Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 4/11/25
Barbarians at the Gate edition
This Friday finds the Bunker Administration trying to make ready for a field excursion to the National Pop Culture Association Conference in New Orleans next week. There’s a very good likelihood of me filing the weekly report from the field, having given a presentation on the Texas-ness of one Robert E. Howard and ageing for his inclusion in the larger canon of Texas Authors of Note. We will also eat shrimp. I cannot predict in what order that will happen. There are a lot of moving parts at the Bunker right now. We’re doing the best we can to stay engaged with the wider world.
Conan Articles
As the month of June looms ever closer, I find myself writing some articles for the Official Conan website. Two weeks ago, Whence Came the Cimmerian? Appeared on the site will little fanfare, and today, The Saga of Conan’s Steward appeared, this one all about L. Sprague de Camp and his involvement in the development of Conan as a pop cultural icon. I would like to believe that this will be my final word on the subject. I’d really like to believe that. Really, I would. But we know that won’t be the case, now, don’t we? I just want the record to show that I tried, I really tried.
The NTAB Commissary, Redux
In addition to Redbubble, which I have determined is where most of the tchotchkes and stickers and swag will live, I’m also opening a digital store over at TeeSpring (I know, they are owned by the same people), because I like the clothing options better at the latter, but like the bric-a-brac more at the former. Hopefully this won’t be too confusing for those of you who’d like to pick up a T-shirt to show your solidarity with the bunker. Please go check out TeeSpring for mostly apparel, shirts, and so forth and visit Redbubble for mostly things like stickers and mugs. I say “mostly” because in both cases, there will be a slight overlap. Either way, please go have a look and tell me what I’m doing wrong.
Life Finds a Way, You Jackwagons
The Internet, starved for something to think about besides the imminent collapse of our beloved cultural institutions, seized on the Time magazine cover story about “un-extinction” and the re-appearance of “dire wolves,” thanks to a biogenetic firm that...oh, never mind. You’ve seen it, I’m sure.
I’m also pleased to report that there has been a massive pushback from mostly the Geek Nation, explaining with memes, with strong language and with a few online slap-fights that no, these aren’t dire wolves, any more than the original Jurassic Park dinos were real dinos. They are genetic freaks of nature, grown in a lab for the amusement of some TechBro CEO, who wanted to do this:
It reminds me a lot of John Hammond in Jurassic Park, insisting on being present at the egg hatchings so they will “imprint” on him.
You know, I’ve been railing against our fractured cultural morass for a while now, but I don’t think I’ve even seen a more clear and obvious reason for why we need—nay, require—a cultural awareness that extends beyond the length of our smart phones. It’s more than just a pool of trivia and a way to connect with others over a shared favorite song or a cherished book. No, it’s about having cultural literacy, which means knowing things that didn’t happen directly and immediately to you, so that you can be better informed when you hear things like scientists have brought dire wolves back from Westeros.
There’s a book by E.D. Hirsch, Jr. called Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. It’s widely available, having been first published in 1988, at the very beginnings (for my generation) of the “these kids today don’t know nuthin’” movement, and it’s been reprinted often ever since. The premise is simple: there’s stuff every American should know. Facts and figures, phrases and concepts, general information, and so forth. I think this idea should be expanded to cover less weighty topics like a basic awareness of Shakespeare and more close-to-the-ground concepts like the big-ass tentpole movies that have moved cinema forward in the last 50 years. Things like The Godfather, for instance. You don’t have to have seen the movie, as long as you have an awareness of it, like what the phrase “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
As a person walking the Earth in 2025, you need to know why Star Wars resonates for so many people, and also, you need to know what Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark had to do with it, too. You don’t have to like it, be a fan, or think it’s great. But it’s important to know why other people in your life do. I think also you need to know things like the general idea behind Jurassic Park, since it was the movie that really broke open CGI filmmaking. To wit, you don’t get Titanic, you don’t get The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and you sure as hell don’t get Avengers: Endgame without going first through Jurassic Park.
This isn’t a big ask. These are giant movies, beloved by millions. That there is a generation of genetic engineers who haven’t seen Jurassic Park, much less read the book, baffles me more than somewhat. What the hell else were you doing in the early 1990s? Playing Vampire: The Masquerade in your garage and blasting Sisters of Mercy? How did you get through college without hearing about why genetic tampering is such a bad idea? Who did you marry that didn’t look at the job offer to go genetically engineer extinct megafauna like a direwolf and not drop a half-dozen Ian Malcolm quotes on you, complete with a bad Jeff Goldblum impression?
It'd be one thing if there was no other example of this kind of folly in popular culture, but there’s not. It’s the biggest and best example, but it’s hardly the only one. But no matter. You geniuses working in your lab with your electrified fence around your secret location where you let the dire wolves run free, you got this. You’ve seen clips of Jurassic Park on YouTube; hell, that’s practically the exact same thing as watching a movie, right? You know best, Bro.
There’s a financial component here that we aren’t seeing just yet, but I’m going to venture a guess as to where the money is going to come from. I think the end goal here is to own an exotic pet as a status symbol. The only reason why anyone would want to clone an extinct animal boils down to either pets or meat. I think these chuckleheads envision a world where you can go buy your custom-designed dire wolf with optional coloration for a slight upcharge and then go to a restaurant and eat whisky-brined dodo in a garlic and truffle oil reduction. And then, when they all get bored with that, we’ll see a nature preserve for The Most Dangerous Game, wherein you can hunt and kill your own person (condemned to die already, of course; we’re not monsters, you cynic) in a controlled environment, for a weekend getaway package you and family won’t soon forget.
I know this might seem like an overreaction. Ask yourself why they did this, and why call them dire wolves when they know they aren’t? It’s marketing. It’s a press release designed to bolster the next round of financing. Will saber-toothed cats be part of the next rollout? Considering the number of assholes over the years who posed for photos with tigers, the answer is yes, emphatically so.
Movies Still Matter
Last weekend, I was talking to people who were coming to see the Minecraft movie, or rather, they were talking to me. Lots of parents bringing lots of kids, and lots of teenagers looking vaguely embarrassed but also really excited. One of the kids, a boy all of six years old, told me he’s been waiting for this Minecraft movie for “just about my whole life!” I told him that was a long time, and he said, “I know, right!?” Cute kid.
But also—he’s not wrong. No one can ague that Minecraft hasn’t been one of the most successful video games of the past twenty years—indeed, it’s the best-selling video game of all time. But when people talk about “video games” they are usually referring to first person shooters like Call of Duty, role-playing games like Fallout, and player versus player games like Fortnight. These are powerhouses, no doubt, but people usually skip over casual games like Candy Crush and The Sims, even though they are, I would suggest, more popular because they are more widespread. But that’s not what this is about.
It's about acknowledging that fact that people play Minecraft and it’s a big, daily part of their lives. Since we don’t all watch the same news shows and we don’t all frequent the same online digital spaces, it’s really hard to get a sense of what’s happening in the culture from the top down rather than looking through a keyhole. But we do still go to the movies.
There is something validating about going to see a movie based on a beloved thing in your life. Comic books. Board games. Video games. Children’s books. Music. It all has the potential to blow up, thanks to social media and mass media. But when your beloved thing gets made into a movie...oh, man, that’s the transformational act, isn’t it? Even if the next words out of your mouth are, “I hope they don’t screw it up,” your first reaction upon hearing that a book series is being made into a movie is always, “Oh, cool! Finally!” It’s a pop cultural victory lap, and I would go so far to suggest that even when the movie is bad, it doesn’t hurt “the franchise” overmuch. There are a couple of exceptions (SEE ALSO: DOC SAVAGE) but they are by and large really rare. Most of the time, we optimistically find some stuff to love in an imperfect adaptation, or we shrug our shoulders and say, “the next one will be better.”
I get so sick and tired of that cyclical discussion about “the death of movies.” Always from people who have stopped going years ago, and who remain jaded and bitter about something having to do with a missed opportunity, or staying in one job for too long, or what-have-you. There’s a subset of Internet wags who adopt a position because they court the controversy and know that arguing in the comments is engagement for the algorithms. Whatever.
Movies aren’t dead. They aren’t dying. They aren’t even on life support. Movies are, at their heart, a reaction to the culture, not a driver. We get horror movies when we need to release the tension of daily life with a scream. We get war movies when we need to be reminded of heroism.
But we also take a movie and make it a part of our lives. The movies tell us what matters, what’s cool, what’s hip and interesting. Movies add to our language and our shared experiences. Movies add to our shared experience, whether it’s a familiar quote you recognize, or friends from school who are here at the same Minecraft screening as you—friends you didn’t know were into Minecraft at all. We recognize and nod to people we pass on the streets when they have a t-shirt on from some 80s movie that we all watched.
The problem arises in the disconnect between the people making the movies and the people consuming the movies. It’s always really obvious when the filmmaker or studio exhibits contempt for the audience; it’s how we got more than one Highlander movie. When filmmakers embrace their work or have something meaningful to say, we get Barbie, and if there’s a better example of both fans and critics being surprised by a movie they expected to suck, please share it in the comments.
I didn’t watch A Minecraft Movie. I know exactly zero about it, except that every time I see avatars I always cue up Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” in my head (the video version, of course). That’s okay, I don’t watch every movie that I book in my theater. Some of those movies aren’t for me, aimed at me, or of any interest to me. I would have to be some kind of asshole to think otherwise. That doesn’t matter to the kids coming to see it, though; the box office would surely bear that out, and right when that there’s a new Apple TV series called The Studio about a newly-minted head of, well, a studio, and he’s asked to make a movie about Kool-Aid. The IP. You know. Kool-Aid, Oh Yeah! It’s really cynical, but that doesn’t mean it’s not accurate.
I know this to be true, because I’ve seen it happen with nearly every single tentpole movie released between 2007 and last week. A Minecraft Movie will be someone’s first movie and it will be an awakening for that kid. It’ll be someone’s favorite movie, at least through their childhood years. It’ll be a movie that comes back in twenty years when these kids are all grown up and downloading Minecraft into their neural eye cranial linkups in order to experience a little nostalgia. And, I’m sure, there will be those people’s kids, screwing up their faces and saying, “I’ve seen clips from the movie. It’s got like that rilly rilly old dude Jason Momoa in it, right?” And someone, online, will be predicting the death of the movies, because of the prices, the people, the product, and blah blah blah blah blah.
Stop saying movies are done. Find something else to watch until the industry re-invents itself, again, for the umpteenth time. They are overdue for that anyway.
Weekly Report from the N.T.A.B. Division of Media Review
The Bondsman (Prime)
Kevin Bacon stars as a bounty hunter who is forced to hunt demons after he gets killed on the job.
A few years ago, I had a reason to look up all of Kevin Bacon’s films (it was for BaconFest, all right? Don’t judge me) and I was surprised to note the number of horror movies he’s been in throughout the years. The guy is beloved, pre-meme beloved, not just situationally popular, and it’s mostly based on his films in the 1980s. Okay, Footloose. Anyone remember that he was one of the kids in Friday the 13th? Remember Tremors? How about Sleepers? Stir of Echoes?
I think Bacon is a horror fan. He’s definitely got a dark side. That would explain his recent turns in Blumhouse feature films, and now this punchy, irreverent little horror action hybrid that makes a lot of hay trying to be a mash-up of Justified meets Supernatural. Bacon’s character is a seedy, sketchy bounty hunter in a county in Georgia where everyone knows everyone and is all up in each other’s business. Not Harlan County, but certainly close enough. They even got Dewey Crowe (Australian actor Damon Herriman) to be in the show, pulling off one hell of a Boston accent. Sidebar: I think a Boston accent has become the new stand-in for “generic redneck.”
The show is a lot of fun, particularly if you have a dark streak in you, too. There’s nothing groundbreaking here; the old chestnut of “guy with secrets has to hunt down demons or the world cracks open” is nothing new, but Bacon brings Hub Halloran to life with new colors and interesting takes on things. He’s kinda selfish, and doesn’t act in anyone else’s best interests. I love those kinds of characters, and even more so when they are shooting demons in the face and trying not to get caught.
Probably my favorite thing about these shows is figuring out the cosmology of “what we are up against.” Again, nothing groundbreaking here, but what we get is simple and direct and also, flipped just a bit, because the “head office” isn’t north, but rather south—way south, and there are some great flourishes that indicate the office culture of hell is a little behind the times.
The similarities to both Supernatural and Justified are obvious but not onerous, so if you’re a fan of either of these storied shows, The Bondman will scratch an itch or two. Eight episodes, short and punchy, with a briskly moving plot and, of course, a bit of a cliffhanger so that we are assured of a second season. This is a quick and easy binge that I think you’ll enjoy.
Depending on which Boston accent, yeah. I mean, those assholes from Southie, yes, but up on the Hill? Nah.
Would I be out of line pointing out that having a shirt store that's offering sweatshirts in April in Texas and not a single tank top in sight seems a tad out of step? 🤣
My problem with most of what comes out of the 'Wood these days bores the crap out of me because they're either remakes of better movies or more of whatever was the last huge franchise hit or so obviously designed to manipulate human psychology it's terrifying? Fortunately, Monty Python is on Roku, so I'm good.