The Raven & the Raccoon: Edgar Allan Poe & Karl Marx

Once again, I have managed to thoroughly enjoy a film given a ridiculously low rating by the critical establishment (21% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes). Why? To me, James McTeigue's  The Raven not only gives us a wonderful chance to "play" with Edgar Allan Poe, but we are given clues throughout the film, just like the killer leaving clues on the body of the victims, and those clues are meant to lead us to a "bigger game" namely, the relationship between art and money.

Why call the film The Raven? In many ways, Edgar Allan Poe is  his best known work: we know Poe because we know The Raven (the poem). Poe himself was well-known, but mostly for his criticism of art and literature published in newspapers. Now, as then, his best known literary work is the poem The Raven and since there is a raven at the beginning and end of the film, we could almost take the bird in the film (as in the poem) to be a kind of double for the writer himself, i.e., the creature and created are the same, and to some degree at least, the villain, Ivan, wants to be linked with Poe in the same, vain way.

Because it is a literary film, the film makers will reward those who are avid readers of Poe's works (just as Poe himself will reward with a drink any man in the opening bar scene who can complete the line, "Quoth the raven, ___). For example, Inspector Emmet Fields (Luke Evans) asks Poe (John Cusack) if he has ever written a story about a sailor, and Poe says no. The first story referenced, however, was The Murders In the Rue Morgue which was about a sailor (the owner of the orangutan). Those who have read the story get a moment to indulge a superiority complex, one that rarely gets to be indulged (but please do not think you have to have read all his works to see the film; it does a wonderful job carrying you along).

Poe had many enemies during his lifetime, mostly because of his attempts to raise the standards of American literature, which led to him critically criticizing nearly all his contemporaries. The bar scene in the beginning of the film cannot be underestimated in its importance. In many ways, it accurately reflects, for example, the hostility of other writers towards Poe. That only one person in the room--a Frenchman--is capable of completing the line "Quoth the raven, ____" reminds Americans today how it was the French who had greater admiration for Poe than his own country. Yet the scene reveals a deeply political one, the relationship of art to the economy. Poe doesn't have the money to buy a drink because he's broke but wants a drink on the merits of being an internationally lauded poet, which he was (well, to some degree then) but no one will give it to him. Is this a bad thing? No, because, as Maddux (Kevin McNally) Poe's publisher at the Baltimore paper says to Emmet Fields, "Poe never killed anything but a bottle of Brandy." Poe's drinking will become the metaphor of what "buries his art alive" because alcohol has pickled his brain.

Something else the informed reader of Poe knows is that Poe never had a pet raccoon, as he does in The Raven. What's the purpose of this? Raccoons wear "a mask" just as members of Emily Hamilton's (Alice Eve) masquerade birthday ball in Baltimore do. A mask hides the features and covers something up, so what is the raccoon hiding/covering up?

The mask of a raccoon. After Poe's house is burned down by the killer, all the windows deliberately knocked out, a fireman brings a cage to Poe that is covered with a blanket. He tells Poe that they found him and inquires if the raccoon belongs to Poe and Poe says, "I recognize his voice," and takes him by that identification alone. Of all the books and all the writing of the poet burned up in his house, the animal, what most people would consider "a pest" is left. The windows of the house knocked out means a lack of or inability to "reflect" and self-meditate (houses are symbols for the soul) and the house being burned symbolizes, as Poe himself recites watching it be destroyed, the soul in damnation and hell. Carl's voice is all, then, we need to identify him in the rest of the film, but who is Carl?

Poe calls him "Carl," but we know the film takes place in 1849, the year Poe died; in 1848, The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx was published, laying the foundations for nations to transit to a new economic model of socialism then communism. What does the film think about The Communist Manifesto?

Poe and Emily both wearing masks (like Karl the Raccoon) at the costume party given by Charles Hamilton, Emily's father, on behalf of her birthday and just before Emily is abducted by the killer. It's important that Emily tells her father that she's decided to change her costume for the ball and he refuses to let her; why? Because that shows us that everything could have been changed in the film, yet it was specifically kept for a reason and we just have to find what that reason is.

When we first see Karl the Raccoon, Poe has a human heart he dissects on the desk, reciting thoughts/lines from Eureka! also from 1848 (Poe considered it to be the most important of all his works), and telling Karl how "All the secrets and mysteries of our species" lie within the chambers of the heart; then, there is "a tapping at his chamber door," and Emily enters reciting Annabell Lee. Poe and Emily then go to the couch to discuss marriage and Emily asks what C/Karl is eating and Poe tells her a human heart. Is this Karl Marx, the materialist, eating the secrets of the human soul, the very divine heartbeat of the universe (as Poe describes it in Eureka)?
Yes.

As Emily and Edgar are courting, Karl eats the heart in the corner of the room. Emily's youth, she's about half Edgar's age, being born (as we know from the wooden cross at Holy Cross cemetery) in 1826, the 50th Anniversary of the United States Declaration Of Independence and the day that both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson die. Why is this important? From their death, the future of the country would come, the era of the Founding Fathers having past. There is another, important detail to The Raven (film): the paper publishing Poe's work is called the Baltimore Patriot, "patriot" referring, of course, to the American Revolution, love of country and devotion to its cause. So Emily both symbolizes America, as a Hamilton, and Poe's art since she is his love and inspiration (so the film tells us). What happens to her happens to both the country--the United States--and Poe's art. When Poe is dying, towards the end, and he finds the door leading downstairs into the unknown basement, Poe metaphorically goes within himself to find Emily--his art--in that place where only he knows to look for her, and only he can hear her faint voice and save her by sacrificing himself.

While Karl eats the heart, Poe espouses Emily. Emily's last name is "Hamilton," the same last name of the United States' first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton who, unlike Marx, set the US on a path of capitalism and industrialization. So, visually, we have the poet Poe (who is poor) espousing Hamilton and capitalism while Karl and socialism eat away at the very humanity it claims to serve and protect. You probably have two objections: first, her last name of Hamilton is random, that it doesn't man anything, and secondly, Poe criticizes industrialization later in the film in the poem of Mrs. Bradley's. 
First objection first.

Detective Emmet Fields (Luke Evans) with his fellow police officer John Cantrell (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) from a scene later in the film. The killer has led them to Holy Cross church but the church is locked; Cantrell sees an unlocked door and goes to enter when the killer jumps from the roof, slashing Cantrell's throat. Fields comes to his aid and is shot in the shoulder so that only Edgar is left to pursue the killer. Why does this happen? Much of The Raven is reminiscent of Guy Ritchie's 2009 hit Sherlock Holmes, a hero owing his existence to Poe's invention of the modern detective and the film makers wanting to remind audiences of that. Cantrell getting his throat slashed before he can enter the church is the killer's way of saying that he doesn't want the detective stories to be Poe's legacy (or the police to succeed where he wants Poe to succeed) rather, the killer wants the literary works to succeed, although it's precisely the qualities in the detective stories that must be employed to catch the killer. The killer jumping down from the roof symbolizes his "bird's eye view" of everything taking place and his wanting to direct the events above everyone else's understanding.

Emily's name was intentionally changed to Hamilton.
Towards the end of his life, Poe became re-attached to a childhood sweetheart, Sarah Elmira Royster, a widow (it's unknown/disputed if they were engaged in real life or just seeing each other). Emily is both much younger than Sarah and they have different names, (although Sarah's and Emily's fathers both seek to keep their daughters from Poe) so Emily Hamilton really should have been named Sarah Royster, but this is an altered fact in the film. The youth of Emily reminds us of when the country was young--the Founding Fathers, including Alexander Hamilton, wanting the country to be prosperous and wealthy--and the decisions made about who Emily will marry translates to the decisions made in the country's early history about what it would become and how.

Captain Charles Hamilton (Brendan Gleeson) the father of Poe's love Emily Hamilton, or, as Poe puts it, "The gun-toting Philistine." He's involved in one of the murders in an interesting way: Hamilton's watch is stolen and sewn into the mouth of the sailor killed in Emily's dress (more on that below). As a Hamilton who thought he had lost his watch (which had really been stolen) we can understand his watch to symbolize history and that we should look at history when looking at him; that he thought the watch had been stolen can be taken to mean that someone stole Alexander Hamilton's role from history as the economic founder of the country. (To re-enforce the idea of history being associated with Captain Hamilton, the masquerade he throws for Emily's birthday is being held in the Baltimore Museum, which of course is a depository of history).

So, the name "Hamilton" isn't coincidence, but intentional,  and Alexander Hamilton, the father of American capitalism, is meant to be a deliberately juxtaposed against the father of Socialism, Karl Marx, in the scene. To show us that the audience is supposed to be thinking of the economy in this moment of espousal, Emily asks--as Edgar kisses her--"How much money did you make for the poem of the bird again?" referring to The Raven, for which he received $9 and change. This presents us with The Raven's (film's) critique of capitalism: there are things which are beyond money, which are beyond price and, while Poe received a meager $9 for The Raven then, it's influence of art across the world could never be measured.

Poe with his clothing soiled by the muddied puddles on the road. He has just gotten out of the coach of the Hamiltons' wherein Captain Hamilton has threatened to shoot him; the mud splattered upon Poe reveals a deeply accurate truth about artists in America: they are spit upon. Since art is a very different type of occupation than medicine or the army or law, it's easy for artists to be regulated to the lowest class of society, as Poe is in this shot.

At one point, we see Poe reciting The Raven for a gathering of women and he invites Mrs. Bradley to read one of her poems, in which she refers to "the butterfly and brother bumble-bee" as a "honey-making thing" so it would rhyme with "spring." Poe, with his great skill at interpretation, makes the case of Mrs. Bradley's brilliance by pointing out the drama of  the "beauty of nature" against "recently mechanized society" and how "thing" turns the bumble bee into nothing but "a clog bent on destruction."  Just as we are all revealing more of ourselves in interpretation of art than anything about society or the artist (myself included) so Poe reveals more about himself in his interpretation of the poem, because he then sees himself in the bumble bee--Poe's art is the nectar of culture--but, despite Poe's "lauded" status as a poet, he's naught more than a clog bent on destruction because society has mechanized individuals in mechanizing production.

Emily in a coffin with dirt on top of the coffin (it's not known by her or the audience at this point how deeply she's buried) but she's managing to stay alive. Emily takes the boning from her corset and uses it to carve a hole into the coffin to allow fresh air in; her captor, however, realizes what she has done and comes over, looking at her through the hole; Emily, brave girl, takes the sharpened boning and rams it through the hole into the eye of her captor, but it doesn't do anything to him; why not? Poe claims that no one has ever inspired him like Emily, so, again, we can take her to be an metaphor for his art, but attempts at hurting Ivan have failed elsewhere int he film, which means we are to take Ivan as a metaphor for art as well (the third time I saw the film, when this scene came up, the women behind me actually screamed out, so real is the audience's anticipation that Ivan's eye has been completely shattered). But we can easily argue that Ivan is a perspective on Poe's art, an insight that may or may not be legitimate, but is metaphorically there nonetheless, and that's why Ivan doesn't die, he's not a real character who can die.

So, how does Mrs. Bradley's poem about industrialization--an inherent aspect of capitalism--not undermine the anti-socialism of the film? First, industrialization is a part of capitalism, but not owned by capitalism (the Soviet Union and China had/have tons of factories) but Mrs. Bradley's poem does site the tendency of capitalism to not value art, to disregard beauty. Poe's interpretation, it could be argued a work of art itself, is the very "thing" (the honey-making thing) saving capitalism from becoming overly mechanized to the point that society is ruined by its own advances in technology and production. So the production of art hinders the damaging effects of production of technology.

Why does Poe call Fields "the infamous?" Because of a large number of cases which Fields had failed to solve.The real-life detective leaves much for Poe to desire, given that Poe's detectives are able to determine crimes simply by setting back and thinking about them, but the fight the two of them have reminds the audience that a person can be neither completely emotional nor completely logical, but both. Perhaps the most important contribution Fields makes to the case (besides tracking down Reynolds in Paris) is recognizing the attributes of Ivan's killing spree as a "game," a game which can be liked in scope to other games we have been seeing, specifically in Moneyball and The Hunger Games.

Which brings us to the point of the story, the whole engine of the plot: why is there such a blurring of the line between fact and reality, between the writings of a man and someone trying to realize them and actually carry them out? Because that's exactly what's happening in America today, President Obama trying to turn the writings of Karl Marx into a reality in the United States. The film makers of The Raven seem to be arguing that not only would it be bad for the economy, but for art as well.

Poe with Ivan (Sam Hazeldine), or Reynolds, if you prefer. Why is he named "Ivan?" Simple, because of the Russian associations with the name "Ivan," (as in the iconic ruler of Russia, Ivan the Terrible who not only oppressed people's liberties, but oppressed the upper classes as well, as is occurring in the United States today) and because it was Vladimir Lenin who brought Russia into the socialist/communist system, which is what--many of us believe-- is trying to be done to the United States today. But Ivan appears to be a man actually rich who poses as being poor, something we will need to keep in mind in upcoming films where the villain is a double (such as G.I. Joe Retaliation).

Before furthering this line of thought, let's pause to consider other angels of the film, such as Rufus Griswold and why he's butchered by the pendulum. In real life, Griswold outlived Poe, and became the executor of his literary estate (how, no one knows) and was the first to write the terrible obituary of Poe hence, since Griswold "butchered" Poe, one of Poe's stories (The Pit and the Pendulum) butchers Griswold.

On one level, the pendulum reflects the way Griswold treated Poe's work in real life; in another way, just as Griswold's body is "divided" by the Pendulum, so the country is being divided by the issues and policies of the current administration.

What about the reference to William Shakespeare's MacBeth?
The exact scene being quoted is the famous sleep-walking scene of Lady MacBeth (MacBeth, Act 5, Scene 1)  wherein Lady MacBeth tries to wash all the blood off her hands from the murders she has ordered. In understanding why this particular scene--instead of a different play or different scene--should be used, we can simply ask ourselves, "Who in the film has blood on their hands?"
Ivan.

This scene is particularly well-thought out: in searching for the killer, Fields--the name which ties him to the earth--goes into the basement of the theater as Lady MacBeth acts out her scene on the stage above and Poe chases Ivan in the rafters above the scene (meaning, symbolically, on a higher level of thought). Poe is above Fields on nearly every level.

The next body to be found, after the MacBeth scene, is a man dressed in Emily's ball gown, so the cross-dressing invites us to put another man in a woman's dress, and that would be putting Ivan in Lady MacBeth's night gown, someone responsible for murders and with blood on their hands. Just as Lady MacBeth intends to make MacBeth king by killing Duncan, so Ivan intends to make Poe king by killing Griswold (and Henry, the Baltimore publisher, and Emily who is Poe's art itself). It's interesting, as Poe mutters under his breath, that the killer Ivan would lead them to the Imperial theater where Poe's mother was an actress, so we can correlate that which gave birth to Poe--his mother, Shakespeare, MacBeth--to that which is trying to kill him and all he loves--Ivan.

Just after the opening scenes of the killings in imitation of The Murders In the Rue Morgue, we find Poe walking the dark and murky streets of Baltimore. He comes upon some ravens feeding on a dead cat, run over by a carriage. Stopping to examine the cat, Poe mutters about the ways of God and nature, as of Providence, are not our ways, and realizes the cat was "with kittens." The scene isn't just an exercise in the macabre, but introduces us to what will happen to Poe himself in the film, run over first by Hamilton's carriage in Hamilton's refusal to let Poe marry Emily (but that's not even serious, it only throws up mud on him), then later Poe is run over by Ivan's carriage (Ivan is called to his carriage while Poe is dying in the Baltimore Patriot office and it's in Ivan's carriage in Paris that Fields waits for Ivan to apprehend him).

Why does Ivan cut out chunks of Henry's wrists and leave him at his desk? This is the same posture in which we first meet Henry when Poe comes complaining that his review hasn't been published and Henry "cuts his own wrists" by cutting Poe off from the paper and potential earnings; Ivan punishes Henry just as Griswold is punished. Arms, symbolizing strength, allows Ivan to illustrate how Henry made the wrong choices about who to publish--Longfellow's poem over Poe's review--because the real strength of the paper wasn't coming from selling papers, it was coming from writers such as Poe and what he was doing (and raising the standards of American literature in the process). Idealistically, we want to say yes, that's correct, Ivan is right about that, but without the mediocrity (so to speak) of the Longfellows, would the brightness of the Poes shine half as bright? The film isn't placing blame at Henry's door, it's Ivan who kills Henry, so neither should we put blame at Henry's door.

The sad fate of the cat mirrors the sad fate of Poe, that he probably had many more tales left to tell (the kittens) had he been given more time, yet, that ultimate sacrifice is often what is required of artists to insure immortality. (Ivan makes a reference to Jules Verne who had stopped writing for a while, but started again later in life--Ivan suggesting he was going to do to Verne what he had done to Poe to get Verne writing again--and the same might have been true of Poe that he would have written more had he lived longer).

Once last little item about Ivan.
I have seen the film three times now, and each time, I have heard Ivan say the same thing when he hands the shot glass of poison to Poe: "I always had a fancy for poisons, that's how I did my dad."  Once we know what Ivan symbolizes, we can understand who is father is that he poisoned. The day Poe dies, the day Ivan gives him the poison to drink is also an election day, and the maid mentions this when she gives Poe the newspaper and the note Ivan left for Poe, the last clue. The election taking place is important amongst Poe scholars because it's often sited as one of the potential causes of Poe's death. The maid didn't have to mention this election at all, so since it is included in the story, it warrants our attention.

Ivan's room in the basement under the Baltimore Patriot is a stone cave filled with books and letters. Just as books and letters created the genius of Poe (the writing of others helping to inspire him in his own writings and understanding about the world) so it perverts and destroys someone like Ivan who can be easily dominated by the writings of others because he has no inner-sense of right and wrong to balance what he reads and that "blinds him" to what reality is (and one way of understanding why Emily can't blind him with her boning, because he is all ready blinded).

Ivan's father is Poe himself, because Ivan tells him, "I'm your crowning achievement," and yes, this makes a vicious, vicious circle, but the Ivans of the world always poison their fathers, the ones who create them, because Ivan has taken it upon himself to tell Poe how to write his stories, demand one more be done and takes it upon himself to make sure Poe is never forgotten, the way an all-powerful government intrudes and dictates into the life of its people (because we the people created the current government through our votes, we are being poisoned by our own child as well). When Poe tells the fireman, with the backdrop of his house burning down into ruin, that he recognizes the voice of Karl, we too must recognize the voice of Karl (Marx) as the poison is put before us and we have to save the country (Emily) from the madness confronting us.

Just as the drama Amadeus introduced Mozart to a new generation of people through the story, so The Raven introduces a new generation of potentially forgotten stories by Poe to a younger audience. Many will, without doubt, hearing lines and quotations from the film, be anxious to read the whole story, and delve ever deeper into the works of Poe.

It is, possibly, the undertones of anti-socialism which many reviewers frown upon, but it's important for all of us to see how Poe is being appropriated by capitalists in The Raven, because he's then appropriated by socialists in Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter: i.e., in these tense political days, both sides are claiming the same heroic images for their cause, the trick is to understand the language being employed. The appropriation of Poe as exemplary of art in America creates an argument regarding the entitlements programs in the country: throughout the film, as in real life, Poe searches for money and can't get it; The Raven doesn't advocate socialism despite the most worthy and honorary American needing assistance (a social net or state managed program for artists as we see in a film such as the 1994 Russian film Burnt By the Sun which I can highly recommend), and the film goes to great lengths to establish the crucial element of artistic creation: need.

One of my favorite moments of the film, Poe shooting at the killer and the killer's bullets disrupting a flock of ravens close to Poe, one of them actually taking a bullet. During this scene, Poe screams out at the killer, "Who are you? What's your name?" and they are the same questions Ichabod Crane asks of the Headless Horseman in The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow. It might seem like a stretch, and perhaps it is, however, at the masquerade ball, Fields tells his policemen that the killer might be dressed as "the headless horseman," and Washington Irving, the author, was one of the few American writers that Poe admired and who liked Poe in return. The bullet in the raven symbolizes that Poe's own world is about to end.

The artists need (for material survival and validation of their art) drives them to create whereas they might not otherwise (wasting their self on alcohol or drugs or both) and the public's need for art drives the public to consume art which creates the demand for the work of various artists. Is this a simplification? Absolutely, and I know in advance my manifold critics will jump all over this, yet being an artist is not the same as other occupations, it's not based on skill, rather talent, and while some technical training can sometimes benefit artists, and it's usually only the hard lessons of life that can enrich their understanding and foster creation within them; sadly, taking away those hardships undermines why artists create. Importantly, it should be argued, that Poe's most economically prosperous time was also his most artistically creative, and this certainly (without doubt) contributes to the artist's life, yet there is a brink, a threshold between artists who are competent in their field and those who become immortal throughout the world (i.e., the difference today between Longfellow and Poe).

In conclusion, there are many levels and potential interpretations to The Raven, and not least among them is the relationship to the production of art and the political arena in which art is created and perhaps the greatest in importance is attempts at bringing the writings of Karl Marx into the reality of the American economy. As I said, it's important to keep The Raven agenda in mind because Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, an anti-capitalist work also uses Edgar Allan Poe but in the exact opposite way of The Raven.

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!