Horror Review: A hit and a miss

Posted on January 15, 2014 by Caliban

Today we have our first article by Fanboy News Network Horror Correspondent Jennifer Lovely:

The success:
Jug Face grabbed me the moment the credits began; it pulled me in with its primitive
folk art animation that foreshadows the movie’s undertone, style and people. I was
really struck by the charisma of each the primary characters. The sympathy that you
feel for the young woman in the lead role is surprisingly strong in a short period
of time. You immediately gather that she has wits and is struggling to survive as
well as she can in a backward, cultish community. Having grown up in a small town in
a rural area, you see a lot of that tough, almost emotionless, rearing. It was very
familiar to me and I understood how emotionally starved she was, and why she would
make choices that would normally horrify or disgust me. Both the special effects and
sound effects are well used and give a sense of foreboding, while never being
intrusive or overplayed. This is a girl who fights and you root for her to make her
escape, yet when the end comes you understand the choices she makes.

The movie that fails:
The Lords of Salem is not completely without merit. The quality of the supporting
cast is amazing. Whenever Bruce Davison, Patricia Quinn, Judy Geeson, or Dee Wallace
enter the scene you are captivated. Every time I was about to turn it off, they
reappeared. The atmosphere and set combine to create their own character that
completely stands out. But, as soon as the story starts, things go downhill.
Firstly, the ominous sound use is ham-fisted and oppressive, it starts well but is
so overused it becomes cliché. Next, everything around Sheri’s character shows how
strong and what an individual she is (female DJ in a male dominated industry,
especially metal), but when she is on the screen you never see any of what they hint
at. The fact that she is attending NA and fighting to stay sober speaks of strength,
to me, in theory. But after five days of what is, in essence, bad dreams she starts
using again. It’s like she is only the shadow of an amazing person, walking around,
but that you never really get to see on screen. She is empty and defeated, and that
isn’t interesting. I don’t place the blame completely on Sheri Moon Zombie’s
shoulders. All she did is work within the story, and it was the story that failed
her. Because the moment things start going badly, it’s just a descent into oblivion
with no effort on the character’s part for any other outcome. And I just don’t find
that interesting.

Convention Safety

Posted on January 11, 2014 by Caliban

The kickoff for convention season, in the Pacific NorthWest, is just around the corner, which means the people who put on these shows are gearing up with prep for the challenges that go with running an event with potentially thousands of people attending.

Last year a lot of focus was on creating awareness of some of the pitfalls that exist in the convention scene, with particular focus on harassment at conventions and the associated gate keeper mentality that lead to the idea of the fake nerd girl. A lot of work was done to bring these conversations to the forefront (such as John Scalzi’s call for all conventions to have a clear anti-harassment policy).

With the greater focus on these issues, I think this year is going to be about how these policies are enforced, and in general how we, as a community, can insure that conventions are a safe environment.

I’ve heard some discussion that this is a non-issue and focusing on it is actually a detriment to the convention community. For these people I would like to present the events surrounding a Seattle area convention called Aki Con.

Aki Con is an anime convention, held in the Seattle area, that is going into it’s 7^th year. It already had a bad reputation, due to putting it’s artists alley in the parking garage the previous year, but the issue at hand happened this last October. Aki Con had regularly hired a specific DJ to play at the event. It was learned that the DJ was a sex offender who had done prison time in Arizona, but had failed to register in the state of Washington after he moved. The convention was informed of this, but did not remove him. During the convention an 18 year old girl was drugged and assaulted. The DJ was arrested and is awaiting trial. More details about this can be found here.

Aki Con posted a statement about the incident that can be found here. If you look at the statement it has the appearance of a neutral statement, but it is actually siding with the DJ and placing blame on the victim. It is also worth noting that Aki Con has no formal harassment policy.

Of course I was horrified to hear about what had happened, particularly as a member of the Seattle convention community. I am also disturbed by the fact that the Aki Con staff has gone completely silent. The community, however, has not. The story has become a rallying cry for making conventions safe and not allowing something like this to happen again.

And there are people taking this very seriously. The organizers of one of Seattle’s biggest events, Emerald City Comicon, are being proactive in making sure that their convention is as safe as possible. ECCC is conducting training for their volunteer staff, with a heavy focus on harassment prevention. This means that the staff will know exactly what to do if they witness something or an attendee approaches them with an issue. The staff is making sure they are also up to speed in case a volunteer needs to bring them in on something. The anti-harassment policy is going to be very prominent in the program book, and lay out what is and is not acceptable and what the penalties could be, including being booted from the show. It also instructs the attendees on who they can approach if they have an issue. The staff is not only working out a system of dealing with problems, but on recognizing and possibly rewarding good behavior.

I can only hope that this level of proactivity will become the norm for conventions in the future.

Outside of that it is up to those of us who attend to make sure we are keeping up the pressure to make conventions a safe place, both by watching out for each other and not supporting events that do not value the safety of attendees.

Fanboy News Network Episode 4

Posted on December 26, 2013 by Caliban

“The Year In Horror Part 2”

Jeff sits down again with horror author Michael Montoure and Fanboy News Network’s resident horror expert Jennifer Lovely to discuss the year in horror. This time they focus on the year’s horror offerings outside of cinema.

Fanboy News Network Episode 3

Posted on December 23, 2013 by Caliban

“The Year In Horror Part 1”

Jeff sits down with horror author Michael Montoure and Fanboy News Network’s resident horror expert Jennifer Lovely to discuss the year in horror.

There was so much to talk about that there will be a second part to this episode later this week.

Wishing you a geeky Christmas

Posted on December 21, 2013 by Caliban

It’s Christmas time again. Every year we get all worked up as the need to buy gifts and arrange schedules overtakes us.

We make time for family, the ones we were born to and then ones we have forged for ourselves. We watch the traditional specials. We make travel plans. We hear all the different sources try to tell us what the meaning of the season is.

On that last one, I think we have gotten a pretty good summation from a unique and very geeky source: Doctor Who. It’s become one of my favorite quotes about the season, and it came from the 2010 Doctor Who Christmas special, A Christmas Carol.

“On every world, wherever people are, in the deepest part of the winter, at the exact midpoint, everybody stops, and turns, and hugs, as if to say ‘Well done. Well done, everyone! We’re halfway out of the dark.’”

And this, to me, is the heart of the season. There is a reason that all the Winter Solstice celebrations deal with light. It is the darkest time of the year, and then just when it feels that nothing will ever grow or be bright again, on December 21^st everything turns around. The days slowly get longer and, even though it is still cold and dark, there is the return of hope as things inch back towards spring.

We huddle together in our tribes, be they of blood, friendship, work, or shared experience. We stave off the cold and look forward to the world coming alive again.

So as I publish this on the day of the lights return, I, Jeffrey Robert Harris (aka Caliban), on behalf of myself and all of my friends and loved ones who help produce this little corner of geek culture, wish you and yours well during this time and look forward to the brighter future.

Well done everyone, we’re halfway out of the dark.

Death Threats in Geek Culture

Posted on December 14, 2013 by Caliban

A sad state of affairs currently plaguing geek culture is the wave of death threats that are being made with increasing regularity.

Seriously, we seem to have lost our ability to just disagree about things. Now, if something happens that people are not happy about, you can bet there will be a death threat. And the examples, of this, can be really mind blowing.

Anita Sarkeesian: received death threats as well, as rape threats and constant harassment, due to her web series Tropes vs Women.

Adam Glass: Writer of the New 52 relaunch of Suicide Squad. The reason for the death threats was the Suicide-Girl-like redesign of Harley Quinn. As a side note, the redesign was done by DC co-publisher Jim Lee, but the threats were made to Glass as he was the writer assigned to carry out the story.

James Gunn: The Writer/Director of the upcoming Marvel Studios film Guardians of the Galaxy. The reason for the death threats is that actress Karen Gillian (best known as Amy Pond on Doctor Who) shaved her head to play the villain Nebula, angering some fans.

Amanda Abbington: Actress and longtime partner to Martin Freeman (with whom she has two children), is getting death threats because she has been cast as John Watson’s fiancé Mary in the upcoming season of Sherlock. The reason behind this is that having her character in the show interferes with some fans speculation that Holmes and Watson are lovers.

I’m sure Zack Snyder and Gal Gadot are receiving threats over the casting of Gadot as Wonder Woman in the Superman/Batman movie.

We also see this problem in varied places around the video game industry. Dragon Age II senior writer Jennifer Hepler received death threats to both herself and her children, because some fans did not like the game.

And it isn’t just big names. My friend Mickey Schulz (who writes for the web site Geek Girls Rule) regularly receives both death threats and rape threats, simply for being a female who writes about feminist issues in geek culture.

I know that this is not limited to geek culture, but it sure seems pervasive here.

So why is this happening? How did we end up in a place that making death threats for minor inconveniences and disappointments appears acceptable to some people?

Well I wonder if Louis CK didn’t hit on a truth in this video. Start at 1:30 in the video.

But, basically, I think online interaction has reduced people’s ability to feel empathy, and embolded them to say whatever they want. Add to this their desire to vent their frustrations, no matter how irrational they may be. And finally, they want to influence the behavior of the person they are targeting. Add a shot of immaturity, and you get people who go straight to the death threat.

This leaves us with the question of how to deal with it. The answer is basically the same as dealing with misogyny and convention harassment; we have to speak up as a community, and make it loud and clear that this behavior is not acceptable. We have to make it a mark of shame to do so, and make it so bad that the people who would engage in this behavior are too scared of being branded over it to do it in the first place.

Do I expect this to work right out of the gate? Of course not, but we have to start making the effort if we have any hope of changing this at all.

I’ll admit this may sound harsh, but honestly it will be more effective than trying to encourage empathy.

I’ll leave you with a quote from a friend of mine, game designer JD Wiker:

“There’s a line. All you have to do is NOT cross it.”

The Arc of Thor

Posted on December 7, 2013 by Caliban

As the year comes to a close, it has been announced that Disney had broken a box office record. In 2013 its worldwide box office was over 4 billion dollars. This was achieved almost exclusively by the performance of this year’s two releases from Marvel Studios; Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World.

I’m sure every studio took notice. At this stage Marvel seems unbeatable at the box office and I’m sure that there are some very smart people trying to figure out how to duplicate that success.

There are, of course, several factors that have led to this success. But I want to focus on two that I feel other studios are going to have a hard time copying, and the sad thing is that one of those shouldn’t be a problem.

The one that is problematic to copy is the interwoven nature of the Marvel films. As far as most fans are concerned both movies were part of the same series, and they only had to wait months for them, not years. And next year we get two more. I’m sure studios would love to get something like that going, but only Warner Brothers with the DC franchises have a shot, and they seem determined to shoot themselves in the foot with regards to that.

The other, that should be easy to copy but won’t be, is how Marvel handles character arcs. In short, Marvel does not back track on their character development. Whatever changes a character goes through in one movie are still present at the beginning of the next. It seems simple but it is not that common.

To illustrate this point, I want to focus on Thor as he has one of the most dramatic arcs in the series. Warning, there will be some Dark World spoilers in here.

In the first Thor movie he is brash, headstrong, and hungry for glory. He nearly provokes a war needlessly and is punished by being stripped of his powers and exiled. During this exile he learns humility and, after seeing destruction from a human level, is more tempered in his approach, throughout this process he learns to care for people.

In the Avengers, he is no longer seeking glory and regrets the destruction he can cause, but he is still headstrong as shown in his first meeting with Iron Man and Captain America. Over the course of this film, he learns to not just rush in and be a team player.

At the beginning of Dark World we see Thor no longer rushes in, and even gives his enemies a chance to surrender. When the rest of the warriors are celebrating their victory, he is sitting quietly, no longer concerned with glory. By the end, he embraces his destiny as guardian of the nine realms, and chooses to live on Earth.

At no point does he lose any of the lessons he learned between movies and his character is constantly moving forward.

Let’s compare this to the rebooted Star Trek movies. In the first movie Kirk has to learn to not be bull headed and work with his crew, especially Spock, to save the day. In the end, he is awarded command of the Enterprise.

In the sequel, he starts off making a bull headed move that has him lose his command and he needs to find a way to work with his crew, especially Spock, to save the day, eventually getting his command back. Basically, in the second movie things were reset to how they were in the first movie in an effort to give the audience something familiar.

Of the two, which do you prefer?

For me, the big test of this is going to be when Captain America: The Winter Soldier comes out. This is because it will feature the Black Widow, who is a character that has been moving around the Marvel Cinematic Universe rather than attached to one specific franchise. It will be interesting to see where she is after the events of The Avengers and how that has changed her.

Of course they could just give us a Black Widow centric movie.

Anyway, I look forward to where the Marvel movies are going, and can only hope that other studios learn this lesson.

A visit to Night Vale

Posted on November 25, 2013 by Caliban

I think it says something about the nature of Welcome to Night Vale that I had no idea how to start out this column. Do I try for witty and meta like the show itself? Do I just pass as it is rapidly gaining a huge fandom? Or do I just write the column, working from a base assumption that some of you are familiar with it, while others might need some background?

Yeah, lets go what that last one.

For the uninitiated, Welcome to Night Vale is a Podcast produced by Commonplace Books, that takes the form of a community radio show from the small town of Night Vale. That seems simple enough.

Okay, but Night Vale is a place operating in its own reality. All conspiracy theories are true, unnatural horrors are commonplace, and everyday mundane truths (like the existence of mountains) are considered mythical.

Imagine Prairie Home Companion as if it was written by Rod Serling and directed by David Lynch.

Welcome to Night Vale is the brain child of Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, who write all the episodes (although they have had a few guest writers recently). The show’s single regular performer is Cecil Baldwin, with most episodes having only his performance. Guest actors have recently started appearing, but are infrequent. The show’s theme song, as well as all background music, is performed by the band Disparition.

The show in many ways has a very straight forward format. Each episode is 20 to 30 minutes long, and is basically a new broadcast from Night Vale Community Radio. Our news broadcaster Cecil starts the show with a cryptic statement that ends with him saying “Welcome to Night Vale”. After the theme song Cecil begins the show proper. The first story is the major theme of the episode, usually detailing an event occurring in town that will be revisited several times during the episode. There will also be a word from the sponsor, traffic, community calendar (which fans now know usually foreshadows upcoming episodes), and (of course) the Weather (which is a musical performance from an independent artist). After the Weather is a final report tying up the episode’s main plot, and Cecil’s signature sign off “Good Night Night Vale, Good Night.” This is followed by credits and a proverb read by an unnamed female voice.

The show has several ongoing storylines related through Cecil’s reports. There is the ongoing mystery of the Man in the Tan Leather jacket whom several people have met, but no one can remember any detail about him except the jacket and his deer skin suitcase full of flies. There is also the upcoming election for the position of Mayor of Night Vale. Mayor Miriam Winchelle has decided to not run again, and two candidates have stepped forward to run. The first is Hiram McDaniels (voiced by Venture Brothers creator Jackson Publick), a character first introduced while being sought by the Sheriff’s secret police. Hiram is an 18 foot five-headed dragon, and his crime? Fraud. The other candidate is The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home (voiced by former child star Mara Wilson). She is exactly what she sounds like, you never see her, but she is there. She knows all about you, and thinks that this makes her uniquely qualified to be Mayor.

These are just a small sample of the growing story. But one thing the fans have latched onto is the growing romance between Cecil and Carlos, the leader of a team of scientists who have come to study Night Vale.

At no point is there any mention of the sexual orientation of either Cecil or Carlos. It is just presented as a romance between two people just like you would encounter in real life. In fact the relationship is honestly the most normal thing that ever gets any regular mention in the show. With the exception of the episode detailing their first date, it is normally just a subplot mentioned in passing during the episodes, but the fact that it is very normal has become a favorite subject of the fans.

What makes Welcome to Night Vale stand out is the writing. Fink and Cranor have a very distinct sensibility (as bizarre as it may seem), and it means that you never know what to expect from the show. Be it a mysterious glowing mind controlling cloud that becomes head of the Night Vale school board, or invasion of a tiny race of people leaving under the local bowling alley, Night Vale has a unique voice. And it looks to be inspiring a new generation of podcasters to explore the format of audio drama.

So if you have a taste for the strange, and a half hour to spare now and again, check it out.

And try not to think about the Faceless Old Woman who Secretly Lives in Your Home, unless you intend to vote for her, in which case I’m sure she won’t mind.

Surprisingly good TV Shows

Posted on November 16, 2013 by Caliban

Every TV season the networks hope to lure in viewers for their new programs, and that will require a lot of pre-publicity on the shows. When deciding what you are going to watch, a lot of judgment goes into trying to decide what you are going to watch and what is not worth your time. Over the last three TV seasons, I have come to learn that I cannot trust my initial assessment of shows based on preview material. I can name six shows, two from each of the last three seasons, that I was convinced were going to suck, and now are shows I don’t want to miss.

These shows are Once Upon a time, Grimm, Arrow, Hannibal, Sleepy Hollow, and The Blacklist.

So what was it about these shows that caused my initial dismissal of them, and what do they have that has made them appointment viewing?

Let’s find out.

For the first question, my answer is that I didn’t think any of them would be a sustainable series and be able to get up to nine episodes. For everything, but The Blacklist, a big part of my negative view was due to their being adaptations. Once Upon a Time and Grimm took it a step further, in that they were both shows using fairy tales as their basis, and I figured one would eventually cannibalize the other. In the case of Arrow, it was another superhero show on the CW and so I was expecting another watered down and drawn out story like Smallville. Hannibal was doubted because I didn’t see how a network TV show could possibility go to the dark places that the story would demand. With Sleepy Hollow I will admit that I assumed it was going to be a Twilight like take on the story. Finally, The Blacklist just seemed to be a thin premise that I could not see sustaining a season believably.

Clearly, I was wrong on all counts.

Once Upon a Time and Grimm are nothing alike, I don’t even think of them as having a common origin point anymore. Arrow is not watered down in the least. Watching Hannibal I am regularly shocked at how far the network has allowed this series to push the imagery. Sleepy Hollow, while nothing like the story that inspired it, is not following in the Twilight path. And The Blacklist is a fun series that teases at a greater mystery.

But I think there is more to it than my being wrong in my initial assumptions. All of these shows have two things in common that make me tune in week after week.

First is the fact that there is focus on characters and their story arcs. I am invested in what happens to these people and want to see where they are going. Even the worst written of these six shows (Once upon a Time) has me hooked by this, even for the villains.

The other thing is the overall story and series mythology. Each show is going somewhere and doing it at a good pace. To use Smallville as an example again, they dragged out their main arc, Clark Kent becoming Superman, for 10 years. By the end, it just felt ridiculous. In contrast. Arrow dealt with its main arc (Oliver going after the people on his father’s list in the first season) and wrapped that up; Once Upon a Time also wrapped up its main arc (breaking the curse on Storybrooke) in the first season. Both of these series then went on to have new arcs in their following seasons.

So good characters and good story pacing, really this is what we should want from any series.

And to wrap up, I would like to point out that I am not always wrong. I had bad feelings about both Dracula and The Tomorrow People. I was not wrong. In fact the only reason I am still watching Dracula is to give it a fair shot for when I review it, so you have that to look forward to.

If you have not checked out any of the series I have focused on here, I would recommend giving them a try. Of course, we will have to see how the rest of the season plays out. And maybe we will visit them again after this season is over.

Emperor Norton

Posted on November 9, 2013 by Caliban

Back when I was writing about my early days at Wizards of the Coast I mentioned that ConFrancisco had a person spend the entire convention portraying Emperor Norton. I promised to explain why that was a big deal at a later time.

Well that time has come.

Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, was a prominent and beloved figure in San Francisco during the mid to late 19^th century. Not only was he embraced by the city’s residents, but he also captured the imagination of more than one author, and has been included in many stories and the inspiration for many more. All this has made him a true geek culture icon, as well as a historical one.

He was born Joshua Abraham Norton, in England sometime between 1814 and 1819, bad record keeping prevents us from knowing exactly when. He spent his early life in South Africa, and immigrated to San Francisco in 1849.

A first, he was a successful business man, but after an import venture went south (and the loss of a related lawsuit) Norton left San Francisco in 1858.

Nothing is really known of what happen during the following year, but in 1859 Norton returned to San Francisco and sent letters to several newspapers in the city proclaiming himself Emperor of the United States. The newspapers reprinted these letters, mainly for the humor value, and this just fueled Emperor Norton’s passion to carry on.

Since America was now an Empire, Norton saw no need for congress any longer and made several imperial decrees calling for its disbandment. He also called for the abolishment of both the Republican and Democratic parties, and for the U.S. army to carry out these orders. Naturally, none of these parties paid any attention to these decrees.

However, not every decree Emperor Norton made was outlandish. He called for the formation of a League of Nations decades before it actually happened, and for construction of a suspension bridge or tunnel to connect San Francisco to Oakland.

When not making decrees Emperor Norton would spend his time conducting inspections of the streets and cable cars of the city. He wore a pseudo military uniform that included epaulettes and a beaver hat with a peacock feather.

Now, it would have been easy to dismiss Emperor Norton as just delusional man wandering the streets of San Francisco but for one simple thing: the city loved him.

Businesses sought his patronage and proudly displayed his imperial seal of approval. He ate at the finest restaurants in town, and theaters made sure he had reserved seats. Imperial money he printed himself was accepted by local businesses, and to this day are considered valued collector items.

So beloved was Emperor Norton that he is credited with once stopping an anti-Chinese riot by positioning himself between the rioters and their targets, kneeling and reciting the Lord’s Prayer repeatedly until the mob lost their zeal and went away.

Today anyone acting the way Emperor Norton did would be put under psychiatric care. Well, actually, someone tried that in 1867. A young police officer arrested Norton to have him committed. The city was outraged and the police chief ordered Norton released and issued a formal apology. The Emperor himself issued an imperial pardon to the officer that arrested him. From that day on all police officers saluted Emperor Norton when they passed him on the streets.

On January 8^th 1880, Emperor Norton suffered a fatal heart attack while walking. Not surprising, he was impoverished, having less than $10.00 to his name. The business community of San Francisco refused to let him be buried in a pauper’s grave, and paid for what amounted to a state funeral that was attended by 30,000 of the city’s 230,000 residents. His grave stone reads “Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico.”

The story of Emperor Norton is one that has captured the imagination of so many that naturally has inspired several authors.

Mark Twain, who lived in San Francisco during Norton’s reign based the character “the King” in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn directly on Norton

Robert Louis Stevenson made Norton a character in his novel The Wreaker.

Neil Gaiman wrote an issue of The Sandman about Norton.

Barbara Hambly included him in her Star Trek novel Ishmael.

Author Christopher Moore has written several supernatural humor novels set in modern day San Francisco. In these novels there is a prominent character called “The Emperor” who is clearly based on Norton.

And that is just scratching the surface of the works he has inspired.

Emperor Norton has even become a religious figure. Discordianism has made him a Saint Second Class.

In the end, there was clearly something special about this man. He may have been living in his own world, but it was a kind place that he managed to share with the rest of us and left us some great stories to keep us inspired.

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