Today's issue: fake Flame academia, fake Doctor Who academia, academic A-Team academia. Gushy reviews of Miller's Crossing and Get Carter.

Today has been given over to fake academia. I've been diving through the reams of surviving Naked Flame letters, and constructing a timeline from them. Fascinating work, like proper historical research. True, none of the events "happened" - but I'm flexing the same muscles in tracking down obscure references, reconstructing events, working out where letters are missing from the record or where they fit into sequence. Friends 3 and 5 have both let me borrow their folders of letters, and I'm halfway through my own: the project is about half done, and 30 pages long. I need to hunt down anything kept by friends 1, 2 and 4 next. I have a better grasp of events and people now than ever before. The finished product is going to be an invaluable record of a history that never happened.

>>>It's not only the Flame which is getting the nerd treatment, in the absence of proper work. I've discussed before the connection between the Greeks and Gallifrey. The Timelords are the oldest civilisation, so naturally inspired the ancient Greeks and kickstarted their development, probably because Earth is a vital nexus point in the web of time. Much in the same way the Osirans attempted to get in on the act with Egypt. Maybe that's why the Timelords send the Doctor after Sutekh - I bet they manufactured the war with Horus. Maybe the Osirans were trying to do in Egypt what the Timelords were in Greece, influence the development of civilisation on such an important planet and you probably have some say in it's future. Maybe this is why Timelords and humans look so similar?

In any case, Greek characters resemble Ancient High Gallifreyan, and most Gallifreyan concepts can be translated in Greek - Panopticon, academy, Arcadia, Pythia. The Doctor's nickname is Thete, from Greek letter theta. Occasionally, they slip into Latin instead (Ulysses, Castellan), which shows the way Timelords ideas spread. They probably were whispering in the ears of Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, all the great thinkers and architects and inventors of democracy and civilisation.

Taking this as a starting point, Gallifrey is clearly misspelt. You know the way that proper academics will spell Nausica Nausikaa, and Peleus Peloos just because they're closer to the Greek? Gallifrey in ancient Gallifreyan would have been written thus: Γαλλιφρει

The Greeks have no "f" or "y", and so the strict transliteration is Galliphrei. If that sounds like splitting hairs to you, well listen to this theory. I also belive the name of Commander Maxil, the belligerant head of the guard, has been mis-recorded. Pay attention, class.

Maxil is a perfectly fine Greek word - Mαξιλ, Maksil, Maxil. But while I was doing some Greek translation I came across the word for battle - μαχε, or mache/make. Now Maxil is a soldier, and a very vicious one at that, so "battle" would be a sensible derivation of his name. So what if his name is actually Makil - Mαχιλ - warlike or warrior - but later scholars have mistranslated the χ as an x, giving us Maxil? It's a plausible theory...

So now I'm working on the faux-derivation of a word like "valeyard", in a society which shouldn't have the letter V. Well, the Greeks don't. I surmise Gallifreyan would be a very, very complicated language, so maybe it was dropped by their Earth counterparts...

>>>I've pledged to actually finish, or at any rate start, my A-Team essay since seeing the final episode of series 1. I kinda assumed that huge season finales were a modern thing, and am to an extent correct. And yet it has had special thought put into it - it's certainly the greatest episode I've seen so far. The team go up against a corrupt gang in a small town after attending the funeral of a dead war buddy. The tone is often sombre - the funeral is done properly, salutes and flags and all. The flashbacked to 'Nam with some awful stock footage, but that wasn't the point - each character had something to say about the experience of being there. When the team get back into town, it's personal - really personal. Suprisingly so, especially for Face. He is, perhaps aptly, all mask all of the time. The make believe-cowardice is a front for actual fear, the cheesy charm covering up his commitment-phobia. I've always got the impression that he most wants to get back into normal society. It was interesting, then, to see him dive into a joint and really enjoy taking someone to pieces. Some of this taking-to-pieces occurs in their very charming uniforms.

I mean, it's a good episode in its own right - it manages to be tense and thought proviking (ish), at least in contrast with normal standards. Amy gets to prove herself awesome, and as mentioned above, someone actually gets to make Face tick - which alone justifies the entrance price. The baddies are also unusually threatening and effective. But it stands out for being a fantastic starting point for my essay on the way the A-Team interacts with the 'Nam vet genre.
This, if for no other reason, is why I feel it's worth writing: the final shot of the A-Team season 1 is a slow zoom on the grave of their veteran friend. It's a poignant moment, but more importantly, to priviledge it as the final shot of the season, it suggests the show's creators saw their work, on some level, as a tribute to genuine veterans.

I've mentioned my essay before. It's set back by a lack of knowledge, but I intend to stop floundering very soon and start doing some reading - on the war, on the cinema of the war, and that sort of thing. I'm looking forward to seeing Tropic Thunder as research. Ajax sent me some handy help, from a fellow Achaian who approached it from a totally different angle than I had, seeing it as part of the "loser vet genre". He's obviously correct, and it sets up an interesting dichotomy when combined with my original argument - broadly speaking, he sees the characters as offensive to real vets,whereas I only noticed their superficial status as heroes.

On the one hand, yes they are clearly "loser vets" who can't reintigrate into society. Hannibal Smith in particular, always "on the jazz", is a danger-seeking thrill addict who seems incapable of existance without blowing things up, and Murdoch is a twist on the people who came back mentally scarred. Even if Murdoch is, as I believe, pretending to be madder than he actually is, it doesn't suggest a great state of mind. This is an angle I hadn't considered, and am going to pursue to pack out me paragraphs.

Even if it set Vietnam drama back by ten years, they are still basically heroic - very heroic - characters. And the final shot of the grave has told me something else - the portrayal is meant to be glamorous. Dirk Benedict and George Peppard were well liked, easy-to-trust actors. They're good guys, or the show believes they are, and perhaps it's even meant as positive propaganda. My knowledge of the Vietnam war is fairly thin, but I do remember that negative media representations of the conflict meant many veterans were not treated with respect when they came home. The A-Team's prime directive is to aid those who no one else can - to protect that general public. I've always seen in this a sort of atonement. If the A-Team was a modern show, there would be at least one angsty flashback episode in which one or more of them experienced something awful in the line of duty, and would be consciously making up for it. I'm greatful that 1980s telly wasn't that deep - the idea is clear enough, without the need for mawkish overblown melodrama. Just a few ideas which are gonna be included in me essay.

Finally, and this is the key point for me, is where it fits in with the "Vietnam war movie" genre.
Their framing by the military for a "crime they did not commit" involves them with the post-Vietnam American counter-culture thing that I can't quite define without more reading.
They're being chased by the army and police, and villains are frequently corrupt mayors, corrupt sherrifs, corrupt prison governers. In other words, in protecting the little man from the Man. In a Vietnam sense, the military machine was the villain, opressing the soldiers and civilians alike. The concept of anti-authority underpins the series, and I see this as a reflection of media about the Vietnam war.

Ajax, Achaian and I can argue all year about whether the Team is a positive or negative image, but the most important question is how far were the A-Team meant to be a realistic portrayal of genuine veterans? I would argue they are meant to be variations on the media image of the veteran. Like Tarantino's gangsters, say, consciously imagined as part of the tradition of 30s pulp, or Baz Luhrmann's deliberate lack of irony in Moulin Rouge and Australia. Murdoch is the most telling facet of this - he's crazy. Because, y'know, people went crazy in Vietnam. Like in Apocalypse Now, Birdy, Combat Shock - Born on the Fourth of July isn't as nuts as those, but is still about serious psychological scarring, while the hero of Dead Presidents turns to crime when abandoned by the system. What do you mean that "loser vets" don't exist? They do on the telly...

People learn about history through fiction. It's why kids know lots about the Six Wives of Henry the Eighth, and not much about the second Reform Act - because only one of them makes for a great story. Its why there are more WW2 movies than WW1 movies, because WW2 had good guys and bad guys, and a Hollywood-friendly world-domination plot. I'm not proud, but Apocalypse Now is the basis of my knowledge of 'Nam - and I think it's the same for most people. Both Spy Game and Watchmen, modern films depicting the Vietnam conflict, tap straight into the media memory of the war by their use of music (rock in one, Ride of the Valykyries in the other), and bypass the realities entirely. We know that Vietnam veterans are all tormented losers because cinema tells us they are, and doubtless this is because two hours of a happily reintegrated main character makes for bad drama.

So above all, I intend to argue that the A-Team is a show about Vietnam fiction. It is approaching pastiche in its portrayal of veterans, a pastiche learnt from Rambo movies and the like. Is the portrayal of Murdoch's psychosis realistic? Emphatic no - it's cinema-crazy all over. Is the portrayal of action realistic? On a show with weekly gunfights, which only killed 5 extras in 90 episodes? Where people will always walk away from a car crash, no matter how unlikely- and where the creators actually had a mini-contest on to see how unlikely they could get?

So this is the argument which is developing. On the one hand, they can be seen as counter-culture heroes, and indeed are meant to be seen thus. This glamorous image of the ex-soldiers is counterbalanced by their status as "loser vets" who can't recover from their wartime experiences. And holding the balance is genre expectations - in other words, the show's deliberate placing within the tradition of 'Nam movies. Next up: some proper research.



I've been making the most of my freedom with films. Miller's Crossing is that rarest of things - a film my dad and I really disagree on. It probably makes my top 30, and he doesn't begin to see the point of it. Normally, we see more or less eye to eye. As far as I'm concerned, this film was written for me. Cross it with Battle Royale, and you have my dream piece of cinema. It's crime shot in sepia, a buddy movie packed with betrayal, a morally grey trip into a man's heart of darkness - in short, it contains much violence and more angst. Gabriel Byrne is gorgeous, the script is wonderful and the plot pleasingly complex. My pa doesn't get the hero's motivation, claims he does the wrong thing at every point. He certainly screws up, but with style. Tom wants to be the one with the strings - he does it because he gets a kick out of being mysterious, out of being powerful, and out of being hated. He doesn't want to admit that he's really a sap, who feels too deeply about L. and V. and has problems killing people. He likes being a free agent, denying connections with anyone - it's why he won't let L. pay his debt, why his response to every deal is "I'll think about it". And yes, my pa's right - he screws up. "Double cross once, where do you stop?" asks G., who's the unexpected heart of the movie.

He's playing at being the cold, tough guy - at least to begin with - and gets into trouble when he gets in too deep and can't live up to it. By the end of the film, he's got there - which is why B. ultimately has to die. It's cementing the change. It's Planet of Fire, broadly speaking, which is an allegory that should make matters clear as mud to no one who reads my blog. Ah well. Perhaps I understand him because M. understands him?

One final word: the dialogue is awesome. It comes highly recommended, but pay attention to the rat-a-tat script or you'll lose the plot in no time.

Ironically, Cinecism reveals that last time I watched Miller's Crossing, I did so in the same week as Get Carter. Funny, because I rewatched Get Carter only a few days ago. Another fantastic movie, but where Crossing revels in the Hollywood conventions of 30s' crime, Get Carter is defiantly realistic. It's the only crime film I've ever seen which glamorises neither crims nor cops. It's horrible, start to finish, and also quite fantastic. Jack Carter - played by Michael Caine - is a glorious bastard, hero by virtue of being slightly less nasty than the supporting cast. He's on a mission to avenge his brother's death, and it has a sort of nobility about it. The thing that's always fascinated me about this film, discounting the blistering lead performance, is that it is the social realism gangster film. An impression only heightened by actually studying realism in film studies. All the tropes apply: characters set firmly in their social location; characters with whom you share proximity, not sympathy; exploring personal ethics; and a grubby, haphazard approach to script and cinematography.

Oddly enough, it's another film my pa doesn't get. Too many coincedences for my liking.


News about Planet of Fire's DVD release! You might remember that's a favourite episode of Doctor Who, a very very special one. Ever since meeting Thete at the convention, I've been getting regular texts - creepy ones. Creepy because they're exactly the type of texts you wouldn't expect to get from your average slightly-stalky fellow: they're all Doctor Who updates, on DVDs, conventions, news, whatever. I wonder where he's getting his info from: it's always correct, and always a few days before the web knows anything about it. Apparently they're going to release Planet of Fire on special two-disk edition, with two different versions. I'm aware there is a slightly different version of the episode's pivotal moment around, but two different versions? Brilliant! BRILLIANT! I am really nervy with excitement now.

And finally, I have screwed up the Electric Dream for good. You might remember it's my favourite self-designed smoothie, but I can't remember what the red juice was - pomegranite? Cranberry? I just tried it with red grape, and it tastes bizzare. The pleasantly orange sky and surreal pink clouds have been scorched by industrial greed, the pretty pink clouds are a sickly , sickly caramel and every now and then a bolt of lightning pierces the landscape.Well that's what happens when you attempt to make smoothies into metaphors, then forget the recipie...it's probably an omen about the BNP or something...