A Real Life Indiana Jones?

The advertisement links for King Kong and Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper over at The Shelf reminded me of a wonderful documentary that has been running on Turner Classic Movies.

I'm King Kong! The Exploits of Merian C. Cooper is a 60 minute documentary covering the life of the director of the original 1933 King Kong directed by Merian C. Cooper. The documentary was released just in time to serve as an interesting biographical background piece for those going to see the 2005 remake directed by Peter Jackson.

I'm King Kong! spends little time on the creation of the 1933 classic, rather it covers the exciting life of the man behind the camera. Merian C. Cooper was a cinematic innovator who, prior to King Kong, had revolutionized the documentary in his travels to dangerous corners of the globe. One innovation in particular was the way he used the camera to capture animals in action. Merian didn't photograph tigers and lions from a distance. Instead he captured the hunting tiger in action and filmed elephant stampedes from within the stampede itself. Cooper's documentary's pushed the envelope both technologically and narratively. Instead of presenting apparent scientific, or anthropological, observations, Cooper attempted to present the stories of the peoples he was documenting.

But the adventures of Merian C. Cooper don't begin with his explorations and documentaries, no they begin much earlier in his life. Cooper served as a bomber pilot during the First World War and stayed after the war in Poland where he served as a part of an independant air squadron battling the invading during the Russo-Polish war. It was this brief segment of Cooper's life that I found the most intriguing.

Ever since I was young I have read the Blackhawk comic books, but I (like Wikipedia) never made a connection to any real world pilot squadron. To me the Blackhawks were an idea only applicable to the Second World War, though they also served as inspiration for the pilots in Sky Captain and the World of Tommorrow. While the creators of Blackhawk were probably unaware of Cooper's piloting in Poland during the Russo-Poland war, this part of the documentary made it clear that Cooper was as much a real life Blackhawk as he was a real life Indiana Jones.

Cooper's life, as presented in I'm King Kong, is a life of adventure and struggle against all odds. It comes then as no surprise that Cooper's representation of the Denham character is an exercise of self-portrait. The exercise is taken even further with Jack Black's version of the character in the latest Kong film. Denham, like Cooper, was a man of action who lived close to the edge. If you get a chance, watch I'm King Kong the next time it shows on TCM.

Aardman Productions and CBS Sign Deal for Clay Animated Series

2006 is looking to be a good year for Aardman Animations, and it is much needed -- especially after a 2005 fire destroyed artifacts from earlier animation projects. Coming quick on the heels of their Oscar nomination for last year's Wallace and Gromit film, Aardman has signed a deal to produce an American Version of its Creature Comforts Claymation series. (You can view a clip of the BBC version here.)

According to ICV2, "The CBS Creature Comforts series will be produced in England and Los Angeles, with King of the Hill scribe Kit Boss serving as executive producer." The Futon Critic has additional details:

The project, which is being targeted for a January 2007 bow at the earliest, is a U.S. version of the ITV series of the same name. Here's how BBC America, which also aired the series last year, describes the project: "Creature Comforts, a hilarious collection of film shorts from the makers of Wallace & Gromit, puts interview responses from the British public into the mouths of over one hundred animal characters. In Creature Comforts, a shar-pei will do his best impression of Julia Roberts, hens will explain how feng shui should be incorporated into the work place, and sea lions will speak out against liposuction."

The show has been given an initial order of seven episodes and is slated to be run during CBS's primetime lineup. As both Futon and ICV2 point out though, with the development time required to begin an animated project, we wond be seeing any episodes until January 2007 making Creature Comforts one of the first announced mid-season pick ups for next year.

Aardman Animation has a long running history of well crafted programming and Number One greatly looks forward to this show's first broadcast.

Mad Cowgirl to Premiere at San Francisco Indie Fest

Luke Y. Thompson, otherwise known as LYT in our comments section, stars in (and was assistant director) Gregory Hatanaka's feature length action/horror film Mad Cowgirl which premieres this weekend at San Francisco's annual Indie Fest.

According to the Mad Cowgirl Website, the film tells the story of:

Therese, an ass-kicking health inspector with a failed marriage, an on-going affair with a creepy televangelist, nymphomania, and an obsession with old kung-fu movies. Further complicating her life is a very questionable relationship with her brother Thierry, a meat importer who may (or may not) have infected her with mad cow disease.

The film will be screening at the Roxie Cinema on Saturday 2/04 at 9:30pm and has already been given positive reviews by the San Francisco Examiner and the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

The film appears to have been shot on, the great boon to the indie film, a Mini-DV camera. Shooting in Mini-DV, while not as "pretty" as film, provides filmmakers with an inexpensive and useful alternative to scrounging for unused stock in order to film their projects. By the looks of the preview and the stills I have seen, the film is lit in a way that minimizes the disadvantages of the DV camera and allows the director to allocate funds to what is truly important in a low budget horror/action film...blood.

Sadly, I won't be able to watch LYT's latest film until it plays at the Silverlake Film Festival in March, but it looks like it is right up my alley (and maybe Uberbrian's as well).

Nostalgia and a Love of Westernized Chop Socky

With all the recent mentions of jiang-hu, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers and Outlaws of the Water Margin (oh...I haven't mentioned that) in addition to my recent "I'm above all that" Chuck Norris post, some of you out in the "net" may think that I am not a fan of cheezy Westernized Chop Socky. Rereading the Chuck post, I noticed that my genuine enjoyment of his films may have been lost under the sarcastic tone referring to his new novel. I assure you I cut my teeth on Shaw Brothers movies and the Americanized martial arts movie.

My middle school afternoons were filled with hours watching USA, HBO, and Showtime presentations of Enter the Ninja ("Neenja!? I want my neenja now!), Good Guys Wear Black (which had more action in it when originally screened, I swear!), and Five Deadly Venoms to mention but a few. As I grew, so did my love of the martial arts action film. But there are two Americanized Chop Socky films that stand head and shoulders above the rest in my mind. One from the '80s (the height of the genre) and the other from the early '90s, Berry Gordy's: The Last Dragon starring Taimak and Jeff Speakman's straight forward tale of revenge The Perfect Weapon (only one of which stars the ever present Al Leong).

The Last Dragon is the story of Bruce Leroy, a young man in search of enlightenment and full knowledge of the martial arts. His goal is to be as great as his idol...Bruce Lee. He knows that a true master is in harmony both in body and mind and the movie is the tale of his journey of discovery. You see Bruce doesn't believe he is a master because he has not been able to attain a harmonious "glow" when practicing his martial arts. Even skilled warriors are able to attain a glow on their hands, the true master can emit one from his entire body.

Thrown into the mix is the Shogun of Harlem, Sho'Nuff, played appropriately over the top by Julius Carry (you may remember him from Brisco County Junior). The Shogun is the obligatory "evil overlord." In a Samurai film, he would be the evil Ronin or the Oyabun's chief assassin. The Shogun seeks fame, power, and the destruction of all who claim to be masters of the martial arts. His very reason for existance, in this film, is the utter destruction of Bruce Leroy.

Leroy, to give him credit, avoids fighting the Shogun for as long as possible. He delays and seeks non-violent resolution, but in the end he must make a heroic stand. Only to discover that the Shogun, laughable as Leroy imagined the Shogun to be, is capable of achieving enough focus to bring a glow to his hands.



How can this villain be a greater martial artist than our hero?

The answer is that he can't. Eventually, Leroy comes to understand that he had blinded himself to his own talents and is finally able to achieve a sublime glow covering his entire body.




The film is enjoyable both as a comedy and as an action film. It predates I'm Gonna Git You, Sucka by about three years, but like Sucka it plays around with blaxploitation conventions. In fact, I prefer Dragon to the Wayans classic.

The Perfect Weapon is an attempt to combine the "bad kid made good through martial arts" narrative with the traditional kung fu trope of revenge. Jeff Speakman, the star of the film, does an excellent job of translating real world martial arts into big screen action. Most, if not all, of the choreography is based on real Kenpo techniques and action is delivered straight without wires or much need for suspended disbelief. The suspension is needed for the narrative, not the action.



I really can't add anything new to the discussion of the film. All I can do is agree with Luke Y. Thompson who said:

"Better than expected actioner that was supposed to launch Speakman into a big-time movie career; then Street Knight shot that notion down."

And Joe Bob Briggs who captures the essence of the film perfectly in his review when he writes:

Speakman's movie, "The Perfect Weapon," is the first flick that's so true to martial-arts teaching that the body count is only ONE. That's uno! Because, after all, the original idea was self-DEFENSE, right?

Jeff plays a hothead who takes on the Korean Mafia, trying to get even for the murder of an old friend by ruthless drug goons. Everybody thinks Speakman's an idiot, including his cop father, his cop brother, his kenpo karate master, his fighting Korean girlfriend, and several dozen oriental head-bashers. The surprising thing about the movie is that, as it turns out, he IS an idiot. He puts a high school kid in the hospital, almost gets his brother killed, almost kills the WRONG gangster, and endangers the lives of several other people, including a 12-year-old kid--until he figures out to "become the dragon, not the tiger." (I'm not going into it right now. It's some of that "Karate Kid" chopsocky poetry they use right before the big final fight.)


So anyhow, what's REALLY strange is that kenpo karate looks more like belly-dancing than it looks like kung-fu. You've got all this hand motion, and these arm swings, like Steve Martin doing "King Tut," and you don't really think it's a very MACHO martial-arts technique--until you see Speakman knock out FOUR guys in FIVE seconds. Excellent.

Add these two low-budget action classics to your netflix queue as soon as possible.

Questions for Readers...Yeah, Readers...Like We Have Those.

I started this blog some time ago and it seems that only recently have we begun to have any regularity of visitation by others. At least I think that's true, one can never tell with the various "tracking" methods available on the internet. I am going to operate under the assumption that we do in fact have more than two readers, more than just Fritz, Rob, and me that is. But I want more readers than the current very select, read small, group of visitors we currently enjoy.

That's were you, my loyal visitors, come in. Since this is a pop-culture blog, I want to know what aspects of popular culture you are interested in reading about so that Cinerati can provide content that is engaging to you and which you will be able to recommend to others. I would appreciate it if you would take the following survey. You can answer the questions in the comments section, use a trackback from your own website, or both.

1) What areas of popular culture would you like to see enjoy more discussion on Cinerati?

2) What are five of your favorite "popcorn" movies? (I don't like to ask absolute favorites, or lists, because such things are fluid.)

2a) Would you like to see more film reviews/discussion on the site?

3) What are five of your favorite boardgames?

3a) Would you like to see more boardgame reviews/discussion on this site?

4) What are a few of the television shows that really interest you of late?

4a) Would you like to see more discussion of Television shows? An example of this kind of reporting would be Shouting into the Wind's excellent "The Watch List" and my Rollergirls article.

5) What videogames do you enjoy?

5a) Would you like to see more VG discussion on this site.

6) Do you play an MMORPG? Which one? What Server? Can I be in your guild?

7) Would you be interested in posting even as a "Double Post" with links to your own site here at Cinerati?

8) Does anyone know how to get The Bear at TTLB to respond? I would really like to get my pop-culture "community" rolling.

9) Do you have any other recommendations? How can we here at Cinerati better serve you? What are some areas we have overlooked?

Thanks for your time and even if you don't answer...thanks for visiting.

A Real Chuck Norris Fact

Like Uberbrian, I think that the whole "Chuck Norris Facts" thing has gone a little too far. You know an internet joke/pop-culture game has gone too far when it gets an article in the oh so topical Los Angeles Times. But unlike Uberbrian, I refuse to hide my legitimate love of things Chuck Norris. I just watched The Octagon dammit and I will be vindicated!

So in the spirit of genuine, rather than hipster poseur, Chuck Norris fandom, I announce the first real Chuck Norris fact. It appears that the ultra-action star has found a way to prolong his status as action hero into the infinite. It began with his "writing" of the official version of how he himself became so legendary. Chuck Norris fans proudly own this book in their bookselves, right between Shatner's Star Trek Memories and Heidegger's Being and Time.


No true Chuck fan can be without their first edition copy of Against All Odds. By the way, I am not kidding.

Following his memoir, Chuck seems to have acquired the writing bug. After all, as a literary character Chuck (or his literary counterpart) can live heroically into perpetuity. So Chuck fans need to rush out and buy The Justice Riders written by Ken Abraham, Aaron Norris, Tim Grayem, and Chuck Norris. With four authors and 295 pages, you know this is the great American novel.

Ezra Justice's orders from General Sherman are simple. Form a small, elite team of soldiers and make things difficult for the Confederacy. If caught, no one will claim knowledge of Justice, his men, or their orders. The Justice Riders are off and disrupting the Confederate's supply lines as best they can. But the team attracts the attention of Mordecai Slate and his "Death Raiders," and the battle becomes a far more personal one.

Dr. Nokes' State of the Blog the Cinerati Response

While we here at Cinerati agree with the vast majority of what Professor Nokes discussed in his State of the Blog Address, Number One remains confused at the good professor's love of the new Battlestar Galactica series. Number One believes that time spent watching that show could be better spent watching meaningful discussions of the human condition, shows like Rollergirls.

Number One also laments that the professor has, in all his tenure as a Medieval blogger, failed to once do an analysis of Camelot 3000, let alone mention the pop culture work.

Aside from these glaring problems, Number One looks forward to another year of spreading irony and ignorance while helping others waste precious moments that could be spent inventing wonders.