writing

Film Review – JFK

Posted on by Remy St. Gallen

Back and to the Left

I was largely apathetic and carefree in grade school about the world’s happenings, American politics, and US history until I took my education more seriously, starting in the seventh grade. While I got the general gist of American history during eighth and ninth grades, I discovered well after graduating college that many inconvenient details were absent from mainstream textbooks. I long knew about the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, with conspiracy theories abounding about his murder, expanded upon through director Oliver Stone’s “controversial” Academy Award-winning JFK, which many film critics consider his magnum opus.

The movie heavily utilizes footage from the 1960s, opening with President Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell speech regarding the military-industrial complex. Then it proceeds to JFK’s assassination proper in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald (who would himself be killed the same day by nightclub owner Jack Ruby), portrayed by Gary Oldman in Stone’s film during his original material. The music is decent, but the irritating overuse of snare drums, chiefly during the president’s murder, can be pretty annoying. After the first ten minutes, my initial impression of the film was also negative, given lines like, “Goodbye, you sorry bastard! Die!” and conversations like this:

The president has been shot.
Oh no!
They think it’s in the head.

Luckily, this doesn’t indicate the movie’s overall quality, as the second act is better, concluding with Jim Garrison’s (played by Kevin Costner) trial against Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones), where excellent points and observations are made about the iffiness of the Kennedy assassination, only for Shaw to win. I can relate to many of the themes, like Garrison being a crappy husband and father and that “official” government reports shouldn’t be blindly trusted. One thing that irked me about the movie’s reception outside movie critics was that questioning the government was more “controversial” than the film’s racist and homophobic slurs (and sadly, the MPAA thinks saying “fuck” is worse than those, for some illogical reason). Then again, the Woke movement didn’t exist in 1991.

Works on contingency? No, money down!

The acting was okay, aside from lines like those above and the overabundance of allegedly “intelligent” characters, mainly the Southern historical figures and politicians, sounding like dumb hillbillies (you can tell I’m from the South by my voice, but I have the dignity not to talk like that). Aside from the irritating snare drums, the music was mostly good, with the violin pieces being the strongest, particularly during the ending credits (before which comes an epilogue showing the fates of the various luminaries featured in the film). Many great quotes also abound, like “The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.”

Overall, despite a lousy beginning, some bad writing (including unnecessary gratuitous swearing), and occasional veering off-topic (like Mardi Gras and gay parties), JFK has something for everyone regardless of how they feel about the Kennedy assassination and conspiracy theories, mostly deserving the Academy Awards it received. It’s easily a bucket-list film (but that is far from synonymous with “masterpiece”) and makes excellent sociopolitical commentary about questioning one’s government, even in the face of “official” facts (which often come from people with political agendas). Sadly, given the federal destruction of most documents related to the Kennedy assassination, who the hell knows if we’ll ever discover the genuine, objective, verifiable truth?

The GoodThe Bad
Some of the performances are good.
Ditto the music.
Trial at end is the film’s high point.
Great sociopolitical commentary.		Bad first impression.
Snare drums in music are irritating.
Inconsistent quality of acting.
Sometimes veers off-topic.
The Bottom Line
A bucket-list film with something for everyone regardless about how they feel about the Kennedy assassination.

Avatar: The Last Airbender (live-action)

Posted on by Remy St. Gallen

I watched the Nickelodeon television channel religiously when I was growing up but eventually outgrew it and moved on to other things as I transitioned into adulthood and started college. As such, I was in the dark about the network’s new programming throughout the first decade after the turn of the millennium, but I eventually heard of Avatar: The Last Airbender as one of their more contemporary cartoons a few years after it premiered on the channel and concluded after three seasons. It wouldn’t be until well into the following decade that I watched the animated series proper. 

My first exposure to the Nickelodeon franchise was its first live-action adaptation, The Last Airbender, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, previously affiliated with many a supernatural film with surprise twists. I thought it was a decent film, albeit certainly not perfect, even though critics and audiences widely deemed it a cinematic turkey, not solely the fault of Shyamalan, who genuinely liked the cartoon series and wanted to make several films out of the first season, before executive meddling watered down the final product and crammed everything into a single two-hour movie.

Like Disney had been doing the previous decades with their animated film classics, Netflix announced a live-action streaming series adaptation, in the producers’ words, “reimagining.” However, the first season largely follows that of the original series to the letter, albeit with some expansion, focusing on the background before the titular last airbender, Avatar Aang, awakens after a century of frozen slumber. Afterward, he joins others as he attempts to master the four elements while waging war against the adversarial Fire Nation, whose exiled Prince Zuko is especially interested in apprehending Aang.

While I enjoyed the original Nickelodeon cartoon and its respective sequel series, I had a fun time watching the live-action reimagining, which retains the aesthetics of the original and has fitting cast choices, none mercifully nepotistic like in the 2010 film, and stands well on its own. The backstory and mythos are intricate, and there’s plenty of action to keep one from boredom. It’s easily preferable to the live-action adaptation from the last decade, does the animated series justice, and is worth a watch. I will continue to watch it as future seasons are released.

The Legend of Whomper

Posted on by Remy St. Gallen

The Legend of Whomper, Book 1

The Legend of Whomper, Book 1 by Chris Farrington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There have been times when I’ve often gotten burned out on traditional textual literature without illustrations, so I figured I would alternate between reading them and graphical novels like this by Chris Farrington, whom I highly respect as an artist in the furry fandom and had commissioned a few times in the past. The titular fox hero, Vulpie Whomper (who doesn’t look vulpine but is cute nonetheless), has trained for years to master the war hammer and embarks upon quests to prove his worth. Each chapter (one divided into two parts) follows his various trials.

Whomper’s first trial opens with his initiation into the Brotherhood of the Hammer, after which he must visit several secret cities and prove the supremacy of his order’s weapon. A thief curses him with kleptomania, and when he gets the curse lifted, he chases after the culprit following a visible knife symbol (though this is unclear) to deal justice. 

His second trial opens with guards of the Bridge to the Sky initially denying him entry, after which he must defeat a monster.

The third has him join Dextrose, a furred warrior whose specific species is unclear and seems somewhere between horse and kangaroo, as they battle slugs tormenting a town.

The fox’s fourth quest sees him seeking a town’s serial killer but ends without the said murderer subdued, Whomper needing to find another way to apprehend him.

In his fifth, he encounters a weasel thief ostracized by his fellow purloiners.

The two-part sixth quest sees him battling the slave-collecting Warmachine, piloted by two members of the vengeful Komodo Clan.

The seventh has him partner with a dragoness named Skyla Thornweaver, who remains with him for the rest of his adventures as they battle a new enemy, Gryzor.

Whomper’s eighth quest sees him and Skyla entering Brotherhood of the Arrow territory and battling pig-men bandits.

His ninth has Skyla kidnapped by a rodent princess, Grisella, whom he must rescue.

The tenth has Whomper going to a raccoon-populated city with a zombie problem, where he confronts Gryzor and the necromancer who created him.

The final chapter concludes the graphic novel with Whomper meeting a goat sage called the Edgemaster, under whom he begins apprenticeship after battling an ancient evil known as Xilix while having a final confrontation with Gryzor.

Overall, I found this a cute and enjoyable graphic novel, with my instincts about giving it a read well justified. While the animal characters are incredibly adorable (even if some of their species are vague, given the artist’s style), it isn’t one hundred percent family-friendly, given some occasional blood, albeit not excessive. Some plot points like that in the first trial seem to come out of nowhere, and the typical grammar and punctuation errors associated with standard comics abound. However, I highly recommend this graphic novel to those in the furry fandom seeking a fun and quick read.

View all my reviews

Ben-Hur (1959)

Posted on by Remy St. Gallen

A color remake of the 1925 silent film, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s iconic version released in 1959, like its precursor based on Lew Wallace’s epic historical novel, stars the late Charlton Heston as the eponymous Judah Ben-Hur, a wealthy Jewish prince and merchant living in Jerusalem, twenty-five years after the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, with both cities under the jurisdiction of the Roman Empire in the Judaea province. As in the book, Ben-Hur is condemned to galley slavery when loose roof tiles from a building from which he witnesses an imperial procession nearly kill the new governor. 

Three years later, Ben-Hur is a rower for the flagship of Roman Consul Quintus Arrius, who adopts him as his son after a naval battle leaves the two stranded, and the former spends time in Rome, training as a charioteer. The former returns to Judaea, meeting the Magi Balthasar and Arab Sheik Ilderim, who want him to participate in a chariot race before the new Judean governor, Pontius Pilate, although Ben-Hur initially refuses. However, after learning the fates of his sister and mother, he changes his mind, seeking revenge against Messala in the film’s iconic chariot race recreated from the silent film version and loosely done so twoscore later in the podrace of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

The rest of the film has Ben-Hur returning to Judaea to find his mother and sister, also witnessing the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. Overall, this film easily qualifies as a classic, yet deviates from Wallace’s novel in many ways, like what happens with Messala, the post-chariot race portions involving Judah’s mother and sister, and the absence of the scenes at the beginning of the Three Magi meeting and what happens with the Hurs after Christ’s execution and beyond. Regardless, it stands well by itself and is a significant part of cinematic history that warrants viewership by any cinema buff.