Black Gate

The title of the Bruce Holland Rogers lead story in the latest Black Static of course makes you think it’s about Christmas. The “reason for the season” has become a rallying cry for those who want to emphasize the “Christ” part of the holiday (notwithstanding that the contemporary celebration has more to do with that literary fantasist Charles Dickens and his three ghosts, not to mention origins in German pagan worship rather than the birth of the historical Jesus, which scholarship tends to put at around April), and seeing how this issue shows up at this time of year, well, I was looking forward to some kind of horrific holiday story. Maybe a Wal-Mart employee getting crushed by holiday shoppers, or something. (Oh, sorry, real life got there first.)

It is a horrific holiday story, only it’s tangentially about Christmas. Actually, it’s about Halloween. Even more actually, it’s about real life. And real death. The beauty of the story is how it sets you up to expect certain things, beginning with the title, but leads you somewhere entirely different. And even more disturbing than initial expectations.
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I just became aware that there is a 40th anniversary edition of the cult classic television series The Prisoner. I don’t know what this edition offers that wasn’t available in the previous DVD release a few years ago, though I am certain there will eventually be 45th and 50th edition versions to continually repackage the same content. I’m actually old enough to remember when the series first appeared on American television in the summer of 1968. If you aren’t, you might not appreciate what it was like to not only have original programming in a realm of reruns, but programming that was actually truly original. While the program definitely reflects the counter culturalism of the period, in both garb and attitude, this doesn’t distract from it (as it does with say, the original Star Trek). Like The Twilight Zone, The Prisoner deals with themes that are as relevant to the Internet culture today, maybe more so, even while some of its visual references may be at times painfully archaic.

For more of my own observations on this one-of-a-kind (so much so that efforts to “re-imagine” the program as either a movie or a television series have failed; one reason why a remake like Battlestar Gallactica is so good is because the original was so bad, which is not an advantage you’d have here) you can visit here and here and here and here.

I recently rented Son of Rambow, a coming of age tale in which two British schoolboy outcasts — one, Lee Carter, a bully and troublemaker, the other, Will, a shy kid raised by his widowed mother who belongs to a strict religious fundamentalist sect — develop a common ground on which to become friends. Lee’s one interest, besides causing mayhem, is filmmaking, particularly action movies such as Rambo. Will has a highly developed imagination and has secretly written a fantastical book in which the hero rescues his father from the forces of evil (and you can figure out where that idea comes from even without ever having read Freud). The two partner to realize Will’s fantasy as a movie to be submitted to a young filmmakers contest. Complications ensue when Will casts a visiting French exchange student, who everyone in school worships as the ultimate in coolness, in a lead role; the move results in Will gaining in popularity himself while Lee becomes marginalized. Meanwhile, the religious sect is beginning to suspect that Will is violating its precepts and Will has to be more inventive in accounting for his whereabouts when he sneaks off for filming.

The English film had a limited release in the U.S. and is perhaps under the radar for the average Netflixer. It is of note to BlackGaters not only because of the fantastical theme of the boys’ movie, as well as the archtypical nerdish attraction to find comfort in fantasy escapism, but because the director is Garth Jennings, who previously directed the celluloid version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (which I haven’t seen, though I’ve heard fans are less than enamored of). Based in part upon his own childhood experiences, the movie is all the more remarkable because with one exception (Jules Sitruk who plays the French student), all of the child actors were neophytes (one of the minor characters is played by the grandson of Stanley Kubrick), though you’d never know it. If you’ve had your fill of the trite and true variations of this theme that are always playing at your local megaplex, check this one out. It restores your faith in the idea of film as a thoughtful medium, as opposed to the usual appeals to the lowest common denominator.

Well, resistance is futile.  I had little interest in being absorbed by the Blogging Borg (I mean, really, if everybody including your grandmother is doing this, how hip can it really be?) and had so far successfully remained contentedly absent from the blogoshphere.  (Well, not entirely, I do post playlists I do for a radio show on WTJU 91.1 FM in Charlottesville, VA called Vagabond Shoes, but I don’t really count that as blogging.)  But when the good folks here asked if I’d be a weekly contributor to the BlackGate blog, I figured, well, what the hell, I’d join the multitudes.  

Which brings me to a recent essay by Joe Queenan at the NY Times in which he argues a fawning book review is as bad as a poor review. Which, in turn, reminded that a little while back there was some discussion in the genre blogosphere about the lousy quality of on-line reviewing, with some attempt to correct it that proved largely unsuccessful. Now, I’ve got a regular short fiction review gig here, and I’ve been reviewing books (on-line and in print) for quite awhile. And I have to say it’s easier to write a review about how bad a book is than how good it is. If anything, I think sometimes people who specialize in panning what they’ve read have an agenda in advertising their own good taste. Not that I’ve ever not written a negative review, but for the most part I tend to review what I’m interested in, and even when it falls short of the mark in my opinion, I always wonder if the fault is my lack of understanding rather than the author’s art (which is not going to happen if you pick up your average Tolkien rip-off and go for the easy targets).  Actually, I think I’m less interested in writing a positive or negative review than to convey a sense of what I think the author is getting at, and how successful it has been, at least to me.  

 

Now, who really cares what I think one way or another is a whole other issue.