House of Cards - Netflix, Too Nice Politicians and Underwood vs Tucker

25th March

House of Cards (contains minor spoilers for Season 1 of House of Cards)

House of Cards has become the most watched tv show in our house over the past couple of weeks and it keeps getting better and better. Perhaps the most notable thing about House of Cards is that it is a production of Netflix, not something they have bought but made themselves. This goes alongside Orange is the New Black, the relaunched Arrested Development (probably the best American sitcom ever) and others, giving Netflix a very respectable stable. Being the product of an online streaming and DVD rental service would probably be a source of suspicion, I would imagine it to be cheap and without much merit. But House of Cards has Kevin Spacey, which is instantly and immensely reassuring. Spacey is a great actor and makes for a great politician.

House of Cards was a British television show in the early 90s, focusing on Francis Urquhart, the Tory party chief whip, the American version has Kevin Spacey playing Francis Underwood, chief whip of the Democrats. In Britain such a story would almost definitely require a Tory, while each party has it's heroes and villains sinister double-dealing and grabs for power feels very Tory (I feel with the left it would be more broken promises and hypocrisy). Underwood is played brilliantly by Spacey, talking to camera (or even just knowing looks to camera) and explaining his plans and what he thinks power means. after not getting what he wants from the new President (a man he helped get elected) he seemingly begins to turn on him and Frank Underwood is not someone you want as an enemy. It is a gripping show but not without problems. It does sometimes feel that Underwood's enemies compliantly line up to be destroyed by him, men and women who are intelligent, sharp people easily defeated.

House of Cards isn't entirely dominated by Francis Underwood, his wife, Claire Underwood, is also a very interesting character and their relationship is fascinating. Played by Robin Wright (Princess Buttercup from The Princess Bride) she is the perfect partner for Underwood, so far matching her husband in drive and ruthlessness  but I suspect the distance between them and what they are prepared to do will go. She works for a charity but as far as I can see cares little for the work of the charity and merely loves the job and would be equally suited to running an arms manufacturer. For a politician's wife she is neither meek and deferring to her husband or a Lady MacBeth character, usually the two roles such fictional women fall into. The other main female character is Zoe Barnes, at the start of the show she is a journalist working at the Washington Herald and is an exceptionally annoying character. She wants to cultivate a relationship with Underwood wheres she can get information and stories and in return will run stories that help him. She is annoying for many reasons but it starts early in the show, she works for the presitigious Washington Herald and being young is at the bottom of the pile, yet this seems to her a terrible and injustice and is outraged that everyone else in the paper doesn't recognise her greatness. She is a little unconvincing as an expert journalist and does not compare well with Claire Underwood and certainly is no match for Francis Underwood.

Something we've discussed in our house has been a comparison of House of Cards with The West Wing. The West Wing is a brilliant television show, discussing complicated ideas and topics in an intelligent way. However, one problem I had with The West Wing was that they were too nice, too good, too principled. It seemed an unrealistic portrayal of American politics, or indeed the politics of any country. The president in The West Wing, is Jed Bartlett, like Underwood a Democrat. Bartlett is a Noble Prize winning economist, a man of intelligence, intellect and principles and watching this while Bush Jnr was president was like watching a documentary from bizarro-world, every negative quality Bush had reversed for bizarro-world President Bartlett. The team around Bartlett The White House staff, are very similar in their wonderfulness. I can't help but think if there was a West Wing - House of Cards crossover Underwood would devour each and every one of them.

In my mind the most entertaining portrayal of British politics in recent years, maybe ever, is The Thick Of It, with Malcolm Tucker perhaps being an appropriate opponent for Francis Underwood, he certainly swears a lot more. Tucker isn't an elective representative, he is the chief spin doctor of his party,a very angry, very loud Scottish terror. A man whose skin gets increasingly grey as the show goes on Tucker does have a certain way with words, delivering probably the best insults ever heard on television, (for example "Feet off the furniture you Oxbridge twat, you're not on a punt now.").  An out and out satirical comedy it does make astute points about modern politics; the abandonment of beliefs, chasing what is popular over what is right or sensible, style over substance. It is apparently popular amongst those who work in politics who say it closely resembles their jobs, bear in mind this is a programme where the Leader of the Opposition has to practice walking and someone creates a bank by accident.

Neither Tucker or Underwood seem to have a concern about doing what is right or have any political beliefs at all really, Tucker does seem to be doing what he thinks is best for his party (not just what is best for himself) and Underwood is more Machiavellian but does seem to respect competence. In a political battle between the two in the end I would have to back Underwood mainly because Tucker spends most of his time dealing with the problems others have created, Underwood is advancing his own agenda. It would be a sad state of affairs if politics resembled the worlds represented in The Thick of It or House of Cards, it would be more entertaining.

Other Interesting things -Books - Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser. A book that has entirely changed my opinion on Queen Mary and is very enjoyable to read, in this version of history Queen Mary was an intelligent and charismatic woman who ended up leading a very tragic life. As bad as Francis Underwood is in House of Cards he doesn't compare to the Earl of Bothwell who orchestrated the murder of Mary's husband, abducted her and forced her to marry him in a bid to become king.

March 22nd - Jason and The Argonauts - Hollywood, Ancient Greece, The Power of Childhood Memories and The Creative Talent of The Killers

March 22nd

A largely uneventful day of bits of housework and relaxing but in the evening my girlfriend and I watched the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts, directed by Don Chaffey and starring Todd Armstrong (I’ve never heard of them either), but it is definitely most famous not for their involvement but for the involvement of Ray Harryhausen and his, for the time, amazing and ground-breaking special effects.

Warning - the below does contain spoilers for a film release in 1963, based on a legend thousands of years old.

As well as founding the basis of much of Western culture, Ancient Greece has also done a lot for Hollywood, with films based on their myths and their history (with Troy falling neatly in the middle). I do think that Ancient Greece has been ill-served by Hollywood, especially in recent years, in terms of failing to capture how interesting and amazing their civilization was. I enjoyed Troy and Oliver Stone’s Alexander which I thought captured something of the epic and sweeping nature of Alexander the Great’s victories and didn’t conveniently forget about Alexander’s relationships with men (Achilles wasn’t upset with Hector because he killed his cousin, he was a bit more than that). The story of the Greeks fighting back against the seemingly unstoppable Persians and the heroic actions of the Spartans was wasted in 300, although in fairness they were adapting Mark Millar’s graphic novel rather than looking to what actually happened, but to me that could be a brilliant film that would have so much, huge battles,  great heroes and villains, people fighting for a cause, idealism, sacrifice and more. Ancient Rome has had far more attention than Ancient Greece but in many ways the latter is far more interesting with a diverse number of competing and drastically different city-states, some offering drastically different views of the world.  Someone really needs to make a Game of Thrones style series of the titanic Athens versus Sparta showdown that was the Penelopesian War. The warring Houses in Game of Thrones have different colour hair; whereas Sparta left babies to die on the sides of mountains and the Athenians wrote philosophy, that's real difference   

Jason and the Argonauts is definitely in the myth part of  Hollywood’s  Ancient Greece canon. Basically Jason is the son of the King of Thessaly, his father’s throne was stolen by Pelias and Jason is spirited away as a baby to safety. As an adult he returns to claim his throne but is tricked by Pelias into first hunting for the legendary Golden Fleece. Jason assembles a crew for his ship, a best-of-the-best athletes from around Greece, bearing in mind that most athletic competition was geared towards warfare and sets off to find the Fleece . One of the good things about using Ancient Greek stories is that so much is familiar to the audience, the harpies, the hydra, etc, Hercules appears in the film and it is never explained who is he or why he is so important.

I must have watched this when I was quite young and it has really stuck with me since, with two particular scenes sticking in my mind. First, the Argonauts find an island where they can get food and water but are warned by the goddess Hera not to take anything but the provisions they need, but of course they do, with  Hercules-strong-but-dim stealing treasure. In Greek myths and stories the gods are always getting involved and giving advice, sending plagues, saving people and so on, and often people ignore their advice and that gets them into trouble. The film Troy took an unusual perspective with this, what is known of the Trojan War came from the epic poem The Iliad by Homer, which features many gods and impossible events. Historians had long argued whether there was any historical truth in Homer's poem with most thinking not, but eventually evidence was found that suggests something similar to the war Homer describes actually happened. The film Troy however takes the story from the poem and cuts out the gods and impossible things, trying to make a "realistic" film, in one scene Hector argues with other prominent Trojans who thinks Apollo will protect them, basically saying the Trojans need to protect themselves. To our 21st Century selves this makes perfect sense, but in the poem, when the Greeks anger Apollo he sends a plague to ravage them, showing the power of the gods. Anyway, as Hercules steals the treasure, the giant bronze statue of the titan Talos that stands watch over the island suddenly comes to life and attacks the Argonauts.

The second, and perhaps more famous scene, comes near the end of the film. After having stolen the fleece and killed the hydra, Jason and some of his comrades are making their way back to their ship. King Aeetes, not surprisingly isn’t too happy about the Argonauts taking his the Golden Fleece, and after all, it is his Golden Fleece, uses the teeth of the hydra to raise an army of skeletons which attack Jason (tragically this is perhaps best known to be people for clips featuring in The Killers video for Bones, tragically because it means some people may think The Killers possess that much creative talent).

When I first watched this the film would have been at least twenty-five years old and special effects had come on a long, long way and watching it recently only made this more apparent but there is still something wonderful in the special effects. The skeleton army are actually quite sinister and charge with an evil shriek (yet have no tongues, vocal chords or anything else needed for this) and despite getting totally outclassed in their ability to fight by Jason and the others will always just keep coming, their is no way to kill them. Watching the film did make me nostalgic for my childhood and had a sense of amazement that I think it would be impossible to replicate now as an adult. Other films that have this effect on me are The Princess Bride (which I still think is an entirely brilliant film), the Indiana Jones films (for some reason particularly The Temple of Doom which I think is the worst of three films (there isn’t a fourth, there just isn’t)) and Back To The Future.

Overall the film was a little dated, the structure was odd in that they seemed to just kept hopping from one fantastic scenario to the next and was nothing like a modern film and ends in a bizarrely abrupt way with Jason back on the ship with Golden Fleece and a woman he is now in love with having met her two days previously but having not resolved the central issue of will he get back home and be King of Thessaly. The last scene of the film goes to Zeus and the other gods with Zeus suggesting that he has Jason in mind for other adventures which perhaps meant they were hoping for some kind of film franchise. Still, it was very enjoyable and I was slightly worried it would be a complete disappointment, returning to important things from your childhood can be crushing.

Other Interesting Things

Podcast – Welcome To Night Vale – I'm intrigued by this sort of dark comedy podcast, released as if it is the genuine output of a small town community radio station inhabited by ghosts, angels, suspicious hooded figures and more. It's creepy, sort of funny,and interesting, although I think they shouldn't have credits where it is made clear it is a work of fiction.

Ninety Per Cent of Everything: An Introduction

This is a blog I have started just to let me write about stuff I am interested in. I am most definitely a geek, I love films, television, books, plays, all kinds of interesting things, and will probably write mainly about that but also things in my life, politics, science, news, anything really. I have become obsessed with history in recent years and so this will feature as well. 

The name of this blog, Ninety Per Cent of Everything, comes from what is sometimes called Sturgeon's Law or Revelation, made up by the science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, the below is a quote from Phillip Klass regarding the Law: -

"I repeat Sturgeon’s Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition, and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of SF is crud.

Using the same standards that categorize 90% of science fiction as trash, crud, or crap, it can be argued that 90% of film, literature, consumer goods, etc. are crap. In other words, the claim (or fact) that 90% of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other artforms."

I fundamentally agree with this, I'm a huge sci-fi fan the worst of the worst is brought out to show how it is terrible, and anything good ignore or forced into other categories, but in terms of this blog it is that yes, for a lot of stuff, 90% of it is terrible but the remaining 10% is more than enough and can be spectactular. While I may talk about the 90% I will try to focus on the 10%.

R