Review: Transformers. * out of 5.

Combine Michael Bay with the Transformers and you're not really going in expecting Shakespeare. But having just come out from the new film, I'm going to simply say it fails at three particular levels for me.

As an instance of nostalgia, there is simply not enough to derive a viable sense of joy with the way they've handled the franchise.

The Autobots and Decepticons are largely so unrecognizable to most fans from their original designs as to make naming most of them an exercise in absurdity. Few resemble the characters we'd grown to love in the 1980s.

There are a few lines from the film and television, largely delivered as throwaways. But catchphrases are not enough to invoke and vindicate nostalgia. One must also have the spirit of the storyline, the greater themes in mind.

The largest flaw is that within the original series, the Decepticons, and even the Autobots had enough interpersonal interactions and personalities to give the veneer of depth to the story. Here, almost everyone is merely a pasteboard cut-out to be crudely knocked down.

It is like greeting an old friend who has had such radical plastic surgery you are uncertain it is even your old friend.

Here, much as was the flaw of the Mission: Impossible series, there's really not much to connect the action on screen to the franchise.

It's not a full homage, nor even an engaging 'update' to the story. It is at best, an adaptation without any purpose except commercial.

Second, as a stand-alone, self-contained story, Transformers fails.

If one walked in knowing nothing of the original series and its complex mythologies, one will walk away bewildered and unimpressed by massive flaws of narrative structure, physics, geography, and characterization, and even the use of CGI is so badly directed in points as to be laughable.

Finally, the third level at which the Transformers fails is that there is an uncomfortable and unnecessary undercurrent of xenophobia, stereotypes and racism lingering within the film that reaches significant lows.

Perhaps not as severe as the problems I had with 300, but enough that this is a strong candidate for worst film of 2007 featuring characters of color. There is a condescending attitude towards Latin Americans and Asians that is very difficult to overlook, and African American characters are played either as comic relief or as stock cutouts who are not so much characters as expostions with faces. Perhaps this last complaint is of interest to only a small section of fandom, but it is still an objection that needs to be raised.

To be sure, I wonder why Michael Bay continues to get work and opportunities. He has come a long way since his Playboy video direction days. But it is still a substandard film and while it will excel in the theaters, it does not do so with justice.

CONVERGENCE 2007!

It's that time of year again!



As in recent years past, local writers of color will be gathering at CONVergence in Minnesota, one of the largest conventions of the year.

CONvergence attempts to draw together all the various mediums and aspects of the science fiction & fantasy genres as equals. Many conventions choose one aspect as a primary focus (literature, comics, movies, etc.). But by covering this broad spectrum, the organizers hope to show what brings all of us together as fans of the media.

And we just think it's fun.

The theme of CONvergence 2007 is "Creature Feature," which may give many visions of monster movies new and old, and of things that go bump in the night. While those ghouls and goblins will certainly be part of the proceedings, creature characters are not limited to the realm of Horror, and this convention will explore that.

Some panels I'm specifically serving on are:

Adopted! A Roll of the Dice
From the beginning to the present, adopting is a frequent element of mythology, folklore and speculative literature. From Oedipus and the Peach Boy to Damien and Worf, images of adoptees run the gamut, but more than just a plot device, why is this a popular theme, and how is it presented in different cultures?
Shannon Gibney and Jennifer Li will be helping me take this one on.

On The Other Side Of The Eye: Speculative Poetry Reading
Six Twin Cities writers take on the fantastic, the mythic and the cosmic through speculative poetry and spoken word. And once again, the miniature city of Neo-Minneapolis might get destroyed in the process! I'll be reading along with Robert Karimi, Brandon Lacy Campos, Shoua Lee, Bao Phi.

And don't forget our party room on room 401: "America's Nightmare Boutique" where the Twin Cities Nerds of Color will be hosting all sorts of fun party games from trivia matches, pinatas and the Map of Monstrosities!

It's going to be great!

Over on Goodreads.Com...

There's a classic moment in Moby's episode on MTV Cribs where he expresses his dismay that whenever you visit the other rock star's homes, you never see any books in them.

So he really wanted to show the audiences that rock stars CAN have books and be well-read and cultured. And I respect him for that.



This is a post to let you know that I'm on goodreads.com (and you can just search for me on goodreads looking for the e-mail thaoworra @ aol.com) This is far from the comprehensive list but it's a start. I'll be updating it weekly or so.

I look forward to your suggestions, too!

Philosophy and Poetry

The Chronicle has an article by Carlin Romano on Richard Rorty (1931-2007): the View From Somewhere that provides a light and interesting take on the life of the maverick philosopher.

While the world of letters and history hash out the finals of his significance, there are some interesting ideas that stood out to me in the article.

Romano cites Bertrand Russell's words: "To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it."

As a poet, I'm interested in this statement. It makes me wonder how poetry can relate to this process, especially in light of Dirac's famous remark:

"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite."

This, of course, is not an absolute truism, but is an interesting point to bring into consideration.

According to Romano, Rorty suggested a philosopher might be considered "somebody who remaps culture — who suggests a new and promising way for us to think about the relation among large areas of human activity."

Isn't that idea of being one who remaps culture interesting for artists and poets?

Romano writes:
"It might seem that a thinker who stressed the contingency of vocabularies but kept adopting new tags for his position — "neo-Hegelian," "quietist," "polytheist" — suffered from self-contradiction. Such a view would misunderstand Rorty's unconcern for a vocabulary that "fit the world." A pragmatist to the end, Rorty saw adopting new terms the way a doctor sees alternate therapies: a set of options, one of which might solve "the problem," which was not representing the world, but achieving our purposes."

There is liberation within this, I suspect.

I'm going to tie this post off with a classic quote from Leonard Cohen: "There is a crack in everything: that’s how the light gets in.”