Happy Birthday, Cuneyt Arkin

Today, we celebrate the 74th birthday of '70s Turkish action movie icon Cuneyt Arkin who turned 74 on September 7th. Arkin was born on this date in 1934 in Eskisehir, Turkey.

While he has over 300 films to his credit, we only have time to mention four here.

The first one is "Hayatim Sana Feda/My Life is For You, Feda" (1970),a romantic comedy, melodrama which was likely influenced by 1950s Hollywood melodramas, which were often directed by Douglas Sirk and starred Rock Hudson.

In this film, a Romeo who has burned his bridges has a chance to reclaim his Juliet, a female Turkish lounge singer played by Turkan Soray, the queen of Turkish cinema who often starred with Arkin, after she goes blind.

In 1973, Arkin starred in the first of what would be several films based on the popular "Kara Murat" comics, including "Kara Murat Versus the Black Knight" (pictured here). The basic plot is that Kara Murat, an ancient warrior in the days of the huns, goes after the bad guys and kicks some major ass in the process.

Turkey and Greece went to far over Cyprus in July of 1974, which lead to the production of many action films with nationalist themes. This would include "Once Vatan/My Country First" (1974) in which Arkin plays a Turkish agent who goes to Cyprus and goes kung fu on the Greek villians. Such films were, to my knowledge, also made in Greece around this era, with the roles reversed. And, yes to answer your question, "Once Vatan" is basically a Turkish Chuck Norris movie.

Lastly, Arkin will always be best known for "Dunayi Kurtaran Adami/The Man Who Saved the World" (1982), which is also known as "The Turkish Star Wars." The film borrows music and actual sequences from the George Lucas classic, but the similarities end there. The plot is a very strange one to summarize, but the film has aliens in muppet-fleece who decide that central Turkey is for unexplained reasons the best place to invade. But, they are no match for Arkin's gymnastics tumbling and kickboxing abilies.

In the Whoops Dept

We just posted an entry with a great quip from the underground comic artist R.Crumb which was meant for this blog by accident on "The Daily Vampire." But, we will post it here as well: "When I come up against the real world, I just vacillate."



In my case, I just blog!

We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties

Well, for starters, we are not working for a PBS station in Canton, Ohio, but tech-wise it has been a very messed up weekend so far. In fact, we feel like jumping up and down like Speedy Gonzales, but I'm not sure how much the librarian here in Princeton, WVa*, would appreciate that. But, I do share the frustration that West Virginia U feel to Kentucky in the NCAAs earlier this afternoon since Deniz Kilicli of WVU is one of our favorite players.

But, I was able to read some cartoon books by Keith Knight and Tom Tomorrow which helped cheer me up a wee bit. I especially like Knight's segment in his "Knight Life" comic strips where he talks about life's sweet moments. I had earlier today here in rural West Virginia* when I passed a right-wing pick-up truck with an anti-United Nations bumper sticker and waved to him in my center-left vehicle decorated with Obama-Biden '08 bumper stickers.

I also thought one of Tom Tomorrow's "This Modern World" strips was quite prophetic (hey, it's not often us liberals use that word!) in its prediction that once some far-right nut tried to do something dangerous then the likes of Glenn Beck would somehow find a way to blame the left. And, amazingly enough, with the Tucson, Ariz., tragedy that is exactly what happened!

In other news, we want to congratulate the Utah Utes women's gymnastics team for winning their meet over Brigham Young U in Provo, Utah, last night. The Utes were helped by stand-out performances from the likes of Stephanie McAllister, who won the all-around competition.

Other Utes gymnasts with strong nights included Nansy Damianova, a Canadian Olympian whose parents were outstanding athletes themselves in Bulgaria. Nansy had a solid bars performance. Similarly, Mary Beth Lofgren of the Utes had a remarkable routine on the balance beam.

All college gym teams will be preparing for regionals within the next two weeks.

The BYU men's basketball team faces another western team in Gonzaga today in March Madness action.

The answer to our question of how far apart Los Angeles and East Lansing, Mich., was B. The two zip codes are approximately 33 hours and 20 minutes from each other.

Lastly, we found out while Googling ourselves that the name of the editor of this blog Dennis Alexander** is linked to Chang Beer from Thailand.

*- I am not actually in West Virginia at the moment

**- My name is not Dennis Alexander, but we are linked to Chang Beer!

DC Diary- No Need for a Taxi Tonight

Since I managed to seriously lost and meander around aimlessly through Northwest DC on Wednesday night, my family who was eagerly awaiting my impending arrival on Thursday night (day four of our excursion) was delighted to see me arrive at our home away from home at 10:04 p.m. that evening.

If things had gone exactly according to my sincerest desires, I would've been dancing at the Gogol Bordello concert that night at the 9:30 Club. But, the show was sold out, and assuredly if I had gone, I would have not come back to the temporary residency until circa 2:00 a.m.

So, I opted to see the Finnish film "Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale," which is about how an archaeological expedition to Antarctica yields the discovery of a Santa Claus who has been frozen stiff for eons.

When I first heard about the film, I thought it might be a bit of a subversive take on Christmas, which I would not have objected to (I am a Festivus kind of a guy). But, in actuality, it is merely a quirky comedy that is perhaps just slightly more "A Christmas Story" than "Bad Santa" though the distinctive Scandinavian sense of humor which one can see in films like "The Kitchen Stories" (Norway) and "Together" (Sweden) would probably be lost on most American audiences.

So, as it was, since I got home in time, there was no need for the friendly Indian or Pakistani taxi driver who had bailed me out the night before!

SIDEBAR: We love this tweet from comic book artist/cartoonist Chris Eliopoulos, who is always a hoot: "My wife made lobster mac and cheese ensuring that I will die of a heart attack b4 I'm 50."

Happy New Year from Lucky Luke/Red Kit

Today, we are taking a brief hiatus from blogging about our family trip to Washington, DC, which had elements of both "National Lampoon's Vacation" and "Taxi Driver" to send holiday greetings via our favorite French cowboy Lucky Luke, whom I still refer to as Red Kit since that was his name in the Turkish translations of his adventures.

Surprisingly enough, even though Lucky Luke's stories all took place in the American west, and featured such real-life figures as Billy the Kid, who Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico did not pardon yesterday, the comic book was never popular in America. Though, Lucky Luke did develop a loyal following in Canada, Turkey, Italy, Germany, the former Yugoslavia and even Vietnam.

The first Lucky Luke comic books arrived in 1946, and his rivals were the Dalton Brothers, a Keystone Kopsesque bunch of numb-skulls who were based loosely on the real-life Dalton Gang.

The books were drawn by the Morris (1923-2001) and the stories were written by the late French icon Rene Goscinny, who also worked on the adventures of Asterix the Gaul.

Red Kit rode a white horse named Jolly Jumper and he was accompanied by a stupid dog Rantanplan, who was a satire of Rin Tin Tin. In fact, the dog was called Rin Tin Tin in the Turkish versions.

Lucky Luke was criticized for using cigarettes, and Morris defended the character using the tobacco product in the children books up until 1988 when he decided it was time for the French cowboy to go cold turkey.

New English-language versions made by Cinebooks can be found at considerably more retailers here in les etats unis than in years past. One of them is my personal favorite comic book shop Chapel Hill Comics in Chapel Hill, NC, where one can also see a Tom Waits octopus!

SIDEBAR: Kudos to the following New Years Day babies who were among the first born in their areas: Colton Jackson Rodenhauer of Richmond, Va., Sean-John Arruda of Fall River, Mass. and Jasmine Bessou of Winston-Salem, NC.