Lance Mannion

One lucky step short of self-parody: "Hellboy II: The Golden Army"

Originally posted August 3, 2008. Reposted Saturday night, September 12, 2020.

Liz (Selma Blair) and Red (Ron Perlman, front and center) with psychic Johann Krauss (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) and fishman pal Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) prepare to fight the evil elf prince’s mechanical army and avoid self-parody in the process in 2008’s “Hellboy II: The Golden Army”.

[Last night’s feature for Family Movie Night was “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”. Rooting through the archives to see if I’d written about it before, I came across this, a short review of “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” and reminded myself how much fun it and the original “Hellboy” were. Thought you might enjoy the reminder too.]

Presumably, this is the one and only sequel---or at least the one and only sequel that won't be a cartoon---and this is a good thing because while “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” is a lot of fun, there are indications that the next step would be into the swamp of self-parody. A poster for “Shrek the Third” should serve as the warning sign at the edge of the quicksand.

Already Red and Liz have a little too much of Shrek and Fiona about them, with Abe Sapiens serving as a more thoughtful, quieter, less annoying Donkey. One more movie and I won't be surprised to see Antonio Banderas show up as Puss, swashbuckling through layers of prosthetics and cgi.

Good villain, good fights, good jokes---maybe too many good jokes---one interesting addition to the cast of regular heroes, although I'm not sure having “Family Guy's” Seth MacFarlane provide the voice was the best choice---Yoda was such a surprisingly alive character that having the voice of Fozzie Bear and Miss Piggy coming out of his mouth was somehow transformative; hearing echoes of the voices of Stewie and Brian dubbed over a character without a mouth keeps the character from rising above the level of a cartoon. And the scenes in the troll market are clever enough, I guess. I just couldn't help thinking they were there because Guillermo del Toro wanted to show kids whose parents wouldn't take them to see “Pan's Labyrinth” some of what they missed out on.

Like I said, fun for all, but “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” is to the original as “The Search for Spock” was to “Wrath of Khan and “National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets” was to “National Treasure”: Too much of what's good is dependent on conjuring up memories of what was so enjoyable about the movie that came before and letting characters we love act silly.

For more cigars, kittens, and Baby Ruth bars, check out the official website of Mike Mignola's Hellboy comic book.

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“Hellboy II: The Golden Army” along with “Hellboy” is available to watch instantly at Amazon.

Ken Mannion reminded me that there were already two animated sequels to “Hellboy”, although one is technically a prequel: “Sword of Storms” and “Blood & Iron”. Both are also available to stream at Amazon. Ken gives both a thumbs up.

I’m an Amazon associate and earn a (very small) commission for movies, books etc. bought through the links on the blog.

Trump's style and the last refuge of all losers

Adapted from the Twitter feed, Saturday, September 5, 2020. Posted Saturday morning, September 12.

A mob of hideous men for Trump showing off their style at a campaign rally in Richmond, Virginia in 2016. New York Times photo by Chet Strange.

Trying to catch up with myself. I’m having a hard time getting my head around the fact that this was only last week...

If your style is sounding like an asshole, you probably are an asshole…

“The president means no disrespect to our troops; it’s just that the way he speaks, he can sound like an asshole sometimes,” one of these sources, a current senior administration official, told The Daily Beast. “That’s how he is [when the cameras are off]… It’s his style.” --- the Daily Beast, Friday, September 4, 2020.

Of course he said this stuff. And he didn’t say it because it’s his style. He said it because it’s what he thinks. "Loser" is one of his favorite words. He can't resist disparaging anyone who makes him feel like a loser, which is just about everybody of real accomplishment or achievement or virtue.

Trump's mobs of hideous men won't care that he calls the dead at Arlington and Belleau Wood losers because that’s one of their words for everybody who isn’t them. It's their word for everyone who makes them feel like losers. They won’t care if sounding like an asshole is just Trump's "style," because their style is sounding like assholes.

Sounding like assholes is the only way a lot of American men know how to sound…

It goes with their sense that they ought to be able to say and do whatever they want without challenge or criticism.

Trump is the president of entitled mediocrities and screw-ups, the type of guy who thinks that if only people knew to get out of their way and put them in charge they could do any job and do it better than so-called experts.

They identify with Trump on this basis.

Every day he stays in office and sounds like an asshole, every day he makes his opponents and enemies feel like losers, in their minds, he wins, and so they win along with him.

"Winning" for them is simply surviving and making other people mad while doing it. It's being a professional asshole. Which of course is the last refuge of all losers.

To read all of Asawin Suebsaeng's story in the Daily Beast, follow the link to "Trump’s Defenders: He Doesn’t Hate the Troops, He Just ‘Sounds Like an Asshole’"

And, in case you haven't already, be sure to read Jeffrey Goldberg's "Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’" at the Atlantic.

Yura Zhivago chooses to make himself generally useful

Mined from the notebooks, Monday, May 25, 2020. Posted Thursday morning, September 10.

Detail from “The Night Before the Exam” by Leonid Pasternak, Boris’ father. 1895. Musée d'Orsay. Via Wikipedia.

From the Department of In Search of Lost Time. Monday, May 25, 2020:

The dark-haired student bent over the table in the painting by Leonid Pasternak up top might be a self-portrait. He looks like Leonid’s son Boris does in the portraits Leonid painted of him when Boris was a young man in the 1910s. In 1895, when this painting was done, Boris was five years old. Unlike the hero of his novel, Boris did not make himself generally useful by becoming a doctor. He became a writer and poet. Leonid, though, studied medicine before he turned to painting. Leonid was 33 and an established artist in 1895, but he may have been reminiscing in oil about his student days. In the passage below and in the one I quoted in my earlier post, Boris may have been tweaking his father’s ghost and himself...

He was interested in physics and natural science, and held that in practical life one should be generally useful. And so he chose medicine.

---from “Doctor Zhivago” by Boris Pasternak.

Who do I think I'm kidding?

Updated Sunday morning, September 6, 2020.

This post has been moved. Sorry for the inconvenience. To read the post, please scroll down or follow the link to "Who do I think I'm kidding?"