Weekend Reads (Oct 15): Mullets, “Mortal Kombat,” Hayao Miyazaki, Horror Movies
Recommended weekend reading for October 15, 2022.
Every week, I compile a list of interesting and thought-provoking articles to offer you some enjoyable weekend reading material.
Down in Texas, a crowd has gathered in search of America’s best mullet. But why has this particular hairstyle survived and thrived over the years?
Contemporary mullets, Ms. Stephens said, are descendants of the unisex shag haircut of the 1960s. In the decades that followed, versions of the hairstyle were sported by such culture-shaping figures as David Bowie, Joan Jett, Prince, Michael Jackson, Patrick Swayze and Billy Ray Cyrus. More recently, mullets have been worn by Rihanna and Lil Nas X. Many have adopted the hairstyle to achieve a sense of edginess, according to Barney Hoskyns, a music critic and co-author of “The Mullet: Hairstyle of the Gods.” “It just signifies the same miscalculated effort to be dangerous,” he said.
The mullet championships cater to a group of people who see mullets as not just a hairstyle, but a lifestyle, a sentiment mentioned by several competitors in Lewisville. (The two words they used most often to describe that lifestyle: “America” and “beer.”) The reigning USA Mullet champion, Clint Duncan, a 37-year-old pipe fitter from Knoxville, Tenn., put it this way: “Once you get that mullet, it’s just a symbol you’re carefree. You don’t care what people think.”
“You never see somebody with a mullet that’s grumpy,” he added.
Via NextDraft.
The venerable (and ultra-violent!) Mortal Kombat video game franchise recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. Polygon interviewed co-creator Ed Boon on the franchise’s history and development.
Again, the crazy thing about Mortal Kombat, it was four guys in their 20s who grew up on RoboCop, The Terminator, and Enter the Dragon — ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s movies — cut loose with pretty cutting-edge technology for the time — digitized graphics — and just hitting the sweet spot of our ideas, the acceptance of those ideas, [and] the technology. So I think it was the combination of these young guys with ideas, with state-of-the-art technology in their hands, nobody telling them what they can’t do, asking themselves, What would be cool? And then we did it. We had the ability to execute on the ideas. So it was no shackles, and that was the result. Plus, there was a lot of luck and timing — and the attention we got from [U.S.] senators and all that added fuel to the fire. It was just everything layered on. The movie came out. You know, it was unstoppable. And it was out of our hands before we knew it.
The first Mortal Kombat hit arcades when I was in high school, and my friends and I were obsessed with it. I can’t even begin to calculate how many quarters I pumped into those machines during my junior and senior years. I was never very good at it, but of course, I loved pulling off all of the secret moves and gory fatalities. I have a particularly fond memory of grossing out one of my youth group leaders with Sub-Zero’s “rip out their spine” fatality.
Fatalities in more recent Mortal Kombat games have grown increasingly gruesome and sadistic (e.g., adding X-ray views so you can see your opponent’s bones shattering), which raises an interesting question: Does creating violent video games take any sort of emotional or psychological toll on the developers?
In the mid ‘90s, acclaimed animator Hayao Miyazaki was feeling stuck and uninspired. And then he got asked to direct a music video that, for all of its darkness, helped him launch the next phase of his illustrious career.
The video he produced is a thrilling adventure story set in a futuristic world. Many of Miyazaki’s visual ideas from films like Castle in the Sky appear. But it’s also very different from what Chage and Aska had probably expected.
The darkness and violence of the Nausicaä manga are here — almost like a proto-Mononoke. Miyazaki admitted to having “purposely distorted” the implication of the song’s title, On Your Mark, into something more sinister. And he snuck in “a lot of coded meanings” along the way.
Miyazaki once called this film “somewhat subversive.” That’s just one way to translate his words, though. Another version renders it as “filled with ill-will.”
You can watch video below:
Don’t like the horror genre? That’s OK, here are ten scary movies that you can still enjoy. For example, Satoshi Kon’s animated mindtrip Paprika:
The trippy final masterpiece from the Japanese animator Kon, who died of cancer at the age of 46 in 2010, Paprika is a dazzling depiction of the bleeding edge between dreams and reality. Set in the near future, it centers on a new piece of technology that lets scientists enter other people’s dreams. If that sounds like the plot of the later blockbuster Inception, yes, the comparison is often made. But while Christopher Nolan’s movie has an action-thriller bent, Paprika is much weirder, as Kon’s animation style loads each dream sequence with busy and unnerving imagery. Some of Kon’s movies (particularly Perfect Blue) could be classified as outright horror, yet Paprika walks a much blurrier line; it can be funny and surreal in one instant, and bone-chilling in the next.
Related: My review of Paprika from 2007.
As we enter 2022’s final stretch, Vox’s Alissa Wilkinson has compiled a list of 29 new movies to get excited about, including new films from Damien Chazelle, Werner Herzog, Rian Johnson, and Jafar Panahi.
Fall’s crop of films is here, many of which played at the various festivals that kick off the season. Some are on the road to awards season; others are seeking fun-loving holiday audiences. Most of them steer away from the IP-driven fare that clogs up the rest of the season. Keeping on top of the glut can be a challenge.
But I’ve seen most of them, so I’m here to help. Here are 29 films from the fall season — most of which will be out by the end of the year — that are worth looking for and talking about afterward, whether at your regional film festival, your local cinema, or your home streaming service. Some are great; others are merely buzzy. I think they’re all worth your notice.
Cole Burgett reviews Marvel’s recently released Werewolf by Night, and reflects on the spiritual insights found in classic monster movies.
Few films scour my soul inside and out like these, which present an unflinching look at the sins all men are capable of without seeking to justify them or complicate the basic, black-and-white morality that does, in fact, permeate Scripture. Classic horror tales are some of the only stories out there telling us that true evil is not something to be medicated or therapied into remission; no, in these stories, true evil is still something that needs to be staked through the heart and destroyed. Goodness is made even more pronounced because of this, and often arises from the most unexpected places — sometimes from the creatures that appear grotesque.
Over the years, MythBusters has proven itself to be both educational and entertaining. But it has also furthered the cause of justice by helping a wrongly accused man prove his innocence.
In his cell, a 39-year-old John watched as the hosts of MythBusters struggled repeatedly to ignite a pool of gasoline with a lit cigarette, despite fervent attempts. Based on the ignition temperature of gasoline and the temperature range of a lit cigarette, the show’s hosts had initially hypothesized that a lit cigarette might be able to ignite spilled gasoline as they had seen on TV and in movies. But after several failed attempts to start a fire, including rolling a lit cigarette directly into a pool of gasoline, the team determined it was highly unlikely that dropping a cigarette into gasoline could cause a fire.
“There it was,” John recalled thinking. “Once I saw it, I couldn’t wait to tell Tara,” he said, referring to his attorney Tara Thompson, who, at the time, had just taken on John’s case at the Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago Law School. She continued to represent John when she joined the Innocence Project in 2021. John was also later represented by the Exoneration Project’s Joshua Tepfer, who also later represented Mr. Almendarez.
In all, John Galvan spent 35 years in prison for a crime that he didn’t commit.
Curious about the future of Christian music? Then you might want to get on TikTok.
Faith informs different Christian artists’ definitions of success, with platforms like TikTok and Spotify enabling them to pursue their creative vision independently. But the attention they’ve found organically suggests there’s an audience that cares deeply about Christian art outside the constraints of the Christian contemporary music machine or even the booming worship music industry.
Anything that lets artists find success outside the confines of an industry is a win in my book. But as the article points out, with that freedom comes new levels of both responsibility and risk.
Chickfactor interviews Michael Grace Jr., the frontman of My Favorite, one of my favorite (I know, I know) indie groups of all time, on the pandemic, his influences, and the role of politics in indie pop music.
Considering how important Riot Grrrl was to the formative years of the scene, I think it is disappointing that it didn’t. But I’ve touched upon some of the reasons it may not have. I remember a popular indie pop zine writer who was vocally pro–George W. Bush, and some of the uncomfortable silences that would follow when I challenged him. The vibe was that it was rude of me to take shots at this “nice, harmless bookish guy.” It drove me crazy. And now look where we are! I’m not saying that artists need to write political songs — they are very hard to do well. I had a few like “Working Class Jacket,” “Detectives of Suburbia,” and “The Informers,” but overall, that wasn’t my focus in any didactic way. I tried to write about life, and by doing that I think this dystopia of late capitalism emerged in our songs. However, I always thought that a band should, in their art and interviews and personas make it very clear where they stood. I really admired artists like Billy Bragg and Heaven 17 and the Style Council for doing that. If I couldn’t be in a band that talked about kicking fascists in the balls, I didn’t want to be in one at all.
Regardless of whether you agree with Grace’s views or not, you ought to check out My Favorite’s The Happiest Days of Our Lives (read my review). With their catchy melodies and clever lyrics, songs like “Homeless Club Kids,” “Loneliness Is Pornography (L=P),” and “The Black Cassette” are indie pop par excellence.
David French continues to be a voice of reason in these crazy times. In his latest column, he reflects on what Russia’s invasion of Ukraine can teach us about the perils of Christian nationalism.
When advanced nations collide in sustained combat, it’s not just armies that confront each other, but systems and civilizations. Hidden strengths emerge. Hidden weaknesses are exposed. And as we watch history unfold in eastern Ukraine — Russians retreating on the battlefield, Russians fleeing their own country en masse to avoid the fight, and a panicked Putin threatening a genocidal response — we are watching in real time a profound and meaningful example of the fatal weakness of Christian nationalism.
It’s not a model of national renewal. It’s a blueprint for corruption, brutality, and oppression.
Herschel Walker’s abortion scandal shows that unfortunately, too many Christians are willing to practice “cheap grace” for political gains.
If Herschel Walker, or any would-be leader of any political party, confesses his sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive those sins and purify him from all unrighteousness (1 Jn. 1:9).
But if he doesn’t confess, our skipping past repentance to public absolution is a lie (1 Jn. 1:10), and a lie told so the election can still be won. This is power politics, not true grace, and it is an insult to the gospel to pretend otherwise.
Climate activists protested fossil fuel usage by… throwing tomato soup on Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the London National Gallery.
Friday's incident is the latest in a series of protests targeting famous works of art in a bid to draw attention to the role of fossil fuels in climate change. In July, members of Just Stop Oil glued themselves to a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper at the Royal Academy of Art in London.
The same month, activists from the group glued themselves to a masterpiece held in the National Gallery, while members of an Italian climate activist organization glued themselves to Botticelli’s Primavera in Florence.
I’m sure the activists felt righteous and justified in their actions, which didn’t actually damage the painting. (Side note: If they knew that soup wouldn’t really damage the painting, then that just makes their actions all the more performative nonsense.) Meanwhile, the rest of us are wondering “Is a beloved 19th century painting really the best protest target?”
Perhaps, as some on Twitter have suggested, the protesters are trying to say that unless we take drastic action now, we won’t have a future in which to enjoy such works, but that strikes me as incredibly cynical — especially when modern consumer goods are right there. In this argument, classic works of art just become innocent bystanders to the protesters’ outrage.
Or, as Tyler Huckabee put it:
And wouldn’t you know it, there’s a plot twist. The protesters belong to an organization called Just Stop Oil, which is funded by The Climate Emergency Fund, which was founded by an oil heiress. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it’s all connected, man.
Finally, Meta recently announced a big update to their virtual reality technology: user avatars would no longer be floating torsos but instead, have honest-to-goodness legs. Their demo, however, was a bit misleading.
Anyone who has ever been around — *checks the culture* — any piece of marketing ever made should know by now that not everything is as it seems when a company is trying to sell you something. And in this case, the video Meta showed off was made with some help.
As UploadVR’s Ian Hamilton has since reported, Meta has issued a follow-up statement, which says, “To enable this preview of what’s to come, the segment featured animations created from motion capture.”
This might seem like a rather silly thing to note, but keep in mind that Meta has spent $10 billion on their virtual reality project in this year alone. Combine that with an overall skepticism surrounding VR’s actual utility, and it’s hard not to see this as an embarrassment.
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