Thanksgiving Hates You.

Yeah, the title pretty much says it all. What with Thanksgiving vacation and the like, it would seem to be a perfect time to take a breather and update my favorite Internet Hate Machine. So much to mock, and a little more free time than usual.

Well, if you think that, you wouldn't be the first person to be tricked by the deceptive lure of Thanksgiving. It beckons to you, like a beautiful courtesan from the second-story window of a red-light district house of sin, and you've already tumbled into her welcoming arms before the haze of cheap liquor lifts from your eyes and you notice the bulge--oh God, the bulge--and BOOM. You're suddenly in a low-budget remake of The Crying Game, and you don't know whether to run for the hills or stay and at least get your money's worth, because hey, you've already paid her. Him. Whatever.

Ahem. Not that that's ever happened to me.

What was I talking about again?

Thanksgiving. Right. So anyway, everyone always thinks Thanksgiving will be a time to get some much-needed relaxation, but in the words of everyone's favorite anthropomorphic squid of high nautical rank (no, not Davy Jones, goddammit), IT'S A TRAP. It's a short vacation (assuming you get a vacation at all), and much of it is spent in transit to your ancestral family home. The rest of the time is spent with family and friends, eating and drinking and being merry (and/or plague-ridden, if you're me), and possibly doing dome Black Friday shopping if you're feeling suicidal. Then suddenly it's Sunday and you have no idea where all the time went, because you were planning to get work done and catch up on your sleep and you haven't done either one. And then you stumble outside and shake your fists at the grey, wintry sky and curse God, and he smites you for your insolence.

And that's how Thanksgiving will kill us all.

Cinema Snark: Harry Potter and the Massive Box Office Returns

Funny thing about Harry Potter movies: they're pretty much guaranteed to do well, regardless of whether or not they're any good. Regardless of what reviewers say, or what the fans may think of the movie (I'm looking at you, Half-Blood Prince. Leave out the climactic battle scene my ass.), people are still going to shell out money hand-over-fist to see these films. I could call it the worst movie since From Justin to Kelly and it wouldn't mean a damn thing, but that's because I'm not a real movie reviewer and the three people who read this blog have probably already seen it. So, to make a more valid point: Roger Ebert could say that this is the worst movie ever made in the history of the universe, like the ungodly cinematic spawn of In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale and Bloodrayne 2, with a little Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull thrown in for an extra kick in the balls, and everyone in the world would still go see it. Hell, I'd probably go see it for the sole purpose of seeing for myself if it really was that bad.

In any case, it's not actually bad. In fact, considering what it is, it's pretty good. It certainly looks fantastic, with the exception of a few overly CGI-laden shots that hurt the atmosphere more than they help. The main problem I had with the movie is the same problem I had with the first half of the book: since it's not actually set at Hogwarts, the framing structure offered by life in a boarding school is completely gone. There's a lot of travel and camping out in rural locations, but there's really no indication that they're heading in any particular direction, and they generally have no goal other than "We have to find and destroy the Horcruxes. But we don't know where they are or how to destroy them. [awkward silence] ....yeah, we're pretty much fucked."

There are several setpieces that serve to advance the plot, which are well-executed and entertaining, but there's a lot of dead space. There's also a puzzling scene in which Harry kinda turns into Peter Parker from Spiderman 3, what with the angst and the inexplicable dancing. Maybe one of the Horcruxes is going to turn out to be an alien symbiote. (That clicking you hear is the sound of a million fangirls suddenly typing out Peter/Harry slash fanfics.) The mood is suitably bleak for most of the movie, though, and it has a lot of cool action scenes, but there are also a couple important things that happen off-screen and are only referenced later. I'd have to re-read the book to refresh my memory on how those things are supposed to happen.

My favorite scene is the diner "shootout" near the beginning, because it reminds you that Hogwarts and all these wizards and witches and shit are supposed to exist in the real world. You see glimpses of it in the books and movies, but it's generally just in passing, and it's nice to see magical conflict spill over into the non-magical (I refuse to say "Muggle") world. It felt a little Tarantino-ish, and I liked that. Similarly, I liked all the uses of magic without incantation, like Hermione flicking her wand over her shoulder and blowing shit up. It feels more visceral, and also serves to denote the ability of anyone who does it (it's established in the earlier books that only powerful witches and wizards can cast spells silently). It makes magic feel much more like a powerful force that you have to bend to your will, instead of sparkly lights that happen when you shout mangled Latin.

Actually, scratch that. My favorite part of the movie was the animation that they used for the fairy tale of the Deathly Hallows. It was somewhere between the puppet bedtime story from Hellboy II and this little gem, which was nominated for an Oscar. I like creepy animated segments. They're pretty awesome.

And of course, this being a Harry Potter movie, its full of accomplished actors and actresses who don't get nearly enough screen time. Brendan Gleason and Alan Rickman are fantastic as always, and Ralph Fiennes really seems to be enjoying the chance to be completely and utterly batshit insane. I look forward to more Snape in the next movie, because he gets some really great stuff in the book. Also, the second movie will be a return to more familiar locales, so we'll get to see more members of the supporting cast - and hopefully the pacing problems won't be an issue, because the second half of the book is more action-packed anyway.

So, yeah, you should go see it. It's a cultural phenomenon and the like, and it's not half bad. Of course, my previous comment still stands: you've probably all seen it already anyway.

As a side note: Shortly before seeing HP7, I commented to a certain ginger midget that I would probably be the most badass person at the midnight showing. Not that I'm usually particularly cool, but my proximity to so many pasty cosplayers would probably make me look like the goddamn Fonz himself. Damned if I wasn't right. [End narcissism here.]

Cinema Snark: Due Date

So, over on that wonderful black hole called TV Tropes (seriously, once you go on there, you lose hours of your life before you manage to pull yourself away) they have a trope listing entitled Chekhov's Gun. The trope namer for this article is a quote from Anton Chekhov, which is listed at the top of the page: "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there." Basically, if you draw attention to an object, it damn well better get used at some point later.

After seeing Due Date, it occurred to me that TV Tropes should probably also have an article entitled "Chekhov's Dead Loved One." Whenever the physical remains of a dearly departed relative appear in a comedy (especially in ash form), you instantly know that there will be some sort of humorous desecration later in the film. Ashes will be spilled and/or unknowingly ingested, bodies will fall out of coffins, and there will be shock and consternation and possibly fainting if there are older ladies present. And oh, how the audience will laugh - unless, of course, it's not actually that funny, which it frequently isn't. (But let's be honest, the audience will probably laugh anyway, because the average modern movie-goer is a complete jackass. This has been proven by science, and by the continuing success of Tyler Perry's godawful cinematic abortions.)

The thing is, a Chekhov's Gun exists solely to add to the plot. A Chekhov's Urn (for lack of a better term) seems to exist for comedy's sake first, and any actual significance to the plot is tacked on to justify the joke. [EDIT: Holy crap it's real.] And that's what a lot of Due Date feels like: as if someone said, "Hey, wouldn't it be funny/wacky/gross if Zach Galifianakis did {X}?" and then they had to come up with a way to justify having {X} in the movie at all.

This movie will undoubtedly draw comparisons to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles because it's basically the same movie: an easily frustrated straight man and a zany, overweight nutcase embark on a cross-country trip to get the straight man home to his family for an important event (a holiday dinner in the old movie, and the birth of a child in the new one). And how does it stack up?

Well... Here's the thing. I'm a bit biased here, because I have a tendency to believe that everything Robert Downey Jr. touches turns to solid gold. He is incredibly talented, and has a huge range of personal experience to draw upon. Most of his characters have a snarky, tongue-in-cheek edge to them, which certainly contributes to my enjoyment of his movies, but he also has the ability to bring a surprising amount of believability into his performances. Yes, Tony Stark is a rich alcoholic douchebag with a badass suit of armor, and Sherlock Holmes is a witty, high-functioning autistic savant with possible homosexual tendencies and a drug addiction, but the characters are even more engaging because Downey imbues them with an undeniable humanity. They sure as hell test the limits of the public's willing suspension of disbelief, but they never completely cross into the realm of cartoon or caricature. Beneath their artifice, addictions, and sarcasm, they are as vulnerable as the rest of us - if not more so. This character is no exception: he's fun to watch, has some great monologues, and he's easy enough to relate to that the audience can feel his (often literal) pain.

And then there's Zach Galifianakis. He plays pretty much the exact same person he did in The Hangover, except with a greater disconnect from social norms. His character is written less as a lovable oddball and more as a complete fucking lunatic with little to no knowledge of human customs and behavior. I'm sure this is very entertaining to a great many people, but this is where the movie loses me: his character goes beyond "zany" and lands well inside the realm of "complete and utter caricature". He's not a person; he's a twisted sketch of a human being, smeared in feces on a padded cell wall by a disturbed mental patient on one of the moons of Saturn. I would use the phrase "jumping the shark", except after seeing the movie I can't help but think how much that sounds like a euphemism for public masturbation. Do not want.

In any case, the movie is frequently entertaining, but believability is really a problem. Dinner for Schmucks (which also co-starred Galifianakis) suffered from the same ailment: people ceased to be people and started becoming cartoons. The thing with absurd comedy is that it works best in short-form - i.e. stand-up or sketches. You have to keep raising the stakes for it to keep being funny, and it's damn near impossible to do that when you're also trying to throw in a message about the importance of family: you either make the whole movie completely absurd, or you tone it down and keep it within the bounds of the suspension of disbelief.

But hell, a lot of this is a matter of taste. The funniest movie I can think of offhand is In Bruges, and that's not even really a comedy - but maybe that's why it's so funny.

Food for thought, I suppose.

....

(Nom nom nom.)

Suck it, Glenn Beck.

I'm just going to come right out and say it: I'm a whore for short fiction. Everyone loves novels and the like, but there's something incredibly elegant about a well-executed miniature. It's sleek; it doesn't have too much time to meander or get bogged down (unless it's written by H. P. Lovecraft); it gets right to the damn point. If I were a prostitute, I would most likely accept payment in the form of short fiction anthologies.

And here, you should probably keep in mind that I'm talking about good short stories. You know, with interesting plots and unique narrative styles - not just strings of declamatory sentences which happen to describe a series of events. It's why I'll take Neil Gaiman over Stephen King any day: even in my least favorite of his short stories, Gaiman is still a deeply inventive writer with an approachable but sneakily florid style. King, on the other hand, could be described as the Renee Fleming of fiction - he's famous and well-liked and his prose style is perfectly functional, but his writing has no soul. He writes mechanically instead of artistically, and so I could give a damn about his work.

So! Finally, we come to the point. I'm reading a lovely little book called Machine of Death, a collection of stories about people who know how they're going to die. The premise is simple: there's a machine which takes a sample of your blood, and tells you (with complete accuracy) how you're going to die. No time, no place - just a little slip of paper with a word or a phrase on it. The machine seems to enjoy fucking with people, though, because the predictions are often vague or have ironic double-meanings. But, long story short, if the machine tells you how you're dying, that's how it's gonna happen.

This anthology is the brainchild of a few webcomic artists who came up with the idea and asked for submissions on the theme. Out of 700+ stories, they chose 30, and added a few of their own. After unsuccessful attempts to find a publisher, they decided to publish the damn thing themselves, and started a grassroots internet campaign to get readers to make MoD the number one book on Amazon for a single day. It worked. They even beat Glenn Beck's new book, much to the whiny bastard's on-air dismay.

That was reason enough to be glad I bought the book - but now I'm actually reading it, and damn.

It's good. It's really good.

I've read six or seven of the stories so far, and I've been impressed with all of them. Each has a different take on the machine and how it affects the people who use it, and they range in tone from amusing and lighthearted to horrifically bleak - but they don't conflict with each other so much as give you a more three-dimensional picture.

This book is seriously awesome. You should order it, or read it online. Read a story or six, or listen the podcasts. It's good stuff.

Become part of the liberal culture of death - all the cool kids are doing it.