Meme day 26: Good things come to those who wait
First off, a show reminder: I will be performing this Saturday, August 14 at the Smith Douglas More House Dunn Brothers Coffee (8107 Eden Prairie Road in, you guessed it, Eden Prairie) at 4 p.m. as part of the musical entertainment accompanying their annual antique fair. So come on out and browse some antiques and hear some music!
A further bonus for those of you in the southern Twin Cities suburbs is that you can now purchase all three of my albums in the "Local" section at Discland in Bloomington - brand new CDs at ultra-cheap used prices. Discland also has an amazing selection of used DVDs, video games, CDs, and other fun novelties, so you are sure to find something else you will like there. Thanks to Discland for all of their help and support!
Now on to my much neglected memes. I have a bunch of other stuff I want to post about (Inception! Catching Fire! Finishing reading the Mistborn trilogy and how some parts of it were cool and some parts of it were full of crap! GOING TO PARIS YAY!) but I really should get back to the memes first. Again, I haven't forgotten about these and I promise I will finish them; I'm just lazy. Content notes: The TV cut contains spoilers for most of season 4 of Babylon 5.
[OMG WTF? season finale: "Intersections in Real Time," season 4, episode 18 of Babylon 5, PTEN, 1997]
Okay, sure, if you want to get technical about it, "Intersections in Real Time" is the fifth-to-last episode of Babylon 5's fourth season, not its finale. However, two facts make me consider as such for the purposes of this prompt. First, "Intersections in Real Time" was originally intended to be the fourth-season finale; it was only the fear that the show would be canceled that caused J. Michael Straczynski to move this episode earlier in the fourth season and then compress much of the fifth season's story into the four that followed it. Second, this episode originally aired on June 16, 1997. The episode that followed it, "Between the Darkness and the Light," aired on October 6, 1997. In the four months intervening, PTEN became effectively defunct and it genuinely looked like we would never see the rest of the show in any form until TNT swooped in to save the day! If that's not a cliffhanger, I don't know what is! So while something like "Z'ha'dum" would certainly be the more traditional B5 pick for this prompt (and don't get me wrong, "Z'ha'dum" is a great and mind-blowing episode), it didn't quite have the cliffhanger "feel" when "The Hour of the Wolf" aired the week after and you only had to wait a few days to find out whether Sheridan was dead or not after he jumped into that pit and blew up the Shadow base or whatever.
The set-up for "Intersections in Real Time" involves the lead-up to the Interstellar Alliance's attempts to liberate Earth from its dictatorial anti-alien president, and Sheridan being betrayed by Garibaldi, who had earlier been brainwashed into doing it by the Psi-Corps. Sheridan is taken into Earthforce custody, and "Intersections in Real Time" shows his captivity, torture, and interrogation in a story that was obviously strongly inspired by 1984 in look, feel, and content. Something you may not have known about this episode is that its title comes from the fact that each "act" (between commercial breaks) was filmed using a single, uninterrupted, real-time take - meaning the actors and director treated it like stage acting instead of TV. Not only is this impressive to me due to its much higher degree of difficulty, it gives the episode a radically different feel from the episodes that came before it. And what's even more "OMG WTF?!" about it, to put it in the meme's terms, is the fact that not only does it depart so thoroughly from B5's typical style of storytelling and cinematography, it does so incredibly well in the middle of a huge important action-packed plot arc and without losing any of the momentum of the overall story.
But most of all, for me, this episode is a great example of a fitting and not-annoying confluence between what was happening on the show and what was happening behind the scenes. "Intersections in Real Time" has a serious downer of an ending - after undergoing all kinds of physical and mental torture, Sheridan still refuses to confess to treason to save his own life, and is told that he will be executed. But when he believes he is being taken to his death, he is actually taken to another interrogation room, where the same process begins all over again as the episode ends. To see a character who had not so long ago kicked two ultra-powerful alien races out of the galaxy by way of atheism ex machina brought so low was difficult, but also very much in keeping with one of Babylon 5's recurring themes - that evil doesn't come from dark wells of supernatural ookiness so much as it comes from normal people who are either apathetic or who fanatically believe themselves to be doing the right thing. And in a strange way, it captured what the fans were feeling at that time too, and heightened the dread and concern and uncertainty to levels it wouldn't have reached otherwise. So this episode had me saying "WTF?" in a few ways - not only "WTF? How's he going to get out of this one?" but "WTF? It can't end like that!" We're all very lucky that it didn't!
[A movie that you love but everyone else hates: Death Proof, dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2007]
I don't know that everyone hates this movie necessarily; after all, it was one of the relatively few films shown at Convergence this year (and to a packed house!), which is generally a good barometer of popularity. Also, most people I know who saw it stated that while they disliked the first hour or so of the movie, they were impressed by the car chase and action sequence that concluded it. Still, it's my impression that most folks tend to prefer Planet Terror from the Grindhouse double feature, and also that there is a substantial backlash against Quentin Tarantino as a director. So I do feel the need to defend this movie, and to explain why I loved it from beginning to end.
In keeping with the retro theme of the Grindhouse concept, Death Proof pays homage both to some of the tropes of slasher films (which as we all know are one of my very most favorite things to geek about) and to classic 1970s car chase films like Vanishing Point (which is repeatedly referenced by the characters). One of the things I think people don't realize about Death Proof is that the aspect of the film that people complain most about is in fact a subversive jab at a trope of the genre. I'm referring, of course, to the fact that the movie spends more than 30 minutes on listening to Jungle Julia and her friends snark and gossip and generally go about their business until you even get to see any carnage - what TVTropes refers to as Twenty Minutes With Jerks. Then after that it's another 30 minutes of the same with Zoe, Abernathy, and company before the rightfully lauded car chase at the movie's conclusion. But this in and of itself is a reference to the movie's predecessors, who would often blow their entire budget on one awesome set piece and need to fill the rest of the space with talking! (That said, I do unironically enjoy the talkier sections of the movie, too.)
I also think there's another purpose behind all the talk that I've mentioned here before. When I first saw Death Proof, I was not only delighted by the action it contained, but astonished by the fact that (as I said in my reaction post) "it has the most amazingly subversive and countercultural message about victim blaming that I've ever seen in a mainstream movie." I wrote another very long entry about this that I'll direct your attention to now. I don't want to reiterate everything I wrote in that entry here, but I do want to quote one of the main points:
"But the real beauty of Death Proof comes in thinking about the first segment of the film in light of the first [scenes]. It cannot be denied that when they took the Challenger out for a joyride, Zoe and Kim were acting in an extremely dangerous and irresponsible fashion before Stuntman Mike came along. But that does not absolve Stuntman Mike of attempting to violate them. In fact, Zoe and Kim's earlier actions are all but forgotten as soon as they decide to strike back, and they (along with Abernathy) are presented unflinchingly as the true heroes of the film. This is clearly a metaphor for the fallacious idea that some women are "asking for it" when they are raped or assaulted while doing something that is perceived to be irresponsible. But the fact of the matter is that no woman should EVER be blamed for the actions of her rapist, whether they are drunk, wearing a short skirt, alone, dancing seductively, or playing "Ship's Mast" at the time...In light of this contention, the viewer is then forced to reconsider the fate of Jungle Julia and her friends, who were unfortunate in having no time to prepare for their own accident, and lacking the stunt skills that saved Zoe and Kim's lives. If anything, that makes their deaths even more senseless than the attempt on Zoe, Kim, and Abernathy's lives was, since they were even less well-equipped to fight back against their attacker, whatever you may have thought of their personalities or their behavior. For this viewer, at least, under those considerations any lingering doubts about whether they "had it coming" are washed away. Stuntman Mike is the villain all the way, and Death Proof takes an uncompromising stand on behalf of those women who choose to stand up against sexual violence at all times, with no consideration for any so-called "extenuating circumstances" that may exist."
So yeah. Lately I feel like there's a bit of a backlash against Quentin Tarantino both from geeks and from progressives, but I don't really buy into that (I feel much the same about the backlash against Joss Whedon). Certainly Death Proof isn't an amazing all-feminist 1000% masterpiece (none of his movies are and I like some a lot more than others) but I also think there's a lot of interesting stuff in it to interpret from that perspective - and you also have to admit that the action scenes are incredible, even more so when you consider that it's all stunt skills and no CGI! But I definitely feel like my love of this movie is an unpopular opinion from two sides - casual action/horror movie fans think it's boring, whereas the people who actually want to look deeper into movies don't see the depth that I do. That's okay by me, though - at least I've gotten some of my friends to see this one my way!
This entry was originally posted at http://gamerchick.dreamwidth.org/566661.html. You can comment on either journal. Number of comments on Dreamwidth:
A further bonus for those of you in the southern Twin Cities suburbs is that you can now purchase all three of my albums in the "Local" section at Discland in Bloomington - brand new CDs at ultra-cheap used prices. Discland also has an amazing selection of used DVDs, video games, CDs, and other fun novelties, so you are sure to find something else you will like there. Thanks to Discland for all of their help and support!
Now on to my much neglected memes. I have a bunch of other stuff I want to post about (Inception! Catching Fire! Finishing reading the Mistborn trilogy and how some parts of it were cool and some parts of it were full of crap! GOING TO PARIS YAY!) but I really should get back to the memes first. Again, I haven't forgotten about these and I promise I will finish them; I'm just lazy. Content notes: The TV cut contains spoilers for most of season 4 of Babylon 5.
[OMG WTF? season finale: "Intersections in Real Time," season 4, episode 18 of Babylon 5, PTEN, 1997]
Okay, sure, if you want to get technical about it, "Intersections in Real Time" is the fifth-to-last episode of Babylon 5's fourth season, not its finale. However, two facts make me consider as such for the purposes of this prompt. First, "Intersections in Real Time" was originally intended to be the fourth-season finale; it was only the fear that the show would be canceled that caused J. Michael Straczynski to move this episode earlier in the fourth season and then compress much of the fifth season's story into the four that followed it. Second, this episode originally aired on June 16, 1997. The episode that followed it, "Between the Darkness and the Light," aired on October 6, 1997. In the four months intervening, PTEN became effectively defunct and it genuinely looked like we would never see the rest of the show in any form until TNT swooped in to save the day! If that's not a cliffhanger, I don't know what is! So while something like "Z'ha'dum" would certainly be the more traditional B5 pick for this prompt (and don't get me wrong, "Z'ha'dum" is a great and mind-blowing episode), it didn't quite have the cliffhanger "feel" when "The Hour of the Wolf" aired the week after and you only had to wait a few days to find out whether Sheridan was dead or not after he jumped into that pit and blew up the Shadow base or whatever.
The set-up for "Intersections in Real Time" involves the lead-up to the Interstellar Alliance's attempts to liberate Earth from its dictatorial anti-alien president, and Sheridan being betrayed by Garibaldi, who had earlier been brainwashed into doing it by the Psi-Corps. Sheridan is taken into Earthforce custody, and "Intersections in Real Time" shows his captivity, torture, and interrogation in a story that was obviously strongly inspired by 1984 in look, feel, and content. Something you may not have known about this episode is that its title comes from the fact that each "act" (between commercial breaks) was filmed using a single, uninterrupted, real-time take - meaning the actors and director treated it like stage acting instead of TV. Not only is this impressive to me due to its much higher degree of difficulty, it gives the episode a radically different feel from the episodes that came before it. And what's even more "OMG WTF?!" about it, to put it in the meme's terms, is the fact that not only does it depart so thoroughly from B5's typical style of storytelling and cinematography, it does so incredibly well in the middle of a huge important action-packed plot arc and without losing any of the momentum of the overall story.
But most of all, for me, this episode is a great example of a fitting and not-annoying confluence between what was happening on the show and what was happening behind the scenes. "Intersections in Real Time" has a serious downer of an ending - after undergoing all kinds of physical and mental torture, Sheridan still refuses to confess to treason to save his own life, and is told that he will be executed. But when he believes he is being taken to his death, he is actually taken to another interrogation room, where the same process begins all over again as the episode ends. To see a character who had not so long ago kicked two ultra-powerful alien races out of the galaxy by way of atheism ex machina brought so low was difficult, but also very much in keeping with one of Babylon 5's recurring themes - that evil doesn't come from dark wells of supernatural ookiness so much as it comes from normal people who are either apathetic or who fanatically believe themselves to be doing the right thing. And in a strange way, it captured what the fans were feeling at that time too, and heightened the dread and concern and uncertainty to levels it wouldn't have reached otherwise. So this episode had me saying "WTF?" in a few ways - not only "WTF? How's he going to get out of this one?" but "WTF? It can't end like that!" We're all very lucky that it didn't!
[A movie that you love but everyone else hates: Death Proof, dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2007]
I don't know that everyone hates this movie necessarily; after all, it was one of the relatively few films shown at Convergence this year (and to a packed house!), which is generally a good barometer of popularity. Also, most people I know who saw it stated that while they disliked the first hour or so of the movie, they were impressed by the car chase and action sequence that concluded it. Still, it's my impression that most folks tend to prefer Planet Terror from the Grindhouse double feature, and also that there is a substantial backlash against Quentin Tarantino as a director. So I do feel the need to defend this movie, and to explain why I loved it from beginning to end.
In keeping with the retro theme of the Grindhouse concept, Death Proof pays homage both to some of the tropes of slasher films (which as we all know are one of my very most favorite things to geek about) and to classic 1970s car chase films like Vanishing Point (which is repeatedly referenced by the characters). One of the things I think people don't realize about Death Proof is that the aspect of the film that people complain most about is in fact a subversive jab at a trope of the genre. I'm referring, of course, to the fact that the movie spends more than 30 minutes on listening to Jungle Julia and her friends snark and gossip and generally go about their business until you even get to see any carnage - what TVTropes refers to as Twenty Minutes With Jerks. Then after that it's another 30 minutes of the same with Zoe, Abernathy, and company before the rightfully lauded car chase at the movie's conclusion. But this in and of itself is a reference to the movie's predecessors, who would often blow their entire budget on one awesome set piece and need to fill the rest of the space with talking! (That said, I do unironically enjoy the talkier sections of the movie, too.)
I also think there's another purpose behind all the talk that I've mentioned here before. When I first saw Death Proof, I was not only delighted by the action it contained, but astonished by the fact that (as I said in my reaction post) "it has the most amazingly subversive and countercultural message about victim blaming that I've ever seen in a mainstream movie." I wrote another very long entry about this that I'll direct your attention to now. I don't want to reiterate everything I wrote in that entry here, but I do want to quote one of the main points:
"But the real beauty of Death Proof comes in thinking about the first segment of the film in light of the first [scenes]. It cannot be denied that when they took the Challenger out for a joyride, Zoe and Kim were acting in an extremely dangerous and irresponsible fashion before Stuntman Mike came along. But that does not absolve Stuntman Mike of attempting to violate them. In fact, Zoe and Kim's earlier actions are all but forgotten as soon as they decide to strike back, and they (along with Abernathy) are presented unflinchingly as the true heroes of the film. This is clearly a metaphor for the fallacious idea that some women are "asking for it" when they are raped or assaulted while doing something that is perceived to be irresponsible. But the fact of the matter is that no woman should EVER be blamed for the actions of her rapist, whether they are drunk, wearing a short skirt, alone, dancing seductively, or playing "Ship's Mast" at the time...In light of this contention, the viewer is then forced to reconsider the fate of Jungle Julia and her friends, who were unfortunate in having no time to prepare for their own accident, and lacking the stunt skills that saved Zoe and Kim's lives. If anything, that makes their deaths even more senseless than the attempt on Zoe, Kim, and Abernathy's lives was, since they were even less well-equipped to fight back against their attacker, whatever you may have thought of their personalities or their behavior. For this viewer, at least, under those considerations any lingering doubts about whether they "had it coming" are washed away. Stuntman Mike is the villain all the way, and Death Proof takes an uncompromising stand on behalf of those women who choose to stand up against sexual violence at all times, with no consideration for any so-called "extenuating circumstances" that may exist."
So yeah. Lately I feel like there's a bit of a backlash against Quentin Tarantino both from geeks and from progressives, but I don't really buy into that (I feel much the same about the backlash against Joss Whedon). Certainly Death Proof isn't an amazing all-feminist 1000% masterpiece (none of his movies are and I like some a lot more than others) but I also think there's a lot of interesting stuff in it to interpret from that perspective - and you also have to admit that the action scenes are incredible, even more so when you consider that it's all stunt skills and no CGI! But I definitely feel like my love of this movie is an unpopular opinion from two sides - casual action/horror movie fans think it's boring, whereas the people who actually want to look deeper into movies don't see the depth that I do. That's okay by me, though - at least I've gotten some of my friends to see this one my way!
This entry was originally posted at http://gamerchick.dreamwidth.org/566661.html. You can comment on either journal. Number of comments on Dreamwidth: