Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 4/18/25
From the Ramparts of Academia edition
Now that the Texas Legislature has been bullied, threatened, and cajoled into submission by Our Illustrious Crime-Boss Governor and passed the Private School Voucher Program, we’d like to take the opportunity to announce the formation of the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker Continuing Education Program, which will allow us the financial privilege of teaching your Little Bundles of Joy all of the necessary and essential skills they will need to navigate the Great State of Texas in the 21st century; things like how to find clean drinking water in the cloven hoofprints of giant mutated feral pigs, and how to make gasoline out of distilled grain alcohol and bat guano—you know, useful shit. And hey, we recognize the value of a well-rounded education, so we are developing a robust slate of extra-curricular electives, such as How to Read Books that Aren’t the Bible, and the Mathematics of Usury, and our most-requested elective, Hunting the Most Dangerous Game for Fun and Profit. Stay tuned for our registration portal and be sure to have your credit card handy. Places are limited.
FIELD REPORT: New Orleans, LA
I’ve just completed the sessions on Pulp Studies for the 2025 PCA/ACA Conference. For those of you who don’t know, this is the academic conference that grad students and professors attend to fulfill certain requirements for their programs and deliver papers and presentations on whatever area of pop culture they are studying. It’s pretty heady stuff, until you realize that all of these people in attendance like the same dorky things as you, and moreover, they think about this stuff VERY DEEPLY.
I have presented here several times in the past 20 years, always about Robert E. Howard’s work in some neglected or under-appreciated genre or theme. This year, I presented my essay, “Gorillers and Grizzlies: The Tall Lyin’ Southwest Writin’ Texas Humor of Robert E. Howard,” which will appear in a forthcoming book of scholarship, tentatively titled From Cross Plains to Conan: the Making of Robert E. Howard. The focus of the book is about presenting and discussing Howard as a regional author, rather than as a fantasist, or as merely the father of sword and sorcery. Anyone who knows me or has been to Robert E. Howard Days over the years already knows this is a subject near and dear to me. I attend these conferences whenever they are driving distance from me, or when I have something to present, or both.
It's always great fun to catch up with these old friends, many of whom I met through this conference, and talk about things on a more micro- and nuanced level. We get deep in the weeds on some of this stuff, and it seems hard to follow on the outside until you realize we’re talking about the intersection of sword and sorcery fiction and heavy metal music or the artistry of Richard Corben’s Den comics.
Also, you run into the coolest cats out here. This guy was our uber driver. Full Deadpool costume and regalia. Deadpool 2 playing on the iPad in the back seat. Blaring AC/DC, light show, hell, he even had shots you could buy if you needed to pregame. Best Uber ride of my life.
Weekly Report from the N.T.A.B. Division of Media Review
G20 (Prime)
Academy award winner Viola Davis is the President of the United States, at a major summit, when bad guys butt in to do crime stuff.
MGM has been producing a number of middle-of-the-road films of late; not academy award winners by any stretch, but also not “straight to video” quality, either. G20 falls a little higher on that scale by taking some familiar—maybe worn out—cliches and putting a fresh coat of paint on them. Have we seen terrorists take over Nakatomi Plaza before? Have we seen villains pulling daring heists? How about the unlikely action hero, in the wrong place at the wrong time? Yeah, of course, but that’s not why we watch these movies.
Films like this are comforting; the hero, usually a person who plays outside the rules, taking it upon themselves to be the fly in the ointment, demonstrating that anyone can disrupt well-laid plans if they are aligned against the unethical and immoral people. We need those stories to remind us that we have more power than we think we do. I don’t know why I thought to bring it up just now. Anyway.
Viola Davis is the celebrated war hero turned political figure, and she’s trying to do something positive and ambitious, so of course, the monied interests of the world are opposed to it. She’s trying to juggle the usual balls in the air; career, family, personal problems, you know what I mean. The only thing she’s got going for her in her life is that her marriage is strong, which is refreshing to see, because that’s usually an easy and cheap way of drumming up a little drama before the fighting starts.
And don’t worry, we have all of fifteen minutes to get our bearings before Homelander shows up being all bad-guy and stuff. Their plan goes off without a hitch, leaving everyone but Madame President stranded, and it’s up to her and her bad knee to get her family to safety and save the conference. Basically, what you see in the trailer.
Again, that’s not why we watch these movies. We watch them for the derring-do, the gun fu, the stuntman fu as Viola Davis shows off her fighting skills, the tension and little cliffhangers, and the great lines of dialogue, some of which are eminently quotable. Anthony Anderson is the first gentleman to Viola Davis and they work well together. The kids are believable, not too bratty or over-qualified. There’s even some good practical stunts and effects that are increasingly nice to see making a comeback.
This is a light, but well-made action flick. Props to Davis’ trainer, because she looks fantastic and I’m truly jealous of her gun show. G20 is a perfect Laundry Day movie, or something to watch when you want to take a break from staring out your window as the end of the world creeps ever closer, day by day, inch by inch.
Anthony Anderson is a smart, talented and a funny guy based on a few interviews I’ve seen.
But he left such an impression with his role in the show where I saw him for the first time that to me he will forever be gang leader Antwon Mitchell from The Shield.
To be clear, he was more than just your typical standard issue Hollywood gangbanger.
He was a shrewd, resourceful and ambitious criminal who was smarter than Vic Mackie and the rest of his Strike Team by about a mile. That made him scary and Anderson played the hell out of that role.
"...until you realize we’re talking about the intersection of sword and sorcery fiction and heavy metal music" - wow, sounds like my kind of conference!!