Batman cuts loose

I had to scan this comic book cover myself, the ones I can find online is another version... I wonder if this cover was not released in the US? (Too bloody?)
If you have been reading Batman you will probably think that it's a trick cover, one of those designed to sell comics by letting the reader think the comic contains something it doesn't... because no Batman comic can be as violent as this cover hints at.
Wrong.
If you thought The Dark Knight was violent...
Holy cow.
In this comic, issue 5 of "All Star Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder" by Frank Miller and Jim Lee, there is a scene where Batman interrupts a rape in progress (well, it hasn't started yet. Blood, sure, but no sex please), and then kicks six shades of living shit out of the three would-be rapists. Seriously, there are broken limbs and livid blood all over the place. Then the relieved woman overhears a plea for an ambulance and instead kicks the guy in the nuts. Very hard. Then Batman instructs her to find a cab and to not call the police or an ambulance for the seriously injured perpetrators but to leave them lying in the dark alley. He wants them to suffer and feel the injuries for the rest of their lives...

This is a DC comic book? Wow, not in Kansas anymore.

I am sure many people who share my generally liberal constitution will be horrified. But I think it's good. Because this is a Batman in an alternative universe, and he is not presented as a lofty do-gooder, but a dangerous and borderline insane vigilante. And let's face it, somebody who would dress up as a bat and use every night to seek revenge for the murder of his parents would not exactly be a stable individual.

Also this presents us with human "justice" as it normally is: bloody rage. A wish to hurt somebody who hurt you. Nobody on this planet is trying to rehabilitate any criminals. We want revenge.
Of course it is wrong, violence begets violence begets violence. And if it is "justified", that makes no difference.
We need to see this as it is, only then can we change it.

"Santa Baby" and sex

"Santa Baby" by Eartha Kitt. It's a good version, though I think the studio version is even better, slower and sexier. Actually sorta like Kylie Minoque's version.

Funny though, while Kylie sure has the moves and the looks, I don't buy her as a sex kitten. I just don't think sex is that important to her, she does not emanate it. Eartha Kitt, yes indeed. Madonna, yes. Mae West, o my gawd, she lived and breathed sex. But Kylie? No, I don't think so. I think her sex kitten persona is put on like a suit for artistic and commercial reasons. (I'm not saying this is right or wrong, I just find it interesting.)

It's funny how people can emanate things. Some people, it gentleness, some it's tension, some it's intelligence or awareness, some it's... anything. Some it's sex. For example I was sitting in a tiny hotel lobby (barely room for the desk and two chairs, really) in Copenhagen once, waiting for a friend of mine to come off duty as desk clerk at 11 at night.
I was there, he was there, and his replacement was there. And down the stairs came an Asian woman who clearly was a... lady of the night. Absolutely stunning woman. And not only that, she just oozed sex. From the moment her feet first appeared on the top of the stairs until after she left (after having paid a phone bill with notes pulled from a big bundle of very large bills) the room was just swimming in sex. She was all any of us could think about or talk about after she left. Just hypnotic, we were like rabbits in headlights.
That is a powerful influence. And I have no doubt personally that this is not just visual, olfactory and sound. I think this is an actual energy which goes way beyond the normal five senses.

Breakfast Club and dancing

Lo the dancing scene from The Breakfast Club.

I've just watched this classic film again, and I was about to rip this scene for you, when I realized I was probably not the only fan of it... and indeed not. It was already there on YouTube, of course.

I don't know why there are not more dancing scenes in movies, they are often favorite parts for many, including me. (Just witness the brief dancing scene in Pulp Fiction.)

I love what Molly Ringwald is doing here. I'm amazed at what some girls can do with a little movement, just a universe of aesthetics packed in there. And this dance here, I am not sure how it's happening, but it's like she is in the air 4/5 of the time. Gravity-defying.

A dream of a good compact digital camera

Thom joins Mike Johnston and myself and rages against the machine, dreaming of a high-quality, responsive compact camera.

Catherine Tate

Catherine Tate is a genius. It's unbelievable that it's the same woman playing the teenager and the old woman.

She is so perfect. Even just the way she is sitting is reflecting the character and the age of the character.

In the Catherine Tate show she plays a dozen different recurrent characters, occurring in short sketches. Some of them I don't find too interesting, but the best ones are unique and hysterical.

(Sadly it seems the Catherine Tate show is not yet available widely world wide.)

Transformers

I never played with dolls, sorry, "action figures". And so I was never a Transformers fan. I saw the old Transformers animated film a few months ago because it's well regarded and some of the great voice work was sampled in one of my favorite songs, Decepticons. But I didn't much like it, it was and stayed a childrens animated film about toys.
But it is clear that the upcoming live action film will be much different. At least visually, it's very sophisticated. Amazing in fact. (Not that it's an indication of quality, but they say that the robots have more individual parts than anything done before.) Unless it gets terrible reviews, I'll probably see it once it comes out on DVD. ("The killer robot is really distracting!" Hehe.)

Interview with Neil Gaiman

Interview with Neil Gaiman.

Compression

In the past couple of days, I have re-compressed around one hundred thousand pictures...
That took a while...
But it saved me over fifty gigabytes of disk space!
It's a strange world. My first computer, in 1995, had *half* a gigabyte of disk space.

Pascal tells:
A few years ago, former French President Jacques Chirac was visiting a computer show, and wanted to show he was savvy: "Oh, yes, one clicks here on the rodent, right?"
This is authentic. "Je clique sur le mulot" became the national joke for months.

Air Travel

Airlines are suffering because more people want to travel? As some commentators like to say, WTF? I can't see why normal market forces are not handling this? For example, if everybody are fed up with poor service, raise service and prices, and those who are most fed up will go to you.

By the way, whatever happened to the Internet taking the load off commuting and business traveling?

In any case I praise gawd every day that my travel to work is twelve meters. (It used to be three meters, but I have a bigger place now.)

Sound policy

It's easy to fall into listening to only one genre of music. But I try to treat my ears to all kinds of things. Just a sound policy.
As it were.

Sunflowers

I just got a bunch of my favorite flower from a lady friend of mine, signing herself "your number one fan". How kind it is, and how pretty those are.



ttl said...
Nice vase too.

eolake said...
Thank you.
I almost never buy knickknacks, but when I saw that vase in the store a couple of years ago, I just had to have it. It's stunning.
And it's bigger than it looks in this picture. (The sunflowers are really big.)

Virtual actors

Tom Charity wrote:
"At a time when Celine Dion can sing a duet with Elvis Presley on prime time, Gerald Butler can battle it out with 'uber immortals' and a reanimated Laurence Olivier can co-star with Jude Law, will authenticity come to seem out-moded, or more important than ever?"

Yes, it'll be interesting to see what Hollywood films will be like in 20 years. Right now I am at the point where I don't even think to speculate whether action scenes are physical or CG or miniatures. It's impossible to tell, and I don't really care. Will the same be true of actors soon? I don't see why not. And does that matter much, except to the actors? Is Toy Story II less art because no flesh was filmed?