Hey folks, welcome back to The Book Report.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas/Yuletide/Saturnalia last weekend. In a few short days 2010 will draw to a close and 2011 will rain down upon us surprises and changes like ever year prior.

What I thought I’d do today is offer some input concerning the momentous occasion leading up to the New Year: The New Year’s Eve Party.
It’s become almost as big a tradition as Christmas, it seems. One last hurrah before a new year begins.

The first thing I have to say may sound like a given: Be safe.
I’m not sure why people seem to think that it’s only a bad idea to drive drunk on days that aren’t a holiday, but there are a lot more drunk drivers out on New Year’s Eve. Don’t be one of them, and be aware that they are out there if you drive anywhere. If you’re hosting a party, I strongly urge you to collect keys at the door and don’t give them back until you are sure the person using them is okay to drive. Inviting someone to the party who can be a designated driver is also not a bad idea.

Next is also for people hosting a party: Add variety.
I know, hosting a party can get pricey, so you buy cases of crap beer and a couple of cheese trays for hors d’oeuvres. Do you really want your last Hurrah of the year to be sponsored by the Silver Bullet? Bevmo! and Costco offer great prices on decent beers and I promise the effort is worth it.
Additionally, you might want to pick up a book on mixed drinks. I got The Complete Bartender by Robyn Feller on my shelf. It doesn’t get a whole lot of use, true. But a party offering a drink specialty or two can really make an impact on the fun factor. If you really got some money to burn you cannot go wrong with a fully stocked bar.

Also in the Add variety category: offer activities besides drinking. Dancing is good if you like that sort of thing. Just make sure it’s something most of the party would enjoy. Poker is fun, but if half the party doesn’t play you probably shouldn’t start up a game. Something I’ve used in the past to great effect is If…(Questions for the Game of Life) by Evelyn McFarlane and James Saywell. They’ve written several different versions of the book, each containing thought-provoking, yet still fun, questions. It’s a relatively tame game, but it also helps you get to know the people you call friends a little better in a fun way. Add a little veritas that comes from drinking and some of the answers can be quite hilarious.

Regardless, having a party game or two can help keep things under control. Everyone wants to have fun, but it’s a sure bet no one wants to spend the first day of the new year in jail for doing something easily preventable (and probably stupid). But that means the host of the party needs to have an organized plan for the evening, with detailed arrangements for if/when a guest turns out to be an angry drunk, or drank too much, or turns into a sobbing wreck because a certain song comes on, or whatever.

Anyway, I hope all of you have an absolute blast closing out 2010, and I’ll see you next year!

Until next time,
Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_

Sgt. Angle Reporting for Duty!

As the year 2010 finally wraps up, we should take a moment to review what’s come before, in the hopes to change what might soon be.

Thanks to Avatar’s monstrous haul in late 2009, we are going to have a continuous barrage of 3D movies in release for a good few years, and they’ll hopefully go the way of the dodo bird before they cycle back in another decade or so. Perhaps by then Johnny Depp will grow a set of cajones large enough to say “no” to Tim Burton when the likes of Alice in Wonderland rears its’ ugly head.

3D I can support.

Don’t get me wrong, I have virtually no problem with cartoons, or movies like How to Train Your Dragon or Toy Story 3, arriving in 3D to wow the different parts of your eyes. But when that third dimension is added in post, months after filming, you get a chop-chopped version of “reality” such as Clash of the Titans or The Last Airbender.

The post-conversion process, otherwise known as Stereoscopy, is a late addition to cinematic technology, wherein the movie is not filmed in 3D but is filtered and adjusted after editing is complete. James Cameron has spoken out against this process, rather harshly, as it defeats the general purpose of a 3D film.

Other films use 3D incorrectly, more as a gimmick rather than a storytelling tool. Avatar’s use of 3D, believe it or not, only helped the otherwise flimsy story and script. The world was given depth and originality, and we were immersed within that world. Unlike, say, Step Up 3D where we’re almost kicked in the face by dancing, people’s body parts flying at the screen in an attempt to make an impact where, emotionally, there is otherwise nothing to write home about.

Or how about Piranha 3D, a gluttonous, over-reaching, gross insult to a sense of humor that plays up the very same gimmicks that any 3D film has to offer, only to end up lost and confused, not knowing if it wanted to be a horror flick or a comedy spoof.

Full credit is due to sometime-hack Paul W.S. Anderson, whose sequel number… whatever… Resident Evil: After Life, was filmed using the same kinds of cameras that Cameron developed for Avatar. Even the ads made a big deal that Resident Evil used the same technology developed by Cameron.

She’s falling on ME. in 3D!

To skip to the essentials of this post, 3D is becoming the death of the movie-going experience and needs to stop. Ticket prices get jacked $3 a pop for 3D films (theaters will claim it’s to cover the cost of the glasses and the technology to project the movies, studios will say that the extra cost covers the camera or the conversion processes), the post-conversion process leads to horrendous assaults on the eyes, and storytelling generally suffers (okay, so Toy Story 3 had a great story, but also had the Pixar factor).

But fret not, strange fans of a 3rd dimension on the big screen. Next year, we’re in store for these wonderful peaches:

XXX: The Return of Xander Cage

Green Hornet

Sanctum

Justin (EFFING) Beiber

Drive Angry

Mars Needs Moms!

Sucker Punch!

Rio

Thor

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Green Lantern

The Smurfs

The Threee Musketeers

You are dismissed and are NOT required to see any of the above mentioned movies!

Sgt. Angle

Season’s Greetings Students,

In keeping with my look at secret societies, this post explores the Knights Templar. This group is related to the Freemasons, but they operate independently. In other words, all Knights Templar are Freemasons, but not all Freemasons are Knights Templar. The group claims an origin that dates back to the twelfth century when the Knights defended Christians on pilgrimages to Jerusalem. I will explore the Knights Templar in three ways: their history, their mythology, and the group today.

First, I feel that I should make it clear that I am separating history from mythology in a loose way. That is, I believe that it is difficult to get an unbiased history about this group. The time frame that we are dealing with (back some 700–900 years) makes guaranteeing an objective, historical portrayal of the activities and beliefs of a group as large as the Templars difficult if not impossible. We can analyze several pieces of historical information that depict some beliefs that a few members may have had, but we can not make any claims about the universality of those beliefs among Templar knights at the time. At times, especially during the middle ages, history and mythology were easily interchangeable and ill-defined.

Several sources set the beginning of the order to a group of knights who petitioned King Baldwin II of Jerusalem for permission to erect a headquarters on a site near the Temple Mount where the Temple of Solomon had supposedly sat. One of the original names of the group was “The Poor Knights of the Temple of King Solomon.” The group drew attention when they were officially recognized by the Catholic Church after the Council of Troyes around 1129. At this point, they were divided into two major groups: one group was more concerned with the economic dealings of the group, while another group was dedicated to military activity. This created some concern from other religious and political group at the time, as the Knight Templars were priest/knights that were allowed to operate like a bank and an army at the same time. This was not how Catholic priests operated. The height of Templar power may have also led to their downfall: around 1139, Pope Innocent II gave the Templar Knights the ability to cross all borders at will, owe no taxes, and be loyal to no one except the Pope. As time passed and the order grew, concerns about the power that the Knights Templar possessed increased as the Order began making large political contributions in the 13^th century. Though not technically developing a bank that charged interest (usury was considered a crime in Christian nations), the Knight Templars did charge rent for objects that Knights collected from members or held for others. After several European defeats in Jerusalem and many failed crusades at the end of the thirteenth century, the Templars began to weaken politically and economically. Perhaps the most famous symbol of the Knight Templar’s destruction is the reason why Friday the 13^th is considered unlucky. On the 13^th of October 1307, King Phillip IV of France ordered the arrest of over a hundred Templar and charged them for acts of sacrilege, homosexuality, and idolatry. By 1312, the group had been officially disbanded by the Catholic Church, and the properties of the order were given to the Hospitalers. That is one of the stories that claims to be a historical representation of who the Knights Templar were. But there is more to the group than that in popular culture and in societies today.

Mythology around the Knights Templar centers heavily around the Holy Grail. According to lore, the Templar are charged with the possession and protection of the Holy Grail. Furthermore, there is the belief that the Templar held heretic ideas about the life of Jesus Christ. One of the common beliefs about the Templar concerns the relationship between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. Specifically, that the two had three children which settled in France and later became a royal dynasty known as the Merovingian. Dan Brown utilized this kind of mythology of the Knights Templar widely in his book, The Da Vinci Code. Most of those ideas about the children of Christ were mentioned in a book titled, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. These novels are generally considered conspiracy theory novels, and they are widely open for speculation and critique. Most importantly, these novels center around the belief that the Knights Templar were in possession of ancient relics of great power and mystery. It is very likely that the Knights Templar did probably possess some relics and treasures of the region, though their connection with legendary biblical incidents is still questionable. Many churches at the time claimed relics in the form of saint’s bones, body parts, and instruments of death. Of course these groups were operating a thousand years after the biblical events from which these articles claimed to belong to, so there is no way of knowing if they actually are the objects that they are believed to be. Finally, I think it is worth while to look at the group as it operates today.

There is quite a bit of commotion in the past few years regarding the town of Hertsford and its connection to the Knights Templar. There are several links here to: secret tunnels under the city that were used by the Templar:

Secret Tunnels in Hertford by The Insider

The Guardian’s Coverage of the Story

A Story Claiming that the Other Two Stories are a Hoax

In addition to that, the group today has a website that has all the information that they release publicly. It appears that they do not disclose information to non-members about their rituals, so it is unclear what their purpose and motivation actually is today. To the public at least, they are an upstanding charity that is concerned with improving the community.

On that note, have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays,

Class Dismissed.

Howdy, folks! Welcome back to The Book Report!

Last year about this time, I talked about zombies for Christmas (the topic was kind of a no-brainer). But I have had a few people ask me about where the Christmas holiday came from. So I thought I’d do a little research and help out.

The word “Christmas” is a shortening of the words “Christ Mass”, and comes from the Roman Catholic tradition of celebrating the birth of Jesus on the 25th of December. Is that really when Jesus was born?
Probably not (in fact, very highly likely not). First off, there is the problem of dating AD (anno domini). Traditionally, 1 AD is considered the first year of Jesus’ birth (Latin would translate this into The first Year of our Lord). A Scythian monk named Dionysius Exiguus calculated when this would be using the following parameters:
The Roman Empire counted years from ab urbe condita (“the founding of the City”). So 1 AUC was the year of the founding of the city of Rome. Caesar Augustus took power in 727 AUC, reigned 43 years, and was succeeded by Tiberius. The third chapter of the Gospel of Luke mentions it being the 15th year of Tiberius’s reign, and mentions as well that Jesus was 30 years old when he began his ministry. That would mean Jesus was born in the 28th year of Caesar Augustus’ reign, or 754 AUC.

The trouble with this calculation is that the Gospel of Matthew places the birth of Jesus during the reign of Herod the Great (“Herod the king” Matt 2:1). Herod died in 750 AUC, four years prior to the calculation of Dionysius Exiguus. Now, it is possible that Matthew was referring to Herod Antipas, King Herod’s son. King Herod’s kingdom was divided by the Roman empire into four client states, and Herod Antipas ruled over one of those states under the title of Tetrarch (not king).
It should be noted that the Gospel of Matthew was not an eye-witness account to history. In fact, none of the Gospels were. The earliest written gospel was the Gospel of Mark, written around 65 CE, and even Mark’s gospel was written second-hand, believed to have come from an account related to him by the apostle Peter. The gospels of Matthew and Luke appear to be based on Mark’s Gospel and at least one other unknown document. The Gospel of John was written by an unknown author using testimony from an unknown apostle, who the early church assumed was the apostle John. Scholars generally attribute the Gospel of John to have been written around 90 CE.

So why December 25th, when we don’t know the day, much less the year, of the birth of Jesus?
When the Christian Church gained ascendancy in Rome, it had difficulty competing with the various pagan holidays, rituals, and festivals that people celebrated in the far-flung reaches of the Roman Empire. (The word “pagan” means “country-dweller”, and since “pagans” would be further from the influence of a church centered in more populous regions their traditions would last longer and be more resistant to change.) One such festival was the saturnalia.

The saturnalia (Feast of Saturn) was a week-long celebration, beginning on the 17th of December, where social order was more or less suspended. Courts were closed, and no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people. Slaves and their masters switched roles during feasts (though within reason; the slave knew he was going to be a slave again at the end of the week, so he wouldn’t take the role reversal too far), and orgies were fairly common. The various communities would appoint a Lord of Misrule from their community for the festival. During that time, the Lord of Misrule could do anything they wanted: lie, steal, sleep with the wives of other men. It was all tolerated in fairly good humor, for at the end of the festival, the Lord of Misrule had his throat slit on the altar of Saturn as a sacrifice for the benefit of all. (Does the tradition of taking everyone’s sins upon his shoulders to be sacrificed sound familiar?)
Also during the festival, drunken revelers would go naked from house to house singing songs (the origin of caroling), presents would be exchanged, and human-shaped biscuits would be eaten (the origin of gingerbread men).

During the 4th century CE, the Church integrated the saturnalia in order to help convert pagans and placed the birth of Jesus to coincide with the end of the festival. Even with the integration into the church, much of the pagan traditions continued (with the fact that we still have caroling and gingerbread men as evidence; naked caroling, anyone?), leading Puritans to ban what they saw as an essentially pagan holiday. Christmas was illegal in the Massachusetts colony until 1681.

Okay, but what about other Christmas traditions?

The Christmas tree idea also comes from pagan tradition. Druidic and other pagan religions included nature worship, and trees that remained green through the winter months were believed to be powerful. So these pagans would take these trees (or cuttings, and make wreaths) into their homes to be decorated, or enshrined. Mistletoe and holly also had the same reputation for power since they too stayed green through the winter months. Mistletoe was thought to be especially powerful, since a cutting stayed fresh long after it was separated from the tree. The tradition of kissing under mistletoe comes from the belief that a maid who kissed someone under the mistletoe would be married to them within the year (which, for a young woman making out with her beau, would be likely anyway).

The origin of Santa Claus is actually pretty interesting (and also ridiculous that it continues, to be honest). Santa Claus is a derivation of the Dutch Sinterklaus, which refers to St. Nicholas. I’m sure we all knew that Santa and St. Nicholas are essentially the same person. So how did we go from a Turkish bishop who died in 345 CE to a jolly, round, gift-giving, sleigh-riding fellow in red who shows up on December 25th?
Many miracles are attributed to St. Nicholas. Church history holds that he was the orphan of wealthy parents who strongly followed the charge of Jesus to “sell what you own and give to the poor”. He used his inheritance to provide for the sick and needy and became a bishop of Mayra, Turkey at a young age.

One story tells of a poor man who had three daughters. Without a dowry to attract a husband, the man had no choice but to sell his daughters into slavery. The legend states that when Nicholas heard of this, he snuck up to the man’s window and tossed three sacks of gold into the stockings of the daughters, which were drying by the fire. The story inspired the tradition of hanging stockings on the mantle, and the church used St. Nicholas’ gift-giving to help supplant the gift-giving traditions of the saturnalia. In a further bid to attract pagans, they merged the Saint with Woden, a pagan deity who rode his horse across the sky one evening each autumn.
Now we have a gift-giving saint who rides the skies connected to the Christianized version of the saturnalia, dubbed Christ Mass.

In 1809 Washington Irving referred to the flying horse-riding Saint several times in his satire of Dutch Culture Knickerbocker History, using Sinterklaus as his name. In 1822, Dr. Clement Clarke Moore published his poem A Visit From St. Nicholas, using some of Irving’s imagery. Modern readers might recognize the poem as ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Images of this Santa Claus, however, still portrayed the Saint in liturgical wear. Then Bavarian illustrator Thomas Nast drew more than 2,000 cartoon images of Santa for Harper’s Weekly between 1862 and 1886.

Nast’s illustrations placed Santa’s home at the North Pole, had his toy workshop full of elves, and showed his lists of good and bad children for the year.
The final look for Santa Claus happened in 1931, when the Coca-Cola company hired Swedish artist Haddon Sundblom to paint a Coke-drinking Santa. Using Clarke’s poem and Nast’s images, Sundblom firmly entrenched in everyone’s mind the idea that Santa wears a red suit with white trim, all thanks to Coca-Cola. What we’re left with is a Santa blend of Christian and pagan religions with commercialism. Which is pretty much what Christmas is about these days.

Sundblom’s Final Illustration of “Santa”, in 1972

Merry Christmas, everyone!
Until next time,
Still paddin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_

Sgt. Angle Reporting for Duty!

At the risk of following the herd of movie writers and providing information you can probably read about anywhere else in the country this week, I’m going to present to you (get it, present??) a short list of Christmas film necessaries. This is by no means a definitive list of movies you need to watch around the holidays, yet I also don’t think you’ll be able to resist most of them based on the reasons provided. They’re not only movies to sit through while your family argues over turkey or any other holiday fixin’ — these are movies you can probably enjoy in a number of other environments and points during the year, based solely on how your mood sits with you. (*Note that I am fully aware of the strength of several glaring omissions, including Elf, Ernest Saves Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life and White Christmas. These are permanently epic holiday movies. We all know and love them. Get over it.)

1. SCROOGED. No holiday film collection is complete without this classic, and there has been no modern retelling of the classic Dickens tale to rival this one. Also, Bill Murray is your star. He plays a cynical, stingy TV Network executive whose one regret is putting his career before any sort of love or attachment. His fate is at stake when he is visited by three eccentric ghosts on Christmas Eve. Funny and horrific, even a bit touching — if melodramatic — Scrooged will make you think twice about watching the love of your life walk away while you go to work in the morning.

2. HOME ALONE. Macauley Culkin — future occupant of my “High Low Country” blog — eats up all of his screen time in this John Hughes-scripted tribute to every child’s fantasy (a house to himself) becoming a cartoonish nightmare right on the Christmas holiday. Shooting Joe Pesci with a pellet gun means he will soon fight back by blasting you through the chest with his own mammoth pistol (lesson learned by Spider in Goodfellas), but Kevin McCallister is no joke when it comes to cat burglers.

3. THE REF. Speaking of cat burglers, here’s a film that celebrates the holiday season, dysfunctional families, and the thief with a heart of gold themes, all with the sublime talents of Denis Leary and Kevin Spacey. Leary is the burgler who takes this bickering family hostage during a simple house robbery, and unwittingly becomes the family therapist during Christmas dinner. Hilarious when I watched it at 12, and still funny now.

4. KISS KISS BANG BANG. An underrated and underappreciated instant classic from Shane Black, creator of Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout. This film was his directorial debut and, for many cinephiles, signified the start of Robert Downey, Jr.‘s comeback.

5. CHRISTMAS VACATION. Come on and tell me this wasn’t an instant classic in your household? Cousin Eddie? Glass reindeer mugs? Juliette Lewis gets her eyelids frozen open? Fantastic timing and perhaps one of the last great Chevy Chase films.

6. LOVE ACTUALLY. Guys: Put this movie on and if your girl doesn’t curl into a ball next to you on the couch, you’re doing it wrong. Girls: Put this movie on and cuddle up next to your man, and if he doesn’t place his arm around you to tell you he loves you, then touch his crotch.

7. GRUMPY OLD MEN. The screenwriting debut of future Daredevil and Ghost Rider helmer Mark Steven Johnson. He would go on to write another Christmas tale, Jack Frost, but a dud dad coming back to life as a snowman is no match for old dudes bickering. Give me Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau arguing and throwing dead fish in each others’ cars any day over Betty White talking dirty.

Merry Holidays and Happy Christmas.

You are on leave.

Sgt. Angle

Greetings students,

This week, I said that I would continue writing about secret societies. As I addressed in last week’s post, there is a certain irony in writing about secret societies: if they were really that secret, then people like me wouldn’t be able to write about them. And yet, like the example that I provided last time (the KKK), there are certain groups that operate publicly and politically but in secret manners. This week, I thought I’d look at one of the most famous secret societies of all times: the Freemasons. The Freemasons have an almost legendary and infamous reputation, and they are also still in operation today.

First, let us delve into the Freemason society. Some people believe that to become a Freemason, there are insane rituals that a person has to go through in order to be considered one of the that elite brotherhood. This may have been true at a certain point; however, today’s Freemason’s are a little more translucent. Perhaps their reputation has caused modern members to branch out and attempt to be more upfront with their activities, but today’s Freemason’s have their own website and list some of the steps that they require to be a member. What is interesting is that some of these steps are pretty straightforward: a man must be a minimum of eighteen years of age. Already, this is something to consider: men are the only ones that are allowed to become Freemasons. Additionally, to join the society, the man must attend one of the events that a lodge hosts where he will encounter several members. After completing an application (which requires at least two existing members’ approval), the man must go through three different ceremonies in order to become a full-fledged member. So, what terrible causes do the Freemasons publicize? Teacher of the year awards, scholarships, and other charity works are listed on their site as part of their public works. This is where a few flags were raised for me. But here’s a video by some Freemasons about the work that they do:

Though the site publicly demonstrates a good amount of public charity work that the society propagates, they are lots of rites and rituals that seem to be completely secret and shielded from the public. Of course, this brings up the question of what actually goes on in these meetings and these events. Before delving into that answer, I thought about trying to identify how many Freemasons there. On their website, you can check to see how many lodges are in your area. In my area, there are over twenty lodges within a forty mile diameter. This means that there are plenty of people that I run into on a regular basis that are associated with this society. How are they so secret if there are so many of them? Well, on their website, they discuss the fact that they never solicit people to join them. They only accept recruits that seek them out. This begs several other questions about why they are so secret and are there rituals in which they orchestra events that are entirely self serving? There are several answers to these questions and most of the work has been by others about the secrets behind the Freemasons.

The origins of this group are intriguing. Officially, there were a group of independent societies that met in 1717 in a lodge and decided to form a super-secret society that would evolve into the group that we know today. However, there are several groups that claim that the group’s origins date from biblical times when the Temple of Solomon was being created. There are millions of sites that critique and criticize the activities and practices of the Freemason. To this end, I thought I would go ahead and let you browse several sites that I believe capture some of the skepticism that has surrounded this group. It turns out that there are tons of people out there that believe the Freemasons have infiltrated and operate at the highest levels of government both national and world-wide. Here is a video from the Discovery Channel that looks at the Freemasons; this video is only the first part of 9 different tapes, so use it as a launching point if you feel inclined to pursue more of this:

Two sites that are anti-Freemasons:

Freemasonry Watch-great site with all sorts of interesting stories and links.

The Skeptic’s Dictionary-decent site for those that are skeptical of the Freemason’s public claims.

Browse, Read, Study, and Decide for yourselves. Until next week,

Class Dismissed.

Hey, folks. Welcome back to the Book Report!

Last month, Disney released Tangled, a new take on the Germanic fairy-tale Rapunzel, collected by the Brothers Grimm. It had an official budget of $260 million, making it officially the second most expensive film ever made. Silly Disney.

But I like the fairy-tale with a twist idea. Quite a few books have been written with the idea in mind, and I thought for today’s Book Report I’d take a look at a few of them.

Probably the king of twisting fairy-tales around is Gregory Maguire. In 1995 he turned a classic villain into a sympathetic heroine in Wicked: The Life and Times of The Wicked Witch of the West. The excellent book was adult-oriented and very dark, and the butchering that happened to it on Broadway hardly does it justice, no matter how much you believe the musical was excellent. He returned to his version of Oz in 2005 with Son of a Witch and again in 2008 with A Lion Among Men, but before that he twisted the Cinderella fairy-tale around in 1999 with Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (which Disney converted into a TV movie in 2002). In 2003, Maguire twisted another fairy-tale with Mirror, Mirror, presenting a new look at Snow White.

In 1983, Anne Rice (writing under the pseudonym A.N. Roquelaure) published The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, an erotic Bondage/Dominant/Submissive/Masochist retelling of the fairy-tale. She made the story a trilogy with Beauty’s Punishment in 1984 and Beauty’s Release in 1985. The highly graphic erotica series out-sold her previous best-seller, Interview With the Vampire.

One of my favorite revisions of a fairy-tale is the 1999 novel Enchantment, written by Orson Scott Card. More than just an alternate retelling of Sleeping Beauty, it sets the fairy-tale smack-dab in the middle of Russian folk-tales, mixes it up with a little Jewish home life, and throws in some Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court for good measure. Then he inverts it all and adds the slightest dash of Narnia.
The recipe concocts a delicious yarn, where the villains revel in their villainy and heroes realize just how bloody difficult it is to actually be heroic.

I’ve written about Orson Scott Card before (twice, actually), and it’s a testament to his talent that each time it’s been about a different genre of fiction. I’m not sure I’ve ever agreed with his personal politics or religion, but he manages to tap into something universal in his fiction that resonates strongly with me, and he’s been the most recommended author I’ve given people (seriously, go read Ender’s Game).

Grimm’s Fairy Tales are currently available for free as an ebook at Barnes and Noble right now. If you are so inclined, I encourage you to go give ‘em a read (or reread) and then check out some of these revisions. I think you’ll really enjoy it.

Until next time,
Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_

Sgt. Angle Reporting for duty!

Better late than never!

Golden Globe nominations were announced this morning. Before you start gloating how proud you are to be a Gleek today, or bow at your alter of Johnny Depp, consider that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is simply the little kid who holds out his hand when papa comes home and only wants the candy, not a hug. They leech off talent, off celebrity, walk home with their fancy-pants swag bags without any sense of true appreciation for the art form.

Realize that, for most of the last decade, the HFPA has suckled at the corroded teet of Clint Eastwood, heaping praise on the ol’guy despite meager, slightly better than mediocre films which spared originality for cliches aplenty. How intriguing it is that last year featured a single, solitary nomination for Invictus (for Eastwood himself as director). How the mighty have fallen…

This year, the Globes proved they still have no sense of rhythm on the pulse of film and television appreciation. There are global audiences for classic films, but they are not members of the HFPA. Taken directly from the HFPA’s website: “Each year HFPA members interview more than 400 actors, directors, writers and producers, as well as reporting from film sets and seeing more than 300 films…”

More could be said, but there it is in a nutshell: The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is comprised of nothing more than snotty, privileged journalists who spend their time hobnobbing on movie sets and in the company of superstars and multi-talented performers. If Eastwood rejected an interview, would he be shunned a golden orb? If a reporter is not granted a full access credential on a film set, do you think that movie will get a fair write-up? People will always form a biased opinion when they feel they’ve been cheated out of feeling privileged and special.

One wonders what steps the Coen Brothers took on the set of True Grit to win ZERO nominations for one of the top three films of the year (my full list will breach the shores of the internet just after Christmas). I don’t want to go off on who got snubbed (Jeff Bridges, Leo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck), who got looked over (Hailee Steinfeld), or who remains an inexplicable nominee (Johnny Depp, The Tourist, Angelina Jolie). That list is too long and the task to monumental.

Nikkie Finke said it best this morning on DeadlineHollywood.com: “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: it’s a completely meaningless awards show by a scandal-riddled organization on a network desperate for ratings. That’s why I opt out of analyzing the nominations every year: because the Golden Globes have zero integrity. Studios and networks who lavishly lobby the HFPA almost always score nominations. Stars win in direct correlation to their glamour quotient. Everything about the awards is geared towards hyping the media’s interest and the telecast’s ratings…”

Finke is right, and we can only hope that the Oscars don’t ever follow suit. The Academy Awards are, on this day still, the last bastion of “classic,” genuine awards.

The only globes that truly matter.

Now go see a good movie, and appreciate it.

You are dismissed!

Sgt. Angle