Da Dominion: Home of DOMINIONCAST!

Last week, I mentioned interest in seeing a few flicks. Two of them have been viewed, and it brings up an interesting — at least to me — point. Advertisers make a living on deceiving us into seeing films or buying of products, but sometimes they actually make previews that fulfill what we expect given the two minutes available. The Dungeons and Dragons movie sucked in previews and in full feature, score one for marketing exec integrity — like that existed. This was the case with an obviously lame movie, but not so much with one that I thought to enjoy more. Both covered oriental interest, hence the title. Sorry it isn’t a detailed account of dating honey-hued lovelies — still working on setting that up.Kung Fu Panda was just about exactly what I was expecting. Mary Sue character chose by destiny to save the world from a ninja snow leopard. Hopeless case finds hidden talent by appeal to his pathology: a fat ass gluttonous bear — Jack Black’s forte – is trained by trying to take food away from him, while the tested warriors are pointlessly beaten by the main baddie. Bear fat cushions pressure points, giving him an edge, but stone rending claws are never used to tear through him.Granted it’s a kid’s movie, but more importantly IT’S FOR KIDS! The message “Your special as you are and you only need to believe to succeed” is pretty dysfunctional. Sure, positive attitude is key to success — hence my own astounding achievements — but so is talent and hard work. How many fat kids got their asses kicked trying to emulate Po the Panda? It brings a smile to the lips.

The astute regular reader will notice that there’s been a change in the categories. Pop-Culture has been replaced by Culture. This does not mean that we’ll be writing snooty head-up-the-ass critiques of Die Flater Mouse and Figaro‘s Wedding. HELLS NO! To do so would be to falsely present my interests. Wine and cheese have been enjoyed by me and my friends, but its done in jeans while playing RPGs in a messy student apartment — the game isn’t Fops & Flattery … no offense to Vampire the Masquerade.

By culture we mean an examination of the norms and folkways that are commonly passed down through generations, the DEFINITION of culture. Perspectives will be confined to American culture, since that’s what I am. It may also have a hint of brotha soul or urbanite insight or whatever euphemism you want to explain the blackitude. As you can tell from posting so far it will not be overdone. I’m worldly, check out the opera names I didnt have to google above. OK, I did but for the SPELLING!

We aren’t concerned with what is commonly called “Popular culture“: the subject matter of shows like Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight. VERY pop it is, but little in dealing with society/culture. Click on most links or search this term and you’ll be deluged with all kinds of intimate reports on celebrities and their often-fucked up lives. This does not interest us in the least. The work of celebrities will be reviewed as this is their supposed best effort on whatever project being undertaken — the perfect grounds to dissect an artist with the accuracy and depth of a discriminating samurai. Praise and honor bestowed, or heads taken.

After Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ended their final season in an orgy of starship beat down and plot line concluding in ’99, there was the oft overlooked, exotically envisioned Australian import Farscape. When that was abruptly cut from the schedule, and after rallying to an epic finale in the Peacekeeper Wars due to huge fan support and my ability to control reality mentally in ’04, there was a void in good character-driven sci-fi on TV. Those horrific three months found fans eking by on reruns, or falling to watching Stargate: SG1 — a decent show based on a good movie but akin to substituting Guinness stout with Natural Lite “beer“. Then came a controversial “re-imagining” of a classic.

Ronald Moore, producer on Trek The Next Gen and DS9, gave us a new Battlestar Galactica — the current best sci-fi show on television. The original some remember as a light-hearted action space opera with a lost tribe of humanity hunted by shiny-armored cycloptic robots in recycled animation starship battles with comic relief macho sexual innuendo, feathered-hair space vixens and cute kids with cuter robotic dog sidekicks. There are some fine femmes in this new incarnation, with dozens of Cylon copies for some. Katee Sackhoff (yeah, her real name)was voted one of TV’s sexiest stars - somehow. The new alcoholic, slutty, reincarnated and tormented Starbuck IS doable, but Tricia Helfer and Grace Park - once you go Cylon … Come for the space tail, but be warned: this is NOT your creepy uncle’s Galactica.

Anchorman, 40-year Old Virgin, Super Bad, Knocked Up: producer/director Judd Apatow knows the funny, or at least how to let actors bring it. They are the strength of his movies by far. Where Abrahams - maker of Airplane, Top Secret and Hot Shots for you kiddies - saturate comedy in situation and setting, Judd does so with memorable characters, which seem to be cast from some sort of apprenticeship system.

Will Ferrell - whom is forging a career based on playing men from the ‘70s - led Anchorman, but Steve Carrel’s weatherman Brick is a big contributor by the extremity of his retard edacity, mayonnaise in a toaster - WTF? Carrel leads in Virgin, epically making his career with Seth Rogen waiting in the wings of co-stardom playing pothead love guru Cal, then Rogen leads in Knocked Up essentially as his Virgin character. Apatow populates a movie with an ensemble of comedic characters that have a touch of realistic humanity in all its often-pitiful … quirky … glory?

Forgetting Sarah Marshal adds another to the portfolio. How quirky? What if your male lead, not particularly in shape Jason Segel, does nudity in the beginning and end of the flick? Conceptually, we could say this symbolizes the character’s vulnerability. It was his RAW grief at being crushed by Kristen Bell’s titular - heh - character, then his willingness to find love again with Mila Kunis’ Rachel. How do I know you‘re gay? You’re movie’s showcasing more sausage than Brokeback Mountain, and I doubt it was for artistic expression more than that ludicrous edge Apatow favors — like Carrel’s fountain-like super boner in Virgin and Superbad’s blood brothers scene. You laugh uncomfortably, but you laugh.

In between man ass over got an overall decent movie. Segel isn’t an especially strong lead actor, and not just from the constant crying and indecisiveness. Aside from his dream to a make a puppet Dracula musical, what’s his name … Peter is pretty much typical dude paying the price for dating outside of his league and victim of comedic circumstance. The insincere celebrity Sarah Marshall (Bell) leaves him for goth rocker Aldous Snow, played very well by Russel Brand, whom is this super sexual spoiled lead singer for the band Infant Sorrow — I shit you not. Mila Kunis is the down-to-earth and genuine front desk receptionist Rachel that feels sorry for Peter and while helping him enjoy Hawaii and get over things falls for him. Both female roles seem kind of flat, character not chest wise … though that fits too, like Katharine Hegel did in Knocked Up. You’d think the chick in the title would be more of a bitch.

This, like the others mentioned, is a guy movie obviously with girls tossed into one-dimensional roles. That Peter is similarly drab it’s not that jarring though. Show outs were Jonah Hill as the quasi-gay fan boy whose adoration of Snow is eerily laughable. Jack McBrayer plays his usual wide-eyed young rube to perfection, like he does as Kenneth on 30 Rock. Paul Rudd returns again as middle-aged spacey surf instructor Chuck this time, doling out neo-Zen fortune cookie advice that doesn’t help at all. There was also sagaciously atypical big black man and Hawaiian standard large Polynesian guy, whom each added a few larfs.

Which will lead in the next Apatow joint? My money’s on Rudd — he’s done enough in each and is funnier than Rogen and Segel, why not?

Three thousand posts ago, or was it thirty, the question of slutitude was examined and its was concluded — 100% logically, accurately and empirically evidently since no comments opposed it — that the multiple partners is the stigma stain of this negative noun. Yet, unless mixing outside of a marriage or creep’in out while committed, men never really sustain this or similar lecherous labels. We ask: who the HELL cares? Although, women may wonder why this is.

Consider language, at its genesis. Did men invent language and therefore create the slut term from sexism and not ponder an equivalent for their transgressions? I’d say no. Women almost definitely invented language. Hunting requires quiet and can be organized with hand signals. Foraging requires the expression of complex ideas: “Hagda, pick the azure berries. Scarlet berries too fattening. Hagda need two mammoth hides for dress.” “Close mouth! Guna say you look good.”  I don’t think sexual politics was a luxury they could afford.

The answer lies deeper, in our biology. Rain, sleet, snow: male-men can get aroused in a minute or less and orgasm in two, or less. I don’t recommend they do, speedy, but it’s evidence of sexual simplicity women don’t’ possess. The basic results of sex for men are relief, maybe spreading their genes, hunger and sleep (the best kind there is). For women it’s relief, if they’re lucky, but could also be nine months of growing discomfort, years of commitment to a child, or death from complications. No man has died from childbirth — ok, a few have but then they learned to move sharp objects out of a laboring woman’s reach. Some say hump’in around may have created the strength in our species by spreading DNA diversity and countering infant mortality rates in the ancient times. Others say that monogamy is a battle to be fought.

The good old days. Now it can be a problem. Look at polygamists. The guy gets 15 wives, while women get 1/15^th of a husband — pesky equal rights — and got to pump out kids to compete for attention/resources. Going on social assistance to support dozens of kids. Junior, #8, can’t get a date cause girls his age are his step-moms or nieces! Even if it’s minimal, three wives isn’t like a wife and two girlfriends, watch Big Love — the father even starts to cheat second season.

But your jealous girlfriends will still talk about you, ladies. Hateration abounds.