A-mop-bop-a-loo-bop
The music video "Tea Partay"
with its preppy upper class youth and their pearly whites makes a great
start for a Friday. Although I can't help but wonder what Paul Fussell
(the author of "Class") or the good doctor Theodore Dalrymple
would say about this video. Being able to ironically laugh at
underclass mannerisms is a signal that shows that you don't have to
worry about having to endure them for real in your life.
Speaking of signaling, I read the original graphic novel "A History of Violence" that the movie that I haven't seen yet (but will probably watch it when the Movie Network plays it) was based on. The back cover of this book first shortly explains the story that I guess everybody is familiar by now just from the trailer, and then goes to explain who were in the movie and what awards the movie got and how the critics received it. This particular form of signaling that can be seen in any book that has been later turned into a movie has always been bit of a mystery to me. Maybe such totemistic assurances really make most people more comfortable to buy an otherwise unknown book. Who knows.
The book itself started pretty weak and the artwork was amateurish and sketchy at best, but then it rapidly picked up and I devoured it enthusiastically all the way to the end. Now, based on the criticism that I have read about the movie, I would guess that the movie actually depicts only the part one of the total of three parts of this book, with perhaps some additional sex scenes and character development added. This would actually make sense to me, since the budget of the movie would at least triple if it had fully featured part two, the backstory of why the gangsters are chasing Joey. Those who have both seen the book and read the movie, is my guess correct?
"Road to Perdition" is another graphic novel that was later turned into a movie. For the little that I remember about this movie, it follows the original story closely enough, with only a couple of minor changes such as adding Jude Law's character and leaving out Eliot Ness, and having the main villain go down in bullets instead of being sent to prison. (Movies would apparently seem to need more concrete conclusions than other forms of media.) The main character of the graphic novel also doesn't look anything like Tom Hanks, but is more like young Warren Beatty, as in that Bonnie and Clyde movie. The artwork is much nicer than in History of Violence, and even though the characters have obviously been drawn from human models and photographs, they fit the background art so well that the result doesn't look silly.
"Human Target" was a DC comic book about a hero who can perfectly disguise himself as any person who he is hired to protect. I find it hard to suspend my disbelief about how one man could impersonate people of various heights and sizes convincingly, but Batman also seems to pull this off all the time and besides, cartoon characters seem to have great difficulties in seeing through of even the flimsiest of disguises, as Superman by his existence continues to demonstrate. The nineties TV show tie-in Human Target comics were probably very different from the 1999 graphic novel "Human Target" published in the Vertigo series. I do have to wonder if there is a more hackneyed and tired cliche than a beautiful and deadly female superassassin who runs around dressed in leather or sexy underwear, though. Something for the female readers to identify with, I guess.
But we can forget such little annoyances. I am constantly amazed how much better superhero comics are these days compared to what they used to be two decades ago. For those of my readers who don't read comics, maybe I shall describe the difference between, say, the old Avengers comic books (if Marvel Comics ever created a superhero team less interesting, I don't even want to hear about it) and The Ultimates as being about the same as the difference between the Adam West Batman television series and the movie Batman Begins. (The one line "You shouldn't have made me feel small" alone does it.) What an age of miracles we get to live in.
The 1999 graphic novel "Batman: Fortunate Son" contrasts the stern attitude of Batman against the pseudorebellion of rock'n'roll and especially punk rock, which Batman really despises. The part told in flashback where young Bruce Wayne encounters punk rock for the first time by meeting a Sid Vicious pastiche who is depicted as the animalistic underclass loser brute who stands at the end of the road of trendy nihilism that punks aspire to walk on to be is almost like something out of Theodore Dalrymple's essays, Tommi's old post about rock "rebellion" that I translated in my post "Naughty or nice?" or Robert Sheaffer's book "The Resentment Against Achievement", which I reviewed in my post "Just living in the moment like a real human being". When the mentally ill rocker goes down in a hail of police bullets, making one punk to wake up to the reality and ask if he is dead, Batman punches the punk and shouts "Dead! Like you should be!" There's plenty more where he came from.
Speaking of signaling, I read the original graphic novel "A History of Violence" that the movie that I haven't seen yet (but will probably watch it when the Movie Network plays it) was based on. The back cover of this book first shortly explains the story that I guess everybody is familiar by now just from the trailer, and then goes to explain who were in the movie and what awards the movie got and how the critics received it. This particular form of signaling that can be seen in any book that has been later turned into a movie has always been bit of a mystery to me. Maybe such totemistic assurances really make most people more comfortable to buy an otherwise unknown book. Who knows.
The book itself started pretty weak and the artwork was amateurish and sketchy at best, but then it rapidly picked up and I devoured it enthusiastically all the way to the end. Now, based on the criticism that I have read about the movie, I would guess that the movie actually depicts only the part one of the total of three parts of this book, with perhaps some additional sex scenes and character development added. This would actually make sense to me, since the budget of the movie would at least triple if it had fully featured part two, the backstory of why the gangsters are chasing Joey. Those who have both seen the book and read the movie, is my guess correct?
"Road to Perdition" is another graphic novel that was later turned into a movie. For the little that I remember about this movie, it follows the original story closely enough, with only a couple of minor changes such as adding Jude Law's character and leaving out Eliot Ness, and having the main villain go down in bullets instead of being sent to prison. (Movies would apparently seem to need more concrete conclusions than other forms of media.) The main character of the graphic novel also doesn't look anything like Tom Hanks, but is more like young Warren Beatty, as in that Bonnie and Clyde movie. The artwork is much nicer than in History of Violence, and even though the characters have obviously been drawn from human models and photographs, they fit the background art so well that the result doesn't look silly.
"Human Target" was a DC comic book about a hero who can perfectly disguise himself as any person who he is hired to protect. I find it hard to suspend my disbelief about how one man could impersonate people of various heights and sizes convincingly, but Batman also seems to pull this off all the time and besides, cartoon characters seem to have great difficulties in seeing through of even the flimsiest of disguises, as Superman by his existence continues to demonstrate. The nineties TV show tie-in Human Target comics were probably very different from the 1999 graphic novel "Human Target" published in the Vertigo series. I do have to wonder if there is a more hackneyed and tired cliche than a beautiful and deadly female superassassin who runs around dressed in leather or sexy underwear, though. Something for the female readers to identify with, I guess.
But we can forget such little annoyances. I am constantly amazed how much better superhero comics are these days compared to what they used to be two decades ago. For those of my readers who don't read comics, maybe I shall describe the difference between, say, the old Avengers comic books (if Marvel Comics ever created a superhero team less interesting, I don't even want to hear about it) and The Ultimates as being about the same as the difference between the Adam West Batman television series and the movie Batman Begins. (The one line "You shouldn't have made me feel small" alone does it.) What an age of miracles we get to live in.
The 1999 graphic novel "Batman: Fortunate Son" contrasts the stern attitude of Batman against the pseudorebellion of rock'n'roll and especially punk rock, which Batman really despises. The part told in flashback where young Bruce Wayne encounters punk rock for the first time by meeting a Sid Vicious pastiche who is depicted as the animalistic underclass loser brute who stands at the end of the road of trendy nihilism that punks aspire to walk on to be is almost like something out of Theodore Dalrymple's essays, Tommi's old post about rock "rebellion" that I translated in my post "Naughty or nice?" or Robert Sheaffer's book "The Resentment Against Achievement", which I reviewed in my post "Just living in the moment like a real human being". When the mentally ill rocker goes down in a hail of police bullets, making one punk to wake up to the reality and ask if he is dead, Batman punches the punk and shouts "Dead! Like you should be!" There's plenty more where he came from.
I watched part of an episode of SuperTramp, err, Smallville, last night.
It was the episode with the 10 or so YO girl who has the power to control glass, which she inherited from her father.
It was pushing the message that males are evil but also that you have nothing in common with your relatives, even your father, and so you should support other people's interests, not your own genetic interests ...
Posted by Loki on the run | 1:05 PM
A-wop-bam-boom!
Sorry, know it's totally irrelevant, but couldn't help it; you triggered my reflex.
Posted by Acksiom | 4:54 AM
To make up for it, I'll say a very sincere "Thank you" to LOTR, for sparing me from the tooth-grinding annoyance I might have experienced from watching such misandrist, femelitist trash.
Honestly. I really am very glad that I'm not the only person out there who can see the male-hating female-chauvanist forest for the 'oh-lighten-up-it's-just-a-tv-show' trees.
Posted by Acksiom | 4:59 AM