149/365: Fireworks

Well, boys and girls, it's been fun (some of the time) but my 365 project is coming to an end, well short of the finish line. Actually, it's already bit the dust, I'm just so far behind on posting that it isn't apparent. Today's photo, for example, I shot on July 4 with the intent of posting it July 5. Didn't get around to it until now, half a month later. And that's the rub--I've got a number of projects demanding my time and only so many hours in a day. Despite helping out The Wife, photography remains a hobby for me, and a much lesser priority than, say, writing and publishing books. I've never, ever been someone content with simply shooting a cell phone pic and Instagramming it to satisfy my 365 commitment. If I can't envision and execute a concept to my liking, I don't want to do it. I don't have the time to develop my vision into images I find acceptable. In light of that, I am re-allocating my resources elsewhere. There are still some backlogged photos, so they'll trickle out over the coming weeks. But we're going to fall significantly short of 200, much less 365. Just so you know.

Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Tamron 28-75mm 2.8
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Farscape: Thank God It's Friday, Again

My Farscape rewatch continues with "Thank God It's Friday, Again." To confess, I actually watched this episode (and quite a few others) months ago, but didn't get around to posting a writeup. So I'll be working my way through some of the backlog in the near future.

The episode begins with D'Argo experiencing "Luxan hyper-rage," a kind of testosterone-fueled meltdown which prompts him to want to kill Crichton. Crichton, sensibly enough, hides, so D'Argo takes one of Moya's shuttles and lands on a nearby planet. It makes more sense on the screen, trust me. Crichton, Aeryn, Zhaan and Rygel follow after allowing D'Argo several days to cool off. When they find him, though, the Luxan warrior is all "peace, love and happiness." He's joined up with the orange-skinned agrarian natives, a kind of hippie commune that digs weird root vegetables by day and parties well into the night, because "Tomorrow is a day of rest." Things get strange, quickly. The next day isn't a day of rest, but rather a repeat of the previous day, right down to the "Tomorrow is a day of rest" bit. Crichton is abducted and a parasitic worm forced into his gut. Zhaan falls under the "Peace, love and happiness" spell. Someone tries to kill Rygel with explosives, so Aeryn takes him back to Moya. Crichton tracks down his abductors and learns a drug from the plants harvested is put into the population's food to keep them docile and disrupt memory, so they effectively work as slave labor. The worm they forced into Crichton's gut metabolizes the drug, so Crichton won't fall under its influence. Aboard Moya, Aeryn (with some reluctance) runs tests and discovers nobody attempted to blow Rygel up--rather, his unique body chemistry reacted with the vegetable matter/drug and turned his bodily fluids explosive. Rygel and Aeryn return to the planet, meet up with Crichton and help overthrow the populace's ruler, in part, by having Rygel pee and them (which creates some pretty impressive fireworks). It turns out that the roots being harvested in the fields are regularly collected by Peacekeeper transports, then processed into fuel for the Peacekeepers' plasma-like weapons. The planet was once a lush paradise before the people were enslaved and their agriculture militarized. Moya's crew then departs, shaken by the realization that the Peacekeeper reach extends much farther into the Uncharted Territories than they'd realized.

Commentary: This is a standard, SFnal stand-alone episode common amongst many shows of this type. There is an element of Scooby-Doo mystery here, as they uncover the truth at the end. I almost expected the weird, albino ruler to shout "And I would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling aliens!" Despite being a stand-alone episode, there were several references throughout that integrated it nicely with the ongoing season 1 story arc. It's certainly a worthwhile episode in that the writers begin to push the envelope some in regard to character behavior (Crichton wakes up to find Zhaan's hand firmly placed on his crotch and awkwardly extracts himself from the situation) as well as what I consider the single greatest dialogue exchange on the series, and the start of Aeryn's long-running struggle to master the "Engrish" language (see below).

Quote of the Episode:: Aeryn: "She gives me a woody. ... Woody. It's a human saying. I've heard you say it often. When you don't trust someone or they make you nervous, they give you..."
Crichton: "Willies. She gives you the willies."

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Kaiju Theater: Pacific Rim

I'm a fan of giant monster movies from way back. A number of writer-types I hang out with during science fiction conventions fell in love with the form having first seen King Kong, but for me, Godzilla was my gateway drug of choice. The Saturday afternoons of my childhood were filled with hours upon hours of watching the "Creature Feature" on one of the Houston television stations, along with Friday evening's themed "Movie of the week" which often featured giant monsters going at it. This is how I first got exposed to King Kong, Godzilla, Gamera, Ray Harryhausen's work, THEM!, The Land that Time Forgot and the like. I also took in a steady diet of Ultraman, Battle of the Planets and a variety of anime, so when a movie such as Pacific Rim comes along, I am pretty much their target audience.

I am happy to report that Pacific Rim is a whole heck of a lot of fun. Guillermo del Toro is a magnificent director, and while this film isn't nearly as intimate as most of his other work, it still boasts a depth and character to it that is wholly lacking in other films of this sort. Raleigh Becket and Mako Mori (played by Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi) are both characters reeling from personal loss who need to overcome that trauma to help save the world. Mori in particular is an ass-kicking powerhouse occasionally crippled by her inner demons, and easily the most charismatic character in the movie. The commander of the Jaegers, Stacker Pentecost (played by Idris Elba) chews pretty much every piece of scenery around him, but remains fun to watch. Only Ron Perlman's black market Kaiju parts-dealer Hannibal Chau is too over-the-top for my taste, but given that Pacific Rim is very much a live-action anime, his character type is immediately recognizable and is appropriate for the role. Pacific Rim manages to be a smartly-written film whilst simultaneously embracing pretty much all the conventions of giant robots vs. giant monster films. That sounds weird, I know. There's rubber science galore in this film, but it's generally consistent and well-defined, enabling the willing suspension of disbelief.

I took my entire family to see this, including The Wife, Monkey Girl (14), Fairy Girl (12) and Bug (7). Monkey Girl loved it, picking up on all the anime references (and in truth, this movie is very much like a live-action anime with all the neon colors and over-the-top characters). The Wife mocked the cliches, although she seemed to enjoy it for the spectacle. Fairy Girl thought it was "Okay." Bug, the youngest, enjoyed the giant monster battles quite a bit, although his attention flagged during the human-centric buildup to the final mission. Historically, for me at any rate, the characters are always the weakest link during giant monster movies, filling time between the big monster smack-downs by sleepwalking through meaningless sub-plots. Pacific Rim does a much better job than most of tying the main characters' actions together with the big battles to make everything that happens relevant and engaging. De Toro doesn't radically alter the formula or reinvent or deconstruct the form. He takes the existing conventions and simply does them very well.

The story (if you don't already know) is set in the near future. Giant Kaiju monsters emerge from a dimensional rift on the Pacific Ocean seafloor and begin destroying coastal cities. It takes days of constant battle for conventional weapons to kill these monsters, so the Jaeger program--giant combat robots (otherwise known as mechs)--is launched to better combat the Kaiju threat. For five years, the Jaegers successfully intercept and destroy Kaiju, but abruptly the monsters start coming more frequently and get larger and more powerful. Jaegers begin to lose. Eventually, Kaiju are destroying Jaegers faster than replacements can be built. After seven years of battling the more powerful Kaiju, only four Jaegers out of a total of 51 remain, and the program is scuttled in favor of building a giant wall around the Pacific to keep the Kaiju from threatening population centers. Guess how well that works out?

Quite a few reviews have lavished praise on the special effects of the film, and while that's often a way of damning with faint praise--the implications being that the rest of the film doesn't hold up--in this case the attention to detail adds a great deal to the film. The Jaegers show significantly diverse personalities for giant robots, reflections, no doubt, of their human pilots within. My biggest disappointment came from the fact that (Spoiler Alert!) the Chinese Jaeger, "Crimson Typhoon," and the Russian Jaeger, "Cherno Alpha," both met with pretty abrupt defeats despite coming off as the most badass of the surviving Jaegers. Cherno Alpha is a Mark I Jaeger, the oldest and most primitive, and has a magnificently industrial, blunt-force-trauma design to it. Crimson Typhoon, by contrast, is a spectacular three-armed Mark 4 Jaeger piloted by triplets. It has rotating blades for hands, and looks like an insane martial arts nightmare. The two surviving Jaegers--following the battle for Hong Kong--are "Gipsy Danger," a recovered and rebuilt Mark III model formerly based in Alaska (and the Jaeger of our viewpoint characters), and "Striker Eureka," an Australian Jaeger and the only Mark V model built prior to the discontinuation of the Jaeger program. Both of these Jaegers are fun, but their designs are too sleek, too clean (despite significant wear and tear). They're both cut from the same cloth, aesthetically-speaking, whereas the Russian and Chinese Jaegers were much more distinct even when standing still. Yes, I wanted more on the other Jaegers and their crews--who were introduced only long enough to be killed off. But that's a flaw this film shares with many others.

As for the Kaiju... well, they were okay. I'm not sure any rise to iconic status, although all are more interesting than the pasty, gaunt monster from Cloverfield. Despite insistence that the designers took pains to avoid paying homage to any historical Kaiju from old Japanese monster movies, one in particular--Knifehead, pictured bottom left--is for all the world a hard-core update of Guiron, a knife-headed monster that battled the flying turtle Gamera in 1969's Attack of the Monsters. On the other hand, Otachi and Leatherback, two Kaiju that attack Hong Kong, are physically similar enough in broad strokes that I had a great deal of trouble telling them apart during the battle. Part of it comes from the color schemes used--Leatherback has an EMP generator that flashes bright, neon blue, while Otachi spits a like-colored acid from a glowing sack in her throat. Both are big and bulky, and while one has hidden wings a long tail, it's hard to tell during the mayhen of battle that these creatures don't share all of these attributes. That's part of the problem with the battle scenes taking place at night and (often) in the ocean: For practical reasons, it's easier to animate a convincing giant monster in these conditions, as the darkness and water obscures much of it's body. The downside is that much of the monster is obscured, making it much more difficult to get a clear visual identification. The Kaiju shown during the day are mostly seen through stock footage or news broadcasts, and not engaged in battle. Likewise, during the final battle of the film, the two Category 4 Kaiju--Scunner and Raiju--both swim around so quickly in poorly-lit conditions it is difficult to tell that they are distinct types, and not duplicates of each other. The third Kaiju in the battle, Category 5 Slattern, is more easily distinguished by its immense size and three tails.

The finale of the film is probably the most disappointing aspect of the whole shebang. After the excitement of the battle for Hong Kong (which is a whole lot of fun) the battle at the Rift is a lot more by-the-numbers. Remember in The Avengers, how Iron Man closed the dimensional portal and destroyed the invading army bent on conquering the world? Well guess what? That's exactly the same as what happens here, a parallel made all the more striking by the fact that the Jaeger Gipsy Danger is essentially the Iron Man armor scaled up really big. Apart from that, the general thrust is one we've seen time and again dating back to Star Wars and probably before.

Despite the film's shortcomings, Pacific Rim is a whole lot of fun and infinitely better than the bombastic Transformers movies. It doesn't transcend or transform the genre, but accomplishes all the goals it sets for itself. I left the movie theater happy and buoyant, unlike Man of Steel, which left me overwhelmed and numb (and later, angry). There's not a lot else to be said for it. If you like action spectacles, if you watch the animes Mobile Suite Gundam or Neon Genesis Evangelion, if the names Godzilla or Gamera or King Kong make you smile, then this is a movie you're probably going to like. Is it Star Wars for a new generation, as some have breathlessly hyped? Hardly. But it's a good movie, one that's likely to take in more than $400 million worldwide even if it only grosses $100 million in the U.S. and is thus declared a "flop." This is a film that's going to sell lots of DVDs to those who missed it in the theaters, and grow in popularity over the coming years. It's good, solid entertainment that doesn't talk down to the audience, and for those of us who've been consistently disappointed by offerings in this genre (Godzilla 1998, I'm looking at you!) Pacific Rim goes a long way toward righting those wrongs.

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Friday Night Videos

The kids and I have been watching more than our share of giant Kaiju films this week in preparation for seeing Pacific Rim this weekend. It's not fair, really, but the sheer number of rave reviews have spiked my cautious optimism for the movie and raised the bar for my expectations. Not sure if even a great movie can meet that challenge. But being a longtime Godzilla and Gamera fan, today's featured video can't be anything other than Blue Öyster Cult's "Godzilla." And for the record, yeah, I'd love for someone to throw money at me to write some Kaiju fiction.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Kim Carnes.

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Chicken Ranch report no. 36: GHOSTS OF THE CHICKEN RANCH

This is what I've been working on for the past two months, Ghosts of the Chicken Ranch, a coffee-table/fine art book that takes readers on a photographic tour of the infamous Chicken Ranch brothel as it is today:

This book developed as a companion piece to my other Chicken Ranch book, the definitive history of the place that is currently under consideration with a number of agents/publishers. When it became clear late last year that, even under the best of circumstances, the Big Book would not see publication in time for the 40th anniversary of the Chicken Ranch's closure on Aug. 1, I knew I needed to do something to mark the occasion. Then it struck me--The Wife and I had visited the ruins outside of La Grange many times over the previous four years, extensively photographing the site. By presenting some of the best and most interesting of our images in book form, we could allow readers to explore and learn about what is and what was. I also include a bit of history as well, mostly in the context of relating to the property itself. I have to admit I'm pleased with the way it turned out.

The book should be available for purchase online within a few weeks--certainly before Aug. 1. I will provide information on that as soon as it is available. So for everyone out there who has strongly urged me to self-publish my Chicken Ranch materials over the past year or so, here's your chance to prove your case. Who knows? If Ghosts of the Chicken Ranch moves in significant numbers, I may be forced to look seriously as self-publishing that other book...

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148/365: Castle Falkenstein

Here's one of what appears to be quite a few 365 photos I took earlier this years but failed to post back when classwork got the better of me. I'd completely forgotten about some of these. This, for example, is Castle Falkenstein in the Texas Hill Country. It's supposedly based on plans designed by Mad King Ludwig but never built by the Bavarian monarch. Weddings are occasionally held there, but unfortunately, The Wife and I have never photographed one.

Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Canon FD 500mm f/8 reflex
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147/365: Lutea foliage

Last fall, the family and I made our annual pilgrimage to the Texas Renaissance Festival. Whilst there, amongst all the jousting and grogging and wenching, I discovered to my delight an extensive growth of passiflora lutea. Now lutea is a small, unassuming passion flower type with small, subtle yellow flowers that can easily be overlooked. This plant not only had a bunch of the little flowers in bloom, but was heavy with ripe fruit. Decaloba-type fruit are about the size of blueberries and generally inedible, but full of seeds. I collected several and after a few months of refrigeration for stratification of the seeds, I planted them. And I've been rewarded with a bunch of little lutea seedlings sprouting for me.

Lutea, as I mentioned, isn't a flashy passiflora species, but it is a Texas native, and I'm happy to add it to my collection.

Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Canon 100mm 2.8 macro
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