The Mark of the Beast

February 5, 2010

Because both of my sons were playing in the pep band, we went to the high school basketball game last night (we got beat). They were also having a spaghetti dinner fundraiser in the cafeteria, so we went early and hung out with friends. We really only caught the last half of the basketball game.

When we paid for our tickets, they stamped our hand. It's a little circle with OHS (for Oxford High School; or SHO, for Super Huge Orgasms) on it on the back of my right hand. (Super Huge Orgasms, right hand? Oh, never mind).

It's funny how things can stick with you for most of your life, isn't it? When someone reacts strangely to something, adults or kids, you never really know what's going on in their heads. Maybe that's why fiction is so attractive. It adds some form and interpretation to thoughts and behaviors.

I can't get a hand stamped without thinking of the first time it happened. I must have been about 10. My brother, who is 7 years older, had gone of to college, at the University of Michigan. I went up to spend the weekend with him in the dorm. Among the various thing we did was go see the movie Tommy (once guesses my parents, who had banned the album from the house, did not realize their oldest son was taking their 10-year-old baby to see this film). We also saw The Four Musketeers that weekend, and it's possible that the 4M was the film in question. Anyway, I had my hand stamped. And in a panic, I tried to wipe it off, smearing it all over my hand.

Why?

My Sunday School Teacher at the time was very, very big on the book of Revelations and the Rapture and he was always talking about the "mark of the beast" and how the end of the world was coming and Jesus was going to physically take the saved, and if you had the mark of the beast on you--a tattoo of 666 on your forehead or, er, some sort of mark and/or tattoo on your hand--when Jesus came to take the good people to heaven, those of us with those marks would be left behind as the world went to hell. He promised all of us to never, ever let anyone tattoo a mark on our hand of forehead.

(No wonder people are so screwed up. Sometimes I think you should be licensed to interact with other human beings).

So, obviously, when I got my hand stamped for the movie, that's what I was thinking, that if Jesus came that night, RIGHT THEN!, we'd all be left behind. Yes, we were all DAMNED for being at that movie.

So although I don't flinch to have my hand stamped, that thought does always go through my head.

Don't you think we all have weird stuff like that in our heads?

Really, This Is Getting Out Of Hand

February 5, 2010

I can tell when I'm deep into a difficult project because my usually orderly desk goes to hell. And clearly, it's a sign. A sign, I tell you!

District 9 and Me

February 4, 2010

A little backstory here. I was quite interested in seeing District 9 in the theater. So this summer, when my youngest son was elsewhere, my then-15-year-old and I went to see it. And although I never talked about this much, about 10 or 15 minutes or so in, I looked over at him and said, "Are you enjoying this?" He said, "Um, not much." So we got up, left, went down the hallway and watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, having missed only the first few minutes (and we'd both already seen it).

A lot of this has to do with two things. One, Ian, which is a little odd for a teenager, isn't terribly into creepy movies or horror movies. I imagine he'll go through a phase where he does--don't we all?--but he's not into them too much. Two, when they mentioned early on in the movie prostitutes servicing the aliens (prawns), I thought, "Uh-oh. This may not be the best film to see with my 15-year-old."

Anyway, because I'm a little compulsive this way, and because I could, I downloaded District 9 to my iPhone and finally got around to watching it.

In many ways, we skipped out before things got REALLY creepy. And, gee, we missed out on energy weapons that explode bodies in such a way that the blood and gore spatters on the camera lens, an un-ending stream of South African-accented profanity, and some fairly disturbing but mostly uncommented-upon racial stereotypes (more about that in a moment).

So, did I like the film? Actually, yes. The main character, Wikus Van De Merwe, (played brilliantly by Sharlto Copley), goes through a very interesting and nuanced transformation in this film. And I don't mean the transformation from a human to a prawn. I mean from a smiling, shallow, cocky moron to an angry, insightful, hopeful human being. Which presents a bit of a conflict, doesn't it, since at the very end of the film he's no longer a human being. Well, let the masters theses begin!

I thought for a moderately low-budget film, it was done in a very clever way. I'm sure a lot of producers and directors watch the film and think how smart the film makers were in their use of CGI and sets.

I thought the gritty documentary-style of filmmaking was interesting up to a point, when it later got a bit annoying.

I thought the only character in the entire film who had any kind of backstory was Wikus, which is sort of a problem. The bad guy soldier who's pursuing him is a cartoon cutout.

I thought the story arc was excellent.

I thought the gore was largely gratuitous, particularly how it was handled. How many times do I have to see blood and/or body parts splatter against the camera lens?

Oh yes, let's discuss briefly, the Nigerians. Or, for that matter, seemingly every black character in the film. The whites in the film are portrayed as the worst kind of humans (until the end, with Wikus, who only finds his humanity by being turned into a prawn), violent, bigoted, greedy, power-hungry... and the blacks. Well, the Nigerians are a bunch of violent, criminal, superstitious, crude gangsters. (To be fair, the prawns aren't portrayed positively in most cases either, with the exception of "Christopher" and his son; most of the prawns come about as depraved insects).

Well, as I thought watching it, this was a film that could probably only have been made by a South African, although I suspect that's rather limiting. The film turns apartheid on its head, or rather, turns it inside-out.

Do I recommend it?

Don't know. But it's a longshot for best picture.

The Fallen--first review!

February 3, 2010
My publisher just told me of an early review for the upcoming Derek Stillwater novel, THE FALLEN.

Or, if you're pissed off at Amazon--

Barnes & Noble

Powell's Books

IndieBound

Here's the link.

Readers who love the high paced thrillers that provide an adrenaline rush of a read are in for a treat with the latest Mark Terry novel, “The Fallen.”--Christine Zibas for Reviewing The Evidence

Breakdown

February 2, 2010

Because, y'know, I'm kind of stressed out with too much to do and not enough hours in the day. Enjoy.