at, or if you just think I’m wrong and want to re-word Phil Simms’ objections, feel free to post or e-mail me (I’ve always wanted to do a mailbag).

--kd

(ps – Peyton Manning gets my ballot for MVP. Granted, it won’t help him in the postseason when he throws three picks and gets booed at home in the inevitable AFC showdown in January…but that was an incredible performance when it mattered most. Ugh. )

Winter Term Schedule

Well, there's a few weeks left until actual course selection time, but I threw together a schedule based on random whim from the LSA course catalog [1]. Here's my draft:

Polisci 314 - American Political Parties and Electoral Problems
History 322 - The Origins of Nazism
Polisci 389 - Persuasive Politics: Voter, Campaign, and Communication Strategies
French 232 - Fourth Semester French

I'm eager to take everything on here except for French (dreading that one to an extreme, almost desperate degree). I hated French in high school. I still hate it now (admittedly less than taking four semesters of a new language...but it's close).

If any of my readers are also U of M undergrads, comment and let me know your schedule ideas. New and original classes are welcome suggestions.

[1] Fuck it, I can take all liberal arts and not starve - I'll probably end up in law school anyway]

--kd

Pedro's Last Stand

You know the drill. Running journal time...

[Editor's Note: This is not one of FC's more gleeful blog posts. If you want happiness and sunshine, go somewhere else. It was not a pleasant evening in Couzens 5506.]

8:05 – I rush in just in time, returning from a lecture by Cape Town philosophy professor David Benetar. The lecture, entitled “Why Your Life Is So Much Worse Than You Think,” stressed the ultimate failure, disappointment, and suffering in human…hey, the bottom of the inning’s starting, let’s just shut up and watch the game.

8:07 – Pedro gets Jeter, the Old Enemy, to line out hard to left. Bronx fans try to start up three different chants to psyche him out, and end up incoherently shouting mixed obscenities. Pedro smirks and stalls to keep them interested.

8:09 – Johnny Damon, who’s been ‘so hot this World Series’ whiffs on a 2-2 changeup. Tim McCarver’s unfailing predictive analysis does the trick again.

8:11 – Teixeira gets a hold of one and the prospect of hearing Yankee fans erupt in malicious celebration nearly ends this column in the first inning. Thankfully, everybody forgets about the warning track and the inning ends quietly.

8:19 – McCarver notes that the Phillies lefthanded bats “have been neutralized this series”, before recognizing the Chase-Utley shaped elephant in the room and correcting himself. Buck takes care of the awkward silence by shifting the conversation away from anything requiring brain-wracking analysis.

8:21 – Admittedly somewhat worrying fact (ASWF, or ‘The Lefty Keyboard Slammer”): Pedro hasn’t thrown a pitch over 85. Not sure if that just means he’s pacing himself or he’s a sitting duck – I guess we’ll find out.

8:27 – Pedro walks A-Rod on four pitches and gives Matsui a fat pitch on the inside to pull (read: clobber), fortunately foul.

8:34 – ....yep, there it goes.

8:39 – Well, getting out of the inning after that wasn’t so tough, but then again, it’s pretty much just the walk up to the guillotine after the death sentence. Yep, this is what happens to you after a lecture on Schopenhauer.

8:46 – The Phillies get one back on a sacrifice fly. The run support has been pretty pitiful for Pedro in the postseason – almost 2000-era-Red-Sox-esque. This is the stuff six losses with an era under two is made of!

8:51 – Strikeout after the commercial break. Fucking unflappable.

8:53 – Shane Victorino gets lazy and decides not to break his wrist to catch another Jeter frozen rope.

8:59 – Pedro’s pitch count is definitely stacking up. Umpires are merciless. It’s looking like a short evening…or a long one, depending on whether I stick around after the gruesome part.

9:00 – Teixeira gets beaned in the knee for no apparent reason. The wheels are coming off…

9:01 – It’s not really useful to keep statistics for “most X in a postseason” when there are far more games in the postseason. It’s one thing to give Maris the extra eight games over Ruth, it’s another to give a modern player three times as many chances to hit a home run.

9:04 – A-Rod watches a beautiful strike three go by. Two outs.

9:05 – According to Buck, Charlie Manual was looking to replace Pedro with a lefty to face Matsui. Does nobody else in the booth realize that it’s the third inning and that the Phillies don’t have a bullpen that can get three outs, much less nineteen?

9:07 – Nevermind.

9:08 – Well, that’s human endeavor for you. Pitch for a decade and a half in half a dozen cities, put together the best two seasons in baseball history, start writing your Hall of Fame speech…and it still ends in the dugout, getting pulled after three miserable innings with an eighty-mile-an-hour fastball in your personal Ninth Circle of Hell.

9:12 – The Men Who Stare at Goats trailer comes on and provides a brief moment of relief in an existence of pain. Guess a hedonism-based framework for existential happiness works for the moment.

9:15 – Chase Utley strikes out…and the specter of the Will to Live rears its ugly head.

9:19 – In a somewhat bizarre occurrence, the ball gets by Posada, who casually jogs to the backstop to retrieve it. Werth, almost surprised at Posada’s ineptitude, also declines to hustle and only takes second. Not sure who got the raw deal there.

9:24 – In a spectacular show of impotence, the Phillies fail to take advantage of Pettite’s sudden loss of control and ground out weakly to third with two on and two out.

9:27 – Pedro emerges from the dugout for another stretch of what can only be described as peril.

9:32 – Pedro returns to the dugout for a showe – wait, it’s the end of the inning?

9:33 – A 1-2-3 inning of vicious line drives right at fielders never felt so good…at least not since the first inning an hour or so ago.

9:42 – The Phillies ground into another pathetic double play.

9:47 – Pedro doesn’t come out for another inning this time. Well, my comments at 9:08 still stand. Four innings without distinction, no standing ovation, just a gleeful New York Post and a vindictive crowd...

Well, there’s always next year.

--kd

Pedro's Last Stand: Prelude

Well, it's been almost a week since I last posted. Back-to-back tournaments, midterms, a conference paper, and Fate herself have conspired to keep me from my keyboard.

But I'm back. And as the title above suggests, purpose to write has re-emerged just in time.

Tonight might be the last chance to see the greatest pitcher of all time (yes, I went there - I'll go there all night, for that matter). So, watch close, or failing that, return here afterwards for my account interspersed with sentimental/bitter memories.

Depending on how tragic/epic this game is, any recounting may or may not take the form of poetry. You have been so warned.

Back later.

--kd

More Notes on House - and vote for DUDE

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Or something.

Once again, I'm getting sucked into the ongoing season of House, which is something of a worst-case scenario for your productivity when you have every season lined up on your desk ready (and begging) to be rewatched. The old crew of Chase, Cameron, and Foreman is back with a vengeance, definitely feeling more mature than the early seasons and getting more much-deserved screen time...instead of being upstaged on their own show by fucking Taub.

(While I'm driving by, fuck you, Taub. Easily my least favorite character, in retrospect - given how little sympathy he seemed to generate, I wouldn't care much if he left).

Plus, the subplot introduced at the end of the Dibala episode is being brilliantly played (if you haven't followed Immanuel Kant's dictates from last week yet, take the opportunity below to do so). Chase is finally getting exposure as a sympathetic character. Cameron has been admittedly a bit dull and Foreman slightly tyrannical/irritating beyond what's necessary to show character development, but I'm glad just to have them back.

Cuddy and Wilson are consistently funny. The House/Wilson dynamic is explored a bit more, and we're finally seeing chinks in House's sardonic armor (for better or for worse). This should be a good season. Hopefully it doesn't jump the shark for a while...

Not sure how many of people read this, but all the same, if you haven't voted already, go to ideablob.com and vote for Detroit Urban Debate Education.

If you don't, and we lose, let it be on your dark, soulless, warped conscience.

Have a nice day,

--kd

My Bookmarks Tab - or, Obsessions with a dash of House

I spend too much time on the internet. Proof: (1) This paragraph. (2) QED.

But when I'm not caught up in blogospheric narcissism, I keep up on the bizarre melting pot of subculture around me. In a strange way, this blog is itself a product of the wretched hives of scum and villainy around it, a weird amalgamation of freakishly

But before the list, here's the first Immanuel Kant Categorical Imperative of the Week. It's been a while - a long, long while - since I've seen an episode of House on par with James Earl Jones' guest appearance in "The Tyrant". It's got some sweet character subplots (half a dozen of them, actually), a fairly perplexing medical mystery, and (best of all) a superior ethical dilemma for Chase and Foreman to figure out. If your confidence in the show has been flagging of late (mine has, for the record), you are heretofore compelled to watch.

Alright, so, in (somewhat) ascending order, here's what I obsessively keep up with on the internets (links provided for your sycophantic convenience):

10 - Toothpaste for Dinner. Beautifully cynical. Going to college in Michigan has opened me up to Drew's distinctly Midwestern sense of humor. Gems like these just kill me.

9 - The Onion's American Voices section. Bite-size satire at its best.

8 - Cracked. Occasionally brilliant and awesomely addicting. Plan visits to the site's archives in blocks of two hours or more.

7 - Order of the Stick. Dungeons and Dragons and general fantasy gaming parody comic. The site, Giant in the Playground, also has some generally helpful RPG articles.

6 - Bill Simmons, ESPN's Sports Guy. Total Boston hack. Those drinking Patriots haterade may be annoyed, but he's pretty universally funny (especially in twice-monthly mailbags and Vegas running diaries).

5 - Tuesday Morning Quarterback: Legitimately fresh analysis and occasionally sharp satire. The fact that he exclusively covers football and only makes an appearance once a week hurts his position somewhat, but I'll admit that I set aside most of my lunch break on Tuesdays for this.

4 - Garfield Minus Garfield. Perfect mix of existential angst and pathetic hilarity, magnified by how much I loved the original Garfield when I was younger.

3 - Nostalgia Critic. That Guy With the Glasses' best work. Highly addictive archives section, and the "Old versus New" reviews are pure gold.

2 - xkcd. Even liberal arts majors get some of the jokes.

1 - Zero Punctuation. He's British, he talks about video games, he's just fucking funny. This gets me through Wednesdays single-handedly.

Next time on Fifteen Charisma: This one may not come until after the weekend (blog adjournment on account of Wayne State University's debate tournament - although you can faithfully follow Michigan DS' progress here), but eventually I'll get around to more movie reviews and gaming discussion. Also - more philosopher award-naming! I can't wait either.

--kd

Politics and Such - The Tragedy of Olympia Snowe

I meant to post this a bit earlier in the week when it was more politically relevent, but hopefully everybody heard by now about Republican Senator Olympia Snowe's support of the Senate Finance Committee-devised healthcare bill (ie, the modified and oft-maligned Baucus Bill). Conservative backlash against Snowe is astounding; her party refused to support her on an unrelated committee and she's attracting mention as a condemned RINO (Republican in Name Only).

Now, this is hilariously out of proportion. But nothing characterized this as well as a status update I glanced at last Tuesday from a conservative friend, despairing thus: "Snowe, No!" In an equally disproportionate burst of shaedenfreude, I dug up William Shakespeare's perhaps lesser-known work, The Tragedy of Olympia Snowe, and will release more as time goes on and the healthcare debate becomes steadily more ridiculous/close to passage/continues to go nowhere.

Thus I present, Act One, Scene One of the tragedy, featuring the jesters Beck and Limbaugh mourning the sudden breakthrough in progress.

Beck: The vote is in. Sweet Liberty will weep

On hearing of her children, leaving home

And hearth and heaving bosom. Freedom calls,

But Ignorance holds sway in minds of men.

Limbaugh: Hear, hear. The fools are blind. But even sheep

Need shepherding, or wolves in shepherd’s clothes

To spare them Thought, some demon mastermind

In ken of stateliness with treacherous

Intent. I fear a cancer in our ranks.

Something is rotten in the state of Maine.

Beck: Are we betrayed?

Limbaugh: Indeed. Snowe has fallen,

And we must bear the blizzard of her faults.

A bitter chill stings Freedom. Fetch doctors,

While still we can, and hope she lasts the month.

Beck: The volk must be alert. Fetch cameras,

For still we can, and help her last the month.

Let Fact be broadcast, nations reckoning

Returning to the breasts of Liberty.

Great round and welcome orbs, barely restrained

By vestments Lawful, pouring out beneath

The damp t-shirt of Ingenuity.

Limbaugh: You’ve problems of a certain Freudian sort.

But time we’ve not, if word we’re to report

Of villainous deceit, plant buds of Truth

And watch them blossom in the voting booth.

[Exit both.]

Tune in next week when Snowe is confronted by the familiar ghost of another Senator who abandoned his party for his conscience - the Specter of Specter, if you will...

Also, tomorrow's post will feature the first Immanuel Kant Imperative of the Week, as well as some general commentary on House (one of the few shows I will confess to following religiously).

--kd

(Two Plus Two Equals) Five Thoughts for Today

1 - Just got my copy of Alternate Presidents in the mail and tore through it. If you like counter-histories and/or a taste of science fiction, check it out. You will not be disappoint(...ed). Several favorites:

-Ben Franklin becomes president and thoroughly mocks the institution. The piece is written from the perspective of a befuddled and distraught John Adams, and only gets funnier as you realize just how much Ben Franklin Doesn't Give A Shit About Your Problems. (Colonial-period memes are the next big Internets trend, you watch).

-Theodore Roosevelt wins the 1912 election. I actually did a counter-history of my own on this - easily one of the most fascinating scenarios for its effects on the World Wars, twentieth-century environmentalism, and the Great Depression, no matter how you see his third term going. More on this in a later post.

-Michael Dukakis is actually a fucking alien. (I don't think I need to keep talking, do I? Go buy the book, it's like three dollars with shipping).

You will be seeing a substantial amount of counter-historicizing coming from Fifteen Charisma in the future. If I could switch my major to Political Science/Alternate Histories, I would. Excuse me while I schedule an appointment with my counselor. And my psychologist.

2 - A friend of mine at UConn started his own blog, Maximum Overdrive: Expert Musings. Hopefully this guilts him into sharing his readership. At any rate, vindictive and sardonic internet commentators have to stick together, so if you enjoy Fifteen Charisma, I recommend subscribing to MOEM as well.

[Note: Don't be surprised if this area reads "We are at war with Maximum Overdrive. We have always been at war with Maximum Overdrive" at any given strategic interval. In other news, chocolate is being rationed...and I would start talking in Newspeak right now if I was any more of a nerd/was any more clumsy with references.]

3 - I listened to Daft Punk's "Aerodynamic" twelve times on repeat to get myself through an awful essay on Adrastus, star of thirty-odd lines in the Iliad. My head hurts (but it's a beautiful, synthesized hurt). In related news, that shrink needs to move up in my schedule.

4 - Jones Soda Co. continues its trend of excellence. Other than Green Apple (His Noodly Appendage's greatest gift to man), I've tried Grape, Cream Soda, Root Beer, M.F. Grape, Watermelon, and now Cherry. Every one scores somewhere between "awesome" and "glorious nectar of the gods").

Also, every screwcap doubles as a fortune cookie (except for the edibility part...I think). Mine insisted that the tides of change are coming. I have already begun preparations for the coming of Lord Cthulu.

5 - Need help studying for chemistry? Well, I don't, and I love college for that. But if you made the mistake of taking Orgo 231 or find yourself in the School of Engineering with no way to escape, Tom Lehrer is here to help. Even if you're just a liberal arts major with a sick sense of humor, the esteemed Harvard professor has plenty to offer.

Enjoy poisoning pigeons in the park,

--kd

Five reasons to see the Weakerthans in concert

I’ve been waiting to write about this for a while. I took a trip to Detroit (okay, an hour drive, tops) for a concert at the Magic Stick a few weeks ago, accompanied by buddies Mike “Lucky Shot” Bloom and Joe “Hustler” Quist [1]. Here's the best justifications I jotted down (like you need justification other than the Fifteen Charisma Seal of Approval) to see the Weakerthans for yourself:

1. The Audience. Frequently drunk, sometimes boorish, always a joy to be around. When you get a band with a small but loyal following, the folks at the concerts know all the words and aren’t shy to join in on a chorus for “One Great City” (emphasizing the ”I hate Winnipeg” with boistorous glee) They show up early to suffer through three hours of opening acts (fucking seriously, Magic Stick? Three hours?) and wouldn’t let the band leave until a Cat Named Virtute Explained her Departure. And like most of the audience, the band is…

2. Canadian. Very Canadian. Who’d have thunk that our northern neighbors weren’t limited to maple syrup collectors and Mounties? Apparently choosing between depressing cities and a frighteningly cold wasteland can lend some aid to writing music borne out of existential despair. Alright, forgive the overt essentialism, but there’s a certain ineffable Canadian-ness to a setlist that includes songs about curling tournaments, elegies to retired goalies, and odes to the Vancouver bus system. And nobody fits the bill better than…

3. John K. BAMF Samson – this man does it all. He writes the lyrics (each song a short story in itself- more on that below), plays games with the intoxicated crowd, and in one memorable sequence, riffs an extended solo on “Utilities” to bring down the house. He took the stage alone to give the band a break, threw in some acoustic work, and never missed a beat as everybody got back on stage for an absolutely electric “Aside” – yep, that song from the credits in Wedding Crashers. His performance alone was worth the…

4. Ticket price. The band mostly plays at inexpensive venues with general admission – I got mine for a fifteen dollar cover charge and a friend in DC found his for nineteen. As my high school French teacher, the esteemed Patrick Dolan, frequently remarked, “C’est un good deal.” And if that weren’t enough to convince you…

5. Oh, yeah, the music is fucking amazing. Between masterful lyrics (Shakespearean-style sonnets, a nostalgic romp through Antarctica over dinner with Michel Foucault, extended metaphors for embattled love mixed with an Absurd stoicism…) and guitar work that oscillates between the joyful and the haunting, you don’t want to pass these guys up.

Unforgettable experience. Overall? Four Retired Explorers out of four.

--kd

[1] There’s a story behind these. I’ll keep it in the vault for a rainy day, by which time it’ll be hopelessly exaggerated and much more interesting. I'll just say this - if two guys from Michigan challenge you to pool, one sporting a persistent five-o-clock shadow (or on rare occasions, the General Burnsides look) and a Jew-fro, and the other is a lankier Tom Brady lookalike, think carefully before putting money on the line. Just sayin'.

King Arthur (Medieval "History" Double Feature Review Part One)

This is, undoubtedly, Jerry Bruckheimer's finest work. King Arthur, the 2004 sub-Roman biopic, is a masterpiece in philosophical anachronism, seamlessly blending symbolism with action, exposing the parallels between the unlightened Dark Ages and our own hypermodern epoch with only a group of erudite egalitarian Knights between us and the barbaric Saxon hordes. Arthur, a twentieth-century Sartrean, fights side by side with Guinevere, a second-wave feminist, and Lancelot, a rational atheist and rabid skeptic, defending Truth and Meaning from the mindless Germanic masses…

Oh, wait, that's one hundred percent bullshit. This is just an action movie privileged with an awesome myth and burdened by very, very clumsy characterizations.

So...what the hell am I doing reviewing it? I'm not about to take a movie out of the vault to pummel it and tell you why it's not worth watching (except insofar as to emphasize, on a relative scale, just how badly you need to watch Kingdom of Heaven, because you do). So I'll say this much: Despite everything I say in the surrounding paragraphs, this is a movie worth watching. Stop here if you (a) don't want spoilers, trust my advice, and want to see it yourself or (b) you think Jerry Bruckheimer is actually really profound and I'm just missing the point.

First – let’s focus on something positive. This movie is about King Arthur. That’s enough to suck me in; if Hollywood churns out anything tangentially resembling medieval historical fiction (yes, even Timeline) I will probably see it. It’s enough to overcome my extreme dislike of Clive Owen (just as Timeline overcame my dislike of Paul Walker - barely). Sometimes thematic interest coincides with spot-on casting – Robert Downey Jr.’s turn as Sherlock Holmes this December being such an example – but the best King Arthur has to offer is Kiera Knightley and That Guy Who Played Animated Beowulf.

I’ll admit that was somewhat mixed praise. Actually, that was more of a dig than anything. Searching for something positive…

Alright, it’s an interesting take on the Arthur legend. While the movie doesn’t throw out everything (it’s still a round table, even if it has a hole in the middle), it takes a bold risk by recasting Arthur as a Roman officer and the Knights as indentured Sarmatian cavalry. The Arthur origin story is vastly underplayed in favor of jokes about Bors’ twelve bastard children. OK, this tactic actually works, to some degree or another – it gives the remaining knights some backstory and we feel at least somewhat personally attached in the heat of the (lengthy) battles.

A scene that works: The Bishop stops in to the Round Table Room, wonders why there are so few knights (cue a ‘fuck-you’ glare from Clive Owen, one thing he does exceptionally well), then shrugs and assigns them to a potentially fatal quest. We get a solid feel for Arthur’s connection to his men, and the heroes are forced into an uncompromising dilemma. Bravo.

A series of scenes that doesn’t work: Guinevere’s romance with Arthur. This one is puzzling for two reasons: One, it goes off without a hitch, and we get stood up waiting for Lancelot to ruin everything. Two, Lancelot connects better in his scenes with Guinevere (in the director’s cut, anyway) – why is she with Arthur in the first place? The Arthur-Guinevere interaction consists of Arthur fixing her knuckles and Guinevere making him philosophically uncomfortable. There’s nothing that can be called flirting, and then – wait, they’re having sex? What the fuck?

Speaking of which – Lancelot’s character gets the shaft. He’s vastly more intriguing than Arthur, overcomes the Gandalf Problem* with ease, goes back and forth with Guinevere, and still dies without much meaning or excitement beyond Clive Owen’s exasperated (and somewhat underwhelming) mourning. Come on, I want an affair (don’t take that out of context, future mudslingers)…the movie had a great external conflict but little infighting between the Knights.

Finally – the main issue. For a movie obsessed with historical accuracy, bragging about ‘recent archaeological evidence’ and ‘untold stories’ about the Super-Real Historically Indubitable Arthur, there was little to differentiate it from other Arthur stories outside of (a) the absence of Merlin’s wizardry and (b) the way the movie begs to be taken seriously by way of gritty violence and angsty philosophical clashes. I’ll leave the historical anachronisms to better researchers (TV tropes did a real number on it here). The dialogue, though, shouldn’t be excused. I’ve seen deeper discussions of ‘fate versus free will’ in high school literature classes; Arthur seems obsessed with the concept, almost peculiarly so. Nobody else really seems to give a shit, almost like they’re humoring his philosophical hobby, and Merlin only mentions it to grind his gears. It’s faintly absurd that Arthur is orating on the importance of seizing destiny and being free from the moment of birth; everybody around him isn’t so much opposed to the concept as completely befuddled. He frees the serfs at Marius’ estate, but they end up just being refugees and serving on somebody else’s estate until the Black Plague hits in another thousand years.

Lancelot is the only other character that betrays any abstract thought, but most of it is sadly undeveloped reactionary atheism. Guinevere doesn’t really chat about women’s rights, but nobody’s surprised (let alone protests) when she decides to fight. It seems like the three of them were dropped out of the twentieth century into fifth-century Roman England and have no idea how to blend in.

Some stabs at meaning are better than none, I suppose. At least Michael Bay didn't direct the defining Arthur movie of the decade, or we'd have Merlin blowing shit up with his staff and facing down a zombie Uther Pendragon for the fate of England.

--kd

(Maybe) Next Week’s Movie Review: Fifteen Charisma completes its Medieval Double Feature with the substantially more awesome Kingdom of Heaven.

*The Gandalf Problem: Best expounded upon by the Tolkien Sarcasm Page’s review of the original LOTR (a highly recommended and hilarious read, but drop down to number 6 if you’re in a hurry…which you’re obviously not if you’re reading this blog), this phenomenon occurs when one character narrates virtually all of the backstory or gets saddled with the key set-up monologue. It (unfortunately) results in a zero-sum tradeoff with their character development and leaves them with a sad shell of their potential personality.

Upcoming material

Welcome to the under-construction Fifteen Charisma. Since you've already gotten sucked into reading this, here's some fair warning on what's ahead over the next few weeks.

[SRS] = How Seriously You Should Take This Category of Posts

Movie Reviews. [SRS: 'not very' to 'somewhere in the middle'. I like my movies, but my rationale for liking and disliking them is not always immediately recognizable. I enjoyed Constantine but not No Country for Old Men.]

Music. [SRS? Not very - I have eclectic tastes. My favorite artists are a Canadian folk-punk group, a British New Wave metal band...and Rush.]

(Yes, if you're wondering, the point of these examples is to destroy my credibility before I can build it back up again. Good insight.)

Sports. [SRS?: Inversely proportional to your distance from Boston, MA].

Politics. [SRS? Directly proportional to the degree to which you agree with me.]

Local Cuisine. [SRS? Only if math metaphors make you frustrated and hungry.]

Gaming. [SRS? If you have a vague sense for where the title comes from, or if you just rolled to save against a Confusion spell, you might be a good candidate for reading these.]

Things to Watch Out For:

-Fascism. Despite my general political sympathies and cool-mindedness, I suffer from bouts of literary neurosis and occasional posts may consequently devolve into hyperbolic proto-authoritarian rants. [Remember, fascism is in all of us. It's our duty to root it out by whatever violent and obsessive means possible.]

-Sonnets. Those more free-verse inclined
Ought not read on; here's only rhyme
And reason, subject to maligned
Tetrameter. [Think it a crime?
The comments section calls for truth.
(read here: obscenities uncouth.)]
Contradictions, here explicit
Must be excused. My illicit
Deal with Structure, Verse's Devil,
Might just be worth a slice of soul
To make a half-coherent whole
Absent Shakespeare's diction. Revel
In the challenge: It's worked for me,
To one or other small degree.

Also beware:

-Lists that go on longer than originally planned and devolve into poetry.

-Posts dictating how seriously you should take something.

First posts coming this week. Stay tuned.

--kd