A Short That Sort of Steals Its Sizzle

In just two short weeks, Fede Alvarez, director of the short film “Ataque de panico!” has gone from Internet nobody to the next hot thing in Hollywood.

But after watching the short, I don’t understand why. Is the video good? Yes. However, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. Alvarez seems to have gone to the Roland Emmerich School of Directing, borrowing not only the aliens-blow-up-a-city-and-the-flames-roll-out-to-devour-everyone-and-everything scenario from Independence Day, but also direct shots from the film as well. (See: cars being lifted into the air as the flames roll down the street.)

And for you film geeks out there, Alvarez even has a baby carriage roll down the steps during the chaos. (See: Battleship Potemkin)

I’m not saying that Alvarez’s movie won’t be good — it could very well be — or that you’re not allowed to reuse shots or concepts — everybody loves Tarantino, after all — I’m just confused as to why Hollywood jumped at a director whose sizzle reel isn’t that new or novel. Is everyone that desperate to make their own District 9?

You can watch the trailer here or check out the screencaps below for my examples.

The Problem With Arguing Feminism in Jennifer’s Body

I had no intention of revisiting my rant/review of Jennifer’s Body and its criticisms, mostly because I believe that if you can’t successfully convey your intent/arguments in one article then you shouldn’t bother with a follow-up.

This is not a follow-up.

Is James Cameron a (Blue) Copycat?

I just finished writing up this news over at LatinoReview about the possibility of Fathom Studios taking legal action against James Cameron for perceived similarities between their respective films, Delgo and Avatar.

As you can see from my post, I find the idea laughable. The truth is, I can come up with some other films and properties that share more in common with Avatar than Delgo seems to at this point. Don’t believe me? You’re about to.

I’m Fairly Certain Barbie is Some Kind of Whore

Today marked Barbie’s 50th anniversary, a fact which you probably cared as little about as I did. Still, with all the controversy there was about whether or not Barbie had set back the feminist movement; destroyed little girls’ self-images; or had just given them the audacity to dream of one day becoming an astronaut, veterinarian, or secretary; there’s one thing you most likely didn’t hear: that Barbie is a big, fat whore.

OK, more like a very slender and shapely whore, but a whore nonetheless. Now, I’m not one to judge what other women do in their spare time, or who they do for that matter, but there’s a difference between owning your whoreship and denying it. Being a whore and paying taxes on it: fine (and good for the economy!). Pretending not to be whore: bad a very good blog topic.

Let’s look at the evidence shall we:

I Could Have Been Tomb Raider

While checking out the San Francisco wiki page for info about the weather (because I’m an NYC girl who’s currently freezing), I came across the history of the Sutro Baths: a swimming pool complex that was built during the 1800s. After years of aquatic service to the public, the Sutro Baths building burned down in 1966 leaving a maze of cement ruins that I’m sure experts agree are “really cool.”

I concur.

Truth is, I’ve long been fascinated by city ruins and briefly – in-between wanting to be a race car driver and a painter – considered pursing a career as an archaeologist. My taste for ancient cultures was unrivaled and my understanding of the field was that you got to sit in one position for hours dusting sand from a piece of pottery with a tiny brush as you squinted into the sun and hoped your camel wouldn’t spit on you. Khaki clothing and ugly hats were also involved. Still, I found this career path intriguing and for that I blame Indiana Jones.

How I envisioned my future awesome, archaeologist self. More or much, much less.

I then made the childhood error of sharing my dreams with an adult – a species that has a knack for and the responsibility of scaring the hell out of kids. Mind you, the adult in question was someone I admired and someone who I know had no negative intentions whatsoever, but the effect was the same. She informed me that she knew someone who had contracted a disease while on an archaeological dig and died.

So you know, that kind of bummed me out.

Atlus is the Abusive Ex I Can’t Quit

An Atari afficionnado at the age of three; I think it’s safe to say that I’m a longtime gamer. I’ve also always been the sort that can easily master a new game and, to my surprise, eventually became a fan of RPGs – a genre that had left me perplexed until I played Final Fantasy VIII.

I say all this because I want to firmly establish my gamer creds before I declare the following: I cannot seem to finish an Atlus game. Specifically, any game in the Persona series.

It’s not that I can’t get my characters leveled up enough to beat boss after boss, it’s that there’s too much to ****ing do in-game in the meantime. To be frank, Atlus games require a dedication akin to autism, or at least a cavalry of game walkthroughs and forum buddies, to play to completion. And to me, playing a game while someone holds your hand the entire way isn’t fun.

YOU WANT ME TO DECIDE WHAT TO WEAR? AAAHHH!

So I consistently find myself at a point in an Atlus game where I just can’t decide what to do next. I’ll spend hours fusing, summoning, and trading Persona (magical beings used in battle whose numbers and variety rival that of Pokemon’s) until I forget the plotline, or obsessively max out social links (Atlus for “character relationships”) only to realize I forgot about grinding my characters in time for the big boss battle. Then I’ll restart from a last save, repeat the whole section, and mess it up in reverse, e.g. missing a crucial social link event or fusion day because I was busy leveling my characters.

Atlus is also a harsh judge in relationships. :(

As I write this, Persona 2 for the Playstation is somewhere in the back of my closet, my party trapped on a cruise ship with an inadequate amount of items because I was obsessively trying to map out every portion of the ship in order to sell it a NPC. My Persona 3 characters, meanwhile, are waiting for me to save Fuu without realizing that I abandoned them to start a new game with Persona 3: FES, which I dropped because I OD’d on the new social link events.

Atlus sometimes threatens to shoot himself if I were to leave him.

No matter how good my intentions are when I pop in an Atlus disc, it always treats me the same way: too many choices, not enough time, and hardly any SP items. Sure, I could opt for the easy setting but what would that say about me? Atlus would never look at me the same way. I can see him now telling all of the other RPG developers that I’m easy! Then Squenix and BioShock will never want to talk to me again and I’ll be left with only Banpresto to take me to the prom and he’ll try to get me to play Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia in the limo and no one will believe me if I tell them I hated it.

Dramatization.

And this is why I’m 15 hours into Persona 4.

** The Persona 2 pic is borrowed from the amazing Classic Gaming site. Go there now.

Why Matt Smith Will Be Awesome

I have absolutely no concrete evidence whatsoever as to how good of an actor Matt Smith is, or will be, as the newly cast Eleventh Doctor of the BBC’s long-lived Doctor Who. I can, however, intuit that Mr. Smith will raise the awesome flag when he takes up the Tardis helm.

In theory, the Doctor’s regenerations are a writer’s dream, allowing for constant plot and style retuning. We’ve had ornery Doctors, zany Doctors, crazy Doctors, vaguely insidious Doctors, and Peter Davison’s sweet-as-pie Fifth Doctor. With the actual regeneration of the series into “New Who” — spearheaded by Russel T. Davies – we’ve even witnessed Manic Depressive Doctor and Bi-Polar Doctor.

The problem is that I’m not sure who was who lately. Despite all the subtle personality differences between them, the Ninth (Christopher Eccleston) and Tenth Doctors (David Tennant) both carried a considerable amount of emotional baggage and were able to go from “Scions of Death” to “Kids with a New Toy” in a matter of seconds making them practically indistinguishable. It’s about time to switch things up.

Smith, with his youthful looks and relative unheardofness (or “obscurity” for those readers who like to use real words), and new head writer Steven Moffat, are exactly that needed change of pace. So here, in no particular order, are my reasons “Why Matt Smith Will Be Awesome.”

There Will Be Blood
Using my amazing power of deduction, and two BBC-released pics of Smith in front of the Tardis (see above), I can predict that the Moffat-Smith era will bring with it gothic horror, macabre settings, and a vaguely Emo Doctor. Never fear though, because he will be a self-aware emo (note the smirk). He’ll wear the clothes and carry the card but mock the entire concept as well as any companions he meets up with. Enough of the lovey-dovey Doctors, we need a baby-faced Doctor who makes secondary characters cower with self doubt and inferiority.

Worst Case Scenario: The Eleventh Doctor will actually be emo, painting the interior of the Tardis black, and cutting himself methodically as Fall Out Boy plays in the background.

The Young and the Restless
Now the hazard is that because Smith is so young and arguably good looking (and people have been arguing about this all over the forums) they’ll slap him together with a bunch of young female companions who will all fall in love with him in a never-ending cycle of angst and hilarious antics. As this already happened in “New Who” and even included a male amongst the casualities, I doubt Moffat will go the same route despite his Coupling roots. (Although, Moffat was responsible for the omnisexual Jack Harkness, so who knows? This could be the first gay Doctor on record.)

Worst Case Scenario: Doctor Who will become a time-traveling version of Friends, making the whole Ross-and-Rachel-on-a-break thing that much more confusing.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Smith’s look begs for a playful juxtaposition in assumptions and expectations. After all, the Doctor is canonically over 900 years old and now looks in his 20s, so we can only hope for a similar contradiction in personality (ornery and cynical) and looks (period clothing as opposed to the modern looks Nine and Ten sported.) If the thought of having a bad ass, 20-something in a top hat with pimp cane tell you what’s what doesn’t seem vaguely cool then I don’t know what to do with you. (Promotional pics show Smith in decidedly modern apparel but as shooting doesn’t begin until summer I shall hold out hope for a costume change.)

Worst Case Scenario: He could be dressed like he is in the above photo all the time. Although, the Batman shirt does rock.

And finally…

Chain of Fools
The Eleventh Doctor will stop angsting over former companions Rose, Donna, and Martha, and he won’t meet River Song. I have nothing to back this up except for wishful thinking.

Worst Case Scenario: He won’t. Bugger.

Do You Have a Dog?

You don't want to know.

I recently found out that a fellow cinephile and I share a certain appreciation for the 2000 film adaptation of American Psycho, which stars Christian Bale. If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s the tale of 1980s yuppie Patrick Bateman, who is equal parts psycho and culture critic.

In fact, prior to one of his many crimes, Bateman treats the victim to an in-depth analysis of Huey Lewis and the News, a popular 80s group that I decided to find on Amazon tonight. They have indeed gotten rave reviews – but most of the five-star ratings seem to come from Bateman himself.And this is one of the many reasons why you can’t trust Amazon reviews.

Why I’m Hot for Steampunk

I love steampunk. However, I lack the necessary dedication and means of integrating it into my lifestyle and so have settled for this post explaining my fascination. As an added bonus, treat this as a drinking game and take a swig whenever the word “steampunk” pops up for an evening full of fun. Just don’t go driving afterward.

Beatrix Potter was pretty fierce. Now imagine her with a steampunk gun. Did your life just get more awesome?

The Victorian Age With License to Ball Break
Truth be told, most women – while not wanting you to throw down your jacket over a puddle for them – just want you to be polite and a tad bit more romantic/discreet. That’s where the fascination with the reserved Victorian Age comes in.

Unfortunately during those times women were viewed as little more than baby-producing ornaments with nice asses assets, which is fine if your goal in life is to set back the woman’s movement while wearing lace and corsets but not so grand when you want to do things like write books, become a doctor, or have your own life.

In the world of steampunk, however, women do their own thing and can dress as properly as they want or even don the occasional pair of overalls and workman’s boots while still enjoying the perks of polite society and classic romanticism. It’s the best of modern day sensibilities and gender equality combined with the cultural ways of an era long gone. In short: steampunk lets women be steam-powered punks with guns who stop for tea in the afternoon.

Steampunk laptop > Macbook

It’s the Doohickeys
I’m as enthralled by the latest tech gadget as anyone else, but the shinier things get the more bored I become. Why? Because while it’s great to have a box of wonders that can mow your lawn and do your taxes, it’s not very interesting if it’s just a shiny metal box with an apple on the side and um, you get the idea. What does garner interest is anything Rube Goldberg-inspired.

For the uninitiated, and those too lazy to click, a Rube Goldberg machine is an apparatus that completes a relatively simple task with several more complicated steps. Seeing as the steampunk age is built upon the supposition that all contemporary tech is possible without the advances brought about by the nuclear and computer ages, you’re going to find more than one machine that completes today’s work with 50 of yesterday’s steps – and that’s what makes it interesting.

Whether it’s marveling at how an artist creates something as simple as a watch in steampunk fashion or something as far-fetched as an airship, the room for imagination and innovation is unparalleled. Anyone can think of a box that does everything for you, but designing it in an engaging way is something else entirely.

You Can Dress Like a Hobo and Still Get Into The Best Restaurants
No offense to hobos, but they’re not conventional style mavens. They’re usually just concerned with wearing something warm that the other hobos can’t rip off them while they’re sleeping, and can’t be bothered with matching patterns and prints. But that’s exactly the appeal of steampunk: anything goes. In fact, the general criteria for steampunk fashion seems to be thus:

1. Was it around during the Victorian Age and can you wear it?
2. If you can’t wear it, can you hang it off what you’re wearing?
3. If you can’t hang it, can you just carry it around smartly?

Steampunk makes you look ready for a fight. Bitchin'

That being said, I love the look and judging by steampunk media and even roleplayers within the world of steampunk, nothing’s too steampunky or not steampunky enough. It’s the ultimate realm of fitting in while being yourself. But seriously, enough with the goggles. It’s like going to a hipster concert and everyone’s in Tina Fey glasses.

Everyone Can Do Everything
No, it’s not some warped sense of communism. What I mean is that, in the steampunk world, you get the feeling that anyone can do anything they put their mind to. With machines being as easy as movable parts, gears, and assorted whirling gizmos, steampunk has a do-it-yourself air that makes you feel like you too can put together an amazing piece of machinery.

It’s like taking shop class and realizing that with enough study you can be putting together the same cars you see on the road. Only these cars have mechanical gears on the outside and cannons welded onto the trunk.

Photo Credits

– Beatrix Potter borrowed from the University of Pittsburgh site.

– The steampunk laptop is the work of the amazing Datamancer (www.datamancer.net) who mods and creates things to steampunk perfection.

– The steampunk crew in the second pic is actually the cast from the steampunk version of Twelfth Night. More details here and here.

Being a Superhero Sucks — Sorry, Earth

Like any other self-respecting nerd/geek, I’ve often dreamt of becoming a superhero entrusted with saving the world from invaders and overall debauchery. While some of my peers still aspire to this, I have found that the onset of adulthood has introduced some complications — or what I call, common sense — into my interpretations of how good a scenario this would make.

For my seven severely silly but slightly sensible reasons not to be a superhero click into the rest of the post…