Pictured: Hollywood.

Why do we keep remaking things?

Not to sound like my Dad right now - a man who will really only watch movies that: 1) have dead actors; 2) or are about a historical event (preferably from the turn of the 20th century through the late 1960s); and 3) definitely do not involve Nicolas Cage or Sean Penn (though he did warm to Sean Penn's portrayal of David Kleinfeld in Carlito's Way) - but why do we keep remaking things?


And why do we let John Leguizamo be in them?

I just saw the trailer for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo ("TGWTDT"). For those that don't know, this is the filmed adaptation of Stieg Larsson's very popular posthumously-published book of the same name (translated from the Swedish ("Man som hatar kvinnor") it means, "Men Who Hate Women." No joke there.).
It is also a remake.
See, the Swedes already made a movie adaptation of this book back in 2009, and it was pretty damn popular. It was like a Swedish blockbuster, if you can imagine such a thing!


Oh, I can imagine it alright....

It made a ton of money (or kroner, I guess), and had a pretty good international release to boot. So, despite the Swedes making the whole trilogy (the last one was just released, in fact) into movies and raking in the kroner, what does America do? Do we let them have their entry into psychological thriller-dom? Do we sit idly by and accept that Scandinavians might have something to offer the rape-revenge genre of movies other than the US and Korea?
Nope. We buy the rights, and remake that shit.
And here it is:



If you can't see it, it is likely that Youtube took it down for copyright infringement reasons. It looked like it was bootlegged in a theater anyway, but I will say that those iPhones sure have upped the quality of former in-theater bootleggings.

Now, this version of TGWTDT does have some things that make it appealing:

• Daniel "I'm obviously not gay, I'm James Bond" Craig as the investigative journalist hero.
• Relative unknown (unless you saw The Social Network, the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street from 2010, or some show called Women's Murder Club...which, with a name like that, should be remade) Rooney Mara as the dragon-tattooed lesbian/not lesbian/tough-as-nails-yet-shy-and-vulnerable computer hacker main character.
  
• David Fincher at the helm.
• Steve Zaillian writing the screenplay. Here's hoping it turns out better than Jack the Bear.
• That title sequence and Trent Reznor cover of The Immigrant Song which makes it look more like Se7en than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

And about the use of The Immigrant Song: Isn't it incredibly ironic that the producers chose that song? A song about Scandinavians that come to your shore to rape and pillage? The movie is about Scandinavians. Set in Scandinavia (read: Sweden). So, is this some kind of reverse-irony or inverted irony, then? Here we have Anglos pillaging a Scandinavian best-seller and bringing it to America, only to export it back to Scandinavia when it goes into foreign release, in order to re-pillage the pockets of the Scandinavians that created and supported the original work to begin with.


Pictured: Scandinavian irony. Not pictured: Vikings.

Further, The Immigrant Song itself was written and performed by a band of notorious pillagers: Led Zeppelin. If you had a song laying around in the 1970s you better lock it up because Page and Plant and going to snatch it, remake it into a hit, and snort the proceeds faster than you can say, "I'm a fan of traditional American blues music."


"Plagiarism never tasted so sweet." - Jimmy Page

But all that aside...Hollywood is remaking a movie that's two years old. Two years! That is simply not long enough before you jump into remake territory. It smacks of two things Hollywood has long been known for:

1. the naked cash-grab;
   
2. a sense of entitlement

Examples? Gladly:

1. THE NAKED CASH GRAB -


Harrison Ford's expression says, "I know you're mad, but there's nothing I can do. Did you see that divorce settlement I got slapped with?"


I know it's easy to take jabs at George Lucas, but seriously - he's been nakedly grabbing cash off this franchise for a generation.


Some cash-grabs are more smash-and-grabs, but they are naked, nonetheless.

2. A SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT -


When actors decide to direct and have success (regardless of how overly-lauded that film was in reality (read: Braveheart)), sometimes they take their already inflated egos too far...by making an entire film in maya yucateco - a language spoken only in the Yucatan peninsula - that is enjoyed by no one.


Other times, actors choose to direct a project that is so near and dear to them, that they quite literally become the character. Kevin Spacey is a great actor, sure, but you can't decide to make a Bobby Darin movie, direct it, star in it, sing all the songs, and then actually GO ON TOUR with a full orchestra to sing the forgotten songs of Bobby Darin! And you wonder why you haven't seen Kevin Spacey in any movies lately.


And then sometimes one's own hubris becomes so all-encompassing that you believe that the public "must" have the last chapter to your saga. But you are wrong, notwithstanding Robert Duvall's absence. See also Back to the Future, Part 3 (1990); The Two Jakes (1990); Ghostbusters II (1989).

So, while it may make no sense that Hollywood is hell-bent on remaking a very popular and very recent movie, it is not surprising. Remember, Hollywood is the same place that convinced you Tom Cruise can act and that you really do like Cameron Diaz.


You do not like them together, however.

Hollywood will go back to the well as often as they can, so long as it means butts in the seats, money in the bank, and cocaine on the credenza.


Surely you saw that coming?

Even back in the day Hollywood was doing this. Now, some of that was due to the whole silent picture/talking picture revolution, but it came from the same idea: dolla dolla bill, y'all. There were multiple versions of The Wizard of Oz (1925, 1939), The Maltese Falcon (1931, 1941), and Ben-Hur (1925, 1959). Hell, Alfred Hitchcock damn near remade all of his silent movies as talkies once the technology was around. It was as if he got Hollywood to pay him for practicing movie-making.

So, while it's nothing new (get it?), it is disappointing. Not disappointing in an existential "there's-no-new-stories-to-tell-because-we're-living-the-same-life-cycle-over-and-over" or Nietzschean "eternal return" sort of way, but disappointing in that Hollywood is not attempting to try to create something new. Taking a common story and changing the characters, the setting, or the manner in which it is told is fine. In fact, it's what the art of storytelling is, right? But just lifting the same source material that was capably made into a hit movie by foreigners that already had all the trappings of an American action movie is just disappointing.

I guess I can understand the trend in Hollywood to reboot. This is the word they use to describe the process of taking a series that has been ridden so hard and putten away so wet (is that even a phrase?) that the only way they can get any more cash out of it is to start all over. The series is barren, so they must breathe new life into it from scratch. They had to, you see, for the ART! You've seen this happen to:

Batman

• In 1989, the first real cinematic attempt at getting Batman to the screen was a HUGE success (despite Tim Burton obviously never having read one single page of the comic book). A decent sequel followed. Two more were ordered. A new director takes over. All hell breaks loose and we are left with two awfully different Batmen (Batmans?) that are differently awful, the worst in costume design and art direction, and not one marquee actor cashing checks with their god-awful villainous one-liners but FOUR. Not to mention Alicia Silverstone. It is almost incomprehensible how that fourth one got made.

Alicia Silverstone - graduate of the Keanu Reeves School for Acting (1992, summa cum laude; B.F.A. in "Reactions").

• The reboot - Christopher Nolan takes over, hits reset with Batman Begins, takes a more serious tone (despite the addition of terrible female leads), and now people can't wait to see the third and final film. This is an example of rebooting that can work. They made a mint on the back of the bat, not once, but twice!

Superman

• Although it seems that reboots work best for superheroes, that's not dispositive. Just check out A Nightmare on Elm Street, the Halloweens, or the Screams. I sense a trend there.
• Anyway, Superman finally hit the big screen way back in 1978. This was a long time coming, too. It was huge! Flying Christopher Reeve, script by Mario "The Godfather, yeah that Godfather" Puzo, music by John Williams, and Marlon f-ing Brando! They knew it was such a bank-breaker that director Richard Donner was shooting the sequel at the same time. Superman was headed for the big screen!
• Like all good franchises, the Christopher Reeve Superman quickly went downhill. Superman III (which I seem to remember being played endlessly on HBO in the 1980s) had Robert Vaughn as a great villain, but the studio added Richard Pryor for comic relief (and to capitalize on the success of The Toy, maybe? or did he have some community service to do?). Now, I'm not some die-hard Superman nerd over here, but let's just say Pryor was a little out of place:

"My hat's too big." - Richard Pryor

• Then, the death knell was sounded with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, where Superman fought a poor man's Dolph Lundgren (Mark Pillow as "Nuclear Man") on the moon. Awful.

Maybe more Harry Hamlin than Dolph Lundgren.

• The reboot: after many (like many - including one by Tim Burton and Kevin Smith starring Nicolas Cage (my Dad would HATE that!) that is hilariously recounted at the above link) attempts to get Supes back to the big screen, Warner Bros. decided to hand it over to Bryan Singer. At this point, he had had a little success with The Usual Suspects and the X-Men franchise (another example of these trends, in itself). The result was a no-name Superman in a forgettable movie. Well done.
• Either way, you're glad you didn't see that Tim Burton one get made:

Like, really glad.

And this rebooting trend is continuing. It's as if this is the new plan for Hollywood - take what the public already loves and sell it back to them, because times have changed and this product really needs to be updated so we can play on nostalgia for the original while introducing the same old thing to a new generation, paving the way for a third reboot 5 years from now!

Some reboots in the works:

• Total Recall - but this time with Colin Farrell. As if the plot wasn't confusing enough, now you've got Mumbles McGillicutty to watch for 2 hours.
  
• Teen Wolf - MTV is turning this into a TV show. Why? Were all the best elements of the story not mined in the 186 minutes that make up Teen Wolf and Teen Wolf Too?
  
• The Amazing Spider-Man - again, with the superheroes. The last entry in this series was 4 years ago. They've taken the Batman reboot doctrine and sped up the timeline considerably.
• Judge Dredd - maybe this one is ok. Judge Dredd might be an interesting character, but I think the stigma of the Sly Stallone/Rob Schneider shitstorm of 1995 is still looming.
• Footloose - because Hollywood hates your memories. Directed by Craig Brewer of Hustle and Flow fame.
  

So, there's just a few examples for you. Make what you will of Hollywood's intentions, but I think it's lame. I can understand remaking a movie that was not widely seen, or taking a new look at a classic to get different results (see True Grit by the Coens). And I can understand the notion of tapping into a collective nostalgia for the movies of our youth, or to take the reigns of a once-great franchise and make it great again. People can really appreciate it when it's done well, and it's not like great art hasn't been remade ad nauseum before. But the naked-cash-grabbing of most of these titles just makes me lose what little respect I had left for the movie business.

But it's not like they have a complete lack of conscience, right?



Not pictured: restraint.

Celebrity Death Text, #6

Quick update for a very sad celebrity death text:



"Ooooooh Noooooooo!" - from Nate Eppler

or

"Snap into a casket!!!" - from Dustin Schletzer

or

"Snap into a pine tree!!!" - from Nick Phillips

or

"Off to the steel cage in the sky." - me

I can't express how hilarious it is that "Celebrity Death Text" has caught on at a local level. I even sometimes get texts from people wondering "what will the text be?" when celebrities die. Is it morbid? Perhaps. Is it tasteless? Usually. Is it hilarious? Always.

A Very Serious Look at the Second Amendment

[*Author's note: I must give props (or a terrorist fist bump, if you watch Fox News) to D. Eric Setterlund for the subject of this post. It was our conversation and his info that put this into my head.]

As law school semester 4 draws nigh, I figured it may be time to write a law-related post.


Not to be confused with this law-related Post.

No, the issue we at Boss Blog would like to tackle is one of much more importance, one of much more gravitas, one that is much more topical:

The Second Amendment.

Now, perhaps you've heard of the Second Amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Sure, that sounds familiar. Popularly, the Second Amendment is constantly being overshadowed by the First Amendment, who perpetuates the idea among all the other Amendments that the Second Amendment is just the "first loser." That First Amendment sure can be a dick. It's like he just gets to say whatever he wants.


Except "tits."

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about the Second Amendment's meaning or anything (you can enroll in law school or join the NRA for that), but I do want to talk about a particular ruling from the Supreme Court and how that could affect the Second Amendment's application, and how that could potentially ruin your world. Now, don't worry, this isn't going to get political - we're all going to laugh along the way, and maybe at the end you'll have learned something, too.

NOTE: for all you legal-types that might be reading this, you can skip ahead to the part below about the Second Amendment specifically, as I will be discussing the Citizens United case and how rights are incorporated for the uninitiated. Or you can read it, and then call me out for my oversimplification of what is probably a very complicated issue...

We turn our attention first not to the Second Amendment, but instead to the prevailing notion that corporations are treated like people under the law, receiving many of the protections citizens have, because of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Notwithstanding a compelling argument that this is not case precedent, but instead an erroneously over-cited headnote to a case (see Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886)), the modern American system of jurisprudence does extend many rights to corporations as if they were people.

See, the 14th Amendment is a really important Amendment to the Constitution. Before we get into how that works, though, a little background:

You probably didn't learn this in high school or college US History (I guess you have to spend another $80,000 or so to get the real knowledge, but I'll give it to you for free), but it turns out that our forefathers were REALLY concerned with the government they were creating having too much power. These were guys that rejected the English monarchy, after all, so they were very protective of states' rights, and wanted to make sure their Federal government didn't overreach. As a result, all those "rights" in the Bill of Rights (freedom of speech, jury trials, freedom from having to quarter troops, etc.) were rights you had as a citizen of the US, but not necessarily rights you had as a citizen of your state. They wanted to make sure the states were sovereign and could decide things for themselves. As a result, the Constitution had to be ratified by the States for them to be part of the Union, but not everything in the document was binding on the States.

Say what?!


Don't make him say it.

Yeah, I know, Arnold, but it's true. Over time, a lot of these rights were extended to citizens of each state, meaning their local governments weren't allowed to pass laws that infringed on them (e.g. Tennessee can't pass a law that says Tennesseans are not allowed to protest in a public park). This process was called "incorporation", meaning some rights in the Bill of Rights were now "incorporated" to the states.
So, how did they decide which ones were incorporated and which ones weren't? Well, we could spend an entire semester on that (and if you enrolled in Steve Mulroy's Constitutional Law class you did ... my God, did you), but basically the rights that were deemed "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" and "deeply rooted in our nation's history and tradition" were the ones the Supreme Court said were incorporated. Slippery test, eh? Anyway, like I said over time a lot of these rights were incorporated.

Enter the 14th Amendment.

The 14th Amendment guarantees "due process" to all citizens of the States before they can be deprived of their life, liberty, or property. Further, all citizens of a State are guaranteed equal protection under the laws of their jurisdiction, and no state can abridge the privileges or immunities guaranteed to these state citizens by the federal government.
So, that's a lot, right?
The 14th Amendment said no state can pass laws that take away your federal "privileges and immunities" (like speech), no state can pass laws that don't provide for "equal protection" (like de-segregating the schools), and no state can deprive you of your life, liberty, or property without "due process" (meaning you get a proper trial on the one hand, or if the right is SO fundamental, they can't touch you at all - like marriage, oh wait...).

So you see the 14th Amendment became the shortcut to "incorporation" of those other rights that weren't incorporated yet to the states. If a right given by the Constitution to the citizens of the US (but not necessarily the citizens of the States) was "fundamental," then the 14th Amendment came along and said it was incorporated to the states.

Let's add that up:

If a right is fundamental, then it is incorporated to the citizens of the states. If a corporation is a citizen of a state, then it also is guaranteed the rights of citizens of the state.

Exactly. So a corporation, even though it's definitely not a person, has rights.
Weird.

This is where Citizens United enters the picture.
Maybe you remember this decision? It's the one that President Obama called out the Supreme Court justices for during his State of the Union address in 2010.


"I'm looking at you, Samuel Alito."

Basically (like very basically), it said that there were not differences when people spoke or when a corporation spoke, because they both had First Amendment protection.

The case was about campaign finance. Citizens United wanted to show Hilary: The Movie via On-Demand TV within 30 days of a primary. This is not allowed under a previous ruling and statute that said corporations can't use their general fund for "electioneering," and that regulation of political speech is OK if you're talking about a corporation as the speaker.

Well, the Supreme Court came along and overruled that stuff, saying that based on the First Amendment, which is "incorporated" to all citizens of all states, corporations have the right to political speech just like you and I do. So a corporation can engage in political speech and no one can stop them.

Without getting into a huge debate here, can anyone see how that could be bad?
Maybe/maybe not.

So let's add that up:

If the First Amendment has been incorporated to each state in the US, then all citizens of those states have the right to speech outlined in the First Amendment. If a corporation is deemed a citizen of State, then they have the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment (even political speech) just like a citizen of the state has, too.

Exactly. That's what Citizens United says.

Great, so how does the Second Amendment play into that? "From my cold, dead hand," and all that hoi polloi?

Going back to our initial discovery that not all the rights in the Bill of Rights were guaranteed to every state, it turns out the rights in the 2d Amendment are some of those. So that whole debate on gun control that raged throughout the 1980s (and through today) needed to be decided by the Supreme Court. Could a state ban the sale of a weapon? Could there be any regulation of firearms in this country?

Well, states certainly tried that, and garnered both failure and success. We're not going to debate gun control pros and cons (save that for family gatherings with relatives from Arkansas or Michigan, right?), but we are going to cover the next development in our discussion of this "incorporation" business:

Two very important Supreme Court decisions that decided the fate of the 2d Amendment and whether your state government or federal government could pry that gun from your "warm, alive hand."



Too soon?

The first, D.C. v. Heller, held that the 2d Amendment was incorporated to the District of Columbia, because that's federal territory, and that the 2d Amendment guaranteed an individual right, so the powers-that-be didn't have as much regulatory power as they thought they did.

The second, McDonald v. City of Chicago, held that the 2d Amendment outlined a fundamental right, thus it is incorporated to the States because of the 14th Amendment.

Now, these cases didn't do away with regulation of firearm possession completely (much to the chagrin of militia-nuts across the country), but it did go a long way in saying that it is a fundamental right to have a weapon, thus there are very strict rules about the regulations that are allowed.

So now that we have all the pieces, let's add it up:

If the 2d Amendment is a fundamental right, then it's incorporated to the states, meaning every citizen of every state has a right to keep and bear arms.
If a corporation is a citizen of a state, then it has the same rights as a citizen of that state.

Thus, a corporation has the right to keep and bear arms.


Go ahead and say it.

That can't be right, can it? Surely people can see why this would be bad, right? Regardless, it could be true. I wouldn't doubt that a few corporations will try, and it will take a Supreme Court ruling to decide the matter.

Why don't we go ahead and look into the future and see how this will play out.

If Corporations Have 2d Amendment Rights, the World is Over as We Know It,
by Carl Eppler:

If corporations are extended the rights of the 2d Amendment (since they are considered citizens and citizens are guaranteed the fundamental right of arms bearing) then the following things will happen:

• Corporations will begin purchasing weapons. Not to stockpile or anything, just to have them, you know, because they have to protect themselves. Don't worry, we'll keep them in a locked safe, unloaded.

• Corporations will hire private security forces. Now that other hostile corporations have weapons, we really need to protect ourselves from those other irresponsible gun-owning corporations. Some of those guys really put the "hostile" in "hostile take-over." Zing!

"They threw in the reflective face-shield for free!"

• Corporate CEOs will start off looking like this:

"Your options have vested. Fully."

then become this:


"Your options have vested. Partially."

quickly devolving to:


"The only option is: Death to all who oppose me!"

• Board meetings will start off like this:

"Listen, we really need to get those quarterly reports done, okay?"

then become this:


"Listen, we really need to get these launch codes ready, okay? And are those quarterlies ready yet?"

ultimately ending in:


"Listen, we really need to get those quarterly reports done, okay?"

• Shareholders and VPs will look like this:

"Yeah, I didn't wear a tie today, we're just really down-to-earth here at Blackwater, Inc."

then become this:


"You really need to come to GRIPS with the stock-splitting plan. Har, har har!"

resulting in:


"No, I don't mind the title Vice President of Henchmen, I just feel like whenever I put a proposal in the shareholder report, no one takes it seriously."

I think I've made my point, right?

We know exactly how this will play out, America! We've seen it for years in important societal commentaries like G.I. Joe and James Bond films. We have to be alert to the corporate menace that are "ruthless, terrorist organizations determined to rule the world and also turn profits each quarter in order to keep their stock price high!"

Again, I bet this happens. I have no doubt a corporation will push the issue of: stockpiling weapons, or making their employees carry guns, or hiring mercenaries in the HR department, or holding another company hostage with a hydrogen bomb, and eventually the State will step in and shut them down, and then they'll sue the State and the Supreme Court will have to decide. That, or we'll have to start a daring special missions force to stop them. Worse yet, we may have to hire a British secret agent to infiltrate them and have sex with their most beautiful corporate assistants (I guess that's the same thing, isn't it?).

It's like inventing a robot that can punch people. Everyone agrees that's stupid, right? We know how that will end because we've seen Terminator, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Wargames. Who would be dumb enough to put money into researching that?
Oh. My. God.

So please, Supreme Court, be aware of the warning signs and don't let this happen. Don't let yourselves become the next robotic punching bag for "science" ripe for eventual enslavement by machines.

And next time you see a memo at your workplace that says:

"TO: All partners
FROM: Destro Labs, Inc.
RE: Increasing Global Presence via Weather Domination"

please take heed, and don't say I didn't tell you so.

The RoboCop Post, Pt. 2

As promised, part two of "RoboCop" post, now with less RoboCop 2.

Okay, that's the last "RoboCop 2" you're going to see...

So in our last episode, C-Murderer regaled you with a bevy of reasons he likes RoboCop and thinks you should too. Hopefully in the intervening days and weeks while you were salivating over your keyboard, hoping to find part two of the post, being frustrated that all you got was a half-assed "back after these messages" claymation photo from the late 80s, you took the time to Netflix the original RoboCop, caught it on Spike TV, or went to Rapidshare and downloaded it so you could catch up and be ready for part 2.

If not, you blew it. Or, maybe you're like C-2d Degree Murder and remember it well enough that you needn't.

Either way, let's get to the meat: RoboCop is an analogue for Jesus Christ.

Making films that are analogous to the story of Christ is certainly nothing new (see also, The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951), The Matrix, The Green Mile, Superman, Cool Hand Luke, The Passion of the Christ), and literature loved it first (see also, The Old Man and The Sea, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Grapes of Wrath, The Bible). The story of Jesus is well-known, obviously works in a Judeo-Christian culture such as our own, and provides ample storytelling space. In a world where a good majority of people are trying to live their life by Christ's principles, it's not surprising that their artwork reflects that (or a critique of that, on the other end of the spectrum). This is what art should do: work out the things we believe, ask questions about why we believe them, and contextualize them for modernity and posterity.

Wow, that got a little bit heavy, C-Assault with a Deadly Weapon. No more ecclesiastical philosophy please, just tell me, "How does it apply to "Robot Cop: The Movie"?"

A breakdown:

1. Murphy is crucified.

• Early on in the film, Alex Murphy and his partner Lewis are rendered helpless by the gang of villains we follow throughout the film. Led by Clarence Boddicker (RoboCop's Pontius Pilate, so to speak), they knock out Lewis and trap Murphy. In a most gruesome death, the gang empty their shotguns into Murphy's body, killing him. The first wound, however, is to Murphy's hand, which is blown off by Boddicker's shotgun. This clearly stands in for Christ's stigmata. After the shock of this wound, the shooting commences, with Boddicker delivering the fatal shot to the head.
  
• Murphy has now been crucified and sacrificed by the Detroit Police Dept.

Robocop - Murphy's Death

. | MySpace Video

2. Murphy is resurrected.

• After unsuccessful efforts to save Murphy through medical means, he is laid to rest (into the proverbial cave, so to speak). Through technology (and the plan of a slimy Omni Consumer Products exec/yuppie), he is resurrected to become the first "RoboCop", who is then touted as the savior of Old Detroit. One man (who's not so much a man as a machine, mind you) will patrol the streets and save the city.

Albrecht Durer's version of Christ in Limbo (1510) is actually much scarier than Paul Verhoeven's. Has woodcutting ever been creepier?

3. RoboCop is persecuted.

• This one may be a little more tenuous, but when RoboCop becomes an outlaw later in the movie (as he tries to arrest an exec at OCP, his dastardly creator), he is hunted down by the Detroit Police Department. Perhaps this is a reference to the persecution of Jesus himself, the early Christians who were persecuted, or is simply a reference to religious persecution in general, or perhaps it just makes RoboCop our Christ figure also fit into Joseph Campbell's monomyth a little better, as he must fall before he can prevail (see also, The Rape of Persephone, Beowulf, The Odyssey). Tying in mono-mythic structure to a man made Christ figure in an American action/sci-fi movie made by a Dutch director who lived through a Nazi occupation of Holland is thus not that much of a stretch, now is it?

*Author's note: (ca. 1994) with thanks to Mrs. Sheila Reynolds' sophomore English class at Franklin High School.

4. RoboCop literally says, "Dead or alive you're coming with me."

• Sure, in the context of the film, this seems like innocuous action dialog from a robot cop, but now with your new-found "RoboCop as Christ" analysis, don't you see where they're coming from?

Not to be confused with this 'Dead or Alive'.

5. RoboCop walks on water.

• I know, it seems so obvious now...but the first time you saw RoboCop you were all, "Holy crap! What a kick ass movie about a guy that becomes a robot cop and totally kicks the ass of rapists, devilish white collar criminals, and that dude from "That 70s Show", while having the baddest-assest gun in town that fits in a holster inside his leg!" So, you probably missed the religious iconography. No big D, that's what I'm here for:
• During the scene where RoboCop finally kills Boddicker/Pilate (by stabbing him in the neck, which could either be a reference to the piercing of Jesus' side by the Roman soldiers or to the homo-eroticism rampant in all action movies; unlike the real Pilate who may have killed himself after being exiled to Gaul under the reign of Caligula), after that act is completed, he turns to walk away.
  

On. The. Water.

Now, it's not all Being There walk-on-water-ism, and it's not even The Car's Uh-Oh, It's Magic walking on water, but it's there.


The file name for this picture is "Favorite-Stabby-McStab-Victims"...I love the internet.

• Author's note: I cannot find a clip of this online, so you're just going to have to Netflix that muhfuggah to see it yourself...which you should anyway, now that you know how much MORE awesome the movie is.

6. And if all that wasn't enough...here it is from the director, himself:

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

So there you have it. Hopefully, you can now appreciate RoboCop on a more intellectual level, and not feel bad or shy away from defending your love of this sci-fi/man-made-Jesus gem. Either way, it makes for good conversation, assuming you're hanging out with people that will listen to you go on and on for 30 minutes about this kind of stuff pretending to be interested...like my friends do.

The RoboCop post, Pt. 1

Okay, let's get one thing straight: I love RoboCop.

It's true. I don't love RoboCop 2, and I've never seen RoboCop 3, so we're not talking about the franchise, here. We're talking about good old 1987-Peter Weller-Paul Verhoeven RoboCop.

Why, Carl, do you like this sci-fi/action B-movie so much, you might ask?

Well, a couple things:

1. It's set in Detroit. As some of you know, I'm originally from Flint, Michigan (a horrible little town that usually finds itself in the Top 5 "Most Dangerous Places To Live In America" list), and any time a film depicts the industrial settings of Michigan in an accurate way, I'm all for it. Even though the film was actually shot in Dallas (because Dallas is a real city, and it ended up looking more like what people would think Detroit should like in the future, since Detroit has no future), it still seemed to evoke the right mood for Detroit: desperation, greed, crime.


*Author's note: No matter where you go in Detroit, there is always crime scene tape blocking your view.

2. It was made in the Reagan-era satirizing everything that the Reagan-era stood for. Just watch those "newsbreaks" with Leeza Gibbons that are throughout the movie...everything from the military-industrial complex running rampant to star wars programs to the idea of global domination as an at-home board game just scream "Reagan". This was the 80s, so what better way to skewer it than with its own ideals?


With this guy in charge, what could possibly go wrong?

3. It is extremely violent, and the level of violence ends up satirizing itself. This movie was made by Paul Verhoeven. If you don't know Paul Verhoeven, he also made Showgirls and Starship Troopers. Now, if you don't think this guy has a sense of humor about Americans, you can go right back to watching straight-to-DVD American Pie sequels. All that aside, Verhoeven uses the ultra-violence to comment not only on American society and their fixation on violence, but also on the depiction of violence in American cinema. The violence gets so crazy throughout the movie, that it ends up being laughable...Verhoeven certainly made his point.


"This pole tastes like disappointment." - Elizabeth Berkley, reflecting on her career.


4. It is about our love/hate relationship with technology and perfecting the human race. This is probably better suited for a whole other post (or series of posts), but the man v. machine idea is prevalent throughout the history of literature and film (see Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Stanley Kubrick's 2001, and Short Circuit 1 and 2, among others).


Steve Guttenburg would have made a good Robocop.

5. It is about Jesus Christ.

What!? You must be crazy now, C-Murder, RoboCop is about a robot cop. "Thank you for your cooperation" and all that shit...it's not a messianic tale, and there's now way that JC is going to be shooting gangbangers and sticking the Dad from That 70's Show in the neck.

Oh but it is, dear reader. Oh but it is...

more on that in Pt. 2.

Free cover tonight!

Ok, so that's a cheap trick to get you to read this new post that has nothing to do with paying/not paying $5 to get into a bar that is too crowded/loud to have fun/enough drinks in. With it being St. Patrick's Day, though, I figured there would be some expectation for pub-related titles.

This post, however, is about covers, though. Covers of the musical variety, and covers of a musical giant, no less. As I was listening to the iTunes recently, I think what has become my favorite cover song of the moment came up: Stevie Wonder's "We Can Work It Out".

Now, you've got two things going against you here:

1. No one should really cover The Beatles, right? I mean, they pretty much got it right the first time around. To me, they're an entirely un-fuckwitable band. Plus, "We Can Work It Out" was one of those perfectly blended Lennon-McCartney gems, to wit:

• Paul writing the verses, John getting in there on the chorus/bridge with some sweet harmonies;
  
• an inordinate amount of harmonium (the thing that sounds like an accordion) that does not sound cheesy (even 40 years later);
• the song is in 3 bar phrases, instead of 4 bar phrases, giving it a totally different feel than most pop-songs;
  
• those 2 bars of quarter-note triplets that end each phrase of the chorus/bridge that sound like they're in 3/4 (because the tambourine plays the 2nd and 3rd triplet like they've become quarter notes), but aren't;
  
• the song was a double A-side with "Day Tripper", and it went to Number 1 quickly.

2. Stevie Wonder is pretty un-fuckwitable himself, so what's he doing covering somebody else's song? Especially one as popular as "We Can Work It Out"?

Well, let me assure you, these two factors are quite diminished in the resulting cover:



Yeah. That's pretty great, right? Some highlights for me (this might get a little technical...):

• the opening fuzzy clavinet/electric piano...you know you're in for something funky, ya'll;
  
• the "Hey!"s on beat 4 of the first and last bar of each phrase of the verses. Reminiscent of all those current hip-hop songs that have the annoying "Heeeey" in the background (see also, T.I.'s "Live Your Life", most Lil' Jon club bangers);
• the fact the he starts the "We can work it out" line on the '&' of 4, and not the next downbeat like Paul did;
• the fact that Steven Wonderland forgoes the quarter-note triplet-not-3/4 bars and keeps it straight ahead;
• the incredibly high parts that Stevie is singing in the harmony, bridge, and the harmonica solo (those, "ah - ah - ah" parts)!;
• the harmonica solo itself;
• the general badassery of the Motown sound and backing band ('nuff said).

So, yeah, Stevie got it right. And it earned him a Grammy nomination.


"No big deal that I didn't win this time, I've got 25 others." - Stevie Wonder

Are there other good Beatles covers, you might ask? Not many. Again, I think trying to cover the Beatles is pretty pointless - if you stray too far from the original, people won't like it because it's not like the one they know; if you just try to play it like the Beatles play it, then people won't like it because they'd rather listen to the Beatles version. Catch-22, indeed.

A couple that I dig, though:


Rufus Wainwirght, "Across The Universe"


This one works because Rufus Wainwright is a good singer already, and he has taken the more direct approach on this cover. I also love the fact that he added harmony to the second chorus and subsequent verses (probably his mom, Kate McGarrigle singing). [*note: I had never seen this video before...not sure about the Rene Magritte imagery (see, "Le Fils De L'Homme"), but is that Dakota Fanning? Somebody (the director) certainly has a hard-on for French art!]

another:

Ramsey Lewis, "Cry Baby Cry"


This one works because it is a departure from the original, but then it's not. It's familiar, but doesn't get too out there to still be the song you know (how 'bout that vibra-slap!)? Plus, soul jazz usually doesn't come out this good (the string arrangements are great, and the drums stay hard). Ramsey recorded a whole album of Beatles' covers called, "Mother Nature's Son", and it's worth checking out.

one more?

William Shatner, "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"


This is not a joke. This is real. Musicians were hired, producers sat at the controls, marketing execs had the album distributed. Money was spent. Oh, what a time 1967 must have been.

The worst? Maybe this:



That's Kylie Minogue, singing "Help!" at a concert for John Lennon. Why Milli and Vanilli are up there dancing so close to her is unknown. Why the concert promoter decided to get Kylie Minogue to do this embarrassing version of a pretty great song is further unknown. The rapping bridge had to be included, however, to complete the affront to a musical legacy that this is. I think the inclusion of a dance break is pretty obvious, too.

So, that's just a sampling of what's out there. Be careful on your journey through Beatles cover songs, for every Aimee Mann/Michael Penn "Two of Us", there's usually twice as many Bee Gees "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" original motion picture soundtrack cuts.

You know how I know you're gay...

1991 masterpiece - Point Break


I was recently having a discussion with a friend of mine about movies on TV (TNT specifically, I think), and the inevitable title came up:
Point Break.

Now, those regular readers surely know the story of Point Break and its relative cinematic greatness. For the uninitiated, here's a quick run down.

Keanu Reeves (undercover FBI bank robbing expert) + Gary Busey (wisened/conspiracy buff FBI agent from the late 60s) + Lori Petty (forgettable, yet androgynous, love interest) + Patrick Swayze (Spiritual leader surfing bank robber) = action, surfing, skydiving, and the most blatantly homoerotic film to be invisibly homoerotic to millions of viewers.

What's that last part, again? Point Break is gay?

That's right, people (and Joe Hobbs, specifically), Point Break is gayer than that gay-ass volleyball scene in Top Gun.

I know it may seem incredible, but there may not be a better example of movies that have this man-to-man love story embedded in it. To be certain, many (like MANY) cop movies have this same theme.

• For example, just about every cop movie from the 80s/90s forward has one relentless cop in pursuit of the ultimate bad guy:
  
• This cop will stop at nothing to catch that villain.
  
• This cop probably has an estranged wife/girlfriend or a failed marriage because of his devotion to his job.
  
• And I bet he spends a lot of time in the movie marveling at how clever, ruthless, and successful this villain is (i.e. sexy).
  
• When the two finally meet, it's like love at first sight. There is a mutual respect for one another, because they are two sides of the same coin (i.e. soul mates).
  
• I bet there's even some dialog between the two like: "I'm gonna get your ass!" or "I'm gonna fuck you!" or even "I'm gonna fuck your ass!" [and if you don't believe me or think I'm exaggerating, just check out Lethal Weapon 2].
• Some movies even take the above concept so far as to give this super villain the biggest gun (!), which the super cop covets (envies), and then basically when the two meet in the end, they duel with their guns (tummy sticks) and the winner pretty much screws the loser to death.

Point is, homoeroticism in the cop/action genre is nothing new. What was new with Point Break is how obvious they made it!
Let's run down a few things:

• Patrick Swayze's character's name is "Bodhi". Now, I know that Bodhi is short for Bodhisattva, and that makes him a spiritual leader, but c'mon...Bodhi=Body, and he spends enough time in the movie with his shirt off to make this a legitimate claim. Along with that, Keanu Reeves spends enough time in the moving staring at Partick Swayze's shirtless body that it's not that big of a stretch at all.

Bodhisattva don't surf - or look like Patrick Swayze.

• Lori Petty's character, "Tyler", is an androgynous outsider that Johnny Utah has to ingratiate himself with to get inside the surfing world. She looks like a boy and her name is Tyler. That's pretty obvious, too, is it not?
  

Even in the movie's "sex scene", Lori Petty looks like a dude named "Tyler".

• Keanu Reeves character, Johnny Utah, is a former college athlete that got hurt and couldn't go pro (i.e. failed masculinity) so he became an FBI agent and pursues bank robbers (trading in the masculinity of football for the masculinity of a badge and gun).

"Whoa." - every Keanu Reeves reaction. Ever.

• Reeves and Swayze are far too good looking (better than Lori Petty and Gary Busey, for sure) to not fall for each other.

Blow Dried v. The Wet Look - you trying to tell me that's not gay?

• Why do Bodhi and Utah fall in love anyway? Bodhi is attracted to Utah's naivete, athletic prowess, and impressionable character when it comes to surfing/life (I think that makes Bodhi the "top" or "pitcher"). Utah is attracted to Bodhi's graceful control of the water, his athleticism, and overall, his love and perceived mastery of risky behavior (like surfing, bank robbing, night football, and skydiving). So that would make Utah a "bottom" or "catcher".

I believe I can fly - with the help of Patrick Swayze.

Now, there are some specific moments in Point Break that illustrate it's homoeroticism better than I could ever hope to do if I was screenwriter W. Peter Iliff:

• countless looks of longing from Utah to Bodhi, from Tyler to Bodhi or Utah, and from Bodhi to Utah creating a most interesting love triangle.

"Looking at things is good acting." - Steven Spielberg

• the scene where Utah is chasing Bodhi from a bank robbery, but Utah's knee gives out (oh, that masculinity failure again!) and Bodhi escapes. Before Bodhi escapes, he turns in his Reagan mask (veiled AIDS-era reference?) and looks Johnny deep in the eyes, and Utah looks back a penetrating (no pun intended) look. Johnny knows the bank robber is Bodhi, Bodhi knows he has betrayed his love for Utah. And what happens next? Utah can't shoot Bodhi - he lets him escape. Then, after the act (here, an apprehension) isn't consummated (again with that failure in masculinity), Johnny Utah unloads his gun into the air (empties his government-issue phallus, that is) and screams in agony/ecstasy for an uncomfortably long amount of screen time.

"AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" - Keanu Reeves

• the scene in the plane where Bodhi leaves with the only parachute and tells Johnny "I know you want me so bad it's like acid in your mouth." [author's note: I remember laughing out loud the first time I saw this scene...I could not believe they got away with that!].
• continuing the above scene, Utah succumbs to his riskier side (masculinity coming back, I see) and follows Bodhi out the plane. They tussle in the sky for a minute or two (becoming intertwined, I might add), and once the parachute opens, they land on the ground and writhe under the chute (sheet) and moan in agony/ecstasy for an uncomfortably long amount of screen time. Pretty easy to make the argument that this stands in for a sex scene between the two.

I told you Swayze was the pitcher.

• Finally, at the end of the film, with the impending arrest of Bodhi at Bell's Beach in Australia, Johnny Utah does not apprehend him, but let's him go, into the biggest wave in cinematic history. Two interpretations here, I think: 1) if you love something, set it free; and 2) Utah allows Bodhi to continue his high-risk behavior (AIDS, anyone?) and chooses to no longer be a part of it, thus Bodhi is consumed by the wave (the physical manifestation of AIDS, perhaps) [thanks to my brother, Nate, for this interpretation].

"You wanna go back to my place?"

And there are others.
The point is (see what I did there?), that it's not that much of a stretch to see this film through that lens. It's also not much of a surprise.

Now, this doesn't mean you're gay if you like Point Break, and it doesn't mean you're straight if you don't. It just makes a seemingly innocuous Keanu Reeves vehicle a lot more interesting. So next time it's on TNT, make sure you check it out. You'll at least laugh out loud when you see these things so much more obviously.