Watching Your Step

Conditions: Bleak

Power Mad

Security in the air is a big deal these days. You can’t make jokes, you can’t fool around, and you certainly can’t take any toothpaste or shampoo with you when you travel, lest you be assumed to be a terrorist and shot. Or arrested, whatever’s easiest. And it turns out, you can’t make mistakes anymore either.

An Australian passenger who sparked a hijack alert on a flight to Bali has denied being drunk and claimed he banged on the door of the cockpit after mistaking it for the toilet, Indonesian police said on Saturday.

Matt Christopher Lockley also said he was in a state of depression during the Virgin Australia flight Friday to the resort island, as he was searching for his Indonesian wife with whom he had lost contact, they said.

Security forces rushed to the airport on the Indonesian island when the Boeing 737-800 from Brisbane touched down following a report from the pilot of a hijacking attempt after a passenger started thumping on the cockpit door.

- gulfnews.com/news

Now, ok, it’s pretty funny that this guy mistook the cockpit door for the other kind of cockpit door, but seriously. When we’ve got to the point where a guy banging on a door provokes a complete crackdown and an official incident, you have to start thinking we’ve gone too far. Is there no room in this world anymore for hinest mistakes? What’s happened to the human factor in transportation? In a few years passengers will be too scared to even sneeze, in case someone thinks it’s an attack and breaks out the tazers and cuffs.



Film Review: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

The underlying problem with Captain America as I saw it was that the character stood for something that no longer existed: an utterly good and wholesome America that withered away a long time ago under a mixture of apathy, arrogance and fear. Cunningly, the makers of this film have used that as a hook for the story, with Rogers realising that what he is fighting for has become so powerful and controlling that it is in danger of tipping over into pure tyranny. So the actual bad guy in the latest film is America itself. That’s well played. However despite this the latest Captain America movie comes across as underwhelming, and I’m not really sure why. All the ingredients are in place. Chris Evans is pretty much perfect as Steve Rogers. Scarlet Johansen brings depth and quality to the Romanov role. Sam Jackson is utterly convincing as Director Fury. The other actors too come across well. And yet somehow, it’s not as strong as it should be. Perhaps the Avengers movie has done more damage than we thought to the individual Marvel superhero films that make up phase 2. You can’t help but think, during Iron Man 3, Thor 2, and now Cap 2, that the others should be involved. That these threats and plots are clearly big enough for all of them to get called in to help, rather than one by himself having to take it on.

But there’s something else. Somehow the threat doesn’t feel real enough. Somehow, amid all the stylish and brilliant action sequences, the actual threat of what we’re seeing is diminished. The most exciting sequence for me is at the start of the film where bad guys try to assassinate Nick Fury, and he desperately fights to stay one step ahead. It’s a frantic and believable sequence. In comparison, the various fight sequences later on with Steve or Natasha - punching, kicking, punching some more with relentless ...monotony, has the feel of a routine rather than a battle. People get banged up, get shot, get knocked down, and bounce back again and again. These guys are indestructible. Both literally in Rogers case, but also for the other characters too. And it’s difficult to care all that much about people that don’t really seem to be in any danger.  What's really going to happen to any of these characters that will have a lasting impact?

It doesn’t help that parts of the plot don’t make a lot of sense. And it’s also not helped by a specific trick pulled on the audience, that I won’t spoil, but don’t feel too happy about. It’s a deliberate lie told to the audience just to yank our feelings around like a dog on a leash. It’s annoying. It’s insulting. It again undermines the actual level of threat in the film. In the end, giant machines and infrastructures alike are crippled and smashed into the ground. But it doesn’t seem to really matter much. The Winter Soldier remains out there somewhere, ready for Steve to chase after in the next exciting instalment. That doesn’t seem to matter much either. For a film with a lot of strong actors and some large themes, it all sort of slides past a bit too easily.

So. There’s a lie at the heart of this movie. It runs right through the very centre, and becomes clearer and clearer to see as we the inevitable final action sequence fades from memory. And it’s much deeper and more important than any bullshit about which character lies to which, or who is only pretending to be dead to better serve the story. The lie is in the implications of the plot. See, the idea presented to us here is that all the terrible things that America has done and is doing in the name of keeping itself safe, was actually done by a bunch of evil doers who had made their way to the top of the power structures. The rest of America, scared and traumatised, didn’t really want all the unjust death and destruction to be rained down indiscriminately. They just sort of got overwhelmed, and so the evil overlords were able to sneakily take control and steer the ship during such turbulent times. And so now here we are, all these years later, and the apple-pie loving, freedom-embracing, liberty-adoring folk have awoken from their hibernation. Like Captain America, they have been defrosted from their collective icy fear and are now apparently shocked and outraged over the war crimes and other terrible things that have been undertaken in their name.

It’s insulting to think that this is how America may be trying to deal with the actions that have been carried out in the war on terror. Denial is not going to work, and this kind of fantasy blame-shifting is insulting and petty. Two exploding flying aircraft carriers out of five.



- Peace out