Constanticles: Reviews of Constantine and Pericles, plus a rant about the original Superman

Okay, so let me protect myself first by saying this: I've never read Hellblazer. I know, I'm a bad comic book fan. But it's true. In fact, it's only been relatively recently in my comic reading career that I've been branching out from Marvel to some of the more critically acclaimed series, but I've picked up Watchmen, Gaiman's Sandman (the first nine anyway), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and the first two volumes of Hellboy. It's not much, but it's a start. In any case, I do plan to rectify the lack of Hellblazer in my collection, but suffice to say I went to see the movie without my traditional comic-knowledge background. I have no idea what the purists think, but that movie fuckin' rocked. It was fantastic. If you haven't already, you'll probably heard a fair number of mediocre-to-negative reviews. That's because people don't like Keanu. I'm not really sure why: I've never really had a big problem with him, provided he sticks to characters that fit his style. I've only seen him in Constantine, the Matrix movies, Much Ado about Nothing, The Replacements, and Speed. He does better with brooding characters who don't talk so much, and John Constantine is definately one of those. So if for some god-unknown reason you can't stand Keanu, don't see this movie, because he's in most of it (and he even has some lines). But he's far from bad, and has some fantastic scenes, particularily at the end. When Satan shows up at the climax, Keanu's offhand "hey Lu, what kept you?" sets up a final scene worth the price of admition.

You should see Constantine for the atmosphere, the style, and the visuals. The scenes in Hell are beautifully done, the pace is slow enough to build the tension nicely, and keeps you sufficiently in the dark (or at least it did me) for the ending to throw you a couple of curves that you might not be looking for. Perhaps more significant that anything else, this is DC's first good movie in a long, long time, and gives those of us waiting for Batman Begins and the Bryan Singer Superman movie a sign. A sign that DC (and its parent company, Warner Bros) can actually turn a comic book property into a good movie, ending a drought that began with (depending on who you talk to) Batman Forever or, well, the original Superman.
[I'm sorry, but I need to say this. In the comic book world it's widely accepted that Superman set the bar for superhero movies. That it made you believe a man could fly. Well, let me say this, after seeing it for the first time as an adult: Christopher Reeves is the only thing that movie has going for it. And he's amazing. He actually made me buy Superman/Clark's total lack of disguise (other than the glasses). His presence is phenominal. But other than that, Superman bites. And it's not the actors' fault. The script is horrible. The direction (and here I am speaking to the decision to have Gene Hackman play the most campy, ridiculous Lex Luthor I could have possibly conceived in my darkest dream) is awful. So. There, that's off my chest now. Thank you.]
To recap: Constantine good. Go see it, you'll like it. And if you didn't, don't blame me. There's obviously something wrong with you.

Now then, I also finished Shakespeare's Pericles a couple of days ago, in preparation for seeing it at the Guthrie Lab in the near future. Pericles is the first of the Romances, the genre which includes The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline and The Tempest. If you're reading a Shakespearian play with a happy ending that involves reuniting long-lost loves, involves major characters either being brough back to life or revealed to have not died in the first place and no revenge/retribution killings, you're almost certainly reading a romance (or at least in my experience you are). Pericles, prince of Tyre, goes around to some different cities, endures at least two major storms while en transit at sea, and gains, looses and gains a wife and daughter. He doesn't do anything wrong, he has no fatal personality flaw that makes him suffer. Bad shit just happens to him, which makes this one of Shakespeare's simpler plays. Which means, of course, there are 5-10 major angles you can analyze the play from as opposed to the standard 50 or so. At its most basic, I think you can describe the main point of Pericles like this: Life ends up throwing a lot of shit at you, even if you're a king. You can either give up and stop bathing and cutting your hair like Pericles, or you can keep on hoping, even without reason, and retain your virtue by convincing every John that comes to the brothel you've been sold to that they should give up whoring, thus driving the brothel out of business, like Marina (his daughter). Truly a lesson that applies to us all. Like I said, I've only read it at this point, so I'm interested in seeing how its staged. I'll be sure to let you know.

Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy!

Wow. So I finally watched this movie, courtesy of Mr. Java Fortran. And as I promised, here is my review. Yes, the interior of Barbarella's ship is entirely covered with shag carpeting. And yes, she does spend the entire first scene of the movie naked (not that you see anything). That should really tell you all you need to know about this movie, but just in case it doesn't, here's some more info:
Barbarella, played by Jane Fonda (who is amazingly hot in this movie-I had no idea), is never actually called the Queen of the Galaxy. She gets a call from Earth to go to a planet and look for an Earth scientist named (are you ready?) Duran Duran. That's right. And they say his full name all the time. Every time they did, I cracked up. It was great. You see, Duran Duran created a great weapon and then disappeared, making the Earth government worry that something might threaten the centuries of peace and love everyone had been enjoying. So Barbarella goes to this backward planet where they're a bunch of sadists and hedonists, quickly learns the upsides of having physical sex (as opposed to taking a pill and holding hands, which is what they do on Earth now) and becomes just a little bit of an addict. She does it with the first guy she meets when her ship crashes in the icy desert of the planet, she does it with the angel she meets when she gets to the city, she does it with a machine Duran Duran puts her in to torture and kill her, and she almost does it with the crazy BDSM chick who runs the planet's main city. It's really the backbone of the movie. In fact, I would go so far as to call this a movie about the feminist awakening of Jane Fonda to the pleasures of sex. Or maybe not.

In terms of things other than Barbarella doing it with different things, this is a quintessential B movie. Cheap production values, etc. But as long as you don't have a problem with that, there's absolutely no reason you can't get some good laughs from this movie. I know I did.

How to make a Joe-Improved Pizza

It's a classic: the Joe-Improved Pizza. If you've hung out with me when there's a kitchen and requisite ingredients around, you've probably had it. It's always gotten good reviews (so if you bastards were lying, it's your own fault), even though half-truths and semi-slandarous words have occasionally been spoken about the presence of charred carbon remnants where the cheese should be. So I thought I would toss the recipe up here in order to say that even you (yes you, Java) can make this extraordinary delectable delight yourself.

frozen pizza (count based on how many people you're trying to feed)
shredded mozzarella or block cheese
pepperoni
green and red bell peppers
yellow onion
thai chilies
garlic powder
basil leaves

The first step is to identify the type of frozen pizza that works well for you. For me, it's Jack's, but to each their own. Be aware that if you have a rising crust pizza it will take more time for the crust to cook and you may end up singeing the top. Preheating the oven is fine but not necessary. I suggest an arbitrary temperature somewhere in the range of 375-415, regardless of what it says on the pizza box (although definately on the high end with rising crusts). Now, I personally recommend starting with a sausage pizza. Spread the pepperoni to attain the desired coverage. Slice the onion and put on top of the pepperoni. Be sure to leave the rings whole-don't half them. The cut the bell peppers into strips about 1/2" wide and scatter among the onions. The thai chilies should be cut fairly small (maybe 1/4") and don't use more than three unless you really want to fry your mouth (an excellent alternative is to use pepperjack cheese instead). Spread (or grate and spread) the cheese, and feel free to mix in a few different types if you can (mozzarella, chedder and a little parmesean work well together). Then sprinkle the garlic powder and basil leaves over the cheese (I suggest a liberal application of garlic powder). Cook until about half of the mozzarella is brown. Remove, cut and wait a few minutes for it to cool down, because it's too hot right now and you'll burn the roof of your mouth. Then eat.

You may be wondering why I use garlic powder instead of fresh garlic. After several taste tests, I came to the conclusion that you get a more powerful garlic flavor by baking the powder directly into the cheese. Also, you're already chopping up a lot of things-give yourself a break. This is supposed to be easy, damn it!

Did Eco write for Garfield & Friends?

Note: This review will contain revelations about the climax of The Name of the Rose. If you don't want things spoiled for you, go read the book really quick and them come back and read this post.

I picked up Eco's The Name of the Rose after a conversation I had with my good friend the Math Avenger. I had just finished The DaVinci Code and remarked to him that I had enjoyed the mystery and thought the ideas were intriguing, but found the writing to be pedestrian at best and groan-inducing at worst (there's one passage where the main character describes entering the Louvre as "walking into another world"). The Avenger recommended Eco as an alternative, saying that he found him to be similar in ideas but better in execution. After finishing the book last night, I must say I agree. Eco's style is much more cerebral and demands more attention from the reader. There are more characters, more subplots and more issues raised. Eco's writing is excellent: I'm not familiar at all with medieval writing styles, but Eco says in the postscript that he studied several manuscripts of the period so he could write as a monk of the period might write. I have no idea if he actually succeeded (in that I don't know what a scholar would think if you gave him a copy and asked him how close it was), but the narration was certainly in line with what I might expect out of that period, and it created the right tone and atmosphere for the novel. Before I get to what I actually want to talk about, let me just say that after a bit of a slow start where I had a lot of problems tracking all of the different sects of monks people were talking about, I really enjoyed this book. The characters are excellent (William is Sherlock Holmes as a monk in the 1300's), the mystery is fantastic, and the religious questions that are raised (particularily concerning heresy) really give you something to wrap your brain around, if that's the sort of thing that gets you going. The long descriptive passages, where Adso (the narrator) goes on at length about the various imagery he encounters reminded me first of Homer's long registry of Greek ships that sailed to Troy, and second of some of the more imagistic passages of The Faerie Queene. I did have one problem, which is that I have never read a book that would benefit so much from footnotes. Now a sort of mini-discussion about medieval religious sects would be great, and some of the imagery that pops up could definately use a gloss. But more than anything, I want the latin (and various other languages) translated. Do you know why? That's right, because I can't read Latin, and some very important lines in the book, including the last one that gives the book its title, are in Latin. So it drove me a little nuts, since I was looking for some closure on the book, and I didn't have the last line of the book! So that is my one major problem. You'd think that since the book was already translated from the Italian, it wouldn't be a problem for the guy to do a few more quick lines and just shove them down at the bottom somewhere. But my main purpose wasn't really to review the book, but to talk about one of the main ideas it brings up. (It's at this point that I'll start talking about the climax, so if you don't want to know what happens stop reading now.)

Early on in the book there are several conversations about the licitness of laughter, which take the form of the monks debating about whether or not laughter is something that should be recognized as holy or not. Although it comes up a couple times early in the book, my memory of it was overshadowed by discussions on the nature of heresy that dominate the later half of the novel. As I was approaching the climax, I found myself wondering what massively dangerous knowledge was in the mysterious book everyone kept chasing. Since the Math Avenger recommended this book as an alternative to The DaVinci Code, I figured it was some secret that would destroy the church, but I knew that it wouldn't be the same sort of revelation because there had been absolutely no preparation on that front (and anyway if the book said that Jesus was married and the apostles were sexists the monks would simply have dismissed it). I was initially confused by the revelation that this dangerous text is actually the second book of Aristotle's Poetics, where he describes the nature of laughter and comedy. But Jorge's explanation of why he feared a society with comedy elevated to an art form with the blessing of Aristotle was convincing and intriguing. An excellent payoff, and it started me thinking about what exactly laughter does for us.

Before I get to that, let me go back a few days, when I was at the beginning of the book, and had just read some of the early discussions about laughter. It so happened that, either that evening or the day after, I went to Java Fortran's apartment, and watched a particular episode of Garfield & Friends, one of the better saturday morning cartoons of my youth. One of the episodes featured a US Acres bit where group of aliens who have come to steal Earth's laughter, since it is a dangerous weapon on their planet (which is also why Jorge goes to such lengthes to keep the book secret). After a song describing what the world would be like without laughter, the aliens are defeated when the US Acres crew makes them laugh. Although obviously on a different level, I was struck by the fact that a children's cartoon show and a highly engaging but difficult historical novel shared this theme. What exactly does laughter do for us? There's a Calvin and Hobbes strip somewhere where Hobbes suggests that without laughter, we couldn't react to a lot in life. When I posed the question to Java this evening, he replied that the reason we laugh is to make ourselves happy. Douglas Adams considered P.G. Wodehouse one of the greatest English writers because of his sublime humor. In the G&F episode Orson says (sings) that life without laughter would be boring, and in Name of the Rose Jorge sees it as an uncivilized and ungodly response that would threaten the church if legitimized. William, on the other hand, notes that "laughter is proper to man, it is a sign of his rationality." I see laughter as a mental safety valve: a release that allows us to react to things that would otherwise confound us. In the fall of my sophomore year at Carleton, there were two evenings I stayed up all night playing Risk with some friends. Both times I ended up getting so punchy that something set me off and I literally fell off my chair laughing. Humor is a personal thing, in that what is funny for one may not be for another, or may be but to a different degree. The same person may find the same thing more or less funny depending on their mood. Laughter calms us down, makes us happy, and relieves stress. It can help us physiologically as well as mentally. Laughter helps our mind to counteract stress, tedium, disappointment and pretty much any other negative emotion you can come up with. It literally keeps us sane. If those space aliens had succeeded in stealing out laughter, we'd have much bigger problems that being bored all the time.

I'd love to hear any thoughts you might have on this subject. The weather here sucks (it was 45 damn degrees today) so I can't really bring myself to expound the benefits of winter. My other thoughts for today: Smallville rules, the Pats are going to win the Superbowl, and Pericles starts at the Guthrie Lab next weekend, so I'm going to get to read my first new Shakespeare in awhile.