[Freya-dæg] "While you were still learning how to spell your name..." John Travolta Was Grease-ing up his Hamminess

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Bad
The Good
Judgment
Closing

{Just what Travolta (front left) was getting up to while you were learning to spell your name, or before you were even a twinkle in an eye. Image from The Guardian.}

Introduction

This is a movie that no-one has been kind to. The critics listed at Rotten Tomatoes gave it just 2%, and audiences only 13%. It's quite a bit more reviled by the critics than last week's movie, so let's see just how hard it will be to redeem it.

What's terrible about this movie isn't hard to see, but, to know just what we're getting into let's try to objectively view the plot.

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Plot Summary

It's the year 3000, and humanity has been suppressed for hundreds of years by an alien race known as the Psychlos. The movie begins with the wanderings of Johnny "Goodboy" Tyler (played by Barry Pepper), a man who's simply out and about trying to find something better.

While out wandering, Johnny is cornered and captured by the Psychlos. Eventually he's chosen by the head of security at the Psychlos Earth colony, Terl (John Travolta), for his gold-grabbing scheme. But in the process of preparing his selected group of humans for his secret job, Terl teaches Johnny too much.

With his curiosity fired up, Johnny begins to think dangerously and ultimately drives the remaining humans to organize a revolt. This revolt is a resounding success, resulting in the destruction of the Earth colony and even the Psychlos' home planet. Terl is then imprisoned and Johnny apparently leads humanity back to its old knowledge and technology. And, though the movie was designed to have a sequel, the story ends there.

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The Bad

As you might have already noticed, the story itself is pretty problematic.

Why are humans being suppressed, for example?

The most obvious reason is that the Psychlos appear to be too busy draining earth of its resources to bother with wiping out what little humanity remains. This is a troubling issue since later in the movie we see a more advanced and learned race, the Chinkos, whom the Psychlos did wipe out. So there seems to be little reason for them to keep the few remaining humans alive except to toss them into prison. For some reason.

Slave labor could be a reason. But humans are deemed too stupid and senseless to be able to operate the machinery involved in mining and so even the thought of such a use is laughable to the Psychlos. While they laugh it up, you might well wonder why does an advance race still mine minerals using digging machines? If gutting planets is they're bread and butter haven't they developed something faster or automated?

Maybe the Psychlos are still hands-on when it comes to mining so that the they'll need humans to mine gold found in an irradiated area. The Psychlos being sensitive to radiation can't go there to mine it, and so Terl decides to try and get this gold for himself by sending a group of humans to mine it. This leads to the humans relearning what they've forgotten, striking back, and blowing things up before everyone lives happily ever after.

What's particularly striking about the plot is that it seems divided within itself. The first half of the movie is relatively slow for a film named "Battlefield Earth." It's not until the 50 minute mark that there's even any indication that the movie is about the humans' revolting against the Psychlos rather than Terl's socio-political woes with a side of human hijinx.

Stepping away from the plot before it falls and hurts someone, the next big foible of the filmmakers is how the movie is presented. Widescreen is fine. Good even, in some cases. But what's really annoying is the way that almost every shot in the movie is on an angle. Even more wearying is that every scene transition happens in the same way. A gradual outward wipe, like a curtain opening. Oh - except for the wipe that ends the movie. But I wouldn't want to spoil that doozy for you.

That just leaves the characters. The dialogue is nothing special. But the main characters, well, the way that they're framed is weak at best.

Our lead, Johnny, is the standard post-apocalyptic hero. Once he gets a taste of knowledge he just wants to get more and more. Then there's his love interest, Chrissie (Sabine Karsenti), who the screenwriters introduce and then appear to forget about for a good 45 minutes, is also standard fare - the strong willed woman who can do what she wants because she's "not a child anymore."

Speaking of the humans more generally, the biggest issue with them is that they pick things up too fast. They take to technology that they're supposed to have been away from for centuries like a fish takes to water. The writers and directors try to make it seem like these people are rediscovering things for the first time, but when your examples of this are things like people chewing on the word "warning" like it's something new and exciting it seems like there just wasn't a whole lot of effort put into it.

Granted, the bar that's being used as standard here was set by the Doctor Who serial The Face of Evil. In this serial the Doctor encounters two tribes of people - the Sevateam and the Tesh - who are the descendants of space explorers and who currently regard their technology with sheer religious and superstitious reverence and fear.

These reactions are present in the movie, and it does need to be given some credit for the scene where Johnny is going through the city with two others while they explain to him what happened with stories. But this nod to the basic human compulsion to explain things with stories never goes far enough.

If the first half of the movie is meant to set the humans up as believable people given their situation and the second half is meant to be the sweet tender action, then everything is overshadowed by at least two things.

First, Johnny's cry of despair when his unseen father dies a few minutes into the movie is the same as when his horse dies. Both of these happen in the first 12 minutes, and so we're not really allowed to care for either of them.

Second, John Travolta's Terl really steals the show.

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The Good

Yes, Terl as played by John Travolta is one of the good things in this movie. Psychlo society might be a thinly veiled analogy for capitalism or profit-driven business practices, and a lot of their culture and behavior might seem too human to be alien, but they've got campy, scenery chewing John Travolta, by gum.

The way that Travolta overacts with his character is great. Everything he says is blown out of proportion - and made incredible as a result. Most memorable, perhaps, is his "while you were still learning how to spell your name, I was being trained to conquer galaxies." In fact, if you haven't heard this line, check it out right here:

Another good thing in the film is the new vocabulary that the humans use. There are just a few words, but they're rather clever additions. "Greener," meaning explorer and derived from the saying "the grass is always greener on the other side" is really cool. "Man animal" is also delightful because of just how much disgust Travolta puts into his every utterance of it. The movie's action isn't anything to phone home about, but there are two scenes that are kind of neat. One is when Terl has taken the humans he's going to be using as minors to a field to put the fear of him into them. He's waylaid by a group of humans and Johnny gets a hold of his gun. But, instead of shooting Terl, Johnny hands it back to him saying that he's probably got some way to kill him before he pulls the trigger. The pause on Terl's end suggests that he had no such leverage, and that Johnny thought he did makes him seem appropriately naive. The other is the sequence where they're trying to simultaneously blow up the dome that covers the Psychlos colony on Earth, and send the nuke to Psychlo to destroy it via the teleporter. Not the whole scene, just when the simultaneity of the two actions is emphasized. It makes for some gripping viewing! Although, it's so enjoyable to watch partially because when the humans blow up Psychlo (spoiler!) you know that the movie's almost over. Back To Top Judgment And that speaks louder than anything good or bad about this movie. When you already know how it's going to end thanks to the internet (specifically things like the Nostalgia Critic's review), and the indicators of its ending excite you more than anything else in a movie, you know that it's a stinker. Maybe if they had called it "John Travolta's Campy Alien Acting and Slo-Mo Angular Action Roundup" instead of "Battlefield Earth" it would be easier to forgive its many failings. But this movie hardly has any battle going on in it, save for the last 30 minutes. Just 30 minutes out of a total of 118 is not enough to toss that event into your title. If there was a lingering sense of battle throughout, that would work - but there is not. The movie feels like it doesn't know what it's supposed to be about, nor how it wants to tell its story until the last third or so. So, Freya, despite its fervent, over-enunciated cries of protest, leave this one down below. That is truly for the best. Back To Top Closing Let me know what you thought about Battlefield Earth. Leave your most favorite/despised moments in the comments! Next week, check back for a logical look at the pros and cons of freelance writing in Canada, an entry on something newsworthy, and a review of the 2003 bomb, Gigli. Maybe Christoper Walken will do a better job of buoying a terrible film than John Travolta did, but only time will tell. Back To Top

[Wōdnes-dæg] Dead and Buried, But Lying in Bed

Introduction
Christian Significance of Burial
Bed Burials
Her Golden Cross
Conclusion
Wrap Up
References

{The bed-burial grave at Ixworth. Image from The History Blog.}

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Introduction

The native speakers of Old English known as the Anglo-Saxons are long gone. But, as with so much ancient history, they just can't help but be brought back into the present every now and then. As a recent article in the Hamilton Spectator reveals a new find in the field,¹ now might just be the second most exciting time to be an Anglo-Saxonist or somebody just fascinated by old burials and treasure hoards.

The most recent Anglo-Saxon find is the burial of a teenage girl. What's so special about her burial? After all, many people were buried then as they are now. Especially since she's been pegged as living in the 600s, when Christianity was coming back to Britain. Riding this tangent out, what's Christianity got to do with a girl being buried?

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Christian Significance of Burial

Cutting straight to the quick, burial is essential according to traditional Christian belief in the Final Judgment. For, it is at the time that Christ comes back that all the dead shall rise and have their sins and virtues weighed and the lambs and the goats will be separated and so on. But if your body was cremated (or burned on a boat set out to sea - I'm looking at you, Vikings), then your soul won't have anything to wear to the final judgment. Traditionally, nothing is said about bodies reconstituting themselves from ashes and then rising for the last judgment.

So this Anglo-Saxon teen would have been buried in accordance with the new faith of the land. What's peculiar about her case though, is what she was buried with, and what she was buried in.

She wasn't buried in a coffin, no, she was buried in a bed.

{A drawing of a bed burial. Image from Wessex Archaeology}

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Bed Burials

Bed burials among the Anglo-Saxons seem to be quite rare. To date only 13 have been found.²

Nonetheless, these bed burials have a some things in common. Most involve women, many include jewelry that suggest a high social rank.²

Most interesting about this practice is the fact that the Old English word "leger" ("a place where one lies") could refer to either a bed or a grave.² This crossing of the two ties in nicely with a lot of the enduring associations of sleep and death. Such things definitely go back to the time of Christ as he says "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth" when he is talking with Mary and Martha.³

But for the pagan Anglo-Saxons what might the connection between sleep and death mean? Sleep and death are visible in the seasons, certainly. The earth seems to sleep beneath blankets of snow in the winter when many plants die out, and then wakes again in spring.

Getting a bit more personal, sleep and death were also closely connected in pagan ideas of death. Similar to the Christian idea of the soul carrying on to another place upon the death of the body, Norse pagans believed that some part of the person journeyed to some form of the afterlife. The beliefs of the Anglo-Saxons may have differed from this, but certainly only slightly - especially as they would have been in close contact with the Norse throughout the 6 and 700s.⁴

The fact that the Anglo-Saxon word "leger" was used to signify both sleep and death during the 7th century also attests to Anglo-Saxon ideas of the two being connected. As the two are connected, though, what did the Anglo-Saxons think happened when people awoke from death? Or did they think that the afterlife was a dream had by the dead? These nuances of Anglo-Saxon belief are unclear, but when Christianity becomes widely adapted they must have either been completely consumed or maybe blended with the perspective of the new religion.

Back to the Ixworth teen and what she was buried with. As a young woman of power in a Christian nation, she was buried with what else upon her chest but a golden cross.

{The cross found as part of the bed-burial in Ixworth. Image from The History Blog.}

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Her Golden Cross

The artistry of the girl's golden cross is incredibly fine. The mix of gold base and cut garnets is indeed striking. But, what does it mean?

The cloisonné style (art consisting of multiple cells) of it shows the intricacy that 7th century Anglo-Saxon artisans were capable of, but why gold and garnet?⁵

Gold has always been regarded as valuable, and indeed the Anglo-Saxons prized it among treasures. A quick read through the first part of Beowulf, where Heorot is described as a hall decked about with the stuff (on line 308) makes its value clear.⁶

Garnet on the other hand seems more obscure. If you allow there to be a connection between modern pagan practices and ancient ones, then the garnet stone seems to be most closely related to repelling evil and helping with blood flow.⁷ That such material be used for a cross, and one that was sewn onto the girl's clothes, no less, suggests that it may have been worn for spiritual protection. Perhaps as an aid against the temptations of the world. This works well with the current theory that this girl was associated with a nearby abbey - possibly even as the abbess herself.

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Conclusion

So this find is a little bit removed from what's generally associated with Anglo-Saxons. There isn't a great treasure hoard here or a lot of ornate armour or weaponry. Instead, this teenage corpse sheds light on the more refined side of Anglo-Saxon culture. The side that's often lost amidst the images of wenching, ale-ing, and fighting, but that's no less important. For starters, it definitely civilizes the Anglo-Saxons to some degree. It shows that outside of their shield-play and bard-song they had some refinement.

Perhaps this other side's being revealed in this teenage girl's burial is due to a different set of values having been ascribed to women. Not necessarily by the Anglo-Saxons (let's not forget that there were some very powerful Anglo-Saxon women), but within the Christian system that was in place by this time.

In fact, given that garnet was a stone associated with protection, perhaps this young woman was as much a warrior as a male could have been. Only, rather than fighting on the field of grass and dust, hacking through bone and flesh with iron, she was fighting on the field of litanies and vespers, lunging at sin with paternosters.

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Wrap Up

What's your favourite archaeological find of all time? Feel free to post about it in the comments.

And check back on Friday for an attempt to find some lasting good in the movie, Battlefield Earth.

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References

1. Raphael Satter. "Archaeologists discover seventh-century teenager buried in bed." TheSpec.com. 16 March 2012.

2. "Bed Burial" Wikipedia. 20 March 2012.

3. Bible, The King James Version.

4. "Norse activity in the British Isles." Wikipedia. 8 March 2012.

5. "cloisonné." Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online. 2012.

6. Beowulf in Hypertext. McMaster University.

7. Cresentmoon2007. "Garnet and Its Magical Properties." HubPages. December 2011.

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[Moon-dæg] Five Reasons Freelance Writers Aren't in It for the Money

T-A-X-E-S

But I'll get to that below.

Introduction
Potential Incomes
Taxes
Conclusion

{Is the hand giving or taking? Image from "Freelance Writing - Career and Scopes" on ezdia.com}

Introduction

Freelance writing. Perhaps this is an inevitable topic for any "unemployed" writer with dreams of literary grandeur. 'Unemployed' is in double quotes since it doesn't really apply to freelancers in quite the same way as it might to a person who formerly worked for a company as a press release writer, or ad writer but now needs to find work.

There are a number of online job sites and boards that cost a freelancer some money (as a union might), either as deducted from pay or upfront, but working with these outlets can hardly be regarded as an employer-employee relationship. The writer who uses sites like Elance, oDesk, Constant Content, or Guru.com, doesn't generally get any benefit from working with them aside from increased visibility and a pleasant platform on which to deal with clients. But already this article's being diverted, let's just say that this whole paragraph a metaphor for YouTube in the day to day life of a freelancer and then close this tab.

Working for yourself isn't just about being able to control your output and ultimately being the only person to whom you answer. There's the matter of making enough to live on every year as well. In spite of its apparently small number of polled freelancers, the site payscale.com paints a hope-inspiring picture.

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Potential Incomes

According to this website, the average hourly wage for a Canadian Freelance Writer in Canada is between $9.90 and $64.11 (between $20 357 and $106 818 yearly). The site quotes the yearly earnings of Canadian Writers as $20 101 to $68 207; Writer/Authors as $11 745 to $84 971; and Freelance Writers, Technical as $32 580 to $141 015. All of these are fine and comparable professions since they're all dealing in fairly general writing.

Compared with Freelance Writer, however, the ranges - except for the specialized "Freelance Writers, Technical" - make going your own way with your writing look pretty promising.

However, the money you earn is not entirely what you keep. If you get a cavity you'll need to see a dentist, if you fracture a bone or damage a nerve (carpel tunnel becomes a serious job-threatening injury as a writer of any stripe), then you'll need to see a doctor. And of course, as spring overcomes winter each year, so to you need to file your taxes.

So, at the end of a good year, according to payscale.com, you could expect about $63 000. Tempered by the more sobering data offered by Sarah Turner, namely that only 8% of Canadian writers earn $25 000 or more a year, let's move that $63 000 to $30 000. That's still a relatively high number, but what would you owe in taxes on that sort of income as a freelance writer?

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Taxes

There are certainly a lot of different factors involved in tax calculation as it is. But, however individual a tax return may be, as someone selling services, you may have to charge your clients sales tax for your writing.

In fact, with 30 000 a year you need to charge GST/HST. You should keep clear records of your expenses since they could be written off if you can connect them to your writing business (this includes things like books on writing, and part of your rent if you work from home). And you also need to be clear and honest about what you make, even if you run a deficit with your writing, since this could offset income from other sources (assuming you have some).

Much like the nature of freelance writing itself, figuring out its taxes is a very individual activity. However, to get a general sense of at least one aspect of the income tax you file as a writer, let's take a look at what sort of GST/HST remittance you would need to pay on your $30 000 if you had a registered GST/HST account.

Running with 2011's numbers for Ontario (8.8% remittance rate for business providing services in another "participating province"), you would need to remit 30 000 * 0.088 = $2 640 of your income to the government in sales tax. The Canadian Revenue Agency website on the Quick Method of Accounting for GST/HST offers more help on this matter, but is also quite dense.

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Conclusion

So, if you're considering starting up as a freelance writer and feel like you've got a realistic grasp on how much you could make in a year, you should definitely plug your numbers into the calculations outlined on the relevant Canadian Revenue Agency website (or find what you need on the main site).

You might also want to consider moving to one of the "non-participating" provinces or territories (PEI, Quebec, Nunavut, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, or Alberta) so that your remittance rate, at least, is considerably lower. Montreal does have a pretty vibrant arts scene.

How do you feel about how taxes work for freelancers, or in general? Let me know in a comment.

Check back here Wednesday for a lightly researched thought piece about Anglo Saxon burial finds, and don't miss Friday's review of Battlefield Earth - there's good in it somewhere, there's got to be!

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[Freya-dæg] All the Pomp of Ancient Immortals, but Chaotic Beneath

Intro
Plot Summary
The Bad
The Good
Judgment
Closing

Intro

Immortals is one of those movies that comes along every now and then with quite a bit of promise. Not necessarily promise to revive the sword and sandal genre or to deliver a stunning story that will have people talking for years. But with the promise of maybe marrying visuals to story in a way that transcends the action genre in the same way that a band like Rhapsody of Fire transcends the label "symphonic metal."

A promise of heavy action, dark and high fantasy elements, and cheesy fetch-quest/macguffin-driven epic stories that are fully enjoyable because they're just so earnest.

However, like a Roman (or a modern) senator, Immortals doesn't come close to fulfilling this promise. Rotten Tomatoes' critics definitely agree, having awarded the movie a 37%, and audiences are eying the fence since their legs are tired - but not that tired - having given it a 52%.

The story of Immortals can't entirely be blamed for this, it's so run-of-the-mill you can't really pin a "good" or "bad" label on it.

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Plot Summary

Hyperion (played by Mickey Rourke) seeks to revive the Titans who were defeated by the Gods in a great war before history began. To succeed in his plan, he needs a weapon called the Epirus Bow, but it has been lost. So, in his search for it he has - quite cleverly - "moved every precious stone you people worship upon."

Meanwhile, a young man named Theseus (Henry Cavill) grows up in a small village. The village is attacked, he's taken as a slave (to "work in the salt mines") and while in the slave train he meets the oracle Phaedra (the lovely Freida Pinto). They break free along with a tongueless monk, a thief, and another, and then they start to quest about for the bow.

Spoilers start here.

Theseus finds the bow in his village's crypt after returning there to bury his mother. Somehow Hyperion gets a hold of it, and then Theseus and his gang head out to meet the Greek (?) forces that are about to face Hyperion at Mount Tartarus, where the Titans are bound. They arrive just in time and Theseus rallies the troops against Hyperion. But Hyperion frees the Titans, at which point the Gods appear. Gods fight Titans. Men fight men. And Theseus defeats Hyperion. The whole mountain collapses, and we're shown that Theseus and Phaedra had a son.

Generic plot aside, what's so bad about this movie? Like Poseidon plummeting into the sea to cause a tidal wave - let's dive right in.

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The Bad

The biggest problem that the movie has is that major plot points are obscured by action sequences. It's not that you're left reeling after an action sequence and can't take in what's happening in the plot as a result, but rather that major plot points tend to happen *during* the action. And they can be hard to pick out.

For example, when Theseus and co. break free from the slave train, I had no idea how they did it - some sort of brouhaha broke out and then in the next scene they're in some room. And when the Epirus bow is stolen in the middle of a later action sequence, it just appears with Hyperion a few scenes later. A henchman must have run off with the bow in the confusion of the skirmish, but this isn't a video game, and so letting the viewer share in the confusion of battle isn't a good thing.

Further, just who is fighting who is really unclear.

Hyperion, all around creep-tastic badass, is the villain. And Rourke plays this role excellently. Even if he does look like something you might want to trap in a ball and force to fight for you.

{Image made by Enthorn, found at Cheezburger.com)}

But who are the good guys?

Anonymous "Greek" soldiers in period garb I guess. Maybe the Greeks as a whole? Or the "Hellenics" as the gods refer to the humans that are fighting against Hyperion. But just who the good guys are is never made clear. Placing the story in 1200 BC is kind of clever though - a time that's far removed from ours, but not as distant as, say, 10 000 BC. So allegiances and who did what and all of those silly "details" can more or less be ignored.

Plot problems aside, the action of the movie is also lacking.

In fact, this movie commits the greatest (and maybe oldest) action movie sin.

In the first real action scene with Theseus pitted against Hyperion's men, we see a line - a single-file line! - of Hyperion's men running at and attacking our hero without breaking formation. And that's practically the whole sequence. But even worse is when Theseus fights the minotaur in the crypt.

After having knocked Theseus around a bit, the minotaur goes up some stairs to a landing and then pulls Theseus' prone and weakened body up to the same level.

Then the minotaur stands there. And stands there.

And vaguely waves around his club.

And then he stands some more - waiting until Theseus gets up.

There's a solid six second gap between the minotaur's pulling him up and Theseus' counter-attack. Six seconds in which the minotaur could have ended this movie. But nope. For some reason he waits patiently while Theseus collects himself, grabs a shard of something and then slices his tendons. Yeah. Well. Minotaurs are only intelligent in science fiction re-tellings, it seems.

Moving onto the quest item at the movie's center, there are some major issues with it as well.

The fact that the Epirus Bow is found not in some distant shrine, but a pile of rubble in the crypt of Theseus' village makes it clear that the movie's creators desperately wanted a video game tie-in. As if the action sequences aren't hint enough.

Granted, a bow that makes its own arrows when you draw it is pretty cool - but just happening to stumble upon it like that? I'm sort of surprised that the bow wasn't Theseus' conscience or something along those lines, but then, that would be far too deep.

And deep thought is definitely not something to apply to this movie.

After all, if you look for them, the messages of the movie aren't entirely clear.

War is bad because you need to fight for the right reasons, and one of those reasons is to defend the weak. So, then, might, so long as it's in defense of "the weak," makes right?

The gods don't listen to people's prayers because Zeus has a strict non-interference policy in place, but the actions of a human can restore Zeus' faith in people? So the gods work as long as people believe in them? Curiously undercutting religion, but simultaneously supporting it.

Theseus seems adrift and uncertain, but then the bow makes him believe that there are indeed gods and he becomes focused and true? So religion is necessary to have a meaningful purpose?

All of these can be found in the movie, and all of them are kind of odd. But the strangest of all comes when Lysander, a soldier whom Theseus dishonored, reveals that Theseus is the child of rape.

That Theseus is believed to be the child of rape is troubling because he is both the hero, and, at least according to the original myth, the son of Zeus.

Now, Zeus is into some freaky stuff, but I don't think gang-rape (which Lysander mildly implies) was ever something he did. Sex up a woman while in the form of an ox? Sure. Appear to a woman as a shower of gold? Okay. Ravish a young boy (in both senses of the word) so he can be your heavenly cup-bearer? That gets another one of Zeus' thumbs-up.

Aside from this inaccuracy, Theseus' parentage is troubling because it suggests an oddly pro-life message. It's never mentioned in this movie (but might be in a sequel, if there ever is such a thing), but if series canon is that Zeus is Theseus' father, then you could interpret that as saying that children of rape are gifts from the god(s).

But it's just a flashy Hollywood action flick, right? It doesn't really have any messages, right?

Stepping away from the issue of Theseus' origins, let's look at his character.

Does anyone know the Ancient Greek form of the name "Stu"? Because Theseus is as flawless as Parian marble. Sure he has a hot temper, but that only flares up when he's "defending his loved ones." He's got Larry-Stu written all over him.

The only other character of note is the oracle that breaks out of the slave train with Theseus. Her character is fine throughout most of the movie, pretty standard strong-willed woman with an important social role stuff.

But Theseus drops a line about her special gift of prophecy being more of a curse than a blessing. Then he goes down to bury his mom, comes back, and she lets him deflower her.

As a virgin oracle this is supposed to release her from her power, but as the rest of the movie suggests, she keeps her powers anyway - even passing them onto the son she has at the movie's end.

Phaedra's giving up her power of prophecy so easily is poor writing. Not because she doesn't lose them after having sex as the world of the movie suggests will happen, but because she doesn't go through any major struggle to reach her decision to lose her powers.

We see her in one scene and she seems vaguely thoughtful about Theseus' calling her gift a curse. We see her again, minutes later, and she gives it up. Bad character writing of a high caliber, this is.

Another quibble, and this time with the movie as a whole, is that it is dim. Just like in countless 20th century movies set in the middle ages, everything seems darker than it ought to be. Maybe the sense that's being conveyed here is that the movie's action takes place at the "dawn of time" but that's a figurative expression, not a literal one. Especially on a small screen, so much darkness makes it difficult to actually see a lot of the movie's detail.

Now, to the movie's credit, there are some good things in it, too.

And no, they aren't just limited to Rourke's Hyperion, originator of such gems as:

{Original image from Parimal M. Rohit's Buzzine interview with Mickey Rourke.}

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The Good

Theseus' own philosophy is definitely a good one - "deeds are eternal, not the flesh." Better to do great deeds than have a lot of kids. Definitely. This is also something found throughout heroic literature, from Hercules to Beowulf and back again.

And, though the movie thoroughly goes in the opposite direction, the attempt to class it up by quoting Socrates at the beginning is a nice touch. And the choice of quotes is obviously appropriate.

Plus, there are sequences where the characters actually talk in what sounds like Ancient Greek.

And even on the small screen, the visuals are compelling. Especially the final mass battle scene, which is also well choreographed.

And...uh.

Well, that's it, really. There's not too much more that's actually really all that good about the movie.

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Judgment

Immortals' plot is poorly told, despite its simplicity. The action choreography is poorly executed in all of the small scale fights. The characters are flat for the most part. The motivation of Hyperion is just that he lost faith after the gods let his wife and son die of disease. The fact that the Titans seem to be leopard-skinned pig men who can only grunt goes unexplained.

Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, and two other gods being the only ones in Olympus makes for a seriously dull bunch of deities. Granted, Zeus realizing that his isolationist policy is mistaken is at least a nice nod to the fallible Zeus of myth. But the absence of Hera, and especially Kronos, the Greek gods' father and king of the Titans, is far too conspicuous to let pass.

Weighing the good against the bad, this movie can hardly stand.

In it there's promise of a great story told in an over the top way, but the plot is too much like a video game's, leaving you with the sense that "you just had to be there" to really get it.

The effects are pretty, but a sword and sandals movie with gods and ultimate evils and big bads that just has effects is like a Rhapsody of Fire song that just has guitar shredding and a strings section but no lyrics.

A good action plot doesn't need to be something out of Dickens or Orwell, but it should be good - the kind of thing you could sing along to when no-one's looking if it was a song. But if Immortals was a song, it'd be one that you wouldn't want to sing even if you were entirely alone, faced only by your own reflection.

So, Freya, leave this one where it lay. But, maybe take its jeweled sword or diamond encrusted plate armor - it has no further use for either.

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Closing

Did you think that the Immortals was more than just another action movie? Or was it worse than being Socrates and having your wife dump a chamberpot on your head? Feel free to express your own thoughts on Immortals in the comments below.

And check back next week for the start of a series on freelance writing, an article about a topic yet to be announced, and an attempt to find some good in Battlefield Earth - a film that Rotten Tomatoes' critics gave a whopping 2% and that audiences gave 17%. But, even in the worst of films there's some good to be found. The question is: is there enough?

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[Wōdnes-dæg] Preppers: Not Starchy and Dull Ties, but Freeze Dried Food and Bartering

Introduction
Going too Far
Some Possible Disasters
Conclusion
References

This entry's topic is a bit of a cheat, since it didn't come from a newspaper or a Google Alert. I'm letting it slide in since I did get it through email, it was unexpected, quite surprising, and it offers a whole group to learn about.

{Preppers. Even National Geographic is curious, enough to make a show about them. Picture from Doomsday Preppers' Overview page}

Introduction

Preppers, people who are preparing for what they believe is an imminent disaster or cataclysm,¹ might seem a little crazy to some. People a little too close to the paranoid thinking espoused by people like Glen Beck. But before jumping to any conclusions, let's see the extent of Preppers' preparations.

Based on the content of Prepper.org, it seems like they do it all.² But, the three mainstays, understandably, look like becoming self-reliant for food, bartering, and self-defense.

The first two are understandable.

Bartering doesn't necessarily need to undercut money or the economy, it could be used to buttress it in some ways.

And learning how to grow your own food, make your own flour,³ and so on and so on are all really important things. Doing things in the old ways helps to perpetuate those ways. In a way, people who know how to mill their own flour are living pieces of history while the rest of us still buy it from store shelves. Stockpiling food can be problematic, however.

Nonetheless, if you're expecting civilization to collapse, it makes sense that you'd want to make sure you can defend yourself, but this sort of preparation is where the movement starts to sound less quaint and becomes vaguely threatening.

Going too Far

Yes, if society as we know it collapses, that means that the law might lose its power to maintain order. And a return to what some call "natural law" would not be pretty. But to take preparations to the extreme of stocking up on guns and ammo is simply going too far.

Getting firearms or archery training in preparation strains the boundary, but still seems somewhat sensible. If it makes a person feel safe, that's great, but it suggests too firm a belief in the imminent collapse of society.

Some Possible Disasters

Now, there is a lot going on across the world to suggest something might be coming down the tubes shortly.

The problem of having a money based more on an idea or series of concepts than any tangible thing (like gold); a new disease breaking out of laboratories and causing a pandemic; an earthquake that will finally cut large pieces of California and British Columbia away from the North American continent; a zombie apocalypse.

Okay, the last one's made up, but all of these scenarios seem to lean so heavily on things out of people's control or their own self interest that zombies may as well be included in a list of possibilities.

A small group of people may have a lot of sway over the global economy but what do they have to gain if that economy crumbles? Without that sort of system in place all of their value becomes meaningless. If you were in such a powerful position wouldn't you do everything possible to serve your best interest as well as, at least nominally, the best interest of everyone else?

The same goes for the fear over scientists potentially publishing their findings about making avian flu transmittable between mammals.³ Human hubris doesn't put people beyond trying to spread it in the mistaken belief that they have an antidote and will be safe. All the same, if pandemic strikes and the world's population is decimated where does that leave the survivors re: its resources? A power vacuum might exist, but society would also be entirely re-ordered.

Conclusion

Times are tough, economies are eccentric, and people might be getting more paranoid as a result. But it's important to remember that as much as there's a lot going on in the world, ours is also a world in which its easier than ever to see/read/listen to what's going on.

Our high level of connectivity means we get more news, the fact that a lot of it is negative definitely isn't going to help us feel better about the future. But it's more a matter of volume than of content. Bad things happened all over the world before we could read about them with just a click or a flick.

Nonetheless, Preppers should be commended for their dedication to their beliefs. And, ultimately, for those of us who are perhaps more optimistic, for their preparing themselves as potential teachers as well. And if there is no major disaster, then at the least there will be a whole subculture that keeps extreme DIY attitudes alive while the rest of us rely more and more on each other.

References

1. Forsyth, Jim. "Subculture of Americans prepares for civilization's collapse." Reuters 21 Jan 2012.

2. The Prepper Networks. Prepper.org. 2009-2010.

3. Branswell, Helen. "Future work on lab-made bird flu viruses should be done in most secure labs." Winnipeg Free Press 6 March 2012.

[Moon-dæg] A Tag Team Logical Approach to the Choice of Teachers College

Introduction
Writing And Teaching Together
The Reality of Writing
The Reality of Teaching
Tag-Ins
Writing's Challenges
Conclusion

Introduction

Through Another cycle the moon has its way made,
and now through the end of a mire of thoughts we wade.

Yes, this is the entry for the waning of the moon - the second logical look at this lunar month's topic: going to teachers college.

A number of angles have been considered over the past few entries in the series, and it seems that the best one to really clasp onto is the thought that extra training really isn't the answer. After all, it's not for a lack of training that teaching is an option.

In fact, last week's entry definitely had a good point to make. Writing needs to be considered a serious option.

Writing and Teaching Together

Now, teaching and writing do go hand in hand like milk and cookies or butter and popcorn or a sharp cheddar and a fine red wine. But some cookies go better alone, some popcorn is best left naked, and sometimes the wine is all you need.

Yet, considering the fact that drained a PhD of its allure (aside from a sense that all the extra training would never get used) is that writing and teaching would need to be balanced, makes me doubtful of going to teachers college.

If teaching is what I want to get into, then there are colleges that will happily take an applicant with a master's degree. With plenty of freelance writing work packed for the duration, even a temporary college teaching gig would work. Or I could just hop back over the ocean for a spell.

However, what has made teachers college less appealing is the simple fact that it will not guarantee a job at its end. Though throughout the year-long course opportunities would be had and connections would be made. And I would learn how to teach - or at the least, pick up some useful hints. All the same, if all that's to be gotten out of teachers college is a few names to add to my network, and a few teaching tips, then it becomes little more than a year-long, several thousand dollar conference on education.

The Reality of Writing

Writing is the better choice. And, tempering my reasoning with some subjectivity, it's a lot more enjoyable. If the world ran on human laughter or feelings of elation, then writing would be all I'd need to do. But anything indie like that is something that's built up slowly.

Yet, writing's slow build figures into my broader philosophy entirely well. A small flame burning faithfully through the night and into the next day is better than a bonfire that needs to be constantly fueled then flags and dies only moments after you've run out of feed.

It may be excessive pride, it may be the foolishness of youth, or it might just be the rush that writing gives, but pursuing writing makes more sense to me. Teacher's college is stable, and kind of dull. It's like riding the bus somewhere in a city whereas writing is like walking. Slower, and perhaps less intensely peopled, but more rewarding in the end.

Writing might lack the stability of something like teaching, and the challenges might be more multiple in writing but that makes writing more rewarding. Nothing worth doing is ever easy.

The Reality of Teaching

As much as it seemed like a logical next step when I applied to teachers college last fall, I declared that teaching was my passion and calling after having my first good class in South Korea. In hindsight, it seems that the announcement was more likely the passion itself speaking rather than me.

Moreover, 20 teaching hours and 10 prep hours per week aren't really comparable to the sort of work that would be expected in Ontario - even for a high school teacher. While the teaching and prep hours might be the same (or less, or greater), I would be involved in more things than my Korean school's meetings in restaurants and such.

Of course, all of that sounds like the writhing of a man pinned down by an uncomfortable idea. Writhing caused by the feeling that, as I mentioned in last week's entry, I would be simply caving to the social pressure of being told that "teacher" is the default job for an English/History major.

{Blake and Sartre.}

Time to tag in Blake.

William Blake may have a point with: "to be in a passion you good may do" (William Blake, Auguries of Innocence), but if that passion is cast on you like a cloak rather than put on by your own two hands is it necessarily proper to you?

Okay! Bring in Sartre!

And would Jean-Paul Sartre, a man who thought a lot about freedom, regard my choosing to go to teachers college (and therefore make myself mean "teacher" more formally) as a really a free choice, if it's not a meaning that I've made on my own, but rather a meaning that's been presented to me over and over again so that I'm open to it?

And bring it back to me!

But those last two paragraphs, quotes (*ahem* tag-ins) aside, are steeped in rhetoric and feeling and not necessarily deduced from anything.

Writing's Challenges

Without the Internet, it would be easy to say that teaching is stable work and writing is not. Of course, there are still thin months for writers, but having to weather a few thin months as opposed to a waiting period of up to five years for regular employment sounds like a better, more stable, deal.

Yet, throughout my life people have said, when asked about writing for a living, "don't do it" (Thomas King's exact answer to the question, given to me when I was a student in Guelph). But that just makes me want to dig in my heels and try harder.

Certainly it takes someone special to teach well, and someone special to really bring material alive for people, but it also takes someone special to write well, and to bring ideas and emotions alive with only ink and paper (or pixels on a screen).

Somehow dealing with words directly has more appeal to me, perhaps (despite the possibility of posting videos and audio clips online) because of a belief that more people can meaningfully understand words alone than can understand a man standing in front of a camera.

Further, those words on a page won't misdirect with potentially confusing gestures or intonations. A bit of reading experience and maybe a dictionary or thesaurus, and writing can be understood by most anyone, regardless of their learning style. Plus, it gives a more concrete reference point than an online video or audio clip.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I could teach, but I'd rather write. And as much as the two are compatible, I feel like I'm too single-minded and stubborn to mingle them together.

So, teacher's college, it could be some wild good times. And it could lead to a steady, solid career, but I don't see it necessarily leading to a maximally happy life. In fact, I think I'd be better off skipping teacher's college and just going out for college teaching or returning to South Korea. I feel fine about either of those combined with writing. They seem a better fit, and a stronger match.

I'll still wait for the replies from the teachers colleges to which I applied, but can't say with certainty that they'll be hearing much back from me.

Taking writing over formal teaching training may seem illogical, but I'm no robot and not all of my actions can be governed by logic alone. So I will write and write, and probably teach some on the side.

Let me know what you think about combining teaching and writing or the usefulness of teachers college in the comments. And feel free to follow my blog, I'll follow yours back.

The topic for the next four-parter is still being worked out. In the meantime check back here Wednesday and Friday. On Wednesday an article about the "Preppers" movement will go up, and on Friday a review of "Immortals" will be posted.

[Freya-dæg] A Franchise Lost in S. Darko-ness

[N.B.:Since this review runs a little long, I've divided it into sections. And, if you like, you can jump from the list of headings to any of those sections.]

This is about S. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale (released in 2009), or, as the title cards have it:

Intro
The Bad
The Middle Ground
The Good
Judgment
Closing

Intro

This movie is quite curious to me. If taken by itself, as a standalone story, then it's a movie that more or less holds up, something that might've been a light weight Donnie Darko, if it had been released in its place. The plot does bear some similarities.

S. Darko follows Donnie's sister Sam (played by Daveigh Chase, reprising the role of Sam) as she and her friend Corey (played by Briana Evigan) drive from Virginia to California to become dancer's at Corey's dad's club. Of course, that wouldn't make for much of a time travel movie. So, the girls' car breaks down, and they wind up in the town of Conejo Springs, Utah. They get involved with the townsfolk, and some strange things go down. Ultimately leading to the girls going their separate ways.

Revealing the ending of the movie isn't entirely necessary, because it follows the same arc as Donnie Darko. If you haven't seen Donnie Darko, then go here and watch the viral video marketing campaign, videos number two and three give a solid idea of what happens in S. Darko.

The Bad

At any rate, being a sequel, and a sequel to a movie that had so much going on in it, the bar is set fairly high.

This is most true of the mythology of the "series."

A lot of what S. Darko revolves around is the idea that time travel is possible because time travel involves a version of a person or thing cutting into the present dimension from another dimension that is somehow "the future." It's a pretty cool concept of an old sci-fi standby, and just as in the original, it's visualized in a neat way.

Yes, the time streams from chests and TV reach-ins and such are all there, plus shimmering dimensional walls that make sure that people from the present dimension don't come into direct physical contact with beings from the "future" dimension.

But the problem with this movie, from the perspective of the mythology of the "series," is that it doesn't develop it. If you watch Donnie Darko, and then watch this movie directly afterwards, you'll see the same things being established and a lot of parallels between the movies' characters and situations.

One character is better off dying, another character goes too far, and at least one character is left having to figure things out and deal with the ripples of a supernatural event.

The shape of the plot itself is also similar, the difference being that what happens after a character chooses to die seems to be better than what had happened when he chose not to.

But this change doesn't really have the rippling effect that the first movie's did. There's no emotionally scarred younger sibling to absorb the shock and be moved by the tragedy as was the case with Sam after Donnie's death, only a shift in who shoulders a supernatural responsibility.

And what is that responsibility you ask? A meteorite that gives its owner some kind of terrible rash. Why does it give them this rash? What is the rash's purpose? None of the characters in the film seem to know, and neither do I.

And that's the movie's greatest failing. A sequel to a movie that presented a world where the metaphysical is real and the fourth dimension has meaning beyond an abstract notion isn't one that should just be a rehash with sexy teens. And that's essentially what S. Darko is.

But.

The Middle Ground

The characters are at least believable (it *is* set in 1995), and there are some okay exchanges between them (Justin: "Why are you looking at me funny?" Sam: "Why are you looking funny?"). Some of the characters are a little bit clichéd - the town badboy/mechanic, the religious man with a sordid past, the conspiracy nut, the nerd.

But then there are two characters who are also fairly conventional, but might have made the movie more interesting had there been more attention paid to them. Iraq Jack (aka Justin Sparrow, played by James Lafferty) is one of them, and Officer O'Dell (played by Bret Roberts) is the other.

{Justin "Iraq Jack" Sparrow in full garb.}

Justin Sparrow is the poster child for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and a veteran of Desert Storm. But his social maladjustment makes him the closest thing to a truly alienated character in the movie. This position also makes him akin to Donnie in the first movie.

Sparrow's get up, and his living like a hobo confirm him as a dweller on the edge of society and make him the perfect candidate to explain, or have his plot explain, just how time travel works in these movies, or at least why things are blipping into our dimension and leaving people dead.

This promise is almost fulfilled when it's revealed *spoilers!* that Justin Sparrow is indeed the grandson of Roberta Sparrow, the author of the book the "The Philosophy of Time Travel" from the first movie.

Focusing the story on him, or having him meet a past/future self who isn't of a fragmented mind and then having him, or maybe meeting his grandmother and having her, explain just what's going on would have been great. Such a move would also add to the story, and let us into it.

{The man responsible for the line: "How do you explain midgets and sock monkeys? Shit happens."}

The other of the two eccentric characters who could've had more done with them is officer O'Dell. He seems like a stereotypical small-minded, small town cop, but his style suggests that there's something more at play. Though he seems to be the only cop in town, he still stands out in his shorts and flat-top haircut.

So why is he different? Why does he make himself unique among a uniformed profession? Maybe it has something to do with all the inter-dimensional stuff going on in the movie? Maybe he was dropped as a child? Maybe he refuses to conform because of a deep-felt need to be "hip"? Maybe he too is a veteran of Desert Storm and his odd style is his means of coping? The thing is, he's presented, but kept in the margin.

All the same, those two characters are examples of what's good in this movie. But, as with last week's review of "The Seeker: Dark is Rising," they're also underdeveloped. What is good and at least given some development follows.

The Good

The movie didn't move the overall plot of the "series" forward, but it's neat to see a female protagonist. And there's an undeniable "Twin Peaks"-esque feel to the parts that feature piano and strings in the background. If nothing else, the movie should be regarded as a pretty decent example of how to create atmosphere throughout a film. Maybe not maintain it (it *is* the 90s, so 90s rock and pop work their way into audiences' ears, too), but certainly to create it.

The movie's effects are also well done for a movie made for a straight-to-DVD release. Some of them look like they might've been made in the 90s themselves, but that quality just adds to the movie's charm. And the sequence with an infinitely flowing tesseract late in the movie is definitely worth the wait.

So, is this one quite so bad as the critics at Rotten Tomatoes say it is, awarding it a whopping 0%? No. Not quite.

But I wouldn't give it anything beyond a 35%, myself. So, watch it if you want to see a variation on Donnie Darko, if you want to let yourself dream about what this series could've been for an hour and forty minutes, or if you never saw the original at all and don't want to reach that far back in time.

Otherwise, S. Darko doesn't have much to offer. Ultimately, the movie raises the same questions as the first movie did (and some of its own, too) but it doesn't offer any new answers.

Judgment

So, Freya, heavy hearted I say to you, let this one lay. But maybe move it into the shade so that the sunlight won't rot it quite so quickly as the rest of the fallen still littering the field.

Closing

If you loved S. Darko and think that there should be another, believe that S. Darko should never have been made, or like/don't like my headings experiment, just let me know in a comment. And follow my blog - I'll follow yours back.

Next week, I post my final logical look at the option of teacher's college, Wednesday will see an article about what the "Prepper" movement seems to be appear here, and, come Friday, I'll post a review of Immortals.

[Wōdnes-dæg] What's Korean for Rainbow?

The signs read: "No Discrimination Against LGBT." Image copyright M. Solis, 2008.

South Korea is a curious country. Socially conservative, yet technologically super-progressive. Think America of the 1950s but add things like LG and Samsung and the internet you've basically got South Korean society as it appears to an outsider. And though the country maintains its traditional exterior, all of that technology allows a number of sub-cultures to thrive.

Among these subcultures is the homosexual set.

What drew my attention to this subculture in particular is an article from the LA Times,¹ discovered through a Google Alert for "Korea Culture." The article tells the tale of Seok-Cheon Hong, a prominent actor who came out in 2000 after struggling with the issue for a number of years.

Hong's move led to the destruction of his career, and to a nosedive in his own feelings of self-worth. For as an openly gay celebrity he was ostracized,¹ and in a society that prizes community and the group as a whole, to be shunned is more than just getting dropped from your "scene" or city - it's like being an exile within your native land's borders.

Luckily, a 2003 scriptwriter with an idea for a show about a gay man coming out and facing complex social issues revived Hong's career.¹ Now he is probably the most prominent gay activist in South Korea.

But what came before? What's the history of homosexuality in South Korea?

Somewhat unsurprisingly, it's a history similar to that within Western culture.

In South Korea's past, homosexuality was regarded as being entirely abnormal and anomalous. Not because of Christian ideas (as is the case with the West, at least after Christianity's rise), but because of Confucian ones. For part of the filial piety that Confucianism so stresses regards marriage and procreation as essential parts of a son's duty to his father (pressures on to continue the line, produce the next generation of your family, etc.).²

Yet, as early as the Silla dynasty (57 BC to 935 AD) homosexuality was practiced among an elite warrior class known as the hwarang. At least, that's what's inferred from contemporary poetry about this class, and from the different meanings and mutations of the word down through the centuries.²

The Goryeo period (918-1392) also saw homosexuality practiced among the upper classes. Also, during this brief period, a new euphemism for it came about: yongyang-chi-chong (meaning the dragon and the son, a mix of two male symbols).²

In the Joseon dynasty that followed (1392-1897) the upper middle class completely eschewed homosexuality publicly, but engaged in it privately. Interestingly, it was also practiced at the opposite end of the class spectrum in rural Korea, where there were travelling male prostitutes.² The term used for these men is namsadang, which more literally means actor or theatrical performer.²

In spite of this thread found throughout much of South Korea's history, the country's Confucian ideals are slow to change and homosexuality remains something regarded as "psychologically deviant, sociologically detrimental and morally corrupt."²

Jumping ahead to the nineties, students at Yonsei and Seoul National Universities were organizing themselves and getting gay rights advocacy groups together.

It's super significant that these students were at Yonsei and Seoul National Universities because those are two of the three most prestigious schools in the entire country (the other being Korea University). These schools' prestige meant that their students weren't uneducated lowlifes, but instead bright up-and-comers - thereby casting serious doubt on an old South Korean stereotype that homosexuals are depraved misfits from only the lowest rungs of society.²

These student movements were met with a media response that ranged from neutral to positive - a subculture was given a voice.

Several TV shows and campaigns and rallies followed, but the movement continued to be attacked by the more conservative South Koreans (yes, generally older), and by Christian groups.

For when Confucianism has been passed over, any major shift in South Korean society needs to get by the second most influential philosophy in South Korea: Christianity (of a Protestant and Catholic conservative sort). As such, at least according to Sang-Hoong Song, the arguments against homosexuality by Christian groups are based in the Bible rather than stats or other data which makes them seem less than sturdy.³

Thus, the fight for gay rights continues.

What's rather extraordinary about all of this is that any conservative, sex segregating society (like South Korea) paradoxically provides a socially acceptable set of limits that can act as a veneer over homosexual relationships.

After all, closeness between men is definitely something entrenched in South Korean culture - Confucianism might condemn homosexuality as much as the Old Testament does, but it also highly values close friendships. That's why it's not weird for men to walk down the street in Seoul or Busan or Incheon holding hands (though possibly buzzed or drunk while doing so), and women do the same (alcohol apparently less of a factor in this case).

Of course, that's not to say that all men holding hands on the South Korean streets at night are secretly gay, nor that Confucian mores are some kind of subterfuge.

Rather, such a strict philosophy creates a very fine line, and as long as nothing runs afoul of that line publicly, then no harm is done to anyone's public image. It's only when something leaks into, or someone bravely opens up in public as Hong Seok-Cheon did that the person's place in that society is jeopardized.

Having no veneer at all is definitely a better option, and one that's slowly becoming the case for South Korea. Older and more traditional South Koreans might still wonder what a homosexual is or think that it's an act against nature, but the younger generation is sure to encourage and create a South Korea that is more accepting and open.

What do you think about the fight for gay rights in conservative societies like South Korea's? Just toss your thoughts into the comment box below.

And check back on Friday for my review of S. Darko: A Donnie Darko Story.


References

1. Glionna, John M. "Gay South Korean Actor Throws Open Closet Door." L.A. Times. March 5, 2012.

2. Kim, Young-Gwan and Sook-Ja Hahn. "Homosexuality in ancient and modern Korea." Culture, Health & Sexuality, January–February 2006; 8(1): 59–65.

3. Song, Sang-Hoon. "The gay situation in Korea." Yawning Bread. November 1999.

[Moon-dæg] Heading Downstream in a Kayak Called Teacher's College

Teacher's college does seem like the logical next step in a teaching career, but is that the career that I really want? Will teacher's college help me to become a professor at a college or a sessional at a university? It might - formal training in how to educate would be something useful and something grand to put on a resume.

But do I want to just chase resume gems until I get a good job that lets me settle in a city, sees me write some, and live on like that until the end? Or do I want to move on from all of that and actually become something more?

What's really at play here, keeping me down and keeping me back from wanting to go to Teacher's College? What fear is there? What despair? The fact that I'll be jobless for another year at least? The fact that I'll be unable to write as much as I do now? Writing and teaching definitely aren't incompatible, but do I have the gumption and the drive to do both?

I can cite a few examples of writers who started off (and continued) as teachers: Stephen King, J.K. Rowling (who taught EFL (a variety of ESL)), J.R.R. Tolkien, Nick Hornby, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce.

But can I count myself among them? Or am I more of a one-track doer?

Plus, if I'm splitting myself between writing and teaching for a living then what's different from the desired end of a PhD? That degree could get me a job teaching and researching, or, if I worked at an undergraduate institution, teaching with some time for writing. And what's different about working at a college? What makes teaching college desirable despite there being no real hard and fast difference between it and high school or university teaching in terms of time left for moonlighting as a writer?

Honestly, very little. Prestige mostly, something to hide behind while I secretly gain cred as a writer so that to a family of steel and service industry workers I can have something more concrete than writing to show. To identify myself with.

Aside from that, what's at the heart of the issue here? Why is deciding on teacher's college such a struggle for me? Why do I want to be a certified teacher?

Because my job prospects aren't good already? Because I've got no marketable skills? Neither of those are true.

An MA - even in English - is going to pull down some serious clout in the right circles and in the right job hunts.

I think the issue that I'm running into when I do slip into job hunt mode is that I'm living in Small Town Ontario, where people may have advanced degrees in things unrelated to their job (places like this seem ideal for the janitor who studied astrophysics), but where these degrees also mean precious little. After all, what really matters in small towns is connections, but since I've been out of town for the last seven years, I haven't much to go on in that regard.

The state of my connections is slowly changing, but more as a result of having been in town for a while rather than because of my on again, off again job hunt.

Nonetheless, I might need something to pick up the financial slack left by freelancing. Going to school in September or saving up to go overseas, or saving up just to move to a dream town where I have a job as a writer or journalist all takes money. And that's something in short supply right now.

Things are on an upswing though and if I work really hard, then I can probably raise enough by September to pay for a semester of teacher's college, or the full cost of going overseas (minus the wedding), or six months worth of living expenses.

Of course, I'm still waiting on acceptances from these teacher's colleges. And that's another thing.

A lot of the papers and columns keep declaring that teacher's colleges should ease up on training teachers that aren't in demand. My credentials lead me to believe that I'd be able to get a place in any of the institutions I applied to. But maybe I won't get into any since English and History are my teaching areas (and the two facing a large part of the oversupply).

But why teacher's college? Why does it matter? Why does it need to be the next step? Why not bang on as a temp college prof? Or go overseas again? The latter definitely seems like a sweet proposition. The biggest difficulty I'd expect to face would be having to readjust to the real Korea rather than the ideal image that my first trip left me with.

As per the former, I think that temping as a college prof would be great, but at 6000 a semester (assuming I'd be teaching two courses and each would pay 3000) and each semester being some four months long, writing on the side would help to cover my costs (by my estimates, 18,000 a year for a one bedroom apartment, utilities, groceries, and enough to treat myself every now and then). This could be a fine arrangement, but I'd need to get my writing off the ground first.

Ultimately, what makes me wary of teacher's college is the fact that there's no guarantee of immediate employment. As naive as it was, I thought that getting my MA would just draw jobs to me (or me to jobs) but such simply hasn't been the case. As my mom puts it, "I furthered my education" but I didn't really think much of the career that might stem from it aside from a professorship (Anglo-Saxonists, alas, are in small demand).

Going further back, majoring in English for my BA stemmed from success in English classes through Grade 12. Then graduate school stemmed from the idea in fourth year that becoming a prof would be good and easy and lead to a life of teaching with periodic bursts of research - the perfect cushion on which to sit and write my novels and poems.

But the MA shattered that myth and showed me the intensity of the research required of profs. This turned me off - not because I don't like research, but because I'd rather spend my extra time writing things that a large audience (or a large niche audience) could enjoy, rather than maybe another hundred, or thousand, or million people with specialized degrees of their own.

Genre fiction also seems like it has more reach and importance than essays on what happened to the Celts after the Angles and the Saxons settled old Britain's shores.

Anyway. I have the MA and no job. Yes. I should have been more pro-active with job fairs and such. Yes I should have had an attitude of, look for work where I am, moving back to Ontario is not inevitable. But I didn't. do I regret these moves to inaction? No.

Why? Because, in spite of the usual things one expects parents and relatives and people in the small town community to say to someone who's starting out as a writer (of all things), living at home gives me the financial freedom necessary to start write professionally and the training in working from home that any disciplined freelancer needs.

In spite of my writing, teachers college looms over me still because it's another described step on a way to success that's more familiar to my parents. Both got jobs that aren't necessarily related to what they trained for, but still they say. So really, I think that's the big reason why teacher's college is even an issue for me. It's what I'm supposed to do. 6 years of being told that, as an English major, what I'll be doing is teaching seems to have taken its toll.

But then we get into what I feel like I've been called to do. I remember the rush experience from my first good ESL class in South Korea. And I remember the rush I get every time I get paid for having written something. Are both the same? Is one more of a rush? One more positive?

Writing and teaching in essence are compatible, and in practice, too. But my feeling is almost as though I've had enough formal education for now, and that maybe I should just stick with freelancing, and take it from there. Work hard at it and see where things wind up.

And teacher's college? Well. We'll see about that next week. Acceptances might've arrived by then (via post or email) and I'll take another look at the question from a logical standpoint.

If you've got your own stories of struggling with compatible/conflicting choices, feel free to share them in the comments. Also, go ahead and follow my blog, I'll follow you back if you've got one!

And check back here Wednesday for my thoughts on a recent attention grabbing article and on Friday for my review of the Donnie Darko sequel S.Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale.

[Freya-dæg] "I can do much more. I have powers."

What I'm about to write flies in the face of the critics posted on Rotten Tomatoes (who awarded the movie 14%) and pinches annoyingly at the audience critiques on the site (averaging 39%). 'The Seeker: The Dark is Rising' is a fine, fun movie. As long as you can get caught up in details and excuse the overall picture's generic writing and story.

Before getting to those redeeming qualities, however, let's delve into what holds this movie down. These weaknesses are its poor effects, its lackluster story telling, and its lack of true enchantment.

The movie's effects are too obviously effects. There's a good use of crows, certainly, but other effects look too plush to be realistic (the icicles of the movie's latter half in particular).

The movie also makes absurd usage of spinning cameras (to simulate 'stepping through time,' and, apparently, just for fun) and strangely fast cut-to's. An example of the latter is most scenes featuring the Rider (Christopher Eccleston). In these scenes the camera switches from him and to his horse almost every 10 seconds, and at varying angles. This sort of camera work is disorienting and could be simulating some sort of nausea caused by looking at the force of darkness embodied, but it's too distracting.

Not that there's necessarily much to get distracted from.

The story itself is standard young adult fantasy fare. There's a boy (Will Stanton, played by Alexander Ludwig) who supposedly has a hard time of it at school and at home (having five older brothers and a younger sister would do that to a guy). But no real struggle is shown beyond the sort of sibling interactions you could expect from any household even with three kids.

Nonetheless, Will turns out to be a mystic warrior in waiting. A group of beings from outside of time known as the Old Ones reveal this destiny to him shortly after his 14th birthday, telling him that he's the seeker of the six signs of light. Apparently, together, these signs are fragments of the power of light itself - which were hidden away after the light beat the dark the last time the two forces battled (around the 13 century, the movie nebulously implies).

Will finds these signs, fights the dark and, (spoilers!) triumphs in a final battle that sees the dark sealed away and light securely restored.

Certainly this film's plot is no match for another movie that came out in the same year about a boy and his school friends who band together to start a revolution and secret society against the rising power of an evil wizard in a modern, yet Gothic, setting.

Because of the emphasis on the six signs, unless you've played your share of fetch-quest-based video games and enjoyed doing so, you're not likely to really get into the story of Dark is Rising. Further, perhaps because of the generally unusual size of the family and the premise of Will being the 7th son of a 7th son, it's not so easy to relate to our boy protagonist or escape into his world.

Ultimately, what really made this movie flop (it remade $31,400,740 of its a $45,000,000 budget at the box office) was timing.

Coming out in the middle of the Harry Potter films' run ensured that Dark is Rising would be completely overshadowed. And the fact that the movie is based on a series of books from the 60s and 70s is odd as well (though the Golden Compass also took some time to be made into a film).

The unfortunate thing about this timing slip-up is that, had the movie been released around the time of the books' being published or when there wasn't already a major fantasy series on silver screens everywhere, I think that it would have done quite well.

It's true that the story on the whole is nothing special. But if you focus on the details of the story, there's more at work here than the usual sort of coming-of-age/marginalized-kid-empowerment stuff.

The Celtic elements from the books are highlighted rather than the Norse ones, and this is a great move on the part of the writers and directors. Celtic mythology is rich and interesting, but is too often overlooked since Greek and Roman myth have a more prominent place. So it's refreshing to see Celtic stuff get so much attention in a mainstream movie.

Even the film's fetch quest element is interesting since (even though it's something of a let down) one of the signs Will must collect represents the "essence of a human soul." The Essence of A Human Soul. That is some (potentially) deep, really cool stuff. Potentially.

The time travel elements to the plot and the powers that Will has are also pretty neat. But, the most prominent time traveler of the film isn't Will, or the Rider, but an adorable orange cat that Will and his sister Gwen (Emma Lockhart) rescue from a medieval battleground.

And though the movie's effects do have their failings, what they try to convey is really cool. Icicles are not Rising Sun Pictures' forte, but the plumes of shadow radiating from the Rider at various parts of the film are totally badass.

In fact, this movie makes it clear the Eccleston could be a contender for the role of Ganondorf if they ever make a Legend of Zelda Movie. Ian McShane (playing Merriman Lyon) could also fit the role nicely.

{Top Left: Christopher Eccleston; Top Right: Ian McShane; Bottom: Ganondorf (Twilight Princess Style).}

Also, The movie's generous use of strobe lighting could definitely be dangerous, but it's a clear and simple way to show the light and the dark battling. Plus, it suggests an interpretation of what David Lynch might have been doing with the strobe effects in the Black Lodge in the last episode of Twin Peaks.

Overall, despite what the critics say, this movie flourishes in its details. In fact, I can say that this movie forgoes the Green Lantern Effect since I would watch it again and I'm interested in the checking out the books.

So, Freya, swoop in and save this one from the heaps of unholy dead. For, just as the pick-up line from Will Stanton himself used for this article's title suggests, this movie can do much more, and it does have powers - if it's only given the chance to use them.

If you want to share your opinion(s) of 'The Seeker: Dark is Rising,' please do so in the comments.

And remember, after the weekend the analysis of going to teacher's college based on my own feeling of "truthiness" will be posted - so keep reading!