All of this is prologue of course. Let’s fast forward about 2,000 years. The year is 632 CE and a man named Muhammad ibn `Abdullāh (Peace be upon him) has died. His adherents call him the Messenger and / or Prophet (his youngest wife might have had other opinions, but again… another article). His greatest work (though never a New York Times Bestseller) is called the Qur’an but he can’t take full credit since he was really just a stenographer for the angel Jibrīl (i.e., Gabriel) over twenty-three years. Talk about a hand cramp! Apparently gods and angels can’t write their own stuff. Raining hellfire, flooding the world, and raising the dead are no problem… applying quill to parchment however, not in their bag of tricks. *shrug* Anyway, as a messenger of Allah, the Prophet is highly venerated (see Shahadah). Soon, the tradition (i.e., hadith) was adopted that his image should never be displayed for fear of it encouraging idolatry; he is after all, just a messenger. It is worth noting that this prohibition does not appear in the Qur’an. Fair enough… for a society that believes in all that. Fast forward another 1,300 some years and people are threatening death to anyone who draws a stick-figure Prophet. What happened?

I don’t want to use this article to bash Islam. I have a lot of friends that are Muslim. That being said, every religion has its nut-jobs. These are usually people who have clung to a particular idea or passage to the exclusion of all other evidence and ideas. You can’t judge all Protestants based on the rantings and pyrotechnic picnics of the Ku Klux Klan. I get that. What I don’t get (or accept) is any group that dictates what I can and cannot do, so long as no else is harmed. If you’re insulted, too bad. There’s a little thing called “free speech” (in the United States at least) that trumps your fragile sensibilities. Another thing I don’t get is the indignation and animosity generated by depictions of the Prophet, whether respectful or otherwise (see Everybody Draw Mohammed Day). The irony here is delicious. Many Muslim groups don’t want images created of Muhammad for fear of creating an idol, but in the process have imbued such power and passion into all images of the Prophet that they’re willing to kill in his name (Peace be upon him). Welcome to Islamic quality control.

As the world community grows and the influence of cultures come into contact like a global Peep Joust, there will be more and more of these conflicts. Islam is currently the fastest growing religion in the world (PBS’s “Islam Today” claimed over 1.2 billion followers in 2010), almost 1 out 4 people on the planet. Whether they admit it or not, those that take offense to images of Muhammad are imbuing them with power and meaning, thereby creating the same idols that their traditions forbid. Do not take that fact lightly. According to the Bible, the tribes of Abraham swept into Canaan in the 15th century BC and slaughtered untold thousands in the name of their god, carrying before them the ark of the covenant, the earthly representation of Jehovah’s will. For the time period, this was an extraordinarily bloody campaign. As the centuries advanced, so have the zeroes on the body count… When the next holy war erupts, don’t be surprised if one or more zeroes are added. So what should we do? Moses was on the right track, if not a little self-serving. We need to undermine the power of idols. “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” was a good step in that direction. Maybe an “Everybody Draw Zombie Jesus Day” would be a good follow-up? When they’re able to dismiss these demonstrations as trivial, the power and threat of their images will be diluted. It’s a small win but even small battles are worth winning.

“Religion is the greatest idolatry of all time and, in many ways, the most dangerous also.” – Diarmund O’Murchu

Dream stories always risk being cliché. Blurring the boundaries of reality and dream is one of the oldest tropes: “The Wizard of Oz” (1939),  “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984), “Brazil” (1985), “Newhart” (1990), and many antecedents, e.g. “A Christmas Carol” (1843). What sets “Inception” apart from the crowd is that from the outset, it defines the mechanics of dreaming and then goes nuts within the parameters of that sandbox. Not satisfied with the trope of a character that wakes from dreaming uncertain whether he’s still asleep, “Inception” involves dreams within dreams within dreams within dreams (within dreams?).  While this might sound silly (and to a large extent, it is) the rules set forth at the beginning of the movie are followed throughout. Complicating things further, each subsequent layer / depth of dreaming allows for an exponential dilation of the passage of time.  In other words, in the time it takes for a van to fall off a bridge, a dreamer could live a lifetime embedded within a handful of nested dreams. Despite a dizzying amount of action, the events remained internally consistent. Even the soundtrack to the movie (based on “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien“) can be used as a metronome to determine what level of dreaming the action is taking place. Kudos for that! As usual, I got wrapped-up in the story and after a while stopped looking for problems. Which isn’t to say there weren’t problems, just that I didn’t see them (admit to them) until they were pointed out to me… *sigh*

In summary, “Inception” was an enjoyable movie that left me thinking, not about anything particularly deep but about the effort and execution of a well-planned, complex story. I think if other fantasy movie-makers took the effort to plan-out and clean-up their stories from the beginning, we wouldn’t leave theaters disappointed quite so often. A movie worth seeing.

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – Carl Jung

4 out of 5

Not everything about the movie sucked. It actually started pretty good. The acting was good (given what they had to work with). The resulting “monster” looked like it had stepped out of the video-game Half-Life or possibly the Skyrealms of Jorune. The animation was good (not fantastic, but good… no real CGI innovations here). Dren’s early reactions were interesting (observing things monocularly always looks odd). It looked like all the elements were there for an enjoyable, if not good movie. Then, things, changed.

Maybe things changed before I realized it. Maybe I “accepted” too many leaps (logic, story, believability) before realizing that the whole story was silly. It could have been the ability to knit together the DNA of several animals into a viable chimera without first amassing a bloody pile of horrific miscarriages… It could have the strange morphological changes (eyes migrated from the side of her head) in Dren as she grew to accommodate the actress that played the final creature… It could have been the anatomical “surprises” evident in Dren (and her slug precursors Fred & Ginger) despite being subject to x-rays, MRIs, &c… There were a number of problems and most were evident DURING the movie… not as “way-homers“. Perhaps my biggest complaint was the ending. How does a movie with a good amount of promise turn into a B horror movie? The movie should have ended with the vat… As the scientists shut the barn door, believing the monster to be vanquished, the camera should have panned down through the murky liquid and found eggs. I know that sounds a little “Species” (1995), but it would have been better than the Bat Boy ending that we got. In summary, the slugs were best part of the movie.

“Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.” – Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

2.5 out of 5

Now, before I go too much further, I should point out that Iron Man has always been one of my favorite (if not THE favorite of my) comic books. I write about a lot of things on this blog that I’m not an expert on (not even close!) but I’m very familiar with the Iron Man canon (post-Tales of Suspense, pre-Bendis retcon). I have an Iron Man #1 (1968) which I cherish above all my other comics (which is to say: it is rarely touched by photons); I also have read nearly every Iron Man issue from 1968 through 2009 (even though many were reprints). That being said, there was no chance in Hell that I was going to miss seeing the movie on opening weekend, especially after the great job they did with the first one. We found seats toward the back of the theater (the place was packed) and waited for the lights to go down. After some forgettable trailers, the movie started, and my excitement died soon after.

Where to begin? The Iron Man Dancers (you probably saw them in the movie trailer) were ridiculous. I understand they were meant to be evidence of Tony’s inflated ego, but they looked more like the cheerleaders from “BASEketball” (1998). Why would Tony build a suit (the War Machine prototype stolen by Rhodes) with a self-contained power-source when just a few scenes before he was claiming that the armor was more of a prosthesis (powered by his arc reactor heart)? The use of a prototype of Captain America’s shield to align a particle accelerator? *sigh* The creation of a new element: Unobtanium was lame, why go that route again (too soon!)? It would have been so much more believable if the City of Tomorrow infrastructure showed Tony a way to properly shield his body from the palladium (Pd) (that was poisoning him), rather than give him a blueprint for a new element (that could be synthesized in his basement). And finally (though there were more) his deus ex machina laser lance that ended the movie’s penultimate battle in a decidedly un-Iron Man way (pre-Secret Wars); I guess the uni-beam isn’t flashy enough anymore? Also appearing was Mickey Rourke (enjoying a Hollywood resurgence in a series of brutish roles) as a Russian version of the villain Whiplash (not canon, but no problems there). Scarlett also put in a commendable performance as super-spy assassin Black Widow. I’m sure much of her acrobatics were computer generated but it was still nice seeing her wrap her thighs around the heads of half a dozen men (even if she did proceed to snap their necks). Sometimes you just need to thankful for what you get get!

All told, “Iron Man 2″ is an action packed movie and plenty of fun. Lower your expectations a bit before you find a seat and make sure to stay through the credits for a tiny preview of what’s coming next…

“If you could make God bleed, people will cease to believe in Him. There will be blood in the water, and the sharks will come.” – Ivan Vanko

3.5 out of 5

I originally toyed with the idea of creating a Top 10 favorite songs list but the more I wrestled with it, the more I was convinced that it couldn’t be done. I like too many songs. Instead, I’m going to write about those songs that I’ve given a 5-stars rating in iTunes. What does 5-stars mean? I give 3-stars to songs that I don’t mind listening to. I give 4-stars to songs that I enjoy (would listen to more than once, in a sitting). I give 5-stars to songs that stand out, for one or more reasons. These might be particularly evocative, reminding me of some time or place in my past. They might be very upbeat, with a reliable track-record of being able to lift me from whatever funk I might be in. They might be terribly downbeat, with the ability to bring me back to center when jumping around just doesn’t seem appropriate. Whatever personal or magical reason it might be, some songs just overshadow the rest. For me, Thomas Dolby‘s 1983 hit “Europa and the Pirate Twins” is one of those songs.

I’m not a huge fan of pop music. Growing up in the Eighties, I promised myself I wouldn’t look back in the years to follow and get all nostalgic about the crap spilling out of the radio and MTV. That being said, not everything was crap. “Europa and the Pirate Twins” hit a chord with me early on. Here was a song about childhood friends growing-up, going their separate ways, and never being able to reclaim the imaginative adventures they once shared as children. To me, this was a song about the death of youth’s insouciance. I used to listen to it again and again on my Walkman as I mowed the backyard, reluctant to let go of the only life I’d known, and terrified that my imagination would wither with age. Were my fears justified? In some ways, yes. In other respects, I can’t remember a time when I was carefree. At least I still have my friends.

“We swore a vow that day: We’ll be the Pirate Twins again…”

5 out of 5

The story is pretty straight forward. Teenage boy decides to make a costume and fight crime. He has no training and gets the shit beat out of him, repeatedly. Through a particularly bad mishap, he gains the “super power” of not being able to feel pain as much as he should… which basically means he can fight longer and get beaten-up even more! Not the super power I would wish for, but if you’re going to get beaten up on a regular basis, a high pain threshold isn’t such a bad thing! During the course of his patrols, he crosses paths with a father-daughter duo who actually have training and weapons, and is shamed by how well the “pros” handle themselves. His superhero misadventures continue, eventually culminating in a grand mêlée with the army of a crime boss. A great deal of blood, broken bones, maiming, and death later… and it’s a wrap! But, is it any good…

The movie is filled with mildly funny scenes and memorable (short-term memory) fights. I wouldn’t expect more than that from a movie titled “Kick-Ass”. While the hand-to-hand fight scenes are brutal, most of the gore is candy red. Having been desensitized to movie violence (like most of us) the fights didn’t bother me a bit. The only thing that was disturbing was when the tables were turned on Hit-Girl. Here’s an 11-year old girl that can purée a roomful of armed opponents like Rambo on crack, but when she’s finally forced to suffer a few blows from her adult adversaries your brain inevitably takes a mental back-step and protests “Hey, that big guy is beating-up on a little girl!” Then you remember that the hallways are littered with the shattered bodies of her foes and you try to convince yourself that she deserves this… but… but… kind of disturbing. Overall, the movie is enjoyable but never rises to the level of other superhero success stories, e.g., “Spider-Man”, “Iron Man” (2008), “The Dark Knight” (2008). In summary, Kick-Ass is worth seeing but paying for the big screen experience is debatable.

“With no power comes no responsibility.”

3.5 out of 5

From the beginning of the book, the eventual outcome is handed to the reader in an open box. The story doesn’t succeed or fail on the reader’s ability to predict the outcome. From the start, it is a foregone conclusion that this can’t end well. Charlie’s predecessor, a lab mouse named Algernon, has undergone the same surgery and improved remarkably. Encouraged by these preliminary results, the scientists rush to find a suitable human subject for a one man clinical trial. Charlie’s intellectual ascent is temporary. The only questions are how fast and how high will Charlie’s intelligence climb before his inevitable descent. Does that ruin the story? It didn’t for me. I knew that much before picking up the book. What I didn’t expect was a science fiction story that delved into the thoughts, emotions, and prejudices of people more than the technology. This is actually the best possible use of science fiction and fantasy stories. Too much concentration on technology (or magic) is usually a sign that the story is lacking. “Flowers for Algernon” doesn’t fall into that rut. I’m also pleased that Keyes didn’t submit to editors’ suggestions that he mainstream the ending. At one point the author even returned a publisher’s advance rather than debase his work, preferring instead to wait until a publisher would accept the story as-is.

It’s hard to believe there are still people out there who support the banning of this book in schools (well, Texas I can understand). In some respects, I feel the same way about Flowers that I did about “Catcher in the Rye” (1951) the first time I read it; I wished I’d read it sooner. There’s a lot of things to take from this book, things that you may find yourself thinking about long after you’ve transplanted the bookmark into the next item on the shelf. That’s a very good thing…

“Im out of the hospital but not back at werk yet. Nothing is happining. I had lots of tests and differint kinds of races with Algernon. I hate that mouse.”

4.5 out of 5

So, what about the book? The book is tedious. While I have to give Defoe credit for being a pioneer of adventure fiction, “Props!” (can I haz street cred?), Voltaire’s “Candide” (1759) is much more enjoyable. Is it fair to compare the two? Why not, it’s my blog! “Candide”, at its heart, is satire. Crusoe is a series of ship manifests in the shape of a novel. To spice-up the story, Defoe has given us insight into Robinson’s moral and religious development over the course of twenty-eight years! More please! *Ugh* From a modern perspective, this is laughable because despite Crusoe’s many epiphanies, he still refers to his Carib slave Friday as a “poor honest creature”. For me, the most interesting part of their relationship was Friday’s questions regarding Crusoe’s god in “Chapter XV – Friday’s Education”. When asked questions about the Devil, Crusoe is unable to give a well-reasoned answer to Friday, but instead of finding fault with the source (i.e., Bible) he ascribes this failing to Friday’s savage and ignorant mind. Was this risqué dialogue in the early 18th century? Defoe was the son of Presbyterian dissenters after all… To Crusoe’s (and Defoe’s) credit, he treats Friday very well.

Spoiler alert! My only other problem with the book is that it just sort of meanders to an end. Crusoe gets off the island, returns to Europe, gets his affairs in order, and sets out for other adventures (almost as an after-thought, for Defoe). There’s a completely frivolous section at the end where they fight hundreds of wolves in the French Pyrenees. Some have claimed that this is a metaphor for entering the land of Canaan (after a long journey), but it smells an awful lot like the gratuitous car explosions in “CHiPs” (1977-1983). In summary, the book is too much a cornerstone of English literature to be considered a waste of time… Not everything that is important has to be enjoyed.

“The tears would run plentifully down my face when I made these reflections; and sometimes I would expostulate with myself why Providence should thus completely ruin His creatures, and render them so absolutely miserable; so without help, abandoned, so entirely depressed, that it could hardly be rational to be thankful for such a life.”

3 out of 5

While the Arena is the hub around which the entire story turns, it is also the one element with which I have the most problem. I’m trying to think of a historical precedent for a totalitarian government with such power and influence, that its citizens willingly offer-up their children (ages 12 to 18) to certain (95.8%) death. Collins has cited the legend of Theseus as a precedent, wherein the government of Athens sent young men and women to sate the Minotaur of Crete. The book however offers the lottery (created by the Treaty of Treason) as a means for the Panem government to annually reassert its power over the districts. Not only are 23 children killed every year to remind the citizens of the government’s power, but their deaths are must-see tv. If you can accept that explanation, the rest of the book is much more palatable.

I learned about this book in a Fark thread where readers were listing the saddest books they’d ever read. Having now read it, I’m not sure “The Hunger Games” qualifies to stand alongside some of the other titles mentioned. There is a very sad section in the middle of the book *sniff* where one child in particular dies (did I ruin it?!!!), but other than that it’s not especially heart-wrenching. I have been accused of being an “emotional cripple” in the past however, so your mileage may vary! What the book does do well is character development. I ended-up caring about the characters and what happened to them. There’s much more to the book than children killing each other. Which leads me to my only other criticism of the book. And I need to be careful here… The author weaves the story in such a way that the main characters never have to face the most horrible decisions that the Arena threatens. At almost every turn, the author’s providential hand removes those horrible outcomes one by one, until the end.

One last point. If you intend on reading this book, do not read too many reviews and stay away from the Wikipedia write-up. You will ruin the book for yourself if you do. I’ve tried to avoid revealing too much of the story because it is worth reading. I would have been sorely pissed if I’d read an Amazon review that revealed crucial parts of the story before I even picked-up the book. What has been seen cannot be unseen. I would also suggest reading it before the movie is made (Lionsgate Entertainment now has distribution rights) for many of the same reasons.

“It goes on and on and eventually consumes my mind, blocking out memories and hopes of tomorrow, erasing everything but the present, which I begin to believe will never change. There will never be anything but cold and fear and the agonized sounds of the boy dying…”

4.5 out of 5

Somewhere along the line, a politician got the idea that money could be made on licensing marriages. These laws may have initially been introduced as a way of prosecuting adultery (evident among 50% of males and 26% of females, according to Kinsey). They may have also been instituted to facilitate the probating of Wills. Later they were used to prevent miscegenation (as late as 2009). Whatever the reason, today in the United States, people wishing to marry are required to register with the county/state and then after a short wait period (often longer than is required to buy a handgun, and perhaps sensibly) either go before a Justice of the Peace or an official of whatever religious flavor they prefer. This final ritual is what makes the marriage official. This is ridiculous.

I am in no way against marriage. In this society, marriage has its benefits. At it’s heart, marriage is a legal contract. We can’t erase 1000s of years of historical precedence with one shuffle of the eraser, nor is that necessary or desirable. What we should do however, is sever the connection between church and state (as famously referenced by Thomas Jefferson in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists). Counties and states should retain the ability to issue Civil Union licenses to whomever seeks them. Restrictions based on age, kinship, and current marital status should probably be retained. After a reasonable waiting period, the interested parties should reappear before a state authority to be officially recognized. If the bride and groom wish to be married by a religious figure, there should be no problem with that, but no religious ceremony should be granted binding powers by the state. In order to make the change seamlessly however, all prior marriage ceremonies (religious ones included) should be given Civil Union status.

Why bother? Because the term “marriage” carries with it several millennia of unwieldy baggage. Many Christians for instance, insist that marriage should never join two people of the same gender. Since many religionists believe that morals stem from a supernatural source, the use of their terms are forever encumbered by the tenets of their faith. People that are not of that faith should not be similarly encumbered, especially by the laws of an allegedly secular nation. Before same-sex marriages were legalized in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Washington D.C. (and counting) many claimed that their legalization would destroy the institution of marriage and unravel the fabric of our society. It hasn’t happened yet. If it happens, same-sex marriage won’t be the cause. While the current trend of legalization is encouraging, it doesn’t solve the underlying problem. The state should get out of the marriage business and concentrate on Civil Unions as the basis for determining a couple’s  legal standing. Leave marriage to the churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples.

“There’s no reason that the government should prevent homosexuals from entering civil marriages because some religions object to the concept, any more than the government should ban atheism because some religions object to it.” – Lisa Pampuch