The Friday Article Roundup
The best, most up-to-date pop culture writing this week.
This week, you will innovate in the areas of:
Send articles throughout the next week to magpiesmedia [at] gmail, post articles from the past week below for discussion and Have a Happy Friday!
At Reverse Shot, Greg Cwik analyzes the effects of Robocop 2:
While stop-motion is a redoubtable, ageless technology, the groundbreaking effects for Cain’s face show us the acceleration of cooler and scarier technology and its attempted replication of humanity. These eyes, the smile, the scowl—all features not then associated with computers—set the stage for the digital human emulation that is now a defining technique of 21st-century Hollywood, from de-aging to the sacrilegious reincarnations of dead actors, and even pervades our quotidian lives (see face-morphing filters on Instagram). In RoboCop 2, we see Alex Murphy’sreal human face (a puppet, but still believable) exposed, clearly traumatized, in agony as his inchoate mess of a body squirms on the asphalt after Cain has him unceremoniously dismembered by his gang of goons, juxtaposed with Cain’s pseudo-human digital face. Practical effects vs “digital,” man vs machine.
Charles Pulliam-Moore lays out how JK Rowling’s active bigotry should stop people from watching the new Harry Potter show:
Rowling has been transparent about her desire to keep assisting people in their efforts to rob transgender people of their dignity and human rights. That seems very much to be the entire point of The J.K. Rowling Women’s Fund — an organization Rowling launched in 2025 that claims to be “fighting to retain women’s and girls’ sex-based rights in all aspects of life.” …Rowling has been rich enough to pour cash into organizations like this for some time now because she continues to hold primary intellectual property rights to the entire Harry Potter franchise. Every Harry Potter book, movie, video game, stage show ticket, theme park pass, and piece of merchandise that’s sold puts money into Rowling’s pocket, which she can use to keep her crusade against trans people going.
Siddhant Adlakha parses the muddle of Boots Riley’s new film I Love Boosters for The Observer:
This gesture towards Das Kapital ends up appealing only to those already immersed in Marxist or Hegelian theory, but not in any meaningful way beyond mere reference or base recognition. It’s the Glup Shitto of communism….The whole film feels chopped to pieces. It’s neither polished enough to satisfy the average cineplex patron, nor impressionistic or discombobulated enough to be avant-garde. Instead, it exists in a lukewarm, malformed middle ground, and it feels like it landed there by accident.”
For The New Republic, Phillip Maciak examines why TV shows about college aren’t making the grade:
The pickle is that the average gleefully inaccurate legal procedural is not the same as the average gleefully inaccurate academic drama. The difference is not in the execution or research. It’s about what stories writers think they can use these fields to tell. TV writers write about doctors and lawyers because they are deeply interested in those professions. They may mess up the workplace dynamics or invent procedures and precedents, but the drama of diagnosis, the theater of legal argument, these are subjects of rich possibility for teleplay writers. Watching academic TV shows, it’s hard not to suspect that these writers either don’t care about—or actively loathe—their subjects.
And at Talkhouse, Caroline Golum describes the trials and tribulations of filming the Crucifixion during an eclipse:
Knowing we would only have a few hours, we forewent the customary permitting process and went back to our run-and-gun roots. A flurry of emails ensued as I put out the casting dragnet for friends with flexible schedules and their own means of transport. In order to capture the movement of the moon blocking the sun, we’d have to train our camera directly at the sky. Cinematographer Gabe Elder, a born magician, identified the necessary lens filter to shoot the eclipse in real time – an especially dark tint so potent, it blocked out every light source but the sun. Much like Barabbas, what we really needed were two shots: one of the crucifixion, with our actors in costume, and one of the eclipse itself, which we’d composite into the background later.
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The Friday Article Roundup
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Year Of The Month
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The Friday Article Roundup
The best, most avant-garde pop culture writing of the week.
The Friday Article Roundup
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Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
Babylon 5, Season Four, Episode Eleven, “Lines of Communication”
A decent episode. Sheridan watching the news is much better than the whole propaganda episode – portraying it as rescue is neat and elegant – and I love how it pays off into a new plot direction. Sheridan is at the most sympathetic and likeable I’ve ever seen him, as he’s enthused by the idea of effectively making a propaganda department for Babylon 5. Meanwhile, Franklin and Marcus make a good team replicating my favourite part of Andor, not only coming across some terrorists doing what they do but badly, but trying to convince these guys to join the team.
High Pressure — William Powell as a charming con man, roadmap etc. Based on a play and not infrequently feels like it in the setup/zinger department but Mervyn LeRoy uses the “stage” well, 30s blocking forever, and there is an interesting proto-Coen (comedy version) vibe in this pre-Code flick, scams piling on top of scams and no real innocents. Obviously this is the kind of thing the boys took their vibe from in the first place but some nicely cynical bits — Powell gives a speech to rouse up his sales force and makes sure to appeal to every ethnicity — feel like they would work just as well today. And there is a lot of ethnic humor that generally walks the right side of the line, Powell’s money man is Jewish (uh oh) but is mostly a put-upon wisenheimer, if it’s a caricature it’s a friendly one. The main issue here is Evelyn Brant, not given much to do as Powell’s put-upon squeeze, and sometimes the 75 minutes feel longer than they should, but a fun time.
Michael Clayton — after multiple DVD failures I finally finished a rewatch via streaming, physical media in shambles. But still great of course, and while I knew it was coming I was disturbed all over again by the brutality of the killing here — Gilroy opens the scene with a vaguely ominous frame and lets just enough happen to put you on edge but then throws the attack in from an unexpected angle and lets it play out with cold professional economy that turns the victim into an object even before he’s dead, a complete negation of someone who previously was so vital. If anything this is too good, it makes certain failures later in the movie less believable and the speed of the very ending (not to mention its vector, I don’t think these guys are getting involved) is also best not scrutinized. What matters is Clooney and Swinton, his delivery of the coup and her crumbling. That is 100 percent real.
You still haven’t seen Andor, right? Hopefully your Michael Clayton watch has you more willing to take a longer swing on Tony Gilroy! (I actually had this exact conversation with a friend earlier today who also watched Michael Clayton last night.)
What did we read?
Laws, Plato
This is said to be Plato’s more mature take on The Republic, having been written after his disastrous attempt to actually make his republic. It certainly is more complex, though I believe it to still be based on his fundamental principles of attempting to control human nature, and with the expectation that people will be pinned down willingly (“We should create in citizens a predisposition to obey[..]”). I find this naive, personally, and part of my not-quite-dismissal of Plato as a modern-day small-town busybody, where the expectation is that everyone falls in line with no patience for individual desire.
Not to say I don’t respect Plato, his influence on Western thought, or his expression of a clear point of humanity; there have always been people like him, and indeed he often reminds me, in tone, of people I’ve known and read, particularly the lowest of the low in terms of power. I disagree with his conclusions but admire the path he takes to get there.
8 Bit Theater, Strips 0840-0870, Brian Clevinger
There’s an absolutely spectacular parody of the sports minigames in Final Fantasy with Drownball, which is exactly what it sounds like, with the extra twist that as the sole survivor, Fighter defaults to the winner (“This is perfectly logical!”).
The plot thread here is the characters getting distracted from their quest by the fun of taking over a town by accidentally clearing out the mob bosses that originally ran it. This is actually the slowest the plot has ever gotten, with the characters returning to Sarda, admitting they lost the thread, and he dumps them back – in the process, destroying Onrac again and sending White Mage into an existential quandary with Black Mage trying to, uh, fuck her, a decent plot thread made hilarious by the fact that all the others are completely exasperated with him (“BM, we don’t care.”).
“Yeah, like it’s my fault your hair is flammable.”
“Just cooperate, or we’ll do this.”
[nuclear explosion]
“There is such a thing as being too illustrative.”
“Hey, I didn’t want there to be any confusion.”
“What are you talking about?”
“End of the world, proliferation of the human race, etcetc.”
“The world is fine.”
“Probably improved now that Onrac isn’t stinking up the joint.”
“Just as in every other facet of life, elves have a vastly superior matrimonial system than your human courting.”
“Oh? What do you guys do?”
“These days it’s a ritual of blackmail and counterblackmail. I prefer the forging of key documents to artificially bankrupt the the potential mate’s parents so they’re forced to sell their children into marriage. But, I’m old-fashioned, I guess.”
“Hey, do you guys think I’m dumb?”
“Oh.”
“Uh. I’m going to answer that in the form of running.”
“Wish I’d thought of that.”
The Seventh, by Richard Stark
This feels like a slightly weaker book, even though many of the individual elements–an extraordinary cool (if only briefly portrayed) heist, an unusual complication in the aftermath, Parker’s muddy grappling with once more being driven by a basic instinct for retaliation rather than by sheer pragmatism–are excellent. And the prose is typically great: “Ellie absorbed it all the way a soundproof room absorbs a shout,” in particular, is an evocative and surprisingly haunting line that now feels indelibly imprinted on my mind. But it feels like there are fewer places than usual where Stark conveys his interest in people (as distinct from Parker’s disinterest in them)–though, again, what we do get is terrific, especially Janey holding Kifka’s head in her lap at the end and Dougherty putting the cops inside the apartments.
Every time I try to break it all down, I come to the conclusion that it’s a very good book and that even the parts I don’t respond to–like the somewhat colorless portrayal of the nameless amateur who, driven by lust and heartbreak and an inability to deal with Ellie’s contempt, catastrophically fucks up a sweet job he didn’t even originally know about–are mostly well-handled and consistent with Stark’s vision. But Negli, who has a lot going on, falls strangely flat for me even though he shouldn’t. (He is responsible for one of the best and most Parker-ish moments in the book, where he’s screaming at Parker to come out and fight him like a man, and Parker simply shoots him in the back. And Negli couldn’t hear him approach, what with all the screaming.)
Since I can’t work out why this one didn’t quite pop for me and since I keep being able to enumerate his virtues, I’m perfectly happy to believe that the flaw was in me rather than in it. But even this “weaker” book was still deeply enjoyable.
EDIT: You know what, never mind. I forgot about that vertical chase scene at the end with the little offering of the money. I’m wrong, this book rules.
I’m with you that despite many fantastic elements this is ultimately a weaker book. And I think it’s interesting that this is clearest in what is arguably the book’s best setpiece, when Parker meets the lead investigator in his home. No bluster on one hand and no Heat-like connection on the other, just two guys trying to get whatever advantage they can and if the cop knows he’s outmatched, he doesn’t concede what he doesn’t have to. It’s a great negotiation as character expression, and the problem is that for all the smart details Parker hits it is a bad plan on its face and it sets up the carnage that follows. Parker has chosen the best of bad options before and will again but here he sets something in motion that he ignores potential consequences of and it goes disastrously very quickly. Negli has massive Short Man Syndrome but he’s not entirely wrong at points here. Parker is at a low point financially and as you note, at a low point in terms of the problem to be solved (this guy truly comes out of nowhere, there is not only no way to plan for him but no way to find him and this drives Parker nuts) and he makes mistakes that he normally doesn’t make, so the book feels off.
But the good parts are very good indeed! Stark continues to be in a very grim mood, the part that sticks with me is the quiet and extremely competent heister/woodworker who winds up giving the go-ahead to Parker’s push to get the money back, he gets a chapter to himself and it feels very much like Westlake writing a bitter part of himself, a guy who is a superb craftsman and can’t compete with cheap hacks so he turns to crime to pay the bills. He does his work well and without making a fuss and then he is destroyed, last seen spilling his guts about anyone and anything. Brutal shit. FYI, The Split is a pretty solid adaptation of this, it makes significant changes and pretty much limits the fallout to the last act (changing the dynamic of things considerably) but in favor of going all in on the heist, which is great. On TUBI!
Ooh, I definitely see a Tubi night in my future (like that’s new).
Yes, Parker does cause an atypical amount of his own problems here–not the initial murderous complication that leads to the loss of the stash, no, but a fair amount of the carnage afterwards. The heister/woodworker stuck with me too, and what happens to him feels especially brutal because he’s the one who wanted to walk away without the money and make it up on another job, which would’ve saved everybody; I suppose in an existential sense, he’s punished for not being willing to do that on his own, but then, it doesn’t serve to alienate the people you may need to rely on in the future, either, so his decision to throw in all the same makes a kind of sense.
Just don’t go into The Split expecting a remotely faithful portrayal of Parker himself, Jim Brown is a decent enough lead but he is not playing (and nor was the part written to be) our guy.
One of the great running themes of the series is how Parker interacts with people outside of his fellow heisters (capable or not) or underworld types but who have nonetheless become emmeshed in this world and who he can’t really trust. He has to figure out how to use them and understand them and there’s something that isn’t empathy but is fairly acute at work here. He’s not always successful, see Menlo earlier, but he doesn’t misread the situation the way he does here with a lawman. In the next book he is still in tough straits so he winds up dealing with another enemy, but on more equivalent terms and it’s a smarter play.
Fiasco by Stanislaw Lem – My favorite Lem novel so far (out of three!) The author soars to intellectual heights here of first contact more than Solaris or The Invincible, exploring topics such as evolution, theology, and politics. There is hard SF related to planetary mechanics, gravitational drives and the Fermi paradox. In all it’s a good balance for philosophical humanists and scientific minds. This is Lem’s last novel and may have been a mistake to read so early in the journey through his oeuvre since Pirx from earlier short stories makes an appearance, the first chapter is from an abandoned short story. But I didn’t feel like I was missing anything other than enrichment of Lem’s mythology. The title is a spoiler of the main plot but there are so many other threads that lead to surprises.
Year of the Month update!
Next month, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, etc. from 1949.
April. 9th: Cori Domschot: I Was a Male War Bride
Apr. 13th: Tristan J. Nankervis: The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Apr. 16th: Cori Domschot: On the Town
Apr. 23rd: Bridgett Taylor: Confessions of a Mask
And in May, we’ll be opening the doors for your writing on any movies, albums, books, etc. from 2014!
TBD: Cori Domschot: Earth to Echo
TBD: Cori Domschot: Jack Ryan
May 27th: Tristan J. Nankervis: 1984
I’ll take Hero With A Thousand Faces for April 12th and 1984 for April 26th, please Sam.
Wait, let me change that to April 13th and 27th – misread my calendar there.