Got all that?
In short, "X-Men Days of Future Past" is a loathsome mess that blackens the name of President Kennedy, perpetuates the "Stab in the Back" myth of the Viet Nam War and done the nigh impossible, made me dislike Patrick Stewart whose characterization of super telepath "Professor X" has been reduced to simpering & whispering.
Honestly, I was rooting for the robots, the mutants are all self pitying hacks out to cash massive paychecks...oh and any movie script that compels the otherwise charismatic Ellen Page to point her fingers at Hugh Jackman's temples whilst grimacing and whining for two hours and eleven interminable minutes, Is A Very Badly Written Screenplay Indeed!
Skip this one for the Love of Ghod!
Monday, May 26, 2014
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
Per Director Bryan Singer John Fitzgerald Kennedy was a Mutant whom Magneto was trying to save in Dealey Plaza back in 1963, however the job was bungled and the Malevolent Master of Magnetism was locked up in the bowels of the Pentagon for his pains.
Meanwhile Congress neglected to Arm the Troops Properly thus losing the Viet Nam War and Richard Nixon decided to end the mutant menace by buying whole robots sight unseen from mad scientist/rising retail-king Peter Dinklage.
AND THEN the time travel paradoxes kick in!!
Got all that?
In short, "X-Men Days of Future Past" is a loathsome mess that blackens the name of President Kennedy, perpetuates the "Stab in the Back" myth of the Viet Nam War and done the nigh impossible, made me dislike Patrick Stewart whose characterization of super telepath "Professor X" has been reduced to simpering & whispering.
Honestly, I was rooting for the robots, the mutants are all self pitying hacks out to cash massive paychecks...oh and any movie script that compels the otherwise charismatic Ellen Page to point her fingers at Hugh Jackman's temples whilst grimacing and whining for two hours and eleven interminable minutes, Is A Very Badly Written Screenplay Indeed!
Skip this one for the Love of Ghod!
Got all that?
In short, "X-Men Days of Future Past" is a loathsome mess that blackens the name of President Kennedy, perpetuates the "Stab in the Back" myth of the Viet Nam War and done the nigh impossible, made me dislike Patrick Stewart whose characterization of super telepath "Professor X" has been reduced to simpering & whispering.
Honestly, I was rooting for the robots, the mutants are all self pitying hacks out to cash massive paychecks...oh and any movie script that compels the otherwise charismatic Ellen Page to point her fingers at Hugh Jackman's temples whilst grimacing and whining for two hours and eleven interminable minutes, Is A Very Badly Written Screenplay Indeed!
Skip this one for the Love of Ghod!
Friday, May 23, 2014
The Cathcart-Monet Conundrum....
For once, I called it or rather she called me as I sped south on Amtrak to NYC.
"Where are you" trilled the Audacious Aviatrix from Niftyboro NH.
"I'm off to the Guggenheim to see the Italian Futurism exhibit!" said I brightly.
"ITALIAN FUTURISM...I mean they worshipped airplanes in a crude atavistic fashion isn't that a natural fit with my own mania for classic airframes?? Whydyncha call me Jerky???" barked the peerless pilotess.
Abashed I mumbled "
"I thought you had a meeting of the "National Classic Airframe Association" (AKA "The NCAA perpetually untainted by Scandal").
"Canceled on poor landing conditions...Look for me on Sheep Meadown Tomorrow Morning at 9:30am EDT!!"
As always to the inevitable I bowed.
***
Promptly at the time declaimed, Ms Cathcart-Monet appeared over Central Park NYC, in a classic C-30 autogyro which she landed nigh daintily on the Sheep Meadow. Trained amazons from the New York Chapter of "Women's AutoGyro Co-Operative" (Ms. Cathcart-Monet is a past President of said organization)stood the watch as we toddled off to the Guggenheim.
***
"Ah Futurism" sighed Rebecca.
"Art is all about violence, speed & injustice" said I, paraphrasing Futurism's founder Tomasso Marinetti.
"Yeah a lot of bombast there, but it was 1914 after all!" agreed the Aviatrix.
"The futurists loved technology, speed and had a certain belligerence....isn't it funny that when the Italians finally generated an indigenous avant garde artistic movement so of course it is essentially militaristic, imperialistic and jingoist? More than a little misogyny thrown into the mix as well" remarked I.
"Ah but Marinetti's wife was an accomplished artistic herself within the Futurist movement" countered Rebecca.
"Which merely illustrates the sheer hopelessness of a misogyny as a doctrine" I jabbed.
"You know they had a cookbook? A Futurist Cookbook...It was full of praise for speed, energy and violence in the kitchen...it was bitterly anti-pasta cuz this lot clearly worshipped shock value" noted the Valkyrie of the North.
"Well...every jot and tittle seemed to merit a manifesto to mark the occasion..." mused myself.
"I love how they put on crude multimedia extravaganzas...using NO actors, tried to bring the Futurist Style to Advertising, built concrete kiosks to market bookstores...very advanced" observed Rebecca.
"And yet they were obsessed with painting and sculpture, two of the oldest art forms in the world, you'd think they'd a gotten in on the ground floor of early cinema...but no there are few Futurist Films per se" said I as well meandered up the Guggenheim's spiral imbibing Futurist paintings of battleships and increasingly their core obsession aircraft.
"Futurism worshipped technology in a primitive totemistic fashion..." reflected the Peerless Pilotess.
"They worshipped it, they didn't really interact with it so much..." I muttered.
"Mussolini loved Marinetti" muttered Rebecca...very much the Granite State Antifascist.
"Of course Marinetti and his followers glorified war and violence, speed death and destruction...there was an avant garde tailored made for the emerging Fascist Aesthetic" rumbled I in a jaunty academic tone.
"These guys were insanely ambitious they wanted to read Futurist Newspapers, wear Futurist Clothes, Live in Futurist Houses and write Futurist Poetry when they weren't painting clouds of biplanes" mused the Aerial Aesthete.
"Ah that Futurist Poetry...much akin to William S. Burroughs & Byron Gysion's infamous cut-ups of the beatnik era" opined I.
"Good Ghod you are a walking Footnote!" smirked the Heroine.
To that I made no reply...She Had Me Cold.
***
Luncheon in a modest cafe...a small glass of Tokay,and then New Hampshires Peerless Propwash Princess....rose majestically into the air and with a cheery salute flew off to the New England Mists.
I waved a trifle forlorn...momentarily alone in a vast Metropolis...itself a Futurist Monument.
"I thought you had a meeting of the "National Classic Airframe Association" (AKA "The NCAA perpetually untainted by Scandal").
"Canceled on poor landing conditions...Look for me on Sheep Meadown Tomorrow Morning at 9:30am EDT!!"
As always to the inevitable I bowed.
***
Promptly at the time declaimed, Ms Cathcart-Monet appeared over Central Park NYC, in a classic C-30 autogyro which she landed nigh daintily on the Sheep Meadow. Trained amazons from the New York Chapter of "Women's AutoGyro Co-Operative" (Ms. Cathcart-Monet is a past President of said organization)stood the watch as we toddled off to the Guggenheim.
***
"Ah Futurism" sighed Rebecca.
"Art is all about violence, speed & injustice" said I, paraphrasing Futurism's founder Tomasso Marinetti.
"Yeah a lot of bombast there, but it was 1914 after all!" agreed the Aviatrix.
"The futurists loved technology, speed and had a certain belligerence....isn't it funny that when the Italians finally generated an indigenous avant garde artistic movement so of course it is essentially militaristic, imperialistic and jingoist? More than a little misogyny thrown into the mix as well" remarked I.
"Ah but Marinetti's wife was an accomplished artistic herself within the Futurist movement" countered Rebecca.
"Which merely illustrates the sheer hopelessness of a misogyny as a doctrine" I jabbed.
"You know they had a cookbook? A Futurist Cookbook...It was full of praise for speed, energy and violence in the kitchen...it was bitterly anti-pasta cuz this lot clearly worshipped shock value" noted the Valkyrie of the North.
"Well...every jot and tittle seemed to merit a manifesto to mark the occasion..." mused myself.
"I love how they put on crude multimedia extravaganzas...using NO actors, tried to bring the Futurist Style to Advertising, built concrete kiosks to market bookstores...very advanced" observed Rebecca.
"And yet they were obsessed with painting and sculpture, two of the oldest art forms in the world, you'd think they'd a gotten in on the ground floor of early cinema...but no there are few Futurist Films per se" said I as well meandered up the Guggenheim's spiral imbibing Futurist paintings of battleships and increasingly their core obsession aircraft.
"Futurism worshipped technology in a primitive totemistic fashion..." reflected the Peerless Pilotess.
"They worshipped it, they didn't really interact with it so much..." I muttered.
"Mussolini loved Marinetti" muttered Rebecca...very much the Granite State Antifascist.
"Of course Marinetti and his followers glorified war and violence, speed death and destruction...there was an avant garde tailored made for the emerging Fascist Aesthetic" rumbled I in a jaunty academic tone.
"These guys were insanely ambitious they wanted to read Futurist Newspapers, wear Futurist Clothes, Live in Futurist Houses and write Futurist Poetry when they weren't painting clouds of biplanes" mused the Aerial Aesthete.
"Ah that Futurist Poetry...much akin to William S. Burroughs & Byron Gysion's infamous cut-ups of the beatnik era" opined I.
"Good Ghod you are a walking Footnote!" smirked the Heroine.
To that I made no reply...She Had Me Cold.
***
Luncheon in a modest cafe...a small glass of Tokay,and then New Hampshires Peerless Propwash Princess....rose majestically into the air and with a cheery salute flew off to the New England Mists.
I waved a trifle forlorn...momentarily alone in a vast Metropolis...itself a Futurist Monument.
Thursday, May 08, 2014
Why Al Capp?
Why devote ninety or so minutes to his life story and works via Channel Zero?
Well...lets face it, love or hate his late-in-life wingnuttery, the man was funny.
Seriously taken as a whole L'il Abner is satiric cataract, hit or miss the gags, caricatures and parodies just fell from the heavens like the very biblical deluge over a twenty five year run, volume alone and dedications that entails recommends the whole enterprise.
Yes Al Capp cheap shot numberless targets big and small...and had a notoriously cringeworthy confrontation with John Lennon and that whole thing with Joan Baez, Yikes! But we here at Channel Zero have always been servants of The Funny...and sometimes that hurts almost always you make enemies.
Besides at the height of the anti comic book hysteria of the 1950's Capp made an impassioned attack on censorship by having the semi illiterate backwoodsman L'il Abner confess a fondness for the masterworks of Edgar Allen Poe!
I mean, that alone deserves a Mark Twain American Humor Award, if they gave them out back in 1953....
Therefore Channel Zero will be screening "This is Al Capp" a classic 1970 television new documentary detailing Capp's shift from liberal to conservative from satirist to right wing provocateur with commentary from William F. Buckley, Paul Krassner and Milton Caniff among others. One of the things that made this period in Al Capp's life so very interesting, he was literally calling antiwar activists, hippies and liberals every epithet in the book and made good money at it, he was clearing mad phat money on campus from speaking fees! Literally, he was the first true "controvore", one who generates good revenue from eructating outlandishly belligerent opinions.
As far as I am concerned, Howie Carr, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck all stole their act from Al Capp.
Join us for:
"This is Al Capp" (1970)
The Somerville Theatre (micro cinema)
Wednesday May 14th
8pm (sharp!)
Admission $5 (cheap!)
(617) 625-5700
Plus a surprise or two, you'll have to come to the show and see exactly what constitutes a surprise from Channel Zero...
Monday, May 05, 2014
Feliz Cinco De Mayo
Happy Cinco D' Mayo to one and all, lets NOT let this solemn occasion degenerate into a celebration of bloodthirsty Francophobia
shall we?
***
After all this is a solemn occasion, the day commemorates a rare victory by the Mexican Regulars over the Elite Imperial Guards of Louis Napoleon III in their quest recolonize Mexico and impose an Austrian Archduke as the puppet emperor of Mexico.
Or put it another way, Hispanic Troops schooled a bunch of Glamorous "My Sh*t Doesn't Stink" crackers.
Ah but like Saint Patrick's Day, the holiday has been fatally corrupted and compromised by U.S. distilleries and breweries sad to say it's another reason for college students to run amok.
I just hope poor Maximilian isn't burned in effigy alongside Field Marshal Bazaine, I'd hate to have all this revelry occasion a diplomatic rupture with France AND Austria....
shall we?
***
After all this is a solemn occasion, the day commemorates a rare victory by the Mexican Regulars over the Elite Imperial Guards of Louis Napoleon III in their quest recolonize Mexico and impose an Austrian Archduke as the puppet emperor of Mexico.
Or put it another way, Hispanic Troops schooled a bunch of Glamorous "My Sh*t Doesn't Stink" crackers.
Ah but like Saint Patrick's Day, the holiday has been fatally corrupted and compromised by U.S. distilleries and breweries sad to say it's another reason for college students to run amok.
I just hope poor Maximilian isn't burned in effigy alongside Field Marshal Bazaine, I'd hate to have all this revelry occasion a diplomatic rupture with France AND Austria....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)