Although Smallville did a decent job of injecting the man of steel with a touch of humanity, the character as a whole is overburdened by his squeaky clean, unambiguous morality.

I like my heroes to struggle with their call to action. I want them to come kicking and screaming into the light. Don’t give me Mr. Saintly who saves the day because it’s the right thing to do. Give me a guy who saves Earth because it’s got the best pizza in the universe and, oh, yeah, his friends, all two of them, happen to call the little blue rock home.

Which is why Pitch Black is one of my favorite movies. Not only is the hero as dark as the movie’s title, but the supporting cast also has a furious case of flexible ethics.

Riddick (Vin Diesel), the film’s hero, is about as “anti” as an anti-hero can get. He’s spent so many years incarcerated in the deepest, darkest prison in the universe, that he’s had his eyes modified to see in the dark. He doesn’t just ignore his call to heroism; he’s stopped paying the phone bill, and moved out of town leaving no forwarding address.

The film begins with Riddick’s narration, as he explains that he’s on a ship in deep space, headed for prison (after another escape), escorted by lawman William Johns (Cole Hauser). Riddick is unapologetic about his detachment from the rest of the human race, observing that, “They say most of your brain shuts down during cryo-sleep. All but the primitive side, the animal side. No wonder I’m still awake.” He goes on to give a quick, prescient rundown of the rest of the cast, his assumptions of profession and destination based solely on their scent. The rest of his companions in cryo-sleep are a mixture of settlers, miners and pilgrims.

Then the ship is peppered by a meteor shower that tears through the hull like shrapnel, damaging crucial systems and killing the captain. The remaining crew, a navigator and the docking pilot, Carolyn Fry (Radha Mitchell) struggle to land the ship as it plummets into the atmosphere of a nearby planet.

The awkward, rectangular ship is careening down, its nose pointed up. For Fry, the choice is clear. Dump the cargo, else no one–particularly her–will survive. “I’m not dying for them,” she says and pulls the level to disengage the section of the ship that carries the passengers, e.g., the cargo. Except the navigator stops her, wedging something between the door to the cargo area and the front of the ship.

His actions, though noble, are largely, pointless. The majority of the ship’s rear end is strewn across the planet’s arid surface. Amusingly, the few surviving passengers quickly declare Fry the hero for having saved them from death. This positions Fry as The Hero Who Isn’t, as opposed to Riddick, who is reviled by all right from the start. Of course, you know, at some point, the survivors will learn that Fry was all too happy to jettison their cryo-snoozing asses into space to save her own. And Riddick will eventually save the day. (Well, sort of.)

The principle character dynamic lies between Riddick, Fry, and Riddick’s “handler,” William Johns, a man with his own share of secrets. This “he/she isn’t what he/she appears to be” plotline between the trio is the movie’s strength.

The basic idea is the stuff that all horror films are made of: trapped somewhere, surrounded by monsters. In this case, it’s hungry, light-phobic beasties, who, thanks to a lengthy solar eclipse, now have a pitch black planet-size hunting ground. The monsters, when revealed, are scary enough; there’s a smattering of gore; and ample suspense. But Pitch Black distinguishes itself with its complex character interactions.

The thing about anti-heroes, deeply flawed characters, and for that matter, interesting villains, is that quite often they have a point. Fry’s decision to rid the ship of extra weight is sound. It’s not nice, but it’s really the only logical thing to do. Similarly, Riddick’s deeply cynical view of humans– “I truly don’t know what’s gonna happen when the lights go out, Carolyn, but I do know, once the dying starts, this little psycho fuck family of ours is gonna rip itself apart” –is dead on. When the poop starts flying, the survivors do turn on each other.

Anti-heroes get to say what we are all thinking. (Which is why they are deliciously fun to write.) They reveal the ugly truths lurking behind the false civility. In particular, the fact that most of us take care of “Me and my own,” to quote Malcolm Reynolds, another great anti-hero.

We’d all like to think we’d run into the burning building to save a dozen total strangers. Most of us, self included, would take one look at the inferno, and call 911, letting the firefighters risk their bacon.  Anti-heroes are rarely motivated, at least initially, by the greater good.  Like us, anti-heroes don’t step up until someone they care about is at risk. In the process, they may save an entire planet of cute fuzzy-wuzzies from the evil overlord, but their primary motivation was to protect, Bob, their favorite fuzzy-wuzzy, the rest of the little hairy fuckers be damned.

Riddick’s transformation to hero is geologically slow, his primary motivations apparently staying alive (like everyone else), and possible gaining the upper hand. His fuzzy wuzzy is Fry, in whom he initially sees a kindred soul. After all, she was ready to space him and the rest of the civilians to save herself, and above all else, Riddick respects a strong survival instinct. Fry, meanwhile, isn’t a stone cold killer, but a human being who made a hard decision under extreme duress. While Riddick is the obvious protagonist in the story, Pitch Black is also Fry’s story. Basically, Riddick and Fry are on parallel redemption paths. One grudgingly at best, the other pursuing redemption with tremendous tenacity.

Another, plus, Pitch Black isn’t the usual testosterone-poisoned action spectacle. Though the cast of Pitch Black is male-dominated, the three female characters aren’t damsels in distress, and there is little in the way of gratuitous fan service for the male audience. With one interesting exception, gender is never really an issue. By and large, the survivors, including Riddick, accept Fry as the defacto leader, only challenging her when things start to go really bad.

Pitch Black is one of the best SF horror flicks since Aliens. Recommended.

Anyway, a few days ago, my muse runs off, refuses to take my calls, and generally acts like an asshole. He does that–the bastard. (Yes, muse is a he. “That’s Mr. Muse, to you, ” he snipes.) In order to entice him back, I pulled a few of my keepers from the bookshelf. One, Emma Bull’s, War for the Oaks, which never fails to inspire. Next to it, I found Wheel of Dreams by Salinda Tyson, which is the topic of today’s post.

The cheating part is because most of this is a review I posted at Goodreads several months ago. But Wheel of Dreams is one of the best romantic fantasy novels I’ve ever read. Sadly, it’s the only book the author ever wrote and I think it slid into obscurity about five minutes after it was published. Maybe it was the uglier than the back end of a garbage truck cover that doomed it, but Wheel of Dreams definitely make a case for don’t judge a book by its cover.

I read Wheel of Dreams several years ago. I remember being captivated by the characters, but I never got around to reading it again. Then a few years later, I let my husband put it in the “to be donated box.” Fast forward a few more years, when I start thinking about the story. This lead to a rather amusing adventure in Google-Fu, as I tried to locate a book without benefit of stuff like title, author, character names, publisher or publication date.

The million dollar phrase turned out to be “father sells her to a mercenary,” which describes the novel’s inciting incident.  Kiera Danio is a young woman who lives in a highly patriarchal society. Basically, it’s the kind of miserable, repressive society that you’d expect when fundamentalist religious nutjobs are involved. Women are one step above cattle (maybe). Anything contrary to god’s will–like science and medicine–is heresy. One could say that the only sport in the land is witch hanging.

Kiera knows that it’s just a matter of time before someone discovers her prescient dreams and her ability to leave her body and enter the body of others. Her dreams have grown harder to control in the months following her mother’s death. Coincidentally, her father has grown more abusive, especially since Kiera refused to marry the man he chose for her.

Then one evening her father plays host to a group of travelers, including a priest, a page and his son, and a soldier. Though Kiera, who is expected to serve the meal, tries to remain as invisible as possible, she is fascinated by the soldier. Judging by his dark hair and skin and beardless face, he hails from the coasts to the north.

Eventually, her father notices her and, fueled in part by too much liquor, offers her up for sale. Kiera leaves before the bidding is done, but as she waits in her room, she finds she is hoping the soldier will win the bid. Not that it matters, because she has a plan. Her only hope is to flee whoever she marries and go north to the city of the witches, who can teach her to control her abilities.

Nikka Roshannon isn’t normally the kind of man who buys a wife, so he is baffled by his impulse to put up the winning bid for the girl. His is a culture that treats women as equals, and having spent time among the southlanders, he finds their approach to life joyless and oppressive. He is nevertheless drawn to Kiera and even more baffled by the fact that, after their wedding night, she has fled.

Kiera doesn’t really expect the soldier to pursue her. Although she stole some of his clothes and a dagger, she left him several jewels to essentially buy herself back. She soon realizes that Roshannon isn’t just another soldier, but a lord from the north. Worse yet, he seems to share her ability and the two are bonded, able to feel the emotions of the other. Despite their link, she fears him and is determined not to let him catch her.

Their game of cat and mouse is sidetracked by the escalating war between the witches of the north and the religious zealots of the south, particularly when the conflict spills into Roshannon’s native land.

What I liked about their relationship is that Roshannon, despite his status as a veteran warrior, isn’t emotionally unavailable. In fact, he has a pretty healthy attitude toward romance and love. As the story progresses, he displays an admirable sensitivity in dealing with his reluctant bride. Kiera, on the other hand, has been shaped by a society where men are the aggressors and oppressors. In fact, even when she learns that Roshannon isn’t cruel like the men in her past, she still fears what he might represent–the loss of the freedom that she has tasted. The two do get their happy ending, but it is definitely hard won.

A satisfying romance set against a backdrop of war and religious oppression. The book is out of print, but inexpensive copies can be found at various online retailers. I think I paid two bucks for mine.

But lately, I’ve given chunks of reading time over to fan fiction. For those who are don’t know, here’s the definition of fan fiction.

Back in my halcyon* days of fulltime, grownup employment, I read a lot of fan fiction. What else what I gonna do? Work? (*As in days of wine and honey and health insurance.) Once I started writing my own original fiction, I drifted away from fan fics, in part because of the bias among certain sectors of the writing community. Every so often, in between the regular author vs. reviewer scuffles and other Internet scandals, the fan fiction controversy pokes its head out of water like Nessie, and there’s a general freakout from folks on both sides of the issue. The issue isn’t anything I want to deal with here, but the angst is derived from the fact that fan fiction may not be entirely legal. Fan ficcers are essentially appropriating other people’s intellectual property.

I’m in the “It’s harmless so long as it’s done for fun, not profit” camp. Obviously. I read the stuff. But there’s a segment of authordom that sees fan fiction as a practice akin to skinning cute kittens and wearing their fur as hats. Insert a teenage, “What-ever.”

Anyway, I stopped reading fics because, as an exercise in learning the craft, it just made more sense to read published, edited and polished fiction. Recently, after the topic of fan fiction was showcased over at Dear Author, I started poking around fic sites again. And reading.

You get what you pay for and the quality of fan fiction varies, with a propensity toward “awful.”  The policy on a lot of fic sites is to request “reviews,” where the term is defined as “tell me how awesome my story is.” Some stories do benefit from beta readers, but most posted “in the raw.”

For some writers, fan fics are a kind of therapy, a means of working out their own emotional issues in the pre-existing confines of an established universe. For others, just a means of writing a sexy slash story featuring pairings like Hermione and Tonks. For some, English isn’t their first language, and fan fic is a way to practice writing in English.

So if it’s all dreck, why do I read it? Because it isn’t all bad–some of it is wonderful–and even the bad stuff is filled with a kind of joie de vivre. Quite simply, it reminds me why I started writing in the first place. Writing is fun.

A writer in my critique group, when I noted that his story read like he enjoyed writing it, said, “I don’t find writing fun.” My response was, “Whuh-huh?” I mean, I don’t think doing dishes or laundry is fun. That’s why the laundry pile is taller than my TBR pile. I do (or don’t do) a lot of crap that isn’t fun. Why on Earth would I want to write if it was a chore?

I need to put my characters and their stories on page. It’s a kind of catharsis that is ultimately rather joyful. If it turns into a chore, it’s time to find another way to not make money.

Of course, if you have any interest in writing for publication, you should be actively learning all you can about the craft of writing. This is where all those “writerly” things become important: plot, characterization, pacing, point of view, word usage, etc. But somewhere in the process–”Oh, dear god, everything I just wrote was in passive voice, kill me now!”–it’s easy to forget just how much fun it was to just…fucking write.

The fics I’m reading express that perfectly. Maybe it’s because they are borrowing someone’s universe and characters and it’s easier to write in an established milieu. Maybe it’s because the writers and I both love the characters they are “using.” But the stories, even the ones with wobbly prose and weird point of view shifts, exemplify what it is to sit down and write a story from the heart, to simply, pardon the schmaltz, feel the love.

Truly. It’s muse food.

The movie’s poster accurately sums up the movie. D’Artagnan front and center, with the shrunken versions of the heroes three, trying to fight the battle while D’Artagnan vogues. Milady DeWinter (Mila Jovovich) is overacting* in background, with Buckingham and Richilieu demonstrating their one facial expression. (*Jovovich somehow manages to overact while employing only three facial expressions: a leer, a sneer, and an eyebrow twitch. It’s rather amazing.)

The basic premise of the movie is this: Arthos (Luke Evans), Porthos (Ray Stevenson) and Aramis (Mathew MacFayden) are down-on-their luck Musketeers. D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman) is the arrogant country boy who comes to city to be a Musketeer and have adventures. As soon as he arrives in Paris, he starts picking fights with everyone he encounters, including the Musketeers and the one-eyed villainous Rochefort (Mads Mikkelson). Soon after, the three Musketeers adopt D’Artagnan into their ranks because…why? I guess the part of annoying, teenage protégé hadn’t been taken yet.

The three and their idiot boy wonder soon uncover a plot by Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) and the Lady DeWinter to provoke a war with England. The dastardly plan is to plant evidence  to suggest that Queen Anne (Juno Temple) is having an affair with England’s Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom). This plot device  is predicated on the hope that the viewer will believe that King Louise (Freddie Fox)–the foppiest fop in the history of fop–is heterosexual and that he gives a rat’s fuzzy little butt about Anne’s bed partners.

The race is on to recover the evidence and save France from an apocalypse. Yes, “apocalypse.” That’s the word used in the movie’s introductory voice over. The hyperbole, along with the theft of visual elements from other movies, is strong with this one.

The Three Musketeers is the kind of awful that leaves a viewer wondering if the director, W.S. Anderson (he of Aliens vs. Predator), watched Battlefield Earth, and thought, “You think that’s bad, get a load of this!” OTOH, this is another so-much-snark-so little time kind of movie.

For example, we are first introduced to D’Artagnan as he prepares to leave his lovely little French village. His parents send him off with a bag of money and a horse. “Your mount will be Buttercup,” says his dad.  My DH and I had just watched The Princess Bride the night before, so you can well imagine the adolescent snickers that provoked. “The Dread Pirate Roberts will not be amused.”

Then there’s the bit where we learn that Aramis is a glorified meter maid, wandering the streets of Paris, giving horses tickets for shitting. Orlando Bloom’s pompadour earned a “The Stray Cats called, they want their hair back.”

Hubby and I also pondered imponderables such as why do the French speak with English accents? I mean, the two countries were at each other throats. You’d think the French might be disinclined to sound like they grew up in the seedier parts of London.

The best moment in the whole movie comes when D’Artagnan challenges Rochefort to a duel. He pulls out his sword and does a swishy thing to show that he knows where to direct the pointy end. Without any fanfare, Rochefort, a la Indiana Jones, pulls out a gun and shoots D’Artagnan. Winning!

The airships are, of course, really cool, and the overall look of the movie is just gorgeous, crafted from a vivid color palette and bold designs.

In fact, had this actually been a movie about The Three Musketeers, it wouldn’t have been half bad. When they’re allowed to speak, MacFadyen, Stevenson, and Evans, are amiable enough in their roles. Unfortunately, the script brings on the “twee” by making a boy-child the protagonist. Fifteen-year-old girls may be oblivious to Logan Lerman’s wooden acting–because, blue eyes!–but to anyone else it’s apparent that the poor lad is a graduate summa cum laude of the George Lucas school of acting. His romance with Anne’s lady-in-waiting is utterly tepid. Set two bottles of filtered water next to each other and you’d have more chemistry.

Oh, and the funniest point in the movie? The epilogue, which presumes to set up a sequel to this stinker.

The Three Musketeers is a beautiful disaster.

But It’s a Dry Heat

I make no secret of the fact that I like animals more than people.  Sometimes, an animal is the only character worth watching. For instance, I spent the entire, agonizing, “good lord smite me before I have to watch more of this crapfest,” three-hours of Alexander the movie, worrying about Bucephalus the horse.

The Thing couldn’t even get me to give a fuzzy crap about the dog.

The Thing begins with three guys in an ice jeep thingy (look, if the director and scriptwriters were too lazy to build character backstories, I’m too lazy to Google the correct name of the vehicle). They are following a mysterious signal across the Antarctic ice. And they are Norwegian, which is the extent of character development for a big chunk of the cast. The three are part of a team working in some far flung corner of Antarctica. Most of the team is Norwegian, so I just started calling them Viking 1, Viking 2, etc. One of the Vikings tells a joke about incest which is the funniest point of the whole movie. And really, it’s not that funny. Antarctica isn’t amused either, because a giant chasm opens and the jeep thingy falls in.

Cut to someplace warmer and cute paleontologist Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is giving a frozen saber tooth tiger a colonoscopy. Kate has the exact haircut as my buddy Sharon, so I spent most of the movie going, “Nooo, Sharon, don’t go in there!” Her scruffy buddy, uh, Bob? (seriously, I can’t even figure it out from the cast list)…comes in to tell her that she’s needed in Antarctica to give dental exams to frozen ant aliens. Okay, he didn’t say that. It would have been a much better movie if he had. His boss, a grim looking Norwegian named Dr. Sander Halvorson, follows him into the room and announces that he’s found something really awesome, so amazing that he can’t tell her about it; she just has to get her ass to Antarctica. Kate grumbles about the lack of information and then realizes that she’s playing proctologist to an extinct cat. Antarctica will be like a day at the beach.

Several layovers, missed flights and TSA strip searches later, Kate and company arrive in the great white south. There we meet one of the pilots, Carter (Joel Edgerton), who you know is an important character because he’s A) American, B) Got cute, sad boy eyes, and C) instead of scruffy beard, has just-right stubble. There’s also a black man, Jameson (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and you know he won’t live to see the end of the movie. There is something in a horror movie that does not like the black man. My husband and I immediately start taking bets as to who will be the first to get “et” by the alien.

Anyway, Dr. Halvorson shows Kate the extraterrestrial on ice. Then he pulls out a drill and announces that he needs a tissue sample. Kate politely points out that a garage in the middle of bumfuck Antarctica may not be the best place to carry out scientific experiments on an alien life form.  Halvorson says he must break the ice because how else will the monster be unleashed on the hapless cast? No, wait, that was me. Drilling happens. The beast awakes. Angry. (Can you blame it?)

The black man isn’t the first to die. This represent the only departure from horror movie formula in the entire film. Instead, one of the Vikings is the first victim. Then the dog. Or was it another Viking? I can’t remember. The point is, the dog’s passing was met with a shrug by me. Before its demise the animal is onscreen for about ten seconds. Once, when Lars, its owner, is introduced. Then, with a split second shot of it growling at something. We don’t even get to see it turn into a freakish dog alien.

The script is so fumbling, so inept, that it under-develops a dog’s character. How hard is it to make a dog lovable? Show it wagging its tail; licking someone’s face; big brown puppy dog eyes. Tah-dah! Audience loves the dog. When it comes to dogs, there’s thousands of years of co-evolution at work. You have to actively work to make a dog unlovable to the average human being. We’re wired to love dogs.

There are four characters in The Thing who manage to be mildly memorable: Kate; Doctor Halvorson (the archetypal asshole Who Must Die); Carter (love interest, except there isn’t any lurve), and Lars (dog owner and briefly, wielder of the might flame thrower).  Kate, to her credit, is a strong female character and she’s given a lot to do. The problem is that other than being a take-charge babe, we know nothing about her.

Lar’s only contribution, besides being enthusiastic about using a flame thrower (but who isn’t, really?), is to show Kate his grenades. Wink, wink, wink. Yeah. I wish. (This movie really coulda used some gratuitous nudity. Titties in the cold!) Lars really has a secret stash of grenades. Doc Halvorson’s job, of course, is to die in a spectacular way. (Sort of.) Carter is there to provide a feeble suggestion of sexual tension.

The alien itself, particularly when it starts morphing humans into monstrosities and in one case, into each other, is wonderfully grotesque. But in the absence of character identification, the great creature design is just a banal gross-out with no thrills or chills.

Which brings me to my conclusion about The Thing. It’s a so-bad-it’s-fun movie. But it still sucked. No, I wasn’t expecting Atonement. I was, however, hoping for something more than an un-scary movie where the actors could have just as easily been replaced by tennis balls with smiley/frowny faces drawn on them with a Sharpie.

Seeing The Thing morph into a fuzzy green tennis ball? That’s would have been cool.

But It’s a Dry Heat

The story begins with Mikael Blomqvist (Daniel Craig) being convicted of journalistic fraud after his expose of a corrupted industrialist is revealed to be underlain by shoddy journalism. In truth, Mikael has been set-up, but the ruling has repercussions, not only for his career and finances (huge fine), but also the magazine that printed the article. In the original movie, Mikael is also facing jail time, but that aspect is absent from this version. Soon after quitting his job, he is approached by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), another rich, but aging industrialist, whose dysfunctional family approaches Jerry Springer proportions. That is, if Jerry Springer guests were wealthy former Nazis.

Decades before, against a backdrop of abuse and incest, Henrik’s teenage granddaughter disappeared and is presumed dead. Henrik wants Mikael to find the truth, i.e., the killer. Mikael muddles along, looking at old pictures and constructing flow charts to keep track of who is and isn’t speaking to whom. Delving deeper into the mystery, he uncovers a connection to several murders–women killed in horrific ways–evidence of a serial killer.

Eventually, he requests a research assistant, and Henrik suggests a very capable person who, coincidentally, is the same person Vanger hired to do a background check on Mikael. Enter The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Lisabeth (Rooney Mara), the emotionally-stunted, occasionally psychotic, bisexual, punk-girl hacker. Life has taped a big “kick me” sign on the back of twenty-four-year old Lisabeth, a ward of the state since she was twelve, and her defensive posture and attitude reflects this. Her most recent victimization comes at the hands of her new social worker, who brutally rapes her; the assault “payment” for his allowing her to have more of her allowance. As with in the original, Lisabeth exacts her equally violent revenge.

Despite her off-putting personality, Mikael knows she is a terrific investigator, in particular because he’s seen the report she did on him. Hiring her comes with a side benefits–sex; Lisabeth initiating each encounter, clearly in control and using him as much as he does her.

Daniel Craig adds a bit more charisma to the Mikael’s character and improves the scenery. Christopher Plummer’s portrayal of Henrik has tremendous sparkle, and the scene where he explains the anti-social dynamics of the family Vanger is downright funny. Rooney Mara’s version of Lisabeth is a bit more broken and less angry than that of Noomi Rapace, and possibly more accessible.

And yeah, in some respects, the switch to English is helpful. At times, it was frustrating to be shown a newspaper clip, an important clue, in Swedish. But, with the original, the sense of immersion in another culture made up for the annoyance. The very Swedish-ness of the original lent certain aspects of the film, e.g. Sweden’s Nazi past, a delicious sense that you were snooping through an entire nation’s dirty laundry.

Personally, I thought this version lacked the suspense of the original. Admittedly, the fact that I knew the story’s outcome meant a diminished sense of tension. OTOH, I have a short memory, and it still felt as though the plot in this version screamed, “Here’s the perp; he did it!” The original movie did a much better job of misdirection; one crucial, tension-filled scene where Mikael creeps about a suspect’s house–the wrong suspect–is missing altogether. The original also front loaded more of the exposition, while this one holds back details until the end, presumably to created a sense of mystery. Except it really doesn’t accomplish much except to give the movie any overly long epilogue.

Subtitles and all, I prefer the original Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but still found this version engrossing and worth watching.

No. You charge.

Several months ago I read a much-lauded book, the first in another long epic series where the author is taking a god’s age to finish the sequels. (Like I can talk. I’m still not done with the 80K sequel to The Music of Chaos.) Despite all its press, I found the novel overrated, but that’s not the point of this post.

In one small scene in the novel, the protagonist, while on horseback, shakes the horse’s reins to encourage it to move forward.

And then my head exploded, raining confetti all around the room.

This isn’t the first book I’ve read where the author mistakenly thought that riders shake the reins to signal “Go.” It may have been one of the more perplexing, however, because the author obviously did a lot of painstaking research on horses. (Too much; he went on and on about basic horse care; it’s was like reading about someone brushing their teeth or putting on makeup.)

Your average fantasy novel (or movie) is often a study in stuff you can’t do with a horse. Like run the poor beast for days nonstop without water and food. Or the newbie rider, having never been on horseback before, who leaps on a horse and rides into battle, and lives to tell.

But the rein shaking thing makes me grind my teeth so loud you can hear them squeak in Tokyo. Why does it bug me so much? I dunno. Why do I love the color purple, and hate broccoli? It’s a matter of taste, I guess.

Point is, it’s basically wrong; likely something that people pick up from the movies where they see a driver shaking a cart horse’s reins. (In lieu of a whip, the person is slapping the horse’s bum with the reins.)

For the record, there’s no reason you can’t train a riding horse to move forward or increase speed when you jiggle the reins. The commands and signals that we use to communicate with our animals are just arbitrarily chosen cues. You can train a horse to move forward when you say, “Monkey nuts!” Similarly, you can teach a dog to sit to the command, “Pizza.” Dogs and horses don’t speak English, or French, or Spanish, or Klingon. They have their own form of language, but it’s vastly different from ours, so the trick is finding a cue that makes sense to us and that can be taught to the animal in a reasonable amount of time.

The biggest problem–and probably why it gives me the twitches–with the rein-shaking-equals-go cue is its awkwardness and inefficiently.  Picture a knight on his steed  in the middle of a chaotic battle. He’s surrounded by opponents–other riders and foot soldiers–and his sword flashes in the sun as he beats back the enemy, making more than a number deader than dead. Seeing his fellow knights overrun, he needs to urge his destrier across the field. While parrying a blow from a mace, he shakes the reins.

One more time, for emphasis: while parrying a blow, he shakes the reins. Yeah, it’s on the order of “rub my belly while patting my head” awkward. Similarly, imagine a cowboy and his horse galloping after a steer. The cowboy is spinning his lasso and urging his horse to go faster by shaking the reins. Riiiight.

There’s a reason European and Western traditions don’t do this. It’s stupid.  A rider needs to convey commands with an economy of movement, ideally freeing the hands. (Dressage and reining horses take most of their cues from the rider’s seat and legs, not the reins.)  Also, it just makes more sense to put the guidance system and brakes, as it were, in the front, and direct any commands for propulsion to the rear, where the power lies (big hindquarters).

Basically, an equestrian cuing system where the horse is urged on by the rider shaking the reins is like a car that only accelerates when you jiggle the steering wheel. Yeah. It’s that moronic.

See any rein flapping here?: Freestyle dressage (dancing horse!)

No flapping here either–Reining horse with no reins. Very cool. Love the long back and the hug at the end.

We Isn't for "Borrowing."

An interesting side effect of being a heathen employed by a church, is that I probably read more scripture than many so-called Christians. Certain scriptures, those associated with Lent/Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas, for instance, get replayed yearly.

Every single time I read this scripture (below), I think, “Dude, Jesus totally stole that donkey.”

Mark 11:1-6 (ESV)

Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’” 4 And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. 5 And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go.

Yeah, I know. If you do more than skim it, you’ll note that in verse 3, it’s implied that Jesus will return said long-eared critter, but I still argue that Jesus had a rather loose definition of property rights. I mean, the attitude reads as pretty much, “I’m borrowing this here donkey; deal with it.”

Religious folk, of course, might argue that since Jesus is also god, creator of the heavens, firmaments, and beasties great and small, the donkey is his by default.  Well, no. Not unless Dodge can roll up onto my doorstep and appropriate my Ram truck for a few hours, whenever Dodge chooses.

Today’s heresy is brought to you by the upcoming Palm Sunday and my muse who says I don’t have time to write a review of the action flick we watched two nights ago (Ronin). (Pictured: Two of five, of my neighbors’ donkeys, Sora and Clyde. Aren’t they cute?)

But It’s a Dry Heat

But what’s also clear to me, is that Florida’s lax gun control laws are responsible for letting a murdering racists like Zimmerman off the hook.

I own guns. I like ‘em. Unlike gun owners on the Right, however, I don’t lay in my bed at night, my sheets wet with night terrors brought on by the fear that Obama is going to take my guns. I don’t rage against an unkind universe when I have to wait a couple of weeks to purchase a gun. Most importantly, I don’t for one minute, deny that guns are designed for anything other than taking the life of another living being.

“But guns don’t kill people. People do,” wails the gun nut.

You just made my point, Bubba. This is precisely why we need reasonable restrictions on when and by what sort of people, guns can be carried. Because guns make it much easier for  fallible, stupid and volatile people to murder other people. Case in point, George Zimmerman’s murder of Trayvon Martin.

Opponents of gun control, of course, love to claim that guns, in the hands of the law-abiding (read “white) populace, are as harmless as a de-clawed kitten. As with most right-wing fallacies, this utopian notion operates on the naive belief that people (again, “white people”) will always do the right thing.

My experience with a couple of middle America’s finest would suggest otherwise.

Five days a week, rain or shine, I walk my greyhound early in the morning. By and large, the other dog walkers I encounter are a wonderful, polite bunch who keep their dogs leashed or leash them when they approach me and the hound. Tis what civilized folk do.

Twice, however, I’ve encountered jerks who not only refused to leash their dog, but got aggressive when asked. Both, by the way, were older, white, upper middle class, men. With one, the altercations were confined to R-rated yelling matches, that circled, but never quite escalated to violence.

The most recent jackass got in my face and tried to intimidate me. I shoved him out of my space. The scene ended with him muttering something about assault, and me, yelling, “Assault? Let’s call the cops, motherfucker, and see what they say?” at his retreating back as he skulked away. (I’ve only seen him once since, and amazingly, he seems to have found a leash for his mutt.)

Bullies will be bullies, but I’d bet a few pesos that this creep wouldn’t have tried that crap had I been a black or Hispanic male. He saw a woman and though he could get away with acting like a teenage douchebag. The problem with his assumption is that while I may weigh 100 pounds soaking wet, when you mess with me and mine, my enraged self swells up like the Hulk. It’s hereditary; my teeny grandma was also a firebrand.

Something to consider. Had either one of us had a firearm, someone could have easily ended up bleeding in the sand.

My point is that people, even normally law-abiding humanoids, when worked into a lather over the stupidest shit, turn into lizard-brained, irrational morons. People kill people at an alarming rate, particularly when outfitted with devices that make the job push-button (trigger) easy. A couple of hours in a “gun safety awareness” class isn’t going to turn the average hype-reactive human into a person with the crisis management skills of a veteran police officer.

This is where the gun nut will argue that an armed populace would be well-behaved because the threat of getting shot would prevent misbehavior. An interesting assumption, given that your average gun nut is also a conservative, deeply afraid of minorities, feminists, and other variants of “other,” precisely because “those” people can’t be trusted to act in a rational manner. In other words, they claim that people will act in a rational manner all the while believing that a chunk of the population is anything but rational.

Of course, the solution for those people, the gun nut says, is to be taken out by an armed “citizen.” In this little slice of crazy pie, the gun nut imagines himself shooting the armed gunman in the bank, the hero of the day; superman, no cape (because capes are teh gay), and instead a beer belly and beer-stained NRA T-shirt.

In the real scenario, two children, a schoolteacher and an eighty-year-old man would be killed in the crossfire of the ensuing battle. The bad guy would get away. That’s because, in the real world, bullets don’t always obediently embed themselves in the “bad guy’s” flesh. They fly in whatever direction they’re shot, ricocheting and careening off in new directions. Truly, in the Bizarro universe of the gun nut, we’d be more at risk of getting shot by Bubba and his Rambo wet dreams, than a genuine “bad guy.”

Racism certainly killed Trayvon Martin. But so too did a law that allows armed loonies to march around the streets, slaughtering other human beings like a hillbilly Judge Dredd, never facing judgment for their crimes.

But It’s a Dry Heat

Me neither; just a few scattered impressions from when I was a kid and it was on TV.  I recall it being about a futuristic society where people were killed off at 30, their expiration date announced by some kind of colored device on their hand.

In Time trades in a variant of that premise: in the future, science has somehow made it so that people stop aging at twenty-five. Humans, however, still make babies and in a world where no one dies except through fatal accidents, people would eventually be packed on this little blue sphere like sardines. Society’s solution is stamp a digital clock on everyone’s arm that starts ticking at 25, counting down a year. Since it’s possible to put more time on the clock, a person could theoretically live forever. Run out of time, however, and it’s Deadsville for you. Time, not money, is now the most important commodity.

It’s the future and ugly-ass buzz cuts are still in style. No wait, they’re not, but Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) sports one anyway, presumably to drive home the fact that he and his mother Rachel (Olivia Wilde), are poor. Will and Rachel make plans to celebrate her 50th birthday and she shares some time with Will so that he can have lunch.

Will heads for the factory where he makes canisters that hold time. On the way, he shares some time with a street urchin. (Hint: that’s so you’ll know he’s a good guy.) When he stops to get a cup of coffee, he finds that the price has gone up–again. Then, as he’s clocking out and getting his time pay, he’s told that his pay’s gone down. Thus is the life of the working poor in this new society. Pretty much the same as it’s always been, except people are much prettier.

Like any other working schlub, Will heads to the pub to drown his sorrow, where he sees a man buying everyone round after round of drinks. The man, Henry Hamilton (Matthew Borner), is a fat cat slumming it in the ghetto and risking the attention of the Minutemen, a gang of time thieves. Will rescues the Henry from the Minutemen, unaware that Henry doesn’t want to be rescued. Living forever isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and Henry is trying to commit suicide. Henry tells Will that the rich are living off stolen time, siphoned from the poor through exorbitant loans, rents, and cost of living increases. “For a few to be immortal, many must die.”

Later, when Will is asleep, Henry passes Will nearly all his time–a century–leaves him a note (“Don’t waste my time”), and dies. Flush with his new wealth, Will shares some with a friend and then goes to meet his mother. Except Mom is down to her last 90 minutes and the bus ride home now costs two hours. She tries to run home, but her clock runs out just before she can reach Will and he can share his time. Distraught, Will visits his friend, only to find that his buddy, flush with a whole decade, gambled himself to death.

With nowhere else to go, he heads for the gated world of the rich. There he spends a day sleeping (a luxury when you have to make every minute count) in a luxury hotel, winning a high stakes game of poker with millionaire Phillip Weis (Vincent “Hey, it’s Conner from Angel!” Kartheiser), and later partying at Phillip’s mansion.

Will’s good times come to an end when Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy), a Timekeeper, crashes the party and tries to arrest Will.  Upward mobility doesn’t happen for guys like Will, and Raymond suspects foul play. Will escapes, using Phillip’s daughter, Sylvia, as a hostage. And thus begins the Bonnie and Clyde/Robin Hood segment of the movie….

Interestingly, the critics panned In Time. But then, they also panned Equilibrium, another dystopian film that I liked. *Shrugs* Of the two, I think Equilibrium is the stronger movie, but I’ve a fondness for storylines that address societal injustice. In addition to the vampiric nature of the rich, In Time also addresses the fact that the criminal element’s predations fall heaviest on the poor, essentially keeping them down from within.

My biggest complaint is–no surprise here–characterization–particularly Olivia, Phillip’s spoiled daughter, who makes the transition from princess to bank robber a little too smoothly. Then there’s the fact that time isn’t just money, it’s life. Run out of money and you may go hungry for a day or so. Run out of time and you die. Kaput, finito. The ease with which people accept time theft, both from their peers and the rich, seems a little unlikely.

But given the dreary narratives that generate critics’ praise (*cough, Black Swan*), In Time is at least action-packed and fronted with serviceable acting (although Cillian Murphy’s raw-boned good looks are getting a little too raw to pass for 25).

In Time is an imperfect but entertaining SF allegory of economic disparity.

But It’s a Dry Heat