Chateau Lloyd

Over the last couple of weeks I've notice that a bunch of my books are getting more ratings on Amazon.  Some are good, others not so much.  Indeed, I've been surprised to see the Man of Destiny series pick up a bunch of ratings, but some are the lowest they've ever gotten.

Conversely, both Long Live Death and Walls of Men seem to be improving in their reception.

Perhaps this is the result of me taking on a higher profile at Dakka as well as Bleedingfool.com.  The more people who read my stuff, the more there are who may not appreciate it.  It comes with the territory.

The curious part is the lack of reviews.  The early versions of Long Live Death got punished because of the typos and editing errors.  I think Walls of Men has been spared this because the much more exacting editing process.

I'm aware that the Man of Destiny books are not as clean as they could be.  One of my goals it to release a second edition (perhaps an all-in-one with new cover art and some extra content). 

However, I don't think people are throwing out two- or three-star ratings because of that.  And since there are no reviews, I'm not sure what they could be objecting to.

My column on Ben Hur at Bleedingfool.com kicked off a modest debate in the comments.  What started as a discussion of the film has now turned into a debate about faith itself.

I'm not interested in litigating my side over here, but the course of the conversation is worth a closer look.

I'm sure most people of faith at some point will encounter an "evangelical atheist."  These people don't believe in God and they don't want anyone else to, either.  Marx had a big hand in creating these creatures, and while they deserve compassion, history has shown they can also be very destructive.

While it is unlikely that we will encounter the next Pol Pot at the bookstore or in an online comment thread, I think it is important that we understand where they are coming from.

In my area, a great many were raised by strictly religious parents and their unbelief is a form of rebellion.  "I refused to be brainwashed into your cult!" is their battle cry.  Others had faith, but for some reason lost it.  Again, the stories tend to have many points in common, but each one is unique. 

Just as converts often tend to be the most fervent believers, apostates are often the Church's worst enemies.  On the psychological level, we can explain this by noting that the same strength of will that can sustain a voluntary life-change can also give it enormous power and zeal.

But if we look spiritually, we a different dynamic.  Converts to the faith are trying to share something wonderful and new to them, something that they had overlooked before. 

The evangelical atheist, by contrast, has nothing new to share, no gift other than envy and despair.

In the last couple of weeks I came across one who explained that there was no God, and that people should just enjoy life knowing that they were going to die and that would be that.  The person insisted that he was perfectly fulfilled, thank you, but that did not explain why he went on a religious forum to spread this message.

I have been seeing this all my adult life.  Again, the reasons vary, but the actions have the same dull similarity.  The most virulent form of this are the ones who want to outlaw all religious practice in the US military.  And that is what gives the game away.

The old secular materialist explanation was that misery loves company, and having had their faith shattered or never being able to find it, these folks seethe with envy and anger when they see smiling religious people find meaning and purpose in their lives.  It's especially obvious when they go out of their way to hinder them - like going to an online religious discussion to spread their message.

But if we use the Spiritual Warfare lens, what we see is something different.  These people have declared themselves against God and therefore any hint of His presence is a threat to them.  That is why they want churches closed, and seek to undermine the faith of others.  They are allied with demons, but too blind to see it.

Such creatures regularly appear in the writings of Evelyn Waugh, C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton, which shows how far back this particular strain of Spiritual Warfare goes.  Indeed, one of the Enemy's most successful tactics has been creating an artificial tension between faith and science.  Yet there is none.  Faith without reason is merely foolish while science without faith is diabolical.

Perhaps the most poignant part of the Ben Hur exchange with the commenter's refusal to even accept the possibility of miracles.  Given that the oldest writings we have confirm their existence - indeed there is an evidentiary chain leading to the present day - this is perhaps the most irrational aspect of atheism.

There are no magic words to break through to such people, but my hope is that by giving counter-examples to their misery, people who of their own choice embraced faith and found contentment and joy, they may look about themselves with new eyes.

As is my wont, I've been watching classic Bible-themed movies over Holy Week.  I will likely conclude with Risen, one of my favorite new films, but for the first time ever, I decided to watch Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments back-to-back.

I should point out that this wasn't part of any plan on my part.  I thought it would be fun to watch Ben Hur (and maybe to a write up on it for Bleedingfool.com), and I enjoyed it so much, I thought I'd take in the other great Charleton Heston classic as well.

I'm going to come right out and say it: Ben Hur is the better movie.  The pacing is better, the story flows better and it feels like entertainment rather than a Sunday School lesson.

Don't get me wrong - The Ten Commandments has excellent drama and I love the rivalry between Heston and Yul Brynner, but between the narration and full-stop quotations of scripture, I can see the beginning of Christian film making at its worst - wooden, preachy, and painfully earnest.

I also think that in today's climate, Ben Hur is more accessible.  It's a revenge story that turns into a conversion narrative.  That was unusual at the time, and why the book it was based on was such a phenomenal best-seller.

I'll throw a link to my column once it runs, so that you can read more about Ben Hur and why I like it, but that's my quick and dirty comparison between the two. 

Over the last couple of weeks I've been talking things over with Chris Braly of Bleedingfool.com and the contents of that interview are now available on the site.

Long-time readers of my blog will find few surprises, but it was nice to see the management step out side the normal comic/geek culture box and examine how geopolitics can shape American culture.

I'm pretty sure the Venn diagram of people interested in both Chinese military history and comic books has a fairly shallow overlap, but there is a connection.

As I note in the interview, Hollywood has largely abandoned middle America and has turned instead to the vast Chinese market for money.  This has allowed them make a fortune selling vapid super-hero movies, but the drive to put "woke" themes in everything is something the Chinese have proven far more resistant to than Hollywood expected.  This leaves the big studios (particularly Disney) in a place where their biggest market and the home market both hate their products.  Hence the layoffs.   Anyhow, read the whole thing.

In a rare departure from my normal practice, I  am actually streaming a show rather than owning it on physical media.

This is because my previous 80s TV exploration was not very satisfactory.  While The Equalizer had its good points, it didn't lend itself to binge viewing and I doubt I will get through the whole thing any time soon.

That's why there is a place for streaming, especially if it incurs no additional cost.  That's how I am watching Remington Steele.  This is yet another 80s production I was too young to watch (it aired at 10) or understand (most of the references would have been lost on me).

For those who don't know, the premise is that Laura Holt, a young, beautiful and ambitious private detective (played by the delightful Stephanie Zimbalist) decides to set up her own agency under her own name.  As the intro credits explain, it turns out that an agency with a female's name is considered too feminine, so she invents a man - Remington Steele - who will be the titular head of her new enterprise.  There is of course no such man, and the pilot episode centers around how she and the other employees have conspired to make him invisible but ever-present.  "Mr. Steele never involves himself in cases," is their boilerplate excuse.

In the course of that episode, a mysterious debonair thief enters the scene and cleverly assumes the identity of Remington Steele.  This was Pierce Brosnan's big break and he's remarkably good.

The focus of the series for its first few episodes is trying to determine "Mr. Steele's" true identity, but by mid-season , there are cases to solve and so the focus shifts to how Steele helps or hinders these. 

Because Steele is something of a con man and international rake of mystery, this allows Brosnan to assume different roles, further exploiting his dramatic skill.  The writing is generally excellent, and in addition to clever wordplay regarding romance, one of the running gags is that Steele is the ultimate detective movie buff, and his "investigative technique" is chiefly trying to find which movie he's a part of at any given time.

Not only is this satisfying for film nerds, it's a clever way of poking fun at the genre, because by the early/mid-80s, just about every detective plot had been used at least once.

And that gets us to one of the weaknesses of the detective format, which is the lack of an overarching plot.  This became apparently late in the first season of Remington Steele, because with Brosnan's character now contributing to the agency, the initial dynamic of cast had changed.

At the start of the pilot episode, the core cast included Zimbalist, James Read as her co-investigator Murphy Michaels, and receptionist Bernice Fox (Janet DeMay).   Brosnan's addition therefore crowded out the other two.  For a brief time Fox (invariably called "Miss Wolf" by Steele) was a rival for his affections, but this faded as his relationship with Holt heated up.  Similarly Read's character went from being loyal, competent and somewhat envious to a spiteful try-hard, and what we would call today a "beta orbiter." 

For an actor as talented as Read, this was an unacceptable role and I'm sure he was afraid of becoming typecast, so he departed the show.  This was probably the right decision because it opened the way for him play George Hazard in all three "seasons" of North and South.  This was his best and most famous role and also introduced him to his second (and current) wife, Wendy Kilbourne.

I should note that the Reads (she took his name) are remarkable not only in the longevity of their marriage, but their low profile.  Read works intermittently, chiefly doing guest spots.  Presumably this is because they both made a bundle doing North and South and Mrs. Read is now a practicing attorney.

The second (and most successful season in terms of ratings) has just started and Doris Roberts has been added to the cast as receptionist Mildred Krebs.  Unlike her predecessors, she has no knowledge of Remington Steele's background and simply takes him at face value.

Thus we have a core cast of the two investigators and their loyal clerical assistant - a dynamic that will be repeated in Moonlighting, which is my next show on tap.

In addition to the exceptional writing, there show has considerable romantic tension between the two leads, a tension heightened by their clashing roles.  It is hard to imagine something like this being done today, but the 80s was still capable of having a push-pull romance where a woman in charge found herself at risk of being subordinated by a strong man she was passionately attracted to.

Another nice element is the music.  The show features a theme by Henry Mancini and then incidental music by Richard Lewis Warren.  When Warren isn't reprising Mancini's theme, he's using a similar style of music, a throwback to 1960s smooth jazz and vintage detective movies.

As is often the case, this is something of a rough draft for a future Bleeding Fool column, and there I'll explore that dynamic more fully.

After a brief search, I found that dakkadakka.com is still around and has decent traffic, so I joined.

I think I was a member there 15 years ago or so.  I recall there being a pie fight amongst moderators at Portent or warseer.com and people looking elsewhere, only to come back when things settled down.

Dakkadakka was mostly for orc (and ork) players, but now it seems more open to other points of view.

It is nice being able to talk about apolitical hobbies, and the minutiae of game mechanics.  There was a spirited argument a few days ago about aesthetics of the various Warhammer 40k factions, which was enjoyably trivial.  My first flame war in years.

Society needs more of this.  Everything is political, and people don't debate or even argue, they just insult and cancel.  That's why I've embargoed myself from the news.

The fact is, posting about gaming stuff makes me want to game, and that in turn causes me to work on my collection or come up with new rules.  Conqueror: Fields of Victory was born in a gaming forum, and while it's not a runaway financial success, I enjoyed making it and playing it.

By contrast, nothing positive comes of political or news commentary.  People just get worked up and stressed out. 

It's been a few weeks, and the results are clear: cutting out news makes me more productive around the house and happier in general.

That being said, I'll continue to post columns at bleedingfool.com in part because it's more cultural/entertainment commentary, and often I'm just watching old movies and writing about them.  That's a pretty stress-free environment.

While I was in the throes of writing Walls of Men, I decided to forgo other creative activities.  As a result, my output here and elsewhere suffered.

Today my first new content since June appeared on Bleedingfool.com: a scathing review of Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai.

The review itself is less significant than the fact that I finally have time to do something other than research or write about China. 

Don't get me wrong, it's fun to take on a major project and feels great to get it behind you.  Still, it's also tough to give up sidebar hobbies and just grind away on a single topic.

I'm still decompressing from the effort, and am taking something of an intellectual vacation in terms of heavy reading, but the notion of getting back into turning out short pieces is appealing to me.

I've seen Gorky Park a couple of times before, but after research on Spain and China, it seemed a good time to revisit it.

It's excellent.  Really a tight, well-crafted film that captures the sense of living under Communist rule.

The late William Hurt is brilliant, playing one of those roles that are well outside what one expects of certain actors.  I think his turn as a Soviet police ("militia") detective is arguably his best.  It's not just the mannerisms, but the way he inhabits the character.  His makeup and facial expressions are - to be blunt - unAmerican.

Which is a very good thing.

One of the difficulties in doing films set in foreign lands is giving a sense of the language differences.  Do you have everyone do an atrocious foreign accent, or just have them speak normally?

Gorky Park has the Russian characters use English accents and only the Americans (who play Americans) talk like, er, Americans. 

What this means is that Hurt plays a Russian but speaks with an English accent.  That sounds silly, but actually most Europeans learn British rather than American English, so it works.  Plus, the rest of the crew around him is British.  Without that, he'd stand out.  It may seem I'm making too much of it, but it is upon such details as these that films have foundered.

The 1980s are interesting because the Soviet Union was a far more pressing threat to us than Russia is today, yet the anti-Russian animus is much worse now than it was back then.

Of course, back then we wanted to know what our enemies were thinking.  We needed that so we could plan appropriately.  Today, a lot of "smart" people simply ignore their enemies, assuming they know them or that they are beneath knowing altogether.  Put simply, Hollywood is a lot more bigoted and stupid than it used to be.

It makes a nice companion to White Nights, which is of course brilliant.

I don't normally highlight my posts over at Bleedingfool.com that much, but my column excoriating modern - and especially Disney - films seems to have struck a chord.

While hardly a viral post, it got an unusually positive reception and this site saw a surge in traffic.

One can only conclude that I'm onto something.

I've been doing these retro-reviews for a while and I think they key difference between movies made decades ago and those of more recent vintage is simply that back then it was taken for granted that people in movies should behave like, um, actual people.

Now it's pretty much a given that people should behave like a Platonic Woke Ideal, that is - something that never was and never will be.

Flawless heroes demonstrate their flawlessness while also appearing Stunning and Brave.  The villains they face are a hitherto unknown combination of stupid, malevolent and impotent, which makes the triumph over them completely without any tension whatsoever.

When a rare film does allow something approximating reality to appear, it's shocking and seems at first glance to be better than it really is.  Alternatively, films that realistically portray human nature have to be steeped in irony lest anyone of the Woke Police denounce it as heresy.

Diminishing box office hauls and new funding sources for alternative entertainment indicate that we may be on the brink of a serious shift in cultural preferences.  We'll see.

While I don't normally do "link posts" to my work over at Bleedingfool.com, some of my readers might be interested to know that I added a new installment to the Geek Guns series, this one centering on Dirty Harry's .44 Magnum (Smith and Wesson Model 29).

The feature ran for 23 straight weeks before I took a break, and while I don't have a follow-up series planned, I will continue to add new installments as the opportunities present themselves.

The primary challenge is of course access to iconic weapons.  For example, I'd love to do a feature on the Colonial Marine weapons from Aliens, but I don't know anyone with a Thompson submachinegun (which is what those were).  I guess I need to hang out with a wealthier crowd.