Must Knowledge Lead to Progress? Part Two

Dr. Charles Forbin (Eric Braeden) with the access terminal to his supercomputer, Colossus, in 1970’s Colossus: The Forbin Project.

Geoffrey Hinton, the “Godfather of AI,” recently remarked that “machines could take over” because they have the ability to learn independently and share their knowledge.
He then went on to say that it’s conceivable that AI could “wipe out humanity.”
The fact that artificial intelligence is rapidly altering human society makes Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein particularly relevant.
See my memorandum Artificial Intelligence and Human Fears.

In Colossus: The Forbin Project, Dr. Charles Forbin (Eric Braeden) builds Colossus, but despite its’ superior intelligence, he still expects his creation to be subservient to him, and to human instruction.
Colossus (at this stage, at least) does wish to preserve humanity as a whole.
However, it also believes that by being a dictator over humankind, it can do a better job than any humans could, and is willing to sacrifice human lives along the way.
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein creates a being who is better able to learn, and also physically more powerful, than himself.
In all aspects, except attractiveness, it seems to be superior in many ways.
He’s unable to be a good father to this creature, however, and the creature murders all the beings who Victor Frankenstein loves.

Mary Godwin Shelley (Elsa Lanchester) in Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Before Bridget Fonda played the role in 1990’s Frankenstein Unbound, Elsa played Mary Shelley.

When Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley began her first novel Frankenstein (1818), she was 18 years old.
Despite her age, she created a work—arguably the first true science fiction novel—that still inspires other artists today.
While Mary Shelley didn’t believe in organized religion, she did believe in the existence of God.
In Frankenstein, this teenager explored themes of good and evil; prejudice; loneliness; human control; and the limits of scientific knowledge.

Mary Shelley was the daughter of the famous feminist Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women, but her mother died a few days after giving Mary birth.
Her father, William Godwin, was an influential journalist, philosopher, and publisher, who wrote An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice.

Alienation must have been an easy subject for Mary to write about.
She had a fraught relationship with her stepmother.
She was shunned by society after she escaped from her father’s influence with a married man, Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Only one, of her four children with Percy Shelley, survived to adulthood.
She and the great poet, Shelley, eventually wed.
However, she became a widow when she was 25.
Mary Shelley died at the age of 53, of a brain tumor. 

One idea that Mary Shelley’s novel, Whale’s two films—Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935)—and the Corman film Frankenstein Unbound (1990), have in common is that the monster is not a true monster at all.
He’s a lost desperate soul, who turns to vengeance and murder, after his needs are met with cruelty.
Can such a creature have a soul?

In Corman’s Frankenstein Unbound, the main piece of evidence against Justine (Catherine Corman) is a locket belonging to the little boy. In Mary Shelley’s novel, the Frankenstein creature planted the child’s locket on Justine.

In the 1818 book, the monster kills at least four people.
He kills Victor’s young brother William, and frames William’s nanny Justine for the crime.
Later, he rapes and murders Victor Frankenstein’s fiancé Elizabeth on Victor’s wedding night.
Finally, he murders good Henry Clerval, Victor’s friend since childhood.
However, he comes to love the DeLacey family, especially the old grandfather.
By the end of the book, the creature is filled with remorse for his crimes, and wanders off, to commit suicide.

Although the “creature” in the 1818 novel, is much more articulate than the “monster” in the 1931 and 1935 films, there are key scenes in the films that reveal his capacity for goodness: the scene with the little girl by the lake, and the scenes with the blind hermit (a similar character to the DeLacey grandfather).
Both scenes are given power by the magnificent performances of Boris Karloff.

The blind hermit (Oliver Peters Heggie, left) shakes hands with the Frankenstein monster (Boris Karloff, right) in Bride of Frankenstein.

However, the monster does murder the little girl (perhaps because he believes she can float); does throw “his Master” off the old windmill in the 1931 film; and kills or injures people in both films.
At the end of Bride of Frankenstein, the monster is filled with self-loathing.
He tries to commit suicide, and allows Victor and Elizabeth to escape the lab.
Note: When Frankenstein was reissued in 1938, the scene with the little girl was cut.
The footage was lost until 1985, when the scene was partially restored.

In Corman’s Frankenstein Unbound, the monster murders Victor’s fiancé Elizabeth, Frankenstein himself, and several villagers.
Unlike other versions, this monster doesn’t commit suicide, but is killed by scientist Dr. Joe Buchanan for being an aberration, not created by God.
By the end of the film, Buchanan identifies completely with Victor Frankenstein.

The monster (Nick Brimble, left) shows Dr. Joe Buchanan (John Hurt, right) who’s boss, in Frankenstein Unbound.

In Corman’s Frankenstein Unbound, the creature interrogates Dr. Joe Buchanan as to when Victor Frankenstein created Buchanan.
He’s surprised to learn that Joe thinks himself created by a being called “God.”
Corman’s monster is intellectually between the articulate being in the Shelley novel, and the grunting child-like creature in Whalen’s Bride of Frankenstein.

Humans are using human-created artwork, and our written work, to educate AI, and make AI more intelligent than we are.
Victor Frankenstein used odd parts from graveyards to build his creature, and this resulted (in Mary Shelley’s words) in a “thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.”

The data in ChatGPT comes from wild sources like forums, Twitter, Wikipedia, and Facebook, as well as from edited books.
These sources contain conflicting information!
No wonder, ChatGPT sometimes goes mad and spins tales about fake people, and events!
How can software like ChatGPT believe in an absolute truth?

Midjourney images are “built” from billions of images stolen from the open web.
Much of the “raw material” is not keyworded* correctly.
That’s why a video of New York was used to represent London crime in an TV ad for mayor of London (2024).
That’s why a video of a Ukrainian man was used to represent a basement-dwelling American, in a 2023 Republican commercial blaming President Biden for inflation.
Many stock images, and videos on the world market, are generated by Russian, Ukrainian, and Estonian photographers.
It’s an easy way for creatives to obtain another “revenue stream.”

Android David (Michael Fassbender, left) pours tea for his industrialist creator Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce, right), in Alien: Covenant.

Ridley Scott’s film Alien: Covenant (2017) is a modern retelling of Frankenstein, with Walter as the “good side” of the monster, and David as the “evil side.”
In the prologue, Peter Weyland explains to David that “one day they will search for mankind’s creator together.”
Years after Weyland has died, David drops a bio-weapon on the planet of the Engineers (a giant alien race that facilitated the evolution of humans), thereby punishing the creators of his creator. 

In the original Frankenstein novel, Victor (traumatized by his mother’s death) develops a method to give life to non-living matter.
This experimental creature kills all the people who he loves.
In Corman’s Frankenstein Unbound, Dr. Joe Buchanan believes he can create a super weapon that will end all wars.
Instead, he creates timeslips and ends human civilization.
In Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant, Peter Weyland creates a synthetic in the image of Michelangelo’s David.
The superior android David is scornful of his weak, human master.
Yet, later he feels a type of love for scientist Elizabeth Shaw (2012’s Prometheus).
Nevertheless, he plots vengeance on the alien race (the Engineers), as well as all the life forms that they “helped along.”

Today, scientists like Dr. Frances S. Collins (former leader of the Human Genome Project) and computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton all believe that science can help humankind make great advances.
At the same time, both warn that there are ethical issues to consider.
Yes. Knowledge can lead to progress, but scientists must tread carefully.
A false step can lead to the end of humankind.

*The rights to photographs and videos sold by commercial agencies (like istock, Shutterstock, and Getty), are routinely associated with “keywords,” so that these images may be used accurately. Sometimes, the keywords are not correct.

Must Knowledge Lead to Progress? Part One

Frankenstein Unbound, by Brian Aldiss

Author and Anthology Editor Brian W. Aldiss, as well as his companion novels—Frankenstein Unbound (1973) and Dracula Unbound (1990)—were well known during the late 80’s/early 90’s.
Both featured a main character named Joe Bodenland.
Frankenstein Unbound was about a fired U.S. Presidential advisor who travels in time (from 2031 to 1817) where he meets a mad Dr. Victor Frankenstein, as well as the author of the fictional work herself, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley. 

In the first chapter of the Aldiss non-fiction work Billion Year Spree: The True History of Science Fiction (1973), he made the controversial proposal that Mary Shelley wrote the first true science fiction novel when she wrote Frankenstein.
He also gives his proposed definition of science fiction:

Science fiction is the search for a definition of man and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science), and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post-Gothic mold.*

In 1990, Roger Corman chose Frankenstein Unbound for his first directing challenge, after a 15-year gap.
This memorandum is a comparison of the two works.
Part Two will be a memorandum on the themes of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and how her ideas about science and religion were transformed, and used, in the various films about her characters.

One difference between the Aldiss novel, and the Corman film, is the profession of the main character.
In the novel, the hero is a failed Texan politician named Joe Bodenland.
(He’s a married man—licking his political wounds after being fired—while his wife is away from New Houston on a business trip.)
In the film, Joe is a brash scientist who’s designed a super weapon more destructive than the atomic bomb.

At the beginning of the film, Dr. Buchanan is conducting an experiment.
His team blows up a small version of the Statue of Liberty in front of an audience of dignitaries.
Although there are shields protecting them, most viewers end up covered with ash, and with disheveled clothing.
The year is 2031, and Dr. Buchanan is a scientist seeking more funding for his project.
I’m not sure why Buchanan is destroying this particular statue, and it’s not a particularly strong beginning for the film.

For the rest of this memorandum, I’ll refer to the hero in the book as “Texan Joe B” and the film hero as “Dr. Joe B.”
“Joe” will refer to both characters.
The main point of both stories is that not all scientific knowledge leads to progress.

There’s a big side effect to Dr. Joe B’s weapon.
It has accidentally created “timeslips,” events in which random people travel in and out from the present to the past.
In the novel, Texan Joe B hasn’t caused “timeslips;” in the movie, Dr. Joe B has. 

Dr. Joe Buchanan (John Hurt) defends Justine Moritz (Catherine Corman) with an axe. Roger Corman’s daughter played a nanny, falsely accused of murdering Dr. Victor Frankenstein’s 6-year-old nephew, in Frankenstein Unbound.

In both versions of Frankenstein Unbound, Joe is zapped (along with his automobile) via a timeslip, from the mid 21st century back to 1817 Geneva, Switzerland.
(Luckily, Texan Joe B speaks fluent German.)
In Geneva, Joe meets Dr. Victor Frankenstein, his monster, his fiancé (Elizabeth), Mary Shelley, as well as poets Lord Bryon, and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
In the movie, Dr. Joe B runs into trouble when he tries to prevent Justine Moritz (a young woman falsely accused of murdering Frankenstein’s nephew) from being hanged.
In the novel, Texan Joe B is tossed into jail, accused of murdering Dr. Frankenstein himself.

Dr. Joe Buchanan (John Hurt) shows his talking car to Mary Shelley (Bridget Fonda) in Frankenstein Unbound.

In the film, the scientist’s talking car has a nuclear-powered engine, and it’s able to drive itself.
In the novel, the politician’s car doesn’t talk, is electric, and is outfitted with a swivel gun on the roof.
(The talking car in the movie is played by a 1988 Italdesign Aztec concept car.)

In the film version of Frankenstein Unbound, Frankenstein constructs the female monster with the head of Victor’s fiancé Elizabeth, and the female monster has a slight, delicate body.
In the novel, Frankenstein constructs the female monster with the head of the hanged servant girl (Justine), and the body of the female monster is just as large and ungainly as that of the male Frankenstein monster. 

If the screenwriters for the film version of Frankenstein Unbound (Roger Corman and F.X. Feeney) had included more of the Aldiss novel in the script, it would have been an R-rated, or even an X-rated movie!
Mary Shelley is a very sexual woman in the book. She goes skinny dipping with Dr. Joe B, and breastfeeds her infant son William as they talk.

Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Raul Julia) wakes the female monster-bride (Catherine Rabett) in Frankenstein Unbound.

Moreover, Aldiss goes into graphic detail about drawings of the sexual parts of the “monsters” in Dr. Frankenstein’s lab.
(This scene in the Aldiss book, reminded me of android David’s lab in Ridley Scott’s 2017 film Alien: Covenant.)
Rather than spend money on Frankenstein’s lab, however, Roger Corman chose to spend his budget on ripped-apart sheep, the Frankenstein monster assaulting villagers, and the death scene of the monster at the end of the story.
Unfortunately, most of the practical special effects—with the exception of the monster death scene—weren’t well executed.

In the novel, Texan Joe B watches as the two monsters mate for the first time.
(He had intended to kill them, but instead watches as they have sex.)
The only sex scene in the film is between Dr. Joe B (John Hurt) and Mary (Bridget Fonda).
However, the scene is more suggestive, than graphic.
(I’ve always loved John Hurt, so it’s nice to see him as a romantic lead.)

From left to right: the scandalous poet Lord Bryon (Jason Patric), Mary Shelley (Bridget Fonda), and Percy Shelley (Michael Hutchence) in Frankenstein Unbound.

In the novel, we hear a lot more from Lord Bryon, Mary Shelley, and Percy Shelley, than in the film.
In place of philosophical discussions about human society, the movie audience is given human arms torn out of sockets and gutted sheep that appear to be breathing.

At one point in the Aldiss novel, Lord Bryon says:

“Is it possible that machinery will banish oppression?” he asked. “The question is whether machines strengthen the good or the evil in human nature, So far the evidence is not encouraging, and I suspect that new knowledge may lead to new oppression.”

In both versions of Frankenstein Unbound, the Joe character loses his moral compass and becomes prey to wild dreams.
By the end of the novel, Texan Joe B kills three of the novel’s main characters: Victor Frankenstein, the monster’s mate, and finally the monster himself.
At the end of the movie, Dr. Joe B does kill the monster, but it’s partially in self-defense.
It’s Dr. Victor Frankenstein who killed the female monster, and the monster who killed Victor.
At the end of both works, Joe trudges off into the snow.

*In his essay “A Monster for All Seasons” (in Science Fiction Dialogues, 1982) Aldiss says that “mode,” might have been a better word than “mold.” Also, (says Aldiss) perhaps he should have left out the phrase “Gothic and post-Gothic.”

Losing a Dime Making a “Message” Film

How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime, Roger Corman with Jim Jerome.

Director, screenwriter, and film producer Roger Corman died on May 9, 2024, at the age of 98.
Obituaries praised him for mentoring great directors, and actors, as well as the art films he distributed.
However, his work as a director and screenwriter was dismissed.
After all, Corman was known as the “King of the B-Movies,” and the producer of Sharkopus vs. Whalewolf.
American newspaper editors, and movie critics, tend to be confused by the ideas of “low” and “high” art.

The title of Corman’s autobiography, How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime, was inaccurate.
By 1990—when the book was published—Corman had already made over 100 movies.
Second, although Corman was a master of staying under budget, he had lost money on at least two films.

Adam Cramer (William Shatner) in 1962’s The Intruder.

One was a film he’d directed—1962’s The Intruder*—about a northern bigot named Adam Cramer (William Shatner) who travels to southern towns stirring up racial hatred.
The other was a film he’d produced—1974’s Cockfighter—which starred Warren Oates as Frank Mansfield, a man determined to win a Cockfighter of the Year award.
(According to Beverly Gray’s biography of Corman: his “heart was in this project; he should probably have directed it himself.”)

The Intruder was also released under the title I Hate Your Guts.

The Intruder and Cockfighter have in common that they are ambitious, well-acted films that are difficult to watch.
Both were also box office failures that you can only watch on YouTube.
However, they’ve each held up well.
I read a few Corman obits; none mentioned either film.

Pam Grier was in several Roger Corman films, including The Arena.

One lesson that Corman learned from making The Intruder was that attempting to teach the mass audience was a bad idea.
He also learned that message movies wouldn’t break even.
In later films—exploitation/thrillers like 1971’s The Big Doll House (Pam Grier’s first major role), and 1975’s Crazy Mama—he veiled social consciousness with violence, humor, and trashiness.

According to IMDb, Roger Corman directed 56 films between 1955 and 1990, some of them under the pseudonym “Henry Neil,” or uncredited.
His first was a Western: Five Guns West.
A few years later, his creations included memorable black-and-white science-fiction—among them, It Conquered the World (1956), Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), and Wasp Woman (1959)—designed for double bills at drive-in theaters.

Europe was more impressed by Corman’s work, than America.
In 1966, his biker film The Wild Angels was nominated for the Venice Film Festival “Golden Lion.”
This was the film that gave Corman his rep for being “anti-establishment.”
However, as Corman put it in 2000: “I was always the squarest guy in a hip group.” (pg. 85: Roger Corman, by Beverly Gray)

Roger Corman (left) with Vincent Price (right).

I developed my taste for horror films watching Roger Corman’s “Edgar Allen Poe” films of the early 1960’s.
I especially adored Vincent Price in The Tomb of Ligeia, The Masque of the Red Death, and The Raven.
(The Tomb of Ligeia was Martin Scorsese’s favorite Corman film from his youth.)
Corman films always had a touch of humor.
I first saw these films, not at a drive-in, but in a small movie theater that played second-run triple features.

Roger Corman was the producer or executive producer for nearly 500 films.
These included 1977’s I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (nominated for four Oscars) and 1979’s Saint Jack (nominated by BAFTA).
After he started New World in 1970, he was Distribution Producer for well-known art films: including, Cries and Whispers, (1972), Amarcord (1973), Fantastic Planet (1973), The Story of Adele H (1975), The Tin Drum (1979), and Breaker Morant (1980).
Big studios at the time didn’t want to “take a chance” on foreign films.
Frank Moreno (VP at New World) and Corman took financial risks on films they admired. 

The monster (in Frankenstein Unbound) has eyes pieced together with three different iris colors. According to Beverly Gray, Corman was shocked to learn that Producer Thom Mount spent so much (a cool $100,000) on the poster art.

Corman was in his mid 60’s when he directed his last film Frankenstein Unbound (1990).

This film involved time travel (from 2031 to 1817); a scientist (Dr. Joe Buchanan) who accidentally creates “time slips” while trying to create a weapon; and an insane Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Raul Julia).
It’s a fever dream of a movie.
The plot is interspersed with dream sequences in which Dr. Buchanan (John Hurt) is being chased and tormented.

The original black and white sketch (by Dave Christensen) for the Frankenstein Unbound poster.

Corman believed that the $11.5 million budget for Frankenstein Unbound was excessive, and he insisted on cutting corners during the making of the film.
(Some of the practical special effects could have used some CGI, if such had been invented.)
The film bombed at the box office, but it wasn’t a critical failure.

The British movie edition paperback of Frankenstein Unbound, that shows the monster (Nick Brimble) and his bride (Catherine Rabett).

Frankenstein Unbound was based on the novel of the same name by British author and anthology editor Brian Aldiss (1925-2017).
However, turning the film’s hero from a presidential advisor, into a scientist, was likely Corman’s idea.
(Corman was a screenwriter for the film, as well as the director.)

The romance between the hero (John Hurt) and Mary Shelley (Bridget Fonda) was taken from the book.
Aldiss greatly admired Mary Shelley, and credited her with writing the first science-fiction novel, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818).

Corman never lost his affection for making “guilty pleasure” movies.
Beginning in the early 21st century, he began producing CGI-dependent TV movies—like Dinocroc (2004), and Sharkopus vs. Whalewolf (2015)—for direct-to-video and the Syfy channel.
(Mostly, he just approved the scripts and the budgets.)
This was a return to his drive-in themes of the 1950’s and 1960’s, except with CGI.

*A caption in Ed Naha’s book, The Films of Roger Corman, calls The Intruder “a noble experiment.” In the text of Naha’s book, Corman is quoted saying: “I had never believed in any picture as much as I believed in this one.”

Underwhelmed by TV

HBO based House of the Dragon on a 131-page George R. R. Martin short story called “The Princess and the Queen.” The story focused on two women in rival Targaryen houses.

The New York Times Sunday Arts & Leisure section printed a three-page (including the cover) article entitled “TV so Well-Made, it Underwhelms,” by James Poniewozik.
The 5/5/2024 cover carried a different title than what appeared on facing pages 12 and 13.
That read: “It’s Comfortable. Too Comfortable,” as well as a subtitle: “Mid TV is polished, professional and cinematic. But where’s the ambition?”

The premise of the article is that many current streaming shows have high-level production values.
Yet, these series are just “Mid” (for Meh, or middle-of-the-road?) TV.

The Hulu series Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans was based on Lawrence Learner’s book Capote’s Women. Many streaming series are either based on non-fiction books, or on novels. 

I’m baffled as to why the NYT allotted so much space to this feature article.
Was it to prove that the “Gray Lady” is “keeping up” with streaming TV?
Is it meant to punish Disney+ or Apple TV+ for failing to deliver ground-breaking television?
What was the motive?

Actually, the contrast between the text, and the presentation of Poniewozik’s article, mirrors the author’s criticism of TV, in that the space given to the photos, is way out of proportion to the unbaked ideas.
Murky photographs from Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, Big Little Lies, Apples Never Fall, Fosse/Verdon, Feud, Breaking Bad, Ozark, Masters of the Air, and Loki take up far too much “real estate” in proportion to the words.

TV and movie execs have always “thrown money” at TV and movie screens.
One of the reasons why director/ producer Roger Corman (who died recently at 98) never joined the “major leagues” was because he didn’t believe in the old “you have to spend money to make money” adage.

Poniewozik mentions around 56 productions in his essay, and nearly all were generated by HBO-MAX, Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, or Disney+.
The cultural hierarchy is clear.
Unless you’re subscribing to all of these services, you’ve no chance of seeing anything that’s “original, provocative, or ‘important.’”

Of the many shows that Poniewozik mentions, I’d be surprised if he really watched more than 25.
As a non-critic, I’ve only watched a fifth of the shows listed: Game of Thrones, Manhunt, Feud: Capote Vs. the Swans, The Bear, Deadwood, Severance, Shrinking, Yoki, and The Morning Show.*
(I still intend to catch up on House of the Dragon.)

I’ve seen so few of these potentially “important” shows because I don’t subscribe to all the streaming services.
Furthermore, I don’t watch dramas and comedies while ironing.
(Poniewozik assumes that everyone multi-tasks, while they watch TV. I reserve my TV and chore multi-tasking for watching the news, and crime shows on Discovery.)

Severance, an Apple TV+ fantasy about office workers whose minds are (surgically?) divided between their work and their home lives. The series stars Adam Scott as widowed office-worker Mark Scout.

I do agree with some of Mr. Poniewozik’s opinions.
Severance is a great show.
I also have given up on shows after one or two episodes, because they seem to be all style, with little substance.
However, I realize that I could be mistaken.
Some series start out weak, and become much better.
I just don’t have the time to give these shows another chance.

There’s a battle for survival among the streaming services, and one weapon is money.
In order to inspire more people to subscribe, streaming services boost the budgets.
Another tool is moving programs from a free network to a streaming service (like when CBS moved Evil to Paramount), and tempting viewers with one free episode (as when Peacock aired the first episodes of The Traitors on NBC).

I noticed that Poniewozik didn’t offer any opinion on several well-publicized streaming shows.
(Were there financial, or synergy, reasons for these omissions?)
He doesn’t mention Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building (unless he’s referring to it with his crack about Meryl Streep), or HBO-MAX’s Lovecraft Country.
He also omitted other less publicized streaming shows, that my husband and I enjoyed: Foundation, Slow Horses, Devs, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and Death and Other Details (to name five). 

Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Tobias Menzies) talks with Mrs. Lincoln (Lili Taylor) on the Lincoln funeral train. The Apple TV series Manhunt wasn’t just about the hunt for John Wilkes Booth. It was also about slavery, Reconstruction, and a divided nation.

In one paragraph, Poniewozik attacks three Apple TV+ shows calling them “classy but inert.”
I have no opinion on two of the shows—Constellation (a space drama) or The New Look (about fashion)—because I haven’t watched either.
However, I enjoyed Manhunt, and although it had some flaws, it certainly wasn’t “inert.”

One of the reasons I enjoyed Manhunt was the historical period that it explored.
In episode four, “The Secret Line,” Lafayette Baker (Patton Oswald) breaks up Wall Street’s “Gold Room,” in which “former” wealthy Confederates traded gold against the U.S. dollar.
Later, Baker comments that “justice is a commodity for millionaires.”
(Rather topical to me.)
Tobias Menzies was excellent as the tormented main character, Secretary Edwin Stanton.
Anthony Boyle was fascinating as the fanatic actor, John Wilkes Booth.
How was this particular series inert? 

Poniewozik makes a critical error when he half-heartedly watches one episode, and proclaims a show “warmed over,” “forgettable,” “by the numbers,” “comic book,” “toothless,” “padded to the limit,” “superfluous,” or “threadbare.”
Mini-series may be uneven.
Sometimes, concepts are ruined by TV executives.
Sometimes, the viewer is just in the wrong mood.

Most of all, I disagree with Poniewozik’s opinion that productions are “too polished to be awful.”
Of course, polished shows can be awful!
A show can have great cinematography but rotten scripts.
The costumes and sets might knock you over, but if it’s badly cast, who cares?

Poniewozik seems to expect more television to have that rare combination of excellent scripts, well-cast actors, and spectacular production values, in a world in which too many cooks—especially TV executives—may spoil the broth.
Rather than be grateful when creatives come together to make something good, he grumbles because there’s lipstick on a pig, and too many countries provided backgrounds.

The first season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is said to have cost $150 million. Can that be true? Personally, I'm looking forward to season two.

His weirdest idea is criticizing artists and producers for “lack of ambition.”
Unless he’s interviewed the people working on the shows, where’s the evidence for that?

James Poniewozik, and The New York Times, shouldn’t criticize creatives for “beautifying” series that aren’t worth a viewer’s time, or not making “ambitious” series.
That argument won’t make TV execs approve more innovative shows.
While creatives may earn their daily bread by doing good work, their untalented overlords are earning much more money for dumbing shows down.

TV execs are throwing more and more dollars at our screens, all for that precious $9.99 a month from millions of jaded consumers.
While a TV mini-series may cost $15 million dollars per episode, the total yearly compensation for a Disney+ or Netflix CEO is in the $25-$40 million range.
No wonder execs think nothing of transporting actors and production artists all over the world.

* Usually, my taste aligns with that of my soulmate, and we watch television together. However, I haven’t joined him as he watches Shogun, Watchman, or Wandavision (3 of the 56 TV series mentioned—in passing—in Poniewozik’s NYT article).

The Plight of the INCEL

 

The “wild and crazy” Festrunk Brothers (Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd) seek large-breasted American women, in a 1977 Saturday Night Live skit.

Some involuntarily-celibate men are angry at uppity women.
You know what I mean: women who are too “discriminating” as to their dating patterns.
This is a patriarchal society!
Why are women “so fussy” about what men earn per year, or whether they can talk comfortably with the second sex?

These men seem confused about the type of love they’re looking for.
On one hand, they believe in traditional gender roles, in which women are just commodities.
Yet, many INCELs are unable to “handle” the breadwinner role.
Contrarily, “CELs” also seem to yearn for some form of “romantic love.”

What these men have forgotten is that it isn’t the male sex that’s in charge.
It’s the wealthy men.
Without wealth, you’re at the bottom at the totem pole, along with women and non-white men.
In any transactional relationship, you must provide something in exchange.
Within that world view—if a man can’t provide security to a woman—at least she needs a handsome physique, or easy conversation. 

There are categories of INCELs.
One category is the inept man who doesn’t know how to flirt, but who’s essentially non-violent.
An example from the past is the Festrunk Brothers on SNL.
The Slovakian brothers thought women with “big American breasts” will be attracted by their garish tight pants and polyester shirts.
Sometimes, these men aren’t stupid.
Although INCELs believe they’re entitled to female attention, they’re just not skilled at obtaining it.
Such men are usually more annoying than harmful, (unless, of course, they’re your manager).

One can think of the Me-Too movement as the rebellion of women against those INCELs (often married INCELs*) who gain money and power.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
In a world in which women are second class citizens, powerful men believe they are owed sexual favors by underlings.
Just as other INCELs, they can’t pick up the signals, and think resistant women are just being “coy.”

1985’s Weird Science tells the story of two high school nerds, Gary and Wyatt (Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith) who create their own “perfect woman” (Kelly LeBrock).

Popular culture has created humorous stories of “nerds” seeking love.
There’s Weird Science, in which the teenagers don’t want sex; they just want to watch their “perfect woman” doing aerobics.
There’s also The Big Bang Theory, (2007-2019) in which scientists Dr. Leonard Hofstader (Johnny Galecki), Dr. Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), and Dr. Simon Helberg (Howard Wolowitz) vie to win the attention of attractive girlfriends, despite their over-educated geekiness.  

Another category of INCEL is the male creature who becomes very angry after rejection (sexual need spilling out into violence).
One recent example was Joel Cauchi, who killed six people, and injured twelve—all female, except a male security guard—in an Australian mall.
Cauchi was a 40-year-old diagnosed schizophrenic, who went off his meds, and had difficulty making female friends.
There have been many such terrorists—men who merge fear of women with hatred for an unjust society: Ted Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh, to name two.

Ted Kaczynski, a brilliant scholar with a PhD in mathematics, was known as the “Unabomber.”
He used mail bombs to murder three people, and maim 23 others, between 1978-1995.
His targets were a computer scientist, an ad executive, an airline president, and a timber industry lobbyist: all males who he associated with his theories of “anti-nature technology.”
Kaczynski sought a woman to join him in his isolated cabin (until he landed in prison).
However, he likely died a virgin. 

In 1995, veteran Timothy McVeigh bombed an Oklahoma City Federal building killing 149 adults, 19 children, and injuring 680 others.
(McVeigh was tried and executed for this crime.)
According to Wikipedia, McVeigh was very shy around women and his romantic dreams were frustrated by repeated rejections.
He felt victimized by the U.S. federal government, as well as corporate elites, convinced that these forces were plotting to take away his freedom.

The 1971 film Willard (with Bruce Davison as Willard Stiles and Ernest Borgnine as Al Martin) is based on the 1968 Stephen Gilbert novel Ratman’s Notebooks.

In the 1971 version of Willard, Willard Stiles’ subconscious anger isn’t directed so much at women as it is toward his overbearing mother Henrietta (the great Elsa Lanchester), and his grasping boss Al Martin (the equally great Ernest Borgnine).
Al Martin stole the Stiles fortune, and also wants to steal the Stiles mansion.
As the film begins, Henrietta Stiles is controlling her son’s life from her sick bed.
Willard uses his pet rats to gain some autonomy, and his newfound sense of confidence does attract a women friend, Joan Simms (Sandra Locke).
However, by the end of Willard, Willard Stiles’ life is still not his own.
He protects Joan from the rats, but succumbs to their attack.

Moma’s boy, Willard Stiles (Crispin Glover), bonds with his pet rats in the 2003 film Willard.

In the 2003 reworking of Willard, Willard Stiles (Crispin Glover), also attracts a girlfriend—Cathryn, played by Laura Elena Harring—after his rat friends give him a new air of confidence.
However, his feminine companion (unlike Joan Simms, in the 1971 Willard film) eventually realizes that he’s in league with the rats.
This Willard winds up in a mental institution cell, but the rats still have their sights on him.

Cover of Ratman’s Notebooks by Stephen Gilbert.

Both films are based on the 1968 novel Ratman’s Notebooks (written by a British native, Stephen Gilbert).
In the first part of the book, the main character says:

No girl would look at me twice. Not unless she was desperate. Not even then. Girls have a great nose for money. They have to have. They’re like cats, prowling round to find the best place to have kittens. When Father was alive, I used to sometimes notice girls running their eyes over me, but it never came to anything. I remember one of them telling me that she thought I would suit her best friend. But most of them didn’t even think I was up to that standard. I don’t know how they knew. Nowadays they don’t even give me a second glance.

By the end of the novel, with the help of the rats, Willard regains his father’s business.
“The girl” snags Willard; they’re redecorating his house, and planning marriage.
By the last pages, chief rat Ben (and the rest of Ben’s rat friends) know that Willard wants to poison them (so he can lead a conventional life with his bride).
By the very last page, rats are gnawing at the attic door, and no one can hear Willard’s yelling.

*One can argue that married INCELs are technically not involuntarily celibate. However, all men can end celibacy simply by hiring a prostitute. An INCEL is someone who resents women for not “behaving properly,” and giving men attention (sexual or romantic attention) no matter their lack of money or charm.