DORK & HAT page OH WHY WON’T IT END

Drawing a splash page of the DOOM ZEPPELIN — I’ve never drawn a zeppelin before, let alone a DOOM zeppelin — was my idea.

Yes, I am very, very stupid.

X-Scything

Dork & Hat Page Oh God I Don’t Know Anymore

Will Ellwood writes, I draw, Robin LeBlanc and Dorkmuffin star. One of these takes no effort whatsoever.

You’ll Understand When You’re Older

HUMAN 2.0

In the last weeks, I’ve had three stories published online: a comedy called MELVIN T. BAGGER’S ROCK HARDICK, for Weaponizer, another comedy called LISTEN TO YOUR HEART and a horror story called A HEART FOR A HEART, the latter two for a writing challenge in Looking For Strange.

The last “Heart” story has now been published. It’s called HUMAN 2.0, a science-fiction piece. Maybe my personal favorite of the three “Heart” stories I wrote. Which simply means it’s the one I have the least amount of regrets about, I guess.

Thanks to Emmy Jackson for publishing all three stories, to everyone who retweeted them and/or left a comment. It’s very appreciated.

Now, to come up with a serious story for Weaponizer, and to hammer some common sense into my novel…

The Australian Classification Board Vs. Golden Showers And Women Who “Appear To Be” Younger Than 18

According to the internet — always a reluctant source that requires some beating before it spits out the truth along with some teeth — the Australian Classication Board (ACB) did very stupid things recently. Initially, it seemed they had banned women with A-cup breasts from appearing on adult publications, because regardless of the person’s actual age, they think small breasts encourage child pornography, and they have also banned depictions of female orgasms if there is visible ejaculation involved — i.e. squirting.

The thought process behind such a decision is to utterly retarded that even Australia — a country that refuses to allow any videogames rated above 15+ into its borders — deserved the benefit of the doubt. The Tumblr post that pointed me to all this, via cjwhite reblogging sneak046 via Templesmith (at least I think that’s the correct order), pointed to this article.

A little Internet searching allowed me to see where it all stemmed from and how the Internet reacted to it:

- Fiona Patten, member of the Australian Sex Party, publishes this press release.

- Michael Meloni of “Somebody Think Of The Children” picked up on this by writing an article with the title “Australia Bans Small Breasts”.

- Ruth Brown of Crikey.com.au tried to see through the internet uproar this caused with this article. Check the comments section of it — both Michael Meloni and Fiona Patten add to the discussion.

- ACB finally responds to the small breasts/female ejaculation bans on Michael Meloni’s site, “Somebody Think Of The Children”.

The latter article confirms that:

1) APPEARING TO BE under eighteen is enough to ban any image or video of your nude body, regardless of age. The ACB says the breast size is not specified on this guideline. But it’s pretty obvious small breasts can be associated with young age.

2) The fetish known as “golden showers” is banned, not orgasmic squirting. Of course, the ACB seems to be a little lost on the difference.

So I think it’s fair to say that, yes, the members of the ACB who contributed to this are utter fucking morons.

Newsflash to these idiots: women under the age of eighteen can, and often have, perfectly big breasts. I found this out on high school. It was a particularly pleasant discovery. If there is indeed a “small breasts” criteria on a guideline that is already staggeringly stupid, then you all should be kicked in the balls.

To prevent people from seeing women — age-checked by the FBI — modeling or performing on adult publications or films due to them APPEARING TO BE younger than their actual, confirmed age because it might “encourage pedophilia” also shows the ACB’s stupidity. You know what could encourage pedophilia?

Yeah, I’d say actual children could very much be more attractive to a pedophile than a young-looking 25-year-old with pigtails. So I guess the next step is to ban all pictures of children. After all, pictures of children could encourage pedophilia, like pictures of corpses could encourage necrophilia, and violent games could encourage violence, and the ACB’s retarded behaviour could encourage the suicide of every person with a shred of common sense.

So let’s ban everything! That’s the solution. Let’s measure the amount of urine in every woman’s squirt to ensure it is indeed urine-free before it’s made public, because GOD FORBID people started pissing on one another! Imagine how quickly society would collapse!

Apparently the ACB has become a worse problem for Australia than their fauna.

Dramatic Timing

AVATAR and DISTRICT 9

THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS OF BOTH FILMS

While DISTRICT 9 has been hailed as one of 2009’s best films (which to me makes 2009 sound like a really bad year for Cinema), AVATAR has suffered a predictable backlash. I’ve read people complaining about the message being too obvious, about the characters being cliched, about the dialogue being badly-written. Now there’s even a box office comparison trying to prove that, if you adjust for inflation, AVATAR isn’t, by far, the highest-grossing film of all time — a position still retained by GONE WITH THE WIND. Let’s ignore for a moment that inflation isn’t the only thing that should be adjusted here; we’re talking about a whole other time period with no Internet, video cassetes, and when TV was at its very birth. Let’s just ask: what does this say about the film’s quality, or any film’s quality? Absolutely fucking nothing.

It seems to me that a lot of people have gone over to the trendy hate, rather than the genuine hate, when it comes to AVATAR. Especially since DISTRICT 9 shares many things with the film, but is apparently an untouchable holy grail.

Let’s break down the similarities:

Both films have obvious messages – Against discrimination and predatory corporations.

Both films have obvious parallels – The Na’vi in AVATAR represent indigenous people, and the Prawns in DISTRICT 9 represent the victims of Apartheid, mostly the black majority of South Africa, where the film itself takes place.

Both films have a protagonist that initially doesn’t care and even believes on the human cause, but eventually turns over to the other side – AVATAR’s Jake Sully is seduced by the Na’vi culture, DISTRICT 9’s Wikus Van De Merwe is turning into a Prawn and has no choice but seek their help, eventually defending them.

Both films have a protagonist with a deficiency – Jake is paraplegic, Wikus is a complete fucking retard.

Both films have stereotypes – AVATAR has the tough military villain, the corporative little shit, the Na’vi who initially doesn’t like the protagonist, etc. DISTRICT 9 has the tough military villain, the corporative little shit, the Prawn who initially doesn’t like the protagonist, etc.

Both films have a mecha-suit battle – Which is of course a good thing. Still, in AVATAR the mecha-suit is made by humans, while in DISTRICT 9 it’s a Prawn invention. This is important for later.

Both films portray corporative greed and inhumanity – The villains in AVATAR don’t see the Na’vi as worth respecting. The villains in DISTRICT 9 try to do a surgical procedure on Wikus with no anaesthetics, and while he’s counscious.

Now, let’s compare:

AVATAR has better direction than DISTRICT 9 – Say what you want about James Cameron’s ability (or lack of) as screenwriter; it’s hard to argue the man knows what he’s doing when it comes to directing a film. AVATAR is beautifully-photographed, with good camera movements and angles, and edited with precision. DISTRICT 9’s Neill Blomkamp, on the other hand, seems unable to hold a camera still, and to pull off the CLOVERFIELD-esque documental style (remember the horrendous gun-mounted camera?).

The stereotypes in AVATAR work better – The military tough guy in AVATAR has a clear motivation: defeating the Na’vi in favor of the human species, and also getting his little revenge for the scar a Na’vi gave him. The military tough guy in DISTRICT 9 is just an irritable fuckhead who doesn’t like Wikus (and who can blame him for that). The corporative little shit in AVATAR finds it easy to do terrible things sitting behind his comfortable desk, but he does show a hint of remorse upon seeing the result of his actions. The corporative little shit in DISTRICT 9 coldly lies to Wikus’ wife — his own daughter –and is actively involved in the cruelty against Wikus. And in neither film does the character-who-initially-doesn’t-like-the-protagonist stereotype work very well.

The dialogue in AVATAR is miles better – And it still isn’t great dialogue, but still, AVATAR has some quotable lines, like the speech the military tough guy gives to his soldiers (“I will not succeed”) or Neytiri explaining to Jake how to get himself an Ikran (“It will try to kill you”). DISTRICT 9, on the other hand, is full of expositional and repetitive dialogue, and has such gems as the moment Wikus expresses he’s not like the Prawns by saying “I’m not fucking like them”, or the moment a character explains the Prawns are called Prawns because “they look like Prawns”.

The mecha-battle in AVATAR kicks DISTRICT 9’s ass – I did mention Cameron is a better director, yes?

The plot in AVATAR has no inconsistencies, DISTRICT 9’s does – Regardless of its quality, the plot in AVATAR makes sense in its own context. Even the deux ex machina in the third act of the film (or, as Brazilian critic Pablo Villaça calls it, eywa ex machina) works due to the way the Na’vi’s deity, Eywa, is portrayed: as a living being that stores information. With DISTRICT 9, I don’t even know where to start, so here’s three paragraphs from my review of this film (here is my AVATAR review as well), the first of which starts with a point I already mentioned:

(…) when the protagonist is captured and becomes a test subject, the scientists are incredibly cruel to him, even though they need his cooperation. And for the love of sheer common sense, how did they expect to perform complicated surgery on him without an anaesthetic? Did they think he’d stay still while they opened his chest? And why didn’t they restrain him properly, knowing he is going through a change that makes him significantly stronger? And for fuck’s sake, why is it that after the protagonist is contaminated, the other characters act like this was always the plan? And why don’t they go visit the place where he was contaminated, if they’re so interested in it? There were witnesses who saw him being contaminated and where that happened, there’s even footage of it. And if the protagonist is such an idiot, why was he promoted? Because his boss is his father-in-law? The same father-in-law who, later in the movie, wants him dead?

Even the mecha-armor introduced in the film has been seen before in better sci-fi movies, like “Aliens”. And again, they only make the film’s paradox even bigger: the Prawns have advanced technology but are not above acting like trailer park rednecks. And even though the huge spaceship floats above Johannesburg for twenty years, literally rotting up there with no way of returning to its home planet, then I fail to understand how the movie’s ending is coherent. Do you expect me to believe that McGuffin (the little tube of fluid) is the solution to everything? The ending, by the way, after portraying all its characters as cunts, expects us to feel emotional at the way the film’s conflicts are resolved.

(…) But once again, the film sabotages itself with preposterousness, like the painfully stupid moment an alien uses a thin sheet of metal that barely covers half his body to shield himself from a constant stream of bullets — and it works for him. In fact, Blomkamp thinks that showing bullets hitting the metal all the time makes it more believable, when all it does is to prove the people shooting have a good aim and could easily shoot the alien’s unprotected legs from under him. And even more hilariously, when the alien drops the sheet of metal and makes a run for it — suddenly everyone forgets how to shoot properly! This same alien, in a certain moment of the film, says “I have an idea”, channels McGyver and assembles a bomb in under two seconds.

Jake Sully is more likeable than Wikus Van De Merwe, although Sam Worthington’s performance is inferior to Sharlto Copley’s – It wouldn’t bother me to see Sharlto Copley getting an academy award for his impressive performance as Wikus, considering he was working with a character who is not only dull-witted (to say the least), but also a prick; the only reasons one can find to care about him is the desperate situation he finds himself in, the fact he’s too stupid to know any better, and Copley’s convincing and intense work. One of DISTRICT 9’s virtues is to embrace such a character, and one of its flaws is not to develop him as much as he deserved; the script will constantly force Copley to make absurd moments sound acceptable, like the scene where Wikus, frustrated, tries to cut his own arm off. Worthington had a safer character to work with in AVATAR, because he’s far more likeable — Jake is flawed, but ultimately good-hearted, interesting in his grunt-like mentality and obsession with recovering the use of his legs. Still, Worthington also delivers, although the best performance in the film is Zoe Saldana’s as Neytiri.

The protagonist’s transition from one side to the other is far more interesting in AVATAR – In DISTRICT 9, Wikus seeks the Prawns’ help out of necessity, and goes over to their side because humans are hunting him anyway. In AVATAR, an entire planet was created by James Cameron and his crew, along with a culture, in order to awe both the protagonist and the audience, justifying his decision to defend the Na’vi from the humans.

The art direction in AVATAR is infinitely better – Come on, is there even a debate here? A planet, an ecosystem and a culture invented in AVATAR versus DISTRICT 9’s “They look like prawns”.

The real-life parallels in AVATAR are way more suited than DISTRICT 9’s – In AVATAR, the indigenous people are represented by another planet’s indigenous people, while still retaining their own identity and uniqueness; the story happening in another planet allows for more fictional elements, like the Na’vi’s extraordinary connection to nature. In DISTRICT 9, the apartheid is criticized while being applied to a completely different situation: an accidental alien invasion on Earth. Black people were treated as, but are obviously not, aliens. That was a particularly shocking aspect of the apartheid: it was a division between human beings, a racial segregation. DISTRICT 9’s prawns, however, are an alien race that, being alien, are obviously very different from human beings, and also an unknown quantity; they haven’t lived in the same planet for thousands of years. Worse, the prawns are actually violent toward humans; in a certain moment of DISTRICT 9, a human acts aggressively toward a prawn (but doesn’t hurt him) and the prawn actually rips the guy’s arm off. Even worse, despite being an intergalactic species that managed to get to Earth, despite inventing a damn mecha-suit, the prawns act like trailer park rednecks. In a certain moment Wikus says the prawns don’t understand the concept of ownership of property, something a few other characters seem to back — yet the prawns are pretty protective of their homes. Which means they do understand the concept, they’re just assholes. A character does say the aliens seen in the film are the “worker” class of the species, who just took orders from their superiors — but this makes no sense, since the prawns seem to be very proud of themselves and completely uncomfortable with being ordered around, among other inconsistencies. In summary: the Na’vi manage to have a parallel with real-life indigenous people while still being consistent and believable in their own, fictional culture. And the prawns, well, “look like prawns”.

You can probably tell by now that in my opinion, AVATAR is a much better film than DISTRICT 9. It’s not that I consider AVATAR a great film — I consider it a flawed gem, and it isn’t one of the year’s best films. I do, however, consider DISTRICT 9 a mindless action flick.

And a bad one at that.

“A Heart For A Heart”

A few days ago, the first out of three stories I wrote for Emmy Jackson’s HEART challenge was published.

Now, the second story, a horror called A HEART FOR A HEART, has also been published.

Writing horror feels very new to me. I suppose you can tell from reading A HEART FOR A HEART, actually. Of the three stories I wrote, that was the hardest one to revise, as I kept finding paragraphs that were unintentionally funny instead of disturbing, or clunky descriptions, or inconsistencies. I have an opinion on everything I write (which I keep to myself, and which has a tendency to change drastically — usually for the worse — as time goes by), but A HEART FOR A HEART is an unknown quantity for me. I’m proud I finished it and I’m generally satisfied with the overall idea of it, but I genuinely have no personal author’s opinion on this one. Probably due to my inexperience with horror. Emmy likes it, though, which is why he published it. So thanks, Emmy!

Hope you enjoy. I always welcome opinions, negative or positive, on the things I do; this is a story where opinions will be really appreciated, so I can have a better idea of whether or not I’ve fucked up in my personal Andre Fuck-Up measurement.

The Movie Critic