lovehate: Twilight - Vampire Stories Where Stakes Are Rare

Let me begin by saying that I do not dislike the first Twilight film. In fact, considering my expectations going in, I suppose it was a mild surprise that I was entertained for the 80, 90, 100 minutes? I don't remember how long it was. I will admit that I'm not rushing back to see it any time soon.

I do think, however, that Tiger Beat vampire cultures that are being spawned right now have more to do with slapping a cut out template onto a teen drama and little to do with the more traditional aspects of vampire literature.

Quite simply, Bram Stoker would be spinning is his daytime grave and Max Schreck would be flailing his arms wildly as the flash bulbs of a thousand teeny bopper cameras popped on the red carpet. I hardly think it would be too much of a stretch to expect Nosferatu 2: Dude Where's My Stake! pop up at a theater near you sometime soon.

The vampire mythos has taken a turn for the mundane. I know that Twilight is not the first or last story to bastardize all of the normal conventions that we believe about vampires, but it does seem a prime example of subjugating an archetype for sake of convenience at every turn. Why do I get the feeling that the first time Stephanie Meyer was confronted with questions about Twilight vampires not following the traditional conventions of the classic vampire character, her response was something along the lines of "well MY vampires CAN do that!"

And it's not that I mind predominantly female youth getting dragged into this quasi-vampire plotline. After all, I watched WAY worse films and WAY worse television in my time to ever have a right to pass universal judgement on anyone. It's simply that I fear that very soon the concept of Vampire 1.0 will be lost.

How many Twilight readers have read the original Dracula or looked up Vlad the Impaler? How many have come to discover vampires that could NEVER exist in daylight, or cast a reflection, or stand the smell of garlic. Hell, some vampires can't even be killed with wooden stakes anymore. What's a Van Helsing to do?

Vampires are supposed to live in creepy castles in Eastern Europe and scare the bejesus out of villagers with hypnotizing other in their charismatic thrall. Hell, the modern vampire is more likely to lust after a PSP than blood these days - which they can pick up at noon, in the middle of summer at the local mall because they're wearing some crazy ring or amulet or something that allows them to party in the sunlight... but are they really happy? No, they're all a bunch of gloomy angst-ridden teens that listen to My Chemical Romance.

And what the fuck is with the sparkling skin? Is everyone going out to a rave tonight in their "oh-so-trendy" Abercrombie and Fitch regalia?

Let's just run the list for my own gratification. I'm going to use Bram Stoker's Dracula as the comparator in this case, not because I believe it was necessarily the best vampire archetype of all time, but because it redefined the pop culture vampire of its time in a similar way to what Twilight is doing now.

Bram Stoker's vampires:

  • Fangs - YES
  • Reflection - NO
  • Shadow - NO
  • Kill with stake - YES
  • Kill by sunlight - YES
  • Decapitation - FATAL
  • Drowning - FATAL
  • Fire - FATAL
  • Garlic - WEAKENS
  • Crosses - WEAKENS
  • Running Water - WEAKENS

Twilight vampires:

  • Fangs - NO
  • Reflection - YES
  • Shadow - YES
  • Kill with stake - NO
  • Kill by sunlight - NO
  • Decapitation - ANNOYING
  • Drowning - ANNOYING
  • Fire - FATAL
  • Garlic - NOTHING
  • Crosses - NOTHING
  • Running Water - NOTHING

Welcome to Vampire 7.0 beta. Apparently it doesn't have all the annoying crashes the earlier ones had. The Blue Screen of Death has been replaced by a Facebook logo as new age vamps look for parties to go to with their sparkly skin. Apparently nothing can really kill them except each other and they can only be hurt by an angst-ridden broken heart. They also live in fancy Frank Lloyd Wright houses in the hills and have BBQs on Sundays.

Again, I want to assure you that I can't hate this evolution. After all Bram Stoker's vampires were a far off bastardization of "folkloric tales [where] vampires often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited when they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance." I guess I'm just unwilling to give up the vampire as a monster compared to some of the simpering, whining, high school seniors they seem to be now. Will the "traditional" vampire become, 100 years from now, equated with the Twilight archetype?

I get the entire vampire as an allegory for the struggles of teens growing up and coping in a modern society that alienates them and forces them to hide their true identities in their fortresses of solitude while secretly using their powers to save those that they love... wait... that sounds like Superman. Maybe Superman was a vampire. I think Superman should make appearance in a Twilight film just to shake things up. Then we could have Spock, Chewie and Gandalf come by to keep everybody happy.

thinglets: Ten Film Plots That Should Not Have Been Greenlit

Below are ten short plot summaries for films that have, shockingly, ALL been made. I have not put the name of the film at the beginning of each entry in case you'd like to play a "Name the Film" game. There is a link contained in each entry that points to the IMDB page for the film. Prepare to be dumbstruck.

  1. "A Texas Ranger is assigned to protect the only witnesses to the murder of a key figure in the prosecution of a drug kingpin -- a group of University of Texas cheerleaders. He must now go undercover as an assistant cheerleading coach and move in with the young women."
  2. "A deservedly struggling young comedian, lands a menial job on a cruise ship as the Miss-Universe contest is being held on-board. The Big Man On Deck for this voyage is the ship's comedian and all-around ladies' man. As an assorted array of thugs, Panamanian mercenaries and terrorists try to storm the ship, the young comedian hopes for one big chance to prove himself and enter the exciting world of cruise ship comedy."
  3. "After separating from his wife, a former agent quit the spy business and became a restaurateur. The government has asked him to come back and save the world again. The evil antagonist has hypnotized animals into doing her bidding, and plans to use them to take over the world! It's up to the agent to save the world, as only he can battle her Vegetarians and man-eating rabbits!"
  4. "When "street smart" rapper applies for a membership to an all-white Country Club, the establishment's proprietors are hardly ready to oblige him. Unwilling to accept that the club views him as unfit for membership, he purchases land that contains the 17th green - willing only to exchange the hole for a membership. This sets the stage for an outrageous assault on the country club and its membership committee as he and his fun-loving, streetwise crew disrupt the goings-on at the club with their irreverent attitudes and a back-and-forth prankfest."
  5. "A father's psychic abilities are put to the test when his two daughters are trapped inside of a corn maze haunted by the spirits of two young girls who disappeared a year earlier."
  6. "A professor introduces Paul to the practical-joking Kathy. Paul and Kathy seem to hit it off rather well but, during a meteor storm, a meteorite fragment strikes Paul, burying itself deep in his skull, which has the unpleasant side-effect of causing Paul to mutate into a giant reptilian monster at night and go on murderous rampages."
  7. "On the night of a big fashion show, world-famous French designer is poisoned. The same night, his murderers are trying to kill a member of the popular rap group. As the designer dies on the street, a midget witch tries to do something to save him. The next day, as the body of the designer is buried, his soul wakes up to find himself in the rapper's body. Both souls are trapped inside the rapper's body, and every time he suffers a blow, they switch personalities. A tough black rapper becomes a fruity fashion designer and then back again."
  8. "After the death of his brother, a street dancer goes to attend university. But his efforts to get an education and woo the girl he likes are sidelined when he joins in his fraternity's effort to win a step dancing competition."
  9. "Jack is a struggling baseball pitcher who has great natural talent but keeps choking under pressure. Traded to a class A minor league team, he is appalled to discover his third baseman -- and roommate on the road -- is a chimpanzee. While the chimp can actually hold his own on the diamond, Jack feels there's something a bit undignified about having to look after a monkey, and it doesn't help that the chimp has poor hygiene and a chronic case of flatulence."
  10. "An unemployed cartoonist moves back in with his parents and younger brother. When his parents demand he leave, he begins to spread rumors that his father is sexually abusing his brother."

lovehate: How Patrick Swayze Cost Me My Job

I don't think it's uncommon for many teenagers to grow up thinking that a job in a music or video store as being somewhat cool. You get to surround yourself with pop culture all day, every day, and (at least when I was growing up) had the ability to exercise that music snobbery so effectively portrayed by the clerks in High Fidelity or Empire Records.

And for a period of time, I had the opportunity to work in a video store when I was around 18 years old and going to university. While I enjoyed the job immensely, and planned on staying there for a period of time, I never thought that Patrick Swayze would cost me my job.

In as much as the part-time staff at a video store is made up of students trying to make supplemental education money, and the full-time staff (save the occasional owner/operator) is someone who is there as a way station, the average employee really lives by the basic tenet of: do as little as you can while still pulling in the minimum wage salary that's keeping you out of a fast food kitchen. From this general rule comes a couple of key realities: 1) anyone who shows any initiative whatsoever is a likely candidate for assistant manager, and 2) 15 to 18 year-old guys only show initiative for one thing, and it's not organizing a VHS inventory "fun day".

And so it came to pass that I was working in a video where the two "adult" managers had decided that the two "assistant" managers would be teenage girls. Now, let it be clear that I never coveted the job or begrudged the young women forced to oversee the occasional evening shift of the general ne'er-do-wells. I was quite happy slumming at the register, restocking the shelves or feasting on a slice of greasy pizza for dinner on the picnic table out back.

The one thing that did absolutely drive me insane however, was that both of the assistant manager were absolutely in LOVE with all things Dirty Dancing. When they worked the film played non-stop, sometimes for eight hours a shift. Maybe Bill Medley had the time of his life recording soundtrack fodder for the trite piece of cinematic drivel that was Dirty Dancing. But I wanted to sharpen a pencil and jam it in my ear after the third hour. I worked there for a year and the film never changed. Dirty Dancing from shift beginning to shift end whenever the young women were "managing". If enough of us ganged up and whined enough, we could arrange the occasional showing of Adventures in Babysitting when they went off on break... not much better I know, but a far cry from Swayze and Baby.

I soon learned that Swayze was the real culprit. For soon after the onslaught began Patrick Swayze pictures and posters started going up in the break room and magazines with his picture were left conspicuously under the register. I, through a complete lack of tactless honesty, had let it be known of my distaste for the film and everything to do with it. I could, therefore, never get away with destroying the store's dozens of copies or mangling the posters.

I would have to assert my revenge in another way.

You're probably wondering, at this point, how Swayze actually cost my job.

There was an unwritten rule in the store that once someone put a tape in, it would be allowed to finish. The tape choice was also decided by store rank. While I never was around long enough to hold such a position, the only time I had say over which tape was in the machine was 8:30am Sunday morning. The overnight guy was cashing out and I manned the front counter alone for half an hour before the "assistant managers" came in to help with the ongoing build of the post-church crowd that crescendoed around noon. One of those mornings I scoured the store, not only for something that I could live with, and was rated PG or lower, but something that disgust and revolt any of the Dirty Devotees.

I settled on a concert film. I settled on Pink Floyd at Pompeii.

For six glorious months of Sunday mornings I cranked the volume to eleven and freaked out many a church-goer and their children to the demonic strains of One Of These Days I'm Going To Cut You Into Little Pieces and Careful With That Axe Eugene. The psychedelic volcanoes exploding over the Italian ruins were enough send many a customer away from whichever section was nearby. I have to give credit to my assistant managers as they clearly hated my weekly selection, but respected the unwritten law. Although I knew I was in for three straight showings of DD when Floyd was done, Pompeii gave me a sense of poetic justice.

And we all were quite willing to grin and bear it until one Sunday morning the "adult" manager came in early and saw David Gilmour playing an acoustic guitar while a dog howled accompaniment in a studio clip. Said manager decreed that Pink Floyd at Pompeii was not an appropriate film to be shown at nine o'clock on a Sunday morning. 

I calmly retorted that "Dirty Dancing was not an appropriate film to be shown to anyone with an I.Q. above 50, yet I was forced to watch it three times a shift."  

He replied, "No one's making you watch it. You should be working anyway."

I tried to argue that my productivity suffered at having to be lulled into a soma-like trance by the horrible sappy music and hackneyed storyline.

He stammered that I should really consider if I truly wanted to be a proud family member of the store's staff.

Turns out... "no".

If it wasn't for Patrick Swayze's hunky good looks to all the teenage girls, I could've been king of the video store... not the most impressive title for sure, but how many kings do you know?

lovehate: John Hughes - The 80's Shakespeare

"Screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place."
- John Bender (The Breakfast Club)

Upon the passing of John Hughes, who most of us remember as a director, it behooves us to think back to his writing output that extended up until 2008. Hughes only directed eight films, including many 80's teen classics, and even though many of his scripts could be deemed silly, populist, or juvenile, there was an undeniable ability to tell a story and reach niche audiences.

As you peruse the following list, there are certainly some films that you may regard as "stinkers", but you'll have heard of almost all of them if you are a fan of Hollywood productions.

I know that John Hughes is not often referred to in the canon of great directors or Hollywood writers, but his are some of the most loved stories of a generation. He was master of the youth archetype. He married contemporary music with interwoven plot. His characters exuded fun, angst, and shared in conclusions of poetic justice. I daresay that had I the energy or inclination, I could draw parallels between Hughes' plots and The Bard.

John Bender as the tough guy with a heart of gold. Samantha Baker as the tortured teen who's fantasies come true. Gary Wallace as the quintessential 80's tech geek. Ferris Bueller as the untouchable Puck who we all wanted to be.

He inspired us to fight authority, have fun, be individualistic and fight for what believed in. He was an icon of pop culture and there was a time when his name attached to a film meant, at the very least, an entertaining character-driven romp.

We'll miss you Mr. Hughes. I can think of no better eulogy than the contemplation of the following:

Writer...

Drillbit Taylor (2008)
Beethoven's 5th (2003) (V)
Maid in Manhattan (2002)
Home Alone 4 (2002) (TV)
Beethoven's 4th (2001) (V)
Beethoven's 3rd (2000) (V)
American Adventure (2000) (TV)
Reach the Rock (1998)
Home Alone 3 (1997)
Flubber (1997)
101 Dalmatians (1996)
Miracle on 34th Street (1994)
Baby's Day Out (1994)
Beethoven's 2nd (1993)
Dennis the Menace (1993)
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)

...and the decade we'll all remember...

Beethoven (1992)
Curly Sue (1991)
Dutch (1991)
Career Opportunities (1991)
Home Alone (1990)
Christmas Vacation (1989)
Uncle Buck (1989)
The Great Outdoors (1988)
She's Having a Baby (1988)
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)
Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
Pretty in Pink (1986)
Weird Science (1985)
European Vacation (1985)
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Sixteen Candles (1984)
Nate and Hayes (1983)
Vacation (1983)
Mr. Mom (1983)
Class Reunion (1982)

thinglets: The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island with Robots

via youtube.com

If, even back in cheesy TV days of 1981, I pitched a made-for-TV movie to you that read as follows, how much money would you sink into it?

"The famous Harlem Globetrotters crash land on Gilligan's Island, immediately dispatching a terrifying 'shark' by throwing basketballs at it. A mad doctor and his accomplice plan to take over the island for its rich energy supply by scaring off Gilligan and his buddies, but it soon settles to a basketball match between the doctor's robots and the aforementioned Globetrotters." (via imdb.com)

In addition to this ridiculous plotline, the film would have a new actress playing Ginger, star Martin Landau, Stu Nahan, Chick Hearn, and Scatman Crothers.

After waking up from your incredulous fainting spell and screaming: NO ONE WOULD EVER MAKE THIS FILM!, watch the clip above.

You now have a new term of reference for "The New Invincibles".

thinglets: Why Blu-Ray Player Prices Aren't Dropping

“The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal.” C.S. Lewis

(The following is not based on ANY proof. It is simply a collection of inferred conclusions from a tenuously logical construct.)

The Premise...

Snakebitten by a generation-old loss in the VCR market when Beta loses out to VHS, Sony vows that they will not lose again in the High Definition DVD war. They are willing to cut ANY and all deals necessary to ensure the success of the format. They set upon contacting major electronics manufacturers and studios to ensure a buy-in to the Blu-Ray format. The resulting cost: selling out on the hope for Playstation 3 marketshare.

Connecting the dots...

Sony (the king of proprieta ry technology) tries to buy the battle against HD-DVD, which the Xbox 360 had already bought into, in the hopes of taking a stab Microsoft. With several Southeast Asian manufacturing powerhouses they open up manufacturing specs for Blu-Ray while assembling the following partners:

Apple Inc.
Dell Inc.
Hewlett-Packard
Hitachi, Ltd.
Intel Corporation
LG Electronics (Lucky GoldStar)
Mitsubishi Electric
Panasonic (Matsushita Electric Industrial)
Pioneer Corporation
Royal Philips Electronics
Samsung Electronics
Sharp Corporation
Sony Corporation
Sun Microsystems
TDK Corporation (Tokyo Denki Kagaku)
Thomson SA
20th Century Fox
Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.

Missing, of course, from the above list are Microsoft (Sony's only real gaming competitor at the time) and Toshiba, the last supporter of HD-DVD. Presumably Sony believes that by assembling this coalition, it can ensure a win in the HD media war, and, in the long term, put up a real battle against the Xbox 360 for gaming supremacy.

Flies in the Ointment...

Broadband: The ability to download content and get it to a gaming system has saved Microsoft from a higher demand for removable media with greater space. Removable media is seen by many to be dead or dying. The successes of interactive "live" gaming over networks has also shifted the core demand of gaming systems to better network play. Console gaming is becoming network gaming.

Upscaling DVD Players: People are happy with "good enough". Upscaling DVD players have given new "leases on lives" to old DVDs. They're not as good as Blu-Ray, but when you don't have a Blu-Ray, you'll never know it. Also, you don't have to re-buy your entire collection. The lower than anticipated demand for Blu-Ray players and discs further ups the options for upscaling DVD players which every low end player manufacturer pumps out with glee.

Risk of Mass Production Locks Prices: All of the manufacturers in the list above start to worry about taking the plunge. Sony WANTS everyone to take the plunge. If the Blu-Ray component prices go down through increased manufacturing, players will shoot down to $100 and the PS3 can follow to a $200 price point which would threaten the Xbox 360 market share. I honestly think Sony was ready to go there over a year ago and take the loss, but knew that the Blu-Ray coalition would ostracize them. If the PS3 drops to $200, no one else can sell a player for above $100 - EVER! This formidable corporate assembly could kill the Blu-Ray format in six months if they wanted to; Sony takes the hit, instead, by not being able to reduce PS3 prices and losing the gaming war.

Nintendo Wii: Coming out of nowhere, Nintendo reopens the console gaming war to a three ring circus with the Wii (notice how they're not on the list either). Nintendo not only kicks Sony's ass, but kicks the Xbox 360's ass as well: (as of June 30th, 2009 - units sold)
Wii – 102.49 million
Xbox 360 – 33.20 million
PlayStation 3 – 27.73 million

The Oven Timer Rings...

Blu-Ray has largely been a flop from a market share perspective. That's not to knock the technology, but, as with any removable media, technology, it's transitory, and the evolution of networking may render removable media obsolete altogether. And the final, perhaps the most disturbing, death knell to Blu-Ray could be that people really just DON'T CARE about HD for much of their "disposable" content. For the same reason that tens of thousands of people watch pirated film downloads from a shaky camcorder, or watch on their iPhone, is a pretty strong indication that there are a number of people who prefer quantity and free availability to cost and quality.

If Sony and the coalition could afford to make the $100 player, Blu-Ray would evolve and take. Until that happens: stagnancy.

lovehate: My Summer Bucket List

Below is my summer "bucket list" - i.e. things to do before summer kicks the bucket.

  • Think of a better name for this list than "bucket list"
  • Get back to Las Vegas and find a way to break the bank and come home with enough money to fund a winter trip to Vegas.
  • Spend ample time deciding whether I should get an iPhone.
  • Reassure myself that my decision to not buy a BluRay DVD player is completely justified because the cost is still too high for its own good, and even though I own a couple hundred DVDs, I never watch them.
  • Try to regain the same blogging output that I had last summer when lovehatethings first started. (Two weeks until the first anniversary!)
  • Try to encourage more of friends that Twitter is about way too much more than lifestreaming for them to use that as an excuse to stay away.
  • Catch up on the latest seasons of Weeds, Burn Notice, Ashes to Ashes, Star Wars: Clone Wars, and True Blood.
  • Go to see some late night movies... I wish they started at midnight - 10:30 is too early for this night owl.
  • Get on the ball and reserve a night for my 3rd annual Backyard Film Festival.
  • Book a gig so that my gracious friends who keep asking me to play are kept happy for another six months.
  • Find a cheap source of watermelons. Those things are like crack in the summer; gotta have my fix.
  • Play some poker with friends and at the closest casino.
  • Try at least five local restaurants I've never checked out.
  • Do at least one day of buying rush tickets for Stratford and checking out a couple of plays.
  • Find things that really piss me off... it helps the podcast rants so much.
  • Start to write the Great American novel and then give up in a violent fit having drowned myself in a sea of bourbon.
  • Start to read Finnegan's Wake... and then give up in a violent fit having drowned myself in a sea of bourbon.
  • Do annual summer viewings of Dazed and Confused, Almost Famous, Big Fish, a Kevin Smith marathon, and, if the moment moves me, a John Hughes marathon.
  • And last, but not least, read the books that have been gathering dust on the shelves for far too long.