My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

So the interrobangonets are abuzz about how Mitt “I Am The Next GOP Presidential Candidate, Really” Romney managed to lose three states in a single night to Rick Santorum of all people. I’ve previously discussed how I’ve long felt that Romney is the weakest “prohibitive favorite” in a long time, but now that the campaign is eight states in, we can more accurately assess this, as follows:

1.) The majority of Republicans will vote for not-Romney over Romney, given the chance. Mitt has only won three of eight states. In only one state (Nevada) has he managed to crack 50% of the vote (and then only just). In more conservative states he has trouble cracking 40% of the vote. The base does not like Romney, and for a long time their problem has been that they could not decide if they preferred Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum to him, which is understandable because Gingrich is an awful person and Santorum a proven loser, but it seems that, barring something weird happening (which has been the case frequently so far) that Santorum is finally getting the nod, mostly because Gingrich’s entire strategy was to say “I can beat Obama in a debate, I will own his ass” and then could not beat Mitt Romney in a debate. (Of course, Gingrich’s entire strategy was also predicated on the notion that Barack Obama would be lost without a teleprompter, which is blindly stupid – Obama owned McCain at the debates in 2008 and has always been a careful and eloquent extemporaneous speaker – but hey, nothing like the GOP for demanding that we all pretend that the black guy can’t speak well without help.)

2.) Despite this, Romney can still win. Since most of the GOP primaries are no longer winner-take all, Romney can still win the nomination by being able to get a healthy dollop of each state’s delegates plus a larger percentage of the big states like New York and California where he would never win in the general election but which are comfortable enough with him to give him their support. That, combined with the fact that Romney has practically all of the announced superdelegates so far, could give him the nod. Of course, a large part of Romney’s victory path has always required him to be viewed as the inevitable result, and if Romney appears to not be an inevitable result then he could very well crumble.

3.) No matter what happens, this is not a GOP version of Hillary/Obama 2008. That primary campaign was between a longtime Democratic party top dog and the Future of the Party ™ who was a legitimate threat. This primary is between a Republican version of John Kerry except less likeable and human, a dude who lost a re-election campaign by twenty points, a guy who was so dishonest that his fellow Republicans said “dude, whoa” and an insane dwarf.

4.) Nobody likes Mitt Romney. Mitt has run an excruciatingly negative campaign. He has spent more than the rest of the field combined, almost all of it on negative ads against Newt Gingrich. This is not someone who will convince you to vote for him; he can only say “don’t vote for the other guy.” That’s not how you win elections. He could still very possibly win the primary, because money can go a long way. But in the general?

Pro Wrestling Tycoon. Forget the many sports wrestling games out there, where you play a wrestler who is wrestling – those almost never capture the spirit of the thing. It’s always “well, here’s a match, wrestle the match.” But pro wrestling is so much more than that – and the challenge factor of successfully running a wrestling company so much higher than that of simply winning a match in any case.

The actual engine wouldn’t have to be too difficult: after all, pro wrestling writing mostly depends on a number of scenarios that only vary mildly (the basic feud, the friends-split-up-and-become-enemies, the formation of a heel stable, etc.). You could probably come up with about forty or so possible mini-plots and the player could mix and match them to best effect. In terms of the wrestlers themselves, you could assign ratings for various traits – some for interviews and acting ability (acting ability, improvisational ability, charisma) and some for wrestling ability (selling, execution of moves, large moveset, ability to resist injury) and then some X-factors (motivating factors which make the wrestler happy – some want money, some want outside-of-wrestling-fame, some want to only wrestle great matches, etc.; as well as how much the wrestler demands in salary). You could also do something like how baseball-manager games do and as wrestlers age their traits can shift (and not always simply a decrease, either). And, if you were being honest to the spirit of the thing, there would be the occasional tragic death.

Once you get past the wrestlers, you can start to consider the audience and business models as well. How do you negotiate TV deals? What does your audience demand, and does it vary from city to city? How much money does your company spend on pyrotechnics? What PPV schedule will you use? How do you deal with competing wrestling companies – cooperation deals like the old territory system or WWF/ECW in the late 90s, or total bloodthirsty competition a la the Monday Night Wars? Hell, you could even timeshift scenarios – managing a wrestling promotion in the 1960s-1970s was a totally different ballgame than managing one in the 1980s or today. Put together an “exodus” challenge to mimic the business challenges of losing a number of your top young stars to your chief rival – how do you stay afloat?

The only problem is I don’t see how you would account for events like the Montreal Screwjob or other things that exist only in wrestling and are one-off, non-duplicable events. Which is part of the reason wrestling is the way it is, I suppose, but make the tycoon game that much harder to design.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

I suppose someone’s going to have to talk about this, aren’t they?

Personally, I can get neither excited nor outraged about this. DC, in response to what they have to believe to be popular demand for this, is publishing a prequel that will be subject to more scrutiny than the ‘Gone With the Wind’ sequel. They’ve lined up some pretty decent talent for this, although personally if I was any one of these writers or artists I wouldn’t take this job for love nor money. A good chunk of your potential audience has written you off as a soulless hack simply for the act of saying “yes”, especially since Moore himself has been on record for the last 27 years as saying he does not want other writers handling the characters. Even if they’re persuaded to buy the series, they’re going to be comparing you to the towering shadow that Moore and Gibbons cast over the comic-book landscape since 1985. If I thought I was good enough to write or draw something that could be favorably compared to ‘Watchmen’, you can bet I wouldn’t want to make it an actual prequel to ‘Watchmen’.

But more than that, I wonder, is there really a demand for this to begin with? Even if Moore could be persuaded to return for a prequel (which, let’s face it, was never going to happen…and frankly, I think this marks the point where DC has officially given up on seeking a rapprochement with Moore…which at least means we should finally see those comic-book based ‘Watchmen’ figures…) …even if Gibbons would return to work with Moore…is this actually necessary? Do we need (as Moore himself put it) to see a “Moby-Dick” prequel, or tales about what happened to Nick after the end of ‘The Great Gatsby’? For some reason, stories told in comics seem to have a momentum driving them to sequels that we don’t see in other media. (Arguably, movies fall victim to the same pressures, but it seems to be only the “light” films that give in. ‘Transformers’ gets a sequel, but nobody’s out there demanding we see a ‘Silent Running 2’.)

I think that to some extent, comics fans been conditioned to see comic books as a continuing story, despite decades of efforts to break away from the notion. The idea of a “final issue” is one we’ve never gotten truly used to, because the vast majority of comic book fans read comics to be immersed in a universe rather than to read a particular story. (Okay, that’s a pretty big statement to make, but I think there’s something to it. Comic book fans want to enter the Marvel or DC universe for a while, to vicariously live in a world of superheroes and excitement and strangeness, and so the individual stories aren’t as important.) As a result, when someone does put out a sequel or a prequel to a big story, the simple desire to return to that universe is enough to overcome even knowing skepticism about a story’s prospects.

Take ‘The Dark Knight Strikes Again’, probably the other best-known return to the other best-known 80s story. Miller was already beginning to be considered as “past his prime”, and many people doubted he could recapture the lightning in a bottle that was the original mini-series. The promotional artwork and story synopses sounded like fan-fiction based on a classic, and nobody really seemed to have a compelling rationale for the project beyond the simple mercenary belief that it would sell. And yet, sell it did. I personally bought the whole series. I thought the first issue was shoddy and embarrassing, and I still bought the next two. The pull of “what happens next?” was just that strong.

I think that DC believes that the same rationale will work again. They look at comics fans and see people so interested in the Watchmen universe that they don’t care about what’s going to be on those pages in particular; they just want to go back to that world for a little bit longer and live there. I don’t have any particular investment one way or another; I don’t hope they fail, but I don’t wish them success either. All I do have is two words regarding people who tried to recapture the spirit of a cult classic with different creators, hoping that people’s affection for the original would draw them back to a sequel:

“S. Darko”.

I’m surprised it took anti-same-sex-marriage campaigners so long to ape the common tactic of SSM families to use little kids to speak to their views. Granted, it’s nowhere near as compelling for the anti-SSM crowd as it is for the pro-SSM crowd, because when kids of SSM families say that they grew up just fine and their parents love each other, they’re both refuting the common argument that SSM weakens families and reiterating the pro-SSM argument that same-sex love is dignified, healthy, and deserving of all the societal endorsement that straight relationships get.

In comparison, when a kid speaks up against gay marriage, we get this:

I really feel bad for the kids who have two parents of the same gender. Even though some kids feel like it’s fine, they have no idea what kind of wonderful experiences they miss out on. I don’t want any more kids to get confused about what’s right and OK. I really don’t want to grow up in a world where marriage isn’t such a special thing anymore. It’s rather scary to think that when I grow up the legislator or the court can change the definition of any word they want. If they can change the definition of marriage, then they could change the definition of any word. People have the choice to be gay, but I don’t want to be affected by their choice.

In order, that’s

1.) An endorsement of traditional straight marriage as “special” and “wonderful” without bothering to explain why it is special or wonderful
2.) A suggestion that homosexuality is wrong without bothering to explain why it is wrong
3.) The old saw that same-sex-marriage will make straight marriage less special, which is an argument from privilege
4.) Sky-is-falling assertions about the powers of the courts to change legal definitions (which have existed since there were courts, basically)
5.) The suggestion that homosexuality is chosen behaviour despite mountains of evidence to the contrary

On the bright side, this young woman’s career path is most likely already mapped out for her. In ten to twelve years, expect to see Sarah Crank (and oh my god is that not the most appropriate last name ever) either writing for National Review or on Fox News, depending on how conventionally pretty she is.

…is that you get ideas. Or at least I do.

Which, not to belabour the point: anybody out there interested in illustrating an approximately 8-page horror comic I thought of this afternoon (in between bouts of coughing), email me.

(The story is not coughing-related.)

So the L.A. City Council voting to require male pornographic actors to use condoms has been getting play from around the internet, including the nigh-mandatory Reason article that thinks it is much funnier than it in fact is. Seriously, reading that post just made me feel bad. You could tell the writer thought they were coming up with really awesome zingers, and sadly the zingers are not that awesome and in fact are sad and predictable.1

Let’s be clear: this regulation won’t work. It won’t work because there’s no viable enforcement mechanism, which you kind of need in order to enforce municipal regulations.2 It won’t work because it’s a local regulation in an industry which is, to an extent, notoriously mobile. (Even were this regulation federal – numerous porn producers already book time in the tropics and shoot multiple features in a row there. There is no reason this practice would not continue and/or expand.) And it won’t work because the performers – both male and female – mostly don’t want to use them, because pornographic sex takes a lot longer than regular sex and, to put it bluntly, there are chafing issues when condoms are used.

But the spirit of the regulation, at least, is welcome. I don’t believe there’s another economic sector that is as large and as under-regulated as porn is, which is the product of a public that is not willing to admit they mostly use porn regularly and equally not willing to stop using it. The result is an industry whose exploitation of young just-off-the-bus girls has become a well-known joke, where worker protection is essentially nonexistent and where HIV flareups are, sadly, not uncommon.3 We should demand a healthier, safer work environment for pornographic actors, because all it will do is make the industry better. (People who worry about whether better treatment of women within the industry could result in less wild porn should consider that some of the raunchiest and craziest pornographers working today are women. I won’t link here, but Google “Burning Angel” or “Ovidie” or even Nina Hartley.)

Plus, as a bonus for pornographers, regulation carries with it official recognition as well, and in an industry where copyright violation has become so endemic that numerous films are produced simply as loss-leaders to get additional longterm money from the shrinking portion of the porn audience that is still willing to pay money for it, official recognition is worth quite a bit.

1. Memo to all writers everywhere: when you use “bratwurst” as a euphemism for “penis,” you’re writing subpar Krusty the Klown material. CUCAMONGA! [↩]
2. Presumably police will not be accidentally wandering on to porn sets on a regular basis. [↩]
3. Many porn companies will talk about their rigorous testing schedules, but the day I trust self-regulation is the day I join the GOP and start ranting about immigunts takin der jerbs. [↩]

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

FLAPJACKS: So did you see the new Liam Neeson movie?
ME: Oh, you mean Liam Neeson Versus Wolves? Yeah. It was okay, I guess.
FLAPJACKS: Only “okay,” though? I was hoping that it would be a classic. Is it better than Liam Neeson Versus Kidnappers?
ME: Oh, it’s much better than that. Which, needless to say, makes it also much, much better than Liam Neeson Versus Amnesia.
FLAPJACKS: But I’m guessing it’s not better than Liam Neeson Versus Batman.
ME: Oh, heavens no.
FLAPJACKS: And not better than Liam Neeson Versus Outdated Ideas About Sexuality.
ME: Well, I don’t know that that’s a fair comparison. One is a serious dramatic study of an important modern figure in science, and the other is about punching wolves to death. Seems very apples-and-oranges.
FLAPJACKS: But they’re both movies, right? So we should be able to compare them on that basis. I mean, all the time critics are willing to compare trash cinema to high drama in an unflattering manner because they’re both movies. Because they’re critics. So can’t we do the same thing?
ME: I just don’t think the basis for comparison is strong. You might as well try to compare Liam Neeson Versus Wolves to Liam Neeson Versus The Holocaust.
FLAPJACKS: I see your point. Can we compare Liam Neeson Versus Wolves to Liam Neeson Versus The Grief Caused By A Loved One’s Death (And Also Hugh Grant Is In It)?
ME: He’s not even the main character in that one, so I would say no. Let’s try to stick to movies where Liam Neeson is central to the movie. So Liam Neeson Versus The Bastard English is in –
FLAPJACKS: Aren’t there actually two of those?
ME: I think the second one is characterized more accurately as Liam Neeson Versus The Bastard English and His Fellow Shortsighted Irish. But my point is both of those work, whereas Liam Neeson Versus Hades isn’t quite right because for some reason Hollywood thought that Sam Worthington is cooler than Liam Neeson.
FLAPJACKS: That is just crazy talk. But wait, how about Liam Neeson Versus George Lucas’ Dialogue? He’s not exactly the main character in that. I mean, it’s Star Wars, part whatever.
ME: I think Qui-Gon Jinn is really the main character of that movie, despite dying before the end. So it works. Main character in a large ensemble still counts, so Liam Neeson Versus Post-Revolutionary France qualifies, but Liam Neeson Versus The Protestant Nativists doesn’t because his character dies in the first fifteen minutes.
FLAPJACKS: Which would also disqualify Liam Neeson Versus The Crusades, I suppose. How about Liam Neeson Versus Ghosts?
ME: Counts, but only barely.
FLAPJACKS: So, now that we have established the basis for comparison, how good is Liam Neeson Versus Wolves?
ME: Well, let me put it this way: he really punches the shit out of those wolves.
FLAPJACKS: Can’t ask for more than that.

Everyone’s talking about MGM, Paramount, and Universal this summer, but for some reason, nobody but me has the inside scoop on this summer’s films from indie horror/sci-fi titan The Asylum! Well, I know you all wanted that rectified, so here’s the inside scoop on their upcoming releases!

continue reading "2012 Mockbuster Preview!"