The Blob, harbinger of theocracy

I don't think I've ever seen this (sort of famous) monster-from-outer-space movie. Apparently a recent book by Jeff Sharlet connects it with a shadowy world of theocratic fundamentalism, Cold War anti-communism and American neo-imperialism. Rudy Nelson, who worked on the film, thinks Sharlet makes some good points but that he's wrong about The Blob (and some other things).

Well, I haven't seen it, and this kind of thing is not exactly in my purview. It's more B-Movie Catechism territory (although The Blob might be too upscale for his tastes...!) Anyways, I'll just leave you with this amusing quote from Nelson's article:

But now it was high time for us to fill a serious scripting gap. We knew how the film would end (for sure, not by blowing up the town). An Air Force cargo plane would drop the frozen, cut-up carcass over the Arctic ice cap. But as yet we had not written any closing dialogue for the main characters. We decided on a line for Dave, the chief of police, the voice of official authority: "I don't think it can be killed, but at least we've stopped it." That didn't quite do it. No one said anything for a moment or two. Then, in a rare moment of inspiration, I suggested a closing line for Steve McQueen: "As long as the Arctic stays cold." The term "global warming" hadn't yet entered the environmental lexicon, nor had any of us entertained the thought that the Arctic would ever be anything but a solid ice pack. But there you are. My chief claim to Blob Immortality over the years has always been that I wrote that prescient last line. And since I was (as you may recall) Third Assistant Director in Charge of Daily Script Revision, who is out there to argue the point? I rest my case.

Morality play

I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight. It wasn't perfect, but I do think it was the best super-hero movie I've ever seen, for a variety of reasons. The most important one, I think, is that the film makers understood that the powerful driver of super-hero stories, the thing that raises them above colourful sound and fury, is morality. They're about people making tough moral distinctions and choices. These people are bigger than us, and the choices are bigger, too, more noble or more evil, but that's so that we can see them better. They're archetypal, mythically resonant: the White Knight, the Dark Knight, but especially the Joker, who here has no real origin story and who wreaks havoc on a scale which is strictly speaking not believable. But that's to be expected, because he's not a human criminal - he's a malign trickster god, a blend of Coyote, Loki and Satan.

But to drive home the point that this is about all of us, not just heroes and their decisions, the key moral victory takes place within groups of ordinary people. The setup leading to their dilemma seemed a bit contrived, but in the context of a superhero story, that's OK too.

The film drew on the insights and highlights of older Batman stories without sticking with any particular version or becoming too cliched. I think I saw elements of The Long Halloween, The Killing Joke, Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, and there were doubtless others. People have been talking about this movie a lot, and I expect it will be continue to be talked about for a long time to come. I have a feeling we'll be seeing lots of essays and theses on this one.

Tidbits

1. Rose, over at Refracted Light, has reviewed Jay Lake's Mainspring. She objects to the crazy monkey sex section (take that, search engines!), which did strike me as one of the weaker parts of the book, because it was somewhat gratuitous. And yes, you should take "monkey" literally - there is an intelligent apewoman involved. It reminded me of the interspecies stuff in one of the Ringworld books.

2. I finally got around to watching Sunshine. I didn't like it as much as Gabriel did. It had many striking visual moments, some interesting ideas, and I generally liked the actors.* But it couldn't seem to make up its mind: should it be a thoughtful, innovative sf film, with an indie vibe? You know, something off the beaten track. Or should it aim to be the stereotypical, nonsensical Hollywood blockbuster action movie featuring the painfully hackneyed villain who just won't die? The first half chose the first option, but the second half devolved into a clash between the indie vibe and the blockbuster. The blockbuster kept winning out until finally I reached the heckling, eye-rolling stage. I wished the sun would die, just so the movie would be over. But check out the well-written SF Gospel review, which points out some of the intriguing aspects of the film.

*Nice to see some real ethnic diversity, including the psychologist played by Cliff Curtis. Though (as usual) the white characters survived longer than the non-white ones. Sigh. It's like non-white characters are redshirts.

Next time, don't let medievalists anywhere near your terrible "medieval" movies

Got Medieval, (a medievalist), reviews Kingdom of Heaven. And it is funny:

"Orlando does get knighted, and he acquires a rival in the person of Guy of somewhere-or-other, a snooty French Templar who's in line for the throne of Jerusalem. We know Guy is a bad person, because he's rude and French and talks about God a lot. In fact, anytime anyone talks about God a lot in the movie, they're bad. Orlando, who is struggling with religious doubt brought on by the death of his wife and child, is good, but not really very good at making you understand that he's struggling with religious doubt unless he says outright, "I'm struggling with religious doubt," but he does say it, so don't worry. Then his dad dies, and they all decide to go see his lands in Jerusalem.

...it only gets worse when the Archbishop of Jerusalem instructs people, fearing they're all about to be captured, to 'covert to the heathen faith and repent later'. This is supposed to show that he's a craven fake, but not five minutes ago when Orlando was telling us, 'all religions are bunk,' we were supposed to see him as a champion of "the people" and a crack theological thinker."

Read the whole thing! His remarks on Orlando Bloom's macho-speech-giving abilities are priceless. He somehow found the time to also review Beowulf, and even the Footwear in Beowulf. I particularly liked this part:

"I put the blame mostly on Neil Gaiman, because he has a solid track record for taking well-worn cliche's, stock characters, and stale plots, adding some black-eyeliner, and calling it Deep, Dark, and Meaningful. He thinks that he's some sort of revolutionary for making a movie where the evil woman is a slinky seductress and the virtuous woman is an ice queen."

Yes! It's true! Thank you!

[via the Sci-Fi Catholic]

I Am Legend

I saw I Am Legend last week. I've never read the book, so I didn't really know what to expect. It was pretty good, though not great. And whadya know, it contained religious imagery. It became particularly noticeable near the end. Now, I can imagine you saying: "You must have been happy to find a relevant topic to blog about!"

Well... The religious themes struck me as rather heavy-handed. In fact, near the end one is fairly beaten over the head with it. I don't want to give anything away (just watch for posters, crosses, churches, and characters talking about God and having epiphanies.) I've checked, and apparently this material was not in the original book. An uncharitable interpretation would be that A) the moviemakers didn't know how to wrap up their story, so they introduced a deus ex machina, and B) that they wanted to cash in on the 'Christian market' that Hollywood discovered after The Passion of The Christ did so well.*

The charitable explanation would be that the filmmakers were merely tapping into widely known, archetypal religious stories (like the trials of Job, and the self-sacrificing Saviour) to give their story more symbolic resonance. I suppose one could argue that point of view. Overall, I do think the movie was worth watching.

But I still think there's a difference between the judicious use of evocative symbols on the one hand, and religious product placement on the other.

*Maybe it's a conspiracy theory, but it does help explain the clunky religious imagery in recent movies like Superman Returns. And I recall getting a pretty blatant e-mail that was doing its darndedest to market the latest Rocky movie to churches... and I've heard that they wanted to do the same thing with Rambo. Rambo! RAMBO!!! What hath Rambo to do with Jerusalem?! (This is a rhetorical question. The only answer I'll accept is "Nothing at all, sir!")

Mini-mini reviews

Black Snake Moan - Heavily concerned with morality and religion, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the graphic sex, violence and cussin'. I think it was trying to say something subversive (subversive to modern culture, that is) about how we need to be freed from ourselves in order to be saved.

"Murder in the Flying Vatican" - An enjoyable novella by Albert E. Cowdrey, found in the August issue of The Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy. It's a murder mystery, set aboard an orbital monastery which is dedicated to a mish-mash of Eastern faiths. Other religions make cameo appearances. Some clever observations. It is set in a future time in which the United States is mostly a blasted desert, and 'The Christian Era' is viewed as ancient history.

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Third Annual Collection contains at least three interesting religiously-themed stories: "A Case of Consilience" by Ken MacLeod, "Deus ex homine" by Hannu Rajaniemi, and "Angel of Light" by Joe Haldeman. I've discussed the first story here already. The second concerns people who can attain a sort of godhood when their personal technology runs out of control. Of course these new gods are immensely dangerous to everyone else, and must be stopped. The story seems to be asking the question: "Is divinity simply a matter of power, or is it some moral quality?" The third is about a religious man living in a future enclave of "Chrislam," who finds an old science fiction magazine. I seem to recall Arthur C. Clarke speculating about "Chrislam" as well. It doesn't strike me as very plausible, but who knows. The collection also contains Gene Wolfe's "Comber," and a story by Ian MacDonald entitled "Little Goddess," which I didn't read.

Storm Front, by Jim Butcher: Harry Potter meets The Maltese Falcon. Harry Dresden, private dick, undergoes all the trials and tribulations a film noir hero must, except in this case he's a wizard, too. Very entertaining. I recall reading an article somewhere about how 'film noir'-style detective stories are essentially about a lone existentialist hero making moral choices in an amoral world where authority and society can't be trusted. There's a lot to that interpretation, actually, and it comes through in this book. It makes sense to me that later volumes in the series portray a friendly Christian as a supporting character, as Mir reports, because in this book at least Butcher is very much concerned with morality. I think he'd be somewhat sympathetic to traditional Christian ethics.

Nine Parts of Desire, by Geraldine Brooks: A disturbing and educational look into the worlds of Muslim women. All the more disturbing because Brooks tries hard to be even-handed and show both sides of the story.