Wednesday, December 31, 2025
"The Killer": review
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| Michael Fassbender as the killer with many names |
2023's "The Killer" stars Michael Fassbender, Arliss Howard, Charles Parnell (who's done at least two movies with Tom Cruise), Kerry O'Malley, Sala Baker, Sophie Charlotte, and Tilda Swinton. The plot is a simple one: an assassin's mission in Paris goes wrong when he accidentally shoots the wrong target; the assassin comes home to find his girlfriend has been tortured and almost killed when he was the actual target; the assassin must then kill his way through a trail of people to find whoever ordered the hit on him. The film is directed by David Fincher ("Seven"), the king of dark, noirish, slow-burn crime dramas (we'll forget, for a moment, that his name remains forever attached to "Alien 3," a troubled movie that actually went through several directors), and this film showcases Fincher at his cinematic best.
The Killer (Fassbender), we learn through his own voiceover narration, is an assassin who has been very good at his job, and this comes from a complete detachment from society and society's morals. Nothing he does—or so he insists—is personal. It's only about business, not good or bad, not this cause or that cause, not a belief in innate human goodness or badness. When we meet The Killer, he's perched in a still-unconstructed Paris office across from a hotel penthouse where he knows his target will eventually appear. He has a tense conversation with his handler, who is also, strangely, a former law professor who dissuaded The Killer from pursuing law and persuaded him to find ways to use the law to his advantage, hence The Killer's move to contract killing. As the Killer coolly narrates his state of mind and the principles that undergird his professionalism, we see the target suddenly appear in the apartment across the way. The Killer, rifle at the ready, takes aim, fires, and misses, hitting a hired dominatrix instead. He quickly packs up, removes all traces of himself, and skedaddles to Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, where his residence is. After a long drive to his isolated abode, he discovers that his girlfriend (Charlotte) has been attacked by two people; she was tortured but managed to escape, and as she tells her boyfriend, she never told the two attackers anything about him. Something changes in The Killer, and things get personal. He makes it his mission to track down whoever it was who had ordered the hit on him—a trail that takes him through the two goons (Baker and Swinton) who attacked his girlfriend, his handler Professor Hodges (Parnell) as well as Hodges's assistant Dolores (O'Malley), and finally to the billionaire client who had put out the original hit on the target in Paris. Along the way, The Killer discovers that one of the goons, "The Expert" (Swinton), is a fellow assassin; the Killer and the Expert sit down for what will turn out to be The Expert's final dinner conversation. The big question for me, as is true with any movie focusing on assassins, is whether the main character survives to the end of the story. Ever since "American Beauty," in which Kevin Spacey's character narrates even from beyond the grave, there's been no guarantee that voiceover narration means the narrator is going to survive the tale.
If anything, the movie spends a lot of time driving home the idea that, for every professional assassin, his or her day will come. It's just the nature of the beast. There is some sort of compulsion that keeps the assassin in the game even after he's earned more than enough money to start a new life somewhere, and in the end, because everyone has flaws, the assassin's flaws will, in some way, end up being used against him. "The Killer" is based on a French graphic novel series called Le Tueur (The Killer) by Alexis "Matz" Nolent and Luc Jacamon. Without giving too much away, I can say that the story put on screen by Fincher and Fassbender has a more American than French ending, but with the specter of death still casting a neverending pall over the surviving characters.
What works best in the film is Michael Fassbender's cold, dead-eyed stare, which at some moments is truly chilling. He manages to capture Ian McShane's sangfroid in "Sexy Beast," Joe Pesci's murderous moment when he's intimidating Ray Liotta in the "Funny how?" scene in "Goodfellas," and Javier Bardem's almost reflectively homicidal Anton Chigurh in "No Country for Old Men." But as the film progresses, we see chinks in The Killer's armor, such as when Tilda Swinton's The Expert describes aspects of her own life as a killer that inadvertently resonate with our main character. The movie also folds in some subtle humor as we see every false ID that The Killer uses—and all the names are either sitcom characters or sitcom actors. We learn many names, but never The Killer's real name, which puts The Killer somewhere in league with hordes of demons (I am legion, for we are many—Mark 5:9). All the other actors, who do little more than stand in The Killer's way (aside from Sophie Charlotte as the girlfriend), also play their roles well; they are mostly cannon fodder as The Killer fights his way to the top of the food chain to confront the man who had ordered the hit on him.
What doesn't work for me, though, is how The Killer appears flawed from the beginning and only seems to unravel as the movie progresses. His voiceover narration gives the viewer the idea that he's a stone-cold professional, but his first act in the movie—our very first impression of how he is as an assassin—is to bungle his mission. This is a fault of the screenwriter (Andrew Kevin Walker), who should have begun the movie showing us a variety of smooth, successful hits to establish The Killer's ruthless proficiency before showing us his mission failure. Instead, The Killer seems to spend the movie both trying to make up for his original lapse and falling ever deeper into unprofessionalism as he becomes more emotionally engaged in his project of killing his way up the totem pole. This is, to my mind, a fundamental flaw in characterization. The flawed script ultimately fell short of Michael Fassbender's fine acting.
With that in mind, would I recommend "The Killer"? Let's put it this way: there are worse assassin-related films out there, and mainly thanks to Fassbender's portrayal, this may actually be one of the better ones, so I suppose I do at least cautiously recommend the movie. It stumbles in terms of screenwriting, specifically when it comes to story and characterization, but overall, it's a good, slow-burn thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end. Oh, yes: one last, interesting bit of trivia: actor Sala Baker, who plays the Brute (the barbaric, thuggish partner of Tilda Swinton's The Expert), is the same hulking New Zealander who played Sauron in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. To put things mildly, his character in this movie gives The Killer a spot of trouble. I was reminded of the opening encounter between Dave Bautista and Ryan Gosling in "Blade Runner 2049."
last day of 2025
2025 went by fast. Not that it was a better or worse year than other years; it just seemed to whiz by. I began the year wondering whether I'd survive it; I seem to have done so (knock on wood; it's around 12:45 p.m. as I write this, so who knows). With 2026 on my doorstep, I get to start that process all over again.
Today's agenda is, well, not much. Buy some salads and some alcohol-free champagne from the downstairs Paris Baguette, plus maybe some chicken breasts; fish out a fallen item from behind my toilet*; generate more Substack content; video tonight's Lotte World Tower fireworks display, as I try to do every year. And that's about it. Wake up on January 1 and take a walk in what promises to be below-freezing temperatures all day.
What will you be doing for the new year?
__________
*A package of ChapSticks fell out of my bathroom's medicine cabinet, hit my hand, bounced off a wall, went behind the toilet, and seemingly disappeared. I looked and looked but couldn't find it anywhere. I think it may have bounced inside the toilet. My toilet is open in the back, by which I mean the support below the bowl and tank. This seems like just the sort of stupid, highly improbable, Murphy's-Law thing that would happen to me.
UPDATE: I found the Chapstick package, which hadn't fallen behind the toilet at all: it had instead nestled itself flush against the side of the toilet closest to the wall, making it almost impossible to find. Lucky for me, I raked over every inch of the toilet with my phone's video camera, and that's how I spotted the ChapStick. Amazing. I'd been ready to give up. And now, for some weird reason, I feel like celebrating. I mean, think about it: if I had given up, and the ChapStick had sat somewhere for months, it could have gotten covered in mold, which in turn could have proven toxic to my lungs. Yum, right? So—disaster averted. Maybe that's why I feel like celebrating. And another thing: the video showed that my toilet isn't open in the back. I'm no longer sure where I got that idea from.
they always choose to flee
I see conflicting reports, but it seems the stupid motorcyclist survived. What a shame.
Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Karl Bushby: British walker
Here's the story of a man who has walked for over twenty years and is almost done. And he started off with only $500. You can read more here.
another quiet day of Substacking
Today is devoted to scheduling a bunch of posts for The Creative section of my Substack, hopefully through the end of February. I might also go for a walk.
Remember that getting a paid subscription allows you access to everything—to The Superficial (grammar through memes and other bad online English), The Profound (an actual grammar curriculum), The Creative, and The Entertaining.
Expect new things in The Creative and The Entertaining in the coming months.
Monday, December 29, 2025
Mexi-Fili fusion for John McCrarey
Well, John, California may have a food mecca for you: Sayulita's, which serves a fusion of Mexican and Filipino food. Based on the video, the food looks amazing.
decent hot chocolate
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| sorry about the ugly bathtub ring |
1 heaping tablespoon of powdered cocoa
1 heaping tablespoon of BochaSweet (or monk-fruit sweetener)
250 ml boiling water
250 ml heavy cream
Pour the sweetener and cocoa powder into your 500-ml mug. Boil some water. Stir the boiling water into the mug. The heat, plus your stirring, should take care of any lumps in the cocoa. Add the heavy cream. Now, if the heavy cream has just come out of the fridge, it's going to cool your mixture way down. If you're not okay with that, use your favorite reheating method to bring your mug's contents back up to hot-coffee temperature. Sip and enjoy.
The above recipe has only the carbs that come in powdered chocolate, so if you add whipped cream or marshmallows to the top of your mug, make sure they're also free of sugar. Recipes for keto marshmallows are everywhere, and making your own whipped cream is as easy as blitzing heavy cream in a food processor. Just don't blitz too long, or you'll end up with butter. Now, if you're okay with butter in your hot chocolate, I guess that's not a problem. Also: if you're making the whole thing on a stove, feel free to use zero water and 500 ml of heavy cream. Stir until you have no lumps.
"I Like Me": one-paragraph review
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| image found here |
"I Like Me" is a 2025 documentary about the short life of John Candy. It's directed by Colin Hanks (son of Tom) and co-produced by Hanks, Candy's fellow Canuck Ryan Reynolds (via Reynolds's Maximum Effort production company), and five others. The documentary gives us an overview of Candy's life through old stills, old videos, old outtakes, and present-day interviews with various stars who had had the chance to work with Candy, not to mention relatives, friends, and various associates. Not a single one could say a bad thing about the man (although Bill Murray humorously tried). Especially relevant to me was Candy's family's history with heart disease: his dad, despite being a military vet who wasn't fat, died of a massive heart attack at age 35 when John was only five. John's older brother, much later on, suffered his own heart attack (but survived), and when John died at age 43, he had known for years that he was on borrowed time—a sentiment I can relate to. He also had to deal with rude interviewers who peppered him with incessant questions about his weight. Personally, I found this documentary to be a tender and sympathetic portrait of a comedy great, but at the same time—except for one or two laugh-out-loud moments during the documentary—I generally found Candy to be only blandly funny in a "helpless everyman" sort of way. Among famous "people of size," I'd say that Candy didn't really have the manic energy or cleverness of, say, John Belushi or Jack Black, nor did he possess the wit and acting chops of a John Goodman. Still, Candy proudly occupied his middle zone and was obviously extremely popular; a moment in the documentary highlights how proud his Canadian hometown was of him. And significantly, at the end of the documentary, we discover that the Canadian police had closed off a length of freeway for Candy's funeral procession, with officers saluting as Candy's hearse drove by. People of my generation and older will recognize many of the famous interviewees, all old now, from Bill Murray to Dan Aykroyd to Steve Martin, Eugene Levy, Mel Brooks, Macaulay Culkin, Tom Hanks, Conan O'Brien, Catherine O'Hara, Martin Short, and so many more. It's hard to summarize a life in a two-hour documentary, but director Colin Hanks does a deftly sensitive job of portraying Candy's life in a good light, not shying away from issues of overweight, but showing how positively Candy's presence had affected those around him.
the work's not over
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| found on Instapundit |
Over the weekend, I was able to catch up a bit on Substack. I now have scheduled posts through mid-January for The Creative and The Superficial. I have posts through the beginning of next week for The Profound; elsewhere, I've got YouTube videos scheduled through January 2. This week, I want to generate enough material to free up both January and February, after which I'll be turning my attention to book projects, video projects, quiz/test generation for Substack, and a new cartoon series I want to start uploading to Substack. So the work goes on and never stops (though I might take a break on New Year's Day).
you gotta be kiddin'
This doesn't look good at all to me—not the concept, and not the execution. No disrespect to Sam, who's a really good cook, but this is just carbs on top of carbs, and in a stupid way. Did a drunk/high college kid come up with this?
Ave, Charles!
Charles and the Missus take a stroll downtown to see the Christmas lights and festivities. After you click over, be sure to hover your cursor over the images to see some of Charles's sometimes-wry captions. I almost didn't look, and I found the captions by accident.
Sunday, December 28, 2025
am I in the same boat as ol' Chevy?
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| not the Fletch I remember |
Headline:Chevy Chase 'Basically Came Back From the Dead' Following 'Near-Fatal' Heart Failure That Placed Him in a Coma
Chevy Chase is opening up about the health problems that nearly killed him in his new authorized CNN documentary.
I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not is set to premiere on New Year's Day and features insight into the Saturday Night Live alum's past hospitalization, such as his "near-fatal" heart issues that put him in a coma for eight days as he recovered.
Details of the medical emergency, which took place in 2021, were scarce and kept under wraps at the time.
His daughter Caley Chase, 40, noted in a preview of the series how her father had “basically come back from the dead.”
“Something was wrong, and he couldn’t explain to me what was wrong. So, we go to the ER. His heart stops. During those years he was drinking, he got cardiomyopathy; when the heart muscles get weaker, and they can’t pump as much blood out with each beat," his wife, Jayni, said.
“According to the doctors, my memory would be shot from it,” the Community actor recalled. “That’s what’s happened here. I’m fine now. It’s just that it affects your memory, the doctors have told me that. So, I have to be reminded of things.”
Caley added that doctors “warned" her family about the future and how Chevy might not have full cognitive function.
She looked back on physicians saying: "'We might not get him back. We don’t know how present he’ll be. Prepare yourselves for the worst.’ He woke up, all he could do was use his voice.”
Ah, so this happened back in 2021. The article and photo captions make it seem as though heart failure is something you can easily beat. Maybe for those with money, it is.
I will not be seeing this movie
Ridiculous. You title one movie "Endgame," and the next one is... "Doomsday"??
Saturday, December 27, 2025
cake report: lobby concierge
The concierge who's always busting my balls was at the front desk in the lobby today. I dread interacting with this man because of his constant poking and prodding and provoking (a lot like my conflict-prone ex-boss, actually), but I walked up to him and asked whether he and his fellow concierge/security people had enjoyed the cake. He responded with an enthusiastic laugh and said that everyone had enjoyed the cake very much (literally, "Everyone ate it well"). So, for today at least, I've got that going for me. Which is nice.
I did also sweep by the basement grocery to see what the staff there had to say about the cake, but no one I recognized from Christmas duty was there today (the cake made them all sick?), so no one reacted to me with delighted smiles or any other acknowledgment of my existence. About what I expected once I realized what the staffing situation was. Ah, well. You can't win 'em all. I'll check back with the grocery store later.
a girl sees a naked man who's asleep and feels assaulted
Ah, the victimhood grift. But hey, she got charged with a felony for publishing video of the naked guy. Good. I hope she gets a big dose of the law.
Friday, December 26, 2025
photo de Dom et Papa
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| Dom (55) et Papa (nearly 90) |
I'd been waiting for an email from my French brother Dominique, whom I'd written twice recently without getting any response. He finally wrote today to say he's been busy: he works two jobs (managing his B&B and working at a wood-basket company), and at his second job, he's had to take over for an absent coworker for several months, leaving him with no time to breathe. His wife is also back to working for the government, now with social services and dealing with the homeless, the poor, people requesting asylum, and winter-related emergencies (in the States, she'd vote Democrat for sure). Dom's eldest son is close to getting married, and his youngest daughter (my almost-goddaughter) has apparently come out and has a girlfriend. She's also finishing up coursework on children's animation. Dom's eldest daughter is living with her guy and works as a speech therapist; Dom's youngest son spent four months in London as part of his training to be some sort of sports-event manager. I imagine his English has really improved. Lastly, Dom's dad, my "Papa," began this month with nasty breathing problems; he's got an oxygen setup to use when he needs it. Dom says his dad's still got problems, but he's a bit better. The man's been as healthy as a horse for decades and decades, constantly working on things, but age catches up to us all.
It was nice to get some kind of an update from Dom after months of silence. At least everyone in his orbit is working and studying. Economically, times are tough for all of us. I'm giving myself another few months, then I'm going to rejoin the workforce as a prole in 2026 if this Substack thing doesn't pan out. If things look grim for me, I may have to postpone international travel. We'll see.
Homelander vs. Marie Moreau
I have no idea how many of my five readers have even bothered to watch "Gen V," the spinoff series of "The Boys." And of those who have seen the spinoff, how many actually care about nerd speculation like this? Nevertheless, I've put it up for your divertissement.
Thursday, December 25, 2025
"Dragonslayer" and "Apocalypto": two-fer review
[WARNING: spoilers.]
I recently rewatched "Dragonslayer" and sort-of rewatched "Apocalypto." I say "sort of" because I'd seen parts of it years ago, and I somehow misremembered that I'd seen all of it. When I rewatched "Apocalypto," I had only recently rewatched "Dragonslayer," and I initially thought that the two movies had nothing in common. But as I thought more about them, I realized they actually have some important themes and qualities in common. After reviewing both films, I'll discuss what I mean.
Dragonslayer
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| Peter MacNicol as Galen Bradwarden and Caitlin Clarke as Valerian |
The story takes place in a somewhat fictionalized version of Europe, first in a remote, local setting called Cragganmore (in my youth, I heard this as "Krakenmoor," which still sounds cooler to me)—an old fortress across the water where the aging sorcerer Ulrich lives with his ancient and constantly carping servant Hodge (Bromley) and his young apprentice Galen Bradwarden (MacNicol)—then in the larger kingdom of Urland, ruled over by King Casiodorus (Eyre). Urland is being terrorized by the last of the dragons, an old beast named Vermithrax Pejorative, grown angry and spiteful in her old age and "constant pain." To stop the dragon from burning the cities and villages of his kingdom, Casiodorus has made a pact with Vermithrax: twice a year, at the spring and fall equinoxes, all the virgins are gathered in one place, and one virgin's name is drawn by lottery. She is then chained up, wheeled over to the dragon's lair, and left to die. This has been a more or less satisfactory arrangement for the dragon and for the king, but not for the kingdom's young daughters, who have known the terror of the lottery for years. As the story begins, a delegation of villagers, led by a young boy named Valerian (Clarke) and without the king's knowledge, has arrived at Cragganmore to ask Ulrich—last of the sorcerers—to use his powers to destroy Vermithrax—seemingly the last of the dragons—and save the kingdom's daughters. Ulrich, at first taken aback by the sight of one of the dragon's teeth, is hesitant at first, but he decides to help. The following morning, as he's about to leave, Galen expresses doubt that Ulrich can walk even a league given his age. At the same time, a knight arrives: Tyrian (Hallam, and not Tyrion as in Lannister), smug and insouciant. Tyrian is obviously here to stop anyone from undermining the king's lottery, but he takes a different tack, expressing doubts about Ulrich's magical capabilities and demanding a test of his power. This is the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of the simultaneous rise of Christianity and pre-Renaissance skepticism. Ulrich gives Tyrian a dagger and invites the knight to stab him in the chest, smiling while avowing, "Don't worry: You can't hurt me." Tyrian delivers the blow; Ulrich stares meaningfully into the distance, blinks a few times, then collapses and dies. Tyrian leaves in sneering disgust; Galen and Hodge, crestfallen, cremate their master and gather his ashes into a leather pouch.
What follows is a clever adventure leavened with moments of humor, romance, and tragedy as Galen discovers Valerian is actually a woman (a virgin disguised by her father as a boy to protect her from the lottery), King Casiodorus's kind daughter Elspeth (Chloe Salaman) discovers she has been protected from participating in the lottery, and Christianity in the form of a priest (Ian McDiarmid, the Emperor himself!) comes to the villages of Urland to preach the holy word and attempt to banish the dragon through prayer. The priest gains a strong convert named Greil (Salmi). Galen also learns that Ulrich, knowing he was too weak to make the journey to the dragon's lair, had planned his own death; this results in a surprising (but only temporary) magical resurrection and a final duel with Vermithrax, whose three offspring Galen, armed with a magical spear given to him by Valerian's father (James), manages to kill.
"Dragonslayer" has a surprising amount of blood and partial nudity for what is technically a Disney film (this was back when Disney was more daring in its live-action efforts; the movie was co-produced with Paramount). In the scene where Galen discovers Valerian is a woman, we get some from-behind nude shots of both Galen and Valerian. We also see multiple people being burned alive by the dragon. When one virgin is killed by the dragon's offspring inside the beast's cave, we witness the unsettling vision of one of the babies gnawing at a human leg right at the shin—and the body's foot, nearly chewed off, is moving loosely on its own, suggesting the baby has already made it through the bone. I first saw this movie in a theater in 1981 back when I was eleven or twelve; the sight of that girl's foot about to come off was seared into my brain. When Galen belatedly appears beside the girl's corpse with his magical spear, Sicarius Dracorum ("Dragonslayer"), he stabs and beheads two of the three reptilian offspring before beating the final one to death with a torch. The whole thing is bloody and visceral, and I haven't even gotten to Galen's desperate fight with Tyrian, which ends with a vicious stab to the gut. There must have been a time, long ago, when dragons ruled the air, sorcerers cast their spells, and Disney movies had balls.
The movie's story and script have held up well over time. The cleverness of Ulrich's plan is a major plot element. This being a 1981 production, Valerian—especially once she reveals to her whole village that she's a woman—comes off as feminine without being a man-hating girl-boss. She also plays a crucial role in Galen's ability to survive his first direct encounter with Vermithrax: Valerian makes a shield out of dragon scales, which is enough to protect Galen from most of the dragon's fiery fury. Ulrich, whom we see at the movie's beginning and end, is smartly written and characterized, as are both Galen and Valerian, who each have their own arcs to follow. Galen, who had arrogated to himself the role of "master" upon Ulrich's death, has to learn important lessons about humility and the wielding of power; Valerian meanwhile, transitions from young man to young woman but has to retain the inner strength she had gained while in the guise of a boy. And lurking in the background is the mysterious or ironic role of Christianity: as dragons and wizards kill each other off, a new age is about to begin, and could it truly be that the last wizards on Earth were, in some way, instruments of God facing off against the last dragon? Early on, Ulrich remarks to Valerian that there would be no dragons were it not for wizards, i.e., dragons are magical in origin. Perhaps on a metaphysical level, dragons and wizards are a kind of matter and antimatter: twinned and separate, but mutually annihilating when brought together. The story seems to suggest that magic lives on and is woven into the pagan fabric of this fictional version of western Europe (I assume this is meant to be early Europe despite Galen's and Valerian's American accents).
But as satisfying as "Dragonslayer" is, it isn't without its flaws. It's implied that Ulrich's Cragganmore lies outside of the kingdom of Urland, but Tyrian, an authority within Urland, strays outside to visit Ulrich at his keep. (I suppose the answer to that conundrum could be that Tyrian, being arrogant, feels that his authority extends as far as his ego.) Vermithrax, we know, is old and bitter and in pain. We also infer she's a she thanks to her offspring (so perhaps there was a male dragon sometime in her past... unless being a magical creature means parthenogenesis, even when elderly). But almost everything we learn about the dragon's personality and her pact with Urland's king comes to us through exposition, i.e., through the mouths of the human characters. Unlike Peter Jackson's wonderful rendition of Smaug (maybe the best thing about the Hobbit trilogy), Vermithrax doesn't talk, so there's little chance to develop her further as a character. In fact, how did Vermithrax get the name Vermithrax? That's a name that isn't pronounceable by a dragon's speech organs (at least in this universe; Smaug was capable of human speech); it can only be said by humans. And who named her? A wizard? An antecedent dragon? I would also like to have seen more about Christianity's conflict with local paganism and sorcery. I gather that, as depictions of the Dark Ages go, the movie mixed and matched several primitive historical eras, with ambiance being more important than accuracy. Some of the minor characters, like Tyrion and Hodge, could have used a bit more development, but I imagine the film would have become too long had the director chosen to weave in more details. And for a movie about magic, there weren't nearly enough "vulgar displays of power" for my taste. Most of the fireworks come at the very end.
The special effects also mostly hold up, but to use the terminology of today's Millennials and Zoomers, some of the VFX are, by today's standards, janky. The film was one of the first to use a then-new technique called go-motion, which meant photographing robotically controlled moving models and adding blur to create smoother, more realistic creature movements (unlike stop-motion, which involves photographing unmoving-but-adjustable miniatures). Still, certain flame effects and model effects could stand to be improved through the subtle use of modern CGI. Many of the film's practical effects, though, still hold up fairly well. When we first encounter Vermithrax, we initially see her only partially—a heavy tail here, an enormous talon there, giant horns on a face obscured by some foreground object. It's a lot like a horror-movie buildup, and we don't get the full reveal of the dragon until we're about two-thirds of the way through the story. Nowadays, especially after "Game of Thrones," I think we take animated dragons for granted, but back in 1981, this was top-of-the-line animation. Even by today's standards, it's impressive and beautiful if not entirely smooth.
I also tip my hat to composer Alex North, a fifteen-time Oscar nominee. His score for this movie is wild and all over the place, ranging from dramatic and operatic to lightly whimsical during humorous moments. His leitmotifs for the dragon evoke mystery, awe, and horror; his soundtrack for ceremonies and kingly pomp and circumstance evoke the primitivity of the Dark Ages. I have to sit my brother Sean down to listen to North's score: Sean is a professional cellist with unconventional tastes; I imagine he'd either love North's score or hate it.
Watching "Dragonslayer" again after so many years brought back fond memories. I recalled my crush on beautiful, winsome actress Caitlin Clarke, who died at age 52 of ovarian cancer. I was weirdly saddened by that news despite not knowing a thing about the actress—her true character, her individual quirks, her other performances (she did a lot of stage work and also taught acting toward the end). It was amusing to see Peter MacNicol back when he was young; I think I remember him best as the boss who occasionally stuttered like Porky Pig on "Ally McBeal." I don't recall ever seeing Sir Ralph Richardson in any other production (scratch that: he was apparently in "Dr. Zhivago," which I did see ages and ages ago), but he carried himself in the manner of a classically trained Shakespearean actor.
And this is going to sound strange, but as I was watching "Dragonslayer" this time around, I realized that the movie's cinematography—the lighting, the landscapes, the panoramas—perfectly matched my mental image of what author Stephen R. Donaldson's "The Land" must look like in his The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant trilogies. If anything, "Dragonslayer" influenced how I imagined The Land since I didn't start reading Donaldson until I was in junior high. The movie came out in June of '81; I started junior high later that year, in September, and began reading Donaldson soon after.
All in all, the flaws I mentioned above are relatively minor, and I happily recommend this movie to anyone who'll listen. Given the jankiness of the special effects by today's standards, I understand if younger audiences don't get into the movie. But for us old farts, "Dragonslayer" is a smart, exciting adventure with a very interesting twist and a huge, menacing enemy. It's also a bit of a throwback to a time before political correctness and wokeness ruined the moviegoing experience. Women in this movie (except for Vermithrax) are beautifully feminine, strong without being insecure nut-cutters; the dragon isn't some tragically misunderstood beast but a truly evil entity. Some of the male characters are physically weak, but they find reserves of inner strength, and the story—with the arrival of Christianity as its backdrop—is smart enough not to be the typical, formulaic hero's journey. Go see this movie.
Apocalypto
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L to R: Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), Flint Sky (Morris Birdyellowhead), Curl Nose (AmÃlcar RamÃrez), and Blunted (Jonathan Brewer) |
The story begins in the jungle with a hunt for a tapir. We quickly establish that Jaguar Paw is a skilled hunter, and his best friend Blunted (Brewer) has some problem preventing him from impregnating his wife (one possibility is what we, in modern times, would call "shooting blanks"; another possibility, not faced in the story, is that his wife is incapable of getting pregnant). Blunted's inability in this area makes him the butt of the tribe's jokes; even the chieftain Flint Sky (Morris Birdyellowhead—yes, that's his name) pulls good-natured pranks on Blunted. The village is primitive but generally at peace, hunting the jungle for resources and living life day by day. One day, though, the fearful members of another tribe come stumbling through, creating unease among Jaguar Paw's people. And soon after, a raiding party of Holcane warriors appears and plunders the village, which they burn. One psychotic Holcane warrior, Middle Eye (Taracena), kills Flint Sky in front of Jaguar Paw. Jaguar Paw manages to hide his pregnant wife Seven and his son Turtles Run (Carlos Emilio Báez) in a deep pit before being taken away by the Holcane.
The story now splits between Jaguar Paw's captivity and Seven's struggle to (1) figure a way out of the pit, (2) take care of Turtles Run, and (3) handle her incoming baby as she begins to go into labor. Jaguar Paw and his fellow captive villagers, meanwhile, are led through the Mayan capital, with its bustling markets, its putrid construction areas denuded of vegetation and running with filth, and finally the city's immense central temple, where the captured men are hand-painted with blue dye and led up to the temple's top tier to be sacrificed. In a harrowing scene, two of Jaguar Paw's fellow villagers are laid face-up upon a sacrificial stone; their hearts are removed by the priest, and their heads are cut off and cast down the temple's front steps to the waiting, cheering crowd below, followed by their now-headless bodies. Jaguar Paw is next in line to be sacrificed, but a solar eclipse darkens the sky, and the priest declares that the gods are pleased with the sacrifices that have already been done. The rest of the prisoners are taken to a nearby field where they will be subjected to a cruel game: run across the dirt to the tall vegetation at the field's far end without getting hit by stones, arrows, and spears, and make it past the "finisher," Zero Wolf's son Cut Rock (Mendoza), who stands ready to bring down anyone who makes it to the far side of the field. If they manage that, they are free. Meanwhile, still in the pit, Seven has to kill a predator that accidentally falls in, and all her attempts at climbing out end in failure (the vine that had let her descend into the pit had been cut by a Holcane warrior who didn't see her at the pit's bottom). Heavy rains come, and Seven gives birth as the pit fills with water. As the water rises, she and her son are naturally buoyed closer to the pit's edge. Jaguar Paw watches several of his friends die in the cruel field-crossing game, and his friend Blunted is mortally wounded. When Jaguar Paw's turn to run comes up, he evades every projectile but is struck in the side by Zero Wolf's well-aimed arrow. Cut Rock closes in to finish him, but Blunted, still alive, grabs Cut Rock's ankle while Jaguar Paw stabs Cut Rock in the throat. Zero Wolf is furious that his son has just been killed, and the chase is on: Jaguar Paw leaves Blunted's corpse behind and runs full-tilt into the jungle, Zero Wolf and his warriors—including the psychotic Middle Eye—in pursuit.
"Apocalypto" works as a chase movie, but like other "historical" efforts that Gibson has been involved with ("Braveheart," which he directed and starred in; and "The Patriot," which he starred in), it fails miserably in terms of accuracy, freely borrowing from various periods of Central and South American history, taking gross liberties with late-Mayan "post-classical" village and city architecture, and perhaps most egregiously, utterly flubbing the timeline for the arrival of smallpox and the arrival of seagoing Europeans. So "Apocalypto" should be viewed as a metaphor or a fairy tale, but not as anything remotely accurate—this despite Gibson's claim to have roped in a whole team of professors and historians to make sure he was more or less on track. YouTuber Nick Hodges, who runs the channel History Buffs, had some choice, loud, angry words for Gibson's film, which he saw as complete trash from a historian's perspective, sloppily playing fast and loose with the facts and largely confusing Mayan civilization with Aztec. Meanwhile, the prestigious Motion Picture Academy nominated the movie for three Oscars (makeup, sound editing, sound mixing), and prominent personalities as diverse as Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, and Edward James Olmos heaped effusive praise on Gibson's effort. The movie is also immersive, Gibson claims, because it's entirely in Yucatec Mayan: there is no English to be heard anywhere.
On the level of mythology, one of the major themes of "Apocalypto" is the tidal nature of creation and destruction, of beginnings and endings and new beginnings. Jaguar Paw's village life is overturned when the marauding Holcane warriors arrive; his wife Seven's life enters a new phase with the birth of her second child; all of the natives' lives are changed when they sight the first Europeans landing on their shores, bringing foreign culture, greed, and new diseases. Wave upon wave of destruction and creation, of endings and beginnings, infuse this tense story with the rhythm of labored breathing. Gibson and his team did research on creation stories like the Popol Vuh (see here and here) to gain a sense of this cosmic rhythm. There might almost be something of mythological value in Gibson's tale that goes beyond all the pierced guts, severed heads, and bashed-in skulls.
At the time the movie came out, Gibson had been dealing with alcohol-related scandals, so he was already on the outs with certain reviewers. Some critics went so far as to accuse Gibson's film of being a white man's twisted fantasy about brown-skinned civilization. To say this, though, requires one to cherry-pick the data, to deliberately ignore the parts of the movie that show humanity, nobility, gentleness, humor, love, wit, and civilization. "Apocalypto" might feel like a relentless parade of barbarity, and on a certain level, that's what it is. But Gibson is smart enough, as a filmmaker, to infuse the movie with deeper themes and complexity than a mere prolonged chase scene can provide.
In the end, I would call "Apocalypto" both watchable and rewatchable. While it's not even close to being the greatest film I've ever seen, nor is it even close to being one of Gibson's best-directed films, it's still a very good film on its own terms, i.e., as entertainment, not as history. Rudy Youngblood as Jaguar Paw conveys determination and desperation; both Raoul Trujillo as Zero Wolf and Gerardo Taracena as Middle Eye are positively scary villains. What the movie lacks in historical accuracy it makes up for in sheer grit and gore. Watch and feel.
Discussion
I had originally thought that, in reviewing "Dragonslayer" and "Apocalypto" in a single, two-fer review, I would be dealing with two films that had nothing in common. But as I pondered both stories, I began to realize that they do, in fact, have certain elements in common.
Take the matter of the solar eclipse, which appears in both movies. In "Dragonslayer," the resurrected Ulrich's final fight with the dragon takes place during a solar eclipse, a cosmic sign that would have been saturated with meaning in pagan Europe. By the time the eclipse is over, Vermithrax is dead, having titanically plunged into a lake. In "Apocalypto," the ritual human sacrifices stop when the eclipse happens. A cynical moment passes between the high priest and the watchful king, who quietly nod to each other; both know the solar and lunar calendars (the Mayans, as we know from their complex calendars, were experts at tracking celestial movements), so they know how to time their rituals and what ritual words to use to convince the masses of their power and their association with the sun-deity. While "Apocalypto" is by far the bloodier of the two films, neither film shies away from bloodshed as a necessary part of existence and the maintenance of social order. Central to both stories is the significance of human sacrifice: in Galen Bradwarden's world, virgin sacrifice directly results in the appeasement of the dragon. In the world of "Apocalypto," the eclipse symbolizes the propitiation of the gods, who use the sky to signal that, today, they require no more sacrifices. Both stories also feature the arrival in force of Christianity. While Christianity appears weak and vain (but subtly powerful?) in "Dragonslayer," it is implied to be a much more powerful and sinister force at the very end of "Apocalypto."
But "Dragonslayer" does something at the tail end of its story that undermines Christianity's arrival. As Galen and Valerian walk away from Valerian's village to start a new life together, Galen moans that he wishes they had a horse. And a horse appears! Galen's amulet, inherited from Ulrich and important at the start of the film, has been destroyed by the end of the movie as the way to kill Vermithrax. Yet despite Galen's destruction of the amulet and his abandonment of Cragganmore—still full of Ulrich's magical items—Galen himself still retains some magic within him. There is still magic in the world. The dragon's death doesn't signal the end. And while "Dragonslayer" is a work of fantasy fiction, a historical point is being made: Europe to this day is the ground on which many ancient forces continue to contend, from Christianity to magical paganism to rational skepticism. In the New World of "Apocalypto," Jaguar Paw has several visions of the future and at a guess, these visions will continue. But now that Christianity has arrived on foreign shores, his visions will be subsumed under the Christian label of prophecy as a new worldview comes to take over the old.
So both of these movies are about beginnings and endings. They are also at least tangentially about clashes in fundamental worldviews, with the Christian worldview on the precipice of taking over large chunks of the world. Maybe the universes of "Dragonslayer" and "Apocalypto" aren't as far apart as they might seem at first.
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ADDENDUM: The Amazon Prime Video edition of "Dragonslayer" notes that virgin sacrifice, lotteries, and the king's daughter as a potential sacrifice are all part of the "St. George and the dragon" myth. The movie, by contrast, seems to suggest that prayer and piety are useless against the beast (or are they?) while ancient magic is not. Later on, George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire would reflect a similar idea: various religions, e.g., those of the Ironborn, of the First Men, of the Dothraki, and of the Red God, are all magically effective, but the Faith of the Seven—meant to be a mocking parody of the Catholic Church—is the one hollow religion that utterly lacks magic despite all of its vain pomp and ritual and stained glass.
cake!
I finally used my cake pans for their intended purpose after having bought the pans years ago. I also layered the bottom of each pan with baking spray and parchment paper. The cake recipe was, of course, the decadent Cooking with Sugar recipe, which is designed to put you into diabetic shock. My oven, being small, quirky, and a little temperamental, didn't handle the presence of both cakes inside it at the same time that well (I was worried about what might change if I did the bake one at a time). The result was, despite extra baking time, somewhat underdone and dense. But I went ahead and made a 2-layer cake anyway.
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| Here's the icing. Pretty much nothing but cocoa, sugar, butter, and heavy cream. I know what it looks like a lump of. |
I'd expected the cakes to release easily from the pan after baking, but it turns out I needed my little offset spatula (here's a pic) to help persuade the cakes out. After that, peeling off the parchment paper was a breeze.
Crap, I'm terrible with frosting my cakes. It would help to have a proper rotating cake stand. It would help even more to take a class or at least watch some videos on cake decoration.
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| the completed cake, frosted, looking evil and monstrous |
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| That smear on the wooden cutting board annoys me. |
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| probably the cake's best angle |
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| how much was left when I finished giving out cake |
I first gave cake to the security guards/concierges in the lobby. The one guy told me there were only two staffers this evening, but there'd be two more tomorrow, so he greedily sliced the cake in half with my plastic knife, then cut that half into four pieces—two to be eaten tonight, two to be wrapped up and given to the other staffers tomorrow. I had brought everything: picnic plates; plastic spoons; a plastic cake knife; a plastic, wedge-shaped spatula for lifting the cake slice and placing it on a plate (always a balancing act); and shower-cap-shaped plastic wrap to cover the plates of the cake meant to be eaten tomorrow.
Next stop: the downstairs grocery, where I see the same overworked staffers day after day, now working hard on Christmas. I gave out five slices of cake—three to the staffers I immediately saw, and two for the other (I assume) two staffers roaming around out of sight. I told everybody, the guards and the staffers, that I had no idea how good or bad the cake might be, and that they could throw the cake away if they didn't like it.
So here I am now, alone again, with my one remaining slice of cake, which is all mine. I shall now consume its soul because, no matter what anyone else thinks of my cooking, I like my cooking. Yes, even when it sucks. Unless it's that keto stromboli I'd made the other day.
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| the victim awaits, trembling |
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| the Kevin must be propitiated |
(insert horrific slurping, sucking, and chewing noises)
That was a heavy cake, too—easily more than a kilogram. All gone now.
keto pot pie: success?
Today's Christmas lunch was good: keto pot pie. It was a real bitch to make, though.
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| You saw this pic yesterday. |
The keto dough contains a lot of butter, but the recipe doesn't make very much dough, as I found out. There's only 85 g of keto flour and close to the same amount of butter.
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| the dough I had originally intended to be the pie's top |
The recipes for the dough called for the dough to be rolled out and frozen for ten minutes. I went twelve minutes, which meant the dough, rolled thin, was as stiff and breakable as peanut brittle. So I had to wait a few minutes for the dough to thaw and soften. I won't be doing this freezing thing the next time I use this dough recipe.
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| the dough for the pie shell's bottom |
I ended up having to scrap and redo the dough-shaping several times, by which point the butter inside the dough was softening and melting—something you don't want in any pie crust because chunks of cold, solid butter start to steam when they bake, creating the air pockets that mean a flaky crust when the pie comes out of the oven. I had originally thought that putting this keto dough into a pie tin would be easy and straightforward. But the dough proved unworkable and overly sticky, so I ended up hand-pressing it into the container you see below, using up every bit of the dough just to have enough to go up the container's edges. Yeesh.
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| Still, despite the lack of a cover, it doesn't look half bad. |
The pie ended up coming out fine. I had thought about taking it out of its container to eat it, but I decided not to risk it. I shouldn't have worried. The pie shell baked up nice and firm, and it didn't taste awful. In fact, it was pretty buttery.
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| almost like chicken and dumplings |
Here—see what I mean by buttery:
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| Yum. But the filling was still better than the crust. |
Victoria's Keto Flour is a decent keto recipe. Certainly better than my attempt.
you rarely see the "strongmen" do many legit pullups
I'd argue that a lot of the guys shown in the video aren't even doing legit pullups. Either your chin has to clear the bar or your chest has to touch the bar. And no kipping or otherwise throwing yourself upward.
Merry Christmas!
Card designs from the past, when I was young and irreverent and full of mind-juice:
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| when you're too impatient to wait for your steak |
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| when your head is as tall as her upper body |
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| And that's when she was in a good mood. |
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| the cover art for my first book, Scary Spasms in Hairy Chasms |
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| "Phosphorescent Snot" could be a band name. |
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| A lot of my kids at the tutoring center didn't understand how this image worked. |
May your days be merry and bright.
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
precursor of tomorrow's Christmas meal
Keto (or almost-keto) pot pie for one:
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| Just the filling. The keto crust is yet to come. |
No peas. Too carby. The carrots are also too carby, but I've included them anyway. Broccoli for greens. Mushrooms, kind of taking the place of potatoes. Dried onions. Sous-vide chicken and diced, pan-fried pork belly. Salt, pepper, garlic powder, sage. The cream is Chef Mike Symon's version* of double cream: gently boil and reduce heavy cream (at medium-high, constantly stirring for about 40 minutes) until it's about half its original volume, thus making it twice as dense, hence double cream (there are actually several versions of "double cream").
Still to make tonight:
- keto pie crust
- decadent chocolate cake to slice and pass out to workers tomorrow (ho ho ho)
I'll probably eat most of the rest of the cake once I get back to my place, God help me—thus negating the benefits of having keto pie. (I thought about this and seriously considered making regular pie crust.) It's a bad choice given that I have a major doctor's appointment on January 9, including a heart ultrasound to look for further blockages. But I'm too lazy and selfish to deprive myself of Christmas cheer. I'll just have to starve for the rest of December and the beginning of January. Whatever brings the A1c average down.
Right now, though, I need to go shopping because I have no idea whether the grocery will be open tomorrow, on Christmas Day. I have to buy party plates and plastic utensils and napkins for people to be able to eat cake. More tomorrow.
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*Making the pot-pie cream this way avoids the whole roux/Béchamel issue. A roux is a combination of equal parts-per-volume of butter and flour; you let those cook together for a bit, then to make the Béchamel, you start gradually adding milk. It'll seize up at first, but as the roux continues to cook, and you continue to add milk, the liquid eventually wins out as you saturate the emulsion to the point where it has no choice but to turn into a creamy mixture. This is Béchamel, one of the five French "mother sauces." For sauce veloutée (lit. "velvety sauce"), use stock instead of milk. A basic velouté is not much different from gravy, and you can definitely take it in a gravy direction. Anyway, regular roux, because it starts with flour, is very carby. Using Michael Symon's method of boiling heavy cream down to make double cream means you avoid putting any flour into your cream sauce.
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