[Peace-discuss] Fascists favor filmed fascism

[C. G. Estabrook]

[It's better to read the news in the Wall Street Journal than in the New York 
Times, if you have to choose -- the latter tells the college-educated how they 
should think about the world (and they believe it!), while the former tells 
business types what they need to know -- but the WSJ's cultural criticism is 
better yet. Here it assesses what seems to be a good new flick. --CGE]

	'Hellboy II: The Golden Army'

If you didn't know that there's a Troll Market underneath the east tower of the 
Brooklyn Bridge, you need to brush up on your monstrosities with the help of 
Guillermo del Toro's hugely inventive -- and smashingly beautiful -- "Hellboy 
II: The Golden Army."

Like the first Hellboy feature four years ago, this film was based on Mike 
Mignola's Dark Horse comic, and stars Ron Perlman as the red-faced, 
cigar-puffing, kitten-and-candy-loving, working-class do-gooder who was born a 
demon but wants to fit in as a human. In that previous episode, Hellboy battled 
a mad monk, plus hordes of tentacled, egg-laying creatures that had infested our 
society. Now he's our bulwark against an indestructible robot army that waits to 
be released from the bowels of the earth. While it waits (for quite a long time, 
actually), Mr. del Toro and his lavishly gifted colleagues -- among them the 
cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, the production designer Stephen Scott and the 
creatures-and-effects specialist Mike Elizalde -- trot out the most spectacular 
assortment of life forms since "Star Wars" opened its cantina.

Indeed, "Hellboy II" is best savored as a bestiary, one that includes an eyeless 
Angel of Death, a legless Bethmoora Goblin (who's a long way from Glocca Mora) 
and some extremely unpleasant Tooth Fairies -- their most prominent feature 
being their teeth -- who feed, diabolically, on calcium. The pace isn't always 
brisk; this film seems more dependent than its predecessor on set pieces. But 
the pieces are impressive, and Hellboy is accompanied once again by Doug Jones's 
aquatic empath, Abe, and Selma Blair's melancholy, pyrokinetic Liz. She keeps 
trying, with mixed results, not to set herself on fire.

...

Guillermo del Toro is best known for "Pan's Labyrinth," the dark and remarkable 
fantasy, set in Spain during the civil war, that won three Oscars last year. At 
least as remarkable, and perhaps superior as an allegory of that war, is his 
2001 horror film "The Devil's Backbone." The time is the late 1930s, and the 
setting is a Spanish orphanage, a place of shelter and learning that's haunted 
by more than standard spooks. The orphanage, and its school, are emblematic of 
civilized Spain, menaced from within by fascist violence.

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