Friday, February 13, 2009

Kung Fu, Killer Cyborgs, and Motherly Love

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Before celebrating romantic love tomorrow on Valentine’s Day, let’s pause to salute motherly love — and the return tonight of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a show most people probably think of as driven by action sequences and sci-fi concepts but which owes most of its emotional power to the viscerally-convincing conceit that a woman will do anything necessary, even sacrifice other people, to keep her son alive, since he is, after all, the human race’s only hope.  Despite the obvious appeal of the robot-filled show to nerd males like me, there must be more than a few moms out there watching it and thinking “This feels right somehow.”

(What feels less right about the show is the strange contrast between the actress in the title role, who is British but sounds so flawlessly American that it’s almost alarming — they can imitate our voices! — and the actress playing the series’ most-advanced Terminator, namely Shirley Manson from the band Garbage, whose pale Scottishness and robotic demeanor somehow combine to make me feel as if I’m suddenly watching Doctor Who, interfering with my suspension of disbelief.  But then, I won’t have to suspend my disbelief long, since I have no intention at this time of getting a digital converter box, do not have cable, and fully expect that if I watch tonight’s episode — along with the premiere of the new show Dollhouse from Summer Glau’s old boss, Joss Whedon — it will be the last TV broadcast I see for a long, long time, which is just as well.)

For a beautifully violent display of daughterly love for a mother, though, I recommend the Thai martial arts movie Chocolate, which opened last week, from the makers of the Jackie-Chan-level martial arts film Ong-BakChocolate starts out slow, almost silly, and builds to such an acrobatic climactic melee that you’ll wonder how they could possibly have done it without injuring lots of people — and then you’ll see easily the most disturbing blooper reel full of injuries ever during the credits.  How could they do it without injuries?  They couldn’t.

The cutesy but effective premise is that a delicate-looking, autistic teenage girl whose nearly-only talent is imitating kung fu fighters on TV goes around innocently demanding the money that is owed to her ailing mother by a bunch of gangsters — then beating the crap out of them and their minions when they won’t pay up.  By the end, it’s like ballet, I tell you.

But for more on love and sci-fi — and more on the perpetual struggle to balance the claims of past and future — join me for my Book Selection(s) of the Month entry tomorrow, featuring Ray Bradbury and much more.

3 comments:

jenny said...

[I] fully expect that if I watch tonight’s episode — along with the premiere of the new show Dollhouse from Summer Glau’s old boss, Joss Whedon — it will be the last TV broadcast I see for a long, long time, which is just as well.

er, you know they pushed the conversion back to june 12, right? or are you going on television hiatus after tonight?

Todd Seavey said...

Last I heard, they’re now _allowed_ to wait until June 12, but not all stations will necessarily do so. I haven’t been following it closely, though, which I suppose is a sign of mental health on my part.

By contrast, I know what books I’m reading through December.

Todd Seavey said...

…and roughly what films I want to see through 2012 (after 2009, I think it pretty much has to involve Asgard, Narnia, Hogwarts, or Middle-Earth in some way — but this should not be taken as a sign that I’m drifting away from reality per se).