Geekklesia

On the 237th anniversary of American Independence, my wife (who I lovingly refer to as the Princess Bride) and I saw The Lone Ranger.  I had very high hopes for this film, based on the articles I had read and the trailers and other promotional items available.  There were a couple of things I wasn't crazy about prior to the film (like the scene with Silver in a tree wearing the Lone Ranger's hat, and Tonto saying "Something very wrong with that horse"), but for the most part, I was excited. In a previous post, I discussed the idea of the Western as an "American Fantasy genre," (an idea I credit to the guys at the Strangers and Aliens podcast) and I consider the Lone Ranger character as a highly venerated member of that pantheon.   A little history is in order at this point. The Lone Ranger began life on the radio. in 1933, on radio station WXYZ in Detroit, The Lone Ranger debuted. It was part of a trio of radio adventure series developed by Fran ...

( Note:  this is a review I previously recorded for The Spirit Blade Underground Podcast with Paeter Frandsen) The Western has been considered by many people as an American mythology.  It features very archetypal tropes like good versus evil and law and order versus crime and chaos.  In 2010, writer director Kevin Eslinger produced the 16 minute short film titled Nickel Children (not to be confused with the 2005 feature film The Nickel Children ), which could be variously called a steampunk or a weird western film.   The basic plot is that in the late 1800's Kansas, a young orphaned boy is held captive with other children for the pleasure of adults. The boys are forced to fight each other while the grown ups bet on the winners and losers; the girls dance with heavily made up faces to entertain the men. For a 16-minute indie film shot in only five days,  Nickel Children has a lot of promise.  The costuming...

( NOTE:  I previously recorded this as a response to the "Westerns: The Original American Fantasy Genre" episode of the Strangers and Aliens Podcast ) I never thought much about it before listening to the episode. As a Texan, I grew up with a great appreciation for the Western as a genre; that probably started with reruns of The Lone Ranger and other shows on TV. Speaking of The Lone Ranger , it started off as an Old Time Radio program. The creators also launched another  OTR program that featured the great grand-nephew of the Lone Ranger: Brit Reid, also known as the Green Hornet As an adult, I've developed a fondness for the "Weird Westerns," which are Westerns that have been "nerd-troped" by taking the classic Western and adding supernatural, horror, sci-fi and straight up fantasy elements. The best examples of this are The Wild, Wild West TV show and Cowboys and Aliens . Looking at Western movies, especially those of John Ford, they em...

I really enjoyed the film Cowboys and Aliens .  Some time ago, I had put together a little RPG setting called "The Eerie Exploits of Ranger Company X," which was a sort of a X-Files -meets- Walker, Texas Ranger -meets- The Wild, Wild West (TV series) mashup.  So you can probably imagine that I was stoked to see C&A.  Now, don't get me wrong: it wasn't the best cowboy movie, nor was it the best alien movie, but it was the best cowboy and alien movie.  The name certainly told you everything you needed to know. Having said that, I wasn't disappointed by the movie, but I was disappointed by the fact that more moviegoers didn't go see it.  I thought it was a pretty decent sci-fi action flick, and didn't buy most people's critiques of the film.  I wondered what could have turned people off. The other night, I caught "Entertainment Tonight."  I don't normally watch ET, but for some reason, I didn't turn it off.  This particular episo...