Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Lucas... Just Double Checking My Midi-Chlorian Count

In preparation for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I made sure that in the week leading up to its release that I watched the first six movies as well as Tartakovsky's oft-overlooked Star Wars: Clone Wars show. For as long as I can remember, Star Wars has been a central part of my cultural vocabulary and an essential pillar of my own personal artistic cannon. Growing up on the margins of most social groups, the sci-fi genre was appealing because one of its core messages was always one of hope. Star Wars offered a different sense of hope than, say, the vision of the future that Gene Roddenberry gave us with Star Trek. The hope that Star Wars offered was the hope that for each of us there was the potential of completing our own version of the Hero's Journey: emerging from obscurity to stand against an unfathomably evil force and fighting back for the good of innocent people, your own survival, or to win a moral victory. It also offered the hope that no matter how badly you fuck up, like, say, making out with your own sister, you could still become a badass dressed in black walking the path of the righteous man.

In a lot of ways, Star Wars has become, both for myself and a substantial and increasing subset of the general population more than a series of movies--and video games and books and comic books and memorabilia of every variety that humankind can conceive of. It has become an icon, a cultural phenomenon that binds us and inspires us every bit as surely as the Force. Culture is a funny thing. Seemingly insubstantial artefacts are imbued with extreme significance, but as we validate that significance, we internalize it. Star Wars, like any other cultural text, is both completely irrelevant in the Grand Scheme of Things but intensely important on a very personal level and even on a macro societal level because it is integrated into both who we are and how we interact with each other. Being a fan of something isn't just some silly thing people do to pass the time and lower their chances of getting laid (by someone who isn't their sister); it's a part of their identity.

Oscars Buzzed. I'd Like to Thank the Academy... No Wait, the Opposite of That...

The closest thing I have to a religion is movies. I don't adhere to any systems of spirituality because, frankly, there isn't a single one that is based on even the tiniest shred of verifiable evidence. That isn't to say I don't experience moments of transcendence or embrace cultural systems that do; I'm just a lot more honest about it than a lot of people. I find cultural instances of transcendence in the written word, video games, and mostly movies. I'm not sure why I developed such an affinity for movies. Perhaps part of it based on the fact that out of all forms of media, movies most closely reflect the way that human beings process the world around us. The point is that award shows are the closest thing I have to a High Holy Days, and I have completely abandoned even the pretense of observing them.

I wish the Oscars actually mattered, but it seems like the organizers do everything in their power to turn potential adherents away. Aside from the fact that the Oscars are boring as shit, the whole voting process is a giant clusterfuck. Right now it's a political system, which means it's based mostly on popularity and marketing campaigns and money. Which is fine if that's the system they want to employ. It's just that the results from one year to the next aren't comparable on any meaningful level, and so the outcome doesn't really hold a lot of value. Which wouldn't be so bad, if the Oscars didn't have the pretense of providing some meaningful metric. They're a popularity contest posing as a meritocracy, and it's that gap between what they are and what they purport themselves to be that's the problem.

Valentine's Day... Bummer

It's the end of the world the world as
we know it and I feel... witty and
charming with an offbeat sense
of humour, like always.

For those of you not hip to the proper channels, you might not be aware of your impending doom. Which is probably for the best, because in cases of apocalyptic goings-on, the old adage that ignorance is bliss probably rings the truest. I know that a lot of us had big plans for the future--starting up that surgery-for-hire business, drinking from the skull of Elvis Presley to enhance our virility, burying all of those dead bodies that we've been storing in our basements all winter.

But unfortunately, we will never have the chance to do any of that stuff.

Bill Murray uncovered the truth back in 1989. In Ghostbusters II, the sequel that the world didn't realize it needed until it was too late, Bill Murray reprises his role as the eccentric Dr. Peter Venkman, who is no longer ghostbusting and is instead hosting a low-budget cable talk show. While interviewing a couple of totally legit psychics (including Shia LaBeouf's movie dad from Transformers) he gets a pretty specific date for the end of the world from Danny DeVito's girlfriend from Twins.

February 14, 2016.

If there's one thing that Bill Murray is known for it is ferreting out the truth from the darkest reaches of the universe and the minds of alien abductees. And showing up randomly in the middle of zombie apocalypses. So let's hope that this turns out to be one of those.

On the bright side, nothing is surer to get those juices flowing the the End of Everything as We Know It. If history has taught us anything it's that there's no more potent aphrodisiac for the human species than death and destruction on an epic scale. So come Valentine's day this year, hold your loved one tight or stick close that seemingly uncrackable nut sure in the knowledge that though the end of the world is nigh, you're almost certain to get your dicks wet one last time before the whole thing comes crashing down.

    

There are Badasses and Then There are Legendary Badasses. Thank You, Riddick, for this Bounty We are About to Receive.

Out of all of the badasses that have ever appeared on film, Richard B. Riddick is certainly one of the most resilient. This guy takes a licking like nobody's business, but refuses to give up no matter how ridiculously and outlandishly the odds seem to be against him. And with director David Twohy, you can bet your hover bike that the odds, like everything else in his films, will almost certainly be ridiculous and outlandish. Riddick is a walking contradiction of sorts, because when he puts his mind--and his pecs-- to it, he seems like an unstoppable force of nature, but somehow he always seems to find himself in trouble all the way up to his gloriously bald, badass head that you could probably bend sheet metal on if that was the sort of thing that floated your boat.

In that way, Riddick is a lot like Rocky, in that they're both established as champions yet always seem to be the underdog in their own narratives. The Rocky series went through great lengths with each installment to knock its titular pugilist down enough pegs so that he was forced to crawl his way back to the top, and Riddick, it seems, is no different. His third time out, now simply titled Riddick, sees the escaped convict and murderer turned leader of an intergalactic death cult stranded on a random planet fighting for survival against alien dogs, alien giant scorpions, and (technically) alien bounty hunters.

By Grabthar's Hammer, by the Suns of Worvan, You Shall be Mourned

There is truly only one way to describe the emotional reaction I felt upon hearing about Alan Rickman's death when I awoke on January 14: it felt like someone had cut my heart out with a spoon. With the world still reeling from the loss of iconic singer and codpiece aficionado David Bowie just days earlier, it seemed almost too much to bear to lose the iconic actor as well. It seemed all the more surreal when it was revealed that both Bowie and Rickman had both died of cancer at the age of sixty-nine. It seemed that sixty-nine was quickly becoming the new twenty-three (and the fact that sixty-nine is a multiple of twenty three didn't help to make conspiracy theorists any less insufferable).

Alan Rickman was instantly recognizable with his trademark deep voice that itself was worth the price of admission to any movie he was in as well as, you know, his general ability to kick ass in any role he tackled. He was a stand out in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves as the cartoonishly evil Sheriff of Nottingham, and this coming from a man who actually loves Prince of Thieves completely unironically. Whether threatening to cut Kevin Costner's heart out with a spoon, calling off Christmas, or doing the slow turnaround to one of his fellow lords and telling him to "Shut up, you twit!" Rickman was eminently watchable and is still quoted prominently amongst my family to this day in nearly every social interaction.

Ground Control to Major Tom... Stepping Through One Last Door

I can't lay any legally defensible claim to being a huge fan of David Bowie's music. Though several of his songs as well as the man himself have come to thoroughly permeate pop culture to the point where it's virtually impossible for anyone in the civilized world not to recognize either the man or some part of his vast repertoire of work, I can't claim that I felt the same touch of transcendence that I have with other artists in various media. And yet when I heard of his death earlier this month on January 10, I couldn't help but feel that the world had suffered some immeasurable loss.

My recollections of David Bowie are centred more around his film roles, most notably as Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth and as Nicola Tesla in The Prestige. I defy you to find a better song from a children's movie than "Magic Dance," or at least a more catchy or quotable one. It's been scientifically proven to rest at the very pinnacle of artistic achievement of the '80s, which puts it in the running for greatest of all time. His turn in The Prestige really blew me away, not only by how great his performance was, but also that I had no goddamn idea it was him the first time I watched it. People often talk about actors "being chameleons" and disappearing into their roles, and for anybody looking for a perfect example to advocate or to emulate, they need look no further.

2015, A Year in Review. Everything it Shouldn't Not Have Been

As time continues its unending march into the black depths of the unknown, carrying us all
inexorably closer to our eventual destinies, it's important to take the time to reflect on the primordial mists from whence we emerged. Also getting high from time to time doesn't hurt either. As most years seem to, 2015 feels like it went by much faster than every single one that preceded it. More and more, I feel like I'm caught in a loop of simultaneously wanting to slow everything down to savour the good times and fend off the inevitable coldness of the grave and desperately wishing to speed everything up to see how the story unfolds.

I didn't climb Mount Everest or bake a record-breaking confection or anything, but I also didn't get cancer or inadvertently start a Twitter controversy, the very worst kind of social atrocity. I don't want to sell 2015 short, but it didn't leave the strongest of impressions. 2015 was the random blue sky puzzle piece of years. 2015 was like the Mark from accounting of years: everybody knows he exists and he's always kind of there in the background, but he's not getting invited to any office Christmas parties or included in any of those mass emails with the latest meme involving cats or some bullshit.

Without further ado, here's a rundown of a few of my own personal highlights from that lumbering behemoth known as 2015.

The Force Will Be With You, Always. No, like Literally, Dude.

Today marks the last day that my stream of consciousness will include only six Star Wars films. Tomorrow, I take my first step into a larger world. Or, more accurately, my seventh step. But who's counting? I mean, other than the execs over at Disney? Star Wars: The Force Awakens marks the seventh feature film in the now-legendary franchise, which is simultaneously an inspiring tale of hope and redemption and symbolic of a sort of uber-consumerism with merchandising tendrils worming their way from all manner of action figures to kitchen utensils and appliances to makeup. Fucking makeup!

Ever since George Lucas followed up his beloved original trilogy with the prequel trilogy, which received--to put it mildly--mixed reactions, the future of the saga remained a giant question mark. According to Lucas, his vision of Star Wars included a trilogy of trilogies and presumably orgies of cocaine and hookers dressed as wookies (at least you can always tell whether the walking carpet matches the drapes).

Of Mercs and Men... Riddick Rides Again

In another world, Pitch Black and the iconic character Riddick might have been relegated to the realm of the one-hit wonder, and the truly frightening thing is that world isn't that different from this one. Only through the sheer willpower of director David Twohy, Vin "Riddick" Diesel, and a ragtag group of dedicated fans and social miscreants were further exploits of the infamous "escaped convict and murderer" committed to film (as well as a few video games to boot). If anybody had told me when it first came out that Pitch Black would spawn three sequels (Next one is in development. Can I get a "Fuck yeah!?") I probably would have stabbed you to death with a teacup.

In a move that came as a surprise to exactly no one, Twohy doubled down on the insanity for Chronicles of Riddick, thrusting Riddick into an intergalactic space adventure dealing not only with mercenaries but also alien elementals, a technologically advanced death cult, and Karl Urban's bizarre yet completely entrancing haircut. It's like if Star Wars had been written and directed by an escaped lunatic high on acid and Luke had been written as a homicidal, shiny-eyed rogue with a heart of gold and also violence.

Just like Pitch Black, Chronicles of Riddick begins with an opening voice over (by Dame Judy fucking Dench no less) so ludicrous and over the top that it can't help but grab your brain by the balls a pull you along for the ride. And with an introduction like this, you're all but guaranteed that the ride is going to be a wild one:

"They are an army unlike any other... crusading across the stars toward a place called UnderVerse, their promised land--a constellation of dark new worlds. Necromongers, they're called. And if they cannot convert you, they will kill you. Leading them, the Lord Marshal. He alone has made a pilgrimage to the gates of the UnderVerse... and returned a different being. Stronger. Stranger. Half alive and half... something else. If we are to survive, a new balance must be found. In normal times, evil would be fought by good. But in times like these, well, it should be fought by another kind of evil."

Batman V Superman V Captain America

For those of us who still haven't tired of watching superpowered (and not so superpowered, though Hawkeye has his uses) individuals boil down complex moral, social, and philosophical issues into basically a  case of who can punch harder, then the past decade or so has been a godsend. The future looks to be equally as fruitful, as heralded by the arrival of two trailers, one apiece for the upcoming Captain America: Civil War and Batman V Superman.

Ever since Iron Man blasted his way onto the silver screen all the way back in 2008, Marvel has slowly but surely been establishing its onscreen brand with a series of calculated moves like a well-played game of three-dimensional chess. Their path to cinematic superhero dominance is a carefully concocted sort of alchemy brewed by Marvel and Disney that involved slowly cultivating a cast of characters from over 75 years of source material, carefully and strategically translating it to the strange, new medium of motion pictures while developing a shared movie universe unlike anything that's come before. DC hired Christopher Nolan to make some Batman movies.