Glimore Girls The Final Episode TV Review

*** Three Ninja Stars

In which Spaceman Jack dissects the Final Gilmore Girls experience into this sociological treatise,
Stars Hollow quaint Idyll or dystopian Nightmare ?

Gilmore Girls (herein after GG) has ended as I suppose it had to do eventually, Rory (Gilmore Girl 2 ) after turning down the marriage proposal of the rich, young and eminently eligible Logan Huntsburger in the penultimate episode has now flown off as a junior reporter to follow the Barak Obama campaign.
Lorelai (Gilmore Girl1) while not walking down the aisle in white with the hard working and mucho masculine Luke, clinched him in the end as she was overwhelmed by his consideration by throwing a massive surprise Bon Voyage party for Rory .
Nice, well nice enough in so far as it’s not actually bad. Some things were left out, basically a deeper analysis of their world. I know that I have a rather bad tendency to treat TV as if it were the real world, but shows like The Gilmore Girls have worked hard to position themselves in a fictional universe that is a close parallel with the actual one. If you get yourself a good "Fiction Filter" I think you can go some way to divining a certain amount of truth about the American condition from them. They don’t tell you exactly who or what the Americans are but they can tell you a little about who they think they are and who they wish to be. Consider this;
At the heart of the GGs’ dynamic was the upper class mother and grandmother Emily Gilmore. This formidable WASP struck a bargain early on with her wayward daughter. Desperate to give the young Rory a chance at the Ivy league education which is the ticket to Elite Status, Lorelai goes to her mother who agrees to pay the bills in return for a cast iron agreement that both junior GGs turn up for Friday night dinners at the senior GG’s palatial home. An excellent example of exchanging financial capital ( hard cash money )for social capital (time with your family )
Rory’s best friend is the delightful Lane Kim (played by Keiko Agena) the daughter of the tough and hard working Mrs. Kim. A Christian Korean migrant who runs an antique store. Rory and Lane grew up together and were at the small public school until the mother’s bargain was struck and at that point their lives and fates diverged. Lane continues as a waitress in Luke’s diner follows her passion for Rock music marries the goofy but kind hearted guitarist Zach gets married and has twins.
Rory leaves the public school goes to the exclusive Chilton Academy and is on the track for the Ivy league big time. Rory turns down the chance of marriage for career.
There we are, social status, family, fertility and economic power in America all played out for you on the small screen.
But were is the justice? were is the meritocracy ? Rory is smart enough for the big league but then so is Lane. Mrs. Kim is hard working and morally upstanding while Mrs. Gilmore is vain and venal. But without the old money and connections behind them the Kims will never get to the upper crust. The GGs are bank rolled by the vested interests but the Kims are not so they will have to stay down at least for a few more generations.
This is America.

Movie Review Sleeping Dogs

**** Four Ninja Stars

One from the digital vaults This brand new DVD is a fine release of Roger Donaldson's dystopian view of New Zealand gone on a Fascist bender. It’s production was a historical moment for Kiwi cinema and it’s a forgotten political firecracker. The story behind the story is fascinating but rather long so I will leave that for later.
I never saw this at the movies so I came to it almost as fresh piece and I it feels 30 years later first a political story, any action, drama or love story was definitely second, So I’ll give you the Political story first,
The familiar and idyllic Kiwi landscape of New Zealand in the mid to late 70's usually has such a calming effect on me, viewed through rose tinted lenses of Childhood nostalgia of but here there is a weird feeling of a parallel time exists another life never lived, I continuously wondered, Could have this have happened ? Was this our past ?
A Nearly-New Zealand has Oil shock Hyper inflation, Labour Unions threatening a general strike the Fascist Special Police bully boys are out on the streets so it's more than a little scary.
Viva La Revolución !
Love story comes second, so here it is Sam Neil is the young father Smith who leaves the lovely wife and charming kiddies after some martial events and returns to the land.
As dirt grubbing a farmer on an island some where in the midst of Maoriland he gets involved in the bigger picture. He's busted by the Special Police for something he didn’t do and didn’t care about. For all the boyish good looks of Sam Neil, Smith is no Che Guevara, he gets involved in everything in such a half arsed way I can't call him our hero he's just a protagonist. Pity that he's such a selfish little asshole really. But in compensation for the generally weak acting effort there are so many little pieces of Kiwi life that looking back 30 years are( For the Kiwi veiwer ) priceless, we see a land deal done with local Iwi that wouldn't get through our political Commissars today
"Give the old man at the Marae a bottle of whiskey !" Indeed !
On the minus side some of the ledger some all the nuances and subtle touches of feeling that turn good movies into great cinema are lacking. But on the plus side it is remarkable to consider the film commission funding and The RNZAF aircraft, How both were obtained considering the subject material ?
The RNZAF contributions were the Iroquois helicopters and Staring in an ground attack role the A4K Skyhawk* which, with rocket pods and determination blasts some Communist Heretics to Hell.
The making of the movie which features Roger, Sam Geoff Murphy and the cast and crew 30 years on is another odd parallel time track. Same people same place and same the events are just dissected differently by the players 30 years later.
Price well ? a weird feeling of a parallel time track exists here too. What could have happened ?
It is worth noting that Red China is manufacturing this and selling it to you via the Warehouse for only $9.99
So Viva La Revolución



*Military Aerospace enthusiasts such as Spaceman Jack will note that the jets used are the older RNZAF A4K. This was before the Kiwi’s small wing of Skyhawks got an entire avionics upgrade. You can tell the difference by the lack of the Dorsal hump on the later models.

And so it came to pass, The Role Play Gamers Ruled the Earth…

Whilst trawling through some Liberal (American style) magazines I came across this little number which I recommend to all my Gaming buddies.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2007/07/10/alternative_reality_games/index.html
The idea of a role playing type simulation to model the real events for training or education is not new of course. It rather reminders me of an interplanetary civilization, The Empire of Azad that Spaceman Jack visited in one of his Astral expeditions.
The human author Iain M Banks covered the subject in his book "The Player of Games"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_of_Games
The empire is ruled by an elite who gain their positions by playing in a series of game tournaments. The evil empire is then brought down by the eponymous Player who literally beats them at their own game.
Now we have the technology all we need is a gigantic pot of coffee, plenty of chips and dips. All those who have not the skills to Game on into the new millennium will be our slaves forced to work in our underground Pizza factories and Red Bull refineries

Bwaa-Wha-HaHa ! ! ( That’s my evil empire laugh )

Spaceman Jack is blasting off to the Far East (again)

Those of you who know a little of the secret origins of Spaceman Jack Dee, ( and I know that there are at least 2 of you out there) will also know that he is rather interested in the Orient and has spend some time in China.
Well I’m blasting off again early September. The first part will be attending a few things commemorating the life and legacy of a great New Zealander, Rewi Alley. Unfortunately few of the younger generation have heard of him but in the best "good keen man" Kiwi tradition he helped out a lot of children in some of the poorest areas of China.
I will be going to Beijing, Lanzhou Shanghai and Rewi Alley’s old school in Shandan, Gansu province. Then if all goes smoothly off to Chengdu, Sichuan province to meet some old friends and do my bit teaching English.
I will post more on this exciting development later, in the mean time, ponder this;

Where did the US Marine Corp. battle cry "Gung Ho !" come from ?
All will be revealed in the next exciting episode of Spaceman Jack

Live Earth Saves the World, I didn’t watch it and here’s why

Here I am getting all political and it’s exactly what I wasn’t going to do with this blog. The massive Live Earth concert is now over and I didn’t watch a damn thing from it. It was a fortuitous conjunction of politics and utter disinterest. Nice really to have one’s political convictions dovetail so nicely with doing nothing. It wasn’t even that I objected to the gross distortion of a very important message by self serving and profligate rock stars although that was certainly worthy of consideration.
I heard that Snoop Dog ( an utter punk and disgrace to the planet ) had a particularly grotesque blinged out microphone that would have done Tutankhamen proud, but even that is only a part of the story for me.
This whole sorry story is just an excuse not to do anything and not to get involved. The utter maximum that this series of media events requires Joe Public to do is go to a rock concert. Political participation has been reduced to passive entertainment.
It's no good saying that these celebrities and entertainers raise consciousness or highlight causes or bring in the uninterested youth, they may do that but at a price.
Their price is this; "Entertain Me, Amuse Me, Stimulate My jaded psyche". If the price for getting the younger generation to get involved is massaging the inflated egos of Rock stars and Gangster Rappers then I would sooner they didn’t even try.
This sort of activism is soporific not stimulating and utter poison to a democracy. It places celebrities of questionable intelligence and dubious morals as the spokespersons of global issues that they have no understanding of or dedication to. Lets face it, if Bono was so desperately concerned with Darfur he would move there, either with a rifle or a shovel in his hand (take your pick Bono, no pun intended) and actually do some work. Bono looks like a decent enough man but he is dedicated to his own celebrity first. He will do a lot for Africa but he will do a lot for himself as well. And that really is the whole weakness of these charity events they have to serve the rich first so the poor will always be beholden to them.

And now I feel a bit of scripture coming on, stop me if you’ve heard it before but it goes a little something like this

" And so I say unto thee;
When thou say thine prays be not like the Pharisees who pray at the street corner, for they have already had their reward,
When thou say thine prays go unto thine private place for the Lord God will see what thy do and he shall reward thee "