The Blood of Puppets:
Labyrinth Good… Hulk Bad… Nathan Smash!
We live in a strange time. Not since the industrial revolution
has the nation faced such awkward growing pains. Telecommunications
are globalizing world cultures. Big business is becoming
invested on a macro-scale. Our democracy is becoming our
fake democracy. The most important and frustrating transition,
however, is the shift from old-fashioned puppetry to the
new world of CGI and digital special effects. |
| People still love the Fraggles and fear the C.H.U.D.S
of yesteryear. There may always be a place in our heart
for both of them. I doubt many people even remember
the digital, giant-eared space moppet from the big screen
Lost In Space, much less scared by the computer
generated spooks of newer horror films like Resident
Evil. |
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| It used to be that if a movie maker wanted to put a
flesh-eating critter that looked suspiciously like a Gremlin
in a film, he’d hire somebody to sew a rubber puppet
together, lower the lights, and shoot. Nowadays, they hire
someone to scan in a picture of whatever crazy thing they
can imagine and somehow paste that picture into a film using
Photoshop. This is a problem, a problem summarized by one
rule of thumb: a Graboid beats an Assblaster any day of
the week. In other words, the large worms, or Graboids,
of 1990’s Tremors that were accomplished
with real models and trick photography looked much better
than the digital beasties, called Assblasters, of 2001’s
Tremors 3.
The wet tangibility of fake blood or the presence of a
guy in a zombie costume still produces a more visceral reaction
than the slick, pasted feel of today’s computer hokum.
I believe this is made the most apparent by tracking the
career of actress Jennifer Connelly.
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| Her second movie was Phenomena, an Italian
horror picture most noticeable for its homicidal monkey.
A teenaged Jennifer had the ability to control insects
with her mind, an effect created by using a pen to make
dots on the actual celluloid, simulating a swarm of
flies. It was crude, but the movie was fun, low-fi bedlam.
(for more on Phenomena, read my article, “Finalment,
La Bella Vita”). |
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| Her next movie, a crowning achievement by puppet master
Jim Henson, was the remarkable Labyrinth. She
spent most of her time on screen with a troll named
Hoggle wandering through a maze filled with amazing
creatures cooked up at Henson Studios. Much like
Sesame Street or Star Wars, it still resonates
with adults today, who can often be heard reciting memorable
quotes like “Goblin King! Goblin King!”
or discussing why David Bowie’s cod piece was
so big. |
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| Connelly later starred in Inventing the Abbots
and The Hot Spot, two great films- one because
of its east coast melodramatic, nostalgia, the other
for its noir-ish heat. To my knowledge, there were
no special effects in these films, digital or otherwise.
However, she appeared topless in both of them. |
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| In between those two, she appeared in The Rocketeer,
co-starring with Billy Campbell. I am fairly certain
Billy Campbell is a robot. To make him appear not
overly robotic, I think they enhanced his human features
later using CGI. As a result, The Rocketeer
was an average film. |
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| Most recently, Jennifer starred in Hulk,
a bombastic, wall-to-wall spectacle of techno-effects.
Director Ang Lee was visually successful in making
the best moving comic book yet. The actors were more
than adequate. The movie lacked heart, though, largely
because the Hulk came across as an unrealistic, bouncing
mammoth and left much of the audience wondering why
Lou Ferrigno on a pogo stick wouldn’t have done
just as good a job. |
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As you can see below, the quality of Jennifer Connelly’s
body of work can be defined by a nonsensical line graph
that plots the amount of digital effects versus real effects
(while taking into account nudity) in her movies. Labyrinth
wins out over the Hulk by a large margin.
I realize that things take time to perfect
and digital effects will need time mature. Rome was not
built in a day. I just wish I did not have to live in
Rome with all the construction going on. I wish they’d
kept releasing flicks with goofy puppets and plastic monsters,
all the while making the “pixar-ated” version
of the same movie simultaneously, but only putting that
version on the DVD for curious fans. Only after perfecting
the art of computer generated images should Hollywood
start releasing movies that included them into the theaters.
Instead, we have the blood of so many prematurely retired
puppets on our hands.
Nonetheless, I believe the creature features of today
will soon reach a plateau of acceptability. Then, and
only then, will I finally be able to start complaining
that you can’t tell what is real and what is fake
anymore and how, back in the day, the Hulk was the perfect
instance of digital dazzle comforting us with his artificial
charm.
-
Nathan Fuller 
The
Sausage Factory
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| I have a photo of my best friend Misty Mack pushing meat
through a grinder of some kind. I thought, “That’s
a great photo; maybe I could interview Misty about her career
choice as a cook-in-training”. |
But after the interview, I couldn’t help
wishing that Misty worked at a Sausage Factory instead
of as a cook. It’s just fun to say, Sausage
Factory, and wouldn’t it really stand out
on a resume? Sausage is also one of my favorite
breakfast foods.
The more I thought about sausage and the making
of this essential component of my childhood favorite,
Pigs in a Blanket (sausage wrapped in a pancake)
or my current choice, a McDonald’s Sausage
Biscuit (no egg), the more I realized how little
I know about sausage. For instance, who invented
sausage? Poland, Italy, Germany? Is there a sausage
family and if so, is bratwurst a cousin? Could a
link and a patty be like siblings? And if, as I
have sometimes suspected when coming across a mysterious
pebbly bite, all sausage is made up of a grab bag
of animal parts, why do hot dogs take all the heat? |
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| This is what my research turned up, although some
of it isn’t pretty. A helpful site was one from
North Dakota State University, where Professor Martin
Marchello confirmed my suspicion that sausage came about
because it was a handy way to use most parts of an animal
carcass and thanks to salt, it could be enjoyed long after
the meat was no longer fresh. I was happy to read that
sausage making is a “highly respected culinary art,”
with good sausage makers acting much like discriminating
wine makers as to what products go into their sausage.
Here’s a handy definition: "Sausages are made
from beef, veal, pork, lamb, poultry and wild game, or
from any combination of these meats... Traditionally,
sausage was formed into a symmetrical shape, but it now
can be found in a variety of shapes and sizes to meet
consumers' needs. Many sausage products are vacuum packed,
freshness dated and 100% edible." (Only 'many'?)
Bratwurst, pepperoni, kielbasa, bologna, salami, scrapple-
they’re all one big family. I admit, I was a little
surprised reading that the casings used to produce the
shapes mentioned above are generally the gastrointestinal
tracts of cattle, sheep and hogs with hog casings preferred
for home use because of their digestibility. Other interesting
vocabulary (that Misty would know if only she’d
chosen this career path) included the terms, “shorting
out”, “greasing out” and “fat
capping”. I bet the Dakotas are rich in good slang.
Lastly, I learned that according to the INSCA, the history
of sausage production parallels the recorded history of
man and civilization. In fact, for as long as man has
been carnivorous, the intestinal tract of meat animals
has been used for sausage casings.
So the next time I enjoy a link or two, I will think to
myself, “I’m not just eating the muscle tissue
of cattle, sheep, swine, goats, or equine tongue, diaphragm,
fat, sinew, nerves, or blood vessels; I’m eating
a little part of history.”
- Sara Loewen
Finalmente,
La Bella Vita!
I believe great movies, the ones loved in
many nations, are usually just exceptional instances of
escapism. There’s a reason family dramas set in
Midwest households don’t make much money, and that’s
because nobody wants to imagine themselves stuck in a
house with their family, especially in Nebraska. People
want to watch romances, comedies, and political thrillers,
so they can pretend for a moment that they, themselves,
are loved, funny, and smart. Of course, if asked honestly,
most people would like their lives to most resemble a
porno film. Myself, however, I am quick to point out that
my second choice is not so typical- an Italian horror
picture.
It’s not that I have a particular love for the language,
or for that matter, even a comprehension of it. I had
to pull the title of this essay off a container of gelato,
which includes Italian phrases so diners can express the
pleasure of their experience “authentically”.
What I do have a particular love for is the genre’s
sense of reality, and when I say genre, I’m referring
to the two movies I’ve seen. My favorite was a thrilling
combination of serial killers, boarding schools, a girl
with the power to mind-control insects, a vengeful monkey,
and the music of Iron Maiden brought together in one incoherent
mess. If only the mess of my life could be so interesting.
To be fair, the plot elements of Italian horror films
are not even the most important part of my premise. In
fact, I would gladly forsake the good (an ape who would
avenge my death), if I never had to face the bad (swimming
in a pool of shit and body parts in the basement of a
crazy governess). But the attitudes of these characters
are something I wish I, and every person I know, would
adopt forthwith. They react to news of everything with
an accommodating air. Whether it be that dinner reservations
have been delayed or that your roommate’s been found
dead in the shower, it’s met with a concerned shrug
and a trip to the pantry for a snack.
If the recovery time for witnessing a bizarre, ghastly
death is two seconds, imagine what it would be for crashing
your parents’ car, probably no more than one second.
Then there’s breakups, bee stings, socially awkward
meals, chronic illness, and the list goes on- who cares!
Everything would be greeted with a nervous pause before
a quick return to normal breathing patterns. Unfortunately,
I know that this utopia is just another dream I will vicariously
fulfill with mail-order rentals of movies with names,
roughly translated, like Suspense-A-Rama in Bloodland.
And as much as I would love for humanity to adopt the
behaviors of the people in these films, I would also be
happy if, at least just once, I could throw a mutant child
into a lake of oil and set the whole damn thing on fire.
 Buy
the DVD this Article is Talking About
- Nathan Fuller
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...like small Cuban sheep in your mailbox.
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