Yawn

I'm finally coming out of my Olympic torpor. *yawn* Back to the real world, or what passes for it in this day and age.

That Paul Ryan graduated from Miami the same year I did. Never saw him, however. He reminds me of "Lloyd Braun" from SEINFELD.

Olympian

I'm transfixed as ever by the Olympics. I love the Olympics. So, I might as well throw productivity out the window for the next 14 days or so, because I'm gonna be all over the Olympics, as I always am. I might comment on things like, I dunno, the Women's Synchro Diving (wtf was with Canada getting the silver? They weren't fully synched! They stole it from Italy! Avenge Tania Cagnotto!)

Avenge! Mmm....

Avengers: Animated

Having "Avengers" on the brain since watching the movie a couple of times (yeah, I saw it again, and liked it as much the second time!) I picked up the "Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes" animated series (four volumes, Season 1), and have enjoyed it (as have my boys). B1 likes Cap and Hawkeye in particular, while B2 likes Hulk. Thor, my favorite Avenger, is well-represented in it. The show is entertaining, mixing bang-up action with nice, drawn-out  narrative arcs that are atypical in American animated shows. I appreciate that, and the writing is good -- it doesn't have the gravitas of the Justice League series from years ago, but it has good animation and entertaining banter between the characters. There are great lines that are just funny, and good battle sequences. They may not be as perfectly drawn and kinetically awesome as the best of the DC animated shows, they are still fun to watch. There's a scene when Thor and Wasp confront MODOK, and it cracks me up -- Thor is transfixed by MODOK's appearance, repeatedly commenting on his giant head even as he's fighting him. Cracks me up. Anyway, the show is way better than I expected it to be. I'm enjoying it, which means it's likely to be canceled soon, given that any show I like tends to end up canceled. Marvel has been hit-or-miss with its animated fare, unlike DC, who had Bruce Timm to anchor their productions, but this Avengers series is definitely good stuff.

Avengers Assembled

I saw "The Avengers" last night, and was greatly impressed! It's the best blockbuster I've seen in years. It's been a long time since I've been that impressed with one of those big budget kinds of enterprises, but this one delivered. And that's in spite of Joss Whedon's screenwriting, which I'm never fond of -- but I have to give him credit for this one -- it definitely delivered the goods. I saw the 2D version with the Sony digital imaging, which was incredibly crisp, breathtakingly clear. The movie fired cleanly on all cylinders, even with a thinly written plot (and, to be honest, there was very much a sense of stretching a pretty thin concept very far to hold it together, but the result, rather than a mess, was something snare drum-tight). The actors carried much of the load -- I have to credit the whole cast for making it work, for filling in the weaknesses within the story with good performances all around.

But the movie itself was just literal dynamite -- exhilarating and fun. I was never bored watching it, despite it being at least two hours long. It all worked. Loki was well-played as the villain, and all the heroes did their parts. The tech components were dazzling -- the SHIELD Helicarrier was impressive as hell. The CGI guys earned their bones in this movie.

The jewel in the CGI crown was the Hulk, who was impressive as hell. I've never been a fan of the Hulk, but they absolutely made every scene with the Hulk sizzle, as he's bashing the hell out of whatever's in his way, whether it's Thor or Loki or alien hordes. It was very impressive, and they even gave Hulk the best comedic moments of it (including a laugh-out-loud beatdown of Loki that had me howling).

I loved the Avengers comic as a kid, so I was really worried that they'd butcher it on the big screen, but those worries were shelved by this movie, which couldn't fail to impress. Again, it's a blockbuster, so I watch it with "blockbuster rules" -- I'm not expecting Shakespeare when I watch a blockbuster, but I'm also very picky about blockbusters (for example, "Inception" actually bored the hell out of me, and I've groused about that before, although I seem to be the only person living who actually didn't love that movie) -- but "The Avengers" was just fabulous fun.

Of the actors, only Hemsworth's Thor felt like he was dragging a little, and even he grew on me throughout it. He looked the part, but I felt like he was behind the other actors in their portrayals of their respective heroes. Makes me laugh to see Black Widow supplant the Wasp as one of the founding members of the Avengers, and, of course, how Giant-Man is nowhere in the mix. I think those were good choices (and, besides, with Paltrow cameoing as Pepper, that's about as much WASP as one can take in a movie).

Anyway, I really enjoyed that movie on a level that I've not enjoyed blockbusters since I don't even know when. Well worth it. I'm gonna catch it again.

Oh, and the Thanos teaser at the end was even more fun. I actually exclaimed "Whoa!" out loud, and cackled.

Avenged Sevenfold

I think I may catch "The Avengers" after work tomorrow. I need to indulge my long-dormant Marvel fanboy self. I collected a lot of AVENGERS, back in the day, most of which I still have, stashed away in storage. I dug some of them out, let B1 check out a few issues. Amazing to think that they're from 1977 -- they're 35 years old! OMG! I always took very good care of my old comics (although I lost about 2/3 of my childhood comics collection when my folks had carelessly left them in a musty basement in one of their properties when I was away at college. Thankfully, the ones kept in Mylar bags had weathered that debacle, and I was able to recover them, once I'd realized where my folks had put them).

Anyway, I figure I'll catch the flick, since it looks like it should be halfway interesting. I really hope they do a sequel with either Ultron or the Absorbing Man or Taskmaster (yeah, right -- no chance of that). That would be fun. The problem with doing superhero movies is for all the non-fans of comics, they have to ladle in the exposition so the people know what the hell is going on, who Villain X is. They'll probably do Kang or Mandarin as the villain in any sequel.

Arcadia

I had picked up "Midway Arcade Classics" (1 & 2) for PS2, and am amused to play some of those old games that I played back in the day, like Spy Hunter, for example. My boys both love that one, and it cracks me up to hear them singing the "Peter Gunn Theme" from time to time. What amuses me is how playable those old games remain. I think they're more playable than a lot of far more advanced games that came out since then. Amazing to think I was 13 when that game came out. I haven't even shown the boys Tempest. B1 will lose his mind when he sees that one, I'm sure! I was 10 when that one came out! Lordy! One of my favorites, for sure.

Bahahahaha

I like this riff on that whole "Keep Calm" meme floating out there...

Death Star

This piece amused me, talking about the affordability of the Death Star.

BJ Blows

I love this takedown of Billy Joel...

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_spectator/2009/01/the_worst_pop_singer_ever.html?wpisrc=obinsite

A performer who I have described for most of my life as making "music for non music lovers." Much the way there are writers out there for non-readers (Stephenie Meyer, etc.), comedians for people without senses of humor (Dane Cook, Colin Quinn, etc.), intellectuals for non-thinkers (Newt Gingrich, etc.), artists for non-art lovers (Jeff Koons, etc.), directors for non-movie lovers (Michael Bay, etc.), restaurants for non-food lovers (Olive Garden, etc.), and so on.

Billy Joel, they can't stand you because of your music; because of your stupid, smug attitude; because of the way you ripped off your betters to produce music that rarely reaches the level even of mediocrity. You could dress completely au courant and people would still loathe your lame lyrics.

It's not that they dislike anything exterior about you. They dislike you because of who you really are inside. They dislike you for being you. At a certain point, consistent, aggressive badness justifies profound hostility. They hate you just the way you are.

Well said! For me, it goes back to my childhood, when a certain tone-deaf sibling would caterwaul to his songs. She had all of his LPs and probably an eight-track or two. I remember actually looking at his albums and playing them on my folks's hi-fi and thinking, even as a kid, "Wow, why does my sibling like this?" I didn't even have a musical aesthetic, yet, and I STILL disliked it, found him just dreadful on the ears. It's hard to pinpoint it, too -- I know I wasn't analyzing lyrics back then; it was the actual sound. The songs themselves, and how he sang them. I hated it. And then, when I could actually decipher what he was singing about, I disliked him all over again, in newer and deeper ways.

Aesthetically, artistically, and musically bankrupt, he is.  His success speaks volumes about our country. And to friends, semi-friends, non-friends, and acquaintances who might say "Aw, come on, Daibh, don't be so judgmental; he's not THAT bad." I'd say "Oh, he's WORSE."

Onion

Oh, man, this week's ONION is packed with good stuff...

Intelligent, Condescending Life Discovered in Distant Galaxy

Bahah!

Report: Watching Episode of 'Downton Abbey' Counts as Reading Book

*snicker*

48-Year-Old Man Actually Very Open To Dating 25-Year-Olds

Bahahah!

And others. Oh, man! Great stuff this week!

Plagued

So far, so good. B2's recovering from his sickness, and neither B1 nor I have caught it (yet). There's always that existential dread when gastroenteritis season comes about, where you wonder when you're number's up, when you've managed that one lapse of vigilance that lets that nasty pestilence assail you. I told my boys "Make sure to keep your fingers off your face, and don't share cups food." Which helps, but, barring scrubbing down every possible surface, you can't ever quite know for sure if you're safe. It's like being on a plague ship...

Svartkraft, "The Plague Ship"

; )

Exene claimed B2 was puking all day, so I asked her when, and it turned out it had been only around 1:00 yesterday afternoon, so that was good. He had one lil' bout when I had him home last night, but later was able to keep down some crackers, so that's good. He rebounds pretty quickly. That's the marvelous thing about little ones -- they usually spring back from bugs like this fairly handily. He slept the night through, so I'm hopeful that he'll be good to go today.

I had bought B2 some new sneakers, got him some cool ones from Zappos -- a pair of black Chuckies and a pair of black argyle Vans. He loves both of'em, is stoked to wear them. I'm not part of the Cult of Converse, never was; in fact, it bugs me that there's this arbitrary indie hipster significance to Chuckies, as if wearing said shoes actually meant something. I view them much the way I view tattoos -- if you wore Chuckies in the 50s (and got a tattoo then, for that matter), more power to you. If you became a Converse cult member from 1990 onward (and/or got tats in that time), you're a cultural coattail-rider and a victim of adroit lifestyle marketing. FAIL.

At any rate, I waive that rule with kids' shoes, however, just because B2's lil' feet look so damned cute in Chuckies, and he needs to learn how to tie his shoes properly, anyway, so they're useful in that regard. He's more partial to the Vans, anyway, but he likes'em both. He'll be psyched to try his new sneakers out, I know. And they do look sharp. I just wanted B2 to have two pairs of sneakers handy, so he doesn't burn through one pair too quickly.

Long Live the King

I'm glad somebody's calling out Marvel's bullshit vis-a-vis Jack Kirby. Marvel would not have existed without Jack Kirby's work. It sucks that they screwed him over so badly. I loved Marvel in my comic collecting youth (hell, I still have some of my comics stored away), but how Marvel has built its entertainment empire has Kirby's ghost left twisting in the wind. Truly vile policy, and the writer is right on the money (so to speak) when they say:

What makes this situation especially hard to stomach is that Marvel’s media empire was built on the backs of characters whose defining trait as superheroes is the willingness to fight for what is right. It takes a lot of corporate moxie to put Thor and Captain America on the big screen and have them battle for honor and justice when behind the scenes the parent company acts like a cold-blooded supervillain. As Stan Lee famously wrote, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

If Mitt Romney is right, and corporations are people, perhaps Marvel/Disney has the capacity to feel shame. In any event, a public flogging has already begun. Cartoonist and educator Stephen Bissette’s blog post calling for a boycott of The Avengers kicked up a lot of dust in the blogosphere. Tom Spurgeon, writing for his well-respected industry website Comic Reporter also framed the issue in moral terms, as did the cartoonist Seth: “The corporate lie about Kirby's role in the creation of all those characters is abhorrent. It's a bold faced lie. Everyone knows it's a lie. No one is fooled. Everyone lying for the company should be ashamed. Stan Lee should be ashamed. What the Marvel corporation is doing might be legal but it certainly isn't right.”

'Nuff said.

Go-Go's a-go-go

How is it even possible that I've loped along in this blog and NOT written of my crush on Jane Wiedlin from the Go-Go's? Or, more particularly, my crush on Jane Wiedlin when she was part of the Go-Go's, back in the day?

Jane was YUMMY! And look at her workin' the 80s hair!

For sure! She was my favorite Go-Go by far. Any time one of their videos would come on, I'd watch, just hoping for glimpses of Jane. It's funny, in retrospect, how the pre-Net world worked -- you had to work for your pop culture! If you didn't see her on MTV or on Friday Night Videos, or in Rolling Stone, it was hard to even get glimpses of the lil' Pop Tart!

I remember hearing about the debauchery of the Go-Go's, thinking "Not Jane! She's just too angel-sweet!" Although she was definitely as much of a party animal as the rest of them, but just had that vibe about her that was like catnip for my early teen self!

Ah, Jane. I'm a sucker for cute, what can I say? And "cute" is definitely a word one associates with Jane Wiedlin. Even her name is kind of cute. I mean, Belinda Carlisle -- her name made her sound like a Heather, and even her sneer kind of conveyed that, like the alpha girl busy giving her frenemies eating disorders with the curl of her lip (although I liked Belinda, too, just not as much as I liked Jane).

I was so enraptured by Jane Wiedlin that it took me time to actually notice what a rotten dancer Belinda Carlisle was (which was, really, part of her sneery charm, honestly). I remember, as a teen, thinking "What is Belinda doing?" but crushing on her and Jane to the extent that I didn't have a proper context for what the hell she was doing. Since then, watching clips of the Go-Go's playing in their prime, I crack up, watching Belinda do her Belinda Dancing thing...

Belinda Dancing, Exhibit A

Belinda Dancing, Exhibit B

Belinda Dancing, Exhibit C

And please note how adorable Jane Wiedlin is in all of these clips. *crush blush*

How to dance like the Go-Go's

(really, this dancing is more sophisticated than Belinda's signature moves, but it's still amusing)

Draconic

So, I'm probably the only person in the world who hasn't read "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (or wanted to, frankly), since it's like the bookfad of the past year or so. I call a "bookfad" any of those books that become bestsellers beyond their actual merit as works of fiction -- like the whole "Twilight" series (which people far and wide criticize as being terribly written, but it hardly seems to matter).

I saw the Swedish original movie was in a discount bin (figuring that they were trying to piggyback on the whole American remake of it being out), and so I watched it, and was bored by the movie. It's packaged as a crime thriller, but I'd call it a crime un-thriller, honestly. It was about the slowest-paced "thriller" I've ever seen, and at something like 2.5 hours, it took a long time to mosey where it was going.

Didn't think the characters were particularly well-drawn, and the one people seem to love, "Lisbeth," was even more boring to me. Surly wunderkind neo-goth, hairy-armpitted, overmuscled, photographic memory-having, motorcycle-riding computer hacker chick? Okay. I wasn't terribly convinced by the character, didn't find her particularly compelling.

And given the obvious themes of the movie, I did some background reading on this whole bookfad, and I guess the late writer's back story was something about how he saw some girl getting gang-raped a long time ago, and did nothing to stop it, felt guilt about it, and crafted this character (who was, allegedly, her namesake) as a way of atoning for his failure to do anything in the real world. Which is very writerly, of course, but I think it is also lame, in that the character is just hard to swallow (pun intended).

She's like the perfect girlfriend for Hellboy, honestly -- there's that same kind of arc between those characters. A disagreeable superbeing who has a bone to pick with the universe. It's so clear that the writer loved this character, without there being anything particular about her to love.

Obviously, it's the movie I'm critiquing, here, but many reviews I've read of the book point to the bad writing and the poorly-drawn characters, so it looks like they translated that well in the screenplay. But, where bookfads are concerned, it doesn't actually matter. Nothing matters, because people are buying it, regardless.

There were a couple of reasonably good scenes in the movie, but it was largely a snooze for me. I found myself getting fidgety and bored watching it, and even some of the "outrageous" scenes were kind of rote to me.

Now, one could claim that Lisbeth's militant neo-feminism might have been off-putting to me, except that it's just not so. I just didn't find the story terribly striking, didn't find the mystery so mysterious, and, following my general rules of thumb regarding suspense movies, was able to figure out who the killer was with ridiculous ease. All of the components of it didn't coalesce for me.

I read somewhere that the title of the original book was something like "Men Who Hate Women" -- and those themes are very apparent, which makes me think that the book is maybe for Women Who Hate Men Who Hate Women or something like that, which probably accounts for its success. But at least in the movie, following the character's progression, she's a flat line -- she starts out bad, she ends up bad (oh, with a whisker of feeling for another character in the story, but she still comes off as one badly damaged Pop-Tart).

Again, with bookfads (and the accompanying movies they inevitably inspire), actual criticism of them as books is ultimately meaningless. Adherents might say I should read the books and decide for myself, but the concept just doesn't compel me, and I've read enough reviews that rip on the writing to make me think it's not worth my time -- life's too short for bad writing. But I certainly watched the movie thinking "Wait, so THIS is what people are spurting about?? THIS??" and feeling ever more chagrin that this is what passes for edginess with the mainstream.

It's like the pop culture equivalent of a bunch of barnyard animals calling out in fear and awe from behind the fencing because somebody spraypainted a fox on the side of the barn. Oooh!

Happy Birthdays!

To the King...

And the Thin White Duke!

May the Farce Be With You

I blame my Star Wars ruminations of late on the Playstation 2 Lego Star Wars games, which I'd taken out of storage recently and played with the boys, along with other games. I'd had a Playstation 2 that I'd effectively mothballed after B1 was born, just because who has time to play games when you're in the middle of Baby Boot Camp, right? It was amusing for me to see the save dates on some of the games (like GTA III: San Andreas and Vice City, more blasts from the past). Anyway, now that the boys are older, I decided to bring out the console and we've been playing a bit. They love it, of course, although hearing them squabble as they play is both amusing and disarming -- nothing gets the boys more pissed at each other than trying to play Lego Star Wars together! One pushes the other's character off a cliff, one takes the other's coins, etc. Of course, I try to communicate and/or demonstrate the value of teamwork to the boys, which, I think, is slowly seeping in, although usually they're like "I want to team up with Daddy!" since I can usually get through a level. We take turns, since there are three of us, so it'll be B1 + B2, or B1 + me, or me + B2.

So, playing those games (the original one being far more entertaining than the actual prequel movies) has made me philosophical about the Star Wars universe. Now, of course, the Star Wars universe is space opera central, isn't a place of deep thought or characterization, but it's possible to think about the Empire as a kind of revolt of the norms against the paranormal oligarchy of the Jedi. I mean, as Obi-Wan said to Luke, "Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."

From a certain point of view, the Jedi could be seen as the hitmen for the Republic, who we're supposed to accept as innately virtuous. However, from the point of view of a norm, a Jedi would seem oppressive and frightening. Here is this person who has paranormal abilities and a lightsaber who will cut you if you cross them, or Jedi Mind Trick you. We're told the Jedi are a force (pun intended) for Good, because they have benign avoidance of Anger, Fear, and Hatred -- the tools of the Dark Side of the Force. But a Jedi is a warrior, remains a human weapon, at heart. And a weapon is always going to be an instrument of oppression, even if used for ostensibly good purposes. So, there's that.

And there is the sticky wicket of the Dark Side of the Force, the eternal temptation of the Jedi to go bad and become Sith Lords (of whom we only see a few, right? Sidious, Maul, Tyranus, and Vader). The bad apples that spoil the barrel, the indictment of the power principle, basically. The Sith are nowhere near as numerous as the Jedi -- again, we just see a handful of Sith -- but they completely overturn the Jedi-enforced order of the Republic. All those Jedi (multiple generations of them) are no match for Sith machinations, and are nearly wiped out by their dark counterparts. But that the Sith exist as a defined entity points to a larger infrastructure in place -- an entire shadow organization of Sith out to overturn Jedi order, which gets at my problem with the paranormal police force the Jedi represent: if the Jedi can't prevent the Sith from appearing, and the Sith are so great at overturning Jedi order, this is a fatal structural flaw in the system.

It points to the peril of this Force thing to begin with -- if your enforcers are perennially vulnerable to "going bad," and only a few Sith are capable of demolishing your order (or worse, are capable of flourishing in the shadows, creating a shadow conspiracy that will destroy your order), when what good are you, anyway? It points to the fragility of this seemingly long-lived order. Of course, all of this happened to serve the needs of the plot, but at the same time, it makes me wonder how Luke (and Leia) could possibly restore order to the Galaxy in the wake of the Empire. I mean, if legions of Jedi were mowed down, at a time when the Jedi order was at its greatest, how could those two right things? What's more, would they even be righting anything, or merely returning to baseline -- namely, Jedi as enforcers of the New Republic. What's to stop another bad apple from spoiling the barrel again? It's not like Anger, Fear, and Hatred are hard to come by -- even Luke nearly succumbs to it several times, and lord knows Leia's quite the angry one.

And since, as Yoda and others said, the Dark Side was "quicker, easier, more seductive" -- it makes me think that those who can get their hands on the nanites that let people channel the Force, sooner or later, somebody else is going to go that quicker, easier, more seductive route again and presto -- a new Sith Lord for the New Republic. And it all repeats. Now, in the short-term, obviously, with Luke and Leia being the only two sporting the Vader bloodline, who is apparently the strongest Force-bearing soul ever, that threat isn't realized, yet. But a few generations hence? And it's a big Galaxy, after all. Anything can happen -- and entropy always wins -- Order inevitably becomes Chaos.

In a weird way, it almost feels cyclical, ala "The Matrix" -- that the New Republic will stand for awhile, and then Chaos will intrude, and we'll get another Empire of some sort. Much of that hinges on the appearance of another Palpatine/Sidious, of course, who just sort of appears.

Even though the Empire was led by Sidious and Vader, it was really a melange of normal humans, clones, starships, and droids. That was the real foundation of the Empire, with Sidious and Vader at the top, acting as dark mirror Jedi, keeping this order in check through fear -- or a different brand of fear than the Jedi had been pimping. The norms really formed the backbone of the Imperial order, were its administrative and business class, with the Sith and the Stormtroopers as the muscle.

If I were a norm facing the devastation in the wake of the collapse of the Empire, I'd be like "To hell with the Jedi. We don't want anymore Jedi around -- the risk is too great. Sooner or later, they're going to go bad, and we'll have Sith on our hands again, and they're going to frag us."

This is one of those things that would have some scold friends of mine saying "You have wayyy too much time on your hands." But it's still fun to think about.

Happy Holidays!

Another "Curb Your Enthusiasm" bit...

Larry Eats Jesus

*snicker*

"Ass Fetish"

Bahahah!

And one more...

The Flamboyant Kid

BAHAHA!

Chat & Cut

Bahahah...

"Chat & Cut" from "Curb Your Enthusiasm"

This reminds me so much of my stepdad, it cracks me up. Larry David doesn't look like my stepdad, but his pet peeves and what-not are totally like him. Bahaha! That said, I hate waiting in lines nearly as much as I loathe line cutters!

Bandolier?

So, since I'm busy quibbling about continuity in movies, something came to me while watching "The Empire Strikes Back" after seeing it for the umpteenth time -- in the torture scene(s), when Chewbacca is in the cell, being subject to sonic torture, did you notice that he's wearing his ammo bandolier?

Now, these are, we are to believe, power packs for his famed "laser crossbow," whatever that is, exactly. Some kind of glorified blaster. At any rate, it's an effective weapon he'd put to good use a time or two.

But the Imperials just chucked Chewie into the torture room with his bandolier. Huh. Given the Wookie's propensity for tech prowess, I have to wonder what they were thinking with that. Now, maybe it was a part of the costume and Lucas didn't want to have to redesign it or whatever. But, strictly speaking, from a continuity perspective, the presence of that bandolier is troubling -- there are likely any number of things a knowledgeable soul could do with blaster ammo clips/power packs, yes? We see him put C-3P0 together without much more than a hydrospanner, so surely he could do a lot of damage with a bandolier full of power packs.

Continuity. Are we to believe the Imperials are so contemptuous of the Wookie that they'd let him go into a jail cell packing his ammo like that? Especially when they are careful to cuff Chewie later, showing that they are clearly aware of the Wookie danger.

Just something I noticed. Maybe not as egregious as Leia rolling over for Jabba, but still a troubling bit of discontinuity in the movie. Lucas obviously didn't think of anything like that for Chewie, since he was only a secondary character, and wasn't going to have the enterprising Wookie bust himself out of dodge with some adroit use of the ammo clips he was packing; still, it would have been nice for Lucas to have given Chewie the benefit of a doubt and showed him without his bandolier, just to reflect the thoroughness of the Empire's detention policies.

Side note: It's kind of ironic, isn't it, those torture scenes? I mean, when that movie came out, what was it, in 1980? Torture was seen as synonymous with Imperial evil (which, of course, it is, yes?) But now, watching even those sanitized, PG-rated torture scenes, it's sort of creepy to think that torture is now officially part of American policy (as is indefinite detention and rendition of prisoners, including Americans). What used to be a cartoonish stand-in for the villainy of the Empire (Leia getting interrogated in "Star Wars" by the creepy Imperial Torture Droid; Han, Chewie and Leia getting tortured on Bespin) is now our government's policy. How times have changed! The outrages of 1980 are the official policies of 2011.

*cue "The Imperial March" as new national anthem*

Huh

While watching "Captain America: The First Avenger" on DVD, I was bemused to see during the credits, when they did their medley of WWII-era propaganda posters, that they had doctored a rather famous one...

They'd replaced the USSR flag with the Russian Federation flag, which I thought was a rather curious historical revision. I mean, obviously, the movie's ersatz 40s vibe is fictional, and, I imagine, most Americans don't dwell much on paltry issues like history, but the Russian Federation didn't fight the Nazis in WWII, and didn't exist in the 40s; but the USSR did both. The Russians lost something like >20 million of their people in WWII (and, I'm sure, much of the blame can be leveled at the feet of Stalin and the Bolsheviks, who were woefully unprepared for what the Germans hurled at them -- at least at first). But if it hadn't been for the Nazis invading Russia, and for the quagmire of the Eastern Front sapping the German war machine of lives and men -- in other words, if not for the sacrifice of those 20 million Russians--the Nazis might have won WWII.

So, to have the USSR's role in WWII excised like that, even in a fleeting credit, is a weird kind of thing. The Soviet Union was not a nice place, and did plenty of bad things--but they did fight in WWII, and they were instrumental in the defeat of the Axis. Omitting them is a curiously graceless thing on the part of the moviemakers. And why did they do this, exactly? Who were they worried about offending by showing the poster as it actually was, versus the doctored one? And as they were making the rounds of propaganda posters, were they realizing that doctoring a propaganda poster was, itself, a bow to propaganda? Or did the Hollywood blacklist so thoroughly sterilize and scour the movie industry that it couldn't even allow a teensy little hammer and sickle appear onscreen for two seconds?

I just find it curious, one of those glimpses behind the mask our society wears. A small thing, yes, but a revealing one, all the same. And, yes, the movie's a fictional tale about a superhero fighting a make-believe Nazi menace--but just the same, if they are wanting to trot out the propaganda posters of the era as a kind of tip of the hat to the era, don't doctor them for whatever weird ideological needs of the moment. As I said: over 20 million Russians died fighting in that war; give them their due, don't be so chickenshit (and, weirdly, Stalinist) to rewrite history...

You can see the doctored shot at 1:40.