Category Archives: Reviews

Action, Reviews, Socio-Sexual Studies, Superhero

The Latest Wonder Woman

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Character reboots are commonplace these days. In a pop culture spectrum so bankrupt of creativity that the only movies produced anymore are remakes, sequels, adaptations (often of old TV shows that weren’t so good to begin with), thinly-disguised ripoffs of other movies (the Fast & Furious franchise started with a Point Break knockoff set in a fantasy streetracing scene; Avatar was Dances With Wolves in outer space, etc.) or an attempted fusion of previous successful movies; and the bulk of TV programming is some sort of lame “reality show” because the industry lacks the imagination to conceive anything more interesting, re-forming an established character in one’s own image is lauded as some sort of seminal breakthrough. Seems like comic book characters (one of the ores constantly mined by Hollywood) are revamped, and their histories revised, every 3-5 years.

The Social Justice League of America celebrates diversity. The blond-haired Aquaman just wasn't inclusive enough.
The Social Justice League of America celebrates diversity. The blond-haired Aquaman just wasn’t inclusive enough.

Wonder Woman is a character whose essence needs no revamping to fit the current Narrative being rammed down our throats incessantly. She fit that Narrative from her very debut in the 1940s. She was probably the very first Amazon Superninja to appear in American pop culture, and from the very beginning was intended to be a social conditioning propaganda tool. But despite all this, her inclusion in Dawn of Justice doesn’t bother me much.

Wonder Woman has been a member of DC’s superteam the Justice League going way back; and was a founding member of the “Justice Society of America” before that. She was good-to-go for the leftist pop-culture svengalis already, so they didn’t have to feminize an established male character or otherwise ruin the work of earlier creators.

GalGadot

Perhaps it is fitting that an exotic beauty was cast to play the Amazon. After all, she comes from “Paradise Island,” an all-female society closed off from the rest of the world since ancient times. So it’s appropriate that her accent sounds different from ours, and that she doesn’t look like a WASP. (However, it appears that DC/Hollywood also intends to ethnicize the Flash and Aquaman, which is getting annoying.)

Do you imagine it's an accident that the female is shown on point when physical combat is imminent; or that the males are merely guarding her flanks?
Do you imagine it’s an accident that the female is shown on point when physical combat is imminent; or that the males are merely guarding her flanks?

At some point after I quit reading comics, I guess Wonder Woman took to carrying a Bronze Age sword and shield, in addition to her golden lasso. This only makes sense, if she’s going to be fighting gargantuan baddies like Doomsday. What doesn’t make sense is that her ancient bronze shield can withstand a Kryptonian’s heat vision without a scratch, when heat vision slices through every other form of matter except other Kryptonians. Because vagina, I guess.

WWLindaCarterAnother development is that her red, white and blue colors have been replaced by some muddy red-brown metal flake scheme. This also makes sense. First of all, those colors represent oppression (college girls being forced to pay for their own birth control, for instance). Remember: WW was never an American in the first place. And all the big screen superheroes wear costumes with drab color schemes. Even Superman, who has never needed camouflage or to avoid attracting attention, wears a costume that looks like it’s gone a few months without being washed.

Might be hard to see here, but the dude just to the right of her looks a lot like a Native American. Explain THAT one.

I don’t know if this ties in with comic book revisionism, or is original to this screenplay, but Wonder Woman is apparently a WWI veteran now. Bruce Wayne/Batman finds an old photograph from 1918 that shows her with an odd assortment of guerillas (in Belgium, if memory serves).

gal-gadot-as-Diana-Prince-1024x694
Diana Prince looks even better in the red dress when Bruce Wayne first meets her…but I couldn’t find an image of that.

Maybe the most interesting thing about Wonder Woman in this movie is how Gal Gadot’s performance fits into a red pill socio-sexual understanding. Gadot is far more attractive as Diana Prince than as the Amazon heroine. Upon reflection, it’s obvious why: she is very feminine when incognito in the secret identity, as opposed to her super-identity as an extremely masculine brawler with tits.

WWshield
“I just don’t understand why I can’t get dates!”

Only fetishists, white knights and sexual deviants find such a gender-bent individual even remotely attractive; no matter how much skin she shows or how well she fills out a skimpy costume.

Action, Reviews, Superhero

Batman Vs. Superman is a Mixed-Bag Epic

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And I do mean “epic” in the classic sense. The Lex Luthor character (more on him later) can’t stop reminding us that Superman is a god; that he must battle against man; and Lex makes repeated references to Greek mythology that must have also been on the minds of Siegel and Schuster when they dreamed up their “super-man” some 80 years ago.

By the end of the movie, the last son of Krypton does prove himself to be a Messiah figure of sorts…again.

Mythology was certainly on Frank Miller’s mind some 30 years ago when he set about changing the Batman mythos forever. Big-screen Batman adaptations have paid homage to The Dark Knight Returns since 1989. But none more than this one. The showdown between the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader was ripped almost directly from Miller’s mini-series. Both the catalyst and the result were different, and the Batman was determined to win this time (rather than intentionally taking a dive and faking his own death as in Miller’s yarn).

Retro Batman costume on the left; powered armor on the right which he wore to battle Superman in this movie and in Dark Knight Returns.
Retro Batman costume on the left; powered armor on the right which he wore to battle Superman in this movie and in Dark Knight Returns.

Also, having been something of a superhero afficionado up until the time of Dark Knight Returns, I am pretty confident that Miller was the first one to overtly depict Superman as an earth-bound god.

Dawn of Justice is a symphony of spectacular destruction with a lot going for it. First of all, as desperate as they must be to duplicate the success of their rival, DC did not cut-and-paste the Marvel Studios formula and insert their own characters. I was a little worried that a Justice League flick might be a thinly-veiled Avengers clone (and the next one might very well prove to be), so kudos to DC for telling their own story about their three all-time most stalwart characters.

Second, although there were smatterings of action along the way, the director opted for a slow, tense build toward the epic finale. It reminds me somewhat of how Akira Kurosawa paced some of my favorite samurai films, driving viewers to the edge of their seats, begging for an explosive, violent extravaganza to settle the conflict. (And boy, this movie delivers, with the stunning visuals and rip-snorting special effects comic book fans want in a film adaptation, but were simply not possible technologically until relatively recently.)

galgadotMy reaction to the casting leans positive. Superman/Clark Kent was portrayed well–it’s a darker, edgier Superman than the historical model, but the actor pulls it off adequately. His physical movements do seem a bit stiff, however. The actress who plays Wonder Woman/Diana Prince also did quite well, though she is such exquisite eye candy that her acting is something of an afterthought to a red-blooded heterosexual male. I have a lot to say about her (the character, more than the actress) that I’ll probably reserve for a seperate post. And the hot topic ever since casting was first announced, of course, is Batman/Bruce Wayne. It’s really not as bad as some might fear. I would have preferred someone other than Michael Keaton in 1989; and I would have preferred someone other than Ben Affleck in 2016. However, Affleck did OK. He was much less situationally aware (especially during fight scenes) than the Batman of comic book canon…but really, all the screen versions of the character have been.

I already mentioned that the tension builds quite nicely to the climax; but the plot is not without its weaknesses. The whole thing seems like a forced contrivance if you examine it too closely. And the flashbacks/dreams/visions were a touch overdone–with the Batman, particularly. Superman does undertake a successful vision quest in the midst of the film, which I would have appreciated more, had I not already been overexposed to the unnecessary (and at one point, confusing) visions/nightmares/flashbacks of Bruce Wayne.batmanvssuperman

There were some impediments to the suspension of disbelief. For instance: if nuclear weapons work differently in this alternate universe (where masked vigilantes and “meta-humans” exist) than they do in our universe, then that should really be established beforehand.

Every director wants to put his/her “own stamp” on the material s/he’s adapting, and this movie was no exception. This is unfortunate with regards to two characters in particular.

ALFRED: Certainly the character has evolved. Again, the first and biggest step may have been in Miller’s mini-series when he revealed that the Wayne’s butler was a “combat medic” who apparently was a Wayne household staple all Bruce’s life, instead of coming on the scene after the war on crime began and discovering Bruce’s nocturnal activities later. The Gotham TV show took it another step by making Alfred a former British Commando who teaches young Bruce how to fight. And this movie picks up from there, basically turning Alfred into Batman’s command center, and at times the brains of the operation. Yawn. Maybe the transformation of Alfred into Jarvis will be completed in the next character reboot and he’ll simply be an artificial intelligence in the Batcomputer with a British accent. Neither comic book writers nor Hollywood directors ever tire of fixing what’s not broken.

MARK ZUCKERBERG I mean LEX LUTHOR: I’m not sure if the actor was trying to channel Heath Ledger’s Joker performance or Jim Carey’s abysmal Riddler interpretation. Whatever he was going for, it was lame. Luthor has historically been an evil genius, and that is how the character works best. Some left-wing “visionary” in the 1980s turned him into an evil capitalist caraciture from Karl Marx’s dystopian fantasies, and over time the criminal genius aspect of the character has been forgotten. With this movie the next step has been forced in his devolution, so that now he is an evil capitalist LUNATIC with an abusive father, tortured childhood, blah blah blah. Certainly there are supervillains which this cliche fits. Lex Luthor is not one of them.

Oh yeah: there’s also another bad choice in this category.

SOME SENATOR WITH A WEIRD VOICE: A character made necessary only by an unnecessary subplot that was tacked on and is redundant of the Batman’s motive for opposing Superman. She’s a Democrat who is the opposite of any real-life Democrat (she’s concerned about individual rights, Constitutional limitations on power, etc.) but exactly the image Democrats attempt to portray to the gullible electorate. And the masquerade usually succeeds, with the abettment of the press, academia and pop culture (including/especially Hollywood).

There’s a lot more I could say about Dawn of Justice, but this should be enough information for you to decide whether it’s worth the time and ticket price. Wonder Woman will get her own post.

Reviews, SHTF

Falling Down: Homeland # 1

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As frightening, depressing and infuriating as it can be, these days I spend more time reading about impending catastrophe than about any other subject.

When somebody I know produces such work, there’s a good chance they will get to buck the line and their book will go to the top of my TBR pile. I read R.A. Matthis‘ first novel, Ghosts of Babylon, a couple years ago and it deserves the five-star Amazon reviews it received. When I found out he was kicking off a TEOTWAWKI series… well, his new book went to the front of the queue.

The novel follows three principle characters through the final stage of America’s fundamental transformation–Eduardo, the news media personality; Hank, the small town sheriff (with a name like that you just know he’s a stand-up guy…ahem); and Cole, Hank’s son and an E-6 in the Army recently returned from a deployment to Syria.

For the awakened, the strongest subcurrents in the novel are familiar: economic collapse; the encroaching police state (as represented by the Department of Fatherland Homeland Security); utter and complete politicization of the Armed Forces, to be used against the American people, and purging of those who would honor their oath of office. But Mathis’ storytelling is so understated, I can almost imagine the typical normalcy-biased coincidence theorist reading it without being offended. Where I used a sledgehammer in False FLag, Mathis uses a small, quiet whisper (relatively speaking).

The cast is rendered expertly, and this is especially obvious with Eduardo. He’s got all the gray areas and “complexities” you could hope for in a three-dimensional character. The plot, pacing and dialog are also strong. Mathis is really firing on all cylinders here. The occasional typo snuck by the editor (as with seemingly every book these days–mine included), but not enough to pull the reader out of his immersion in this near-future dystopia.

It’s hard not to slip into cliches when describing this book, like “page-turner” and “couldn’t put it down.” I had family visiting, plus work and assorted other obligations, and didn’t think I could get much more than a chapter or two read in a 12-day period.

I was stunned to found myself finished with the entire  book in two days. I still don’t know how I found so much time. (Getting this review ready for posting took longer, as it turned out.) But it’s that good, and I want more.

Mathis blogs over at The Assembly Area. You can also find him on Facebook or his Amazon page.

Crime, Reviews

Oathkeeper by Troy Grice

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As the USA is fundamentally transformed into a third world police state, it’s hard not to notice that the police (local, state and federal) have been transforming before our eyes even faster. Depending on where you live, you might know a “good” cop or two. More often than not, though, police officers have been conditioned to be tools to carry out all sorts of missions except to serve and protect. My concern with this issue is what led me to slip this novel to the front of the line in my To Be Read queue.

Monte Turcott is a veteran recently returned to his home in Calumet County. He becomes a local hero when he stops a pointless shooting spree by killing the shooter. But the star of this novel is Sheriff Bear Ellis.

The irony in the behavior of government employees (from the White House down) is that they all are required to swear an oath to abide by the Constitution. Then they immediately set about violating every article and clause in it. Bear is a rarity in that he remembers his oath, and is convicted to keep it. But even though a county sheriff is theoretically accountable to the people of his county, and beholden to no higher official, Bear is under tremendous pressure from the jackbooted federal Gestapo (represented by the DEA in this case) to be a team player in the encroaching police state.

When the DEA raids the wrong house, killing Turcott’s wife, Bear finds himself caught in the middle of the struggle between the rule of law (to include due process) and the aspirations of the  alphabet soup Gestapo agencies. The situation is further complicated when the agent who killed the innocent woman is himself bumped off. There is no evidence against Turcott but the judge/jury/executioner Feds want to pin it on him anyway, and exact revenge.

If this sounds like a farfetched scenario, then you haven’t been paying attention. Yes, “law enforcement” is upside-down from what it was in the 1950s and earlier.

Grice did a good job getting inside the mind of a cop. Even the dying breed of “good” ones have been poisoned by relativistic rationale that puts loyalty to fellow LEOs above actually keeping their oaths. It must be severely difficult not to develop an “us vs. them” attitude regarding the people they are paid to serve and protect.

A very well-written novel, examining one little microcosm of what is happening/has happened to our republic.

P.S: None of the characters of this book belong to the official Oathkeepers organization.

Action, Military, Reviews

13 Hours–Provoking Questions That Should Be Asked

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Only the gullible put their faith in Hollywood anymore. When you go into the theater, expect to be lied to if the film is “based on a true story,” or for the leftist agenda and their cultural Marxist tropes to get in the way of telling a decent story if it’s not.

Keep your guard up…and once in a while you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

What Hollywood would like to do is have everyone forget about Benghazi. Failing that, they would prefer to feed it through the leftward-cranking revisionist machine in which incompetent traitors like Hillary and Hussein are the heroes, and “right-wing extremists” are somehow the villains.

For whatever reasons, Michael Bay didn’t make that movie. Of course he doesn’t put a spotlight on the culpability of the US State Department, or tackle the unasked questions of why Ambassador Stevens was there in the first place, what he was doing, and by whose orders…but c’mon. That’s kinda like not being stung by the scorpion, then, on top of that, expecting him to pay you for taking him across the river. Count your blessings.

Here’s my list of pros and cons about the movie:

PRO: Very solid acting, from pretty much everybody. The CIA station chief stood out, in particular.

CON: It’s rough keeping track of all the characters, especially at first. They are introduced rapidly and you really don’t know much about their respective personalities until deep in the film.

PRO: The action is intense, and believable.

CON: As with the characters, there are several different entities involved in the Benghazi debacle, and there is no exposition to introduce you. If the viewer hasn’t studied Benghazi beforehand, he might feel a bit overwhelmed and out of the loop. There’s GRS; the QRF in Tripoli; plus security details for the consulate and the CIA Annex; and Feb 17. The interrelations are never politely explained.

PRO: If the movie is accurate, then what I initially heard about Glen Doherty’s role was not. Makes me want to dig a little to see what else I had faulty info on.

CON: There are the usual little nits to pick about scenes and shots in the firefight(s). These are usually due to either the director’s ignorance about tactics, or his sacrifice of accuracy for cinematic purposes.

UNDECIDED: Speaking of accuracy vs. dramatic license, the plot doesn’t perfectly progress after the pattern the audience is used to, and the simple explanation for that is because real life doesn’t, either. I know first-hand that it’s very difficult telling a true story that is dramatic/exciting; and probably impossible to tell a story that is both 100% accurate and 100% captivating. Considering that, the writers and director did an admirable job finding a balance.

PRO: While there is enough ambiguity to avoid revealing the smoking gun in Hillary’s hand (and the Obamanible Hussein’s, for that matter), this movie does cause thinking men to ask important questions.

Questions that should have been relentlessly asked since 2012, by the bulk of the American population.

Action, Adventure, Reviews, Superhero

Daredevil on Netflix

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So far, there is only one season’s worth of episodes on Netflix. I watched them all to the end without puking. I do admit to some groans and eye-rolls, but grading on the curve, that’s an A+ for a superhero (or, frankly, any) TV show these days.

First of all, in a genre with more reboots than a week’s worth of using Microsux Winblows, the series was fairly faithful to the source material. Remember, Daredevil hit the crimefighting stage in the 1960s. So first of all, everything had to be transposed to this millennium.

I’ll get the eye-rolls out of the way first.

SpidermanKingpin

(BTW, I remember the Kingpin being one of Spiderman’s enemies. Maybe Frank Miller switched him over?)

In today’s obsession with gray areas, flawed heroes and sympathetic villains, I guess it was just too tempting for the writers not to try to show the Kingpin’s humanity.

Sometimes these apologetics work. In this instance it was really unnecessary.

Some villains are just crooked, okay? The darker side of human nature is to lust after wealth/ power, and to build one’s own twisted version of morality in order to justify those lusts. The scumbags of the world either see themselves as heroes or victims (often both), and always have an excuse handy for what they do. You don’t need to help them make excuses.

Scheming crime lord, or misunderstood idealistic recluse?
Scheming crime lord, or misunderstood idealistic recluse?

I’ll only mention one more annoyance: the creative team behind Daredevil obviously felt obliged to lament the revolution in media every chance they got. In fact, the reporter character (Ben Urich) really serves no better purpose in the series.

He’s an icon–a symbol of journalistic integrity that the left-wing propagandist tools of the mainstream media would have you believe motivates them. The great tragedy is that since the flow of information has been democratized via the Internet, people have options and are turning away from the Lapdog Press; perusing alternative sources looking for the truth.

The truth that the mainstream media routinely attempts to suppress (and before the Internet, they were consistently successful).

The Daredevil writers (via their Ben Urich character) whine about the demise of Marxist (“mainstream”) newspapers, and complain that inferior proletarian slobs “blogging in their underwear” are responsible. They also seem to believe that those unwashed bloggers are getting filthy rich from doing it.

There was one similar rant in Arrow that I remember, but in this series, once was evidently not enough.

The series is just sloppin' over with eye candy. And the cinematography/effects ain't bad, either.
The series is just sloppin’ over with eye candy. And the cinematography/effects ain’t bad, either.

If you can ignore elements like those two eye-rolls summarized above (and I’m sure 99% of folks do), then this is actually a decent series so far. Matt Murdock, Foggy Nelson, Karen Page, Claire Temple and the other supporting characters are likeable. The action is mixed in well. The fight scenes are not bad for TV.

SInce the dark days of the 70s, Marvel’s efforts at live-action adaptation has undergone a tremendous overhaul. The Daredevil series certainly meets current Marvel Studios standards, and is an immense improvement over the big-screen effort of a few years ago.

Of the three different superhero-inspired series I’ve critiqued this month, this is the only one I intend to continue following.

Crime, Reviews, Superhero

Gotham on Netflix

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Continuing with my superhero miniseries, I now turn to the latest reboot of the Batman mythos.

First off, as I pointed out in Superheroes and The Narrative:

…Frankly, you have to hand it to the pop culture svengalis because it takes talent to sell an aspect of The Narrative as oxymoronic as feminism (that women are superior to heterosexual men in every way, yet simultaneously oppressed victims of them).

That’s not the only difficult task they’ve cut out for themselves.–they’ve taken the Batman and turned him into a blatant oxymoron which gets swallowed whole by millions.

Let’s not forget that the Batman is A VIGILANTE. He’s a wealthy, Batman Destroys the Monkproperty-owning individual who recognizes that the so-called criminal justice system is hopelessly broken. He dedicates his life to disciplined training for a one-man war against the criminal class. Using his own capital, he arms and equips himself for the war. Once he reaches his physical prime, he circumvents the authority of the state and deals out justice personally, concealing his identity from both the criminal underworld and the corrupt system. In the beginning he wasn’t afraid to terminate scumbags with extreme prejudice, and at least once used firearms to do so.

You can’t get much more right-wing than that.

And yet, after Robin was first introduced in the early 1940s, Gotham City took a turn for the bizarre. Batman became a de facto officer in the Gotham PD, working so closely with Commissioner Gordon that one wonders why he bothered to keep his identity secret. You can see the transformation visually in the appearance of his costume, BTW.

The Batman assumed his disguise to strike fear into the hearts of criminals--"a superstitious, cowardly lot."
The Batman assumed his disguise to strike fear into the hearts of criminals–“a superstitious, cowardly lot.”
A kinder, gentler vigilante.
A kinder, gentler vigilante.

So…he’s a vigilante, but he works with the system. Oh, he’s gone through phases in which he is hunted by the cops, but it never lasts long and it’s usually as a result of him being framed by an enemy. He’s also become quite the anti-gun activist.

antigunBatmanSince at least the 1980s, the writers at DC have become more bold about inserting their leftist worldview into the comics. (The latest movie trilogy was a pleasant surprise, except for the last one, depending on perspective. If you’re a “law and order” cuckservative/Rino/NeoCon you probably thought the underlying message in Dark Knight Rises was just great.)

So what you have is an anarchist character who is written to be an agent of the state, and most passionate about collectivist causes (gun control, the dangers of privacy, etc.). He’s also a capitalist operating with nigh-autonomy, in a fantasy world where the free market is the problem, and autonomy should be exclusive to leftist politicians.

It takes some talented snake oil salesmen to peddle this stuff; and it takes some gullible chumps to swallow it without question.

Having said that, on to the TV series. I’ll list pros and cons.

PRO: This series has the best performances I’ve seen by a child actor playing the young Bruce Wayne.

ThePenguin_01
The classic Penguin–that paragon of perfidy with a parasol…that bumbershoot bandit with a belly…

CON: In this show Oswald Cobblepot (AKA the Penguin) has more in common with the horrible Tim Burton character revamp than with the Penguin of the comics (at least the first half-century of the comics). In fact, this characterization might be worse: Cobblepot is petulant, impulsive, and sometimes downright stupid. Hardly the stuff supervillains are made of. His segments get tiresome to watch after a few episodes. And was the creepy mother fixation really necessary?

Tim Burton's Penguin--basically a disgusting zombie raised by real-life penguins.
Tim Burton’s Penguin–basically a disgusting zombie raised by real-life penguins.

PRO: Young detective Gordon is played very well, though the actor’s voice gets increasingly raspy–like he’s auditioning to play the part of Batman.

CON: Bruce Wayne doesn’t become Batman until he reaches adulthood, right? In this series he’s still a child…and yet the writers seem determined to have every single character in the Batman universe cross paths when Bruce Wayne is pre-pubescent. This is becoming a typical plotting fetish when these superhero franchises are rebooted, and it wasn’t all that clever the first few times. Plus it just isn’t credible. Only so much disbelief can be suspended for the more intelligent viewers, so save your improbable points for stuff like, you know, an unarmed dude with no superpowers attacking gangs of armed criminals, dodging all their bullets and vanquishing them with his bare hands.

PRO: The exception to the foolishness of the fetish summarized above is the early development of Edward Nygma (AKA the Riddler). Making the pre-Riddler E. Nygma a forensic technician for the Gotham Police may just have been a stroke of genius. Some might even find him likeable, in a nerd/loser way. The writers/directors have built for themselves an opportunity here to mold a very solid, credible villain via a patient character arc.

CON: Alfred is now a British SpecOps vet. Really? Facepalm. He’s a butler, okay?

Ooh, scary! Another Hollywod badass.
Ooh, scary! Another Hollywod badass.

CON: Selena Kyle (AKA Catwoman) is a child, who personally meets and befriends the child Bruce Wayne many years before they grow up to have a kinky love/hate cat/mouse (flying mouse, that is) relationship in masks and tights. Holy overused plot gimmick, Batman. And of course at 12 years old (or whatever) “Cat” is a badass streetwise thug-with-a-heart-of-gold who pulls little Brucie’s fat out of the fire any time the writers can dream up an excuse to contrive it. Oh yeah, both of them also know the young girl who will grow up to become Poison Ivy. Holy ho-hum.

Now here's a villainess to wrap your arms around.
Now here’s a villainess to wrap your arms around.

CON: Maybe you’ve noticed we’re missing something. Where are all the sympathetic sodomites? Are the cultural svengalis slipping? Ah, never fear: no less than James Gordon’s future wife (and future mother of Batgirl) is now AC/DC. Her erstwhile rug-munching buddy is one of only two honest cops on the Gotham PD when Jim Gordon joins the force. Hmm. I’m not sure they went far enough–maybe she should be a war hero, too. There’s all sorts of potential checkboxes to choose from in the Perversion Peddling Playbook.

The cultural svengalis are in lock step and their Narrative is as predictable, ultimately, as how any given post-season will end for the Minnesota Vikings. They may lull you into complacency with some good writing, good acting, good whatever for a while, but only so they can sucker-punch you once your guard is down..

Action, Adventure, Reviews, Superhero

The Flash on Netflix

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Smallville paved the way for Arrow, and The Flash spun off from that. If you noticed that Smallville became increasingly ridiculous and unimaginative after Season One, you might suspect that the same writers are churning out episode teleplays for the spinoffs.

The Flash TV series is not without its assets, on display here.
The Flash TV series is not without its assets, on display here.

The Flash does have something going for it–namely special effects and an 8+ babe in the regular cast.

Unfortunately the directing does not raise the bar for superhero adaptations. So many times the Flash is shown moving at super-speed, but repeatedly the actor is instructed to stand around and wait to get punched or shot or zapped when the script calls for a reversal or increase in dramatic tension. This is much harder to forgive in live-action than it is in the panels of a comic book.

Also, Barry Allen, as depicted, couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag.

The first few episodes suffered from overacting and desperately over-dramatic writing. The actors and writers settled down a little after a while, but it became painfully obvious soon thereafter that this is just another example of a comic book stalwart being hijacked by SJWs and transformed into just another chapter of The Narrative.

Here are two factors that were final nails in the coffin for me:

The Obligatory Sympathetic Homosexual Character

This time they made him a police captain. The creative team are simply/dutifully following Step 1 and 4 of “The Overhauling of Straight America.” (The other steps have been followed so religiously that the cultural svengalis can just maintain The Narrative now–it’s already been programmed into Millenials, Gen X, Gen Y and most Baby Boomers.)

The Obligatory Amazon Superninja

One of the villains (I can’t recall his moniker) could turn his entire body into iron or something. He was a very similar character to comic book villains like the Sandman, Clayface, the Molten Man, etc. In this series the Flash is a lousy fighter and gets his butt handed to flashgreenarrowhim by nearly every opponent (except Green Arrow–Barry Allen suddenly and mysteriously knows how to fight using his super-speed when a feud between him and Oliver Queen is contrived). The Iron Baddie is no exception–always able to transform into iron faster than the Flash can move.

The diversity-by-the-numbers team at Star Labs (Hispanic scientist; female scientist; ostensibly handicapped evil genius white male scientist) tap their keyboards a few times and decide that the way to take out Iron Baddie is for Flash to deliver a punch while running faster than he’s ever run before.

So our hero gets a running start and tops out at like 800 MPH before

This is Hollywood's vision of a badass ultimate fighter.
This is Hollywood’s vision of a badass ultimate fighter.

nailing Iron Baddie right on the button. Iron Baddie recovers and comes right back at the Crimson Chump the Scarlet Speedster. Ah, but never fear: the aforementioned 8+ babe (Iris West) steps in and knocks him out with one punch. She has no superpowers (unless you count hypergamy) but is obviously superior to ANY man, even the superpowered ones. Because vagina.

Need I waste more verbiage on this series?

Non-Fiction/Documentary, Politics/Current Events, Reviews

Review: SJWs Always Lie/Taking Down the Thought Police

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I’m pretty sure I’m echoing the sentiments of others by saying this, but I wish I’d had this handbook many years ago. Much of what SJWs Always Lie reveals, I had learned on my own the hard way. Plus, I’ve been following Vox Populi for a couple years now so this wasn’t the first time I’ve encountered most of the author’s revelations.

Still, even though I had learned some dos and dont’s on my own, I hadn’t learned all of them. Nor had I discovered exactly WHY one should follow the dos and don’ts I’d learned.

One nice bonus in this book is a chapter-long summary of the whole #Gamergate saga. I’d put bits and pieces together from reading blog posts related to it; but it was nice to digest the entire history of it in one sitting. I suspect other readers would equally appreciate Day’s summary of the Hugo Awards/Puppies conflict. What both incidents teach us is that, even though entrenched throughout pop culture (and everywhere else), the SJWs can be pushed back if a few good men can only summon the courage and motivation to take off the kid gloves and fight.

Despite what I’ve learned from this book and personal experience, Day has helped me understand that I need to become more fluent in the form of communication Aristotle called the rhetorical (not exactly what we currently label rhetoric). Why? Because Aristotle and Day are absolutely correct: there are certain people whose minds you will never change by giving them information. I’ve run into them a lot, and was usually baffled by how futile my communication had been (speaking dialectic to those who couldn’t understand it).

This book is chock-full of insights and practical advice on what to do when you encounter an SJW.

Vox Day lays out the 8 stages of an SJW attack. In Stage One, he lists three subcomponents:

  1. self-appointed public defense;
  2. virtual victimhood, and
  3. creative offense-taking.

Even though I think I can think of examples of all three, it would have been nice had the author provided them himself.

Little stuff like that is really the only flaws I can point to in this book. And of course, whether or not they are truly flaws is subjective.

A pleasant side-effect of this book’s release is the number of parodies and counter-parodies now enjoying  some exposure on Amazon.

Adventure, Crime, Reviews

Praise For the Harboiled Gearhead Rock&Roller Detective

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Deke Jones is an unapolagetic alpha male (sigma according to Vox Day’s breakdown of the socio-sexual hierarchy) but also an irreverent loner, whose passion is cars and music, and just happens to make a living as a private detective.

I haven’t marketed my books much, and it shows in the anemic sales and Amazon reviews. But then, these are niche novels, focused at an audience that is apparently even smaller than I guessed. Until today (I’m writing this on Saturday 10/10/15) the latest Deke Jones romp, Shadow Hand Blues, didn’t have even a single review.

Well, that threshold is finally crossed, and here is the review:

I loved Fast Cars and Rock&Roll so,naturally,I was excited to see another Deke Jones Romp. After a few paragraphs,I thought that this book was not going to live up to it’s predecessor. Boy was I WRONG! I soon realized that this story was more about Deke Jones the private detective/musician and not about Deke Jones the race car driver. I’m a car guy through and through,that’s what attracted me to the first book,but I also like a well written story. That is exactly what I got here. The characters are complex, the plot is riveting and the book moves like a roller coaster! Maybe it’s just me,but when I read this story,I felt like I was there. I was in the courtroom when Deke was reading the transcripts. I could picture the expressions on Fuller’s face. I witnessed his encounters with the local police. I felt Deke’s rage at the injustice of it all. Very intense. There was also,indeed, enough automobile related content to satisfy the gear head in me. Some drag racing, high speed driving and vintage auto repair,in detail.

I’m not very good at expressing how much I enjoyed this book. My review is crudely written and lacking details. Writing is not my forte. However it is Michael Kayser’s forte, and thank goodness for that. I will be anxiously waiting for the next “Romp”.

Well, I beg to differ. Not only was this review thoughtful and detailed, it was also well-written. I’ve read plenty of Amazon reviews and appreciate this one all the more.