Evil genius

No, it's not not another Batman post (yet.) Today it's an unfortunate, off-the-cuff writeup about the loss of one of the great actors of the modern era: Gene Hackman, who was found dead today with his wife and dog, at the age of 95.

I first remember him from his performance as Lex Luthor in the Superman films of the late 70s. Comic nerd that I was, I first objected to the idea of a Luthor with hair. But he won me over quite quickly ("Miss Teschmacherrrrr!") and then I began to see other things, like Popeye Doyle in The French Connection and Col. Jason Rhodes in Uncommon Valor and Coach Norman Dale in Hoosiers and Special Agent Rupert Anderson in Mississippi Burning. Even bit parts like Pete Van Wherry in Reds and lesser parts like Defense Secretary David Brice in No Way Out. Not all of those were great movies, but Hackman's part of all of them was almost always top tier and that's not even getting into more of the acknowledged bouts of excellence, like "Little Bill" Daggett in Unforgiven and Royal Tenenbaum in The Royal Tenenbaums. It's about as rich a career as it's possible to have in modern cinema and he was almost always one of the names that you would perk your ears up at when you heard that he was doing another project. He's been absent (retired) for much of the past two decades but his legacy will last a long time. But, oddly, the one role that stuck with me and which I still kind of enjoy more than any other is the one for which he was uncredited:

I've watched that scene I don't know how many dozens of times (I'm a lifelong Mel Brooks fan) and I still convulse with laughter every time I see it. There's no debate that Peter Boyle does his share of heavy lifting here, but it's the subtlety that Hackman brings where, as with almost all his characters, he totally sells the perspective of whomever he's inhabiting while still riding the wave of the absurdity of it all, that does it for me. Acting was fun for him and you could see him having fun in almost every role that he took. It strikes me as a life that was well-lived and is, thus, a parting that was well made.

Too bright for a dirge - 2025 documentary shorts

There was an interesting dichotomy in this collection, in that two were about music and three were about death in one form or another. A full house of contrasts, although there is certainly music about death and if the first selection had been about children playing Mozart, I definitely would have made a reference to the Requiem. This collection was among the best we've seen, I think, as none of them failed to get their message across and all of them were worth the time spent, even if one did run a little long (for a short.)

Instruments of a Beating Heart- The opener started us off on a (ahem) high note, with a presentation of Japanese first graders about to move on to second grade and being given the task of performing Beethoven's Ode to Joy for the incoming class of new first graders. If that sounds like quite the task for kids that young, you're not alone. It was a good example of the standards set by the Japanese educational system and what many Americans see as hallmarks of Japanese society (elegance, pressure, achievement, determination) for good or ill. The central focus was one young girl, Ayame, who first aspired to the drum and then to the cymbal for their performance and fell short of the needed diligence to produce what their teacher was asking, only to be encouraged by him, her classmates, and another teacher to reach the level that all of them were striving for. It's something that sung to both my musical and socialist hearts about the cooperation and tolerance among humanity to bring more literal joy out of our daily existence than the spontaneous frivolity of children would otherwise produce. It was also just this side of unbearably cute in every scene and moment, not least for the eagerness displayed by the children to come to grips with a project that they likely didn't quite understand the scope of, but were constantly assured that they were capable of doing. It was an incredibly positive and entertaining story.

Incident- Of course, the next entry was one enormous pile of outrage and cynicism that wiped away all of the joy and brightness that its predecessor had introduced. It's the story of the murder of Harith "Snoop" Augustus by Chicago police in 2018, told entirely through body- and surveillance cameras. When Augustus is first accosted and then assaulted by police for no reason whatsoever, he attempts to escape and is gunned down. Watching the police, from the probationary officer who shot him to lieutenants scheming, prevaricating, and excusing in an attempt to cover up the fact that multiple officers had committed crimes ranging from simple assault and unlawful detention to second degree murder in the space of a couple minutes and then, of course, committed several other crimes in an attempt to cover it up was just a reminder of both the level of violence that is tolerated by society's "protectors" and their near-absolute authority in escaping the very justice that they're nominally responsible to uphold. This was, by far, the best production of the five we saw, as the screen was split into two, three, or four parts to show the progression of the incident from every angle available and even following some of the police away from the scene of the crime. That multi-perspective depiction also put on full display the power disparity between the normal citizens that came to ask questions of their "protectors" and the indifference of the latter to that inquisition. The film lacked the narrative style of most of the other entries, but the technical excellence and the power of the simple message it delivered made it a strong favorite for me (which means, of course, that it won't win.)

I Am Ready, Warden- Continuing the theme of death, we came to the case of John Henry Ramirez, who was convicted of the stabbing murder of Pablo Castro outside the convenience store where the latter worked in 1984 in Corpus Christi, TX. After being caught four years later, Ramirez was placed on death row and the film was about his last few days and how he was dealing with what he deemed his final release from prison, as well as how Pablo's son, Aaron, 14 at the time of his father's death, was confronting it, as well. The situation was brought to a tipping point when the local DA, Mark Gonzalez, tried to withdraw the death warrant for Ramirez after Gonzalez changed his mind about the morality of the death penalty. It was a careful examination of both the ethical situations involved in the murder, the conviction, and the impending execution, as well as the emotions that suffused all of those. The film handled those ethical questions with a very light touch, which is always the most effective method, IMO. As a death penalty opponent, I'm also quite sympathetic to the tacit idea of "justice" needing to be meted out to the perpetrators of heinous crimes; not least the ones they freely admit committing and to which they agree they probably deserve the harshest punishment, as in the case of Ramirez. Of course, given that region of Texas and the predilection of everyone involved to invoke Christianity into these matters, I couldn't help but regularly think of Deuteronomy: "Vengeance is mine" (saith the Lord...)

The Only Girl in the Orchestra- Returning to our theme of music, this film was about the life and career of Orin O'Brien, a double bassist who was also the first woman to play as part of the New York Philharmonic; hired by Lenny Bernstein himself. Like the first film, it was an incredibly positive piece about a woman who wouldn't let anything slow her down in any way, including the trappings of fame that came with her standout role as "the only girl." It was a great story of determination and passion for music while constantly professing the desire to not be in the spotlight and to embody the "support" role that she says that the double bass occupies in that form of music. The film was produced and directed by her niece, Molly, who regularly encourages Orin to wax rhapsodic on what she's accomplished, to which Orin responds by waving away any and all platitudes. It's a remarkable expression of humility by someone not only highly intelligent and clearly talented, but also driven by the memory of her Hollywood parents, whose careers took a downturn in the second half of their lives and left them both feeling unfulfilled. Orin, 87 at the time of filming and retired from playing (but still teaching!), regularly emphasizes that she had done pretty much everything she wanted to do in her professional career, but still felt the urge to keep going because of the happiness that that success generated. To her, it was about passing on that passion to her students and those around her. While it felt like this one ran a little long, given the relative lightness of its subject matter in comparison to the others, it was still really enjoyable.

Death by Numbers- And, finally, the denouement of death. This is a film based on the journals of Sam Fuentes, one of the survivors of the Parkland high school shooting, and how she was processing what had been happening to her while the shooter, Nikolas Cruz, was involved in a four-month long sentencing hearing to determine whether he would be given life without parole or the death penalty. A talented writer with a poetic turn of phrase, Fuentes' running narration of the events and her perception of them, as well as her victim's statement at the trial, delivered a message as powerful as any other that we saw tonight. I also thought that its placement as the finale was yet another statement about the current political climate, given Cruz's affection for the ideas expressed by both the historical Nazis and the ones currently controlling the US government. The fact that Fuentes has been attending a class about the history of the Holocaust while Cruz, his AR-15 emblazoned with swastikas, fired through the window is a discombobulating coincidence and something of a cosmic statement on the absurdity of US gun laws, the casual shrug with which yet another school shooting is accepted on a weekly basis, and the fact that bigots like Cruz have not only perpetuated both of those farces but are now in control of the government. In an ironic twist, the vengeful reaction of other bigots like Ron DeSantis to the result of Cruz's sentencing again brings us back to the ethics of vengeance and the question of how important it is to redress the crimes after they've happened or try to change our society before they occur.

Again, my favorite, simply for the way it was produced, is Incident. However, I think both the timeliness and the emotional impact of Death by Numbers will hand it the statue; fully deserved. So, those are the shorts for this year. It was probably the best total batch we've seen in some time, with no single glaring failure in any category. Now to track down four of the five feature-length docs that we haven't seen.

Whimsical but fascinating - 2025 animation shorts

This is the category that has most frequently had the entry or entries that simply didn't measure up. When we were walking into last year's showing, my friend, Brian, said to me: "I'm pretty sure there's one you're going to absolutely hate." He was right. Consequently, this is the category that Tricia, Jaime, and Larissa are often least interested in seeing and I'm the voice in the wilderness saying: "No, really. Animation is good." Thankfully, this year's nominees had no such cinderblocks attached.

Magic Candies- This is a Japanese film, based on the Korean picture book of the same name. The story is about Dong-Dong, a lonely, little boy who spends most of his time by himself and loves to play marbles. A local shop owner convinces him to buy a packet of marble-looking magical candies. Putting one in his mouth leads to the sofa in his and his dad's apartment talking to him and complaining about things like his dad farting all the time. That kind of magical encounter soon follows with the other candies, ranging from his pet dog to the falling leaves in the local park. The animation style is CGI, but emblematic of the rounded, stop-motion style used in Christmas classics like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It's a great message about the power of children's imagination and how they create their own worlds when there's no one else around to share their experiences. It was also quite upbeat and funny, so it was a good launching point after having seen the live action nominees an hour beforehand.

In the Shadow of the Cypress- This was an Iranian entry and done solely in pen-and-ink animation with the classic, wavery lines that come with individually drawn cells. There's no dialogue, so the viewer just has to follow along with the tale of a former sea captain struggling with PTSD and his poor relationship with his daughter. One day, a sperm whale is beached outside their home and their struggles to alleviate the creature's suffering leads to him questioning not only his connection with his daughter, but how he's conducting life, in general. Speaking of connections, this is the one entry that I didn't really find an attachment to. It wasn't a bad film and I'd be willing to watch it again to try to discern where I just didn't land with it. Their travails with the whale and how to address the problem are nicely detailed, so it's a very "realistic" story, but I never felt like I really got the message other than what was already obvious.

Yuck!- This one, OTOH, was a delight. It's a French film about pre-teens figuring out the concept of kissing, romance, and human connection and whether they'd ever want to let themselves be drawn into such a disgusting concept. Director Loic Espuche used a great delivery method by having those disgusting adults' lips shimmer pink whenever they were planning to kiss or actually doing so. Léo (voiced by Noé Chabbat) while repelled by the whole idea has also noticed that his own lips are starting to do the same thing as he confronts childhood curiosity about what his siblings and friends insist isn't something they will ever do. It was probably the funniest of the 10 films we saw this evening, paced well, and replete with the little reminders of being that age and not really understanding what all of the fuss was about... until it happens to you. I could easily see this one snagging the statue.

Wander to Wonder- This one was a joint French, British, Belgian, and Dutch production (Channel bros, unite!) and my absolute favorite of the evening for a few different reasons. One, it's stop-motion animation, which I've been a fan of since seeing my first Ray Harryhausen film. Two, it's virtually a post-apocalyptic setting, as the three characters are puppets from a Mr. Rogers-style show who are then left behind in the abandoned studio when the show's host passes away and food is becoming scarce. Three, the puppets in question: Fumbleton (the great Toby Jones), Mary (Amanda Lawrence), and Billybud (Terence Dunn) are these bizarre, hyper-happy bear-like things in the first place which would probably have been the source of many children's nightmares in an evil clown fashion if the show had actually existed. As I've noted many times, I'm always a sucker for post-apoc stuff and this one was no different. The elaborate settings, their interactions with the local pigeons, and the very blunt presentation of all of it in the nominal "children's show" just had enough of the edge of the bizarre for me to really enjoy it. I think it's just a bit too edgy to garner the trophy, but I would've handed it off without thinking twice.

Beautiful Men- The final entry was again a joint production between France, Belgium, and the Netherlands about the hair replacement industry that is currently running full steam in Istanbul and other ports of Türkiye. Three brothers, Bart (Peter Van den Begin), Koen (Peter De Graef), and Steven (Tom Dewispelaere) decide to take the plunge together and almost immediately run into practical problems, as well as the lurking issues in their relationships with each other caused by their various insecurities (about all the things other than their lack of hair.) It was quite funny and had very realistically-presented characters, along with great dialogue ("You're a doctor." "I'm a dentist!" "So what? I'm a sales manager but I still fix your car for you!") The animation style was quite similar to Magic Candies and, like that film, very smooth and fluid throughout. I suspect this one will walk away as the winner.

So, a much more positive result than in prior years. The last category, documentaries, will either be tomorrow or Tuesday.

Heavy on tragedy again - 2025 live action shorts

Like last year, the live action shorts were mostly dominated by a sense of tragedy, both past and present, with one bit of comedy (albeit dark) and a sliver of light that eventually shone through the pain. One of the best themes that stretched across almost all of the nominees was that of uncertainty; leaving their endings largely ambiguous and allowing the viewers to fill in the blanks, whether obvious or not.

The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent- This is a Croatian film about the Štrpci Massacre, where a Serbian paramilitary unit abducted multiple Bosnian Muslims and one Croatian from a train in what is now Bosnia-Herzegovina, beat them, and eventually executed them in 1993, during the height of the Yugoslav disintegration conflicts. At the center of the story is Tomo Buzov (Dragan Mićanović), a retired army officer who was the only passenger who tried to confront the attackers and was taken away with the rest of their targets and killed as a consequence. I enjoyed this one and the careful cinematography that kept the confusion of the passengers highlighted and the uncertainty about both what was happening and the subsequent events that everyone assumed would be happening. I did think it was too short, but still effective in the delivery of its story.

Anuja- This was an American-Indian production about two young sisters who work in a garment factory in Delhi. The younger one, Anuja (Sajda Pathan), has a talent for math that the local educator is aware of and he tries to convince her to take the national test which will get her placed in school and off the street but, of course, leave her sister behind. There's a significant amount of emotional weight behind this one, as the audience (and the characters) know the best choice for Anuja but also understand her circumstances and those of her sister, Palak (Ananya Shabhag) and how it might feel to "betray" the most important person in your life. There ends up being a fairly positive message here, despite its rather dire setting, but this is also one of those that left the ending vague so that the central element of the plot- choosing how and whether to better oneself, even while those closest won't benefit -is still there for the audience to consider.

I'm Not a Robot- This is a Dutch entry and Dutch language film, despite the presence of a heavy dose of English technical language. Lara (Ellen Parren) is a music producer who gets locked out of her system and has to take several CAPTCHA tests to reenter. Said tests lead her to a conclusion about her humanity in very Blade Runner-esque fashion, which her boyfriend, Daniel (Henry van Loon), grudgingly confesses to. The rest of the story is about Lara trying to convince everyone, including herself, that she's not what they (and she) all think she is. It's a black comedy, but it is a comedy and was hugely entertaining, not only for its modern relevance to Internet security foibles, but because it pointedly asks similar questions to Blade Runner: What makes us human? Like most of the rest, the ending is also somewhat ambiguous, when Lara takes the final (ahem) step toward proving her point and perhaps discovers that she wasn't as right as she thought she was. I really enjoyed this one, not least for its SF elements and comparison to the best SF film ever made. Probably my favorite.

A Lien- This is an American film and probably the most poignantly-timed of the nominees, given the American fascists that have taken control of the government and their draconian concept about immigration and who actually qualifies as a citizen. Oscar (William Martinez), his wife, Sophia (Victoria Ratermanis), and daughter, Nina (Koralyn Rivera) are attempting to get Oscar's green card processing completed. Of course, showing up at the immigration office to complete said paperwork also makes one an easy target to be apprehended by ICE just for trying to comply with the law. As with so many people in Oscar's circumstances, his situation is complicated by having been brought here as a child but, having a established a career, a family, and a life here, the possibility of being sent "back" to a nation that he has no memory of and has no foundation in is exactly as traumatic as it sounds for everyone involved. Except ICE and the fascists, of course. This one is played quite well by the whole cast and I expect that its timeliness will gain it enough votes to be considered the winner, which is, like so many things involving immigration, no genuine crime. Due credit for the nice wordplay of the title, too.

The Last Ranger- The main topic of this one- protecting animals from poaching -is close to my heart, so that won me over almost instantly. But it's also a great depiction of the dangers and struggles involved with being an anti-poaching ranger in sub-Saharan Africa, not least because it's based on a true story about a young girl who accompanied a couple rangers into the field and was present when poachers attacked a white rhino and those rangers. It centers largely around Litha (Liyabana Mroqoza), a young Xhosa girl, who is fascinated by the rhinos and holds the passion for protecting animals that most young humans do and takes it one step further by wanting to understand the ranger mindset of her friend, Khuselwa (Avumile Qongqo.) This one was perhaps loaded with more anguish and tragedy than any of the rest of them on the face of it, but also ended with the most upbeat message of all of them, so wins the prize for meeting both extremes. It's also very possible that this one could walk away with the trophy.

All in all, a good batch. There were none that any of us walked away thinking of as a waste of time or that somehow didn't measure up to the rest in at least some fashion. Next up, animation.

Batman: TAS, episode #42: Joker's Wild

As noted in every instance prior, the Joker episodes are almost always high points in the progression of the series. Similarly to how The Batman is the best and most enduring superhero character of DC Comics, his primary opposition, The Joker, is a vastly superior villain to any of the other classic opposite numbers of DC's stable (Lex Luthor, Cheetah, Sinestro, etc.) Inasmuch as most would consider someone who runs around in a bat costume beating up criminals to be "crazy", The Batman is an exercise of control within the story framework. He's the cork in the bottle of Gotham City. The Joker, of course, is the polar opposite of that control, with chaos being his calling card at all times, whether to his advantage or not. This episode is also built on the framework of the idea of DC's intellectual properties. Not only does casino owner, Cameron Kaiser (voiced by Harry Hamlin, of Perseus in Clash of the Titans fame) "steal" The Joker's image to establish his casino, but the producers do their own little nods to other Warner Bros. properties. Our main villain enters the scene at Arkham whistling the coda to the Looney Tunes theme and other characters at Arkham (Poison Ivy, the Mad Hatter) are seen watching Bugs Bunny do his thing at the end of this episode.

The Joker's interactions at Arkham are once again presented inside his larger worldview. He and Ivy squabble like children over what's on the TV ("He started it!" "I know you are, but what am I?") and he demonstrates that, once again, he only tolerates imprisonment at Arkham until he becomes inspired. Once he observes Kaiser's "theft" of his image, it's a matter of minutes before he sails out of the asylum. It's obviously a way to serve the plot of the episode, but I think it's also a larger statement on the way he views the world. Something has to catch his interest or he's willing to simply cool his heels in confinement. Once that interest is activated, he can go where and when he wants. It's a perspective that I think Heath Ledger perfectly captured in his interpretation of the character in The Dark Knight. This is also an episode which dovetails neatly with my overall theory about The Batman being the antagonist in his own stories. The hero is absolutely a secondary character in this story. Despite taking a few minutes to observe Bruce Wayne's interactions with Alfred and his eventual actions to bring act 3 to a close, we spend most of our time observing the antics of The Joker and the epilogue is in Arkham with no Batman in sight. Again, he's that element of control that provides boundaries for the color and chaos that his villains otherwise provide. The scenes on the casino floor are emblematic of that, as we watch The Joker execute all manner of card shuffling tricks to entertain both us and presumably other people within the story while Bruce Wayne sits calmly, the grounding rod to the lunacy.

That's not to say that our hero isn't capable of some tricks of his own. The use of the grapple to both encircle the framework of a skylight and to grab a bouncing grenade and propel it directly into the machine that's about to kill him are both uses that hadn't been presented to date in the series. It's that kind of dynamism that The Joker brings out in his nemesis, as well. But on top of the other intellectual properties, we also get a good look at a classic Jokermobile, which reminded me of the Mego toys from the 1970s, but with this version later being produced by McFarlane Toys (of Spawn and Image fame, just to bring us all the way around back to comics.) But that seems natural in an episode that fully engaged the Jokerisms, from the ending of act 2 occurring with a a shot of The Joker in full-on cackle which extends into the fade-to-black and commercial break to the villain declaring that: "I'll settle my score with Kaiser, man to clown!" Those elements mesh with the overall plot as smoothly as the moment of our hero on the Bat-glider, soaring past a building that shows someone parting their drapes in their apartment just before The Batman goes by. This feels like an episode that was fully within the grasp of writer, Paul Dini, from the first moment to the last, which included an exciting back-and-forth round of classic superhero fisticuffs between hero and villain in a helicopter. It had all the elements of the 1950s-era DC that I normally decry, but told in a manner that elevated it beyond that target audience of eight-year-olds, while still visually interesting enough for them to embrace. Again, it's really one of the high points of the series that encapsulates several of its core principles and not only because it contains the best villain.

Deeper and detached meanings

I've been picking up a lot of Blu-rays (and occasional DVDs) these days after I realized that things "bought" on streaming services like Amazon can be lost, not by disconnecting from the service (obvsly), but if they happen to lose the license. The only way to rewatch Gandhi a couple years ago was to buy it for your Amazon library for $8 or whatever. I wanted to see it again, so I paid my $8. A few months ago, I noticed it was missing and upon further investigation, discovered that they had lost the license for it. So, despite me "owning" the digital copy of said film, I no longer did because they no longer had access.

The other thing is that I'm not interested in being tied to someone else's service fee and, if we do end up relocating to somewhere cheaper to live for retirement, I want to be able to watch what I want to whenever I damn well feel like it and regardless of whether we have access to this or that service. My friend, Roger, who retired to Panama with his wife last summer approached things the same way. He brought along a few hundred DVDs and Blu-Rays that he'd been acquiring over the years. I'd always been a movie acquirer, too, as I once had a huge collection of VHS tapes and now have a substantial collection of discs. At the very least, said discs are more durable than the tapes, which I eventually abandoned because it was more and more difficult to find a VHS player that could connect with modern TVs. Anyway, last night I decided to rewatch my newly-acquired copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It's not a great film, but I think it's one of Johnny Depp's (and Benicio Del Toro's) better performances and I really liked the book. (It was also on sale, having been sitting on one of my Amazon lists for some time.) When it was done, Tricia looked over and said: "What's so entertaining about a couple of drugged-out idiots?", which is a valid question in most contexts and could be leveled at the current man actually running the White House.

I told her that the point of the book wasn't just to relay all of the weird visions that Hunter Thompson had while ostensibly on assignment for Sports Illustrated (and also while finding a place away from the LAPD to talk about the latter's murder of journalist, Rubén Salazar.) It was more to make a statement about just what drugs could do to the way you perceive things and if you were able to use that perception to talk about things from a broader angle; in this case the end of an era, being the 60s and hippie culture and the idea that expressions of peace were the only answer to institutional violence, whether at home or abroad. I compared it to Jack Kerouac's On the Road in the same way that it took a snapshot of the period in time and talked about life, the culture, the zeitgeist, and how people interacted with and were affected by all of those. She'd never read either of them, so I said that the best approximation I could make was of the difference between what I post about our trips to different places in the world and what she'd expect (and has suggested, pointedly) a normal "travel report/blog" would say. 

The obvious rejoinder is that I'm not writing a "normal" travel blog any more than Fear and Loathing is a "normal" novel. The fact that it wasn't normal is why it originally garnered so much attention and has lasted down through the decades as a significant piece of American literature. In the same fashion, I don't spend much time talking about where we went and what we saw and did, but more about the people we encountered and the differences in culture and the general "feel" of the place. You can bring up 1000 different reactions on Yelp or Tripadvisor about where to go and what to see. I'm not interested in replicating that. Instead, I'm going to tell you what I was thinking about while we were there, which is more of what interests me and which is kinda what Thompson and Kerouac were doing and what ended up delivering the greater impact of both their works.

The film is a decent approximation of that story and its theme. After all, it does give some prominence to "the wave speech", which is the central moment of the novel, really. But I think director Terry Gilliam's focus on the visuals (as is logical in, y'know, a film) clouded a lot of what Thompson's words otherwise delivered in the book. It's the most common problem with translation from one medium to another (typically prose to film; "the book was better-!") and this film does not escape it. Given Gilliam's general tendencies, it's hard to imagine how he could have. But I wanted a preserved copy of it because I think it is saying a lot more with those images than I think many gave it credit for or still do. It is, of course, in part because I have an appreciation for the novel and for Thompson's approach to life, in general. Suggesting that I'm trying to do what he did is only the most facile of comparisons, as it has never really been my intent. It's just the way I do things which, in the end, is about as much respect as can be conveyed. Kinda like making sure you can hold the film in your hand when the world starts dissolving around us. And not because of the drugs.