CHAPTER 136: ANDREE'S ILLNESS

It's clear to the Baron de Taverney (Gene Hackman) that it is time for an uncomfortable father-daughter conversation, like the one he had with Andree (Keira Knightley) when she started menstruating and he explained that it was God's way of punishing her for not contributing enough to the Taverney family's bank account.
This is a bitter man, who feels his daughter has somehow cheated him by not thoroughly hooking up with the King, and it is with bitterness that he marches right to Andree's apartment and pushes the door open to find her preparing for her duties as Marie Antoinette's company.



The Baron snarls: "You don't lock the door anymore?"
"What's the point?" Andree says sharply. She's fixing her outfit hurriedly before a mirror. She looks pale and frail, there's dark eyes under her circles, and, yet, weirdly, I think there's some new strength in her frailty.
TAVERNEY: "Going somewhere?"
ANDREE: "Yes, I'm on my way out. Marie Antoinette is waiting for me. It's my job, you know, to wait on her and read for her."
T: "Your hair is all out of place."
A: "Well, do you see Nicole around, father? I haven't had time or energy to replace her. I'm late, I'm in a hurry, I don't have a maid to dress me, and I don't care if I look a mess."
T: "You need a maid around here. Darnaggit, these are the things you're doing wrong! You can't expect to be successful at court if you don't primp up more!"
A: "Father, at the moment Marie Antoinette is probably more interested in me actually showing up than in me looking pretty, so can you please stop criticizing me?"
T: "This kind of backtalk is exactly why we need to have a serious parental conversation. Go do your thing and come back quick. Wait, are you honestly going out without lipstick?"
Andree cringes: "Father, would you please stop torturing me?"
T: "You look ill! Put on some make-up, in the name of all that's decent! You're going to scare kids, looking so gloomy and bloodless! Sexy it up!"
A: "Father, I don't have time for make-up, or for lipstick, or for this."
And she pushes past him and out the door.
The Baron booms after her: "You're a terrible, non-profitable daughter! You are a prude is what you are! No one likes you in Court, you know! You don't stand out! If you've given up on looking pretty, at least pretend to be all melancholy or adopt a rare illness, that might make you interesting to someone in Court!"
That stops Andree.
She turns to her father.
"I might just do that," she says. "Because I DO feel sick. I'm sick of it all. And I'm particularly sick of you."
And she twirls away, while the Baron plumbs the depths of her apartment for some clue as to what exactly turned Andree from Trianon's Next Top Model to Versailles' Biggest Loser.

***

Andree is not lying. She feels ill: even the smell of the flowers assaults her on the walk from her room to the Petit Trianon. She's walking slowly, bothered even by the beating sun, and once or twice she feels faint and has to lean on a statue. This only means delay, and the displeasure of Madame Noailles, "Madame Etiquette," as they all call her behind her back, a big-powdered-wig model of propriety who has been expecting her:
"You took too long!"
Madame Noailles walks Andree to Marie Antoinette's chamber. Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) is not happy:
"Andree, you know I like it when you read me stories and make funny voices for all the characters, but if you don't get here in time, my entertainment factor decreases. There are many other girls who would like to be attendants to a princess!"
Andree covers her face with her hand: "I'm sorry, Your Highness, I have not been feeling well these past few days."
Marie Antoinette nods: "To be honest, you've been looking a little off for a while, Andree. I didn't want to bring it up, but you can talk to me if there's a problem."
"Thank you," says Andree. "Actually I think I need to lie down for a moment."
Her knees buckle and she slips to the floor.
Madame Noailles: "That is TERRIBLE posture."
"Oh my God!" Marie Antoinette runs to Andree's side: "Are you ok? Andree! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to be such a queen, you can be a little late, it's no big deal! Poor thing!"
"I'm fine," says Andree, crying a little. "I'm just feeling clumsy today. Let me sit down so I can read the book for your Majesty."
Marie Antoinette and Madame de Noailles exchange worried glances. M.A. says:
"You don't really have to read today."
"No, I want to, I really do."
Andree picks up the latest best-selling Nora Roberts novel but the listeners notice her voice trembling, and she trails off about two pages in. Her shaking hands let the book fall to the floor.
"Alright, that's it, Andree's scaring me," says Marie Antoinette. "She's clearly sick, she can have some time off, no one's going to say she isn't dedicated."
Madame Etiquette nods sagely: "I know what's going on here."
Andree looks up weakly: "You do?"
"Absolutely. You have smallpox."
"Smallpox?"
"Shaking? Fever? Fainting? You probably feel like you want to throw up? Those are the right symptoms. Clearly you have small-pox, or else demonic possession."
"Then I think I have smallpox," says Andree in a small voice. "May I be excused?"
Marie Antoinette and Madame Noailles both shout: "IT'S CONTAGIOUS! YOU GET A VACATION!"

***

Andree walks out of the little palace, head against the afternoon wind, tears streaking back. None of the joy you would imagine from getting out of work early and being released to the beautiful gardens of Versailles. But the buzzing gardens are not the place this particular ailing girl should be walking through at this moment. There are two acquaintances of ours there.

One of them is Rousseau's botanist friend, Monsieur Jussieu, (Bob Newhart) who is leaning over a patch of flowers and saying:
"My young gardener, there are 4 different kinds of soil here in the garden, but, if we're going to be really pedantic about it and don't stop me, it's actually more like 14, each of them with its own distinct, pungent, rousing aroma. Life is smart: it is from dirt that we get flowers. Isn't it so, young Gilbert?"
For it is Gilbert who stands next Jussieu. But Gilbert isn't listening to the botanist, because he's looking at Andree.
"My God," Gilbert says. "She's fainting!"
Jussieu creaks up to an erect position: "What are you whimpering about, who's fainting?"
"Mademoiselle de Taverney!"
"Who?"
"Her! Her! Always her!" Gilbert points at the girl, who indeed has faltered in her way and leans on a bench in the middle of the garden.
This is also the time of the day in which His Majesty, King Louis XV, is known to amuse himself by strolling among his flowers.
So when Gilbert says: "Her! Her! Always her!" Louis is drawn to the noise, and soon the King, the botanist, and the Gardener are running towards the young girl who, unable to stand any longer, is lying on the bench to the detriment of her dress.
"I don't feel good," Andree whispers, and she passes out.
"What's the hub-hub?" asks the King, approaching.
Monsieur Jussieu says: "It appears this young lady has fainted. Perhaps due to the afternoon heat?"
"Let's see the problem," the King leans closer. And then leaps back in terror:
"NO WAY!!! NOT THIS ANDREE DE TAVERNEY AGAIN!!! This is incredibly inappropriate!!! If a young lady is going to go around dying like this every time I come near, she should stay home!!!"
And King Louis XV runs off ungallantly, like we have seen him do before.
Jussieu, not having read the previous chapters, is shocked by the king's behavior, so he turns to Gilbert: "Well, he's no help, that Louis! But you're a young, strong man. You can help me carry mademoiselle de Taverney."
And Monsieur Jussieu is even more shocked when Gilbert says:
"NO! I will not carry her, I will not even touch her! I can not do any of that until she forgives me!"
And Gilbert runs off too...

CHAPTER 135: YOU KNOW HOW ELEPHANTS REMEMBER EVERYTHING? KINGS, NOT SO MUCH

King Louis XV (Robert de Niro) finds himself with an unpleasant blockage on the path to his office. Richelieu (Jack Nicholson) has ambushed him with the clear design to the deets on what exactly went down on the night in which Andree de Taverney was, er, roofied for the King's benefit.

XV: "If I didn't know better, what with my royal wisdom, I would think you were assiduously stalking me, Richelieu. What do you want? I don't have time for chatting right now. Kindly remove yourself from my path, because I have nothing to say to you."
R: "Luckily I have something to say to you, sire- and that is that I have nothing I want."
XV: "Great then. One step to the side."
R: "But your Majesty is forgetting someone else. My good dear old friend, the Baron de Taverney."

If unpleasant memories are like mice, then a mouse has just crawled up the King's pantlegs. If he wore pants, and not tights. His Majesty twitches.



XV: "Taverney? I would suggest you pick your friendships more selectively, Marshal."
R: "Oh, when I call him a 'friend,' all I meant is 'someone I know who hasn't started an intricate conspiracy against me.' There aren't many people in court who fit that description, you know!"
XV: "The Baron de Taverney has to go. Your good dear old friend is an unpleasant, tasteless, shady man, and his behavior is disturbing to the max."
R: "I get that you don't like the man. But who cares how one feels about the father, when one can feel up the daughter?"
XV: "I don't understand what you're referring to, Richelieu."
Richelieu winks: "I am talking about the beautiful Andree de Taverney."

An stampede of rats all over the King, who leaps and shakes: "That woman is an ugly little skeleton, and I never want to see her again!"

Not what Richelieu was expecting: "Sire, I may not keep up with the latest aesthetics, but a few weeks ago I recall you praising her. I even recall something like a meeting was facilitated?"
XV: "A meeting? What? Me meeting her, you mean? Are you saying that you somehow arranged it with her father so that the door to that hussy's rooms were unlocked? That you ensured she was alone and alchemically relaxed so that I could just slip in there? And then when I walked in she was doing such a good impersonation of a corpse I ran out screaming like a little girl? Is that what you're saying? That is one sick, ridiculous, implausible story, Richelieu. Maybe you fell asleep at the opera after eating too much escargot and dreamed it up, because I certainly don't remember any such thing happening."
Richelieu gulps, acquiesces: "Very well. Andree de Taver-who? But sire, what about the fate of her brother, Philip? You promised him a regiment!"
XV: "Philip? I don't know any Philips."
R: "Your majesty. Come on. Half the people in court are called Philip, you have to know SOME Philips."
XV: "So what, I'm supposed to have given this Philip de Taverney a regiment? Do I give out regiments now? 'Hey, everyone, look under your chairs! You all get to go home with a free regiment!' I don't remember that happening either."
R: "Your Majesty's memory is playing tricks with him."
XV: "I'm going to re-phrase that, Richelieu. I distinctly remember those things NOT happening. Now, what about you? What about your memory? Is it good, is it working? Maybe it's not, we ARE getting old. Maybe you want to retire? Go fishing with your 'good dear old friend' Taverney somewhere in a swamp in Sainte-Domingue? I could pull some strings, if you want."
R: "No, no. Now that your Majesty phrases it like that it's become much more clearer to me that the Taverneys are opportunistic leeches, probably trying to run some scam."
XV: "I think that's a fortunate realization. Now can you walk out of the way so I can go be King?"

Richelieu promptly obeys, and runs out the way of the Hall of Mirrors, mostly happy he's not going to be packed off to the tropics to contract dengue fever. As you may recall, the Baron de Taverney (Gene Hackman) has set camp there, and jumps up and down begging for news:
"What did he say? Why was he avoiding us? Tell me, tell me!"
Richelieu recoils: "Do I know you?"
The Baron narrows his eyes: "Why are you acting weird? Doesn't the King like Andree anymore?"
"Well, it's like the title of that Moliere play: 'He's Just Not That Into Her.' While on the topic: this whole "good dear old friendship" thing between us? It's suffocating me. I think we both need to make some NEW old friends. I think this paradigm shift will be a great chance for you to self-actualize and explore your contingency options."
"What? Are you dumping me?"
"It's not you, it's me. "
Taverney narrows his eyes even further: "I don't understand."
Richelieu sighs: "And you never will. That's because it IS you. You're an embarrassment. Unless you have some OTHER beautiful young daughter we can throw at the King, you're pretty much through in court. Sorry. Don't talk to me again."

Richelieu cuts his losses and walks away, whistling a tune from that Rousseau opera we all liked so much, while the Baron de Taverney is left to look up "paradigm," "self-actualize," and "contingency" in Diderot's Encyclopedie.

At Last, a Famous Kate Who's Not Kate Gosselin

ABOVE: Exclusive Pictures from the Wedding of Bonnie Prince William and Kate Middleton (who notoriously has 20% Muggle blood.)

Congratulations Are Due To the Newly Glorious Prince and Princess of the Wonderful Land of Eng, from the Duke of HALLUCINA. May the Royal Guardian Dragons Watch over Their Wedding Night and Protect Their Brood from the Witches and Warlocks Who Do So Usually Resent the Divine Rights of Kings and Try to Cast Curses on the Night of Their Nuptials.



ABOVE: Notice the wicked Goblin at the bottom left, angrily plotting.

The Last of the (French) Mohicans: Part 2- The 7 Reasons why This is a Lost Classic

So yeah- how come you've never read Dumas' "The Mohicans of Paris"? Possibly never even heard of this classic, seminal work of crime/adventure from one of the world's most famous novelists?

First of all, there's simply no translation of this 3,000 page opus in English. No appropriate translation, I should say. There IS the Super Abridgment from 1875. You know how I feel about people who Superabridge Dumas: the scum of the Earth. The dude behind the 1875 edition is particularly abominable, dismembering a 3,000 page masterpiece with enough material for 10 novels into a 250 page pulp quickie. I have read the first few chapters of this afront to the art of abridging, and wept for Dumas. You don't take "War and Peace," say it's about Russians, Napoleon and a dancing bear, and pretend it's like you've "abridged" it. It's not the same thing.

There IS one full, if reputedly inferior, translation of "The Mohicans" in English. It was published in ten volumes in 1890s, ("The Mohicans of Paris + The Suicides + Monsieur Sarranti + Princess Regina + Salvator + Conrad de Valgeneuse + Rose-de-Noël + The Chief of Police + Madame de Rozan") I say reputedly inferior because pretty much no one alive can get ahold of all ten volumes.

So, Reason 1 you haven't read this: it doesn't really exist in English.



Why DOESN'T anyone translate this masterpiece for today's American market?

Well, you've got Reasons 2, 3, and 4 there.

2: What makes you think today's American market is aching for an old unending book it doesn't even know about?

3: What publisher would be interested in bankrupting itself on at least 4 or 5 very very expensive and long volumes; volumes that would have to be released over 4 or 5 years; volumes that again, no one knows or cares about outside of HALLUCINA and French fans?

4: What insane, failure-loving translator would devote years of his life to working on an admittedly unpublishable book, that makes the unpublishable-enough SAMAS look like a fool-proof #1 best-seller by comparison?

Because, in case you forgot, Reason 5: This is very fucking long. It's a "Song of Ice and Fire" type commitment. I love this stuff, but I realize it frightens most mortals, who, I've noticed, would rather read six bad short novels that one long good one? Bulk is visually intimidating, and besides our attention spans just don't get there. (Thanks, Internet!) The age of the serial novel that you could read over a three or four year period is long gone. I tackle Dumas with enthusiasm, like it's part of work, (which it kind of is) but I've only gotten through a sixth of it myself, and I've been reading it steadily for weeks. (Maybe some day there will be a cool SuperAbridging by someone more suited to the task? HMMM, I wonder...)



So, what IS "The Mohicans of Paris" about? The question is more like what ISN'T it about? It makes "The Mysteries of Paris" seem unambitious in its plotting. It's a history of the criminal underworld from 1820-1830. And also the rest of Parisian society. It has a cast of characters that takes several pages, secret organizations, plots, counter-plots, revenge, sex, twists, murders, some MORE twists, and like I said, I'm just getting STARTED. So what ELSE is the problem? Because clearly you can guess there are even more problem with a book that, by length alone, should figure on Top 10 longest lists (the way the shorter "Vicomte de Bragelonne" does.) But, again, it's like no one even knows it's there.

6: Although it of course was a big hit in its time- hence the length, equivalent to a long running TV show today- it was an OLD Dumas hit, after his all-conquering 1840s period had passed. Think of it like Stephen King in the 2000s. Sure, he still sold novels, but it wasn't quite the all-conquering force of coolness he was in the 70s and 80s. Same thing.

7: The book is too respectable, too un-trashy. This was a bad thing at the time. The "Mohicans" is to "Law and Order" as the "The Mysteries of Paris" is to "The Wire." "The Mysteries" were a phenomenon because the level of violence, tawdriness and, particularly, CURSING, were unprecedented. Eugene Sue is a dictionary of "argot" (the profanity-ridden, incomprehensible slang of thieves and whores.) He got past by the censors by establishing right away that argot is sickening and a corrupting force, but, fuck it, that's how criminals talked, and pretending otherwise was a lie! (It turned out that readers were thrilled to hear how criminals talked, understandably.)

Dumas will not cuss. Like I say, "Law and Order." He's TV-14, but will in no way go TV-MA. HE establishes right away that "argot" may be popular and all the other books may be doing it, but his readers are better than THAT. His criminals are going to say "By God"- and that's as far as the cussing goes. They are also more or less noble at heart, not the ghouls in Sue, (who had names like "Stabber" and "SevenRapes.") That sounds highminded- but it masks the truth: while Sue was a journalist and had his ear to the ground, by then Dumas had been very very rich for a very very long time and had NO IDEA how poor criminals talked. He avoided himself a lot of embarrassment by nixing the slang. But it made "The Mohicans" seem hopelessly outdated to the younger audience. This was 1850s, and Dumas was writing like 1832 hadn't even happened!

THAT problem, though, history has ironically solved. Reading them today, side by side, when both books are equally old and untimely anyway, "The Mohicans" is actually MUCH LESS DATED than "The Mysteries" because it never tries to "talk hip." That's one of those literary quirks that turn this book from "uncool" into "timeless," and that, in my eyes, redeems it for the Imaginary Reader's interest.

If, you know, they could buy it in English. Which they can't. 'Cause, like I said, it's just not there.

But there is one final reason in the way of this book's popularity.

7) The modern reader may not be quite ready for its plot and structure. That's fine, the old-time reader wasn't either. "Mohicans" is really... the term isn't "drawn out," because it's practically break-neck, one thing happening after another. But not the SAME thing. I can best explain it in RPG terms.

You know how in RPGs the Knight of Legend sets out to kill the Wizard of Evil, but to do that he needs to find the Spear of Light, and to get that he needs to acquire the Crystal of Freedom, but to get that he needs to get the seven Stones of Justice, and to find those he needs to get the Map of Meaning, but to get that he needs to get the three Keys of Openings?

Imagine a novel like that. "Mohicans" is practically avant-garde structurally, what David Foster Wallace might have done if he'd been imprisoned in the all-too-entertaining body of a feuilleton writer. Practically everything in Mohicans is a foot-note to something else. Character A sets out to meet character B, but on the way he meets character C. Then we learn all about the life of character C and how character C once set out to meet character D: BUT THEN, before character C got to meet character D, he ran into character E, and then we learn everything about the life of character E, particularly about his meeting with character F, at which point, of course, we learn everything about the adventurers of character F. Character F's adventures are fun, and when F meets character G and the story jumps forward 3 years to learn all about character G's own adventures, that's fun too, but at one point you can't help but ask: "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH CHARACTER A?!? Is HE EVER GOING TO MEET CHARACTER B?!?"

One simply relaxes and trusts the writer (an advice I would also give to anyone reading the SAMAS). Eventually, it turns out, you do start to see a bigger picture in which the lives of characters A though G are linked in subtle ways, and there will be "big picture" pay-offs, even if they're not exactly the kind of pay-offs one's accustomed to. I've learned to see Dumas' big sequences (and really, his oeuvre) as closer to Balzac's than anyone gives him credit for. These are cities more than novels: you may not get to see the characters you like for dozens of chapters, and sometimes they seem to disappear altogether, but they're still living there in that city, somewhere, somehow- even if you never run into them aqain, their actions have consequences.

In "The Mohicans of Paris," for instance, there is this intrusive-but-entertaining detour: characters H and I are about to kiss, but instead we cut to a complicated, seemingly irrelevant legend about something that happened to a woman two hundred years prior, in the 1660s.

It's a little less irrelevant and extraneous to the Dumas lover, as readers of "The Mohicans" almost by necessity are. The legend reveals what FINALLY happened to Louise de la Valliere, the heroine of "The Vicomte de Bragelonne," and the love interest of Raoul de Bragelonne, that is, the "adoptive" son of Athos. The legend is also an easter egg, a coda to "The Three Musketeers," a reward and a conclusion, years later, in an otherwise unrelated book.

If Dumas teaches us "To Wait and To Hope," I think he specially likes the "Wait," the delayed pay-off.

Think of Louise de la Valliere.



We meet Louise briefly in the first chapter of "The Vicomte de Bragelonne"- and then she's not heard of again for hundreds of pages.

Chapter 78 of that novel is called: "In Which At Last Our Heroine Appears Again."

I think that says a lot about Dumas: I can't think of any other popular, non-experimental writer who would even TRY to get away with something like THAT, successfully I might add. Can you?

****

I suppose this has all been a very long-winded apology/explanation of why I haven't given up on "The Super Abridged Marie Antoinette Saga" even though I should, because it's an unsellable, unmarketable, unpublishable project, and perhaps a waste of my time (and credibility) as a writer. But I kind of believe in it, and I've laughed my way through writing every episode. Maybe I'm waiting and hoping too? I learned it from the best.

The First Of the (French) Mohicans: Part 1.

It is true that Alexandre Dumas never let style get in the way of entertainment. He never wanted to write a memorable sentence: a memorable sentence would have made you linger, would have kept you from rushing to the next one. All the same, he gave the world at large three enduring catchphrases.

The first is known by almost every semi-educated kid from Buenos Aires to Mumbai. From 1844's "The Three Musketeers" we have "All for One and One for All," a line so instantaneously popular on a worldwide scale that it has become analogous with friendship, unity, and was adopted as the motto of Switzerland in 1902.





ABOVE: "Uno Para Todos Y Todos Para Uno"- from the 1981 All-Dog version "Los Tres Mosqueperros" (Titled in English "Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds.") This WAS my childhood. A Spanish/Japanese anime based on an old French novel? I think that pretty much explains about half of what you read in HALLUCINA.

The second famous line, and my personal motto, comes from the end of "The Count of Montecristo": "All of human wisdom lies in this: To Wait and To Hope." Oh, that's nowhere near as catchy as "All For One." It's also nowhere near as catchy as Dumas' third hit bit, one that pretty much every reader of crime fiction knows- but very few know comes from Dumas:

"Cherchez La Femme."


ABOVE: Seriously, this exists.

Sherlock Holmes talked about deduction and observation; Hercule Poirot had his little gray cells; Alexandre Dumas' detective, Monsieur Jackal, who anticipates them both, had his "Cherchez La Femme." Monsieur Jackal's idea- seek the woman- was that whenever there was a crime, it's because there was a woman in the background- or because the woman in the background was noticeably absent: the good clerk who suddenly absconded with money was doing so because there was a femme somewhere he was trying to impress; the virulent brawl in a "tapis-franc" took place because a mother had been neglectful somewhere. It sounds sexist- blame it on the Lady Eve- but, as far as theories go, the evidence for it is undeniably compelling.

Monsieur Jackal was perhaps the second great detective in literature, after Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste Dupin. (In the recognizable detective mold, I mean - crime detection is as old as Yahweh interrogating Adam and Even over the use of fig leaves.) Both Jackal and Dupin are based on the first real life "detective": Eugene Francois Vidocq.



Vidocq was a convict who, using his inside knowledge of criminal life, became a private investigator, kick-started the Surete (the French FBI), and pretty much invented the use of ballistics, footprint molds, cigar-ash collecting, canvassing, and most of the other silly techniques that identified police work until "CSI" came along. Vidocq's 1823 "Memoirs" were eye-opening, "The Wire" of its time, and immeasurably more influential and popular in the history of crime fiction. Balzac, Victor Hugo, and Dumas, then literary cronies, all drew from the source. Balzac created his escaped convict character, Vautrin, one of the recurring character in "The Human Comedy"; Victor Hugo cut Vidocq into his two phases (escaped convict and relentless policeman) to create Jean Valjean and Javert in "Les Miserables". We've mentioned Vidocq was the model for Poe's Dupin.

Meanwhile, Eugene Sue wrote "The Mysteries of Paris"- walking through the door Vidocq had opened and writing what, for the time, must have seemed an incredibly seedy look at the life of the poor. Sue's novel is one of those books- like say, Stephen King's or Agatha Christie's or J. K. Rowling's- that are of no interest to literary crowd but hit such chords with readers that when snobs ignore them- they become more ignorant themselves. "The Mysteries of Paris" are now perhaps best known in the English-speaking world as the only novel that Karl Marx ever wrote at length about. Ignorance! Sue's Vidocq-type crime-solver, Rudolph, Duke of Gerolstein, becomes a mysterious millionaire hero who, with the aid of sidekicks, disguises himself to penetrate the underworld: through Ponson Du Terrail's Rocambole, he is the indirect progenitor of such diverse creatures as Arsene Lupin, The Shadow, Batman, and any superhero who has since maintained a secret identity to solve crimes- or the gentlemanly thief you root for.



But the influence of "The Mysteries of Paris" was not merely as a social tool, and hardly as indirect as "inspiration." Directly literal homages/rip-offs, (depending on their quality), sprang like geographical franchises: Paul Feval wrote "Les Mysteres de Londres," Ponson Du Terrail wrote his Rocambole series ("Les Drames de Paris"); Emile Zola wrote his "Mysteres de Marseilles"; George Reynolds wrote his "Mysteries of London"; there's the Mysteries of Napoli, Munich, and Madrid; Michael Chabon paid respects with "The Mysteries of Pittsburg"; and if you've ever watched friends, "Les Mysteres de New York" is not a discovery.



Wait... But... Dumas, you say... we were talking about Alexandre Dumas and Vidocq and "Cherchez La Femme"!

WELL, Monsieur Jackal, Dumas' seminal literary detective whom you probably have never heard of, also comes from Dumas' biggest hit you probably have never heard of: his own (perhaps opportunistic) answer to Eugene Sue's "The Mysteries of Paris": "The Mohicans of Paris."

"The Mohicans of Paris" is Dumas' longest novel by far. It took 5 years to publish serially, between 1854 and 1859; by contrast "The Three Musketeers" was published in a few months in 1844. It is far longer than even "Montecristo"; the French Gallimard edition I am currently reading is divided into 2 volumes of around 1500 pages each. Yeah, you heard. That's a 3000 page novel. It is only slightly shorter than Proust.

Also incredibly more fun than Proust. So how come no one I know has ever read this delightful behemoth? How come I had never read it until now?

You'll find out next time. More about "The Mohicans of Paris" coming soon.

Right Back at You, Toots, or: Venture This, Dirtbag!

Dear Imaginary Reader:

I'm pretty sensitive.

I just got a comment- from a fucking moron- and it made me sad. Why are fucking morons so mean?
I've gotten a few of those over time, of course, and somehow a sad little grey cloud pops up over my head, no matter how laughably inept the criticism may be: "U Suck retrd God hates u n Obama too!"

The best advice I ever got while writing opinion columns was from an editor who told me: "You never engage with people who write angry letters, you don't explain yourself, or try to reason with them, or apologize. You don't quote statistics proving you're right. You assume those people never shower and are dealing with deep traumas, and you ignore them."

So watch me not take that advice, and GET PERSONAL. Being nice is getting to be too much of a burden.


ABOVE: "I have a 'childish knowledge of pop culture'? I got your childish knowledge right here!"

For the delight of your synapses, this was the POSITIVE REVIEW of the VENTURE BROS, (exactly, my favorite Adult Swim of all time, even over ATHF). Here's what our good friend Mr. Anonymous had to say, in italics, and below are my sensible, professional responses:

"I just came across your review by accident and I felt compelled to tell you how embarrassed I am for you. If this is your perspective on everything you review, you should certainly pull the plug on your blogger.

Awww, I'm soooowwwy, don't feel embarrassed!!! I'll make you a deal: I'll pull the plug on my 'blogger' right after I pull the plug on your syphilitic cockgagger of a mother.

"Believe it or not, you would know (what the Venture Bros is parodying), if you didn't have a childish knowledge of pop culture."

Wow. This sentence is the one that just knocked me out. I "have a childish knowledge of pop culture"? Wow Wow Wow. I've been called a lot of shit, but I guarantee this is the first time in the entirety of my human experience that someone has suggested that I may not be ENOUGH OF A NERD! I deeply resent that, Anonymous!

I go on to say in that review that I didn't get into the show when it premiered, and I only got to see it recently, and any Dear Imaginary Reader knows I clearly LOVE its brand of humor because, hmmm, it's pretty much MY brand of humor? But the commenter feels threatened that I didn't suck James Urbaniak's cock 6 years ago, the way he clearly did in a no doubt sultry evening:

"Again, another example of your obviously flawed understanding of the humor used throughout the VB series. It never struck me as confusing, over shocking or anything along those lines. You just didn't get it then, and you still don't get it now."

More Wow! I have an "obviously flawed understanding of the humor used throughout the VB series"? I see. The commenter has also apparently decided that I found the show "confusing" or "overly shocking." I don't know where he got the terms "confusing" or "overly shocking"- certainly not from my review. I suspect the word "hermetic" confused him, but then I suspect a lot of things confuse this individual.

And then I have to hear I don't 'get' one of my favorite shows at the bottom of, again, A GLOWING POSITIVE REVIEW? Ugh! And you wonder why I am lowering myself to waste emotional energy on this! I hate being misunderstood. If I hate something and you like it, fine, tell me to go fuck off: that makes SOME sort of sense, at least on the Internet. But if I like something that you like and your general stupidity and illiteracy prevents you from realizing it- NO WAY! That's when *I* lose my general bonhomie and tell you to go fuck off. In fact, I now like "The Venture Bros" a little less because I want to have as little in common with Anonymous as possible.

In conclusion, Mr. Anonymous moron- Fuck You, have a Nice Day, and please don't come back by these parts. Hopefully that's one sentence you can understand without much hand-holding.

Enter the Asshalls!

Dear Imaginary Reader:
HALLUCINA just got a close, sneaky peek deep into the next entry in the "Fockers" franchise: "Enter the Asshalls!"



Apparently, the story centers on a different branch of the Fockers: Al Pacino as the militarily inclined Major Asshall, visiting his stranged slacker son, Feggy Asshall (Zach Galifianakis.) Here's the much celebrated scene they plan to show on the trailers. Over and over and over.

(Feggy and Major arguing over the leak that Feggy has neglected to fix in the garage.)

MAJOR: "This isn't how I raised you, Feggy! This isn't how an Asshall should behave!"
FEGGY: "Well, maybe I'm not a complete Asshall, dad!"
MAJOR: "Oh, you ARE an Asshall, I won't let you forget it for a second! And you're going to fix that leak right now!"
FEGGY: "I don't care about the leak! Maybe I LIKE being a leaky Asshall, have you thought about that?"
At that moment the Major's cat, Princess Di, enters the room, and water starts leaking on her.
MAJOR: "WHOO_HAH! Now even my pussy is wet! Yes, Feggy, YOU have made my PUSSY WET!"
FEGGY: "What! Are you going to have me lick your pussy clean?!? Oh, and another thing, stop calling me Feggy! My name is FEGGOT! FEGGOT ASSHALL! I'm a BIG FEGGOT, ok? Not just a little Feggy anymore!"

(FX: Harry Chapin Carpenter's "Cat On the Cradle" starts playing.)

MAJOR: "You're right, son. Sometimes, I just forget that... I used to be a lot like you. We're both Asshalls at the end of the day. I guess I have been full of crap. Yes, I am an Asshall, and I am full of crap."

Then the cat farts.

$90 million opening weeked, $400 million worldwide.

Kristen Bell Stabs Anna Paquin!

That was the bestest moment in "Scream 4" and it somehow fulfilled a fantasy I didn't even know I had. Thank you Hollywood, thank you Wes Craven. Sookie Stackhouse and Veronica Mars, just chilling together in their sexy little tops, making it a Blockbuster night (kids, Google Blockbuster, it used to be a thing.) They're in their little tank tops, reaching for the remote at the same time, there's a vaguely lizzie vibe going on, popcorns pop, jean buttons pop... *sigh* No, nothing fun happened, they ruined it with a stabbing (don'tchaknow, girlfriends are always out to stab each other) But we all know that stabbing is movie code for strap-on usage, or so I like to believe because then I can think of Alison Brie and Hayden Pannetiere and Aimee Teegarden running around in skimpies and "stabbing" each other.







(MY GOD THESE WOMEN and yes, they're are actually called Brie, Panettiere and Teegarden, how posh is that, sounds like a lovely picnic and can you imagine the sandwiches?)

Oh, the rest of "Scream 4" (or "Scre4m" if the advertising leets have their way)? It was all right! The kills are so meta they don't matter, but this may be the only horror franchise where you actually feel some warmth for the victims- it's just somehow nice to be reunited with Neve Campbell and David Arquette and Courtney Cox-no-longer-Arquette-but-maybe-still-Arquette.

SPOILER:
Ghostface now Tweets asking people what their favorite movies are.

Back to the Source

It's one of life's little oddities that geniuses seldom (ever?) breed clones. Kings bestow kingship upon their heirs, millionaires redact wills, but Shakespeare's son died, and Willy didn't even bother teaching his daughters how to read or write. That just wasn't done in those days.

Genial success is partly born of failure, rejection, pain and anonymity- which are often denied to those born from a successful genius. Genius- and its outsize demands- is rarely a virtue when it comes to parenting. The sons of genius tend to develop allergic reactions to greatness- whatever that's supposed to be. It's normal. Some do try, in a self-aware manner, to stake their own ground in family territory, re-design the family front store. Jakob Dylan writes sub-Dylan songs. They're very good, but somehow they're just not Dylan. Joe Hill writes sub-Stephen King books. They're cool, (reading "Horns" right now) but, at least so far, it's not the same.



David Bowie's son has got a neat chance of escaping that by not being Gizzy Spacelight fronting the Scorpions from Venus. Duncan Jones has two quite credible movies to his name: "Moon" and, now, "Source Code." These are science fiction tales of alienation and disembodiment, both with premises out of Philip K. Dick. In "Source Code," Jake Gyllenhaal plays a soldier who's allowed 8 virtual minutes at a time to find the culprit of an explosion on a train- by inhabiting the body and memories of one of the victims of the explosion. (For further explanations, GO WATCH NOW.) Paired with Michelle Monaghan as a co-traveler, and Vera Farmiga as his conflicted overseer, Gyllenhaal turns a potentially oppressive "Groundhog Day" nightmare thriller into an exploration of how to best live when you've got 8 minutes to die. It's not a mind-blowing movie by any means, but think of it as pleasantly breezing in the direction of your cranium.

Second Rate- Actually More like Third Rate?

David Baldacci is a reliable suspense writer, the sort of guy who'll see you through an airplane ride, but "Split Second," the first book in his Sean King and Michelle Maxwell series, feels like a jigsaw puzzle that's full of forced coincidences and pieces that don't match, and the end is SO strained, it's like someone jammed one final ill-fitting piece and it all blew up. At least Sean King and Michelle Maxwell emerge as good series character.

Sight UnSCENE: Week of April 18

"HANNA"- Last we heard, Hanna and her Sisters were dealing with the romantic complications of being sophisticated New Yorkers, but now that some shady operatives have eliminated all of Hanna's sisters, she finds herself alone in the wilderness, putting aside psychoanalysis and concentrating on her spear throwing skills. Tag Line: "Revenge is a dish best served cold. Like Borscht, or my first wife." VERDICT: Woody Allen's action-packed return to form!



"THE CONSPIRATOR"- What if we took Oliver Stone's "JFK" and remade it, but named the characters something else? Like, instead of "Lee Harvey Oswald" we call the assassin "John Wilkes Booth"? And instead of "John F. Kennedy," we'll come up with some other name that feels 'presidential'? How does "Abraham Lincoln" sound? Other than that, let's just use the same old pointless conspiracy bullshit, like somehow figuring it out can change the past. VERDICT: Better than "THE CONSTIPATOR"



"THE LINCOLN LAWYER"- After "The Conspirator" gets sued by the makers of "JFK," a noble, scrubby, plain-talking Southern lawyer (Matthew McConaughey) steps in to prove that not only is "The Conspirator" not a "JFK" rip-off, but, (he produces startling evidence) Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth were REAL people and they lived BEFORE John F. Kennedy, therefore "JFK" is actually ripping off "The Conspirator" chronologically! VERDICT: Objection Denied!



"ATLAS SHRUGGED"- Big government and socialist parasites are keeping super human-beings, like you and me, from achieving our maximum dynamic potential of scamming people from their money! We need to put the poor, the old, the stupid, the ugly and the crippled in gas chambers and then we will SHINE! SHINE LIKE AN IRON TRAIN INTO THE SUN! Verdict: Ayn't a big deal.



"SCREAM 4"- "Hello, Sidney, do you like scary movies? *hack cough hack cough wheeze* "Sorry, Sidney, I've got an emphysema situation these days. The mask ain't helping. *cough cough* But let me ask you, are we still aware and hip? No, I didn't say anything bad about your hips! You look good for your age! I mean, it's been fifteen years. You've had two babies, it' only natural you've gotten a little misshapen there. *pant pant hack* Why don't we meet at a restaurant and reminisce about the nineties and how ironic everything was back then. Bring David and Courtney... Oh, hahaha *expectorates* Why don't you invite Lacey Chabert too and then we can make it a 'Party of Five'? Ah, glory days..."

CRITERION: Robert Bresson's "L'Argent"

MONEY
So they say,
is the root of all evil today,
(but if you ask for a pay rise
Is no surprise
They're giving none away.)"
-Pink Floyd



Robert Bresson's "L'Argent" is a slow paced sermon on how money is the root of all evil, based on a typically extremist Tolstoy short story called "The Counterfeit Bill." A boy denied money by his rich father falsifies a 500 franc bill and sets off a badly-forged chain of events that concludes- in a manner that is both predictable and unconvincing- with bloody murder. This preaching makes even the choir squirm and say: "Well, reverend, yes, we agree with you, but there has to a more subtle way to make your point." If you don't eat your veggies, sooner or later you will DIE! Maybe a bus will hit you and the bus-driver was feeling out of it because HE hadn't eaten his veggies!

"L'Argent" starts innocently enough like so:



And then THIS happens:



Bresson is never the most exciting of film-makers but he can make you care for a donkey or a country priest through specific observations. He's not as good with vaguely grasped at generalizations. And he's terrible at directing actors: Bresson tended to work with amateurs and the spontaneity that he caught from a few choice performances is not to be found this movie, where everyone walks and talks like their classes in good posture have left them crippled. (Typical co-viewer question: "Are French people that stiff and weird, or are these bad actors?" It's bad actors all around this time.) But it's Tolstoy's unsparing morality that sinks this overrated movie, and "L'Argent" is longer, slower, and more ridiculous than most masses.

If I agree with your points, but disagree at how you GOT there, I will say it. Recently I've become a big disliker of the "what if" school of sermonizing. ("What if you counterfeited a 500 franc bill? People might DIE, and I'll prove through a story I made up!") I want you to look at this commercial, they play it on Hulu all the time:



Got it? Pretty girl smokes and basically melts away into a leprous monster within seconds. The ad, tellingly called "What If," goes on to ask: "What if, every time you smoked, you melted into a leprous monster? WOULD YOU STILL SMOKE?"

Hmm, NO?

But YOU DON'T turn into a leprous monster every time you smoke! So what IS your point?

"What if every time you smoked, your lungs BURST in front of your high school crush?!?"
"What if every time you smoked, the person you loved the most was killed by an ax murderer whose head had been thwarted by money?!?"
"What if every time you smoked, a baby was eaten by an alligator?!? Would you still smoke?"

What if what if what if...

The ad is not offensive because it preys on the insecure vanity of its intended target, (young women): ads and fear-mongering were invented on the same cave. It's offensive because it assumes the viewer is incapable of making logical connections. True, if you smoke, you're not going to be as pretty and healthy at 50 as you were at 20. But... if you DON'T smoke, you're ALSO not going to be as pretty and healthy at 50 as you were at 20.

In case you're not sure where I'm coming from, I don't smoke, I don't find it attractive, I don't get kickbacks from big tobacco, it IS an unhealthy habit. If you do it, quit if you can. But do it out of logic, not because you're indoctrinated into Niccorette.

Why can't public discourse ever be honest? Why can't an anti-smoking ad just say: "Look, nicotine is highly addictive, so you're going to spend a lot of money over the next forty years for a pretty minor drug- consider getting into pot instead? At least you get a nice high out of it. Also, the way cigarettes are now built they contain a lot of crap that may lead to lung cancer. True, other things also may lead to cancer, like living in a city, living in a small industrial town, a bad diet, being a vegan, cellphones, computers, microwaves, big screen televisions, stressful 9 to 5 jobs, having breasts or a prostate, eating cheese, being alive for any extended period of time. Also, you're gonna die anyway. So, it's a crap-shoot. But no, you're not going to melt into a leprous monster if you smoke. This is what's called a LIE, and we're going to stop telling them."

Using money to pay for things does not REALLY lead to ax murders. Masturbating does not REALLY make baby Jesus cry. Jaywalking does not REALLY lead to the collapse of the traffic system. And bullshit does not REALLY turn the world into a better place, just a stupider one.

Let the Flowers Bleed

Anita Amirrezvani's debut novel, "The Blood of Flowers," is one of those novels that claim to give insight into the life of "women elsewhere" (here a 17th Century Persian rug-maker) and are full of flowery details about the exquisiteness of finding the correct dye and tangling the perfect knot. That's fine for a certain kind of cat-owning reader, but I checked with my doctor and apparently my balls make me the incorrect demographic for the sub-genre of quilting related books. Still, you know I always test my limits, and this wasn't offensively girly. It did feature some gaffes even the historically or geographically challenged might shudder at. For instance, this is supposed to happen in the 1600s, but the narrator mentions her Iranian nationality too confidently. (Although the term "Iran"- land of the Aryans- has been in used for centuries, Iran wasn't officially known as so until 1935, and the character is likely to have thought of herself as Persian.) Also, the unnamed Persian village girl, upon entering an impressive bazaar, hazards that it dwarves the populations of Paris and London. Would an uneducated Persian village girl in the 1600s even know about the existence of Paris and London, let alone be able to accurately estimate their population? That aside, Persian rug-making does come through as a competitive sport, involving harem gossip and the pushing of sensual limits, and the "Arabian Nights" atmosphere is pleasant enough.

Ask Not For Whom the Bells Toll- They Toll for Burlesque

I have no doubt there's already a belabored "cult" forming over "Burlesque"- cheese this pungent deserves it. So Christina Aguilera moves into the "big city" to "follow her dreams" of "being a star"- in a burlesque bar that feels less like a business and more like a magical, shut-down production of "Cabaret" that appears in the desert once every 100 years to ensnare ingenues. Oh, and some bad guy wants to buy the club from Cher, who runs it, and there's a deadline and everything. "Burlesque" is terrible in most ways: plot, editing, acting, coherence, character development, plausibility, even casting (turns out, a lost Kristen Bell does not really have the boom-boom this fine art requires.) Now, if it had been terrible in ONE more way- dialogue- it would have been so bad it's good, "The Room" for transsexuals. But there's a disappointing lack of real howlers there, and no sexy whatsoever. Sex should the point of striptease, no matter how stylized. So this is just "Coyote Ugly" as trimmed by the Parents Council. What's left are some ok musical numbers someone somewhere might appreciate (Xtina can sing, did you know?) and the cheese, waiting dutifully for mold to form.



One thought: if someone had traveled to a high school ten years ago to publicly suggest that Christina Aguilera would eventually be in a movie that featured her electro cover of Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People"... that someone would have gotten punched by pretty much every possible social group.

CRITERION: Bernardo Bertolucci's "La Commare Secca"

Although Bernardo Bertolucci swore and re-swore otherwise, it's pretty clear that his debut, 1962's "La Commare Secca," is just Kurosawa's "Rashomon" a la Italiana. More believable is Bertolucci's claim that he hadn't seen "Rashomon" at that point: after all, the story is not his but Pier Paolo Pasolini's, and if I thought that it was somehow unoriginal to be inspired by someone else's work and adapt it to one's own purposes, I would place the blame there.

But I don't. There is a difference between a rip-off and a daring robbery, after all.



There is nothing in "La Commare Secca" to suggest that Bertolucci was 21 at the time. (Think about that. Isn't it sickening?) He contrasts the differing testimonies in the murder of a prostitute with all the grizzled wisdom of a judge that's been 50 years behind the bench. The movie only falls short of GO WATCH NOW territory because of uneven acting, and a certain lack of thematic unity due to its episodic nature. But the deceitful and delusional ways in which the testimonies comment on each other make me suspect I'm going to be seeing this movie again in the future, and it will be a different, richer experience.

Bertolucci paints the city of Rome like an expert cicerone, taking us from the Coliseum to the banks of the Tiber to the scrappiest of 'hoods. His interest in the architecture is so joyful, it sometimes distracts us from the DEATH we're nominally concerned with. ("La Commare Secca" is an Italian term for the Grim Reaper: it more or less means "The Withered Hag.")

CRITERION: Eric Rohmer's "The Bakery Girl of Monceau" and "Suzanne's Career"

Resilient New Wave director Eric Rohmer was such a huge fan of Dr. Fu-Manchu that he took on the Rohmer alias as an homage to Sax. (His real name was Jean-Marie Scherer. The Eric part is an homage to Erich Von Stroheim.)



Rohmer, who brought to film the same persistent literary seriousness he'd brought to years of editing "Cahiers de Cinema," loved sequences, and he created three major ones: "Six Moral Tales," "Comedies and Proverbs" and "Tales of the Four Seasons."

The very first movie in the "Six Moral Tales" sequence is a short: 1963's "The Bakery Girl of Monceau." Right away it introduces all those little things that let an uninformed, late-arriving viewer know this is Rohmer:

comfortably middle-class young people testing their waters in love while feigning indifference;
a naturalistic, relaxed style that feels like no style at all;
a voice-over narration that gives it all a writerly feel (these aren't movies as much as illustrated short stories);
eloquent conversations on desire and morality;
a lack of soundtrack music;
and- truth be told- a lack of interest in exciting any audiences, except perhaps through muted sexuality. You approach Rohmer cerebrally*, for the ideas, or you shouldn't approach him at all.



"The Bakery Girl of Monceau" concerns itself with a law student (Barbet Schroeder) who, while in the process of more or less stalking a sophisticated beauty, makes frequent visits to a neighborhood bakery for cookies and ends up seducing the bakery girl, (whom he sees as being plain and all too easy a conquest.) The moral conundrums, in so far as the student allows himself to feel them, are these: does he have any responsibility to the bakery girl, who is "below him"? He said it was going to be casual, why did she take him seriously? Shouldn't he morally be with someone he feels real attraction for, even at the expense of the bakery girl's feelings? Predictably, and in legal manner, the student gives himself the answers he prefers to hear.



"Suzanne's Career" is similar (all "Six Moral Tales" deal with the same basic scenarios of romantic choices) and similarly shot: if these were songs, they would have "come from the same session." Sensitive Bertrand is a third-wheel in the relationship between Machiavellian, handsome Guillaume and the seemingly helpless Suzanne. Bertrand simultaneously admires and abhors the way Guillaume wraps the girl around his finger- or rather cock- and is even drawn into a mean little ploy to see how much the girl will pay for love. Two things are of note here: the way Rohmer shifts attention to the uneasy friendship between males; and the way he notices that college students, even middle class ones, are often broke and their thoughts revolve around money as much as sex or studying: "Did we spend too much at that cabaret last night, can we reasonably ask good ol' Pere et Mere for an advance of a few francs... again?"

*Why do we almost invariably use cerebral as a deterrent? "'Cerebral'? Oh, no, that looks it's going to involve being intelligent, not my thing, I think I'll pass."

Alcohilarious?

I see "Arthur" now and I just can't understand what those people in 1981 were laughing at. This is supposed to be a witty knee-slapper starring Dudley Moore as a hilariously drunk man-boy millionaire.

Maybe, but I was watching a really sad movie about a ridiculous little suicidal man. To add to the queasiness, I just do NOT get the Liza Minnelli thing. (There, holding on to the ledge of heterosexuality by one finger!) Of course now she's a repulsive troll, but I can't picture why anyone ever found her attractive. This flick was begging for a Goldie Hawn, but here Liza looks like a little boy who's antagonized his barber. Worse, by the time she sort of charms you, and you began to like her character, how are you supposed to root for her doomed relationship with a slurring retard? Sure, he has money- but what are his other good qualities? Cool scars in the liver?

He's witty, you say! Well, the script makes him witty, sure, but how many real life drunks do you know transform into Groucho Marx level comedians?

ARTHUR: "You're a hooker? That's right, I forgot! I just thought I was doing GREAT with you!"

REAL LIFE DRUNK: "You... burp... hooker? Oh, I... *barf*"

BELOW: Movie drunk!



BELOW: Real Life drunk!



The line that ultimately bothers me is delivered by Sir John Gielgud as Hobson, the steadfast Jeeves: "Poor drunks do not find love, Arthur. Poor drunks have very few teeth, they urinate outdoors, they freeze to death in summer. I can't bear to think of you that way." Oh, ok, so I'm supposed to have contempt for those stupid drunks who didn't procure themselves a nice inheritance? I should think Arthur is better because the butler and the chauffeur and the lawyer will take care of things?

Steve Gordon the screenwriter was very very good, this is true- it's a pity he died shortly after the movie's release- but Steve Gordon the director is indifferent. Sweet though a few moments are, packed with one-liners at it is, the disconnect between what I was being shown (happy!) and what I was seeing (sad!) was too great. Why delay the revelation? The thing I dig the most is the sappy, sappy Christopher Cross song.



Oh, yeah, this was just remade with Russell Brand and that Greta Gerwig chick who's on three of every ten movies I review. I'm sure Brand can be an awesome Arthur (he IS Arthur), but I can't imagine a script this refined released today without some heavy dumbing down, so I'll just save the "Arthur" money and put it towards my own incipient alcoholism, thank you. Cheers and glug glug.

Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Sax (Rohmer)* But Were Afraid To Ask

Now, everyone's a lil' bit racist, from the old lady who sees a black guy across the street and clutches her purse full of valuable coupons, to the employer who assumes Dr. Chandrasekharang is going to make a great addition to the medical team.

But Sax Rohmer was a very racist writer. VERY.

There are four basic kinds of racists. The first three types you know:
1- The "inbred moron": ("Let's lynch them there there filthy brown people!")
2- The "eugenics expert": ("It's only objective to point out there are genetic strains that generally predispose specific bio-types toward excellence or deficiency in determined areas.")
3- The "nice racist": ("Some of my best friends are them there filthy brown people!")

These types are united by the deep-down understanding that those other racial groups just aren't quite as smart or refined or what have you. Sax Rohmer, nee Arthur Henry Ward, was something else, the VERY racist 4th type, a writer convinced that the yellow man was SUPERHUMANLY BRILLIANT, and therefore a REAL evolutionary threat to simple, kind-hearted white chaps.

Hence "The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu" (also known as "The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu.")



"Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan (...) one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present (...) Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."

It's a brilliant creation, Dr. Fu-Manchu. Everything that's not him in this book has the consistency of the London fog, or a cloud of opium. The detective hero matters so very little that he's actually called Smith, and with that name went Rohmer's aspirations at making him the next Sherlock Holmes. Smith's one character trait is that he tugs his earlobe when thinking. He's usually thinking about the fact that Fu-Manchu is cooler than him in every possible way, and is going to get his name in the title.

A disjointed collection clearly cobbled from several sub-par locked-room mysteries, the book remains so readable because there is a genuine sense of the mysterious in Rohmer's Limehouse. Limehouse was London's dock-side Chinatown, where Scotland Yard's investigations came to be blocked by the "inscrutable" Asians. ("Inscrutable" is the adjective that pops up repeatedly: "Who KNOWS what's going on behind those distinctly non-Caucasian eyes!") Nothing supernatural happens, but everything FEELS supernatural. Smith, the narrating Watson-type, and a pornographically-written Asian seductress called Karamaneh, all try to stop the Doctor's deadly ploys. Fu-Manchu's philosophy is simple: never use a gun when you can train a monkey to stand still for days on end, then you can dress the monkey up as an Oriental figurine, then you can sell the monkey to an antique trader, who will unwittingly transport the monkey into the mansion of the intended victim, where the monkey will shed its disguise and introduce a poisonous centipede into the victim's pipe.



Rohmer's passages of Yellow Peril hysteria are repugnant, (the Yellow Peril makes the Red Menace and the Brown Worry look restrained). But the more I thought about it, the more I would suggest that today's reader shouldn't laugh too smugly at his primitive racism. I know many a nice, PC, modern sort of liberal who, watching the opening ceremony of the Chinese Olympics, thought:
"Damn! These Chinks could totally kick our ass any day! We gotta shape up!"

Which, really, is what Rohmer was saying here.

Psycho Killer, Qu'est-ce Que C'est?

Jean Francois Richet's "Mesrine" is a GO WATCH NOW thing, if only because of this:

SKEPTIC CO-VIEWER: "Oh, geez, Hans, another artsy French fag 'pheeelm'? Let me guess, let me guess! 'Canal Ploos?' It's Gerard Depardieu in this one too?"

HANS: "He sure is!"

SKEPTIC CO-VIEWER (20 Minutes Later): "DAMN!!! This is some gangsta shit!!! This movie RAWKS!"

HANS: "It sure does!"



"Mesrine" is a "Goodfellas"-good two-part epic biopic on notorious French criminal Jacques Mesrine, who seemingly spilled blood and charisma on his way through several bank robberies and prison escapes. "Killer Instinct" watches Mesrine go from petty hoodlum Lothario to having his own bona-fide "Bonnie and Clyde" adventure. "Public Enemy #1" catches him as a deranged delusional celebrity, fancying himself a Che-Guevara-type revolutionary out to bring down the system... while big-balling it to "Rapper's Delight" or belting along with Edit Piaf's "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien."

Mesrine is played by Vincent Cassel (from "Black Swan" and "Irreversible") with such charm and ferociousness that it simply makes him the French DeNiro AND the French Pacino. You love him while never forgetting he's a killer, and it's not really all that difficult a proposition: don't we all love soldiers and warriors instinctively? In fiction, anyway?

4 hours seems like an intense proposition, but this isn't "Che"- you'll WANT to watch this dyptich in a row, because it's the closest France has ever gotten to mainstream Hollywood kinds of pleasures. This is thrilling, chilling, gansta shit that travels from Algeria to Paris to Spain to Toronto to Arizona. If there was one thing that bored me at any point, is that "Mesrine" has too many exciting car chases- and I'm not sure that will put off too many people. "Canal Ploos" regulars like Cecile de France, Ludivine Sagnier and Mathieu Amalric add to the amoral fun.

CHAPTER 134: BACK TO EARTH... OR THE COURT, ANYWAY

A month or so later.

Hot chocolate with vanilla.
That's breakfast for the Duke de Richelieu (played by Jack Nicholson) or, as we lovingly call him, "The Marshal." The chocolate with vanilla is brought to the Marshal's intimate chamber, and the old goat sips it, under the watchful eye of Rafte, his secretary, (Michael Caine). Rafte does not get invited to any breakfast treats.
When a valet enters to announce the arrival of the Baron de Taverney, the Marshal burns his tongue with the hot drink: "Ugh! Tell him I'm not in!"
"Tarnation and fizzlesticks!" curses the one-and-thankfully-only Baron de Taverney (Gene Hackman), pushing past the valet and invading the chamber. "'Not in?' Of course you're in! I can HEAR you being 'in'!"
"My dear old friend," says Richelieu, "I was saying: 'Tell him I'm not in-terested in talking to anyone BUT him'! Come in, come in! What brings you here? And your face! You look angrier than a poet during Prohibition!"
Taverney grinds his teeth so theatrically that discreet old Rafte exits the room.



Once the secretary has gone, Taverney explodes:
"Yes! I'm confused, upset! Are we old friends or what? It's been a month and all I hear from you is 'I'm not in,' 'I haven't seen the King,' 'Louis XV is avoiding me.' A month!"
Richelieu shrugs: "What do you want me to say?"
"Speak the truth, man!"
"I am speaking the truth, my dear old friend, but for some reason it's not penetrating your crusted up earholes!"
The Baron de Taverney shakes a finger at Richelieu: "You're lying, you must see him all the time! You're a Duke! A Peer! A Marshal of France! You can't piss without wetting the King!"
"I say I haven't seen him because it's true, he's avoiding me, and if I was 40 years younger I might have the energy to get upset when you call me a liar. But I'm not. Chocolate with vanilla?"
Taverney does try the chocolate with vanilla, because it is delicious.
Richelieu goes on:
"My dear, dear old Taverney, it's normal to be upset. I'm upset too. How do you think I feel, knowing the King has cut me off just like that, without a word of explanation? But sometimes it's better when a King doesn't talk. When Kings DO talk, bad things tend to happen."
"But we had a deal, you and I! You can afford to let all that go, but I can't! All my plans are ruined! Andree... well, let's not talk about that now. But Philip? I just received a letter from him. The King was supposed to make him a colonel after... what we arranged. But it's been a month, and he hasn't been promoted and so his regiment is being assigned to someone else, and it's moving on to Strasburg. My boy is coming back here in two days, the same lowly broke-ass soldier he was before."
Richelieu shrugs: "His nomination probably got lost in the mail! It happens all the time! Maybe when we invent the telegraph this won't happen! If it was up to me..."
"Bah! If it was up to you, you would have sent Philip and his sister and me to drop dead a long time ago. I don't trust you at all, Richelieu!"
"My dear old friend. I am hurt. Wait, did you drink all my chocolate with vanilla? NOW I'm sincerely hurt!"
"I don't care! Talk to the King for me! If you DON'T talk to the King, then I'M going to talk to my daughter and ask her some questions I've been trying not to ask. I know you and the King did something shady to her, and I'm going to find out what it was, and after I find out what happened, who knows who else will find out!"
Richelieu gulps: "I don't know what's going through your head, my dear old friend, but there's no need to drag your lovely Andree into it. Tell you what. How about I give you a pitcher full of chocolate with vanilla, and you calm down and give me another chance to chat with the King? I have a good excuse now, if you give me that letter, because I can take it to the King and ask him about your son's commission."
Taverney produces Philip's letter. Richelieu snatches it and says: "I'll go to the King today at around eleven. You should be there too, waiting by the Hall of Mirrors. Together we'll pounce on Louis and get some answers. Now, please, do leave me, because I get really shy when I have to go through my elaborate dressing rituals while you stare at me."
It takes Richelieu some two hours, with the assistance of a small platoon of servants, to dress up in full French elegance. By the time the make-up artists are through with him and the wig stylists have done their magic, the Marshal could easily pass for 60.

And so it is that by 11 o'clock, while Richelieu's carriage approaches Versailles, the Baron de Taverney is already waiting in the Hall of Mirrors, one more among the throng of lesser courtiers, soldier and petitioners who have no particular reservations and must wait for an opening in the royal schedule. It's crowded in the Hall of Mirrors, DMV crowded. An irate Taverney grumbles to himself:
"To think that a month ago I was having dinner with the King, and he was making eyes at Andree. Now I have to wait here with all the smelly slobs. That stupid little girl of mine, I know this is all her fault. What DID she do to scare the King off? Oh, but I'll beat it out of her if I have to!"
What a prime example of dad-hood, that Baron de Taverney!

THE SUPER ABRIDGED MARIE ANTOINETTE SAGA: PART TROIS!!!

Dear Imaginary Reader:

We're beginning Part 3 of ALEXANDRE DUMAS' SUPER ABRIDGED MARIE ANTOINETTE SAGA, and I welcome back all long-suffering adventurers.

For the newcomers: is it a good time to jump in?

Eeeeh.



Of course I'll recap you in, but here are some terrible caveats:

1- No matter what the title says, there's gonna be practically no Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) until part 4... which could be a decade from now at my current pace.

2-There also won't be much of the Saga's mysterious hero/ sorcerer/ revolutionary/ con-man, Joseph Balsamo (Johnny Depp). We just left him demoralized, cradling the corpse of his medium wife, watching his ancient teacher burn to death, and on the outs with the Freemasons... But something tells me we haven't heard the last from him.

3-And there WAS that deal-breaker of an event back in Chapter 120, one so shocking that the English language editions censored it, cut it out, as well as the 30-or-so chapters you're about to read, leaving Dumas' fans puzzled for over a century.

(SPOILER if you haven't kept up)

The most sympathetic central character, young Gilbert (Joseph Gordon Levitt)... took advantage of a hypnotic trance to rape the object of his desire, Andree de Taverney (Keira Knightley).

:-/

...

I'm really selling this, aren't I?

Without further adooodoo, let's get back to

THE SUPER ABRIDGED MARIE ANTOINETTE SAGA!!!

PART TROIS: GILBERT AND PHILIP!!!

... And Starring David Bowie as Jareth, The Goblin King.

It was children, who are more tuned into the magic, who made "Labyrinth" a classic. Adults never bit.

Kids saw a new world you had to negotiate like a childhood game; adults yawned through stuff that reminded them of "Alice in Wonderland," "The Wizard of Oz," "Peter Pan," and "Where the Wild Things Are."

Adults saw how crazy and weird and gross Jim Henson's puppets were, and were worried they might frighten the kids; Kids saw how crazy and weird and gross (and furry) Jim Henson's puppets were, and we loved them oh so much! Hoggle! "Ludo... friend?"



Kids saw how pretty and relatable young Jennifer Connelly was; adults saw she could use an extra year or two of acting classes.

Adults laughed their asses off when they saw David Bowie prancing around with muppets to his late '80s soundtrack ("As The World Falls Down" is pretty, but it ain't from "Low," that's for sure.)

Kids had no idea who the Goblin King was, but clearly he was AWESOME!

Watching as an adult who was a kid, from the generation that turned "Labyrinth" and its emotional mate "The Neverending Story" into OUR fantasies, I have to say the kids and the adults are BOTH right. You choose whether to watch as a thrilled 12 year old, or as a bitter old sod who has to pop Ambien to remember what dreams look like.