The Sixtieth-Greatest Panel in the History of Comics!

This is here entirely because the scene it describes, sadly, was not featured in the story. Which is a profound oversight on the part of the writers/artists.

Tales From the Darkside 215: A New Lease on Life

It's a new day and a new condo for one yuppie, and you know it's going to go disastrously because the very first shot of the episode is of a menacing high-tech communications device that growls when it hears someone approaching. Yuppie doesn't hear it though, so the only sign he has that anything is wrong is the surliness of the two workmen who bring up his typewriter and microwave oven. He questions them about the suspiciously good deal he's getting on the rent - an apartment like this should be $1000 and he's paying just $200! One of the workmen responds to his curiosity by 'accidentally' dropping his microwave oven on the floor.

The yuppie's exceptionally annoyed because the microwave was left to him in his mother's will, and was something of a family heirloom. Which seems quite crazy to me, but apparently there was a time when microwaves were incredibly rare and expensive. Weird. Oh, and we find out what was going on with the growling when one of the workmen turns around and reveals the emblem on the back of his work jumpsuit:

They're also extremely against microwave ovens, announcing that the radiation is damaging to your health and that it can get stuck in the walls. I'm sure they're just worried that the Dragon who lives in the basement won't like it. Then we're introduced to the building manager, who outright confirms that the yuppie is soon to be Dragon food. How can we know this? Two reasons: first the building is called the St. George, who of course was only famous for slaying that one Dragon that time. Secondly the woman's name is Mrs. Angler, establishing her as the person who lures new fish in with the bait of a far too cheap apartment.

Angler also handles the yuppie a roll of tape, letting them know that it would be better if he used that to hang pictures rather than hammering nails into the walls. Nail holes, you see, are like wounds. Dum-dum-dum! Okay, I'm confused now – is there a dragon in the basement, or is the building the Dragon? The yuppie is supposed to put all of his compost down a special chute, suggested that Dragon is just in the basement, but all this talk about microwaves hurting walls and wounding skin suggest that he's living inside a Dragon. A Dragon shaped like an apartment building.

Two Other Nonsense Things About The Traveler

These didn't spoil the movie like the opening does, but they actually happen in the movie, and, as such, are worth mentioning.

This is the cat that the daughter is looking for when she gets murdered. Her child-voice is hard to understand, but I kept thinking that she was calling the cat “Shining”, which didn't make sense, so I rationalized it as being a bizarre mispronunciation of “Shiny”.

It wasn't. There was a cat in this movie named “Shining.” Which, you know, yikes.

At another point in the film, Val Kilmer has his mugshot taken, and the cop in charge of entering his information into the computer discovers something strange in the pictures:

Why is this a problem? Because the cop never tells anyone about the pictures. His first reaction to seeing them isn't “Dear Lord, everything I know about the world is crumbling around me, I'd better show these to other people to determine whether all my preconceptions about how the world works are incorrect, or whether I'm simply insane!”

Any reaction other than that completely removes my ability to believe that any of the characters in the film are actually people.

How to ruin your own movie: The Traveler Edition

Time and again I encounter movies where the filmmakers responsible don't seem to have any idea how their stories will be interpreted by the people watching them. Take, for instance, the story of The Traveler, in which Val Kilmer plays the ghost of a drifter that a bunch of cops viciously beat because they suspected he was responsible for the murder of a detective's daughter. Since the state police caught the real killer soon after this vicious torture, the film's main source of character conflict comes from the various ways that the cops have dealt with their guilt and feelings of responsibility in the aftermath of this abuse of power.

Except the conflict doesn't resonate at all with the audience. Why? Because we, the audience, know that Val is, in fact, the real killer, and the state police shot the wrong man. How do we know this? Because, as usual in films featured this way at Castle Vardulon, the filmmaker makes it impossible for us to be surprised by the late-film revelation.

Criminal Minds 505: Cradle to Grave

In a dark basement somewhere, a woman is giving birth. Her pleas to be brought to the hospital go unanswered, but in the end the delivery proceeds without incident.  It becomes clear, based on their matching blue shirts, as well as the fact that they're in a cage, that both the new mother and her female attendant are prisoners. Their warden, and the presumptive father of the child, comes to claim his progeny, and the mother is understandably distraught at the prospect of turning over her child.

The father, for his part, is disappointed to discover that the child is female, and takes the little girl away, after locking his two prisoners back in their cell. You know, there was just one of him, and neither of the women were restrained in any way. I can't help but think that this would've it been a good time to, oh I don't know, tear out his throat with their teeth?

They don't, though, so it's going to be up to the team to figure this one out. Before they get the case though, Greg finds the "chief" waiting in his office to give him some bad news – which we don't hear just yet. Wait, did he just call her chief? Is that a position they have in the FBI? Seems she's his boss, shouldn't she be something like an assistant director? Like Skinner on the X-Files? This seems like something I should check into.

Greg doesn't share the news with JJ, which leads me to believe something is happening with his with his wife, although she and the son are dead of course, the show wouldn't just drop news like that at the top of an episode. The next day Derek as enters the office he receives a text message from Greg. Oddly, he's the only member of the team that Greg has contacted about this new case – what's with the cloak and dagger? Derek asks what the e-mails were about when he sees Greg, and Greg tells him, even more suspiciously, that there nothing to worry about, and they should just get to work on the case of the dead runaway we saw give birth the beginning.

We learn that this latest runaway was just one of three victims who turned up over the past five years, women who have been forced to bear the children of a serial killing rapist. Yep, we're in for an unpleasant one this week. Although, I'm forced to question whether the woman who was helping the teaser victim was another prisoner are not; according to the records, all of the killer's victims have been blonde women, and she clearly had brown hair. Although, now that I look back on it, the mother had some pretty serious roots going on there. If she's been a captive for two years, has he been letting her dye her hair the whole time?

I guess we'll see how this all works out after the opening credits!

Stupid Things From Episode 1 of Torchwood: Miracle Day

1:

This is a Child Molester/Murderer played by Bill Pullman. He's so reprehensibly evil that even anti-death penalty activists don't show up to protest his execution. After the execution fails because the laws of death no longer apply, he announces that he'd like to be let out of prison, since the sentence was carried out.

What's stupid about this? The governor lets him go. Yup. Lets him walk right out of the prison. Why on earth would that happen? Pullman threatens to sue for wrongful imprisonment!

Gasp! Can it be? Would someone actually sue the government over imprisonment? Well they'd better cave right away, for fear of being brought to American court!

Here's a fun fact that Russel Davies might not be aware of - at any given moment there are literally tens of thousands of pending lawsuits by prisoners protesting the conditions or fact of their imprisonment. Lawsuits aren't expensive to file, and people in prison have quite a bit of free time on their hands.

Does Pullman have a case? Maybe - but probably not. The Governor of a state has the unilateral privilege to convert anyone's death sentence to a sentence of life imprisonment. It's as simple as signing a single declaration. “Oh, so human beings can't die any more? Well, then I'm sentencing you to spend forever in prison.”

Naturally Pullman would have his lawyers sue (I've got to wonder how good a lawyer this character, who's essentially Freddy Kruger, could get, though), but getting a court date could take months or even years - also there's a worldwide crisis going on at the moment, which could put all court dates back indefinitely. Also, how sympathetic is a jury really going to be? Members of the potential jury pool gathered outside his prison to celebrate his impending death - are they going to jump at the chance to let him out?

This is a country where various states have laws limiting the amount of money that you can receive in a lawsuit if you were falsely convicted of a crime. Yup - the government puts you in jail for something you didn't do, and then one day, miraculously, you're proven completely innocent. According to your state, the maximum compensation you can receive for that horrifying ordeal? 25K a year.

That's someone who's factually innocent. What kind of a monetary award is a confessed child molester and brutal murderer going to get?

TheAvod' Place was Well-held this week!

I'm going to try to make this sound as little like gloating as possible, but on this week's Avod, which can be listened to through the simple technology of 'downloading' by right-clicking here, I come up with my first-ever bit of off-the-cuff wordplay! The actual bit of wordplay is featured in the episode title, but in order to understand the context, you'll have to listen to the show!

Also, we talk about The Ward, Dark Lurking, and I go on for way - too - long about how bad Transformers 3 was. Really, it's a stellar episode all around - and I should know, I was there!

The Fifty-Ninth-Greatest Panel in the History of Comics!

You see, they're Chinese, so you can't use the term gang. Only blacks, whites, and hispanics have gangs.

Tales From the Darkside 214: Dream Girl

The episode opens with a woman on the phone, demanding to know someone's whereabouts. We quickly assume, based on the fact that the woman is pacing in front of a painted backdrop and that there are directors chairs strewn about, that the missing man is an actor without whom the stage production cannot possibly go forward. It seems the actor isn't the first to disappear either, an electrician went missing earlier in the week as well! The woman, who we can now safely assume is the director of the play, takes out her frustration on the nearest warm body, a loafing janitor too busy reading magazines to bother cleaning up the stage.

The janitor is none too happy about this development, and takes a moment to glare menacingly at the camera while getting back to work. This can't possibly turn out well. A flash of light later and we've been transported into a garden scene, complete with green bench and fountain. The director is understandably confused, having been transformed from this:

To this:

Forced to take on the role of a Germanic serving wench, the director is horrified to find that while she has full consciousness of her actions she lacks all control over her body. Some malevolent force compels her to bring a tray of coffee to the janitor who, now in a wig and preposterous outfit, seems to be playing the part of a cruel millionaire. Sitting next to him is the pretty actress from the cover of the magazine he was reading. This seems to raise the question: are we watching the janitor's perverse fantasy from the point of view of one of the characters in it? That would be an interesting twist, although it's probably not the way they're going seeing is the next thing that happens is a man in a suit shows up to give a flower to the actress.

The man, naturally, is the actor who's gone missing, Sid. In the janitor's fantasy he's a doctor who has been reduced to getting a job as a maître d'. The director tries to catch his attention but is unable to do so. They're both controlled to completely by the janitor's powers. We get further insight into the janitor's mind as he forces Sid, now costumed as a peddler, to apologize time and again for saying that he wouldn't amount to anything. It's all so pathetic that even Sid eventually revolts, castigating the janitor for his poor choice of scenario and dialogue.

This angers the janitor enough that he finally leaves, allowing Sid and the director a chance to chat. Oh, and Sid turns out to be the writer of the play, rather than an actor, as I'd assumed. Although, in my defense, I'm not sure why the show can't go on without the writer. After all, the play is already written... Sid has figured out that there trapped inside the janitor's fantasies, but that hasn't given him any insight as to how they might free themselves from them. Before they can make a move they're trapped in another scenario, in which the director is harassed by a randy workman and has to be rescued by the janitor. Randy workman is a new character, possibly the electrician mentioned earlier.

In the aftermath of the fight the janitor comes on to the director and is quickly rebuffed, which, for no good reason, leads to a catfight between the director and the actress. The actress eventually explains that she's a prisoner in the janitor's fantasies as well and has no choice but to take part in his sick games. You know, even with the comment about the missing people at the beginning, this is looking less and less like something supernatural, and more and more like a depiction of someone's diseased fantasy life.

The janitor returns, hoping to snatch away the actress for a more private encounter, but everyone teams up to pull her back. They're seemingly able to thwart him, however briefly, allowing them a moment of repose and conversation.

The second man is, in fact, Joe the electrician, who's been trapped in the janitor's mind for some time, it seems. He even has some backstory to offer about how he used to work on an ocean liner - it seems the janitor had asked him for a job recommendation, and he had laughed in the fellow's ugly face. The janitor wasn't manly enough, in Joe's estimation, to work the high seas. Which is a nice explanation for the janitor's fantasies of oppression and control. For my part I didn't know ocean lining was a particularly manly profession but then again hey, it was the 80s.

The director thinks that they're not trapped in a fantasy at all - but rather one of the janitor's dreams! This would explain why everything goes slow motion and feels like moving through molasses – the characters had mimed slow motion earlier, but I wasn't able to discern that that was what they were trying to get across. This leads them to two conclusions: first, that whenever he's just sleeping and not actually dreaming they're free to talk and do as they will, and secondly that they could snap him awake they'd be freed from the dream. Or, in my theory, they might cease to exist since they're only figments of his imagination.

Hopefully the first will turn out to be true.

Finding themselves backing costume, they know the dream is about to start – taking their opportunity they search the set until they find the napping janitor. The director shakes him awake, and finds herself back on the set, safe at last.

Or is she? Assuming that the metaphysical dream world is completely real, the director immediately downs a handful of sleeping pills and takes a nap, figuring, based on nothing but wishful thinking as far as I can tell, that she'll be able to have her own lucid power dream where she enslaves the janitor. Why this is a priority, I'm not entirely sure.

Sadly, things don't go entirely as planned, because Joe the electrician beat her in going back to sleep! As the episode ends the director is now trapped in his fantasy world, where he's the captain of a Cruise ship and the janitor is nothing but a waiter! It's chilling and all, except for the fact that she now knows the rules of the dream world and should be able to defeat Joe just as easily as she had the janitor.

But other than that, you know, scary.

Things I didn't notice about Jason Goes to Hell until just now!

As a matter of course I watch the same movies over and over again while writing, allowing them to act as soothing background noise while I work. One of those movies is Jason Goes to Hell which, until being added to my roster of 'work movies' was the original Jason film I'd seen the least. Perhaps it's my relative unfamiliarity with the film that caused me to fixate on it, while I've grown overly familiar with the rest of the franchise, but whatever the cause, I've been noticing weird little things about the movie in recent months, things that I'd missed during my dozen previous viewings.

Now, let's take a look!

On the subject of insufficient punishments-

The titular 'Gamer' of the film's title is this smug punk right here:

An amoral 17-year-old, this punk controls Kable (Gerard Butler) over the course of two dozen successful encounters against all the bloodthirsty thugs that the game has to offer. Then, in concert with a group of anti-technology terrorists, he helps set Kable free, allowing Butler to go on a murderous rampage, taking the lives of countless members of the villain's corporate security team.

The authorities are understandably aggrieved by this, and quickly arrest the punk. After being taken downtown, he's interrogated by Keith David-

Who, sadly, does not express any opinion about the relative plausibility of this voodoo bullshit.

Keith berates the punk, letting the teen know just how much trouble he's in, then sends him off to solitary confinement.

If this was the last we saw of the punk, that would be one thing - he's in jail, it wraps up the story nicely. It's not, however. He appears in three more scenes. First, despite being an accessory to mass murder, he's released from prison, then he returns home to discover that-

-he's not allowed to play games over the internet any more! The movie has the gall to act like this is a more severe punishment than prison. Then, in his final appearance, he's back on the internet with no trouble at all, watching Butler's final showdown with Dexter. That's the end of the title character's story. No comeuppance, no lesson learned, no resolution.

Thanks, Gamer!

Criminal Minds 504: Hopeless

A group of three rednecks are drinking beer and watching a video of the time they murdered a bunch of yuppies in their house. Unlike the 'Funny Games' people from season three, these guys don't dress neatly or have some scheme behind the killing. They just rush in and beat people to death.

The team hears about the case - it's a poor neighbourhood where there's been a lot of vandalism going on lately! And the victims were part of the gentrifying force changing the place for the better? What could the motive be? They point out that it's unusual for vandalism to escalate to four murders overnight - and spree killers (which all serial killers are, remember) rarely stop with just one house full of dead people!

Bad-ass.

(click to bigify)

That is all.

TheAvod Special Feature 9: Nosferatu

Years ago, Germans unconcerned with copyright law adapted Dracula into the movie Nosferatu! Could they have imagined that some years later, D and the Count would record a commentary for it? Probably not. But still, I've got to imagine that they'd be in favor of it.

You can join in the fun by simply right-clicking here to download the episode, and then obtaining a copy of the movie! Which shouldn't be too hard, since it's in the public domain, and even available on archive.org, this site whose kindness is responsible for hosting TheAvod!

So go there, grab it, and join in!

The Fifty-Eighth-Greatest Panel in the History of Comics!

(click to bigify)

Wasn't it nice when we were able to get together as a group and enjoy the cartoonish mass-murder of the race our national was at war with?