Europa Report

I have now seen Guardians of the Galaxy twice, in both 2D and 3D. And it still ticks me off that, yes, the BADDEST BITCH IN THE UNIVERSE, Gamora (played by Zoe Saldana), has to be rescued by A MAN, and a hapless one at that. Good Lord. Is there NO ESCAPE????

Well, maybe not from Marvel Universe... but there are these cool things called INDIE MOVIES, and I now hereby recommend one: Europa Report was sheer joy from beginning to end.

I had almost forgotten how old shows like The Twilight Zone and the early Star Trek were made: on the cheap, with the emphasis on provocative, interesting scripts, excellent acting and cool, otherworldly ideas. Europa Report (2013) reminds us that IDEAS and DRAMA are behind good sci-fi, and no amount of razzle-dazzle special effects can take the place of these compelling and enthralling story-telling elements.

Europa Report was made on a scant budget (less than $10 million) and occasionally, it does seem like it. But the whole concept of watching an upload of the first mission to Jupiter's icy moon Europa (a mission by a private company, of course) is a creative way around not having the razzle-dazzle. As in the original version of ALIEN, we are watching the everyday blahblahblah-boredom of a long space mission, where people might easily become stir crazy and act silly. And then shit happens, somebody goes drifting off into space (I hate it when that happens), and we are suddenly reminded of the tenuousness of life, especially millions of miles away, "sitting in a tin can"--as in David Bowie's famous lyric.

The landing on Europa is terrifying. I felt almost-dizzy watching from that point onward, but in a good, delicious way. I could identify with the crew, who kept saying how they couldn't believe they had actually arrived and how long they had dreamed of it, how long they had waited. As I said in my review of Another Earth, I looooove invented-scenery of enormous planets in the sky, and they give us a great view of Jupiter-in-eclipse, which they see from their landing site on Europa. They are nearly hypnotized by it, as I surely would be.

And one of the best things? When it seems their landing site is on ice too thick to get the samples (the whole reason for the trip), one of the women crew-members announces she is walking out onto the ice to get it herself. NO MAN HAS TO DO IT! It's not even a man's IDEA! Praise the Lord, a woman decides to save the mission! Huzzahs! (And she isn't even the baddest bitch in the universe, as Gamora is, but just another scientist.)

The crew's collective devotion to the mission, in and of itself, is intense and moving; in fact, it is quite wonderful. I often think the science-freaks (those irreverent atheists) have no respect for anything, but after seeing this movie, I get it: they respect the scientific process above all else, even above their own lives. The sample-collector (played by Karolina Wydra) doesn't know if radiation will fry her out there on Europa's surface, but dammit, they need the specimens and she plunges out onto the strange unearthly ice with no hesitations whatsoever. Her voice quavers with emotion when she finds a small one-celled creature in the ice, which she says appears Precambrian. It is like they have found God or something, and it is hard not to imagine the emotional intensity of seeing such a thing, close-up and for real. The acting is fantastic and always believable.

I don't want to ruin it for you, but the ending is brilliant and understated, both scary and amazing (terrifying and wonderful, said some reviewer I now can't find to link). Science is like that, right? The closing of one door and the blasting open of still another you never even knew existed. You can't go back, once you know.

And did I mention that this lovely understated but brilliant ending is made possible by (more huzzahs!) another woman crew member who ain't scared? (And let's be clear: by this point in the story, I would be a raving hysterical maniac, so that is truly saying something.) I can't tell you how proud of her I was.

Just as we involuntarily grimace when Gamora needs rescue (and try to forget that we just saw the baddest bitch in the universe floating around like zero-gravity-Sleeping Beauty, waiting for Chris Pratt to scoop her up in his manly arms), we are unaccountably PROUD when these Europa women kick some scientific ass and do important stuff without waiting for men to tell them.

This tells us how far we have to go.

Check out the movie. If you like drama and don't need a bunch of bells and whistles (as I admit Guardians of the Galaxy has a parcel of em), you won't be disappointed. If you have ever had intense dreams or fantasies of visiting other planets, you will find it mesmerizing, and it will stay with you a long time.

The women come out great, but the science is the thing. It's the real star.

It's a Comet!

NOOooo, not that kind. I meant the CAR; the lovely Mercury Comet, produced by Ford.

I took these photos of a beautiful old Comet (seemingly in mint condition) that I unexpectedly encountered in metro Atlanta. I'm gonna guess: 1965?

Any takers?



It's been awhile since I posted some old cars. (((waves at car-photo lurkers!))) As always, you can click to enlarge.

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Its been boring in Blogdonia, except for my periodic political brawls with the kids on Tumblr. Most seem to have been born last Wednesday. They actually think a Walkman is an antique. (NOTE: I still use mine, yall.) They enthusiastically trash unfashionable, old stuff (ewww!) faster than you can say planned obsolescence. They talk a good game, but still seem unaware that Asian sweatshop children are manufacturing all of their gadgetry and clothing for pennies. In short, words like FAIR TRADE are notably missing from their vocabularies. And any discussion of Palestinian rights sends them into the proverbial tailspin.

They think they are radical, but when you ask them what they do in their communities? (((crickets)))

That probably shouldn't bother me so much, but see, I think the Tea Partiers and the Right Wingers and the conservatives ARE doing something in their communities. In fact, they are doing A LOT. And at breakneck pace. That is how we ended up with Nikki Haley. (More about which in due course, as William F Buckley liked to say.) This is how Eric Cantor lost the Senate. The Left is busily contemplating its collective navel as the Right Wing happily skips along, winning elections.

For example, the Men's Rights fellas are organizing. They had a real conference, which is more than feminists seem to be able to do these days.

(sigh)

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Speaking of Men's Rights, I am linking the blog Toy Soldier, which I think might be classified as a Men's Rights blog? (Not sure how he categorizes himself.) In any event, TS deserves to be linked for this.

Marion Zimmer Bradley was a child molester. Holy shit, is all you can say. Holy. Shit.

I am relieved I was never a big fan and was never emotionally invested in her work... but it still pains me as a feminist, to learn of a famous feminist pedophile. And no, lets not start nonsense claiming "if she was a pedophile, she wasn't really a feminist" as if to say no feminist can EVER be one, just because. Bullshit. If priests who have sworn an oath to God Almighty can be pedophiles, so can feminists. So can anyone. In fact, that's the point: no demographic is immune.

Didn't feminists preach that, once upon a time?

And have you heard this story, of Marion Zimmer Bradley, defending her husband the NAMBLA member, even molesting her own three-year-old daughter? Nightmarish in the extreme. I came across the Guardian story almost by accident. Are any feminists discussing this? (Yes, some are.) On Tumblr, the legion of "radfems" certainly has downplayed this, hardly mentioning it at all. Bradley was a very influential and award-winning author, even the co-founder of The Society for Creative Anachronism, the named coined by her. Her work has directly influenced much of modern-day fantasy writing, both by men and women.

And she was a child molester.

Is this "bent" obvious (or implicit) in her work? I didn't follow it much, so I don't know. But I expect critics to tell me; I expect a full-on SEXUAL POLITICS-type of academic criticism, informing us if this trait is evident in her work, as we know misogyny is evident in Norman Mailer's work. Will it be up to men to do this? (THIS is the kind of thing the men's rights guys could be doing, not studying Miley Cyrus' selfies. See TIME article above.)

I am greatly disappointed at the resounding silence I see from so many feminists on the subject of Bradley's disgusting activities...it is certainly no match for the excited hubbub when The Mists of Avalon finally made it to TV.

(sigh)

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Also--

Remember I told you Governor Nikki Haley was putting off ROAD REPAIR until the election, so us hapless South Carolina residents have been consigned to driving on horrible concrete ruts all the time? (Woodruff Road is a particular upstate blight, as is Highway 291, where I dodged potholes yesterday.)

Haley recently talked about a mythical "money tree" to pay for the roads--which has brought endless mirth to the Deadhead household, as my spouse and I promise to pay for various things with the MONEY TREE we are going to plant on the patio.

I think we need to call her GOVERNOR POTHOLE, which I hope to name a post soon.

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Our local fundie-U, awful Bob Jones University, has a brand new president, Stephen D. Pettit. Appointed right before the summer break, he is the first president of BJU who is not a member of the Jones family, so its pretty amazing.

After the honeymoon and quick pick-me-up from this charismatic new prez and his flashy Colgate smile, the BJU-cult will inevitably reassert its primacy. Will New Prez leave when the Jones boys start bossing him around? Or are they paying him a lot to put up with it? I guess we'll be finding out.

And that should be fun!

Welcome, Reverend Steve. You will be hearing about ME soon enough. :)

HeroesCon 2014

This past weekend, I attended fabulous HeroesCon in Charlotte, NC. Photos below. As always, you can click all photos to enlarge.

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The first group: ARTISTS AND WRITERS.

I tried to get their names and/or comics in the photos; please visit their sites!







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And time for cosplay! Great costumes!

Starting with Deadpool, who got things all warmed up by dancing for us:









GREAT FUN! Yall come back now, y'hear?