I finally saw Twilight.
Even with the aid of my snarky spouse and the Rifftrax team it was still tough going. I ended up downing an entire bottle of red plonk to help things along.
Of course I don’t expect teenage girls to get excited by the boys of Glengarry Glen Ross and I am glad they’re reading something and I’m all in favor of the local jailbait exerting a modicum of sexual self-control but cripes. This? It’s flippin’ Smallville with candy-cane vampires.
I have it on good authority (Laurene Landon herself) that Hundra 2 is filming in Portugal this summer, with the same director as the original. He’s in Sintra/Cintra now. I’m hoping it’s another good-looking widescreen production rather than a direct-to-video cheapie.
So Hundra is once again keeping the embers alive, this time of Sword and Sorcery movies . . .
Sword and Sorcery enjoyed a brief, mostly-unhappy revival in the 1980s. Much of it came in the wake of John Milius’s Conan The Barbarian (1982). Some were downright awful (Ator the Invincible 2), some had their moments (the disappointing Conan the Destroyer), some I really like despite their flaws (The Sword and the Sorcerer).
While I was of an age and inclination to see pretty much anything S&S related in the early 80s, somehow I missed Hundra (1983). Thanks to DVD I came across this cubic zirconium-in-the-rough by accident. What I said “in the wake of Conan” above goes doubly for this — Hundra isn’t so much in the wake as it is being towed by Milius’s epic. The plot arc follow’s Conan’s sandaled footsteps, it was filmed in Spain not only using similar locations but Conan’s leftover sets and what I suspect are bits of the costumes as well.
That being said, it’s a well-done picture. Usually low-budget movies look low-budget, but this one manages to rise above the dollars spent into something bigger-and-better looking.
“Take Courage– now there’s a sport / An invitation to a state of rigor mort.”
-sang Mordred in Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot.
The virtue of courage is the one commonality all the great heroes share. They persevere, even to a bad end, as Sam Gamgee said to Frodo as strength and hope flagged. Whether it’s Conan throwing himself into a ring of enemies, determined to break free or die:
With his back to the wall he faced the closing ring for a flashing instant, then leaped into the thick of them. He was no defensive fighter; even in the teeth of overwhelming odds he always carried the war to the enemy. Any other man would have already died there, and Conan himself did not hope to survive, but he did ferociously wish to inflict as much damage as he could before he fell. His barbaric soul was ablaze, and the chants of old heroes were singing in his ears. (Howard, The Phoenix on the Sword, 1932)
or Han Solo’s “Never tell me the odds” a hero’s first and foremost virtue, from the classics to the anti-heroes of today, is courage. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield, as Tennyson put it in his tribute to Ulysses.
John O’Neill and Howard Jones did me the honor of asking me to participate in this group blog, so I’m here to introduce myself.
My name is E.E. Knight and I’m a writer of fantasy, sf, and horror — in other words, the genre section that’s usually to be found in bookstores by the romances and mysteries. Of course I have a website and a blog of my own. You may have already seen me here with my “Knight at the Movies” shorts.
I fell into the Black Gate orbit by corresponding with John some years back when I was unpublished and struggling to change that (he rejected a story but gave me some good commentary) and entered Howard’s social circle when we discovered we shared so many of the same interests, like gaming, movies, pulp literature, and blood sacrifice to the Prince of Serpents while our captive women are whipped to dance faster, faster, FASTER! Black Gate was publishing the sort of new short fiction I liked to read: well paced, a strong storyline, some interesting characters, and plenty of action. This isn’t to say the other mags are churing out crap, far from it, I just enjoy the style and variety that John chooses to feature.
Also, the magazine respects gaming.
Seemed like they had an interesting vision for this group blog. While there’s plenty of brainpower lined up, I doubt it’ll turn into an online Algonquin Roundtable of Postmodern Literary Theory. I rather think we can hope for an Iroquois Confederacy of Heroic Fiction, though. Look for a few flung tomahawks.
They generously gave me a blank check to write about whatever I like, whenever. Don’t worry, I won’t be rating early sixties centerfolds here (that’s what the blog is for!). What I will be doing is talking about adventure fiction, hopefully that of others but if I get really desperate I’ll discuss my own work.
So thanks for the invite, Howard, and the set-up, David, and the vision, John. I might make you my regular Saturday Night Thing.