Evil Smurfs

This started as me reading too quickly.  And without my glasses on.  Someone had written a piece about the lackluster summer movie season and among the listed films I saw The Smurfs 28 Years Later.  Of course there was a comma in there that I missed, but the idea of a Smurf Zombie movie intrigued me.  I mean, they already start out a sort of putrid blue color, and frankly zombies capable of biting you on the knee cap is a disquieting thought.

Because we live in times that defy satire I can report that the nasty little critter shown here is not a figment of my imagination.  No, there is a subgenre of Smurf lore in which some of them are not the cheerful little hypoxic Communards they usually try to pass for.

There actually was a Smurf episode called The Purple Smurf in which one of the standard blue Smurfs - Lazy Smurf as it happens - gets bitten by a weird insect and turns into effectively a zombie.

He becomes angry and hostile, hops around saying "Gnap, Gnap, Grnap!" and bites several other Smurfs who also transform.

Papa Smurf of course saves the day.  How?  Don't matter, most Zombie stories are short on logic and actual science.

The Purple Smurf episode aired in 1981, so just a few years after Dawn of the Dead.  The episode is considered by aficionados of Smurfdom to be a bit of a spoof.

But I ask you, is it fair that Smurfs be portrayed as villains?  Darn right, because that's basically what they are and always have been.

The Smurfs were created by a Belgian cartoon artist named Pierre Culliford, aka Peyo.  They first appeared in 1958.  They were a spin off from an earlier (1947) series he did called Johan and Peewit, which was set in Medieval times.  In it the titular characters encountered a little guy with blue skin.

If this sounds a bit, well, derivative its because  it is.  Or if you are being charitable there are only so many sources of inspiration, and Sleeping Beauty dwarves, the Roman era adventures of Asterix, even the Hobbits of the Shire all have common themes.  Asterix btw is roughly contemporary with the Smurfs, while JRR and Uncle Walt's creations were earlier.

The pointy hats, well, those are what are called Phrygian caps.  These are very well known from Roman times, and are sometimes called Liberty Caps.  Here's a coin commemorating the assassination of Julius Caesar....

Some Roman deities also went Smurfy style.  Notably Mithras and his attendants.  Oddly, the goddess Libertas usually did not.

As to the Smurfs being villains, well, sure.  But it was not as pejorative term as you might expect. The late Roman era and the early Medieval times had no sharp demarcation.  Rulers changed. Latin, which was probably not much spoken by the rustics anyway, moved over to the churches.  People mostly still lived in the same places as before, mostly did the same work.  Even Roman villas, the upgraded farmsteads where a gentleman could supervise his peasants then enjoy a hot bath and a bit of culture were not totally abandoned.  They just had new owners with a bit less class.

But the peasants who worked there?  Well for them it was pretty much Same Old.  By the Middle Ages, the period in which Peyo set his early work, the term Villain appeared.  Around 1300 if you want to be specific.  At that point villanus, meaning farm hand, had the connotation of "base, or low born rustic".  From there it was pretty much downhill, as in a few centuries it meant a man capable of any manner of gross wickedness".  Villainy if you prefer.

Well that's a long march from my mistaken - or actually was it? - concept of Smurfs as zombies.  One of the other people commenting on the initial discussion did run the basic idea through Chat GPT, asking for a synopsis for a movie script.  AI of course spat out predictable and unremarkable drivel.  I suspect that's all it will be capable of for many years to come.

Fashion Dogs

Ah, Fashion Dogs.  AKA Purse Puppies.  They seem to have gone out of style these days.  In the modern era they do seem a bit gauche.  But from an etymological perspective they are pretty interesting.

The list of things I call my dog Hank is long.  I favor alliterative versions, such as "Whining Whelp".  Whelp is a marvelous word from way back, it comes from Old Saxon and goes back who knows how long.  When looking this one up I read that the more common term "puppy" supplanted it starting in the late 15th Century.  It's origins are about as clear as the family tree of Ol' Hank, but it is felt to have come from the French word poupee, meaning doll or toy.  Whether the Mademoiselles had actual little dogs they held as accessories is unclear, but in any event they treated them like small toys.  

The same word also gives us puppet, and for similar reasons.  In fact early on the two words were used interchangeably.

Having grandkids rather into bugs I wondered if pupa, an immature form of moth or butterfly, was related.  Hmm, well sort of.  It's a modern-ish creation, invented by Linneaus who in the late 1700's basically invented scientific classification of animals.  He leaned into the Latin pretty hard, and there the word  pupa, means girl, doll or puppet.  So obviously this was also the source of the later French word.

The concept of a young person also turns up in pupil, as in a student.  Oddly, pupil as in a part of your eye supposedly originated in the observation that you could see a small reflection of a person on the eye surface of the beholder!  I'd call that a bit of a reach but evidently there is a similar concept in Greek and in early English.  Reese Witherspoon sort of spoiled the effect by wearing big sunglasses most of the time.

The dog in these movies was named Bruiser.  He passed away a few years back at the venerable age of 18.  His obit is HERE.  

Sneezy, Sleepy and ???

I was at Walmart.  Yes, even I go shopping on rare occasions.  And I saw this:

It is a display of allergy pills that have "branding" associated with the recent Snow White remake.  Movie related marketing is not new, but seems to have been in decline of late, along with the general fragmentation of entertainment and the decline post Covid in movie theater attendance.

Snow White 2025 looks to be on track to become a major money loser, and to some marks a sea change in how movies will be made.  Others have commented at length on the recent trend to just take old ideas and mix them up by swapping in actors of different race, gender or some such.

Well, tickets are expensive and audiences of late ain't buyin'.

Only two "dwarves" are shown.  Sneezy and Sleepy.  Suggestions for the other five?  Obviously Floppy, and depending on your take on society I guess you could go with Wokey.  I spent all of 90 seconds trying to dream up a few more but decided that's about all this question merited.

Killer Shrews and The Family Business

I enjoy really bad movies.  Oh, not modern ones that I'd have to pay to see, but the classics.  And among them is a gem called The Killer Shrews.  It is from 1959, pretty much the pinnacle of cheesy, black and white sci-fi schlock.  

It has several special charms.  Oh, not the plot.  It's the usual Science Goes Wrong stuff, specifically biological research that makes teeny little voracious shrews grow to giant size while their appetites grow accordingly.  The titular shrews, delightfully, were played by dogs with fake fangs, tails and mangy hides added!

Here you can see the deadly creatures as they gnaw futilely at the oil drums the humans are using to stage an escape attempt.  I bet they had all sorts of dog treats in these to attract their attention.  "Who's a Good Boy?"  Yes, Good Dogs and Good Sports.

I also like this film for a small but remarkable fact I just learned recently.  Now, in most such movies you had stock characters.  Here we see the Girl Scientist, the Dweeby Beta Male love interest of same, and the Macho Can Do guy who comes to save the day.  Oh, and in the middle of the scene we have The Science Guy.  His real life name?  Baruch Lumet.  Sound just a tad familiar?  Hmmmmm?

Well, Baruch did not have much of a film career.  In fact prior to The Killer Shrews he had but a single credit.  Twenty years earlier he had a small role in a film called "One Third of a Nation".  Also appearing in it was his son, Sidney.

Sidney Lumet.  One of the most acclaimed directors in history, he made such classics as 12 Angry Men, Fail Safe, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, and Network.  Somehow despite being often nominated for an Oscar, he only won once and late in his career and as an Honorary Oscar.  

As for Lumet Senior, it seems as if Baruch was not all that interested in being in front of the camera.  He took on a few small parts, especially in the 1960's, but was primarily an acting coach and casting director.  I hope most of his students - Jayne Mansfield was one - went on to greater accomplishments than appearing with collies dressed up as voracious predators!

Evil Fungus

When you are a dog owner you keep an eye on where you are stepping.  So when I spotted this on the ground I was naturally puzzled and a little impressed....

But no, not a particularly compact dog deposit, this is some kind of weird fungus.  Not a fan.  Another clump of the stuff nearby was even a bit more disturbing....

I've seen this movie.  So have you.  It's called Alien.

Bunny Smith - A Silent Movie Star Revisited.

A while back, while researching historic movie theaters in my community, I ran across the odd story of what seemed to be a silent movie actor linked to Chippewa Falls.  If you are coming in late, here's the story of  Bunny Smith.

Obviously trying to research somebody whose last name was Smith and whose first name was a nickname is gonna be some heavy lifting.  But by cross referencing the movies he claimed to have been in, and allowing for uncredited roles, I've figured out that "Bunny" was acting under the stage name of Bert Delaney.

I've looked into the story a bit more, and while it is still far from complete, here's what I know about Bert/Bunny.

His real name was Bernard Smith.  He was born in Minneapolis on January 16th, 1891.  This would make him 25 years old at the time of his letter to the hometown newspaper.  He attended Notre Dame University, presumably in roughly the 1909-1913 time frame.  He spent some time working as the private secretary to the President of the Canada Land Company of Minneapolis.  He was then said to have spent some time "on stage", presumably in vaudeville as movies were just starting to become popular in that era.

As to his cinematic career he started out "with Edison".  That being of course Thomas Edison who effectively invented motion picture technology and even more effectively patented it against potential rivals.  But in the time frame we are discussing the Edison company was in steep decline, so Bunny's switch to the Vitagraph company makes sense.  Vitagraph was in business from 1897 to 1925, so no time line help there.  His roles were presumably uncredited.  These companies were based out of New York.

In July of 1915 he started working for Thanhouser, first as an uncredited extra but in roles that eventually could be characterized as lead.  In his letter Bunny says he was more or less "discovered" by someone working for Thanhouser.  Specifically that he looked enough like their main "juvenile roles" actor Nolan Gane that he could step up to that job description when Gane died.  That happened in February of 1915, so this seems to fit.

Smith/Delaney made movies for Thanhouser in 1915 and 1916.  Mostly in their Florida winter season studios.  The lone 1917 listing seems to have been a remake and re-issue of an earlier film.  In the unstable film industry of the day Thanhouser, briefly a major player, was in turn on the way out.

So what came next?  In a short but intriguing news article from the Florida Metropolis of May 24, 1916 we learn that Bert Delaney, as they knew him by that name, was: "...formerly connected with Thanhouser" and was joining the "Lasky Company of players on the West Coast."  From this I think we can conclude that many of his 1916 movies were shot early in the year and were released later.  This would fit the pattern of high volume production especially in Florida during the winter.

At this point you might be wondering what ever happened to Bernard Smith/Bert Delaney?  I really don't know.  In 1917 his address is given as "Care of Screen Club, New York City".  This is not helpful at all.  The Lasky Company eventually became Paramount Pictures, and there are sources that describe some of their early actors.  But it was a big, sprawling, growing industry, and a small timer like Bunny does not seem to have been noticed.  Indeed, maybe the whole story of heading off to Hollywood was bunk.  This was after all the Industry of Illusions.

And what about his local connection?  It seems tenuous.  Although the editor of the paper in 1916 describes him as "..a product of Chippewa Falls..".  I don't believe he ever lived here.

His mother, Mrs Jane Smith, is mentioned periodically in the local paper starting in 1910.  Usually it was in connection with visits to and from her various children.  In September of 1911 it is reported that "Bunny Smith of Minneapolis is the guest of his mother in the Taylor house flats".  This would seem to be when you'd expect him to be a 20 year old college student.

And three years later......

The visit in fact was six weeks in length.  By this point the Lyric theater was in operation in the ground floor of the Taylor house.  I think we can assume Bunny took in a few shows there while he was in town.  He missed the opening of this theater during his 1911 visit by just a few weeks.  It can't have been long after that that he switched over to movies.

That's really about all the information the local papers can provide up until that lengthy, biographical account he sent to the editors in January of 1916.  Interestingly, just two days after it ran, Mrs. Jane Smith and her daughter Miss Irene Smith, moved back to Minneapolis after a farewell party thrown by their friends.  So while I had at first considered this to be a sort of "cheer up" story for his (presumably) widowed mother and for his sister with frail health;  it seems instead to have been part of the send off festivities.  I mean, what mother would not love to brag about her movie star son?

So how do these stories end?  

I've had no luck tracking down Mrs. Jane Smith of Minneapolis.  Or for that matter her son, under either his real or stage names.  I'd guess he kept the latter for whatever length of time his professional career continued.  Or who knows, maybe he picked a new one?  I prefer to just assume all parties involved went on to have long, happy lives.  With of course an elderly gentleman telling his grandkids about how he was in 21 movies in just a bit over one year; including such timeless silent era classics as "Peterson's Pitiful Plight" and "Clarissa's Charming Calf"!

Nimrods - Prophecy of the Six. Full Movie

Yes, this is one of the odder things that I put in front of you on occasion.  Another feature length installment in the Nimrod story.

It makes more sense - but still not total sense - if you've seen the first Nimrod movie.....

Full disclosure.  I have two sons, one current and one future daughter in law, two grandkids and Bill, my taxidermy squirrel spirit animal involved in these two movies.  Also, depending on how gullible you may be, and additional six grandchildren who have been temporarily misplaced.  Hey, that'll happen sometimes.

Nimrods: Prophecy of the 6

I had the chance recently to attend another World Premier.  "Nimrods: Prophecy of the 6" is the second and perhaps final entry in the NCU (Nimrod Cinematic Universe).  If that phrase - never spoken or written before this moment - makes no sense to you then have a look at this:  NIMROD GIANT SKI.

 I can hardly be an objective Film Critic when the cast included two of my sons, one current and one future daughter in law, as well as both of our actual grandchildren and a full half dozen hypothetical ones.  Yes, I know that does not make sense either.

If you are in the vicinity of Hayward Wisconsin this weekend - perhaps for the Birkebeiner Ski Race - there will be another showing at the Park Theater....

Like it says, February 23rd, 5:30 pm.  

FIRST Robotics 2024 - Week Two in Video

 For those of you who prefer video to monologue!

In case you were wondering, we do have enough of those big orange game pieces to make it to Week Six.  After that....maybe we start striking poses on the field elements!

Weekly Video Update! FRC 2024 Week One

We've always wanted to do a week by week update during robot build season but until now have just never quite gotten our act together.

Act now together.

Return of the Nimrod

The Birkebeiner Ski race is familiar to people in Scandinavia, in northern Wisconsin, and among the cross country ski community in general.  It commemorates a turbulent time in medieval Norway when a royal baby named Haakon needed to be spirited away from some characters called Baglers, who wanted to bump him off as part of a dynastic war.  Brave warriors called Birkebeiners got on their skis and made good an escape, getting Haakon to safety.

The American Birkebeiner race up in Hayward Wisconsin celebrates this legend, with thousands of skiers participating in the most prestigious cross country ski race in North America.  There are always re-enactors to carry Haakon off to safety.

One of my kids who lives in the area has for years participated in a more light hearted aspect of "The Birkie".  One that has just a smidge of controversy here and there but no dynastic strife.  Well, maybe just a smidge of that too.  

The Giant Ski Race, where teams of six stalwarts on a single pair of giant skis, sprint down the main street of Hayward to the bemusement of spectators.  Last year he made an elaborate "mockumentary" of the event.  It was a full length feature film with a local movie theater doing the World Premier and all manner of nonsense.  In case you missed it:

After winning the event five times the Nimrods decided to hang it up.  So ends a mighty sports dynasty.  

Or does it?

Recently a trailer has dropped suggesting a Nimrod revival, something that involves the Legend of Haakon and the whole re-enactor thing.  Worth a couple minutes of your time if you don't have the leisure and a beverage in hand for the full length feature from a year ago.

Obviously much in the same tongue in cheek genre, but being a peripheral member of the Nimrod entourage I see some interesting things hinted at.  It appears that the role of Haakon is being played by one of my grand daughter's dolls.  An old nemesis of mine....Doll Baby.

Given Doll Baby's profound disdain for authority - at least that of grandpas - I suppose it was inevitable that Hollywood would be appealing.  I was wondering what DB had been up to.  Last communique I had was being ordered to get a Covid test around Christmas....

Will the Nimrods rise to the occasion saving both "Baby Haakon" and the Birkie in general (dangerously low snow amounts at press time).  Probably.  Will fame, fortune and a life on the silver screen turn Doll Baby into an insufferable brat?  Too late for that.  Far too late.

The Bay Theater

I've developed a degree of interest in vintage movie theaters.  Once commonplace they are becoming rara avis.  On a trip to Ashland Wisconsin a few weeks back I ran across this gem. 

Behold The Bay Theater.  And while it does not exactly overlook Chequamegon Bay of Lake Michigan, you can see it from the corner.  You can find a thumbnail history at Cinema Treasures.

In the first half of the 20th Century the not particularly large town of Ashland had four movie theaters of which The Bay, built in 1937, is the only survivor.  Here's what it looked like in 1963.  A fancy, substantial front paired with a rather more workaday main section.  The wall of the latter currently has a nice mural of area military service men and women.

Once a single 650 seat theater it has now been split up into six screens.  That allows them to show a variety of features.  When I walked past on a drizzly afternoon there were parents bringing small children in for a matinee.

I hope they read the signs carefully before selecting which room to enter......

Daisy, Daisy.....

Last post I discussed the Daisy BB gun now being sold as a homage to the one immortalized in "the famous Christmas movie".   You know the one I'm talking about...

I had little to do with BB guns as a youngster, my parents being solidly in the "You'll shoot an eye out" camp.  I must have plinked away a bit as a cub scout.  

Perhaps this is a place to say a few things about the interesting history of Daisy BB guns.  I had not known for instance that the company that makes them started out making windmills for farms back in the 1880s.  Very renewable energy.  But their company was faltering until they started throwing in as a premium a BB gun made by another company in their hometown of Plymouth Michigan.  The BB guns proved very popular.  The windmills, less so.  After a few years they just switched over to producing the little pop guns full time.  

Daisy has done well with this business model.  Oh, they had to take the War Years off.  Disappointingly they did not make firearms of any sort, just gaskets, switches and other sub contracted stuff.  For more of the history of Daisy I found this.  If you need still more it sounds as if their museum is pretty impressive.

Getting back to my Daisy Cub. 

The information on the box provides a bit of a "time capsule".  

Needless to say the new, socially responsible Target does not sell these.  They seem in fact to be uncomfortable with squirt guns.

As Hank seldom leaves my side you'll have to get used to him photobombing Detritus of Empire.

As I mentioned, modern Daisy BB guns are made in China.  Consulting various histories of the company I can place the Preston Ontario plant as operating from the mid 1950's until 1983, the very year that the Famous Christmas Movie which shall not be named was made.

So it is just barely possible that the prop master for same, in being detailed to round up six specimens for use might have glanced at this very box.  But of course he said....nah.  This is a small, basic model BB gun.  Hardly something that Ralphie would dream about....

The Movie that Must not be Named

 You know this image.  You know this movie.

Anything iconic has a bit of market value, for nostalgia if naught else.  But what if there are pesky copyright problems?

Seen at a popular retail chain....

As it happens there are multiple movies on imdb with the name "A Christmas Wish".  They are pretty much all saccharine Hallmark products.  I guess the quotation marks are enough to avoid trouble there.  Suffice it to say that firearms, even of the BB gun variety, feature in none of them.  And as to - oops, almost said the name - well, you know that story.

Evidently Daisy has come out with a replica of the somewhat customized BB gun that Ralphie (can I mention him?) ached for and finally got in "the famous Christmas movie".

The square jawed cowboy with the gigantic head points out all the special features.  Hmmmm, is there something wrong with his right eye?

If you read the really fine print on this box - I'd say two good eyes would be necessary - you'll learn that it is made in China and that it does warn about the possibility of eye damage, claiming that there is risk out to a somewhat implausible 195 yards.  For reference I won't take a shot at a deer with my much more capable rifle at anything beyond 120.  Maybe in some sort of testing in hurricane force tail winds and skipping over the surface of a pond they got a BB to go that far.

Incidentally, the original movie prop Daisy 650 has now been acquired by a museum devoted to...well, I guess they can use the name in this LINK.

I didn't buy one of these Made in China specials.  For one thing I already have a vintage Daisy BB gun.  Could it be contemporary to the Movie that must not be Named?  We'll discuss next time.

STOMP

The FIRST robotics team has continued to meet over the summer months, at least to do outreach visits.  We usually get a nice tour, sometimes there are cookies.  The robot zips around grabbing and dropping objects.  But its important to mix things up.

Today I had them do a short design/team building exercise for one of our sponsors.  Specifically a company that makes high end printed circuit boards.  Here's what I threw at them, giving them a half hour and a white board.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Printed circuit boards are delicate.  You have to design a container to ship 60 boards into an area where there has been a major disaster.  These boards are 2cm by 6cm.

We are not saying the disaster is in Tokyo.  We are not denying it either.

The container and boards need to be protected from:

Dust

Vibrations equivalent to an earthquake

Radiation

Impact equivalent to being dropped from 10 meters height

This is an unusual set of specifications.  We are not saying Godzilla is involved.  Not denying it either.  The container must be of dimensions and weight such that two people can carry it.

いや、ゴジラ！

Giant Expectations Met

Giant Expectations.  Certainly the best mockumentary of a winter semi-sport ever to be crafted by a Fisheries Biologist.  Now available in its entirety on Youtube.  A thought provoking bit of modern cinema that raises many questions.  Chief among them:  "Why?  Just......why?"

Backstage at the Movies

Next month I'm giving a program on historic movie theaters.  Just for fun it will be given in a modern movie theater....with popcorn and a few relevant silent movie offerings.  

Did a recon trip the other day to make sure various media can interact electronically.  I'd never been up in the "working spaces" of a theater before.  All sorts of interesting things.

Posters everywhere.  They had plenty on the walls and racks and racks of old ones.

All the space up top is one long room.  Movie projectors - that large object in the right foreground is one - are aiming to the left and right as you go by.  I learned many things.  For instance, in times past you had to have a projectionist.  It was a pretty high paying union job.  It was needed because film rolls were fairly short and you had to be ready to swap in the next one.  Also because projectors would get stuck, and film melts and/or starts to burn pretty quickly.  At least in the old days.  Now projectionists are no longer needed.

I was curious about this device.  I should have put a hand in the photo to give scale but these things are huge, perhaps three feet across.  These turntables were for gigantic reels that were spliced together into one long feature film length behemoth.  A first step towards eliminating humans up in the projection booth.

Now its all digital.  Satellites high overhead send a stream of Hollywood crafted 1's and 0's down to be formed into images.  

The Giant Ski Movie - Beyond Great Expectations

Near our Up North cabin is Hayward Wisconsin.  It is among many other things the home base for North America's biggest cross country ski race.  This is a very serious event with participants coming over from all parts of the world.  Well, at least from the cold parts.

To lighten the mood a bit there are less serious events held in conjunction with it.  A kids race.  A race for dogs.  And....The Giant Ski Race.

Giant Ski involves a team of six people all strapped to the same really long pair of skis.  It requires both effort and coordination.  One momentary lapse in the latter and the audience - which seems to be mostly people from the bars along Main street - get to see you falling down and not being able to get back up.

I know some people who have taken on Giant Ski as a serious matter.  Well, their deciding that this is really the Ultimate Sport and seeming to take is seriously is tongue in cheek.  Anyway, they made a feature film which will have its World Premier in Hayward shortly.  Details below.

If you are in the area I highly recommend it.

Here's a bit of Giant Ski footage from 2019.  To get the real behind the scenes story....come see Giant Expectations.

Addendum.  Someone they have been working with on this put a Giant Ski bit on Instagram.  1.4 million views and counting.  Yikes!

Stage Mobs a Specialty

The fun, but of course equally damnable, thing about research is that you always find things you were not looking for.  It's like exploring a foreign city with map in hand and suddenly saying "You know, that side alley is pretty darn interesting".  So it is down the alley, or as it is more commonly phrased, down the rabbit hole.

I'm doing research for a program on early movie theaters in our community.  Much of it is done with photos from the historical society and archived newspapers.  But while looking here and there I ran across a source called: Julias Cahn's Official Theatrical Guide.  

Starting in 1896 and spanning the era when "moving pictures" began to supplant vaudeville it is a treasure trove of information.  I was only looking for material on the local theaters, but in its hundreds of pages there is much more.  Lets have a look at some ads.....

Ben-Hur stables!  Of course this 1907 edition of the Official Theatrical guide is not referencing the classic 1959 movie.  That was based on an 1880 book written by Lew Wallace, Civil War general and one time governor of New Mexico Territory.  Horses for Stage Use.  Who knew?

The term "Klieg Light" for early arc lamp theater illumination was known to me.  I did not know it was marketed by the Brothers Kliegl.  So where did the L go?  Evidently the trade name was actually Klieglight with the L in the middle going with both Kliegl and Light.  An interesting company, they only went out of business in 1996, as by then everything electrical was being produced on the Cheap and in the East.

Ethel Barrymore.  Obviously part of the famous Barrymore family of actors.  Grand aunt to the fetching Drew Barrymore.  Supposedly, before he became famous, Winston Churchill proposed to her.

1907 was in the transition period where Vaudeville was in decline and Moving Pictures were ascendant.  Archie L. Shepard worked both sides of the aisle with "Moving Pictures Augmented by High Class Vaudeville".

Oh yes, the Stage Mobs.  Not something you'd need every day, but if you did.....

Woke Fantasies Streaming Forth

You should hold political beliefs that are in accord with how you see the world.  I'll do the same.  Discussion is often interesting and a way to expand one's viewpoint.  But argument never really changes minds and is not a productive use of time.  This general approach means that I  appreciate perspectives different from my own, and while I might consider them curious or perhaps even misguided I don't regard them as "invalid".  

I guess that is at the core of what has come to be called "woke".  As the term has increasingly been used in a derisive sense even my Progressive friends seem to be using it less.  But the concept - that if you are a heteronormative person of a particular pigmentation and chromosomal makeup you de facto CANNOT have a valid perspective on some questions - remains.  For our culture this is unfortunate.

This has increasingly been seen in popular entertainment.  

To be clear there is merit in looking at under represented groups and cultures of current and past society.  And even in recasting roles from Greek theater or Shakespeare or the Marvel Comic Book universe with different sorts of actors.  But all such efforts are ultimately judged by box office receipts, and increasingly, when these are just poorly done, over messaged dog's breakfasts, they lose money.  You can lecture people on how you think the world should be, but it only works if you can get them into the theater seats.

This is all a leadup to my opinions on a couple of Fantasy series now on streaming.  Amazon spent something like a billion dollars creating a Lord of the Rings prequel called "The Rings of Power".  And Netflix just came out with something called "The Witcher - Blood Origin", a prequelish sort of entry that expands their interesting "Witcher" series.  Originally this was from Polish source material and starred the very watchable Henry Cavill.

It's winter and I'm a bit under employed, so I tried to wade through both of these series and in each case stalled out after a few episodes.  They have things in common.

1. Fantastic visuals.  The CGI, makeup, and general production values are astonishing even on my small screen.

2. A loose connection with their successful predecessors.  Amazon did not get straight up rights to Tolkien's pre-LOTR works, just a general go ahead to use some characters and concepts.  Their writers are not in the same universe as JRR Tolkien, and do not even approach the lesser but still notable talents of Peter Jackson.  And as to the Witcher prequel it was apparently so bad that Cavill took a look and decided he was done with the franchise when his current contract ran out.

3. Both put Diversity over Coherence.

In a fantasy production you get latitude.  But you just can't get away with tiny female warriors wielding swords, axes and miscellaneous weaponry with such kinetic energy that both their beefy male opponents and the laws of physics are immediately destroyed.  We have limits to how far our disbelief can be suspended.  A four foot tall female dwarf swinging a war hammer that would - were it were not an obvious Styrofoam prop - be about half her actual mass goes too far.

I'm vaguely aware of the concept of Intersectionality.  It more or less establishes a hierarchy of sorts.  "Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of advantage and disadvantage."  Practically speaking this determines who you can cast as Good or Bad characters.  If you mess this up you will be Cancelled, or as they used to say "Never work in this town again".

In the Fantasy genre this seems to mean the following:

All female characters may be flawed, but are always Good and Implausibly Capable.  In the modern era it is necessary to have at least one Gay couple in your script.  Characters of Asian heritage should be sprinkled here and there and it is still OK to have them in stereotypical roles such as martial arts/swordspersons.  This is less a Woke thing than a tug of the forelock to the all important Chinese market.  Black characters have been emphasized for so long that it is now considered acceptable to have them be either Good or Evil.  I call this the President Morgan Freeman Rule. Most really evil parts of course still go to White Men 'cause reasons.

To this latter point I was fascinated to note one actor who appears in both of the aforementioned productions.  A certain Lenny Henry is a wise Hobbit in The Rings of Power:

And he turns up as the main bad guy - at least in the first couple of eps - in the Witcher.  He's an elf this time.  Maybe he actually has pointy ears?

The fancy bling and the dark lighting were early clues as to his nature.  He's actually a good actor.  I'm glad he's finding work.

So my reviews of Rings of Power and Witcher - Blood Origin?  I can only base this on the episodes I saw before deciding to let them go on without me.   

Rings of Power is a complicated mess.  Too many characters, too many concurrent plots, and just enough connection to the beloved LOTR trilogy to be confusing.  Fabulous visuals notwithstanding I give it a pass.

The Witcher - Blood Origin does not have the same baggage of preconception, and keeps a simpler plot line.  It is also slightly tongue in cheek from the giddyup, the introductory sequence has a bard straight up saying "Oh, heroes uniting to defeat Evil?  Boring.  It's been done too often".  It then goes forward and tries to subvert the negative expectation.  It also has Michelle Yeoh who is playing a character way, way out in Mary Sue range.  She can perceive foes coming up behind her and smite them fatal blows behind her back without looking or even paying attention.  This would be, and in fact is, quite ludicrous but I give her a pass from her amazing tour de force in the recent "Everything Everywhere All at Once" where she becomes a character literally able to do anything specifically because she is in real life a person who does nothing competently!  She seems to be having fun in everything she acts in.

Just for the "Hot Dog Fingers" alternate Universe I'd give Ms. Yeoh a pass for a half dozen lesser efforts!