Category Archives: Movie Villainy

A Machine for Satan?

22 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by in Movie Villainy, Movies

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Denver Villainy

We’ve all heard the ‘deus ex machina,’ right? Everyone knows that little story about how the folks in ancient Greek theater used to end a play by hoisting a God out over the stage at the end of a play to resolve the major problems in the story line. We all know that the phrase is now used derisively to describe any device in which an author solves problems by means of an external resolution. When the protagonists of the story can’t solve their own problems, we consider it cheating to have the cavalry ride in at the end or cut to the central character waking up to find it was all a dream, or find out the protagonists were really faking the audience out right along with their villain. (Supernatural, I’m looking at you!) I cringe when a hero pinned down by bad guys with automatic weapons manages to run across and open field without getting hit, and I have long since grown tired of engines that are supposed to blow up at warp-factor 10, but somehow manage warp factor 12 for a minute or so as Captain Kirk looks at us with that special mixture of fear and confidence, and possibly without his shirt. It’s also bad when the hero somehow gets through all the guards without any explanation as to how she got there to confront the big-bad-evil Night King and win the most important battle of the whole series two full episodes before its over, and now we have to wonder why we should watch the last two episodes at all when this was supposed to be the biggest conflict of the whole story? Why!?! WHY!?!

…okay I get a little carried away, sometimes.

I do.

Anyway, the point is that it’s cheating to impose a solution on the end of a story without forcing the protagonists solve the problems for themselves. If they can’t solve their problems, then they can end tragically. Sometimes that works too, but when the problem is solved magically, it feels like a cheat. We call that sort of ending a ‘deus ex machina’, and when we use that phrase it is not used in praise.

So what about a Satanus ex machina?

I’m probably botching the grammar in that phrase, but in my defense, the Devil Made me do it.

I personally find it no less irritating when the central problems to be resolved in a story are unmotivated by any reasonable sense of how the world works or what a villain wants. Oh, I can suspend belief for a central premise or two, but there is a point at which the story should begin to follow a logic of it’s own. Once those premises are established, the actions of the characters in question, including those of the major antagonist of the story ought to make sense within the universe in which they live. If this isn’t the case, then how do we understand the protagonists own responses to the difficulties at hand? What do they need to do to solve those problems? Unless the problems facing our main characters present them with some meaningful choices, they are just as deprotagonized as they would be if someone else solved their problems for them, and the problems posed by the story do not have a meaningful logic of their own, then they impose no meaningful choices on the protagonists.

What am I talking about?

I’m talking about the villain who is doing villainous things just to be a villain? Worse yet, I am talking about the villain who has a clear rationale for their actions, but whose actions leave that rationale aside as the story approaches its climax. We knew why he did this, but why is he doing that? Why would a bad guy who steals a ton of money, for example, wish to cause havoc with the global economy on his way out the door? (Sorry, Die hard. It’s a sticking point.)

I’m talking about a supernatural power that kills people right and left, and does so without any clear explanation.

I’m talking about any sort of fight in which supernaturally powerful characters pound away at each other with no effect until the writer finally decides to show us mercy and let one of them actually get hurt and/or die. (Alright, this may not be entirely a problem of villain construction, but it’s damned irritating and all-too damned common.)

I’m talking about a world in which the rules are frequently rewritten to undo whatever resolution our protagonists come up with. If “It was a dream” makes for a cheap resolution to a story, then so does; “You only beat the bad guy in a dream and now you are back in the battle again.” You may even get by with that one if I can be seduced into believing the next solution will actually matter. Do it enough times, and I am ready to surrender the hero to his nightmares.

In all of these cases, the villain, the monster, the mysterious force or natural disaster, all seem to emerge from out of nowhere, being imposed upon the plot almost as if hoisted in on a machine themselves. Think of the wolves from The Grey. They don’t really make sense in themselves; they are just there to make the characters miserable and kick off a plot point there never really rises above the implausibility of its central villains.

I get the fact that a certain degree of mystery can help drive a story and pose interesting questions for us at its start, but somewhere along the line, we need to get a sense for what is happening and what can be done to stop it? We can even be mislead about that sense of a possible resolution, providing the revelation that our hero’s strategy won’t work after all makes sense when we come to it. If mystery persists, however, the central characters need some plausible course of action to pursue, at least a hope that this or that stratagem could help to resolve their problems. Otherwise, they are just thrashing around. Hell, they can even thrash mindlessly for a scene or two, but if we don’t develop a meaningful sense of the problem and a meaningful response to that problem at some point, then I for one start to lose interest.

This is the central damage done by villains that are just their to be villainous; they often leave us with no sense of how the heroes are to engage them at all, no ideas about what could possibly work. An apparently infallible villain renders the actions of a protagonist pointless. A pointlessly evil villain deprives the conflicts they create of depth and richness, and a one dimensional villain tends all-too-often to set us up for a one-dimensional hero. If the events that kick off a story have no motivation behind them, it is unlikely that the responses to them will have much more depth to them in the end.

I think writers sometimes leave the villain undeveloped to convey a sense of mystery; they sometimes leave a natural disaster or a mysterious force unexplained in order to convey a sense of hopelessness. This approach can certainly be interesting, for a moment anyway. If that hopelessness persists throughout the whole story line, then, I for one start to say; “let the bad guy’s have them!” (Even monsters gotta eat,)

A villain, a monster, or even a natural disaster must have some logic to it in order to give the protagonists a meaningful chance of beating the challenge. Letting us wonder about them works early in a story line, but if the answer to our questions comes too late (and by ‘too late’, I mean after the central strategies of the protagonists are put into play), then this doesn’t help the story. Generating a problem with no central rationale to it is a lot like solving one without addressing the problems posed in the opening scenes. In the latter case, the heroes do not engage the problem; in the former, they cannot. The effect is the same. It makes us care less about the main characters.

As with any kind of writing, I’m sure there are times when all of this works anyway, but in most cases, the kind of narrative I am talking about just seems lazy. You won’t get an interesting answer if you ask a stupid question. Likewise, you will not get an interesting hero out o a conflict with a poorly written villain, and you will not get an interesting 3rd act out of a story whose first act is just literary vandalism. A villain too has to make sense. Her actions must be part of the story. They must fit in the story.

And by ‘fit in the story’ I do not mean that we should learn all about the true nature of the villain or mysterious force in the last pages of a novel or the final minutes of a movie as we also learn why some strategy we could never have imagined from the story-line actually works after all. In such moments, we get both Satan and a god on a machine.

It’s a wedding of sorts!

They make a happy couple!

Requiem for a Great Movie Villain: Damning Ms. Travers!

07 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by in Movie Villainy

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saving-mr-banks-570My family moved to Southern California when I was eight. This meant exposure to new hazards; the high traffic of a city, the threat of earth quakes, and (worst of all) visitors. I used to hate it when people would come to visit us, because that always meant a trip to Disneyland. I used to beg my father to let me stay home, and the answer was usually ‘no’. I would explain to the guests that Knots Berry Farm was way better or that a trip to Universal Studios might be more fun. But no! They always wanted to go to Disneyland. It just went without saying that a trip out our way included a visit to Disneyland.

I hated Disneyland!

I didn’t have the word for it at the time, but what bothered me about Disney was the condescension. Disney wasn’t really made for kids; I understood that much. Disney was an elaborate fantasy for adults, a fantasy in which innocent children could be made happy with an over-abundance of simplicity, cuteness, and a spoon full of sugar. It is a fantasy in which children sit without guile or guilt and lap up harmless happiness without a care in the world. The obvious counterpart to Disney seemed to be Loony-Tunes where I could watch Bugz Bunny drive someone nuts or contemplate the never-ending battle between a coyote and a fast running bird. Knots Berry Farm had rides, real rides, and my comic books had gun-fights and explosions. But Disney? At least in its 1970s version, Disney seemed to think a smiling mouse was all I wanted in the world.

…and it just wasn’t.

I couldn’t help noticing that an awful lot of the tall people I knew seemed to think that damned mouse would make me happy, or at least they wanted to think that. And I couldn’t help thinking they expected me to smile when I saw him. The fantasy Disney sells has never been the mouse, the duck, or even the goofy dog. It has always been the smile of children, children who want nothing more than mice, and ducks and cute dogs. But I was never that innocent, and neither were my classmates at school. I didn’t just resent the whole charade, I regarded it as a threat of sorts, an attack on something deep inside me, something I didn’t want to give up. So, a visit to Disneyland wasn’t just boring, it was an assault on every fiber of my being.

I really hated that damned mouse!

So, perhaps you can understand the joy with which I beheld the entrance of P.L. Travers onto the scene in Saving Mr. Banks. She was rude, she was mean, and she was arrogant. Watching the opening scenes of this film was for me a bit like watching Godzilla cut loose in Tokyo and cheering him on the whole time. …or her on, as the case may be.

The premise for this film is well known. It takes its inspiration from Walt Disney’s efforts to persuade P.L. Travers, the author behind Mary Poppins, to grant him the rights to make a movie out of her work. To say that Travers was not so keen to see her darker, edgier character made into Disney pap would be something of an understatement. And of course the clash of creative visions here makes for an interesting story-line, a chance to watch two great artists battle over the shape of a creation yet to come.

Some might consider this movie a comedy. I consider it a tragedy, but for now I am getting ahead of myself. The P.L. Travers of Saving Mr. Banks is a terribly difficult woman. She is rude; she is unreasonable, and she is terribly British. …I know, she’s supposed to be an Aussie, but she seems to have gone full-limey well before the opening scenes of this movie begin to unfold. We will of course come to like her, but only after we have first come to regard her as something of a problem.And she is a problem, of course, because if she wins, then Mary Poppins never makes its way onto the screen. We never get that spoon full of sugar, dance with penguins, or sing supercali-whatever. For those of us who enjoyed Mary Poppins (and yes, I did) the prospect of a win for Ms. Travers is a counter-factual horror-story, a genuine case of a woman whose will deprives us of something we value.

Which makes her the perfect villain!

saving-mr-banks-screenshot-mickey-mouseUnfortunately, this power of this great villain is undercut from the beginning. It is her publicist who introduces Ms. Travers to us, and through him we first come to realize just how unreasonable she can be. As we meet her, the woman is broke, and yet she will not do the one thing that can save her from economic misfortune. She will not sell the movie rights of her work to Disney. It’s a condescending twist, enabling us to see in Ms. Banks an irrational woman bent on her own self-destruction. What will follow is of course a story of more reasonable people saving her from herself, and in the process giving the world the joy that we have all come to know as Mary Poppins. And of course this movie takes great pains to help us understand this poor, troubled woman, giving us flashbacks aplenty from her difficult childhood in the hopes that we will understand why she grew up to be such an odd and unreasonable person. It is a terribly sympathetic vision, but is also a disrespectful vision, one which asks us to excuse her eccentricities when we should be celebrating them.

More to the point, the movie never really confronts us with the possibility that P.L. Travers may have been right about her own character, that Mary Poppins may have been more interesting, more challenging, and more enriching without the spoonful of sugar that Disney poured into it. It is Travers’ vision which the movie problematizes, so to speak, and so it is her vision which will break in the end.

Dammit anyhow!

To be sure, Travers is set free for a time in this film, allowed to be herself, and that is the moment when I love her, when she is terrible. Addressed on a first name basis by everyone from her driver to Walt Disney himself, Travers balks at the effrontery, and I can’t help but think she is right. Who the Hell are these people to get so familiar so quickly? I smile as she rejects the table of sweets brought to her on the first day, all bundled in Disney iconography. I cheer as she proclaims that there will be no music and no animation in the film, and for just a moment I could almost hope she will win that battle. I stand with Travers as she hands out a harsh sermon on the difference between Dick Van Dyke and the true acting greats of her era. And I could not be more on Travers’ side when she first enters a hotel room to find it filled with stuffed Disney toys. There is a detail here that I don’t wish to spoil, but what she does with that damned mouse is perfect in my opinion, and what she says to him even more so.

It’s fricking perfect!

But of course, this will ultimately, become a sad tale of seduction, and the monstrous Travers who threatens all our childhood happiness will be tamed in good time. We all know that Mary Poppins was made into a movie, and we all know that Dick van Dyke appeared in it. We also know that it contained some very catchy songs, and that it even had some clever animation. We know the movie was just the sort of bright-smiling Disney production that Travers spends her opening scenes railing against.

Some of us even know that P.L. Travers was never quite happy with the final product, but of course that is not the story that Saving Ms. Banks chooses to tell us. In this film, she is slowly convinced by Disney, and I want to cry. From the very first sign of weakness, a tapping toe, to the frightening moment when Travers comes to love her stuffed Mouse, I am horrified. This is supposed to be a heart-warming story in which a cranky eccentric is shown her own human side, and we are supposed to love her more for it. But for me, this is a terrible tale of an artist broken on a wheel of insipid sweetness. Trust me, Walt tells Travers, and we are supposed to hope that she does. I could almost pray that she doesn’t.

The real P.L. Travers did cry at the premier of Mary Poppins, but not because she found the film so moving. She cried because she hated it. This film isn’t merely taking liberties with the facts, it is turning the truth of the central character on its head, transforming her outrage into a warm and fuzzy tale of acceptance. Watching Travers vanquished once again in this new film, I can’t help but feel that same sense of nausea that Disney used to bring me as a child.

That damned mouse took something important from the real P.L. Travers, and in this story, he is taking it from her again.

…and now he wants her to smile about it.

Bonus Super-Villain: This Girl is Nasty in Real Life and on Screen!

10 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by in History, Movie Villainy, Movies

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1990-the-nasty-girl-poster1What makes Sonia Rosenberger so nasty? It isn’t what you would think, or even what the cover of The Nasty Girl would seem to suggest. Precocious though she may be, Sonia’s crimes are those of an historian. She earned the title in her hometown by asking the wrong questions about its history.

I love her.

Sonia’s journey into super-villainy began with an essay contest. As a young student at a Catholic school in Germany, Sonia decided to enter into a national writing contest. She had two topics to choose from; “The concept of Europe” and “My Hometown During the Third Reich.” Sonia’s teacher sensibly encouraged her to go with the first topic, but Sonia had been brought up to believe that the good people of her home town had resisted the Nazis. How could she pass up the opportunity to reveal the heroics of her friends and neighbors?

Please don’t fault Sonia for the innocence of her original intentions! Even the dark flowers of villainy take some time to bloom.

You see it wasn’t long before it became clear to Sonia that something was amiss. Everyone in town seemed to agree that the only true Nazi had been the mayor, but she could not quite seem to get her hands on his files at the local library. What little information she could find on Professor Juckenack, the great hero of the resistance, turned out to be an essay in support of Nazi racial politics. And no-one could seem to remember the concentration camp in town, at least not without a little needling on the subject, in which case they were quick to point out that it was far better than all the others. …the camp that didn’t exist, that is.

Something was amiss!

So, you might wonder what would a good girl wold do upon finding such a mystery? What should a good girl do upon discovering that the people she most looked up to seemed to be damned uncomfortable whenever she tried to talk to them about her personal project? Well, I personally have no idea what a good girl would do about such a quandary, but I can tell you what this bad Betty did.

She dug deeper!

Despite hints, pleas, and even threats, Sonia just kept pressing on in pursuit of the unwelcome truth. Hell, she even kept at it after someone chucked a brick through her car window. Trust me, that was just the beginning. Sonia ignored the advice of neighbors, parents, and even her husband in her pursuit of the truth, sacrificing health and safety in an effort to learn just what had really happened in her hometown during the Nazi years.

I ask you, would a good girl do that? Not a chance!

Left with no other options, Sonia sued the town to gain access to the mayor’s old documents, and when the town changed its laws to prevent her from getting access yet again, …she just sued the town again. She acted as her own lawyer in both ventures, by the way. (Yeah, she’s just that bad-ass.) And do I need to say that she won the second case too? That’s right; good guys don’t always win. Sometimes they get their butts kicked by villainous nasty girls.

Twice!

I’m not even going to tell you what Sonia did when the town library pretended to lose the mayor’s files in yet another effort to hide the truth from her villainous campaign. Suffice to say this juggernaut of naughtiness would not be dissuaded! You know what else I’m not going to tell you? What Sonia found out about Professor Juckenack and his activities under the Third Reich. Nor will I tell you what happened when he sued her for writing about it in her book on the subject. I’m not going to tell you, because I’m feeling a little bad myself today. (Sonia has inspired me to evil.) And if you want to know the answers to these questions, well then you are just going to have to come over to the dark side and dig a little yourself.

Ha!

RosmusPassau300pxwBut you know what the best part of this story is? It is actually based on the life of a real person. her name is Anna Rosmus of Passau, Germany, and she is every bit as wicked as the celluloid creation she inspired. Anna didn’t stop with one book about her hometown, she turned her tireless pursuit of unwelcome truths into a career in scholarship, much of it dedicated to ensuring that the memorials to this painful chapter in German history would not be forgotten, neglected, concealed from the public, or outright defaced. Time and again, Dr. Rosmus has called attention to realities good decent folk would just as soon forget.

Who would do such a thing?

Only a nasty girl.

A very nasty girl indeed!

***

(The image of Anna Rosmus is from http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/133c/133cPrevYears/133c04/133c04l17-NaziPast70s80s.htm)

Great Movie Villains, Volume X: The Troll Hunter!

15 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by in Movie Villainy, Movies

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We can breathe a little easier here in America, because you won’t find this filthy bastard on our shores. His name is Hans, and he was last seen haunting the frozen fjords of Norway. It’s a good thing too. Let the vikings have him! We don’t want that kind of trouble here.

Don’t be fooled by clever disguises. It ain’t bears this man is hunting (though that is what he would have us believe). No, it’s trolls. That’s, right. Hans hunts trolls.

Now you might have thought, as I did, that trolls don’t actually exist. And that is just what the documentary film crew that made this movie thought too. But they found out for themselves just how wrong they could be. These things actually do exist, and they live in the mountains and forests of Norway.

And this dirty son-of-a-bitch kills them.

Now you would think a species so rare as to be regarded by most folks as mythical would be something you’d want to preserve and protect, but no, not this man, nor the Norwegian Troll Security Service (TSS). It seems the government of Norway hires him to slay any trolls that venture near civilization. Sometimes they even send him into troll territory where Hans engages in murder on a scale worthy of a war crimes trial.

All of this is top secret of course.

So, how do we know about it? Hans lured a team of college film students into joining him on his quest to commit cryptocidal atrocities. Oh he pretended that he didn’t want them to follow him at first, but at a critical moment Hans shouted the word ‘troll’ and ran away.He then let the poor innocent babes wheedle the truth out of him. It isn’t often that such violent men resort to passive aggressive manipulation, but apparently Hans knows no shame, not even that of a serial murderer.

This is Hans

As with so many violent criminals, it seems that Hans longs to share the guilt of his awful deeds. Like a master assassin teaching his tricks to apprentice killers, Hans shows the college kids how to track trolls, find them in their lairs, and even kill them. Hans even takes care to introduce them to a scientist who explains in excruciating detail just how painful the troll hunter’s murderous methods really can be. Everyone knows that light kills trolls. What they don’t know is just how much the troll suffers when it hits him. At least until this terrible man, Hans, shares the insight with his chosen band of accomplices.

Of course there is flaw in Hans’ plan.

The government of Norway doesn’t want anyone filming trolls, much less its hired thug doing their dirty work for them. What exactly happened to the film crew, no-one will ever know. You see the video tape of their documentary just showed up, but no-one really knows what happened to the college kids who made it.

Nor does anyone really know the current whereabouts of Hans.

Now some might say that this film bears a striking resemblance to the Blair Witch Project, and some might even say that film was fake. But then again some people serve mild salsa to dinner guests or sell crack to innocent children. Remember that when some pimply faced snot-fer-brained kid tries to wax skeptical on you about this film. Some folks don’t even think jackalopes are real. Try telling that to any small game hunter in Wyoming!

Anyway, the point is that this isn’t just any movie. It’s just the tip of the mixed metaphor, and the truth is staring us all right in the face. It’s out there somewhere dammit.

…armed with UV rays.

So, I take back what I wrote earlier; we are not really all that safe here in America.  People everywhere should be afraid of this terrible bastard. Hans could be anywhere at this point, and who knows how many people he has with him now. I think everyone should watch this documentary and take good care to commit this man’s face to memory. Lean his tactics and his habits, and be on the look-out.

The fate of Chupacabra and the Jersey Devil may well depend on it.

Great Movie Villains, Volume IX: That Witch With a Bow!

30 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by in Movie Villainy, Movies

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Katniss Everdeen
(Avoid at all costs!)

Now some of you may think the title to this piece is a little harsh, maybe even disrespectful. But I’m telling you, if you had seen the movie I just saw, you might be calling her something a little to the left of the term I actually used.

There is a word for her kind, and it rhymes with itch!

I’ve been hearing about this movie for months, and I was really looking forward to it. The title alone had me sold from the beginning. It sounded like a nice sports flick, maybe with a bit of a charity angle worked in. How can you not love a movie with sports and philanthropy? I was really looking forward to this.

I missed a minute or two at the beginning, but as I understand it, there were supposed to be 24 kids in this contest; it’s winner take all. Great! I love a nice high-stakes contest. So, I can’t wait to learn how the games are played and watch our hero develop character and depth on the way to becoming a true champion.

What followed was the most vulgar display of brutality and poor sportsmanship that I have ever seen.

Ever!

Run!!!

You see, the lead actress is not down with the plan. Katniss Everdeen (played by Jennifer Shrader Lawrence) doesn’t even want to hold her team-mates hand in the opening ceremonies. With all the people from her home town pulling for the two of them, she has to be talked into this simple gesture of solidarity.

As if that wasn’t enough, you should see what this spoiled little princess does when some television executives don’t give her enough attention. All I can say is you better stay away from the orchard fruit when this girl wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.

I mean seriously, …sounds a bit like glitch!

Katniss doesn’t even stick around for the start of the game. When the pepper meats the paprika, this spoil-sport takes off and runs the opposite direction. It works out in her favor though, because some sort of disaster befalls the other contestants. I really couldn’t figure out what it was that happened, because the cameraman was awfully shaken up by the whole thing. That sequence was really hard to follow, but the one thing that I know about the opening sequence to the games is that while other athletes were playing and dying, our main character was doing her damnedest to get the hell out of Town.

Cowardly stitch!

The people who run the games had to trick little Katniss back out onto the game field, and even then she spent most of her time hiding in the trees. When some of the other boys and girls came to welcome our wayward girl back to the contest, she wouldn’t even come down to meet them. Worse than that, Katniss soon proved just how far she was willing to go to prove herself the worst sport ever to disgrace any game ever. She knocked a big nest of wasps down onto her fellow contestants as they slept below her.

It was awful. One of the girls died. I can only assume the poor girl was allergic or something. That’s right, Katniss killed one of the other contestants. I don’t even think she was sorry.

Knows a guy named Mitch!

In fact, Little Miss spoil-sport was just getting started with the wasp nest. Next, she blew-up the food stores for all the contestants (apparently the games had an endurance element to them). Katniss followed that up by killing yet another of the other contestants just as her new best friend falls prey to some terrible accident. That’s right, while the innocent little girl dies an unfortunate death (the cause of which I never quite understood), our girl Katniss was busy shooting another contestant with an arrow.

Yes, it was fatal.

Rue (Died of an Unfortunate Coincidence)

Up to this point, you could perhaps have given Katniss the benefit of the doubt. She had no way of knowing about the one girl’s allergies, and her friend, Rue? Well Katniss can’t really be blamed for that, …I don’t think. I don’t even think you can blame her for disaster that befell the other contestants. But when you shoot a guy with an arrow, there just isn’t much doubting your intent. By this point it’s damned clear. Our girl Katniss is a damned murderer.

An itchy murderer!

I can only guess as to the intended nature of the games, but what difference could that possibly make? When you invite this girl to the party, it turns into a war of attrition.

The whole thing comes to a head when one of the contest finalists falls prey to a pack of wolves. Guess how our hero helps out!

Go-one guess!

She kills the guy. I mean how cold do you have to be to refuse help to a man being eaten by wolves?

Cold! I tell you. Stone cold pitch!

So, after all the murder and mayhem, the game officials make one very simple request, that our girl and the one person she hadn’t put under the turf should actually play off one final round. You would think the least she could have done is to grant this one simple request, what with a whole nation watching and the fate of the hungry poor hanging in the balance!

How does little miss Ever-mean react? She threatens to poison herself instead.

You have to wonder, what the hell is she afraid of? It’s just a contest! Can’t she just play one round of this game after all that’s happened? Couldn’t she just give the audience just a little taste of the contest they were supposed to be watching all along?

You would think that wouldn’t be too much to ask. But no. With a single injured opponent, this girl STILL wouldn’t step up and give it a go. Instead, she gets out some poison berries, cons the other contestant into some sort of suicide pact, and gets ready to Jim Jones the whole affair.

The Hungry are Still Hungry
Bet on it!

And do you know how the people behind the games respond to this pathetic display of passive-aggressive manipulation? They give-in. they totally give-in! In some typical lefty-liberal display of everybody-wins nonsense, the fools declare a shared victory, thus depriving a whole nation of viewers of the chance to watch even one, JUST ONE, actual game.

I can only assume the hungry didn’t get their donations!

Damned Dirty Ditch!

Great Movie Villains, Volume VIII: Your Mother!!!!

13 Sunday May 2012

Posted by in Movie Villainy, Movies

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Okay, maybe not your mother, but damned close! Today’s movie villain is that lovable every-Mom from A Christmas Story.

What?

I should wait for Christmas?

This villain isn’t Santa Clause! It’s Mother. And today is exactly the day to celebrate the most excellent movie villainy of Mom.

The Mom from A Christmas Story is the perfect Mom to be our movie villain of the day. From the very first scene you cannot help but fall in love with her. …which would only be your first mistake.

Don’t even try to tell me that you don’t see it, because we all know that you are right there with Ralphie on that Red Rider BB Gun thing. You want it for him. You want it for yourself. Even if you are a girl, you want the Red Rider BB Gun, or at least you’ve wanted something as badly as Ralphie wanted that Red Rider BB Gun. Your own Red Rider BB Gun might have been a Cabbage Patch Kid, a new bike or even a bullwhip, …mine was a bullwhip. Anyway, the point is that we’ve all had our Red Rider BB Gun. So, when Ralphie says he wants one for Christmas, he speaks for all of us. Hell, he is us!

And that makes his Mom, OUR Mom!

…at least for the balance of the movie.

And when Ralpie’s Mom says ‘no’ to that Red Rider, you all know damn well how it feels, because you heard it from your Mom too. If there was ever any doubt that his Mom was your Mom and my Mom, it vanished in that very moment. Right there and then Mother squashes your one true purpose in life. What on earth would possibly be better than a Red Rider BB Gun? Nothing! And she says ‘no’! It’s soul-crushing.

You know what I am talking about. You are right there in the scene with Ralphie and I right now, aren’t you? You are there.

And sure enough, there Mom is, telling you ‘no’. “You’ll shoot your eye out,” she says. It is the first of many times you will hear this terrible proclamation. And seriously, is Mother not acting as the true villain here? Is she not the central obstacle to fulfillment of our major ambition. How could Mother possibly be anything else but a villain while doing such a terrible thing?

Dad would understand. At least he would if it weren’t for Mom. She’ll talk to him and that will ruin everything.

Don’t try to say that it’s okay, because it’s not. At that moment Mother crushes the heart of hope itself. World Peace, the love of God and country, even the taste of really great candy; all these things fail when you hear those words; “You’ll shoot your eye out.” No movie villain has ever taken more away from a protagonist than Mom did in that moment when she first uttered those terrible words.

But that is not all. Let us not forget how skillfully Mother wielded the winter-clothing torture against our little brother! Let us not forget how he cried all the way to school, how he fell in the snow, and how we had to help him up! Let us not forget the vision of our poor dear brother crying as no child has ever cried before, all because Mom insisted on packing him into such a bundle of cloth. What villain could possibly have been more ruthless?

Let us not even speak of the lamp! …that beautiful lamp that father loved so much, the one she destroyed, thus proving her total domination of the household! No, let us not speak of these things. It is enough to remember them.

…and cry.

Yes, my friends, the mother of A Christmas Story is perhaps the most powerful movie villain ever. Who else could possibly block our greatest ambitions with a single phrase, bring our closest kin to tears, and destroy our father’s prize possessions? Who else but Mom? Worse still, who could do all that and make us love her for it? With her gentle strength and calm demeanor, the Mother of this story seeks to seduce us all, to help us find in her what we loved most about our own Mothers, all the while inflicting upon us that which we most feared in them. She beckons us to find reasons to thank her for every crime against our hopes. She insists that we learn to see it her way. There is no quarreling with this mother, no chance to fight back against her charms. She is relentless!

Who could make us love her even as she rules over us with a gentle but overwhelming smile?

Only Mother.

Best villain EVAR!

Special Easter Edition Movie Villain: Jesus Christ!

08 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by in Movie Villainy, Movies, Religion

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Can you see it my Brothers?

Can you see the truth of what I am saying?

Because not everyone can see this. Some consider the topic just too boring to bother with. They’d rather watch a slasher flick. Others are too busy with their prayers. Jesus is too beautiful to them, too noble, too good, too strong, too gentle, too much of a blank check upon the bank account of all things warm and wonderful.

They cannot see it. But Jesus can be downright terrifying.

The Prince of Peace makes an awesome movie villain.

Just ask the merchants in the temple! Yes, that would be the one Jesus trashed, because apparently commerce is supposed to be a bad thing. Just a temper tantrum, you say? Well tell that to someone whose entire livelihood has just been trashed by a madman. A madman who threatens to destroy the very temple of God Himself.

Do not think, he didn’t warn us my friends. Jesus told everyone about his nefarious plans. He told us that he came bringing a sword. He told us that he came to destroy our families. He told us that we would have to forsake everything we know and love to join his kingdom.

And I ask you, what sort of dark kingdom begins with the abandonment of one’s own family?

Let us not even mention the practice of necromancy! Well, okay, yes, let’s go there. Do not imagine that little girl was the only time this fisher of men came to practice the dark arts. On this matter (and many others), the dear Lord is definitely a repeat offender. Seriously, when in the Hell does someone raise the dead and NOT end up as the principle villain of the story? Oh I’m not talking about accidentally awakening a Mummy. That gets you an hour of running and a hero status when you finally beat the bad guy back into the ground. No, I am talking about the deliberate act of pulling a dead man out of the grave and setting him back to walking about the earth. And Jesus did it at least twice!

There is a reason the name of Frankenstein fills us with terror, but Jesus gets a free pass on this one, does he?

And then of course of course there is his skillful use and disposal of Judas. Even as the man betrays Jesus with a kiss, Jesus himself has willed the whole thing to happen, …from the moment of creation, so some folks say. And thus does Judas play into the great cosmic scheme, a lamb for the sins of man. But who is the real sacrifice here? And how wicked is the villain that has chosen a single man for the greatest crime of all history? How wicked is the puppet-master who could bring his chosen victim to accept eternal damnation …with a kiss?

How did he do it? Well great movie villains work in mysterious ways.

Not even the Cylons of the new Battlestar Gallactica series could manipulate humans with such ease and skill. Neither Darth Vader, nor Sauron, nor Scorpius from Farscape have ever had such an elusive evil plan! Professor Moriarty could only dream of such eloquence. Christopher Walken was never so creepy in all his career! And the Devil in all his movie incarnations has never, NEVER, been so menacing.

The question you have to ask is just why everyone found this fellow so frightening to begin with? Why is that this Jesus must die?

Must die!

Must die!

Must die!

The Romans, The Pharisees, even apparently the average man on the street came to call for the blood of the lamb.

So we are told anyway!

But were they really so short-sighted, so bloodthirsty as to want the death of a miracle worker and healer? Or did they know something the rest of us seem to have forgotten? Did they see into the depths of the darkness? Did they know just how terrible this villain really was?

It’s a damn good question, I tell you.

Note: The original version of this post included a lot of links to various movies. I really was talking about Jesus as a movie character and using the videos to illustrate the point. Anyway, dead links happen. So, I took most of them down. Left up Judas, cause, yeah.

 

 

Great Movie Villains Volume VI: The Baudelaire Brats (Yeah – Spoilers!)

16 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in Movie Villainy, Movies

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Violet, Klaus, and Sunny. Remember those names. And should these “children” ever show up at your door…

Run like Hell!

These are not really children. They are demons. Just ask their beloved uncle, Count Olaf. A Series of Unfortunate Events, my ass! The terrors of this story-line are precisely what happens when the world is thrown out of balance, which is exactly what happens whenever these kids enter the story.

The Baudelaire children are way too smart for their own good, solving problems children aren’t suppose to solve, and generally proving themselves smarter than the adults around them at every turn. Even the world which they inhabit seems somehow way too interesting and way too clever for a children’s movie. And you may think that is hardly their fault, but you would be wrong to think that.

Just ask Violet!!!

You see the whole point of a children’s movie isn’t to tell a story that children will find entertaining; it is to tell a story that adults like to think children will find entertaining. The children in such movies have faults we can live with; they might like candy a little too much or want to stay up a little too late. But they are not too cool for the whole school.

Not so, the Baudelaire Brats! They are smart. They are savvy.

Shame on them!

A good child would accept without question the wisdom of the adult world, but these little demons notice things. Oh yes they do. And they exchange knowing looks.

More a living shark than a little girl, the youngest (Sunny) is a true freak of nature. The middle brat reads incessantly. Like some sort of uber-nerd who won’t settle for throwing the class average, Klaus consumes whole libraries and then uses the knowledge contained therein to crush his enemies and bring about their downfall. Worse yet, Violet is a devious inventor. Give her a ribbon and a few trinkets and she will fashion for you a gadget to solve whatever problems you may have.

So, where did she get the ribbon, you may ask?

Could it be ….Satan!?!

You bet your sweet ass it was Satan that gave this little girl her powers. When Robert Johnson went down to the crossroads all those long years ago, he took the spirit of this sweet little girl with him and she sowed the fate of her family that very evening.

Small wonder that the children lost their parents. Why did that happen you may ask? And we are supposed to believe it had something to do with a giant magnifying glass? Not a chance, baby! The fate of their folks had been sealed down at the crossroads. You know it, I know it. Robert Johnson knows it and so does Eric Clapton. Most importantly, Violet sure as HELL knows it. So, let’s not hear of any more great mystery deaths okay. The Devil torched the Baudelaire house when he came to reclaim is due. Her parents were just collateral damage.

And that was just the start of it. Are we supposed to believe that the deaths of Uncle Montgomery and Aunt Josephine are mere accidents? With Uncle Montgomery being so brave and Aunt Josephine so careful, do you really think they could be offed so easily as this movie suggests? I don’t think so. And don’t even try to tell me it was Count Olaf that killed them. No, it was their love that condemned them.

Their love for these demon-children.

Anyone could see those deaths coming. When children are too smart for their own good, bad things happen to those that care for them. It’s as obvious as sending someone else down to the planet with Mr. Spock, Bones, and Captain Kirk. These characters were dead from the moment they opened their doors to the Baudelaire children. Blaming Uncle Olaf is like condemning a gun for serving as the instrument of a murder.

It should come as no surprise that the film culminates in a blasphemous attack on the institution of marriage. Violet rejects her marriage to Uncle Olaf just as she rejects every other good wholesome value that may fall in her path. What’s next? A pact with the ACLU?

I wouldn’t put it past her.

And then of course we get the final insult. These characters somehow contrived to avoid parts 2 and 3 of the trilogy altogether. Yes, that’s right, the actors who played the children are now well into adulthood, thus forever ending the hopes of a sequel. Don’t think it’s an accident either. Only the likes of the Baudelaire children could have foiled plans for a sequel by aging out of the narrative, letting the real world stand in the way of a good story.

Devil children, I tell you!

I know damned well that Count Olaf would have gotten them in the end. Cheated, he is, out of his money, just as we were all cheated out of a righteous and proper ending. We will not be seeing a Lemony Snickets Two and Three, and that is indeed a crime for which the Baudelaire Brats should be condemned for all time. They have cheated all of us out of this ending, I tell you.

Just like Uncle Olaf, we are all cheated.

Cheated!!!!

Great Movie Villains, Volume V: God Damn Us Every One!

19 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in Movie Villainy, Movies

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Yeah, that’s right folks! I’m talking about Tiny Tim here. Don’t even pretend you don’t know what I am talking about! Or did you think maybe it was those damned spooks that brought about the downfall of a Ebenezer Scrooge?

No, I am telling you Scrooge wasn’t afraid of no ghost! Nor even three of them. He may have hesitated a bit with the first one, but I am telling you that stalwart icon of good business sense rose to the occasion. He faced those ghosts down like a true champion. Were it for their vainglorious efforts, I feel quite certain that Scrooge would have gone to his grave a good thrifty capitalist, just as he was at the beginning of this terrible tragedy.

And it is a tragedy, make no mistake about it. A Christmas Carol is a dark and terrible story about the downfall of fine American. Don’t even try to tell me that Scrooge was British! Just listen to the man! Asked to give to the poor, how does Scrooge reply?

“Are there no prisons? Are there no poor houses?”

American, Hell! If only Scrooge were still around, the Republican party would know just who to run against Obama. I’m telling you, Scrooge was a good American even if he was British. What this country would not give to have someone of his moral fortitude around today! But no, sadly the old man is dead. And not just dead. His spirit was broken long before he entered the grave. All on account of that sad-adorable little boy, Tiny Tim!

It’s enough to make you want to puke.

Scrooge was a man of principle. He was a man of industry. A man who understood what happens when you subsidize sloth by saving a life instead of letting the market work its magic. Scrooge was all these things, and above all he was a man of wit and reason. He handled life’s problems rationally, and all he asked of others was that they do the same.

And then along comes this poor boy with a treatable illness and just like liberals everywhere the damned ghosts go to work on your heart-strings. Oh look, Ebenezer, look at the poor sick child! Can’t you pay Cratchit a little more? Can’t you save little Tim, Ebenezer? You have so much money, surely you can save him! Oh look Ebenezer, if you don’t help him, poor little helpless Tim is gonna die.

And the little runt plays his heart perfectly, acting so sweet and innocent. The ghosts don’t show Scrooge a moment of Tim slacking off instead of doing his homework. Hell, they don’t even focus on the fact that he doesn’t have a job as every good working class kid his age should have had by that age. And they sure as Hell don’t show him sneaking an extra helping of mashed potatoes or pulling on his sister’s pig-tails. No, they only show him Tim at his most pure, most adorable, most pathetic.

Sad to say the old man cracked.

I know, we are supposed to say that his heart melted, that he found his inner goodness, or some such rotten sentiments. We are supposed to believe that this is a story of redemption, that Scrooge was a better man on account of the story of Tiny Tim. We are supposed to believe that Tiny Tim was the instrument by which Scrooge became a better person.

More than that, we are supposed to be inspired by this story. We are supposed to learn to care. It is supposed to warm our hearts and help all of us to become better people.

Bah Humbug!

In Honor of Nigel Tufnel Day, this Movie Villain Takes it to 11!

11 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by in Movie Villainy, Movies, Music

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Most movie villains would be content to achieve a ten out of ten on a villain rating. Not this one. No, Nigel Tufnel isn’t satisfied with that kind of mediocre performance.  His villainy is always one louder.

Oh sure, just another misunderstood heavy metal musician you say? We’ve all heard the wild rumors that rock&roll is subversive? They’re just rumors, aren’t they?

Well no, dammit they’re not. When rock&roll is done right it is subversive.

And no-one is more subversive than Nigel Tufnel.  With songs like Big Bottom and Sex Farm Woman, he destroyed the sexual mores of middle class culture. With Hell Hole, he exposed the veneer of “success,” and with Stonehenge, Nigel reminded us all that Pagan worship is damned cool.

Not content to corrupt the souls of the young, Nigel inflicted his musical perversity on the fans of classical music, or at least he will as soon as he completes his long awaited trilogy and “Lick My Love Pump” knocks Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart right off the charts and into the corner pub where lesser musicians belong.

This man isn’t misunderstood at all. He is rock&roll badness at its worst. He wants your money, your daughter, and your freakin’ Oreos. And he doesn’t want the damned creamy filling!

Nigel doesn’t just create the music. This make-up wearing, Gumby-Lovin tight-panted freak with a guitar and a violin is the music your parents don’t want you to hear.

He is the music they don’t want you to touch.

…to look at.

…or even to think about.

You’re thinking about Nigel now aren’t you?

Well don’t!