Where the Mogwais Are

I'm not sure if this counts as Halloween or not, but I came across the most wonderful trailer mash-up ever and had to post it here. It's trailer for Gremlins 2: The New Batch crossed with Where the Wild Things Are. I love this so much. Inside all of us is a Gizmo. Or, well, me, anyway.

Film Week

A review of the films I've seen this past week.

THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN (1938)
A letdown. I'd heard all kinds of stories over the years about how bizarre this movie is, but I think it's only bizarre if you're one of those weirdos who gets all creeped out and scared at the mere sight of little people. Grow up. It's a Western where the entire cast is made up of little people. Otherwise, it's just as turgid, melodramatic, and boring as a lot of Westerns of the 1930s. And there's no terror whatsoever, unless you're scared of losing an hour of your life realizing there's nothing gonzo coming at all. * star.

CHILDREN OF THE CORN (1984)
This should be a lot more relevant today; kids in a rural town kill all of the adults and start worshiping a religious leader--seems tailored for today's kids, who just get weirder and more conservative. And while some of the horror works in the beginning, the couple driving through town who become targets of the children--Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton--are just boring, and the film kind of drags on and on without being very engaging. ** stars.

HOUNDDOG (2007)
AKA "The Dakota Fanning Gets Raped Movie." Fanning, in one of her better performances (and I've always thought she was more talented than your average child actor), is ill-used as a lust object. Even before the rape occurs, the camera and the director keep putting her in set-ups where we're supposed to, you know, notice her, and it's really uncomfortable. She's a backwoods girl in the fifties who is obsessed with Elvis and has an alcoholic father (David Morse) who gets struck by lightning. Fanning is very good, but the movie around her is cruel and bleak for no good reason. There's nothing to really say here, and putting a rape in the middle of it just seems like a desperate move on the part of the writer. It's kind of a juvenile, amateurish movie that tries to shock just to be shocking. * star for Dakota's performance.

THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD (2007)
Boring. There's no other word for it. Oh, wait, here are some more: slow, ponderous, and dull. Great cast, good idea, but it's a very, very dull movie. The film has fantastic cinematography by Roger Deakins, but after a while my eyes glazed over and I just couldn't pay attention to it any more. See The Long Riders or the underrated Frank and Jesse instead. ** stars.

CHERRY CRUSH (2007)
Bullshit movie about bullshit teenagers starring bullshit-meister Nikki Reed. Anything with this chick after the movie Thirteen seems to be guaranteed bullshit. No stars.

PROM NIGHT (2008)
After a great, bloody, creepy opening, the film becomes both tired (seen the stalker-killer before) and silly (it's a psychological thriller, not a slasher film). Not terrible, really, but not worth paying attention to, either. ** stars.

DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID (1964)
One of Luis Bunuel's more straightforward films, but no less interesting for that (and dig the cryptic ending). Jeanne Moreau plays a chambermaid from Paris who comes to work at a country estate. She's urbane; her employers are repressed bourgeoisie. Though the morals are all pretty ambiguous, Moreau keeps deflecting the advances of every man who comes into contact with her. Morality among the unprincipled seems to be part of the point, but I like the way the story touches on all manner of politics--sexual, domestic, even national. Very subtle, a real work of art. Bunuel is astounding. **** stars.

MON ONCLE ANTOINE (1971)
This Canadian film reminded me a lot of Bergman with its minimalism. It takes place in a Quebec mining town that is frigid and barren, and so white with snowfall that somehow the brightness becomes a darkness. The overbearing cold is met with the warmth of the people who live there, and the film is a series of vignettes painted with nostalgia about a time in childhood when real learning begins. Very poignant, but also very meandering; there's no real dramatic tension, and it takes a while to get to its real story. Patience is required, but it is rewarded. Slow-moving, but very nice. ***1/2 stars.

THE MIST (2007)
It's nearly a great film. A bunch of townspeople in smalltown Maine are trapped in a grocery story when a mist descends. There are strange things in the mist, things which kill anyone they can find. The townspeople are a metaphor for modern society, basically divided into those with the drive to survive, the skeptics (and you know what always happens to those people in a Stephen King story), and those who grow more desperately religious as things get more hopeless. It takes its time, but except for one or two dull spots I didn't mind the deliberate pacing. It's gory enough, too. And some of the performances--especially Marcia Gay Hardin and Toby Jones--are very good. What bugs me, though, is the ending. I think if the movie had ended just about four minutes earlier than it does (ending on Thomas Jane's scream), it would've been the bleak mindfuck it sets out to be. Unfortunately, the ending cops out to reassure the audience (to an extent), even though it's already made a great point about how society only works as long as the machines are running. It's King's Cthulhu story, and for the most part, it really works. ***1/2 stars.

ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL (2008)
This movie took me by surprise. I have to admit, for the longest time, I thought this movie was a joke. I'd never heard of Anvil, and it looked like a This Is Spinal Tap repeat to me; the drummer is even named Robb Reiner. But as the show went on, I found myself really moved by it at times. It's a documentary about the heavy metal band Anvil, who made a brief splash in 1982 and never stopped playing, despite the lack of fame and fortune and financial success. That's what's so fascinating about these guys; we follow them on a European tour that's a financial wash and watch them play venues where less than 100--sometimes even less than 50--people show up. But then they go back to their day jobs and look for another opportunity to record or play or keep living their dream. It's an amazing thing; two guys in their fifties who have a love of music and love being in a band and refuse to give it up even though they haven't become massive stars. What's important is not money or fame, but their friendship and their shared dream of playing in arenas to hundreds of metal lovers. It's powerful and touching. **** stars.

BLIND TERROR (1971)
Mia Farrow plays a British woman who has recently gone blind in a riding accident. She goes to the country to stay with relatives, unaware that someone has murdered them and left their bodies in the home around her. Great concept, but it meanders a bit, and Farrow isn't quite up to the challenge of playing a blind woman--she's too aware of her surroundings and too aware of people around her. There are some genuine scares, though, and ultimately it comes off. It would've come off better with a tighter running time, though; perhaps as an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. But I did like it. *** stars.

WHITE ZOMBIE (1932)
Love Bela Lugosi, but this movie was dull. * star.

LA BETE HUMAINE (1938)
Jean Renoir made this movie about a train engineer (Jean Gabin, whom I always like) who falls in love with the station master's wife (Simone Simon, who could blame him?). Apparently this is based on a novel from a 20-volume series by Emile Zola, which explains why this movie is a little bit harder to grasp; the characters are treated as though they are firmly established already, so you're sort of left catching up with it. Certain character traits are taken for granted without being established. That said, Renoir is an amazing filmmaker, and Gabin and Simone are two very talented actors, and the film is never boring. ***1/2 stars.

QUEEN MARGOT (1994)
Historical epic about the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 16th Century France. It's touched off by the marriage of Catholic Margot, sister of King Charles IX, to Protestant Henri de Navarre for political reasons. Amidst the bloodshed, there is a lot of deliberate treachery going on, while Margot falls in love with the Protestant La Mole. It's a beautiful-looking film, and I like the way the French tend to make their historical epics with an eye towards humanity and not pomp or spectacle, but it's just incoherent at times and often difficult. Isabelle Adjani is very good in the title role, and the cast is great, but it just threw me. **1/2 stars.

ALIENS IN THE ATTIC (2009)
I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I expected I would. A group of kids on a family vacation in the country try to repel an attack by small aliens. One of the kids (the oldest) is Ashley Tisdale, to whom I remain devoted, and I really thought she was full of shit when she compared this movie to The Goonies and Gremlins. It's not as good as either of those films (which I consider classics), but it reminded me particularly of Joe Dante's movies, and I like Joe Dante movies. If this movie had come out when I was 8, I'd have been all over it. As it is, I still really enjoyed the hell out of it; it takes the time to pay attention to quality and entertainment as opposed to a great deal of other movies aimed at kids, which seem to feel they don't have to try too hard because their target audience is less sophisticated. It's not for everyone, maybe, but I'm going to ***1/2 stars just because I had so much silly and engrossing fun with it. And partially because, well, Tis wears a bikini. (Also, I liked the original title, They Came from Upstairs, better than the one they went with.)

9 (2009)
The character design and animation on this science fiction film is stunning. The script, however, is not. It's just not a compelling film, which is too bad, because I was really hoping for some interesting postapocalyptic science fiction. The only real bright spot is John C. Reilly's vocal performance as one of 9 robots at the end of civilization. ** stars.

Creepy Carrot Top Jesus Wants to Know...

...Carl, did you get SamuraiFrog's email last month about getting another copy of that "Chuckmates" mp3? He really misses it and I'll totally leave you alone if you can make this happen.

UPDATE: Thanks, Carl! I promise to keep this and not just plunk it on a crappy CD-R again!

Also, I promise that Carrot Top won't appear on this blog again, as you've repeatedly requested in the past. Unless it's funny. Because I'm obnoxious.

Halloween Heineken Ads

Star Wars with an Inappropriate Soundtrack

Awesome.

One More Word About the Polanski Case

What's especially interesting about Polanski's arrest is the sheer number of blog entries I've read in the past week by people who "weren't going to comment on this" but felt they just couldn't let it go any longer. I've been especially cynical about this arrest, and it has nothing to do with the crimes committed or how I feel about Polanski's films.

What has been bothering me is the way people have sort of jumped on this case as though it's some kind of clear line in the sand. I'm not sure what exactly this case really means to people who aren't involved and, in many cases, weren't even alive when it happened (or, like myself, were too young to know anything at all about it). I mean, what exactly is the symbolism of this for people?

I don't get it.

And this is not to minimize the crime, something I have to keep saying because, judging by the discourse, if you don't constantly say that rape is a crime then you're blaming the victim. This is an appearances-based country, and if you don't look enough like you're against something, people will think there's something wrong with you.

But what does the prosecution of Roman Polanski do for you, exactly? You know what it does for me? Nothing. You know why? Because I'm not Roman Polanski, I wasn't raped by Roman Polanski, it's not my job to prosecute Roman Polanski, and I'm not related to anyone involved, nor do I know anyone involved. So, this having no effect on me, I don't really give a shit.

But he raped a child, I keep hearing. You know what's really depressing? That the federal authorities, three decades later, will finally arrest Polanski because he's foreign and he had sex with a young girl. If he'd had sex with a young boy, or even just tortured the girl, they wouldn't bother. But because a foreigner had sex with a young American teenager, this makes it an even bigger crime.

Where do I get off saying this? Because Michael Jackson had inappropriate relationships with a lot of young boys, and the media and a bunch of morons have deified the man. So, Michael Jackson is a saint, but Roman Polanski is a monster. If this shows anything, it's that Roman Polanski made the wrong kinds of movies. Maybe if he'd directed E.T., there would be more people jumping out of the woodwork to declare him innocent and misunderstood.

Where is the standard, exactly?

Do you get what I'm saying here?

The man committed a crime, one crime, 30 years ago, and everyone's still so goddamn angry about it. Presidential assassins get forgotten more quickly in America. People are acting like the arrest of Roman Polanski is somehow the equivalent of capturing Osama bin Laden. Christ, we should be much more angry that Karl Rove is walking around free than worried about what Polanski is doing. We should be more worried about the Catholic Church's system of condoning and protecting priests who rape children than Polanski.

If he hadn't had anal sex with that girl, I don't think anyone would care anymore. But in a country as puritanical as America, people just won't let it go. Sex in the butt! Christ, no!

I've been reading a lot on this theory that Polanski's arrest has something to do with a backdoor political deal, and I can't say that surprises me. There has to be more to it than this, because there have been plenty of chances to catch Polanski in Switzerland before now. He's there every year. He has a house there.

Federal prosecutors here are going after offshore bank accounts where Americans have been hiding money to avoid paying their taxes. The biggest bank in Switzerland, UBS AG, has been setting up a lot of offshore accounts for American citizens. UBS has already given up over 4400 names of US citizens with Swiss bank accounts; they even paid a $780 million fine to the Justice Department. Now it looks like UBS may be hiding 13,000 more customers with $20 billion in assets. All of it hidden from the IRS. This could have a domino effect, revealing tax evasion practices at other banks, and take out most of the Swiss banking system.

That would be a disaster for Switzerland. How to get back in the Justice Department's good graces?

So much for Swiss neutrality.

What I'm saying here is not that Polanski is innocent or deserves to be forgiven. What I'm saying is that things like this don't just happen, because there really wasn't any concerted effort to catch Polanski for the three decades he was living in Europe. If there was, this would have happened a long time ago.

What I'm saying is, Polanski is being made an example of for political reasons, and that's not justice. That's not justice at all. And while it annoys me to see righteous outrage being misplaced, it just plain pisses me off to see once again how eagerly people line up to be misled.

In short, if there weren't a political reason to grab Polanski, neither the American nor Swiss government would care.

Origin of Stupidity

I've been meaning to post this for a while. This young Romanian woman is angry about Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron trying to push their doctrine in the pages of an important work of science. I share her anger.

40 Years of Monty Python!

Today in 1969, Monty Python's Flying Circus debuted. And I'm just marking it--like many folks who were similarly influenced by Python--with my favorite clip. It's from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and, surprise of all surprises, it's political humor. But it makes me laugh.

Halloween LEGO!

I just get way too enthusiastic over various minifigs, and these are just too awesome. I actually have a ghost, but I haven't bought any LEGO stuff since I was in high school. I've always thought that was a shame... Especially since I could have been celebrating Halloween with them!

What a Horrifying Difference Five Years Can Make

Kristen Bell Mondays

Song of the Week: "The Number of the Beast"

Today, I thought I'd combine Halloween with Song of the Week and throw up this classic Iron Maiden track. (There was a music video, but I can't find it on YouTube.) Certainly my favorite Iron Maiden song (and I like a lot of their music), and Bruce Dickinson's guttural howl has been replicated by death metal groups ever since. (Apparently it just happened out of frustration.) The actor in the beginning is name Barry Clayton; apparently the band wanted Vincent Price, but they couldn't afford him. From 1982, when heavy metal was still interesting.

Twilight Summarized by a Smartass, Chapter 14

How is it that things can get even creepier?

In this chapter, we find out that Edward was born in 1901 and turned into a vampire in 1918 as he lay dying in a hospital of the Spanish flu that had already killed his parents. Somehow, it's supposed to be more honorable that Edward's "father," Carlisle, turns people into vampires only when they're dying. I don't know why, but this makes me feel creepy.

Also creepy: sparkling vampires. I don't know why, but it's just kind of creepy. It's also incredibly stupid and completely worthless. So, vampires can survive in the sunlight, but they don't like to venture out into it because they sparkle, and that attracts attention. That is the single dumbest thing you could ever attempt to add to the well-established literary vampire mythos. What is the point of it? Honestly, it only seems like it's there because, just over 300 pages in, Stephenie Meyer's got nowhere else to go. She's wasted so many giant adjectives so casually that she's got to find something bigger.

See, this is why I hate it when people casually use adjectives like phenomenal and epic, because it renders those words meaningless. Meyer's been repeatedly using words like godlike and archangel in describing the wonder of how panties-tingling Edward is that the only place she can think of to go is that his skin literally sparkles under the sun. And it's just so, so stupid. It's the mark of a bad writer, and Meyer is certainly that.

(Or, as a friend of mine put it, Stephenie Meyer is a gay man trapped in the body of a fat girl. Ouch. But since I've said many times that I hate Meyer and Anne Rice for turning vampires into imaginary gay best friends for lonely fat high school girls, I guess I can't judge.)

Bella keeps casually denigrating her father for the crimes of being interested and caring about her. It just bugs me. A lot.

But here are the two things that really annoy the living shit out of me. Oh, but first you need to know the basics of what happens: Edward drives Bella home, he comes inside and talks to her while she cooks dinner, then Bella makes her dad suspicious and goes up in her room and talks some more with Edward and then falls asleep laying next to him.

Okay, first annoyance: Edward already knows where everything is in Bella's house because he's already been inside. Every night. He lets himself in and stands there and watches her sleep every single night. So, all of this talk about how much he wants to kill her, and meanwhile he's been in her bedroom every night, just watching her sleep? That is fucking creepy.

Seriously, it's like a series of deal-breakers with this guy. Oh, he's hot. But he treats me like an intellectual inferior. He imposes on me to let him do everything so he feels masculine and superior (in this chapter, he even picks her up by her shoulders and sets her on the bed, she acknowledges, "like a toddler"). Then he tells me he's a monster who can't control his emotions, and that he's been desperate since I came to town to kill me and drink my blood. He acts out examples of how he can kill me, he follows me everywhere I go, and now he tells me that he breaks into my home and watches me sleep every night. She should be staking him right then and there.

Instead, Bella's flattered. Once again, she's too fucking stupid to live.

In fact, she's only horrified when he tells her that she talks in her sleep. Yeah, honey, that's the invasion of privacy.

Annoyance the second: this talk of how easily Edward can kill her keeps going on. Look, we get the fucking point already, and if Edward isn't going to just snap and rip her head off, you can stop talking about it now. The more this gets mentioned, the more idiotic Bella looks and the more of a pussy Edward makes himself. It's like that scene in The Princess Bride: "I'll most likely kill you in the morning." It's a punchline now. Let's move on, okay?

In a particularly sickening scene, they finally address the issue of sex (without saying the word, as though it's some kind of curse or something, fucking Mormons). Edward won't be having sex with Bella. Why? Because she's so fragile that he might lose control and kill her. I mean, if he's not thinking (or, Christ knows, talking) about not killing Bella every single moment, he'll just go ahead and do it.

Whatever. Keep talking about it, loudmouth. Edward is like one of those pathetic, mopey, emo boys who go around crying so that you'll know just how sensitive and tortured they are because they're desperate for attention.

Fuck, I hate these two assholes. And I hate Stephenie Meyer for writing this stupid book about herself and her tame fantasies as an allegory for being a loser in high school.

I especially hate her for encouraging far too many children to think that emotional abuse is love, that dry humping is a perfectly good substitute for sex, and that they should be terrified of sex. It's all over the internet; kids are fascinated by their bodies and by deep, overdramatic love, but they are absolutely terrified of the act of love itself. They talk like every single one of them is a target for molestation at the hands of an adult. They talk about sex as though it's evil. Why are kids today so fucking uptight? I don't think this book would have found near the audience it did if it didn't tap into the puritanical psyche kids have today when it comes to their bodies. They've gone from learning about safe sex to being afraid of having any.

The whole country's like this now: seemingly permissive, but uptight as all get out.

Anyway.

Here's the most telling moment of this chapter: when Edward says he's happy to be her prisoner, and then "his long hands formed manacles around my wrists." (Emphasis Meyer's.) That's it right there. Because that's what an emotionally distant abusive asshole does: makes you think his manipulations are somehow your fault.

Also there's the moment where he compares her to a baby seal being hunted by a killer whale, an even more pathetic metaphor than the last chapter's, where he compares her to being a lamb falling in love with a lion. Oh, and he compares her to wine again. Romantic.

Sunday Hottie 244

LEAH DIZON

Halloween: McNuggets Commercial

I thought the McDonaldland characters were neat, especially when they would do holiday-themed commercials. Sure, they were there to sell that terrible food to kids, but I don't care. The commercials were some of the best stuff on Saturday morning TV. (Though it could effectively be argued that the cartoons themselves were simply long form commercials, but still...) What I love especially at Halloween and Christmas is stuff that makes me feel like a kid again, and a commercial with monster-themed McNuggets certainly does that.

No, You're Certainly Not a Racist

It is absolutely astounding the number of people you see online who hate African-Americans but swear up and down they aren't racists. If hating black people doesn't make you a racist, I'd love to know what does.

Yo, Joe! Episodes 32-33

Cobra's Captives, Parts I & II

Cobra's got some kind of lab up on a rocky hilltop where they're working with some kind of unstable crystals. There's a bad chemical reaction and a gigantic explosion which puts a gigantic boulder on the edge of a cliff, teetering over a town. G.I. Joe is going to have to go in and evacuate everyone.

Gung Ho's leave is pulled at the last minute, which he's not too happy about. Talking to Duke about the Cobra lab, he says: "Right here in the USA. A lot of nerve, huh?" Why is he so surprised? This is the umpteenth Cobra installment on US soil. It's amazing how American defense systems never register Cobra equipment, honestly. Hell, they had two bases in the Rocky Mountains alone!

Duke orders Lady Jaye to inform the Joes already on leave that they're now on emergency standby while the evacuation is mobilized. Buses are taking the citizens away and Army engineers are examining the boulder. Even the Bridgelayer makes a token appearance. If I remember right, it's the last appearance of Tollbooth. What a boring job this guy has.

What's of real concern are the crystals Cobra was working with. Tripwire almost falls right into them. (They didn't play with Tripwire's clumsiness in the cartoon as much as they did in the comic book.) And then, when he picks up a tiny one and throws it over his shoulder, it does this:

Now that's a spicy meatball!

Tripwire says that he thought Cobra was working on creating piezoelectric crystals, but have instead come up with something completely new--and dangerous. Duke orders everyone to vamoose back across the bridge and create a zone of silence around the crystals. The slightest impact could cause them to detonate, and based on what just one tiny crystal did, the Joes could be looking at an E.L.E. here with this giant bunch. Oh, and Alpine notices that the crystals are growing, too. They need to be moved to safety ASAP.

The Baroness is apparently in charge of this little op, because she calls Cobra Commander with a plan.

Baroness: "Tell me, Commander, who in all of the world would you never let come to harm?"

Cobra Commander: "Me!"

Baroness: "Fool."

Her plan is to get into the Pentagon and get some intel on the Joes, including their real identities. Storm Shadow actually does this, but because of a fail safe, he can only get information on seven Joes: Spirit, Thunder, Scarlett, Quick Kick, Shipwreck, Barbecue, and Gung Ho. He puts the info on a floppy disk. Man, remember those?

Most of those Joes are on leave, and Lady Jaye is in the process of calling them back to help with the crystal containment. Tripwire and Gung Ho are using a laser to slice pieces off and put them in padded boxes on a blanket. This is a tense operation. It's nice, too, that because they've got the freedom of a two-parter, they can really build the tension up here. You can feel the precision and you almost hold your breath each time they have to handle a piece of this thing.

Quick Kick's real name is MacArthur S. Ito, which is probably the only interesting thing about him. It says something about his parents, where they lived, and when he was born (obviously during or just after World War II). He's helping his parents out at their grocery store, Ito's, while on leave. The neighborhood people refer to him as "Mac." Wow, humanizing Quick Kick.

What's also interesting is that, when he's beeped, he hurriedly tells his mom that it's probably his agent calling about some stuntwork. So... they don't know he's in G.I. Joe? That raises a lot of interesting questions that won't be answered about how G.I. Joe works in relation to the military and the government and exactly what the level of clearance is. I wonder why he wouldn't tell his parents? I mean, he's doing dangerous military work that could get him killed, and they think he's... well, doing dangerous stunt work that could get him killed, but still... You'd think the Itos would be proud to have a son they named after General MacArthur serving in the military.

Anyway, after Quick Kick leaves, the Crimson Twins show up and subdue his parents.

Scarlett's real name is Shana O'Hara, which is the most perfect name possible for a redhead. She's from Atlanta, and she's on leave at her family's martial arts dojo. It's a little more amusing than it should be that there's an O'Hara Martial Arts Dojo. We find out that she's something of a... well, I don't want to say tomboy, because that doesn't sound quite right, but she's obviously expected to keep up with her martial arts expert father and three brothers. After she's beeped away, Storm Shadow and a handful of Crimson Guards show up and demand their surrender. Scarlett's father, Patrick, refuses to give up until after he sees his sons have been defeated by Storm Shadow.

Thunder's real name is Matthew Harris Breckenridge. He's playing the drums while his dad works on a car engine and his little sister, Chrissie, sunbathes in the backyard. Thunder is beeped away, and his parents and Chrissie are captured by Crimson Guards.

Shipwreck's name is Hector X. Delgado. So, he's Hispanic? Too bad they didn't do anything with that. He's staying with his aunt and her husband, and their adopted son Jesse. Jesse has just found out he's adopted, and he's having a hard time dealing with it, and Shipwreck's smart enough to know what all men used to know: fishing is the cure for everything. They actually have a nice conversation in which Shipwreck reveals that he too was adopted and that they're both lucky to have folks who love them as much as their parents would -- "maybe even more." These are the times I really love Shipwreck; he may be obnoxious, but he's also loyal and, deep down, a caring guy. No wonder he was always my favorite Joe.

Unfortunately, their conversation is cut short when Shipwreck is beeped off of leave. Ship runs off and leaves Jesse in charge of the fishing gear, but the second he's gone a Crimson Guard leaps out of the water and makes off with the kid.

Spirit's real name is Charlie Iron-Knife, and he's out in New Mexico with his family. His cousin Vena is having her womanhood ceremony, and she's so glad that "Uncle Charlie" could make it. There seems to be a little bit of animosity between Spirit and his tribe that stems from Spirit being in the American military, and his grandfather is angered when Spirit has to answer his beeper call, dishonoring Vena. She, however, gives him her blessing to go. Just after he leaves, the Crimson Guards come in and scatter everyone, kidnapping Vena and Spirit's grandfather.

Barbecue, Gabriel A. Kelly, is visiting his father's fire station in Boston. There's an alarm and, since Barbecue is a reserve firefighter, he goes off on the call with them. The fire is a ruse, however, and Barbecue's dad is kidnapped by Crimson Guards while a Fire Chief explains that he's being rushed to the hospital for a routine examination. Barbecue needs to get back to G.I. Joe, and asks someone to explain why he's gone.

Disturbingly, however, the Fire Chief...

... is the Baroness in disguise!

That's just so creepy, I cannot even tell you.

While the Joes are continuing their work, the Baroness orders a Cobra scientist, Dr. Marx, to begin a brainwashing experiment on the kidnapped family members of G.I. Joe. Rather stereotypically, the person it's hardest to control is Spirit's grandfather. Because Native Americans are just so spiritually attuned, or something.

The Joes have finally gotten all of the crystals loaded onto a gigantic ATV that, Duke hopes, they can use to head down the rocky mountain without jostling them too much and blowing everyone up. It doesn't even have to turn around--there's a cockpit on either side, and it can be driven in two directions. Duke mans one, Gung Ho the other. Scarlett, Barbecue, Shipwreck, Thunder and Quick Kick will escort the vehicle on Silver Mirage Motorcycles. They scout a blind curve for signs of a Cobra ambush, and 13 agents are in fact waiting for them.

Shipwreck, horrified, is the first to notice: the Cobra agents are their brainwashed family members!

This is where the first episode ends, and I have to say, it's a tense cliffhanger. You've got a Joe ATV loaded up with volatile, explosive crystals that have the power of a nuclear bomb, and they've got to head down a rocky mountainside and make sure not to bump around too much or else it's goodnight, nurse. And their progress is stopped by the brainwashed family members of the members of your escort. I mean, what are they going to do, shoot their own parents and siblings and what have you? It's an immediate danger vs. a cruel mindfuck. As Cobra plans go, this one is pretty damn good. I wish all G.I. Joe episodes could be this well-plotted.

As the second episode picks up, we see that the Baroness and the Crimson Twins are monitoring this situation from above in Cobra's helicarrier. Apparently our own regular military is so inept that they can't detect this thing on a radar and shoot it down. I know, suspension of disbelief and all that, but sometimes G.I. Joe really does go to the trouble of trying to be believable, and it just makes stuff like that a little galling. (Like Extensive Enterprise, for example... man, that irritates me.)

The family members struggle with their orders to shoot, but Dr. Marx pushes the controls to "max load" and the family members attack. Shipwreck nearly gets his head taken off by Jesse. Yeah, things are going to get mean here.

The Joes retreat, not sure what else to do, so Gung Ho takes control of the ATV and starts driving their alternate route, which is much rockier than taking the main road. It's obvious to Spirit that their family members are being mind-controlled, but they need time to figure out how to deal with this. Tripwire is worriedly monitoring the crystals--he stops Gung Ho from using the cannons to get some boulders out of the way. Gung Ho tries to drive over the rocks instead, but the rubble starts to crumble and the ATV begins to slide toward a cliff.

Tension!

Scarlett decides to use knockout gas against the captives, but the suits are hermetically sealed. Then the Joes get on their motorcycles and try to lead the captives away, but the Baroness orders them to ignore them and follow the ATV, which is still sliding off the edge of the road.

Tension!

Wild Bill flies up in his Dragonfly and drops a net on the captives and starts to carry them off. But their suits have the ability to generate an energy field, and the Baroness actives them. They cut right through the net and fall into a river. The captives just float on top of the river; Dr. Marx explains that with the controls at maximum, they cannot think creatively and the Baroness has to think for them. They're picked up by a Cobra Moray Hydrofoil.

Side mention: the Cobra Moray was one of the coolest toys ever. Frankly, G.I. Joe was the best action figure line ever.

The Joes track the Moray to a Cobra base, but the Baroness already has the captives re-mobilized to attack the ATV. The only escorts left are Dusty and Footloose in an AWE Striker; they scout ahead and determine they can't take Gung Ho's route because it leads straight to town, and the town will be vaporized if the crystals explode. So the Joes are further trapped.

Tension!

It occurs to me that this is a great allegory; we can have two episodes revolving around a race for a nuclear bomb, only without the horrifying connotations of a fallout.

Now all the fighting breaks out. Scarlett leads her team of Joes into the Cobra base, where Dr. Marx is panicking. The captives are ready to engage with the ATV, and open fire on the AWE Striker. They get Dusty and Footloose pinned down, though Footloose gets in a good dig: "How come those civilians can shoot better than you can drive?"

Those crystals are about to go, but Scarlett's team rushes the base and Quick Kick nabs Dr. Marx. Scarlett orders him to shut down the mind control machine, but Dr. Marx explains that if the machine is tampered with, their families' minds will be destroyed.

Meanwhile, the captives have breached the ATV and now have access to the crystals. To make it even more extra cruel, little Jesse picks up a rock and positions himself to blow everyone right to hell.

Tension!

There's a real standoff here, and to make matters worse, Dr. Marx manages to slip away. The Baroness orders Duke to surrender the crystals, but he thinks she's bluffing. She assures him it would be worth losing the crystals if Duke were to die in the explosion. The Joes decide to take a chance and destroy the mind control machine--turns out Dr. Marx was lying, and the captives are no longer being controlled. The Baroness screams at Jesse to smash the crystals, "you little brat," but Jesse drops the rock and says "I am not a brat!" Duke, relieved, laughs and helps Jesse down, saying "You most certainly aren't."

The tension is finally relieved, but only momentarily. The Baroness orders a squad of Rattlers to attack, and, even though it probably flies in the face of military regulations, the O'Haras and Spirit's grandfather join in the fight. The Joes can't get air support in time, though, and the Rattlers have lowered a grappler and the helicarrier is going to attempt to carry the ATV off.

Wild Bill makes it to the battle and tries to support the Joes, but the helicarrier has the ATV. Duke orders everyone to get as far away as they can. Spirit's grandfather makes a one in a million shot and takes out a Rattler cockpit.

Let's be honest, here. He obviously shot and killed the pilot. But, because this show had educational consultants and had to show that everyone escaped with their lives and no one got killed (so much for learning about the cost of war, which might have also been educational), we have to see the pilot parachuting out. But from that shot? No way, the guy died. Spirit's grandfather is just that awesome.

The disabled Rattler flies at the helicarrier and cuts one of the cables holding the ATV. The Baroness cuts the other one while the Joes run for their very lives, and then: kablammo.

Well, this being G.I. Joe, everyone lives. They try to fake you out like maybe Duke is really dead; turns out he can just run faster than everyone else and made it further away. Col. Sharp apologizes to the Joe family members and says they've taken strict measures to ensure this will never happen again, although I'm not sure how that's possible, to be honest. However, Lady Jaye realizes that Gung Ho's family was never gone after, and revenge is a trademark of the Baroness. Obviously, she's going to strike at Gung Ho's family.

Gung Ho's real name, by the way, is Etienne LaFitte. His clan, all 137 members, live out in the bayou like that gathering in Southern Comfort.

In a great scene, the Baroness declares that the entire LaFitte clan are prisoners of Cobra, but both the men and the women are more than a match for her.

They've already captured her soldiers while they crashed their way through the swamp!

They offer the Baroness some gumbo, but she runs off in classic swamp-movie style. Guess Cobra won't be messing around in this swamp anymore! Yo, Joe!

These two episodes are awesome sauce. Just really great stuff, full of tension and well-executed.

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