The Avengers @ War

Americans are incredibly savvy as informed viewers of films, making it difficult for film makers to exceed our expectations and live up to the hype publicity departments necessarily generate to get audiences to the theaters regardless of a film's quality. Joss Whedon's The Avengers, opening today and potentially setting the new record for biggest opening ever (currently held by last year's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2) has managed to accomplish--and surpass--all my hopes and expectations, and that's what makes a great director. (This post contains spoilers, so please see the film before reading!).

SYNOPSIS: S.H.I.E.L.D. has been trying to harness the power of the Tesseract to develop new weapons to prevent earth from an outer space attack by Asgardians like Thor (Chris Hemsworth), or worse. Loki (Tom Hiddelston) has made a deal with his people to overtake the earth, give them the Tesseract and unleash total chaos. Loki successfully "turns" Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) to his side using the power of the Tesseract while SHIELD is destroyed. Gathering Black Widow (Scarlett Johanson), Captain America (Chris Evans) Dr. Bruce Banner (who is a master in gamma rays and is hoping to track down where the Tesseract is being hidden, Mark Ruffalo) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.),  Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) tries to stem off the end of the world as best as possible.

Why does Nick Fury have only one eye? When Tony Stark enters the SHIELD ship and goes around looking at their technology, he asks how Fury can see the screens with just one eye and Marie Hill says, "He turns." Doesn't seem very profound, however, having a weakness--only one eye--makes him "capitalize" on his strengths, and being able to turn, knowing you are not going to see everything, makes you more perceptive in what you can see. As Fury himself says, the Council was counting on the Tesseract weapons to defend the world, but he was counting on something riskier, the Avengers themselves, because Fury is half-blind, he can see twice as deeply, and that includes within the hearts of super heroes (hence why he takes the trading cards of Coulson's and shows them to the Avengers). Wisdom, then, is Fury's "super hero quality" that he brings to the fight. Towards the end of the film the Council overrides Nick Fury and decides to launch an atomic bomb against New York (because it makes better sense) and for the (more than) 60% of Americans who don't want Obama-care, the legislation is rather like the Congress over-riding us and deciding it makes sense, too.

Thor comes down to bring his (adopted) erring brother to justice and help save the earth and mistakenly gets into a fight with both Iron Man and Captain America. Bruce Banner is under terrible stress not to turn into "the other guy," (the Hulk) but Loki's plan of dividing and conquering them works until he finally harnesses the strength of the monster, the Hulk to break the protection layer of the Tesseract so Loki can unleash its power. After a massive battle and the launching of a nuke warhead on Manhattan where the fighting takes place, the Avengers have saved themselves (with one exception) and the earth.

Captain America, Steve Rogers, (Chris Evans) realizing he's missed decades while asleep. In my post on Captain America, I made the point that the leadership assumed by America in World War II lead us to becoming a world power and the leadership role Captain America's "waking up" symbolizes is meant to fill the empty captain's chair on the ship he was manning. His leadership role becomes an issue in The Avengers as well, and one needing to be addressed. For my complete post, please see Captain America: A Movie Of Movies.

For Iron Man and Iron Man 2, I haven't posted, but there is an important trait Tony Stark reveals in Iron Man 2: he doesn't like to be handed things. Why? Tony Stark was "handed" Stark industries, he was "handed" over a billion dollars, he was "handed" an MIT education, he was "handed" the world on a silver platter, but Obadiah "handed" Tony over to the terrorists to be killed and then (what Tony did on his own by creating Iron Man) Tony was told to "hand over" to the government. It's a simple trait but one effectively deepening our understanding of Tony especially since he would represent the 1% Occupy Wall Street demonstrates against (those with the most money in America) and Tony not liking to be handed things reveals the inner-conflict of inherited wealth, responsibility and self-realization through individual achievement we wouldn't see otherwise.

Two times the upper-class' effect on the economy is referenced through Tony Stark: first, when the "ship of state" is going down (the SHIELD ship), it's Tony who has to go into the engine, fix it, then use his strength to push it to get it started back up (likewise, it's the middle-class hero Captain America who has to be there to help him get out). Secondly, at the end, a nuclear warhead has been fired at Manhattan and Tony uses himself as a rocket to guide the warhead into space where it not only destroys the mother ship of the aliens attacking New York, but doesn't hurt New York (the financial capital of the world). This clearly illustrates for us the role of the upper classes using their resources to guide the country/the economy and danger; granted, it would be idiotic to say that all do that, which is a personal lacking on their part, but those who have the most also want to protect it. After the portal has been closed, and Iron Man falls and is saved by the Hulk (the voters in America, please see below) Steve says, "Son of a gun," and he's right, because Tony's dad was Howard Stark who created the military industry for Stark enterprises, so Steve is saying that Stark has not only created weapons for the country's military (like in Iron Man) but has become a part of the military Stark weapons aides.

This carries over into The Avengers when Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) appears at Stark Tower and wants to hand something to Tony and he won't take it unless Pepper hands it to him. Tony doesn't want to be "handed" a spot on the Avengers team, he wants to earn it (that's why he reads the whole file) it's also why he's willing to take it from Pepper but not from Coulson: Pepper loves him, but she also knows all his faults, Tony fears Coulson, however, only sees the billionaire Iron Man and not Tony as a person. How do we know this? When Coulson enters, Pepper says, "Hi Phil," and Tony says, "His first name isn't Phil, it's Agent," because dehumanization from someone else is on Tony's mind, that's what he does to Coulson before Coulson can do it to him (more on this below).

There is a part when a Steve gives two cops orders about saving some civilians and the cop asks him, "Why should I be taking orders from you?" After a sudden attack of alien soldiers that Steve successfully puts down, the cop immediately does what Steve told him to do. Why does this happen? There is a crisis of leadership in the country: because of corruption and a lack of justice for those who participate in shady deals, we no longer recognize leaders when they come along because we can't trust anyone, hence, even Captain America has to prove himself.

This insecurity makes Tony very competitive whereas Steve's confidence comes from knowing everything he has has been earned (even the formula given to him to become the super soldier still had to be earned). This inner conflict between Steve and Tony is highlighted when we remember why Steve became Captain America: his heart. Tony's heart had large chunks of debris floating around in it (symbolizing his ego and insecurities) whereas Steve's heart would lead him to sacrifice himself for others and his country. The Avengers skillfully but subtly draws this conflict for us so it can resolve it.

When Fury explains what happens to Hawkeye and Selvig being turned over to Loki's side, Fury says, "Loki has turned them into his flying monkeys," and Steve responds, "I get that, I understand that," because it comes from The Wizard of Oz, released in 1939, which Steve would have seen before he went under for 70 years. Why is this important? Again, Captain America symbolizes that leadership, super-power status America acquired during World War II which was prophesied in The Wizard of Oz (please see A Call To Arms: The Wizard Of Oz & World War II for more). Steve understands the importance of what has happened to them because he saw what happened to Nazi collaborators, what it did to them personally and all the people who died because of them.

In this scene, Tony and Loki are in Stark Tower; what's most important about this scene is what Tony doesn't say: anything about himself. He talks about the masterfulness of the others and the power of the Hulk, but refrains from laying out his impressive array of powers:

In this clip, Tony will then say, "There's one other person you managed to piss off. His name is Phil!" and Tony refrains again from mentioning himself because he's thinking about Agent Coulson dying and avenging Coulson is more important to Tony now than his own self. This is the real moment when Tony does become a hero because he's not only putting the others before himself and exhibiting true humility, but invoking Phil Coulson's death at Loki's hand establishes that team quality that Tony has lacked since the beginning of Iron Man. Why is this important? Because Tony, again, is that 1% vilified by Occupy Wall Street which Hollywood is rescuing (and we will probably see the same thing with Bruce Wayne in the upcoming Batman).

"Be careful," Black Widow tells Captain America before he goes and fights Loki for the first time, "he's a demi-god." "Ma'am," Steve replies, "there's only one God and He doesn't dress like that." Steve's right, in more ways than one, and even though Loki insists throughout the film that he is a god (rather like some members of the press treating Obama like he''s the Messiah) Loki is a long ways from being a god and he dress reveals to us why. When he's in Hamburg, subjugating people there, he wears a scarf with a leopard print which means he's being yoked by his animal appetites (the neck symbolizes what we are led by, as an ox is yoked or an animals has a collar about its neck). Loki making his first public appearance in Germany, the land of Adolf Hitler (and I know all who disliked my reviews on The Hunger Games will dislike this also, but I didn't make either film) not only links Loki to Hitler--which Steve himself says after saving an old German man who was probably alive during the War--but also that Loki is being identified with Hitler by the film, including (as all my Liberal readers will dread to hear) Socialism.  Loki's speech about Americans naturally "not wanting to be free," that we will be more free when we realize we are not, is exactly what many Republicans have against Socialism: whereas some people are willing to sacrifice and let the government control their lives--as Loki proposes--many of us, no, most of us, are abhorred by such a concept, as are the Avengers (if they weren't, they would try to negotiate with Loki). When Thor takes Loki back to Asgard, Loki's mouth is "imprisoned" with a muzzle, like an animal, not only suggesting his appetites have been "stopped up," but not allowing him to speak so he can lead more people astray.

This is one of the times it's helpful to remember other films a film maker has been involved with, because just prior to The Avengers being released, The Cabin In the Woods was released for which Avengers director Joss Whedon was a writer. In The Cabin In the Woods, there is a painting which Holden discovers of a goat being devoured by dogs, and that goat's horns remarkably resemble the horns on Loki's outfit. Why is this important? The goat horns are a symbolism of Satan, meaning, Loki is a really bad guy (we're building this up here). In the clip below, Loki talks about a mindless beast still pretending to be a man, the Hulk, and Loki intends on using the Hulk to jump start the Tesseract's power (similar to Dracula using Frankenstein in Van Helsing) but it's Loki who wears horns (i.e., parts of an animal) making him the beast, not the Hulk:

In this conversation, at least for Republicans, imagine that Loki is really President Obama and Nick Fury is desperate because the cage" is the Constitution, that which was meant to hold the general population in order (a social contract) so the country could be stable, but now, the Constitution has to try and hold Loki/Obama in power. Why is it that Thor falls in this cage? Thor is a king, and as a monarch, he doesn't recognize in the same way the rights people have or the boundaries rulers have according to the Constitution so it nearly becomes a death trap for him. At one point, it's the billionaire ego-maniac Tony Stark who makes the comment about Loki that he's a "Full-blown diva" that he wants parades and statues which is what many of us think about Obama: he enjoys the publicity of being president, but not the work. Why am I taking time to discuss this? With big publicity dinners hosted by George Clooney for Obama, the Liberal press would have Americans believe that all Hollywood supports the current government, but a film such as The Avengers clearly undermines what the Liberal press is constantly trying to convince the populace of: not everyone loves Obama.

When Loki is locked up in the cage and Thor tries to stop him, Loki uses his duplicity trick to lock Thor in the cage and says, "When will you stop falling for that trick?" then tries sending Thor to his death. Does this illustrate for us that Thor is dumb? No, it illustrates how wicked Loki is. Because Thor is sincere and genuine--if sometimes rash--he doesn't think his brother capable of doing something duplicitous like that, so it's not that Thor keeps falling for the trick--as evil Loki suggests--rather, that Thor keeps forgiving Loki in hopes that they can be reconciled and Loki only keeps proving how unworthy he is of his brother's goodness and generosity.

Bruce Banner tells Tony Stark that his secret is "I'm always angry" then he explodes and it's the Hulk who ends up beating Loki to within an inch of his life, not Thor nor Iron Man, or Hawkeye (who wants revenge) or Black Widow who wants to erase the red in her ledger (because of all the bad things she had done before she became a SHIELD agent). When a relationship has been constructed such as this--between the Hulk who is both the power supply for Loki and the one who brings Loki down--it helps to examine the similarities so as to find the differences.

There's an important trait about Dr. Banner: the eyeglasses. Glasses symbolize the qualities of eyesight (wisdom, those who are wise can see more than those who are not) but Banner is constantly taking off and putting back on his glasses,which lets us know that sometimes he is being blind (unlike Fury who is always in a state of half-blindness) and this taking off and putting on of his glasses suggests that Banner isn't really as determined to keep the Hulk within as he suggests to everyone and, like Tony's suggestion that Banner could do more to control the Hulk, Banner just isn't doing it. In this scene, Banner tries using gamma rays to locate where the Tesseract might be hidden--ironically, it's the top of Stark Tower which is the only clean energy business in the world and the same energy (the arc reactor) that is being used to "fuel" Loki's agenda. How does The Avengers play this into Obama's clean energy plan?  Having the power to power America puts that power of control in the government's hands and takes it out of the hands of Americans. If, for example, Stark Industries were to abuse the power of power, the government would be there to correct Stark and employ fair measures; but if the government is abusing the power of power (Loki) who is going to stop the government, short of a revolution? No one could, that's why this definite reference is being made to Obama's energy policy and why it's blinding people, like Dr. Selvig.

There's a part where Hulk has started tearing up the ship and Thor comes after the Hulk to save Black Widow. The Hulk ends up "falling out of the sky," and through an old building, being found by an old man, and Banner is completely naked. There is an interesting difference, because Thor falls into a field, a natural area and has to make the decision to pick up his hammer again and continue the fight. What does it mean? The Hulk falling into the abandoned factory symbolizes Americans being "stripped of power" (the Hulk) and the industrialized part of the economy being wasted and abandoned. The old man, asking if Banner is an alien, is really asking, "Don't you live here (you're not a foreign alien, are you)? Isn't this your country, or is it his to rule as he pleases?" The work clothes are the plain clothes of the plain American who insured all Americans would have the power to rule the country and not one person (and Thor being in the field is the agriculture aspect of America that stupid laws like fuel rationing, air pollution during harvest times and children living on the farm not being allowed to work until age 18, is the part of America we need to hold onto and fight for as well).

When Loki's army arrives, the first targets they take out are... the cars. This might be a reference to the roller coaster gas prices Americans have had to deal with since 2008 and possibly the Obama administration's pushing of the Chevy Volt which it has sponsored but has not "caught on" with the American public. It's in this place that Tony asks Loki if he would like a drink and Loki declines but, after he's defeated, he wants the drink then; why? Right now, Tony gives Loki a preview of what is to come and Loki not wanting the drink symbolizes how Loki doesn't want to "take in" or "drink up" the lesson Tony is preparing for him; at the end, when he does say he'll have the drink, he's ready to listen to that reason which would have saved a lot of lives, so no, it's not the same, like Loki hopes it will be, by taking the drink later rather than sooner.  This mirrors Thor who, in Thor, didn't learn his lessons early, but had to learn the hard way, so Loki's superiority complex over his brother has no foundation as The Avengers clearly shows us.

Fortunately, we don't have to go far: both the Hulk and Loki's main color is the same, green. Green (as in The Lorax) can either mean that something is rotten (as in mold and decay) or that there's a birth, a spring time and hope, as when everything starts growing again after winter. Whereas we wouldn't normally think of the Hulk as being in step with spring, the derogatory way in which Loki uses the Hulk to gain power, then is totally destroyed by the Hulk makes us ask if we can see a pattern in power dynamics in the real world which this might be reflecting.

Bruce Banner was trying to imitate the serum given to Steve Rogers (Captain America) to make himself a super soldier but Banner's experiment went wrong, very wrong. Whereas Steve's power--his physical strength and the natural strength of his heart's nobility--is used in the capacity of a soldier, hence, can be used whenever and wherever it's needed, Banner's is for a lay person and hence can only be used/accessed when a lay person gets angry about something... When the ship is breaking up, and Banner turns into the Hulk and goes after Black Widow, the ship going down symbolizes the "ship of state" collapsing (just as the dirt collapses in the beginning after Loki's attack on SHIELD and Coulson and Fury try getting away, the earth caving in right behind them, just as we have seen in the Dark Knight Rises trailers) so the collapsing ship make Banner reflect on what's going on, and that's what makes him mad. The Hulk turning on Black Widow is because she's the one who brought him to the ship to try and help but now, instead of being a help, Banner might bring everyone down with him because his fury at being used the way Loki is trying to use him.

The power structure we see between the Hulk and Loki seems to reflect the voter rage that now-President Obama harnessed for his own uses against the Republican Party in 2008 and is now, just like the Hulk beating the daylights out of Loki, like a gorilla with a rag doll, the same voter rage being turned against Obama himself.  Again, the green color connects the Hulk and Loki in ways that other characters are not connected, also because green is the color of "hope," (because of spring and re-birth) and "Hope and change" were the 2008 slogans of the Obama campaign, we can easily enjoy the catharsis of the hope the Hulk's rampage against Loki gives us as we sit back and cheer him on, preparing ourselves to do the same in November.

When we first see Hawkeye in the film, he's up in a corner looking and observing everything. He's the one making the observation that "the door's open from both sides," and, symbolically, Hawkeye is the voters who were blinded by the news of hope and change but, being hit on the head with cold hard evidence which revitalizes his cognitive powers, he regains himself and rejoins the fight. Because he's "hawk eye," he can see clearly, but his eyes being turned a different color means that he lost his ability to see, he was seeing blue (the color of the Democrats) which led him to stealing someone else's eye, the doctor in Hamburg, so he could carry out his mission for Loki.

There's another important clue which the film provides for us: Budapest. As Black Widow and Hawkeye fight alien soldiers, Black Widow says, "This is just like Budapest all over again," referring to the 2006 protests in Budapest, Hungary, during which the Socialist government leaked a speech that was supposed to be private, in which the prime minister confessed that his party had lied to win the election and they had done nothing worthy of note the last four years of being in power and knew there was nothing they could do to win the election again. Well, for Republicans, this very much reflects what we feel has happened in the United States with Obama's administration, microphone left on and all.

When Black Widow is doing the interrogation of the Russians, her right knee has a tear in the hose and there's a bit of blood. Even though Black Widow seems to have everything under control, since legs symbolize the will, we can deduce that she is afraid/weakening in this moment and that might be part of the reason she's reluctant to heed Coulson's call to come out of the interrogation; if she gets out, she won't want to go back in. Later, when she and Bruce Banner are together and the ship is being attacked, a large beam falls on her leg and she can't get out. The weakening of her will, again, isn't a fault in Black Widow, quite the opposite, we're being shown her human nature (fear) and her super hero resolution to overcome that fear, which empowers her other skills and talents. Whereas she's able to control her fear and anxiety, the Hulk releases his to a destructive end and nearly kills her in the process.

Even more seriously, Hawkeye says, "I don't think we're remembering Budapest the same," possibly referring to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 which was against the Soviets and not the Hungarians' own government (i.e., an alien government like what Loki wants to do). These two revolts against bad leadership draws necessary boundaries for understanding how many Americans are upset with the government today, however, neither Black Widow nor Clint Barton are old enough to have been in the 1956 revolts, so they must be referring to Heroes' Square in Budapest where those who contributed to Hungarian history are honored; the reason why Clint might be referencing this is at the end of the film, many Manhattanians are complaining about the mess of the battle, instead of being grateful for the Avengers saving them (heroes).(For more on Hawkeye and the importance his role plays in the film, please see my post Men In Black III & the Victory Of the Cold War: until I saw MIB III and the character of the "Griffin," I didn't understand how Hawkeye was being used in The Avengers, but this makes much greater sense of it!).

In the beginning of the film, Loki has come and Nick Fury listens to what he says and responds, "You say peace, but I think you mean the other thing," and it's legitimate to ask ourselves, in this election year, which is very much a war causing division in the country, if the powers in the government promised something they haven't delivered, or delivered something to us that we would never have wanted had they been straight forward? It's important to note that Loki is a master at shape-shifting and being able to duplicate himself; do we see that characteristic in government leadership today?

Why does Agent Coulson die? Coulson symbolizes that part in each person that is not a super hero, but is necessary for creating a super hero (it's his blood which spurs each of the heroes onto doing what they must to bring down Loki). What do we think of when we think of Coulson? Someone rather soft spoken, kind, diligent, devoted, patriotic, sincere, and these are all wonderful qualities, qualities which build up the soul (because Coulson dies believing in the Avengers and that they can save the world even if they aren't believing in themselves or having moments of doubt) and, likewise, each of us must cultivate the Coulson-like qualities so, like Captain America, we can have strong hearts, but we also have to unleash the Hulk in us to get angry about things we should be angry about so things can change for the better. That the "Coulson quality" is necessary to each of us being a "super hero" is reflected at the very last scene, when the heroes sit in the diner eating junk food: they can't be super heroes every moment of their lives, they have to rest and eat, but taking care of themselves means they can be ready for the next challenge (consider, if you will the film Hancock with Will Smith and his alcoholic super hero, even Chronicle and Andrew's mis-use of his powers).  Coulson dying with the Tesseract weapon--but not knowing really how to use it--is like the awkwardness of the heroes in the diner being uncomfortable just resting and not in action but both, again, are necessary (though extremes) of what it takes to be human.

At the end, when the news stations are showing the devastation of New York City, one woman says, "Captain America saved my life, and I would like to tell him thank you." It's not just that Steve did that, but the history of leadership in the world that he represents for America. Agent Coulson told Steve that he had helped with Captain America's uniform; Steve said, "Don't you think the stars and stripes are a little old-fashioned?" and Coulson replies, "I think we need a little old-fashioned right now," and Coulson was right, we need that patriotic energy, that bond, that genuine hope and faith that can only come from being an American. Is it right that Marvel Comics has made a film like this? Absolutely, because the comics symbolize the American imagination and creativity, and how we get things done here. There have been too many references in films lately to America being at war for us to not be at war, and that war is being fought with every second of film.

What's Coming Up

I all ready have my 3D ticket for the midnight showing of The Avengers and, as always, will be tweeting my reaction to the film after wards! It currently holds a 92% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes (remarkably good!) so, regardless of everything, I WILL be getting my post up for The Avengers tomorrow, regardless of anything else, including The Raven which I am still working on. I have also seen the new Jason Statham film Safe which was quite good and I will be posting on that as well.
For everyone going out to see The Avengers tonight, enjoy the show!
Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner

Dark Knight Rises

Last night, I posted Latest Trailers (with several new ones) before I posted For the Lov Of Dodo: Obama's Political Allies & The Pirates! Band Of Misfits! (which I decided to post before The Raven review, as there is one last item I need to read before getting that up). Out on DVD/Blu-Ray this week is Joyful Noise (the Dolly Parton-Queen Latifah film), Haywire (Steven Soderbergh's latest action flick), W.E. (Madonna's film about Wallis Simpson) and George Harrison Living In the Material World, nominated for the BAFTA and Critics Choice for best documentary about his life and the role spirituality played in it. When I thought I had gotten up all the latest, these images and trailers were waiting, so here is the latest Dark Knight Rises:

This trailer provides us with far more information. The billionaire Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is under attack, as is all of the upper-class, and the revolt from the lower class has become irrational and criminal. Now, Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) mistaking the Batplane for a car is revelatory because she will probably mistake something else important, too. Anyway, we know more now and it looks to be excellent! In the meantime, here is a short, compliments of Warner Brothers, about the history of vampires in preparation for Dark Shadows (which, long-time readers will all ready be familiar with):

And a new trailer from The Chernobyl Diaries. It might be tempting to skip this film, but the ecocide as well as the increasing awareness of the former Soviet Union in films (The Darkest Hour, Mission Impossible 4) means that we still have quite a bit to learn about what happened "over there":

Next up is The Raven, followed by The Raid!

For the Love of Dodo: Obama's Political Allies & The Pirates! Band Of Misfits!

The Pirate Captain has to get an enormous sum of money so he can win the Pirate of the Year award; this is the whole plot of the film. Without doubt, The Pirates! Band Of Misfits presents us with President Obama's tenure as Commander In Chief: not only as the President been trying to get money out of Congress for all his plans to boost the American economy since he took office in 2008, but he's now full-sail into his fund raisers for his re-election campaign because, as the logic of Washington and The Pirates! Band Of Misfits goes, he who has the most money is worthy to be president.

In the original trailer presented above, there is the scene where the Pirate Captain lands on the Leper boat; in the film, it's changed to a "plague boat" (a possible reference to the 2008 Clive Cussler novel Plague Ship and an attempt to make the human race sterile). 

This is really only the second film I have been able to detect really supporting the presidential re-election (not that there aren't others, I just haven't seen them); the other two I have seen are The Vow with Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum (please see The Vow & Obamacare) and The Three Muskateers which was really about Obama's relationship with the liberal media (please see Apocalypse 2012: Obama & the Three Musketeers). As a Republican, I generally assume--and I think this is fair--that Hollywood is liberal and on the side of President Obama; I really have yet to see that in film and, what I have seen, may be better if it hadn't been made!

The Pirate Captain (that's his name) and Polly; all the crew believes that Polly is a parrot who is just big-boned, until Charles Darwin identifies Polly as an extinct dodo bird.

The Pirate Captain enters into a contest to become Pirate of the Year, despite his dismal record. Realizing that everyone else has a better chance than he, he decides not to run; his crew encourages him and he embarks on a series of attempts to gain gold by robbing various ships that can't be robbed (such as the Leper boat, a ghost ship, a ship with children on it for a field trip, translating, as those who can't vote in the Presidential election because they are politically disenfranchised). He happens to hold up HMS Beagle, the scientific boat with Charles Darwin on board, and is about to kill Darwin when he tells the Pirate Captain something.

Ham Nite aboard the ship which is the "best thing about being a pirate," the Pirate Captain tells his crew. Why have a ham night? Well, as best as I can figure, since President Obama isn't a Muslim, as some believe he really is, this demonstrates that he's not since Muslims don't eat ham... it's not a particularly good film.

Darwin, the atheist and definer of human beings as animals, tells the Pirate Captain that Polly, his pet, is not a parrot but an extinct dodo bird. What does the dodo bird have to do with President Obama? The environment is really his "love" and his ticket to winning the presidency. The problem is, the Pirate Captain sells the dodo for a ship of gold, is abandoned by his crew, doesn't get the Pirate of the Year award and is left without any friends. So it's a moral lesson to the president with love not to abandon the environment as his main platform.

The Pirate Captain confidently explaining to "Chuck," i.e., Charles Darwin in green coat, that he is perfectly capable of presenting Polly to the London scientific community so he can claim the "untold riches" that awaits the scientific discovery. Obama has tried to sell the idea that Republicans want dirty water, dirty air and more oil drilling, so the bond and union with the scientific community to preserve the environment is a platform Obama believes he owns; this comes out in the caricature of Queen Victoria in the film.

The Pirate Captain's main competitors aren't really for the Pirate of the Year, it's Queen Victoria who desperately wants the dodo Polly and buys Polly for a ship load of gold so Pirate Captain can win the contest. It's discovered, however, that Queen Victoria belongs to a wretched group of international leaders who dine exquisitely on rare and extinct animals just to eat them, so the crew has to band together to save Polly. Within  this scheme of interpretation, Queen Victoria's hatred of preserving the environment through the preservation of extinct/nearly extinct animals might refer to President Obama constantly "crucifying" the oil industry (via his Secretary of Energy wanting higher gas prices) and the vilification of the Republicans as being anti-environment in general.

This was the best image I could locate of the Queen Victoria from the film, but she's definitely worse than any pirate in the film. Why would this be an apt image for the presidential election? Republicans tend to like the British, and Obama tends--at least by his actions--to spit on the British every chance he has. He sent back a bust of Winston Churchill that has been in the White House for decades, gave the official state gift to the visiting prime minister as a collection of Obama's favorite DVDs that wouldn't even play in England and then recently gave the prime minister... a grill. The Pirates! Band Of Misfits, tells the audience in the person of Queen Victoria that the British deserve to be treated as such and anyone who likes the British is just as bad as she is. It's better, by far, the film posits, to be a good natured pirate that's something of an idiot, than to be a real blood-thirsty maniac like Queen Victoria is characterized as being.

Yet, there is an even more important characterization regarding Queen Victoria: Victorian morality. The Republicans, always moralizing, are likened to Victorian morality and the idea of oppressing one's desires but, more importantly, Republicans are hypocrites as, in the film, Queen Victoria says she'll put Polly in a petting zoo and instead plans to eat her. Victoria's rage and her attempt at wiping out the pirates is basically like the Republicans trying to wipe out Democrats from political office in November and, the film puts forth, simply because someone as bad as Victoria wants to destroy the Democrats, must mean that there is quite a bit that is good about them hence, the logic goes, don't vote for her, vote for the Pirate Captain.

The Pirate Captain's crew, or, the constituents of President Obama likely to vote for him. The second pirate from the left, with the large, orange beard is called "the Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate" because it's really a woman dressed as a man. She gives the Pirate Captain several longing glances throughout the film, and is seen without her beard once but, the question has to be asked, is this what the men in the Democrat party think of the women in the Democrat party? That they are really dressing up like men? Or do women in the Democrat party have to dress like men in order to "get in?" For the party that is supposedly the "friend of women," this is really a point that should be discussed in party ranks... but there is also Albino Pirate, and the Pirate with a Scarf, and the Pirate Who Likes Kittens and Sunsets, meaning, that the "band of misfits" by society's standards are those that rally behind Obama. IF I WERE an Obama supporter, which I am not, I would not want to be viewed in such a light, so I feel sorry for those who are being treated as such. Then again, maybe they like that... this isn't the first time "misfits" have been used to describe the politically dis-enfranchised: in 1964, another stop-motion animated feature like The Pirates! Band Of Misfits, used the term for the Island of Misfit Toys, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer because of the political upheaval in society at the time (please see Misfits & Nitwits: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer for more).

There is a second political platform President Obama's supporters--the one making the film, anyway--believe he can stand on: sodomy. According to The Pirates! Band Of Misfits, the story is about the Pirate Captain winning the 59th Annual Pirate Of the Year award; the first image of the film is the monkey holding up the card that the story takes place in 1837; 59 years ago is 1778 when (future president) George Washington, as Commander In Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, dishonorably discharged Lieut. Frederick Gotthold Enslin for attempted sodomy with a soldier. For the supporters of Obama who made this film, they are siting President Obama's free entry of gays into the military and the openness of gays serving publicly (even as he takes away their medical benefits) as a reason why he should be Commander In Chief again.

The Pirate Captain with his No. 2 happily admiring the Wanted Posters Queen Victoria has put on his head for rescuing the dodo from her ferocious appetite.

A point of consideration for the film is that Queen Victoria, to get the dodo, pardons the Pirate Captain of all his piracy crimes, and when that happens, he's no longer eligible to win the Pirate of the Year award. By the end of the film, the Pirate Captain has so infuriated and outraged Queen Victoria, that 100,000 gold doubloons are offered for his capture, meaning, that to President Obama's backers who made this film, as long as he is the enemy of the Republicans (Queen Victoria) Obama will have the support of the pirates (the Democrats).

The Pirate Captain and Charles Darwin.

Lastly is the alliance with Charles Darwin.
It is a matter of diametrical oppositions that Darwin's initial "discoveries" and theories about evolution undermined faith and morality in Victorian England. The makers of the film seem to want to do that again. If America will abandon the ugly, hypocritical Victorian values, The Pirates! Band Of Misfits reasons, then we can embrace Darwinism, which means that we don't have to worry about things like religion or morality, especially sexual morality, meaning, the government owes it to us to provide birth control and abortions because we are animals that have to be provided for.

In conclusion, some backers of the Obama administration have made this film to provide advice to the president about his bid for re-election and how he should go about it. If you are a Democrat, you may like the film, you may not, but these are the ideas being presented for your candidate. If you are Republican, the film offers us insight into the thoughts of some factions of the Democratic party and what they are counting on to be Obama's strongest points in the election. The film suggests that all politicians are pirates, but a "good pirate" is better than a dodo eating monarch and animalistic sexuality is better than rigid morality (why don't you scroll back up to the top and watch the trailer again, you might see it very differently now).

The Pirate Captain bedecked in his pink pirate's coat because he's won the Pirate of the Year award.

Latest Trailers

I love Tom Hardy. I love Jessica Chastain. Gary Oldman? He can do no wrong. Guy Pearce just had an impressive showing in Lockout; here's Lawless, due out August 31.

"This is a war they're waging," and the disintegration of Franklin is probably like all the other Civil War references in films these days. Quentin Tarantion's latest is a Western, two years before the Civil War; with an all-star cast (Jamie Foxx, Lenoardo DiCaprio, Christopher Waltz [you remember, the Nazi from Inglorious Bastards that killed everyone?], Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Costner, Kurt Rusell, Don Johnson--the list continues--Sacha Baron-Cohan, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Keith Carradine, etc., etc., etc.,) Django Unchained is set for release this December (no trailer yet).

Who would be conducting illegal activities that thinks they are higher than the law and can get away with it? I'll let you answer that one. It's probably not by accident that John Carter was from Virginia, the film Lawless takes place in Virginia and Jennifer Connelly is named Virginia in the upcoming trailer due May 18:

Virginia was the premiere state in the early history of this country, the greatest politicians came from the wealthy state and the continual invocation may be a reference to that early history of the country. House At the End Of the Street, starring Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games) and Elizabeth Shue (Adventures In Babysitting) is due out in September:

It's very interesting, a double murder; the child killing the mother and the father, would of course symbolically mean a generation of Americans killing the Founding Fathers and Mother Church. That will be an interesting film.
Good news! With over 70 reviews, The Avengers opening this week is FRESH!

Women with different talents, Whitney Houston's last film Sparkle opens August 17:

Opening September 28 is Looper:

In and of itself, Looper might not be that impressive (except that it is, on a political level, because what we do now is going to effect us killing ourselves in the future). But Safety Not Guaranteed, due out in June, is the opposite, going back in time to right regrets; what regrets would you right?

A way of looking at the "coming of age" genre is as a "time travel film into the future," because children are the future, so when there is a film about kids wanting to kill themselves... that's pretty serious, in too many ways:

David Croenberg.
I just don't know that I can watch another film by him, but here Cosmopolis, the story of a 28 year-old billionaire who gets in his stretch limo to drive across Manhattan for a haircut and all the class war protests he faces in the day:

So many great films coming out, and this is only a handful!

What I Saw This Weekend

Friday was my birthday, so my family has graciously lavished celebrations upon me; I did get some much needed sleep over the weekend and am feeling much better now.

For my birthday, my dad and sister took me to see The Raven and, despite being as radical of a cross-section of American movie-going viewers as we are (dad likes only action, the less dialogue the better; sister likes rom-coms, the more romance the better; I like foreign films, the more abstract, the better) all three of us loved it! I went back and saw it a second time, having missed a couple of items. Before sis and I got to the theater, dad said he heard people leaving who were complaining about how bad it was; when I went back the second time, the usher told me how much she liked it, and while I loved it he first time, I liked it even better the second time!

I also saw The Pirates! Band Of Misfits and see it as a pro-Obama film, supporting his re-election campaign. I also saw the highly-acclaimed (and deserving of every bit of praise) The Raid: Redemption which was truly an incredible film! It's possible that it illustrates for us the intense conflicts taking place in the Philippines between Islam and Christianity and the stakes for the people there, materially and spiritually. Much later today, I will have up my review of The Raven, and tomorrow I will be able to get up the reviews for both The Pirates! Band of Misfits and The Raid.

Readers have most generously been leaving a plethora of comments, and I deeply appreciate it and will be answering all of them asap!

Everything You Need To Know About Edgar Allan Poe Before You See The Raven (film)

Edgar Allan Poe.
While many--if not all--would claim such writers as Mark Twain or Ernest Hemingway, Emerson or Mailer, or any other to be America's greatest writer, without hesitation, I would grant the distinction of greatest American author to Edgar Allan Poe. I want you to know my bias up front; I would award him this distinction based solely on his literary merits, yet even more so in his favor is how he raised the standards of American literature through his critical essays and reviews of the time (for which, when considering his contemporary reputation, he was just as well known as for his literary endeavors). While his many scathing words at contemporaries earned him many enemies, Poe successfully made the general American reading audience (a constantly growing demographic to be sure) a more demanding reading audience and a more informed reading audience, teaching them the critical skills necessary to distinguish the good writing from the bad.

Edgar Allan Poe, a 1848 daguerreotype. What was Poe like? Accounts vary widely, mostly because of the acquaintances giving the accounts many years after Poe's death. One characteristic it seems all agree upon is his neatness of dress, even when his funds were lowest, he was always tidy and dressed as well as possible. Accounts vary widely regarding Poe's relationship with alcohol: while he has the repute of being a drunkard even today, there are only a few sporadic bits of evidence linking him with alcohol and alcoholism. It has been suggested in American literary circles that Poe's physical condition required only a small amount of alcohol to effect the symptoms of drunkenness which would require a great deal more in other men. How The Raven deals with Poe taking of drink will be interesting, especially if Poe actually gets drunk in the film. He was about 5'8 in height, some claimed he was bow-legged but not all and he had gray eyes, dark wavy hair. We was considered to be of excellent manners and always saw himself as a Southern gentleman even though he was born in Boston. Poe was very aristocratic in his bearing and that kind of superiority comes through in the clip preview of The Raven when he meets the inspector for the first time and wants to leave.

In preparation for The Raven, being released today, let's do a very brief biographical sketch then move onto the works we should know about before we see the film. Born in Boston, both of Poe's parents were actors, a fact that plagued him in later years because of his "mean birth" (lower-class); Poe had an older brother and a younger sister. Orphaned by the age of two, Poe was taken in by John Allan of Richmond who never formally adopted Poe. The relationship with Allan was a turbulent one and, whereas Poe appears to have tried to look upon Allan as a father-figure, Allan (by his letters) preferred to remind Poe that he was naught more than a charity case to the Virginia gentleman.

Virginia Clemm Poe, the 13 year-old cousin Poe married. Women to Poe were always "ideal," angels, never sexualized objects of desire, but a goal. Incest was also a sometime theme of Poe's. It appears that he and aunt/mother-in-law lied about Virginia's age so they could be wed.

Poe, as can be imagined, excelled in anything that interested him including sports of the day. He fell in love with Sarah Elmira Royster and was perhaps engaged to her, but once Poe left for the university, Sarah's father did not give her any of Poe's letters so she married someone else; it's important because, after both of them were widowed in later life, they became involved again just before his death (in the film The Raven, this is probably the woman "Emily" to whom Poe, played by John Cusack, is engaged). After being in the University of Virginia for only one year (amazing that such a great writer had such a limited education!) he went on to try and secure a path for himself in the army, then left to attend West Point; it seems that Mr. Allan's refusal to pay even basic expenses for Poe's stay there meant that he had to contrive his own court martial to be free again; this he did.

The cottage in Bronx, New York where Poe spent the final years of his life. This is the house wherein his young wife Virginia died in 1847, two years before Poe's own death.

Poe spent time trying to make a living full-time by writing, moving about to cities where there were growing numbers of magazines. He had a reputation for his writing, but during his life, in the United States, it was really his literary criticism that made him a well-known figure. Poe was always better known in Europe, especially France. Why? America was in a turbulent period during Poe's life, there was a great expansion going on; whereas other writers (not necessarily important ones, but those Poe competed with for publication) were writing about the adventures and exploration of America, Poe wrote about the adventures and exploration of the mind, a topic of far greater interest to well-settled Europeans.

One of many illustrations for Poe's poem The Raven.

When Poe married his 13 year-old first cousin Virginia Clemm, she brought him to a stable point in his life of being free of alcohol and producing many great works. They still struggled, but this was probably the happiest time of Poe's life--if he ever had such a happy time--and after her death from tuberculosis, Poe became increasingly unstable. He found, shortly before his death, his lost childhood sweetheart Sarah, herself recently widowed, and Poe was presumably still attached to her when he died mysteriously, which The Raven is supposed to be exploring.

Illustration by French impressionist Édouard Manet for the Stéphane Mallarmé translation of The Raven, 1875.

On October 3, 1849, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore, delirious and in great distress; he died in a hospital, so incoherent, he could give no account for his condition, the clothes he was wearing (which were clearly not his own) or his suddenly deteriorating health. After repeatedly calling out the name "Reynolds!" the night before, Poe died at 5 am on Sunday, October 7. All medical records and death certificate information has been lost and is still a mystery to this day. One literary explanation for his death comes from author Matthew Pearl, and I am happy to recommend his novel about the last days of Poe's life, The Poe Shadow, as a entertaining, well researched, novel.

Gustav Dore's illustration for The Raven.

What stories and poems will The Raven be invoking that we should be familiar with before we see the film? The Murders In the Rue Morgue, which opens the film, with the murders of a mother and her daughter. Poe is also the inventor of what we call today the "modern detective," or at least, the values and expectations by which we measure a good detective; in other words, Sherlock Holmes would not exist were it not for Edgar Allan Poe. In The Murders In the Rue Morgue, it is Poe's deducing champion C. Auguste Dupin who solves the crime of the murders with a bit of hair, hence, Poe gave birth to the literary detective. In the film, it will be interesting to see how Detective Emmet Fields (Luke Evans) measures up to Poe's standards and which of them does more to solve the crime

John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe and Luke Evans as Emmet Fields. Of course, I have not seen the film yet, but in this shot, the light on the table is in-between them, a little more towards Poe; is that how this scene will play out, that Poe is "shedding more light" on the mystery than Fields? Sources of light, windows, mirrors and reflections will play the role of valuable additional commentary in the film, and aid us in getting closer to the characters.

The Pit and the Pendulum, about someone being torn in two, is in the film, as well as The Tell-Tale Heart; what these two stories hold in common is that the murderer narrates the story, so the reader is being forced to identify with someone committing a crime. Similarly, is Poe's Italian story, The Cask Of Amontillado, where the murderer--the main character--is set upon deadly revenge and buries his enemy alive.
Which brings us to a theme: being buried alive.

Dore's illustration for the end of The Raven.

Americans in the Victorian period became frenzied about the possibility of being buried alive, so much so that some took the precautions of having emergency devices buried with them in case they should revive and need to alert someone to their condition (doctors were actually mis-diagnosing hundreds of people for dead, rather like Dr. Watson (Jude Law) with Lord Blackwood in Sherlock Holmes). Poe was happy to capitalize on this for his stories and wrote both The Fall Of the House Of Usher and The Premature Burial. From the trailers, we know Emily in The Raven is buried alive, so while discerning what the film is really about, we should be considering what "childhood sweetheart" has America been reunited with and is being buried? For example, the idea of the "American Dream" being buried alive in debt?

The facsimile of Poe's original manuscript page for The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

We know there is also reference to The Masque Of the Red Death because the villain rides into the masquerade ball with a skeleton mask on; lines from Poe's poem A Dream Within A Dream and Annabel Lee have lines quoted from them (from another review I read) and, of course, there will be reference to that fantastic poem, The Raven.

The Tell-Tale Heart by Harry Clarke.

There are so many potential sources for the film, that it's tempting to jump in before seeing it, but these are aspects of Poe we should keep an eye on: doubles, Poe was fond of using pen names for himself, does the villain do that as well? Are people in Poe's life playing more than one role to him? Poe was a champion of the idea of "Art for art's sake," so I'm going to be looking for evidence of that; what am I looking for? I don't know, but I'll be looking! Another theme is disease, not only the fatal kind in The Masque Of the Red Death, but the nervous kind of diseases like in The Tell-Tale Heart.

Emily buried alive in The Raven.

Why is this film important?
Whether you think Edgar Allan Poe is a great writer or not isn't the point; historical films are never ever never never about history, they are always about the here and the now, and they are meant to be mirrors, catalysts for our own times so we can see ourselves in what Poe diagnosed. Just as Poe is called to search out clues upon the bodies of the murdered, so we are called to search out for clues in the body of the text, the film, for what it's trying to tell us today. Have fun!