Reflections on Certain Bipedal Reptiles

They say that $500 billion of purchases are influenced by children, and I would contend that this figure has actually dropped off from 15 years ago, when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles waned in popularity.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles -- four distinct, beautiful words made forever divine by their matrimony. To this day, I still argue with friends and strangers over who had more TMNT action figures, video games, bedsheets, etc. Sometimes in these debates, I'm forced to lay down my trump, not just revealing that I was Michaelangelo for three Halloweens, but that I owned the VHS of their live "Coming Out of Our Shells" concert tour.

I mean, these guys were the reason I took karate as a kid, and I know I'm not the only member of my generation who can say that.

It's been hard to explain what made TMNT so sensational, this ridiculous hodgepodge of a superhero group -- but it wasn't all that random a concept when you think about it. These comic book spoofs embodied such a perfect storm of irresistable counter-culture elements, it's hard to tell whether creators Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman acutely realized the shift of 80's pop culture, or that they established it all on their own with the comics.

And they weren't the only thing out there at the time. Transformers and G.I. Joe had their shot, but they just didn't excite me, quite possibly because for all their inherent silliness, they still took themselves so damn seriously. There was something safe, identifiable, so much more fun about the Ninja Turtles than anything else a four- to nine-year-old boy could worship.

They eat pizza -- how unglamorous, like me! They live in the sewer -- how underappreciated, like me! The Turtles crack jokes and whoop ass and each have very distinct personalities and identities, all while still being part of a tight-knit brotherhood. I couldn't count all ideals that were embodied by these anti-heroes whom were originally doodled in jest.

You can't re-evaluate a juvenile obsession like TMNT without recounting the toys. The toys. I like to think I had all the ones that mattered, and browsing through them in online archives, I still believe that to be true. A few favorites of mine back in the day:

Breakfightin' Raphael - Breakdance fighting is a confirmed fantasy of every eight-year-old boy since the former's invention. Couple things missing here, though: a striped Adidas track suit and a boombox that played a garbled snippet of Run DMC's "It's Like That", and the experience would have been complete.

The Technodrome - Oh, hell yes. You got you a Death Star on tank treads. With a giant eyeball on top -- which, by the way, came tumbling down to bowl over whatever plastic recipient you placed in its path.

The Pizza Thrower - The Ninja Turtles vehicle that could have been a legitimate weapon. Could have been, but it took four or five square hits with its low-velocity plastic discs to bring down an action figure, so its "don't aim at people or animals" warning seemed... tongue-in-cheek.

Notably, the tie that binds some of the best toys is that they had some independent means of knocking shit over, an attribute I highly valued at that age.

I've learned some things in deconstructing that obsessive period (one of those things being that they should've been written -- grammatically speaking-- as the Teenage, Mutant, Ninja Turtles). The marketing, I'll say, was an Orwellian ministry, and that's just if you consider the cartoon series alone. If you want to put it bleakly, my demographic was commercially enslaved by TMNT, but I'll tell you, that was a joy while it lasted. Power Rangers, Pokemon, whatever subsequent manias you younger types grew up on, you can keep them. The Turtles were fucking perfect.

Just Saw a Movie: TMNT

(GRADE: C-)

No, I'm serious.

See, the desire for nostalgia was overwhelming, even against the advice of 50 people whose opinions, by convention, are supposed to mean something.

And I could see what they were saying. Somebody keeps trying to bring back the glorious Cowabunga phenomenon that was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I'd like to think it was for more than just financial ambitions. Despite the skepticism I share with other recovering TMNT addicts, it'd be nice to witness something new that does justice to the Turtles, not necessarily for the sake of popular resurgence, but so we can fondly recall the kung-fu grip that Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michaelangelo had on our prepubescent development.

That didn't happen this week, but oh well. This new movie, esoterically titled TMNT, is a soulless CG exercise that may have more reason for being than, say, Garfield 2: A Tail of Two Kitties, but I'll be damned if that ain't sayin' much.

In terms of style, TMNT falls somewhere between the surprising maturity of the live-action movies (not to mention the original comics) and the infectious goofiness of the late 80's/early 90's cartoon show. It stretches toward both appeals, and failing to grasp either end, the whole film feeling generic overall.

It opens promisingly, though, with the Turtles having drifted apart after vanquishing their nemesis, Shredder (and his empty threats of ever making turtle soup). The brothers each find some new occupation, like Donatello's frustrating job in tech support. The real catalyst to the story is Leonardo's return from Latin America, where he single-handedly trashed Colombian drug lords as part of his leadership training. The dialogue takes great pains to inform you that Leonardo is the leader, that he leads, and that the brothers will have to become close again if he can ever do his leading.

But trouble is brewing. Corporate magnate Bruce Wayne, er, Max Winters (voiced by Patrick Stewart), is the source of mayhem in this Turtles adventure. Cursed with immortality, he is collecting monsters -- 13 of them, of course-- which will unleash a mysterious magic that will atone for his ancient transgressions. But as well you know, mysterious magic is not to be tolerated, especially when it culminates in firing a gigantic beam out of a skyscraper near the climax.

Still, Winters takes care of business: even though the 13 monsters came snarling into this world from Central America 3,000 years ago, they are all found in New York, for the sake of plot movement, with no difficulty whatsoever.

So the turtles... I'm sorry--

(*swallows two aspirin*)

Okay, so the turtles get in this mess after Leonardo gets kidnapped by Winters' newly-revived compadres, and it's time to kick some shell, as it were.

When it comes to Turtles adventures, ridiculousness is accepted as a franchise convention, but there's a constant, nagging feeling that TMNT wants you to take its proceedings very seriously. Which is a shame, and matters are made worse by the script's lack of anything resembling laugh-out-loud humor. If nothing else, it would have been nice to see more winking self-parody (like Donatello's IT job) without it stealing these gags from the opening of Ghostbusters II.

So does the CG work? Its cheap presentation is the other reason TMNT feels like an overlong Saturday morning cartoon, sorry to say. The direction, though, particularly in the action scenes, is quite inspired. While most of the film is forgettable, the rainy rooftop faceoff between Leonardo and Raphael is engrossing to the point that you temporarily forget it's even computer generated.

Now when you ask people who their favorite turtle was, the results tend to be diffuse (unless the poll is taken on a computer geek site such as that one, then you can figure which one takes top honors there). So a Turtles movie works best when having all four heroes share the spotlight.

Trouble is, the plot obsesses over its Leo/Raph "leadership" feud , and the other two turtles are left with pathetically diminished roles: Donatello occasionally employs his smarts to inform everyone of some gee-whiz plot point calculation, and Michaelangelo pops up to deliver brain-hemorrhagingly bad jokes. His presence is especially unwelcome. Roughly half the fanboys will feel betrayed by this imbalance in screen time for the turtles, and (sniff) I know I did.

Some of the side characters have more developed roles, like April and Casey Jones, the Turtles' human allies. April's voice, for one, has a real "who is that?" quality, and then you find out it's Sarah Michelle Gellar. Besides that, there's nothing memorable concerning the voice acting, which includes Patrick Stewart and Kevin Smith in his throwaway cameo. And was that really Laurence Fishburne narrating the story? Yes it was, and I'm afraid that's the most engrossing revelation in the TMNT experience.

Just Saw a Movie: 300

Grade: B

A girl sat behind me in the theater, and she, during the first "sun-blotting" volley of myriad arrows being fired at the Spartans, had the gall to say

"That's unnecessary."

She obviously did not come into the movie with the right head. If you've seen the trailers, then you should know exactly what you're getting yourself into with 300. If these 30-second peeks at the excess, the absurdity, the awesomeness of the film excited you at all, then by all means lay down the $7.50. If not, then you're probably going to mutter the above or some other inherent falsehood during the screening.

My error lay in watching History Channel's opportunistic treatment of the Battle of Thermopylae ("Last Stand of the 300"). I wish I waited on that; it will handicap the experience for you simply because you know better. To the movie's credit, the circumstances surrounding the battle are mostly accurate, but when it gets any more detailed, the artistic liberties become obvious. How about when King Leonidas, the leader of the Spartans played by Gerard Butler (Phantom of the Opera), spits his rousing speeches in his Scottish accent.

"We will foight fur freedom -- it is the Spurtin wee!"

Not only that, but whenever the whole "freedom" theme got drummed up, I felt temporarily jettisoned from the movie. It was as if the person next to me was compulsively whispering Facts into my ear:

But that's hypocritical. Historically, they have more slaves per capita than any other Greek state.

Really? But that wouldn't make me feel good about them. Plus, I kind of like the interpretable War on Terror allegory that all this freedom business may or may not be alluding to.

Right. So the film does a good enough job of varying up the action sequences throughout, but even then they need some kind of interruption every now and again. Breaking up the tension and adding political intrigue, there is a sideplot involving Leonidas' wife, Gorgo (Mediterranean women have the most beautiful names), who fights a diplomatic war at home. She is trying to lobby for reinforcements to join her husband while being taunted (and worse) by Sparta's top remaining senator.

But that never happened.

Shouldn't matter -- it serves a decent purpose by adding a dimension to the plot, so I can forgive that. I forgave a lot of things. The Persians throw charging rhinos and elephants at the phalanx, and in a sequence that allows the most terrific shot in the film. Really, I was half-expecting Napoleon Bonaparte to wheel out a line of cannons and begin firing them at the Greeks. And I think I would have loved it. Also, it is strange that our 300 heroes wear no protective armor save for their helmets and shields.

But their Hoplites all either had bronze breastplates on or what was the ancient Greek equivalent of kevlar. That's partly why they were such an impenetrable force.

Sure, but which would you rather see? Metal bulging six-packs or real bulging six-packs.

But I don't need to see --

Okay, but the female demographic does. In fact, those oiled-down man-abs are the only conceivable appeal this movie can present to the lady crowd, and you can't expect producers to squander that opportunity. For that reason, expect a director's cut to be released on DVD in which the Greeks fight the battle completely nude -- 300: The Olympic Edition.

The appeal lies in this excess, and the movie is always aware of this. It just helps if you are, too, while not giving a damn.

Writing Centers Meet. Few Casualties.

My job undergoes semantic change every couple years. At UCCS's Writing Center, we are officially referred to as "Writing Consultants", which was changed from "Writing Coach" to something less gay. Currently I'm using my seniority to lobby for "Writing Shaman", for whatever that'd be worth.

This is my third year of tutoring writing -- professionally, anyway -- so when the Colorado Writing Tutors Conference came around this year, I felt it would be cruel to deny them the light of my sagacious presence.

Or something like that. It would be my last chance before graduating, so I wasn't about to miss this year. It raised my eyebrow to find that the conference would be held at Colorado State University-Pueblo. Now, I'll say that the school's quite good in its own right, especially if you're there for science, but I did once spend half an hour convincing a friend that it existed.

"Oh, yeah? Then what are their sports teams called?"

"(Sigh) The... the Thunderwolves."

"You're making shit up."

"No, I'm serious!"

11 universities showed up to the conference, but I'm proud to say that tutors from my school put on more than 25% of the presentations. My colleagues and I mostly attended each others' readings in lieu any stranger's, following each other around in a devoted pack. It vastly limited the learning experience considering that we all more or less knew what our fellow UCCS tutors would be talking about, but when given a choice, ya gotta choose the family. But I've got to say it was nice to have a section of familiars at mine, covered in white and gold body paint and doing the Wave.

So anyway, I presented my paper – “High-Stakes Tutoring: Liberating the Personal Statement Writer” – as the very first speaker of the day. My essay still had some tweaking in order by the time the conference rolled around, so I didn't read from it so much as consider it as I spoke.

The gist of of it was that most undergrads who write the personal statement are wholly unprepared for the task. They bam out what amounts to little more than a resumé in paragraph form -- which may answer the question but is the complete opposite of what admissions boards are actually looking for. Granted, the personal statement, only a single part of the "accept-me-please" bundle you send out, varies in importance from school to school, but the kinds of essays that most students actually submit are no help to their cause.

I described the ways in which writing tutors can change this, making themselves invaluable to grad school applicants, and by the end I advocated for writing centers to increase outreach to these writers who need our services as desperately as anyone.

The rest of the conference was quite nice. Their Writing Room director and staff played good hosts to the thing, keeping the event a structured yet casual exchange of ideas that it really ought to be.

At some point we took a tour of their Writing Room, which was... different. With all of its obvious college-kid influence in decoration, their workplace made ours seem stuffy by comparison, and I tried to keep from putting on the snob as I passed through it. I did turn my nose up at a prominent portrait of MacGuyver (even with its clever paper clip appliqué) as if to announce, "I say, this is hardly conducive to an academic learning environment."

The same could perhaps have been said of a pile of magazines that sat on a corner table, periodicals I remember being along the lines of Entertainment Weekly or Glamour. I didn't understand the need for them, whether they were for reading material while students wait or for constructing Brangelina collagés.

Still, hard to knock a bunch of writing tutors who seemed professional, nonetheless, and were quite enthusiastic about sharing what they do. And that willingness to talk shop was most folks' reason for being there, anyway.

I heard a rumor that next year's conference will expand out to encompass Rocky Mountain colleges rather than just the state of Colorado. To inaugurate this, they want to hold it way out in Wyoming.

I think it's a trap.

You Be Illin'

Over this weekend, it became more and more obvious to me that last year's flu shot was a $25 better spent toward, I don't know, Motrin in the bulk.

Really, what good can be said of an obsessively recommended health measure that ensures immunity to the wimpier strains that will likely mutate within months, while at the same time permitting the more exotic variants to invade the body? Honestly, this stuff I've got recalls Oregon Trail.

If that weren't bad enough, last October I got my proactive self in line with the elderly to receive the shot early. Today my doctor theorized that the flu vaccine has worn off since that time, allowing the virus easy passage.

It may be safe to assume that most of those aforementioned senior citizens have by now gone on to a better place...

Still, I can't say that I hadn't somewhat exacerbated my illness earlier this weekend. I write papers in my basement now -- chiefly to allow for fewer distractions and more room for periodic pacing and talking to myself. It's actually bolstered the creative process on my last two literary criticism assignments, but my mistake was repeating this strategy (in a concrete chamber at 55 degrees until 3 in the morning) while already suffering the hilarious medical paradox often referred to as the "hot-chills."

Seemed like a good idea at the time. Glistening with sweat while chattering my teeth, I assumed I'd achieve a Dostoyevsky-like enlightenment if, while writing, I vere to soffer.

Whether it actually produced a good essay or not, I don't know, but I did manage to grow a rather splendid beard in the wake of this creative process.

I've been trying to enjoy the flu for its minor returns, though, which include a temporary exoneration from most, if not all, responsibility. And say what you will about the unpleasantness of repeated vomiting: there's really nothing better to sculpt those abs.