Movie Web Monday: Peter Stormare

Movie Web Monday: Each week, I'll look at a specific actor's roles across three good movies. The third movie will in turn tie into the first movie of the next week's actor, whose third movie will continue the pattern. I will go through actors and movies at this rate, with the following limitations in mind: every movie(or television show) invoked will be one I either own, or wish to own; no movie or actor will be invoked twice. So sit back and enjoy as you fall into the nerdery's movie web. (Oh, and I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum, telling you just enough to know if you'll enjoy the movie)

Peter Stormare: That Not-Russian Guy

Peter Stormare is one of the more recognizable character actors out of Europe. A Swede by birth, Stormare is known for playing different ethnicities other than his own Scandinavian heritage. He's got a long list of films, including some big blockbusters by Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg--see below. And, thanks to an accounting error in your favor, this week's Movie Web installment will have four entries. Enjoy.

Movie: Jurassic Park: The Lost World (Own it) Light Spoilers

Last week I used Peter Postlethwaite as an atypical antagonist for a Michael Crichton story. This week, Peter Stormare features as a completely typical Crichton antagonist--he bites it hard in a stupid, cruel, and senseless way. This time playing the incredibly German-named Dieter Stark, Stormare is mostly a background fixture in this movie, even more so than the others in today's list. This dino-poacher gets a memorable introduction scene, in which he examines a chicken-sized thunder lizard. The hunters' zoologist explains that the little scavenger hasn't had enough contact with humans to be scared, to which Dieter produces a small cattle prod and tazes the upstart dinosaur, remarking:

It's a goofy little scene that is just plain wrong, and since Crichton's books tend to be anal about the details, I'll blame this on the movie makers: for the most part, animals don't learn to fear man; they learn not to fear man. For instance, coyote attacks are much more worrisome in suburban areas, where the animals become inured to man's presence enough that they learn to attack us large mammals rather than flee in ignorant fear. Rural coyotes, on the other hand, are known to give people a wide berth as they uncertainly probe the larger predator's behavior. Country rats compared to city rats are another good example, as the boldness of the latter is well-known. This makes the whole shtick of Dieter's introduction and his wretched demise sort of a poorly thought-out, zoologically atypical excuse to inflict a painfully drawn-out potty-break-cum-death that doesn't work on a rational level. Stormare, however, sells the agony and the panic of the character's final moments quite well.

And this, by the way, echoes the death of the lawyer in the first Jurassic Park movie. You have a guy off-handedly apathetic towards a small animal's place in the food chain who then dies in the middle of a bathroom break. Gorram lizards, they don't give you a moment's peace.

Movie: Armageddon (Own it)

Armageddon was such a popular film in its time, I doubt Peter Stormare role in this film needs to be introduced. He's Lev Andropov, eccentric cosmonaut and Wookie stand-in for the asteroid teams. As Lev, he gets a couple of the best lines in the rock-beats-planet-but-roughnecks-beat-rock film, and Stormare knows how to deliver the saltily stereotypical Russian lines with just enough cheese to make them work. And it usually serves as a perfect highlight for some of the absurd action set-pieces. For instance, just after the Russian orbital Citgo blows up and the rock-nukers escape, Lev give his ace commentary:

Bunch of cowboys, indeed. Stormare is able to take this funny, one-dimensional character and make him a consistent but reflective element throughout the film. Lev joins in the protagonists' heroics, and as he does so he adopts their level of dramatic gravity while still getting to make a few wry "mother Russia" type jokes. This film probably cemented Stormare's status as funny Eastern European guy, which says a lot about the confident handling he gave this dauntingly shallow role.

Movie: Minority Report (Own it) Light Spoilers

So I shouldn't have done Minority Report this week. I'd planned the movie progression out a long time ago, and it was supposed to be Nacho Libre next (see below), but for whatever reason I thought Minority Report fell into this slot. This was doubly painful for me, as I was reacquainted that Stormare--playing chop-shop surgeon Solomon Eddie--dominates a brief section of the film that is so unwatchably gross that it constantly makes me remember cringing through my first and only viewing of Osmosis Jones. Eddie's impromptu surgery setup is gross, and the profusion of snot in this scene probably exceeds the cumulative total of Spielberg's other works. They lampshade this factor, of course, but it feels forced into the film, with little in the way of transition from the shiny skyscrapers to the slum of this moment. To add to the scene's confusion, the imminent eye-swap is drawn into strict tension that evokes a few Marathon Man notes as Eddie reveals that he's met Tom Cruise's John Anderton before:

Stormare plays up the sadistic pleasure of the scene well, and it's clear that Eddie is really getting off on this moment of power over the cop that put him into prison. Tom Cruise also does a good job playing the doped-up fear of realizing that he might get mutilated as the anesthesia kicks in. But the tension boils away to nothing, as Eddie doesn't do anything too bad to Anderton, and leads me to wonder why the scene wasn't edited down to the bare bones rather than fixating on gross, pointless tension that feels cheap after the payoff is abruptly abandoned. The only explanation I can give is that Stormare's portrayal of Eddie is too good, too condensed and rich already to further edit.

Darn you, Peter. Your quality acting means that this slick sci-fi chase film must always be punctuated by snot dripping out of a grown man's nose and Tom Cruise chugging rancid milk.

Movie: Nacho Libre (Own it)

Most of the movies featured in the Movie Web are ones which I whole-heartedly endorse. One of my favorite past-times is evangelizing unknown or under-appreciated nerd gems, and that forms much of the impetus for the series. That said, Nacho Libre is probably one of the more specialized films on the Movie Web. It's a weird Jack Black film that both homages and parodies certain bizarre elements of Mexican culture in a third grade sort of way that is difficult for some to accept. I love it, but it's not the sort of film I would blanket promote, either. It's easier to appreciate if you enjoy Jack Black's comedy, or if you miss Chris Farley's humor. Indeed, certain strains throughout Nacho Libre are very similar to that of Almost Heroes, as it's a culturally distinct story about a couple of losers banging their heads against a solid object in an effort to feel special...and get rich, too. It also helps if you know a thing or two about luchador culture (a stylized form of Mexican wrestling which makes the WWF* look restrained) or don't mind light ribbing of Latin Catholicism (as opposed to, say, Irish Catholicism).

In this quirky, funny, live-action cartoon of a film, Peter Stormare is just a random piece of crazy potpourri that marks the mid-point of the movie. A "water gypsy"--whatever that is--named Emperor, Stormare gets two lines in the film, but he delivers them with such a drunken, unstable panache that he makes a much larger impression than several other supporting characters in the flick. It boils down to Emperor giving Nacho the most bizarre recipe for wrestling success you'd see outside of an anime:

Like so many of Nacho Libre's moments, much of the humor is enhanced by the pervasively outrageous characters filling this real-ish world. They act serious in the moment, not really giving any big laugh lines at this juncture, but yet this is a strange hobo in a rowboat telling a guy in a home-made wrestling outfit that horking an eagle egg's yolk will make him a magically empowered fighter. The seriousness is what makes it funny, if you enjoy it at all, and Stormare's throaty, bleary delivery of his advice really helps to nail down these elements for me.

*Yes, WWF is the old wrestling organization, from Hulk Hogan's original era. I stick by my archaic identification, as I have no clue what the modern American wrestling abbreviation is.

Movie Web Monday will continue next week with a new actor, picking up with some other prolific player from the last movie listed above.

Movie Web Monday: Pete Postlethwaite

Movie Web Monday: Each week, I'll look at a specific actor's roles across three good movies. The third movie will in turn tie into the first movie of the next week's actor, whose third movie will continue the pattern. I will go through actors and movies at this rate, with the following limitations in mind: every movie(or television show) invoked will be one I either own, or wish to own; no movie or actor will be invoked twice. So sit back and enjoy as you fall into the nerdery's movie web. (Oh, and I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum, telling you just enough to know if you'll enjoy the movie)

Pete Postlethwaite: Great, Gravel-voiced, and Gone

I've been putting off this Movie Web Monday for some time. This week's featured actor, Pete Postlethwaite, passed away this year at the age of 62. A fabulous British actor I always marked for being one of those fine fellows who needlessly uplifted movies through his high-caliber acting, whether they deserved it or not, Pete has one of the fantastically distinctive voices of modern cinema. He will be missed, and it's almost painful to limit his cross-section of roles to these three movies.

"C'mon, Sharpie..."

Movie: Dragonheart (Own it)

As I've said previously, Dragonheart suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. It has PG humor mixed with grim, dramatic moments, and a damsel in the sort of marital distress that falls uncomfortably between Saturday morning cartoons and the deep anxiety of more serious treatments of the threat. Some of the actors fit well with the serious, dramatic side--I think Quaid falls into this category--and others fit the comedic demands better--Connery's Draco, being a little too kid-friendly, feels this way more often than not. And in the midst of this confusion sits Pete Postlethwaite as Brother Gilbert, a character who succeeds at elevating both the humor and the drama of the film, gloriously making it more fun in a guiltless, not-too-silly way while also heightening the drama of the climax with his seasoned gravity.

Just consider the fun his character exudes in the early film. Gilbert's tireless enthusiasm serves as an excellent and immediate contrast to Bowen's dour, jaded age. It's rare and fun to have an action-oriented movie feature multiple past-prime characters, let alone two who are so distinctly defined by their life experiences. In the monk's case, he lets his academic flair and pseudo-religious quest form a strong backbone to a character who is otherwise terribly naive due to the nature of his life experience. And Postlethwaite delivers on every line, such as when he tries to vet Bowen's prowess as a dragonslayer:

The serious way he delivers that unconfident, faint certification is irresistibly funny. And the bashful way he gets ingratiated into the plot is rather more natural feeling than that of Kara, the leading lady. But he's not just a comedic pillar--he also helps to sell the drama of the closing act of the film, beginning with his face-twitching internal conflict as he forces himself to kill in order to do what he believes is right. And his closing monologue does a superb job of making you forget the half-cocked camp and feel like you really just watched something terribly special. Postlethwaite as Gilbert and soundtrack composer Randy Edelman really define the best moments of the film for me.

Movie: Alien3 (Own it) Light Spoilers

Truly, the Alien series is starkly monochromatic. Normally when applied to movie, that statement is inaccurate--true monochrome implies only one note is being played, so most movies that receive the title should probably be credited as dichromatic. But this sci-fi series merits the term in all its implications. Ripley is a solitary, almost completely out of place point of light in a setting that is defined by the jet grotesquery of the xenomorph defiling the charcoal douche-baggery of the worthless humans who generally fill out the cast. And Alien3 is particularly steeped in this trend: Ripley is surrounded by rapists and murderers whom she enlists to help her kill the alien raping killing-machine. Pete Postlethwaite is a small highlight of the film, but he's a stark one. Other than a handful of lines in Aliens, Pete's character David has one of the most real-sounding lines in the series. It comes as they begin moving some old drums of some sci-fi combustible to arrange a trap for the alien:

The first part of the line is delivered with conscientious gravity--David's really concerned about Ripley being careful with her and his safety. But the afterthought exclamation is the perverse nature rearing its head in a totally believable moment of admiring the destructive potential of the substance. This line always makes me think of my old pyro buddy Luke--it's just a touch of approachable, amicable wickedness in a movie and series that knows one volume: blaring. And nobody but Pete Postlethwaite could deliver it in such a quickly endearing and grounded fashion.

Nobody.

Movie: Jurassic Park: The Lost World (Own it) Light Spoilers

Most of Michael Crichton's stories are about a specific scientific ethic, and woe betide any of his characters opposed to the ethic of his particular story. You normally have one figure--almost always a scientist, an unheeded specialist in his field--who is unassailable in his prescriptions. If you disobey Crichton's mouthpiece, you are not going to fare well. Except when you do. In Jurassic Park: The Lost World, Crichton uncharacteristically makes a character who is both ethically opposed to principal Ian Malcolm and manages to come out as well off as one could hope. Pete Postlethwaite plays Roland Tembo, a big game hunter and orchestrator of the mass-scale hunt that sweeps through the sissy dinosaur preserve. Thanks to Postlethwaite's superb delivery and timing, he storms into the movie and immediately becomes that character you just can't get enough of. Starting with him telling off the pencil-neck exec, Tembo is an acutely principled and forceful character. When he gets to tell off the functionally brain-dead eco-terrorist (played by a pre-popular but still annoying Vince Vaughn), it always gives me a thrill: "Yeah, shut up dino-hugger! I'm going to bag me a T-rex." You'd think he was heading for a grisly end, but Tembo not only makes it through the film intact he also gets the best parting line in the whole film:

Sure, it's still Crichton deconstructing a character opposed to his core message--this time about preservationism--but at least Postlethwaite doesn't die like a punk like all the other nameless goons beneath him in the rest of the movie. Heck, the film probably would sit better with audiences in general if the film ended right here rather than extending itself through a laughable Godzilla riff. Since he's gone now, I sure hope every movie director out there who didn't take the opportunity to have their movie end with Postlethwaite's glorious, gripping, gravelly voice is kicking himself.

Shame on you, Steven Spielberg.

Movie Web Monday will continue next week with a new actor, picking up with some other prolific player from the last movie listed above.

September 11, Ten Years Distant...

...Ten Years Near.

I've been quiet the past few weeks. An unfortunate admission, notwithstanding the matrix of other concerns and family ailments. And still the blog's been getting regular activity,  which convicts me all the more for my absence.

But I could not let today pass without comment. It would be unacceptable. If this blog stayed silent today of all days, I'd feel completely unworthy to write one word about nerd culture tomorrow. Because, for my generation and my slice of the global demographic, few images are so intensely recognizable, few memories so vibrant or jarring, and few concepts so divisive as those associated with the four terrorist attacks perpetrated against the United States people ten years ago.

When I was younger, I'd hear adults speak all the time about the vivid memories they had of where they were when some seminal event occurred. John F. Kennedy's assassination. Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. The Iran hostage crisis. The Challenger accident. When I would hear someone talk about these vivid life moments, I'd feel a strange mix of envious condescension. I was envious of feeling that intense recollection of one time, one event in history and my tenuous connection with it, but I also felt a patronizing impulse that said there was something--deep down--defective about that surpassing response.

"If this blog stayed silent today of all days, I'd feel completely unworthy to write one word about nerd culture tomorrow."

I was in high school on September 11, 2001. I was in the band room when it happened, warming up on my trumpet and talking to one of my good friends in the section. I felt nothing. No intuitive response, no dread feeling of foreboding, no tickle at the back of my awareness. I went through first period without a single piece of dramatic sensation. In passing period, though, I saw and heard a subtle shift in tone. I'd always transported myself between classes in a quiet solitary fashion, which seemed to make me remarkable amongst the raucous pedestrians around me. On that day, though, everyone seemed a little rushed and hurried.

In a strange way, I was disconcerted by the paradigm shift towards my own behavior. Even the teachers seemed... struck. I got to my math class, sat down, and let the influx of other kids bring in a trickle of more information.

We'd been attacked. New York? Yeah, the Twin Towers. Again? How? They blew it up? It feels stupid to recall the gossiping confusion that accompanied that moment, but that's how it began for me. My math teacher, a big guy named Mr. Arms who liked to smile with his chin when he stumped the class, came into the classroom. He explained what had happened. Two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center, but they didn't really know much more than that. Right now we needed to continue with our curriculum: quadratics or something else essential like that.

I remember Adam--another trumpet player, a year older and a decade better than me--suggested that we should get the day off of school. He said it with that easy-going prom-king smirk of his. Adam and I were friends, even if I didn't merit much face time with the more popular guy. I told him to shut up. This was that moment I'd heard about, that moment I'd never forget, and he inserted a dumb request for a school holiday into it. And, if the dread I'd felt at the moment was at all indicative, we'd be at war the next day anyway.

School continued. It was almost pathetically mundane. Some teachers let us watch the news on the television, and I first saw the oft-repeated footage of those burning towers. Some of the teachers made us continue with our lessons; some didn't. Some kids cried; some didn't. No one really had a good explanation for what they were doing. The teachers who continued with lessons as usual made lame excuses. The teachers who let us watch the news gave us enlightened reasons that were completely irrelevant by lunchtime--we'd all seen the footage by that point, and the answers to our questions weren't forthcoming. The kids who cried really didn't have good reasons for their outbursts--'my mom knows someone who works in New York'--but the rest of us didn't either. I remember telling someone that this was our generation's Pearl Harbor. I used it as an accusation for them being flippant, but the real barb caught myself in the chest when I realized that I was living through my generation's Pearl Harbor and I wasn't even crying.

And that was it. A day without sense, or reason, or explanation, or any sort of natural narrative to it. I felt a tremendous push to go out and do something, but I didn't even have my learner's permit yet--it's not like I could drive from Lake County to New York on a whim. Everything passed, eventually the answers arose, the poor reasoning of the terrorists came to light, and we started to get a narrative of activity. With that narrative, eventually, came dissension. As time moved forward, everyone looked to a different response. Initial landslides of approval for swift response diminished, and by the end of that year, stupid high school students were debating in English class about the nature of the reactionary conflict. I know, I was one of them.

"And that was it. A day without sense, or reason, or explanation, or any sort of natural narrative to it."

Through the years, the motto we've gravitated towards using is "We will never forget". It's powerful. It's elegant. It's wrong. We know it's wrong, and that's why it became the motto of the attack. Like the phrase "The king is dead, long live the king," the saying is almost self-contradictory. Deep down, we all know that time is going to dull the affectation of that moment, to mute the replies, the hurt and the questions we all asked on that day. We use pictures and video and memoirs to fool ourselves that we aren't forgetting--that we won't forget--but we know it's an act. Today I can't tell you in whose class I was sitting when I first saw the footage of the burning towers, and I'm sure in ten years I'll be able to recall few details without referring to the news or an article. Or maybe even this post itself.

So what does "We will never forget" mean? If it's wrong, does it matter? Of course it does. There are some truths that transcend fact. The fact that I will one day forget the specifics of my own experience on September 11, 2001 doesn't change the fact that I will never be the same. Nor will America. Or the rest of the world, for that matter. "We will never forget" isn't a denial of that transient instant that died ten years ago: it's an affirmation that the lessons we learned on that day and the days following are ones that will shape our future. Forever.

Perhaps you might think it's crass to bring this back to nerd culture now, but you can read the heart of a people in their entertainment. And nerd culture is replete with profoundly affecting images and stories that either invoke or reflect the aftershocks of 9/11. Comic books like Spider-Man portrayed their principal characters dealing with the aftermath and devastation directly. Superman had to cope with 9/11 symbolically through a parallel disaster. Much of the later meta-plot of Star Trek: Enterprise was directly inspired by the attacks, almost irreverently so if you watch it with an over-sensitive eye. And new science fiction novels are being written with the attacks firmly ingrained into the authors' and audience's minds. The nature of the senseless, devastating attacks and a blind, determined response are featured as the pillars of Orphanage, by Robert Buettner.

"'We will never forget' isn't a denial of that transient instant that died ten years ago: it's an affirmation that the lessons we learned on that day and the days following are ones that will shape our future. Forever."

We might forget, but we'll never escape the impact of what happened, or our responses as individuals or as a group. It's a part of our culture today, and for my generation it will always be that one event that you tell yourself you'll never forget. Not because it's possible to live up to such a promise, but because it's unthinkable for us to allow ourselves to complacently let it happen again. So we've hard-coded it into our culture, into the language of the consumer. The lessons that there are people out there who are fueled by hate, that the determined annihilists* of the world have sudden and terrible power in their secrecy, and that the peacemakers have awesome and deadly power in their unity. That we can too easily become that which we behold for too long, and that we can also too easily make an image invoked too often vain and useless. That security is a relative, fragile state, and that love and life are fleeting things. We all know stories relating these renewed values, and thanks to the thorough ingratiation of our society into these themes, we have the guarantee that our children will grow up learning from these lessons without having to live through them.

We will never forget.

*Annihilists: those whose loathing for life dictates they waste it in violence.

GURPS Centurion: Virilus

GURPS Centurion: In my introduction to the Generic Universal Role-Playing System, I proclaimed that it had unrivaled versimilitude and granularity. To illustrate this, I will take some of the main characters from the Neil Marshall movie 'Centurion' and assign them stats according to GURPS. I'll also take a scene or two from the movie and use that to illustrate the deadly versimilitude of the combat system.

Keep in mind that, while this post isn't focused on the movie, the following will contain spoilers for Centurion.

Played by Dominic West in the film, today's GURPS Centurion character is Virilus. General Titus Flavius Virilus, if you want to get tria nomina about it. General Virilus is the general of the Ninth Legion, which is sent into Caledonia (Scotland) to try to wipe out the Picts who defy Roman rule. Virilus is portrayed as the 'head soldier' type: he doesn't view himself as separate from the mass of fighting men under his command. He parties alongside his men, getting into barfights with the rest of them, and exchanging crass jokes with them at all hours of the night while camped. But he's also famed as a successful general and tactician, not allowing over-familiarity with his men to preclude ordering them into famous, bloody victories. Accordingly, he's much beloved by his men, who consider him the consummate brother-in-arms.

This write-up, like Etain previously, is mostly written based on the core GURPS Basic Set. The character gear is from GURPS Low-Tech, and this character features a few skill techniques, which are detailed in GURPS Martial Arts. His gear is a bit more of an expression of what you typically see in GURPS: he has a 'settled' lifestyle, so he gets to spend 20% of his starting wealth on adventuring gear. In this case, that's $3,000, of which he spends $2,400 on a fine Spatha--or thrusting broadsword. The remaining gear (and his horse, as appropriate) is issued to him by Rome, and considered part of the 80% that he doesn't actively spend during character creation.

Virilus [205 pts total]
Attributes [60 pts sub-total]: ST +3 [30]; DX +1 [20]; IQ +0 [0]; HT +1 [10]; HP +0 [0]; Will +2 [10]; Per +0 [0]; FP +0 [0]

We're introduced to Virilus with an arm-wrestling bar scene, so +3 Strength is pretty much a given. He's capably coordinated, but bullish in his movements, so I deem that's +1 Dexterity. Even though he's a general, he'd get standard Intelligence of 10, as he never seems to work on anything but a basic rational level. A healthy professional soldier with no evidence of strict endurance, he ought to have at least +1 Health. He's a strong-willed, forceful character with +2 Willpower, but the rest of his stats--Hit Points, Perception, Fatigue Points--fall into their standard values as well.

Influence and Wealth [84 pts sub-total]: Languages: Latin (native); Cultures: Roman; Very Wealthy ($15,000 starting, $13,500/month) [30]; Military Rank 7 [35], Status 3 (+2 courtesy status due to rank) [17], Reputation 2 (Romans: famed general of the Ninth Legion, recognized: 7 or less) [2]

For lower class characters, the influence and wealth categories are an afterthought most of the time. For upper class characters, though, it is going to be a big part of the character sheet. That's certainly the case for Virilus. First, his language and culture is limited to his native familiarity with Rome. As a legion's general, he is Military Rank 7. I gave him Very Wealthy, which is moderately rich by GURPS standards--twenty times average wealth. In GURPS Fantasy, they state that this correlates to Status 5, but  that requires a huge Cost of Living--GURPS' way of representing that living the Status 5 high life requires spending more money on food, clothes, and other luxuries. So instead I went with Status 3 with 2 levels of courtesy status that are more a result of his military rank. Finally, I gave him a Reputation. In GURPS a Reputation can be a bonus or penalty to relevant social rolls. The Reputation has a description of its nature and those who are affected by the rep, and a recognition number that shows how easy to spot they are in public. For Virilus, he has a significant Reputation as the hero of Hispania, but he apparently isn't very recognizable, as the emissary in the first act identified him as a common soldier.

Advantages [25 pts sub-total]: Combat Reflexes [15], Fearlessness 5 [10]

Virilus felt very straight-forward when it came to Advantages. When you see Virilus dive into the bar fight's brawl at the end of his first scene, he mounts a table and kicks a guy in the face without hesitation--that's got to be Combat Reflexes if ever anyone had them. He also seems to be nearly unflappable in the face of his own demise, with a grim sneer as he beckons for death, so he gets a hefty Fearlessness 5. This means that he gets to add 5 to his Willpower when making fear checks, which means he'll hardly ever balk in the face of danger.

Disadvantages[-55 pts sub-total]: Bad Temper (SC: 12 or less) [-10], Chauvinistic [-1], Code of Honor (soldier's) [-10], Duty (extremely hazardous, always on duty) [-20], Gregarious [-1], Lecherous (SC: 15 or less) [-8], Overconfidence (SC: 12 or less) [-5]

As Virilus was simple and easy to assign advantages, he also carries his disadvantages on his sleeve. His introduction involves him converting a heated arm wrestling game into a game of stab-arm and then into a full-on bar brawl, so I think he fits the bill for Bad Temper with a fairly average self control number of 12 or less. In a deleted scene he characterizes Pict society as being childish and primitive relative to Roman society, so he gets Chauvinistic, which is a minor sort of intolerance for anything not your own society. Even given his temper and chauvinism, though, he is a professional soldier with a clear sense of ethics, which gives him a soldier's Code of Honor. Given the mass of bloody battles he references in talking to his men, he gets Duty with the Extremely Hazardous and Always on Duty modifiers. He laughs and pals around with his men to a degree that it is brought up as a detriment to his status, so Virilus easily qualifies for Gregarious, too. When Virilus first meets Etain, who I established doesn't have a super high appearance modifier, his mind and mouth go straight for the gutter, so I gave him Lecherousness with a generous self control number of 15. And finally, his whole legion is ambushed and obliterated so easily I can only assume he suffers from Overconfidence, albeit with an average self control number.

Skills [61 pts sub-total]: Animal Handling (Horses) IQ [2], Armoury (melee) IQ-1 [1], Brawling DX+2 [4], Broadsword DX+1 [4], -Targeted Attack (Broadsword Thrust/Vitals) Skill-2 [2], -Targeted Attack (Broadsword Swing/Neck) Skill-3 [3], Carousing HT+1 [2], Cartography IQ-1 [1], Diplomacy IQ-2 [1], Hiking HT-1 [1], History (First Century Roman Empire) IQ [4], Interrogation IQ [2], Intimidation Will [2], Knife DX [1], Law (Roman) IQ-2 [1], Leadership IQ+2 [8], Navigation (land) IQ+1  [4], Politics IQ-1 [1], Public Speaking IQ [2], Riding (Horses) DX+1 [4], -Cavalry Training Skill-1 [2], -Combat Riding Skill+2 [3], Savoir-Faire (Military) IQ+2 [4], Shield DX+2 [4], Spear DX-1 [1], Strategy (Land) IQ+2 [12], Tactics IQ [4]

As a Roman soldier, Virilus gets a list of skills as matter of course: Hiking, Broadsword, Shield, Spear, and Knife. As a fighting general, though, he only seems to get much use out of his sword skill, so the others I kept at the lowest level of skill. Most of the rest of his skills are a result of his status as a general. Riding, Law, Leadership, Politics, Strategy, and Tactics all fit into these commander categories. The rest are a selection to round out his character, with Savoir-Faire (military), Carousing, and Brawling being picked specifically to aid his special rapport with his subordinates. Unlike Etain's sheet, this write-up has a specific type of skill included: Techniques. Techniques are a subset of a specific skill, and in the listings above they are marked with a hyphen and follow the skills they rely upon. Each Technique represents a 'trick' or aspect of the skill that you can train to be unusually adept at. For instance, Virilus has focused his training to be better at using sword thrusts to the vitals, so rather than taking the usual -3 to attack an enemy's vitals, he only takes a -2 penalty when performing this signature move. This is the same story for his sword swing to the neck. His Cavalry Training and Combat Riding techniques help him to keep good control of his horse while surrounded by enemies.

Clocking in at 205 points, Virilus is built with double the number of points I spent on Etain. But, with his tremendous wealth, command, and social pull, most of his points are not poured into the soldier role. Also, the nature of GURPS' brutal combat--which I mentioned in my intro to GURPS--means that the points disparity won't mean too much when the General confronts the She-wolf, even if he has superior overall abilities.

Movie Web Monday: Dennis Quaid

Movie Web Monday: Each week, I'll look at a specific actor's roles across three good movies. The third movie will in turn tie into the first movie of the next week's actor, whose third movie will continue the pattern. I will go through actors and movies at this rate, with the following limitations in mind: every movie(or television show) invoked will be one I either own, or wish to own; no movie or actor will be invoked twice. So sit back and enjoy as you fall into the nerdery's movie web. (Oh, and I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum, telling you just enough to know if you'll enjoy the movie)

Dennis Quaid: Deadly Daddy

Movie: Frequency (Own it)

As the father whose absence defines the movie's plot, Dennis Quaid has some pretty strict requirements in Frequency. He's got to fill an idealized but hubristic role as Francis Sullivan--he has to be a loving father and husband, who nonetheless indulges his vices enough that one or the other will in fact kill him. He does this well, immediately pouring all his Texan grinning charisma into his scenes as he commands the screen. The facile, friendly way he relates to his family isn't the real charm of Quaid's contribution to this film. It's the way he stubbornly characterizes real, bone-deep father/son sentiments with a terse bean-town accent. When he cheats death once, his future-lorn son insists that he be more careful with his life, to which Francis quickly replies:

It's such a small moment and is so particular to the paternal dynamic of the film that it's often missed by casual viewers. Fear of your own mortality is one thing, dealt with in a particular way that comes up often in life, but fear of orphaning your own child inspires a strong reaction that causes you to both deny your mortality and fear it with paralyzing anxiety. It's the sort of thing that makes you pledge unreasonable promises to always be there, and it drives you to make important life changes to try to fulfill the oath to always be there. As Francis, Dennis Quaid really sells the conflicted combination of reality and hopes with which a parent has to live, fulfilling the second essential element of this relational film.

Movie: Enemy Mine (Own it) Light Spoilers

Enemy Mine is a classic piece of sci-fi drama. A little-known 1985 film starring Dennis Quaid as Willis Davidge and Louis Gosset Jr. as Jeriba Shigan and directed by Wolfgang Petersen, Enemy Mine explores the commonality of the soul and the vile depths it can reach. Willis Davidge is a human space-fighter pilot who shoots down an enemy fighter over an unknown planet only to crash-land nearby as well. Davidge, who lost his friend and co-pilot in the crash, immediately goes hunting for the alien survivor of the enemy fighter. His narration, which has a fantastically detached and sober tone to contrast the fierce emotions that fill the movie, admits that this is his first time seeing a Drac, and he immediately sets a trap as part of his first close encounter. Pouring fuel into a pond the alien is swimming in and setting it ablaze, the enraged human crows:

There's a fierce, ugly hatred to the moment, but Quaid keeps it relatable. The tender death scene he'd just had with his co-pilot had a genuine, halting weight to it that informs the audience this is hatred from a place of pain and loss. He fails to defeat Jeriba, whom he dubs Jerry, and the two begrudgingly accept each other's company and help as they survive on a wild and strange world. This alien castaway story is challenging on a dramatic and human level, and both the stars do a great job of showing the psychological wear of the roles while also sprinkling some very down-to-earth humor throughout. Davidge eventually becomes something of a surrogate father to Jerry's son Zammis (don't worry, there's no reptiloid hanky-panky in this film--Dracs are asexual creatures, we're told). As that happens, Davidge begins to realize that the common elements between him and some of the Dracs are stronger and more heartfelt than the way he feels about a lot of his own people. It's touching and well-done, but it will leave you emotionally raw by the tear-jerking end. Watch it, as it is one of Quaid's finer roles--Gosset's, too--and it performs the best function of sci-fi: to enlighten and convict us of our capabilities and faults.

Movie: Dragonheart (Own it)

Dragonheart is a fun fantasy movie that feels a bit like it wanted to be a PG kids movie but realized that a PG-13 adventure fit the story better. In it, Quaid plays a once-idealistic knight named Bowen who has sworn to rid the world of dragons. This is a very personal act of vengeance for him, as he blames the corruption of his royal pupil Einon--now a murderous tyrant--on a specific dragon who saved the boy's life through the magic of the...wait for it...dragon heart. The film starts out playful but gets deadly serious quickly. After Einon is mortally wounded in a rebellion against his father's reign, the prince-cum-king begins building on his father's cruel legacy through slave labor and sport-killing peasants. Bowen charges in and wrestles the young king to the ground, reminding him of the virtues he'd try to instill in the boy:

Quaid's Bowen is gruffly earnest in the role, and there's a disconnect between the two in the first act that feels almost like a father washing his hands of his son. The movie follows Bowen twelve years later, where his blood-sport against all dragons has wiped out all but Draco--the dragon who'd innocently saved Einon's life in the first place. The first interaction between the two is decidedly campy and feels like a letdown from the movie's solid start, but it gears up into a decent climax that is somewhere south of Willow but still gratifying and well-realized. All of which is championed by Quaid's canny knack for playing someone who has a wounded sensitivity mingled with a killer instinct and a warrior's mindset. Must be a Texan thang.

Movie Web Monday will continue next week with a new actor, picking up with some other prolific player from the last movie listed above.

Captain America: The First Avenger; He's Waited Long Enough

Nerdview: A good review is hard to find. A good review--that is, a quality review, not a positive review--seems to be even more rare amongst professionals and dedicated reviewers. Fortunately, the nerdery is helmed by a literary nut. Each review, whether it is a game, movie, book, or television series, will have the four elements: bias, appreciation, personal enjoyment, and general enjoyment. Put in food terms, these are odor, beef, gravy, and cheese.

As I explained here, I've been looking forward to Captain America's advent for some time. On opening day (this past Friday), I got to see the movie twice in 3D thanks to the generosity of my in-laws. Then, on the following Wednesday, I saw it again in a regular screening. I've not seen a movie at this rate since The Return of the King, so you can bet that I've got a lot to say about this fun film. Out of respect for this review coming out within the film's first week, I won't be spoiling anything past the first half of the movie. That said, much of the plot is true enough to the Marvel books that if you're familiar with them, you'll know the basics of the plot from the first scene on.

Expectations 'Odor': As Captain America: The First Avenger neared its release date, one of the things that continually impressed me about the film was the quality casting. Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor all displayed progressively star-studded casts, and Captain America was the culmination of that trend. With Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci, and Hugo Weaving all playing critical supporting roles (or, in Weaving's case, Cap's arch-enemy), it was shaping up to be a fine piece of drama in the most under-realized genre today: period superhero stories. Even Neal McDonough (whom, you might recall, was my choice to portray Steve Rogers once upon a time) got in the film as Dum Dum Dugan, and JJ Feild played a charismatic James Montgomery Falsworth (as opposed to the well-realized rat-turd Thax he played in Centurion). I knew that this was going to be special from the start, but I wasn't expecting to have so many great performers to divide my focus. Indeed, each of my three viewings over the past week were distinctly different, but all wonderful.

Appreciation 'Beef': There's just so much to say about Captain America: The First Avenger, so many things to take in that it'll be an effort to keep this blog post at a manageable length. I could promise to be brief--but meh, it's me. The movie features an awesome cast that plays their roles with a straight-faced and earnest dramatic realism that pleasantly contrasts the slightly exaggerated plot and gargantuan vehicles. The pacing of the film is much more restrained than other action movies--distinctly different from Transformers or Battle: Los Angeles, for instance--with a marvelously nested structure that pays better homage to comic book story-telling than any other film I've yet seen. The script is pristine, with expressions and attitudes that hint at the period's rich language while still staying firmly in four-color territory. The action and plot are both a balance of power and grit that makes Captain America a relatable, human hero even when deflecting disintegration beams with his indestructible shield.

Each actor in the movie really plays their role to the hilt, giving you a sense that if only they'd been given the serum, they too could have been the film's main character. That's not to diminish Chris Evans' work as Steve Rogers/Captain America--he's a fantastically believable 90 pound waif before being given the serum, and he sells the awkward transition of trying to acclimatize to his new powers post-serum with knowing presence and swagger. The earnestness of his delivery is key, but it's by no means a flat performance. Between this and his role in Sunshine, I'm becoming a fan of Evans. Watching his first scene, where the dry-mouthed shrimp tries to convince a recruiter to accept him, lets you feel the dedication the un-sung actor poured into the role, and you get to see that same commitment to the part throughout the film's entirety. His romantic foil, Peggy Carter played by Hayley Atwell, is stunning in her role, and gives a similarly stellar effort. As a British attache to Erskine's project, she's introduced as a critical, slightly imperious woman who reacts severely to the crude recruits on either side of Rogers. She warms to the affable wimp's demeanor though, and the chemistry between them is achingly palpable for a movie where they get nothing more than a quick kiss. Given the unenviable task of playing the perfect romance that never was, Atwell soars past that and succeeds at being plot-critical, endearing despite (or because of) her hard edges, and an amazing stunner to boot. It's one thing to look good in 1940s fashions, it's another thing to make one wish that all women of child-bearing age everywhere adopted similar sensibilities.

"I could promise to be brief--but meh, it's me."

But two of the biggest scene-stealers in this movie are Tommy Lee Jones as Colonel Chester Phillips and Stanley Tucci as Doctor Abraham Erskine. Col. Phillips is a sour doubter in Rogers' potential as a super-soldier, and right away he strikes you with deadpan humor that is awesomely grim and clearly inspired by a less fabulous interpretation of General George Patton. When he first begins giving a briefing on the goals of the Stragetic Scientific Reserve (SSR), he shudders at scrawny Rogers as he hollowly brags, "We're going to win because we have the best...men." His tone throughout the film is a spot-on contrast to the exhuberance and energy of the other characters. Dr. Erskine, for instance, is the feebly congenial German scientist responsible for the super-soldier serum. He watches the frail Rogers struggle through training and the biases of the other burly candidates with a paternal congeniality that beams off the screen, and has some fantastic lines that betray the depth of the ill-fated character. "Everyone forgets that the first country the Nazis invaded was their own," he lisps in a perfect Aus-German accent to Steve the night before his transformation, reminding him that hating a cause or a flag doesn't mean hating the people trapped under its banner. Both of these characters are critical to the story, and the veteran actors set a very high standard for their younger counterparts to play against.

The rest of the supporting actors were similarly perfect for their roles. Sebastian Stan played James 'Bucky' Barnes with a grin and potency that established him as a very ordinary hero to play counter to Captain America's larger-than-life persona in the second and third acts. Some (pedantic) fans might object to him being cast as an adult and even idol to pre-serum Rogers, but it's a creative decision that makes the world feel more grounded than a thirteen year-old knife-fighter riding Cap's coattails into combat. As it is, Bucky helped to anchor the audience to someone who was exceptional but still mundane--a common theme in the Captain America comics. And Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark managed to perfectly fill that eccentric niche needed for the film, playing up the four-color confidence and clean-yet-crass attitude you want from a comic book womanizer in World War Two. In a bizarre way, Howard Stark is the spitting image of his son, right down to echoing his stage presence in his first scene.

"It's one thing to look good in 1940s fashions, it's another thing to make one wish that all women of child-bearing age everywhere adopted similar sensibilities."

The villains also found themselves ideally cast. Hugo Weaving as Johann Schmidt/Red Skull was a whole other kind of antagonist from what has been portrayed in movie supervillains. Decried as a flat character, Weaving still gives the Red Skull a fierce, insane megalomania that evokes Hitler--who never actually appears in the film--and he also pulls out a calculating, almost diplomatic tone to his ultimatums and rants. The first scene where he threatens a Norse priest is wonderfully sinister, and he keeps up the energy throughout the film to make a villain that is quite possibly more fun than Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy. Toby Jones does a similarly great job as evil inventor Dr. Arnim Zola, playing neither a minion nor a larger-than-life villain waiting to take over the world--he's a reasonable and believable shill for Hydra that plays well off of Red Skull's grandeur.

The film has a more distinct structure than any other movie in the drama. Those who say the film had a third act problem or pacing issues clearly can't count to nine. Rather than merely having three acts--a beginning, middle, and end--Captain America: The Last Avenger nests that common structure in a way that is very theatrical. The first act has a beginning, middle, and end, as does the second, as does the third. The first act is Steve Rogers origin story, ending after his first scuffle with the Third Reich. The second act is Captain America's origin story--featuring the proto-hero as he struggles to find his own agency in his new life. And the third act, of course, is the inevitable showdown as the meta-plot of the movie becomes a deeply personal vendetta for Captain America. I'd excuse reviewers who missed this bit of embedded artifice if it weren't for the fact that two montages clearly separate each of the three acts, making this structure gloriously apparent and signaling the nature of the following act.

The script for Captain America: The First Avenger is really tight and evocative of the setting. The language is mild and has a mix of Wertham Code-approved PG expressions delivered with such seriousness that you might forget the profanities that would probably be realistically inserted into the tense scenes. More than that, though, the script is rich with dense lines that unpack to glorify the characters and showcase how well the screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely knew their subjects. You get perfect capsules for Steve Rogers early on, for instance: "there are men laying down their lives. I got no right to do anything less." Col. Phillips also gets some great lines that inject surgically prescribed humor into the film's tension to keep the audience in a properly light-hearted attitude.

"The first scene where [Johan Schmidt] threatens a Norse priest is wonderfully sinister, and he keeps up the energy throughout the film to make a villain that is quite possibly more fun than Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy."

The action in the movie manages to keep everything crisply easy to follow while still keeping a fevered amount of activity onscreen so you never lose the war-torn feeling of the action. The fight set-pieces throughout the film keep you roughly apprised of combatants' positions (a common complaint against the Michael Bay-style of action directing), and there's no god-complex to Captain America as he fights through the enemy's minions--he hits hard and fast regardless of whether it's a redshirt he's fighting or not. This is supported by the depiction early on that this superhero is not bulletproof--his ribs are grazed by a bullet in the first action scene. The realistic temper of the combat contrasts the elements of many of the fights, though: Red Skull's Hydra minions sport ray guns powered by the Cosmic Cube, and they deploy a tank that would make a Baneblade feel deeply inadequate.

Personal Enjoyment 'Gravy': I adore Captain America: The First Avenger. As a superhero fan and a geek for Captain America and the modern nobility he represents, this film hit all the right notes for me. It's not quite perfect--there are a few things I was hoping to get that they passed on or represented differently--but it is a masterpiece of the genre nonetheless, and I hope it will later become a vanguard of its World War Two sub-genre.

Ever since I first saw The Incredible Hulk, I started geeking out over the potential of watching Cap duke it out on the big screen. When the juicing pre-Abomination Blonski charged into close quarters with Hulk, flipping around and shooting him with a brutal sort of grace, I couldn't wait to see Captain America do likewise. I was not disappointed. Just watching the recently empowered Steve Rogers rundown the traitor Heinz Kruger was a nerd-thrill beyond anything I'd seen in theaters in quite some time. At one point in that sequence, Steve hurdles over a ten foot fence in a single bound. To depict that, the camera drops to a low angle looking up at him as one leg thrusts forward and his arms spread wide in an eagle-like pose--that's a classic pose from vintage comics, and is distinctly reminiscent of several pieces of Kirby's work. The rest of the combat does a similarly good job of both invoking the source material while also keeping the action purely cinematic and fluid.

"Red Skull's Hydra minions sport ray guns powered by the Cosmic Cube, and they deploy a tank that would make a Baneblade feel deeply inadequate."

In addition to the finely crafted action, the characters were absolutely lovely. Only Tommy Lee Jones can do deadpan and farce, understated and overplayed, all at the same moment, and he does so with each of his scenes. Howard Stark was a background character that was delightful everytime he turned up--including the moment of dry humor where he stands over Steve immediately before his operation. Weeks before, Steve watched a confident Howard's hovercar take a stutter-drop at the World's Fair, and now he hears the eccentric inventor shrug, "We're ready...as we'll ever be." The beat of awkward anticipation after that moment is delicately easy to miss, but it is pricelessly fun and well-played.

I mentioned the film's nested structure above, and that decision (and the two montages especially) really hit the mark for me, though I imagine it might be a little jarring to those looking for a typical movie two-or-three act progression. Having the detailed and carefully oriented plot split up this way helped me to appreciate the passage of time--while other superhero movies have taken place over weeks of time, Captain America occurs over the course of nearly three years. It also evokes the feeling of reading a comic book mini-series, as though the movie was adapted from a three issue story arc revolving around his first combat with his nemesis. I also loved the montage separating the first and second acts--a musical montage depicting Captain America's USO bond drive across the United States. Not only is the music terribly fun and catchy (I've been heard saying "Every bond you buy is a bullet in the barrel of your best guy's gun," several times this week), but it also is a new wrinkle to the character that is pitch-perfect. In the comics, Steve Rogers does a one page transition into his Nazi-fighting super-soldier role, which somewhat implies that he didn't need to grow into his powers and all he needed was to get them to become a war hero. The movie adaptation, though, makes it clear that Captain America had to struggle to get a chance to fight, just like Rogers had to struggle to get enlisted in the first place. Plus, the USO sequence captures the decadent extravaganza that was the American propaganda and morale machine. Even though the country was at war and under severe rationing, a lot of those specials at home were about taking people's minds off of the hamstrung economy and dire news from the front. Americans would get a show and feel like their country's greatness was linked with success in the war, and nobody is better to link to that than Captain America. It's also an elegant way to show that Cap doesn't just want to make a difference: he wants to do everything he can. The distinction is critical and well-realized.

"Just watching the recently empowered Steve Rogers rundown the traitor Heinz Kruger was a nerd-thrill beyond anything I'd seen in theaters in quite some time."

One of the few notes of minor disappointment for me might be a bigger issue for others--Captain America features a stylized World War Two in which not only are the weapons not very accurate to the period, but the villains are four-color. This was something I expected: in a super-hero treatment of the war, I doubted that the Nazis were going to be the true threat or that Hitler would be allowed to mastermind the villain plots. Indeed, Hydra starts out as a Nazi program in the film, but once Red Skull gets his super-weapons he quickly decides to break off independently from Nazi Germany, killing the Nazi officers looking over his shoulder. There's no real consequence to this in the film other than you see virtually no swastikas and the ultimate threat is one insane super-villain rather than an entire country's military. This is about cultural sensitivity, I suppose. Once you have a villain who looks like an iteration of Satan to be universally reviled, it's better to lift him from political and cultural reality altogether. Still, it would've been nice if Captain America did a little bit more Nazi-stomping.

A note about the 3D experience: I don't buy into the 3D craze. The last 3D movie I saw in theaters was the Captain Eo movie in 1989 at Disneyland. I'd seen a couple of movies in home 3D since then, but nothing on a large scope this millennium. So the first two viewings were an especially fun treat for me as I got to view the final result of years of waiting with bated breath for Captain America to charge into theaters. The 3D effects were well done and very well integrated into the film. More often than not they added a subtle depth to the film's contents, and when the effects did jump out at you it was a dynamic part of the action's story-telling as opposed to a cheap gimmick to make you jump--although that didn't stop my wife or my brother-in-law from ducking away from Cap's shield.

General Enjoyment 'Cheese': Captain America: The First Avenger is being hailed as the best super-hero film of the year. It is the most distinct superhero film yet made, invoking vintage comics alongside modern action sequences and sensibilities. If you're a Marvel fan, you've already seen this movie and loved it. If you've enjoyed most of the Marvel movies made to date, this one should not only entertain you but give you a genuinely unique film-going experience. Even if you don't normally like the Marvel movies except for maybe Iron Man, appreciating high drama more than anything, you should still be able to appreciate the crunch of the actors' fine performances in this cogent, slick film. Captain America: The First Avenger has plenty of feel good, inspiring moments without cheapening the characters, and the action is easy and fun to watch, often getting you caught up in its kinetic but deliberate tempo.

If you are requiring a fully sober experience with no comedic relief, realistic war elements including weapons and vehicles, or are turned off by playful cheesiness or elegant campiness, you might be wondering what all the fuss is about.

It's okay. I forgive you.