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The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Monthly Archives: November 2016

Pensive Prowler #1: Departing from Arrival

29 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Pensive Prowler

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Pensive Prowler #1 by Dmetri Kakmi

Departing from Arrival

After watching Arrival, Dennis Villeneuve’s new sci-fi outing, my friend Cam and I wandered to an upscale pizza joint in Melbourne to propitiate the mother of tears with melted cheese and red wine. We were deeply affected by the film. Yet something about the narrative niggled and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. It came to me, as these things often do, while basil-infused grease and a fulsome South Australian Shiraz lubricated my thoughts and throat.

Let’s be upfront. There’s a lot to like about Arrival — who wouldn’t enjoy a movie in which Cthulhu descends to earth in a giant spaceship to dispense good will to the tune of composer Johann Johannsson’s hypnotic bleeps and throbs? I was in heaven from start to finish.

Even so, I was bothered by the film’s narrow politics.

You see in the film’s troubling schema America is the good guy. China and Russia are the bad guys. The U.S. intervenes in the form of softly-spoken Amy Adams to avert disaster; and, through a largely intuitive process, she breaks the code for the aliens’ written language, which is a logogram.

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Up pops problem number one. I don’t mean to insult American friends, but America is not exactly known for docility. It is an aggressive, forthright nation. Since the end of World War II, the U.S. has waged war across the globe and continues to do so to this day.

Given these undeniable facts, it makes sense that America would not be happy when aliens that resemble dried-up octopuses in a Greek restaurant drop into its backyard. They’d want a barbecue and who can blame them? Even I was tempted to start heating the charcoal grill. America’s love of the gun also attests to such a response.

But no, in Arrival, American might strangely opts for conciliation. While China, the current red under the bed, errs on the side of hostility towards the hectapods, as they’re called.

That doesn’t make sense. Despite media efforts to paint China as the new bogeyman, the country does not have a modern history of open hostility towards other nations. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Chinese aggression has been largely confined to internal and border skirmishes. The United States on the other hand extends its influence far and wide.

China’s conception of the world differs from America’s. The country’s three major religions — Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism — are harmonious, syncretic teachings that offer a broad humane philosophic outlook that stresses the interdependence between all things. A country that has that outlook on life would be benevolent to the aliens. It would not come out shooting.

Buddhism also holds a non-linear conception of time. This is important because Arrival is all about time. The heptapod message to humanity is that there is no time. There is no past, present or future. There is only a universal now. All experience exists in the present moment, like a compressed capsule. An individual’s place in that circle depends on perspective and shifts in perception and consciousness, a vital component to understanding the film’s central dilemma.

Problem number two emerged when the heptapods first display their eerily beautiful, circular form of writing. They squirt it like squid ink on a barrier between themselves and the humans. As I say, this form of writing is called a logogram. A logogram is a written character that represents a word or a phrase. Egyptian hieroglyphs are early logograms. Chinese and Japanese characters are modern equivalents.

As an aside (and to show you I wasn’t merely being flip when I evoked Lovecraft earlier), R’lyehian, the language spoken by Cthulhu’s spawn in R’lyeh, is also a hieroglyphic lettering system. So who knows? Maybe Villeneuve’s heptapods are Lovecraft’s Ancient Ones come back? And maybe Arrival is the most intelligent film set in Lovecraft’s complex universe?

Where am I going with all this, I hear you say? I’ve avoided saying it for a long time, hoping you might catch on. But I can tell from the blank expression on your face that you won’t. So I’m going to say it aloud.

If we follow the film’s logic, it makes sense for the protagonist to be Chinese, instead of Caucasian. With her knowledge of Chinese characters and immersion in eastern philosophies, a Chinese linguist is better placed to engage with the aliens’ mindset and to crack their code than an American raised under the strict linear dictates of competitive capitalism and hierarchical monotheism.

Much as I enjoyed Arrival, I would have been happier if the film was set in China; and if Villeneuve had cast Gong Li or Michelle Yeow, let’s say, in the primary role. That’s not to say Amy Adams does not disport herself admirably. Her performance is perfectly pitched. Nevertheless, placing a Chinese woman at the centre of the narrative and forging an alliance between Russia and America to combat a perceived threat might have made for a more unexpected and surprising cinematic outing.

Casting a Chinese actor in a central role also acts as an indicator that intelligence, heroics and grand narratives are not the exclusive preserve of white people. A worthy message in these fearful times.

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dmetri-kakmi

Dmetri Kakmi (Episode 158) is a writer and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. The memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia; and is published in England and Turkey. His essays and short stories appear in anthologies and journals. You can find out more about him here.

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Episode 234: Sayantani Dasgupta!

26 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Creative Nonfiction, Episode

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Fire Girl: Essays on India America and the In-Between, Sayantani Dasgupta

Episode 234 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s show, I talk to the nonfiction writer Sayantani Dasgupta about creative nonfiction, the romance of reading, and the powerful appeal of the in-between.

View More: http://heatherwoolery.pass.us/sd_brick_1

TEXTS DISCUSSED

fire-girl

Twenty-Thousand-Leagues-Under-the-Sea

NOTES

Listen to Sayantani’s essay about 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea here.


Episode 234 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

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The Curator of Schlock #162: Eaten Alive

25 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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Eaten Alive, Tobe Hooper

The Curator of Schlock #162 by Jeff Shuster

Eaten Alive

Thanksgiving Leftovers 

This year, we at The Museum of Schlock would like to wish you and your loved ones a Happy Thanksgiving. Granted, it’s a day late, and I’m sure all of you are busy with your Black Friday shopping, pepper spray at the ready for your Fitbit Altas and your Ninja Coffee Bar Brewers.  And then you’ll be gorging yourselves on cranberry sauce and day-old turkey, but have you ever wondered what it might be like to be eaten yourself and by eaten yourself, I mean eaten alive by a giant crocodile? You have. Excellent. Keep reading. 

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Tonight’s selection is 1977s Eaten Alive from director Tobe Hooper. He’s the dude who directed 1974s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I think I covered that movie last Black Friday because I didn’t want to bother watching Eaten Alive, but I’ve since watched this movie in ten-minute increments over the past twelve months so I’m good to go now. Does lightning strike twice? By “lightning striking twice,” I mean to say if it’s as good as TCM, and by TCM, I mean Texas Chainsaw Massacre not Turner Classic Movies. Uh. No. Lighting doesn’t strike twice, but there’s enough here to sort of keep your attention for 90 minutes. 

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So there’s this prostitute named Clara (Roberta Collins) who refuses service to some townie named Buck (Robert Englund) because he wants her to do something she doesn’t normally do for customers, but we won’t speculate as to what that is here. The brothel Madame, Miss Hattie (Carolyn Jones), fires Clara on the spot, turning out into the hot, muggy Texas night. She makes her way to the Starlight Hotel, run by a redneck named Judd (Neville Brand). He’s happy to give her a room for the night until he recognizes her as one of “Hattie’s girls.” Judd starts manhandling Carol. When she fights back, Judd hacks her up a bit with a rake before feeding her to his pet crocodile while she’s still alive.

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The next night, a family decides to stay the night at the Starlight Hotel. The crocodile eats the family dog. The dad gets sliced up a bit with a scythe before being fed alive to the aforementioned crocodile. Judd wraps the mother up in a shower curtain while their little girl runs away and hides under the hotel for the rest of the movie, trying to evade capture by Judd and/or the crocodile. You know, call me a nitpicker, but I’ve stayed at Days Inns more posh than this place. If the hotel you’re looking at features a moat out front with a live crocodile as well as a scythe-wielding redneck named Judd, you’d probably do best to look for accommodations elsewhere.

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Crocodiles are nothing to mess with. I was at Silver Springs one year and they had these crocodile pits, these plastic tubes in the ground that you could peer down in and take a gander at the park’s crocodiles. I looked down and the crocodile took notice of me. It stretched up as far as it could, gazed up at me, and opened it’s mouth. The hiss that came forth still haunts me to this day. I know what that crocodile was trying to tell me: “I’m going to eat you alive!”

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Jeffrey Shuster 1

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Rogue’s Guide to Shakespeare on Film #42: Discovering Hamlet (1990)

20 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Shakespeare, The Rogue's Guide to Shakespeare on Film

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Rogues Guide to Shakes on Film

42. Mark Olshaker’s Discovering Hamlet (1990)

Documentaries about Shakespeare tend to bore me, as they must. I may be a rogue, but I do have some bona fide academic credentials, and most documentaries cannot gracefully bridge the needs of the novice Shakespeare viewer and the not-novice. If there was an A&E Biography of Richard Burbage, I confess I would watch the shit out of that. It is one of my steadfast articles of faith that a good production of a Shakespeare play does not need interpreting from some intermediary cockalorum in order for the average viewer to get it.

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And this is more or less how I felt watching Discovering Hamlet, which chronicles Derek Jacobi’s Renaissance Theatre Company’s stage production of Hamlet starring a rather young Kenneth Branagh.

discovering-hamlet-3The documentary follows the week-by-week rehearsal process, showing how Jacobi’s direction is so intensely collaborative—since he is himself such a great, veteran Shakespearean actor—that he wants his direction to fuse with the actors in performance. Nothing goes wrong with this 5 week rehearsal process; the lessons to be learned, the entertainment to be gained, is from watching the process itself just work. To make sure people who have never read or heard of Hamlet could keep up (I mean you, Trevor), the play’s plot is often summarized.

discovering-shakespeare-2Patrick Stewart narrates, and his voice is, of course, immensely enchanting, so much so that the broad nature of Discovering Hamlet’s observations almost sound interesting. One almost expects Stewart to remind us that Shakespeare was not only an Englishman, but a mammal.

Some of what is seen in Discovering Hamlet looks so exciting that one wishes Discovering Hamlet would have just been a film of, you know, Hamlet. For example, Jacobi has Hamlet perform his “to be or not to be” speech not as a soliloquy, but with Ophelia as his audience, which deepens his emotional turn in their dialogue shortly later.

discovering-hamletWatching Jacobi and his actors block out scenes and rehearse was sometimes rather fun to watch, to see how unpretentious the work of rehearsing is despite the complexity of the play. Sometimes the actors struggle to remember their lines precisely. When Jacobi gives notes to his actors, including “Ken,” he chastises him for not listening properly to his fellow actors, so that he was not reacting sufficiently to them.

I wonder if perhaps this documentary in part gave Branagh his idea for A Midwinter’s Tale, a comic story about a sort of doomed production of Hamlet.

I really do wish I could have seen a film of Jacobi’s stage version of Hamlet, for that is the most tantalizing thing of all in this rather basic documentary that treats Hamlet and even the theatre itself as almost unimaginable entities.

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John King (Episode, well, all of them) holds a PhD in English from Purdue University, and an MFA from New York University. He has reviewed performances for Shakespeare Bulletin.

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Episode 233: A Craft Discussion About David Foster Wallace’s “E Unibus Plurim: Television and U.S. Fiction” with Vanessa Blakeslee!

19 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in David Foster Wallace, Episode, Postmodernism, Television

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David Foster Wallace, E Unibus Plurim: Television and U.S. Fiction., The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Episode 233 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I talk with Vanessa Blakeslee about David Foster Wallace’s “E Unibus Plurim: Television and U.S. Fiction.”

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TEXTS DISCUSSED

Journal of Contemporary Literature

Read David Foster Wallace’s 1993 essay “E Unibus Plurim: Television and U.S. Fiction” here.


Episode 233 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

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Episode 232: Pamela Skjolsvik!

12 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Creative Nonfiction, David Sedaris, Episode

≈ 2 Comments

Episode 232 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s show, I talk to the nonfiction writer Pamela Skjolsvik about creative nonfiction, anxiety, and death,

plus I briefly eulogize a triumvirate of entertainers: Leonard Cohen, Robert Vaughn, and Kevin Meaney.

Leonard Cohen Anthem

Caesar 1970 5

Friars Club Roast of Chevy Chase

TEXT DISCUSSED

death-becomes-us

NOTES

Check out Pamela Skjolsvik’s essay about David Sedaris back on episode 50.

Miami Book Fair International‘s amazing weekend street fair will take place on November 19th and 20th.


Episode 232 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

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The Curator of Schlock #161: Scars of Dracula

11 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #161 by Jeff Shuster

Scars of Dracula

Halloween Leftovers
 

I got nothing. Your Curator Schlock is running on empty. I think my pre-1980 rule is finally getting to me, but I just have to make it until the New Year. Turner Classic Movies was showing a ton of horror movies last month and I went a little crazy with the DVR. So I’ll be doing some more horror movies until I see fit to move on to something else. Don’t give me that garbage about it not being seasonal. I don’t care. I can watch horror movies all year round!

Up first is Scars of Dracula, a 1970 Hammer Studios production directed by Roy Ward Baker.

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The movie begins with a vampire bat upchucking gallons of blood over some red ashes spread over a coffin. The ashes start to smoke and bubble and lickity split, Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) gets resurrected … again! One of the local yokel villagers finds the body of a young woman with two bite marks on her neck. An angry mob forms and decides they’ve had it with the Count. They’re going to burn his castle to the ground. The town priest warns them that violence will beget more violence–blah, blah, blah. He tells them to at least have the women stay in the Church for protection.

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Dracula’s servant, Klove (Patrick Troughton), tells the mob to get lost, but they ignore him, throwing torches all over the place, breaking windows, and smashing railings that might cause future visitors to the castle to fall to their deaths. The mob head back to town only to discover their loved ones butchered by vampire bats in the very church they sought refuge in. It’s fairly grisly scene with eyeballs hanging out of sockets and blood splattered everywhere.

Fast forward a number of years later and we’re introduced to a young lothario named Simon Carlson (Christopher Matthews). He’s been sleeping with the Burgermeister’s daughter and when the Burgermeister catches the two of them, his daughter claims young Simon attempted to rape her. He jumps through the roof of an unmanned stagecoach while evading the authorities, frightening the horses into a mad gallop. I guess he ends up in Transylvania right in the shadow of Count Dracula’s castle. Simon goes to a nearby tavern, tries to woo the barmaid into letting him stay the night, but the owner of the establishment kicks him out. Simon decides to pay a visit to Dracula’s castle instead, hoping for some hospitality.

Dracula’s Castle is a bad place. Forget about whatever horrors lay within, one false step and you’ll fall to your death. It’s a long way down that castle wall. While Simon is poking around, a vampire bat flies over his head. Simon turns around to see beautiful woman is starring right at him. She offers Paul a room for the night, which he gladly accepts. Inside, he meets Count Dracula who offers him some wine while making cryptic statements about how his castle was destroyed. Dracula’s not much of a conversationalist.

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Simon is about to go to sleep when this mysterious woman enters his room , crying out “Love me!” Simon is eager to oblige. When they’ve finished, she tries to sink her fangs into his neck, but Dracula enters the room and stabs her in the stomach about a hundred times.

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I have to admit that’s some freaky shit. The cock crows and Dracula vanishes from the room. Unfortunately, Simon is locked in. He ties some bed sheets together, hoping to climb down from his room in the castle. As I’ve said, it’s a long way down that castle wall.

Simon climbs his way down to an open window. Inside is a room with no door, just a coffin. Before Simon can react, someone lifts his bed sheet rope out of his reach. Simon opens the coffin to see Count Dracula sleeping, bloody fangs exposed. If you think Simon is making it out of this castle alive, you really haven’t seen too many of these movies.

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Jeffrey Shuster 3

 

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

21st Century Brontë #29: The Fiction Lessons of FullMetal Alchemist

10 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in 21st Century Bronte, Anime

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Fullmetal Alchemist

21st Century Brontë #29 by Brontë Bettencourt

FullMetal Alchemist

In eighth grade, my friend Madison introduced me to an anime series entitled Fullmetal Alchemist at a time in life when I had to ask what the hell anime was.

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The story: Edward and Alphonse Elric are two brothers who practice alchemy, a science that manipulates and alters matter by using natural energy.

In a failed attempt to bring their mother back to life, Ed loses his leg, while Al loses his entire body to a mysterious doorway known as The Gate of Truth. But Ed manages to embody Al’s soul into a suit of armor; Ed sacrifices his arm in the process in order to keep his brother alive. The two are on a quest for the Philosopher’s Stone, a legendary transmutation amplifier that could make their bodies intact once more.

At the beginning of every episode, the rule of equivalent exchange is explained: one cannot gain something without giving up something equal in return. The Philosopher’s Stone is said to help the user avoid this rule, capable of feats such as, yes, the legendary one of transmuting standard metal into gold. But there is no evidence that such a stone exists, or could be created.

I love the series for a multitude of reasons, the first being the strength that family bonds provide. Ed and Al navigate the world at such a young age. Their personalities counteract one other’s. Ed is more hot-headed and realistic. Al more soft-spoken, and empathetic.

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They encounter a false prophet who uses alchemy to persuade an entire town that he can perform miracles as a holy man. While Al agrees in the wrongness in the prophet’s acts, Al also notes the good that this hope provides the town. The brothers’ conversations serve as a way for audience to mediate on the moral issues instead of taking such morality as flimsy props with which to garland an action-oriented plot.

The brothers’ relationship strengthens them, helping them survive all the violence and fucked up ethics they encounter.

They have experienced loss and grief at such a young age. This is one of the ways the creator, Hiromu Arakawa, creates substantial relationships: the characters know what it is like to lose someone. This is what fuels the characters’ drive toward their goals.

The concept of equivalent exchange reoccurs throughout the show, since the characters need to sacrifice in order to achieve their goals. The complications of the magical science are explored in great length, and the brothers must learn to make wise and responsible decisions with the power they hold.

Even with proper training and discipline in transmutation, Ed and Al cannot prevent a State Alchemist named Shou Tucker from creating a talking chimera by transmuting his daughter and dog together. Tucker’s arrest feels mild compared to the atrocity he committed. We learn that the transmutation cannot be undone. The chimera is killed as a result. This devastates the brothers.

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This is a lesson that Ed and Al carry with them for the rest of the series: despite their knowledge and power, bad things still happen to good people. Ed laments that despite being the youngest State Alchemist to receive his certifications, he is “a simple human who couldn’t save a little girl. Not even with alchemy.”

Fullmetal Alchemist means so much to me because of these hard lessons. I was around Ed and Al’s age when I delved into this series. I saw nothing wrong in their wanting to bring their mother back to life. But what made this story stand out from the other anime I was getting to know at the time was that the brothers operated in a world that didn’t cater to them.

In Sailor Moon, the characters overcome all obstacles with sheer faith in each other. In Yu Yu Hakusho, Yusuke Urameshi is brought back to life by the fifth episode to serve as a Spirit Detective for the Spirit World. And in Dragon Ball Z, a simple wish from the Dragon Balls bring the heroes back to life multiple times.

In Fullmetal Alchemist, the world never bends to Ed and Al’s wills.

There’s an episode where Ed is nearly murdered by a serial killer. When the average anime protagonist would train to overcome this obstacle, or acquire a more powerful weapon, Ed instead reflects on his own mortality. The show reminds us that this is still a child learning to cope with a traumatizing situation. Death is a real threat for these characters. I just wanted to see these characters happy, which stemmed from many, many stories derived from the source material manga.

Another reason why I love this series is how easily Arakawa can change the mood. When the moment calls for a serious instance, she definitely delivers. But she prevents the story from becoming too heavy with emotion, reminding the audience of relationships and characters that are at stake.

In the first episode of the anime series, Ed and Al arrive at a desert city. One of the first things that one of the townspeople asks them if whether the two are circus performers. Hilarity ensues when Al preforms alchemy, and the townspeople mistake him for the Fullmetal Alchemist since he wears a suit of armor. When Al explains that Ed is actually the Fullmetal Alchemist, the townspeople cannot believe that the title belongs to such a small person. Ed then assaults several people because he is incredibly insecure about his height.

We don’t learn that Ed has automail limbs and Al is a hollow suit of armor until later in the episode, when the false prophet I mentioned earlier comes to the realization. Up until this point we know that the Ed has a height complex, and Al is wearing armor in a desert, and they’re searching for the Philosopher’s tone.  If we were faced with this dramatic reveal first, we wouldn’t care since we’d have no idea of who these brothers are, or why we should care about them. We’re concerned about these characters because the lighthearted moments prior got us invested early on.

I also adored this anime for its badass women. One is Winry Rockbell, a childhood friend to the Elric brothers and an automail mechanic. Although she excels in her craft in order to help Ed out, that isn’t her sole purpose for her occupation. She forces the brothers to make a detour to Rush Valley due to the place’s reputation for automail production. She swoons over cutting edge machinery. She never renounces her femininity.

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Winry harbors feelings for Edward Elric, but this is a small part of her character. Her parents were murdered during the Ishvalan War when she was very young. She gets angry at Ed and Al for not keeping in touch due to her concern for them. In the 2003 anime, she and Ed do not even end up together, while in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Ed confesses his feelings in the very last episode. These characters exist outside of romance, while the romance exists as an extra component to layer the characters.

There are more badass female characters. but the males also blur the standard gender norms as well. There’s Maes Hughes, a Lieutenant Colonel who served in the Ishvalan War who swoons and pulls out photos of his wife and daughter every time they’re mentioned. There’s also Major Alex Louis Armstrong, an overly muscular man with an affinity for drawing, flexing, and detailed alchemic transmutations. Arakawa actually draws sparkles in every scene that Armstrong is in.

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I enjoy this series so much because it set a standard for what anime could be. Despite all its cheerful moments, the series never shied away from grimmer, darker lessons, nor did it attempt to define more complex concepts such as God or death in simplistic, merely-entertaining ways. Fullmetal Alchemist skillfully told a story with beautifully flawed characters. And despite the hardships that everyone goes through, they are given an ending that doesn’t feel forced, or cheesy, or undeserving.

In 2009, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood was released as a more faithful adaptation to Arakawa’s story. The animation is more fluid and complex, especially during the fight scenes. There are more badass, well-fleshed out characters. The pacing is quicker, and different forms of alchemy such as alkahestry are introduced.
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But you should still watch the 2003 anime before Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. The former delves into complex topics. There is weight to the characters’ emotions. There is profound ambiguity.

One of the final scenes of the anime involves Ed and the antagonist, Dante, speaking to each other about equivalent exchange. Dante combats Ed’s ideologies of equivalent exchange, of how so many others also studied for countless hours in order to become a state alchemist, but because of luck Ed managed to seize the title. She counteracts the balance that equivalent exchange provides with the unpredictability of the world: “Equivalent exchange is a myth, a contrived order to give sense to a world that has none.” Instead of a battle, the animation distorts the room and characters as the law stated at the beginning of the anime is deconstructed.

Fullmetal Alchemist was the first anime to show me that anime could be an art form, and I also learned that I could confide in a medium that otherwise felt separate from my own.

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21st Cen Bronté

Brontë Bettencourt (Episode 34, Episode 221) graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelors in English Creative Writing. When she’s not writing or working, she is a full time Dungeon Master and Youtube connoisseur.

McMillan’s Codex #58: The RPG Protagonist

09 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in McMillan's Codex

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McMillan’s Codex #58 by C.T. McMillan

The RPG Protagonist

In addition to a microcosm of cultural stagnation and mental illness, Twitter is also a great way to interact with artists and individuals we admire.  Even as the site bleeds users and revenue, people continue to use the platform as intended.  One YouTube personality I follow, Razorfist, is best known for his highly-developed vocabulary, quick and wrathful wit, and love of all things metal.  Back in August, after the release of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, he shared an review of the game and I was awestruck by what I discovered upon following the link.

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That review was written by Alec Meer for Rock, Paper, Shotgun and focused on the game’s protagonist, Adam Jensen.  Meer asserted that Adam was not an active character.  He went through the motions, unfazed by the events of the game’s story.  He was not connected to the world, whereas in the previous game he had relationships with other characters.  At the conclusion, Meer cited Geralt from Witcher 3 as a good example of a better character.

Meer is wrong.

I assume he has played other role-playing games, yet he misunderstands the genre’s fundamental principle: the role-playing.

Characters like Adam Jensen are designed to be above their games’ worlds because they are you.  When you talk to other characters, your choices for dialog each correspond with a set of morals matching your chosen path.  If you want to be a bastard, pick the angry option.  If you want to be a pacifist, pick the nicer option.  The same principle applies to gameplay where you can avoid killing people: take the stealthy approach, or clear out whole levels with extreme prejudice.

The point of role-playing games is to give you a problem to solve in your own way.  There is always one right answer, but you have the means to find that answer with whatever method you prefer.  This entails character building where you pick skills and talents for a play-style that fits your preference.  You become who you want to be, above all others, because the game was made to make you the best there is.  That is the quintessential role-playing experience that has remained unchanged since Dungeons and Dragons.

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In place of Adam Jensen’s emotions we substitute our own and speak through him as a witness.  Adam is the vessel through which we change the game and find the solution to the problem.

Furthermore, Meer gets many details about the game wrong.  Adam Jensen is still very much a part of the world through the people he knew in the previous game and the most recent.  David Sarif comes back for a quest, his ex-girlfriend Meghan is vital to the story’s events, and Adam has a handful of coworkers and acquaintances he interacts with throughout Mankind Divided.

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And his example of Witcher 3 at the end does not make sense.  Geralt is a bad example to contrast Adam because he is the same exact character.  In the story, he was made into an unfeeling sociopath through training to be a more efficient monster hunter.  Like Mankind Divided and every role-playing game ever, you have the option to be a fleshed out, active participant in the world or remain an unfeeling killer.  The only way the events of the story matter is if you decide they do like with Adam.

_______

CT McMillan 1

C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.

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The Rogue’s Guide to Shakespeare on Film #41: Omkara [Othello] (2006)

06 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Shakespeare, The Rogue's Guide to Shakespeare on Film

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Abhishek Chaubey, Ajay Devgn, Bipasha Basu, Kareena Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah, Omkara, Othello, Rekha Bhardwaj, Robin Bhatt, Saif Ali Khan, Shakespeare, Vishal Bhardwaj, Viveik Oberoi

Rogues Guide to Shakes on Film 2

41. Omkara [Othello] (2006)

With the exception of The Tempest, the plots of Shakespeare’s plays are not actually original to him. What is original is the exceptional psychological depth that he granted the characters in these plays, and the exquisite language with which he chiseled their psychologies into existence.

So when artists adapt Shakespeare onto film, altering the settings and contexts of Shakespeare’s plays seems to me like a Shakespearean move itself. When actors find new interpretations and new meanings in Shakespeare’s scripts, that is essential to the joy of Shakespeare’s work. The characters and their psychologies become alive, as if for the first time, despite these texts being around for four centuries.

One potentially unsettling move that can make us see the plays anew, however, is to not only discard the setting and the historical context of a play, but Shakespeare’s language, too. Perhaps it’s my own prejudice as an English speaker, but that bold move seems more interesting in foreign films—or perhaps visionary foreign adaptations, such as those by Kurosawa, make me forget the exquisite English that was lost, and let’s me focus on the psychology of the story with a strange new immediacy. The thrill in part emanates from my own ignorance of Japanese or any other language except English, as well as the intrigue of translation, in which meaning is not only lost, but gained as well.

This is precisely how I feel about Vishal Bhardwaj’s Omkara, a retelling of Othello set in a wild country district on the fringes of Indian society.

omkara-poster

The themes and story of Othello play out in rewarding ways, and Omkara actually seems better developed in terms of world-building and characterization.

Omkara is a respected mid-level gangster and assassin who works for Bhaisaab, an organized crime boss who has decided to enter politics. As Bhaisaab prepares to enter Parliament as a way of legitimizing his business, he ceremoniously names Omkara his successor.

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At that time, Omkara nominates Kesu, an American, as his own successor rather than Langda, who has served him faithfully longer; Kesu is popular with college students and can therefore garner votes for Bhaisaab.

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Amidst all this activity, Omkara has stolen Dolly from her wedding to Rajju, drawing the wrath of her father, who is an associate of Bhaisaab, who sides with Omkara when Dolly reveals that she chose to go with Omkara.

omkara-1

Omkara is a half-caste. He brings Dolly to his family’s home, where his sister greets her sister-in-law to be with great warmth.

We see Langda be slighted by Omkara, and his sociopathic friendship with Rajju develop.

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We see Kesu’s relationship to the beautiful Billo, a popular singer and dancer, is developed.

In Othello, the role of the Duke of Venice is merely procedural. Bianca seems like a romantic cipher, merely procedural, too. Emilia, Iago’s wife, does little except to stupidly empower her husband to destroy the court, and only after it’s too late call foul on the authorities.

Naseeruddin Shah, as the godfatherly Bhaisaab, has a remarkable and likeable gravitas.

Billo, as portrayed by Bipasha Basu and sung by Rekha Bhardwaj, has much more to do than serve as a generic court tart for intrigue.

omkara-9

The two songs she sings—which allows the musically ecstatic extravagance of Bollywood into what is basically a gritty drama—both advance the plot in direct ways, and point at the dangers of sexuality in this story about the destructive forces of jealousy.

Indu, Omkara’s sister, appears to have a romance with Langda that grants him the ability to set his nefarious plan in motion.

omkara-10

Indu has more of an equal relationship to Dolly than Emelia could have to Desdemona, and so their emotional bond makes the story that much more powerful. Indu is not as passive as Emilia.

Othello is only a soldier off stage. Omkara is a soldier on screen, which makes his demeanor with Dolly that much more menacing.

Omkara 9.png

I have spent little time discussing Ajay Devgn as Omkara, Saif Ali Khan as Langda, Kareena Kapoor as Dolly, or Viveik Oberoi as Kesu. The acting all around seems stellar to me, which makes isolating acting performances almost beside the point.

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I cannot say how realistic the setting is for present day India, but the new setting did seem plausible to me, and the overall vision of this relatively new Othello is a remarkable thing. The screenplay by Robin Bhatt, Abhishek Chaubey, and Vishal Bhardwaj does visionary work.

Normally, I balk at films, even Shakespeare films, that run two and a half hours, but Omkara is an exceptional film.

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1flip

John King (Episode, well, all of them) holds a PhD in English from Purdue University, and an MFA from New York University. He has reviewed performances for Shakespeare Bulletin.

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