In Memory Of

The morning of Sunday, June 26th, 2005 marks the beginning of an awfully big adventure for my oldest, longest friend. He was always there to listen, to comfort, and to hold; now, I will mourn his passing, but, moreover, I will celebrate his full life. There is no finer feline.

Scratch "the Wonder Kitty" Barfield, El Gato Griebo (c. June 1989 - June 26, 2005) was a good cat . . .

Adios, Scratch. We love you and we shall miss you.

That Irascible Bat-Dressed Guy Commences

Batman began . . .Again.

     My first impression of the movie is that whoever made the decision to cut the first sequence of scenes together—about the first twenty or thirty minutes of the movie—needs to be hit with something large and mostly solid. The actual scenes themselves, Bruce Wayne’s childhood and training, weren’t bad scenes, themselves, but they put them together in the most retarded fashion possible, that ends up being jarring and a tad confusing. Somebody needed to take a lesson in the art of the segue, because the only clue they gave to a chronological shift was a little bit of a music cue.

     Aside from that small amount of poor cinematography, I have to say that, overall, Batman Begins was a very enjoyable experience. It did justice, in many ways, to the franchise of Batman—the comics and the cartoons—with an innumerable quantity of nods towards the aesthetic of the Batman forefathers: much of the character design, most notably to me being Gordon’s, was intentionally true to the original. Morgan Freeman was probably the most perfect Lucius Fox possible; Michael Caine as Alfred was an interesting take on the character, breaking with the usual “prim and proper, uppity British” Alfred and going with a more “warm and friendly, cockney British” Alfred.

     Going into the movie, I was already rather certain that Christian Bale would make a good Batman, and this was solely based on his performance in Equilibrium—and, he did just that. One of the most outstanding aspects of this interpretation of the Batman character was that Bale made a very clear-cut distinction between Bruce Wayne and Batman, instead of what had been done in the past, wherein Bruce Wayne and Batman were only separated by a mask and cloak. As Batman, Bale changed his voice significantly—with much effect, too, as is apparent in certain scenes (like the obligatory “interrogation of a criminal” one). There’s a lot of play in the movie with the idea of “true” identity and which is what mask and whatnot, which wasn’t new or astounding or anything, but, at least, was an interesting undertone.

     Katie Holmes . . . Do I care? In short: no. I’m not quite sure why they felt it was necessary to insert another love interest for Bruce into the Batman continuity, because there are only fifty thousand already, but they did. She played Rachel Dawes, a rather uninteresting character that served a pretty blatant Hollywood-type role: the boobs, per se. A constant excuse for romantic tension and melodrama, I don’t think it really added much to the story (nor did it, fortunately, distract too much); I’m just not wowed enough by perky breasts to actually be impressed, here. I was hoping for some sort of tie-in with Harvey Dent, but, no . . . No, nothing. Just them going, “Here! Random hot girl! We need the stereotypical idealist for any Batman movie, right?”

     Something different that was done in Begins was to actually give the Wayne parents a bit more characterisation than usual: this time around, you actually have a more substantial grasp on why it’s such a tragedy the Wayne folks died, outside of “Oh, no, the kid’s dad and mom got shot!” This added a little extra dimension to the story regarding Bruce’s past and motivations, which is really what the movie is all about, so that’s good.

     Villains. Every Batman movie has to have its villains; this time, it was Scarecrow and Ra’s Al Ghul (as imDB tells me they spelt it). Oh, I have always been rather fond of the Ra’s Al Ghul character, and I do have to say they mostly did it justice—Neeson looked exactly like him, for one. Secondly, he talked and acted precisely like the Ra’s Al Ghul I knew and loved from the Adventures of Batman cartoon series . . . I was quite happy about that. Scarecrow? Scarecrow was Scarecrow, albeit a very accurate and spot-on interpretation of Scarecrow . . . But, in the end, Scarecrow is one of the “backseat bitches” of the Batman villainy club. “Ooo, I’m skinny and scary! Ooo. I dress like a scarecrow! Ooo. Fear and psychology and stuff!”

     I’m not honestly how sure exactly how much liberty was taken with the Batman continuity with this movie, whether or not certain aspects of Wayne’s training was true . . . I definitely don’t recall Lucius Fox being a scientist, nor do I think the Dawes character existed prior to this movie. Batman has probably been given eighty hojillion backgrounds in the course of the comic and cartoon, so I don’t really care how “accurate” it may be to the original—since the original is probably not accurate to itself. That’s fine. It was a good enough story, all in all, and that’s what matters to me.

     Some may note that the evil plot of Batman Begins is nearly identical to the evil plot in Batman, the first movie by Burton, give or take a few accoutrements . . . Not sure if this is an intentional parallel or not, but who can really say that it’s not true that every evil plot in every Batman story boils down to, “We wanna destroy Gotham or its people!”

     Uh, the music was pretty much Batman music. Duly noted.

     What’s the big question? Did it make up for the last two Batman movies. My answer? Yes. Failure Rating: 6%.

An Exigent Matter (No, Not Really)

So, doing a random search of "Rant" turns up one apparent result to me: the word "rant" seems to have been usurped by the liberal activists of the web. I'm remotely confused.

Does this mean conservatives just don't like to rant? Or are they, generally, lacking in the ability to articulate complex argument? Do they stay off the internet, and reserve themselves for just Fox News?

I find this mysterious and strange. But, it is official . . . Liberals have stolen the term "rant," so we better raise the Terrorist warning level to Fuschia.

Editor's Note

A wiseman once said--I'm afraid:
"Love is like gold, twist it and
watch it fold and unfold."

This is the stanza usually devoted
To the celestial analogies;
This is the stanza where I write
Flowery description of a fictional woman;
This is the stanza when I pretend
To be a charismatic rogue.

A drunkard once slurred, in a bar,
(An ironic spot to find a drunkard!)
Not so far--inline rhyme--from here:
"Love is like a flower, it
blooms and smells real nice . . . "

"Oh, and, yeah, wilts, too."
(Isn't if funny how inline rhyme rhymes?)

Here is the refrain where I
Paraphrase previous lines of this poem;
Here is the refrain when I
Reiterate a major theme or meaning;
Here is the refrain usually for
Particular symbolism to reappear, again.

This isn't
free voice--
I just like carriage returns.

This is not, in fact,
Iambic pentameter, Frosty;
(Just writing iambic pentameter disqualifies it.)

A romantic once sung--off-key karaoke:
"And my heart will always go on and on,
I will love you forever and ever,"
Needless to say, he, too, was drunk.

Enter the part wherein I attempt
To seem clever by breaking the fourth wall;
Enter the part reserved for petty
Observations about my own poetry and self-indulgence;
Enter the part that should underline
How bad of a poet I truly am.

A man once wrote, in a frivolous trial,
Designed to purge certain emotions,
That ultimately encircled itself:

"A wiseman once said--I'm afraid."

Wishing for Ingenuousness

Last summer was the Summer of Words. The summer before that was the Summer of Pictures. The summer before that was the Summer of Sleep. The summer anteceding that was the Summer of Books.

Summer is the season of vacation, usually, and when I am off of school, I am free to develop my identity, further. This summer, I've been in class and at work for most of every day, starting a week immediately after the final exams for the Spring. This has been . . . A tiring experience. I've never quite had a grasp on precisely how much I needed a vacation, to actually feel like I'm being anybody.

Honestly, if I didn't need the credits, I'd just drop the classes and stick to working four hours a day, during the week, and relax. Relaxing, inevitably, would entail some overarcing project to hone my skills as a human being. I've been playing a whole lot of that online roleplaying game I mentioned in an earlier post, and I think that's a direct result of needing some creative outlet to feel productive as a so-called artist. Otherwise, all I do is sit at work or sit in class, and neither has been stimulating, lately.

Must. Not. Burn. Out.

Don't Fetter the Force, Ani

Let’s talk about Star Wars, shall we?

       Firstly, let me just post right upfront my rating for Revenge of the Sith: 22% Failure Rating. Now that that is over with, let’s just get to the long-winded elaboration . . .


       I’ve said it a lot elsewhere, in regards to my opinion on the movie, but let me state it here, too: I really want to dislike Episode III more than I do—really, really do. The antagonistic critic within me cries out for the embroiled rage to swell within and to make heated attacks against the movie . . . But, anger leads to suffering, suffering leads to hate, yadda, yadda, Yoda, whatever.


       Here’s the deal: I hated Phantom Menace, and I could’ve done without nigh-on four-fifths of Attack of the Clones (hell, I could’ve done without the subtitle, for one thing). Episode I was geared towards children and we will never be quite sure why—my assumption is that Lucas believes himself to be much akin to Spielberg and able to pull off the fuzzy child-filled movie with deeper connotations, but he is very much not—and Episode II was a teen drama, a very long and flashy episode of 90210 with lightsabres. Use the Force, Melrose.


       So, given my disdain for the previous two installments of the New Trilogy, then what chance do I have of liking the third? Very little, indeed. However, I ended up discovering Revenge to be a pretty enjoyable movie-going experience, although I will not be so dramatic as others have and spout off that I think it’s up there with Empire Strikes Back—hell, no. There is the fact that I enjoyed it, but the other facts remain that the elements of the New Trilogy that I disliked are still there and the reasons why I found pleasure from Ep. III are so far-removed from why I liked the Old Trilogy.


       To be direct, I was won over solely by the action and the storyline of the third episode: nothing more, nothing less. The lightsabre duels were excellent, the space war cuts were stupendous, and the entire sheen of the film reeked of the billions of dollars thrown at the special effects and CGI department. I’m pretty sure I could smell money burning every single time General Grievous walked across the screen. So, conclusion, here: “Oh, my God, that shit was red-hot shiny.”


       I’ve been kicking around different explanations, in my head, for why I thought Ep I & Ep. II were so blah and I actually liked Ep. III; one of the best reasons I think this was that the case is that I finally gave a flying fuck about the characters in Revenge of the Sith. George Lucas can not write dialogue, and he wrote dialogue . . . Which was problematic, because, unsurprisingly, the dialogue was atrocious throughout the New Trilogy movies—he should’ve stuck to story ideas and outlines, like in the Old Trilogy. In the previous two prequel movies, this caused me to simply not even care a little bit about the characters nor, invariably, the plot. It didn’t help that Lucas was obviously poorly directing these people and the acting came out flat and sterile, for the most part.


       However, what overrode these factors—which were still prevalent in the new prequel movie—was the familiarity of the whole ordeal. Anakin Skywalker was reminiscent of Luke Skywalker; Obiwan Kenobi was, for one thing, Obiwan Kenobi and, for another, the Han Solo character type (cool, collected, calm, slightly sarcastic); Yoda was there, Chewbacca was there, R2D2 and C3PO were there; the Emperor was there, albeit in the form of Senator Palpatine for the most part, yet he remained a “familiar” character. I imagine that the intention for Padme Amidalia to resemble Princess Leia was there, but that miserably failed (I don’t like Natalia Portman, I should mention). In the end, it all harkened back the good, old, original movies and wasn’t so strung up in all the new, retarded bullshit Lucas had given us for the previous two movies—no “Attack of the Clones,” no teenaged drama, no goofy sea-creatures, just your run-of-the-mill, old-fashioned Star Wars.


       The third episode managed, in my opinion, to break away from the stigma created by Eps. I & II, which did it very well; as it moved more and more into the territory of the Original Trilogy, it became better and better—the Clone War ended early on in the movie, and there was little focus on General Grievous, aside from for keystone battle scenes. I could, essentially, forget that absolutely no worthwhile character development took place in Phantom and Attack, and just focus on the character development in Revenge, and I could forget all the insignificant characters that were introduced and killed off. Fuck Padme, in a bad way; was I supposed to care about Mace Windu, just because he was Samuel L. Jackson the Jedi? Qui’Gon Jin (or however you spell it) was gone, Jar Jar didn’t open his mouth, Captain Antilles (Wedge’s father) had maybe three lines . . . It was Obiwan Kenobi’s show, or Yoda’s show, or Anakin’s show—and, honestly, I think Christenson managed to do something very right with the character in this movie (like there was no pressure, he was only the protagonist and star).


       Senator Palpatine/Darth Sidious/the Emperor, I felt, gave a good delivery, throughout the movie; he carried the arrogant, manipulative, confident and self-assured bit convincingly enough. Let’s not talk about the rise of Darth Vader, okay? Seriously, you don’t want to know—suffice it to say that watching the old Frankenstein movie equivocates to about the same thing, with the lightning and the <”It’s alive! It’s ali-i-i-ive!” Not even James Earl Jones could redeem that piss-poor dialogue exchange.


       “YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE!”


       A few random points: if put ‘in’ in the name of the Sith Lord and his Apprentice, you get “Insidious” and “Invader.” Why? Also, a lot of folk have been spitting out about how the Jedi should’ve seen it comin’, ‘cause there had to be an extreme evil to balance out the extreme good. I will maintain that the Jedi view themselves as ultimately neutral and balanced, in and of themselves, so the Sith was throwing off the balance by being evil, while they were simply neutral with good tendencies. After all, there were some complaints that the Jedi didn’t act when the Republic always wanted them to do so. Interesting aside: have you ever heard any Jedi refer to the “light side” of the Force? Sure, the Dark gets its name dropped like an NBA superstar, but do they ever really call the alternative the Light (outside of video games or the Expanded Universe)?

Padme dies. Ha, ha.