Finish Line Ahead

Close to the end now.  August has proven an even crappier month personally than July, so these posts have been short and to the point.  With my previous diatribe against Blu-Ray I started thinking: not that my entertainment is *THAT* important to me anymore (thus the upcoming end of this blog) but what is important to me when it comes to the media I watch my movies and shows on?  Obviously DRM is important, thus DVD over Blu-Ray, but what about my DVDs?  What is important when considering to buy or even keep certain things on DVD?  I am assuming of course that I like whatever it is I am considering.

Well, my wants have changed over the years.  Back when I first started this blog, for example, extras were very important to me.  Given the choice between a bare-bones edition DVD and a Special Ultra Limited Edition with 50 making of features and an audio commentary I was never going to listen to, I was going to choose the amped up version every time.  Nowadays I don't really need that for every movie I own, in fact I only need that for a very small percentage of the stuff I have because obsessing on entertainment and how it's made is now less important to me.  I recently re-bought some of my favorite anime movies because the picture quality was supposed to be better than the versions I already had.  Also, when it came to Wings of Honneamise and the Patlabor movies they were supposed to take up less space than the behemoth boxset versions I had on my shelves.  Well, the picture quality on the two Patlabor films was much better than on the old deluxe boxsets, while Honneamise looked exactly the same - but still took up less space, thus I kept it over the old one.  The two huge Patlabor boxsets I had were superior to the new release in every other way - they had theatrical trailers and documentaries as bonuses on the discs, they had super-informative booklets and even the complete storyboards for both movies.  But in the end the picture quality was vastly superior on the new DVDs, and I refuse to own two versions of the exact same movie (not counting Director's Cuts, etc), so I weighed my options and chose to get rid of my once beloved Patlabor boxsets.  Why?  Because picture quality trumps everything else.  All the extras are just icing on the cake, and the cake itself is more important to me anymore.  I also repurchased Vampire Hunter D (which I knew would have vastly superior picture quality seeing as how the quality on the old 2000 DVD was really poor - I was right) and again, the new release does not have as many bonus features but video quality is what counts the most.  A lot of VHD fans are up in arms about the new DVD having a new English dub rather than the old Streamline dub, but I have always watched it in Japanese anyway so I don't care.  Yes, it would have been nice to have both dubs as an option but again picture quality trumps all.

Now that I have my priorities straight when it comes to buying DVDs I feel that it easier to purchase movies and TV shows than in the past.  Life is all about priorities.  If you can learn that you'll be golden, instead of wasting time on a crappy movie blog that nobody reads.

Feeling Blu

Last December I wrote that I got a Blu-Ray player for Christmas.  Well, you may have noticed that I haven't reviewed any blu-ray releases on here, and there's a simple reason for that:

Blu-Ray sucks.

Oh, not in picture quality.  The picture quality is awesome.  So is the data capacity.  No, the problem is summed up in one acronym: DRM.  Digital Rights Management.  Look, there's DRM on DVDs.  Back when they first came out I railed about them because a) I thought it was all a plot by the entertainment companies to take our money by forcing us to upgrade our already existing VHS and LD collections (I was right, but at least DVDs have one million times the picture quality of VHS and are 50 times cheaper than Laserdiscs) and b)they had region encoding, which prevents people in one part of the world from buying discs from other parts of the world.  I was right on that one too - the companies did it to prevent reverse importing from cheaper countries but in the process it means that a large number of foreign movies will never be legally released in the US.  In fact it still pisses me off, but at least you *can* get a region-free DVD player if you look hard enough.

Blu-Ray is a hundred times worse.  First, I can't even get screengrabs from the discs to put on this site, so that nixed any chance of me reviewing the original Star Trek series on here.  Second, the player software NEEDS updates, or it won't even function at all.  Not even to play a DVD.  And I can't play BD's with Media Player Classic or any other free software.  You have to buy one of two officially sanctioned players if you want to watch Blu-Ray discs on your PC, and you NEED to have an internet connection in order to update them, no matter if you don't have internet (still a possibility these days in some remote areas or if you can't afford it) or have spotty internet (which is more of a possibility).

In the end it's the increasing corporate control over everything.  They NEED to control everything you see and hear - you are now in the Outer Limits.  Personally I do not like being dictated to by the corporations how to entertain myself.  I can watch my DVDs, even with their level of DRM - at least I can grab screenshots if I want or use a free player to play them.  And you know, it's really sad because I *wanted* to like Blu-Ray, I had wanted a BR player for a long time... as I said the picture quality was tremendous.  I enjoyed watching Star Trek on it but I can't use it anymore.  I'm actually going to have to "downgrade" my Star Trek collection to DVD.  Fortunately that is the only thing I got, so I didn't invest too much in this ultra-corporate-controlled format.

See, thinking positive!

Musical Mediocrity

A friend of mine wanted to see Into The Woods, so I went and saw it with them today.  It was weird - the story and characters weren't bad but overall the whole thing was... mediocre, uninspired.  It was about an hour too long.  And being a musical, the music sucked... not in a horrible, painful sense but in a "This is boring and I can't remember a single song walking out of the theatre" sense.  Musical theatre has its roots in opera, especially German singspiel opera which has spoken words coupled with arias as opposed to the normal recitative/aria format.  Into The Woods was like watching spoken word combined with recitative with no arias.  What made this baffling was that it was written by Stephen Sondheim, who also did what is possibly my favorite musical of all time, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum.  I guess he lost any talent for melody between the two.  Look, I don't need hooks and melodies to enjoy music, or even musical theatre.  Tristan und Isolde has almost no catchy tunes and its over three hours long but the difference is that Richard Wagner was a musical genius and the music in Tristan is on a whole different level - yes, there are no hummable melodies, but the chords and harmonies are brilliant and the whole... tone of the opera is so emotionally resonant that you are affected inside and you remember *that* after the thing has ended and you look forward to the day when it can do it to you again.

I know I normally don't do reviews on this blog for movies that are currently in theatres (I should, I guess... but I suppose I don't because it's expensive to go to the movies... or maybe it's because I can't add any pretty pictures).  I just wanted to express my disappointment in this movie and in the state of music in film in general (I know I did a while ago with my film score post) and musicals in particular.  The same friend and I saw Frozen last year and that was mediocre too, with only one memorable song (and we all know what it is....).  It makes me wonder what the point of making these things musicals is when the music is so uninspired and unmemorable... why not have it be a straight up play or movie?

I don't go to live shows so I don't know what the absolute latest things playing are (I'm only so interested in musicals, they aren't my favorites) but if Into The Woods is any indication (and checking online I see that it originally played in 1987) I don't really have much hope.  I guess I should be somewhat hopeful... another one of my favorites, Little Shop Of Horrors debuted at about the time (1982) so maybe one day I'll give another musical a chance.

Ooh, that got me thinking... maybe I should go re-watch Little Shop Of Horrors.

Forward! Always Forward.

The end of one year and the start of another is always an opportunity to reminisce and reflect on the passage of time, but this year hit me moreso than previous ones.  Time has always been strange for me (as it doubtless is for most of the human race)... events from half a lifetime ago sometimes feel like they happened yesterday while stuff that happened a few days ago seem eons away.  However, I think it finally hit me this year: the formative years of my childhood and adolescence are long gone.  I realized this many years ago, obviously, but this year in particular was a big reminder.

See, this year Star Trek: Deep Space Nine turned 20 years old.  TWENTY YEARS OLD.  I watched that show when I was a kid all the way through high school.  I always thought of it as being one of the "newer" Trek shows.  Now it is comfortably in the past (with crappy reboot Trek being in the present - nope, gonna keep this post positive... no nerd rage here....).  On a related note, a lot of the PC games I played as a kid (never owned a console) turned 20 this year too.  Lucasarts' X-Wing, Day of the Tentacle, and Sam and Max Hit The Road in particular.  20 year old computer games - and I still play them on a semi regular basis (well, the adventure games, anyway).

And it's funny because in the grand scheme of things twenty years isn't piffle.  Even in the course of human history it is nothing.  But in your average human life it can seem like a long time... even when you swear that it sometimes feels like yesterday.

Well, here's to 2014 and the inevitable forward march of time.  Until we invent some sort of time machine the past will have to remain in our memories and our stories.  Which is the best place for it really... progress doesn't happen by looking backwards.

Happy New Year.

Still No Pretty Pictures

Long time, long time.

Working retail again (ARRRRRRRRRGH) and the holiday season is upon us... already the stores fill with endless consumeristic crap and maddening Christmas jingles.  And I work Black Friday for 12 hours straight this year.  Yum.

But I don't want to talk about any of that today.  No, what I want to talk about is the purpose of film and a reflection on its place in human existence.

What, did you think I would use that shot from Scanners here?  Pft - that's getting old.

Anyways, I saw Thor: The Dark World last Saturday.  It was... okay.  The villain was rather underdeveloped (supposedly because the studio removed over 20 minutes from the final cut, booooo) but the rest was entertaining enough.  If you like superhero movies or just fantasy movies in general I suggest you go see it.

The point is, the film got mostly lukewarm reviews, while the movie opening the same weekend that got all the rave reviews and had the critics jizzing their pants was Blue Is The Warmest Color.  I have not seen it myself, and do not plan to considering it doesn't seem to be my cup of tea - a movie that includes a 10 minute long sex scene seems a little gratuitous and artsy for its own good in my book.  But of course the film critics *ate it up* (I think they were biased because it was Freeeench).   And there are those who will say that it is "real" art, and that something like Thor is "mere" entertainment.  Well, guess what, people... it's all entertainment.  Well, unless you are watching a documentary film or something - something like Inequality For All, which I saw last month that basically told me what I already knew (but is still worth watching anyway, I recommend it) but oh well.

Films are entertainment.  They are a means of amusing yourself and keeping your mind occupied so that it is not occupied with the banalities or (heaven forbid) unpleasantries of your life.  All of the emotions they evoke, all of the drama or comedy or tragedy or excitement - they are meant as entertainment.  Yes, they can point out things about the human condition and show us ourselves - but they do so as entertainment... diversions... otherwise we would just get it in manual form.  People who believe they are watching certain films purely as art to enlighten themselves are just deluding themselves.

Because it's all the same.  Even viewing "pure" art is just a way of entertaining yourself... keeping your mind occupied until the day you day... because All Work And No Play and all that.  It's just that some people have different tastes.

In the end, whether something is artsy or actiony or well-made or badly made or whatever... it's all the same.  It's entertainment.  And I have learned not to judge others for their entertainment, no matter how shitty it appears to me.  They probably think my tastes are just as shitty.

So the lesson today is... if you have film snob friends, don't let them make you feel guilty or stupid for preferring Thor or The Hunger Games: Catching Fire or The Fast And The Furious 23: Nursing Home Wheelchair Challenge to Blue Is The Warmest Color.  Because one day we are all going to die and our tastes in movies won't count for jack shit.

Except mine of course.  Keep reading my shitty blog.

I Am Iron Man

Just watched Iron Man 3 last night. I missed it in the theatres when it came out because I’m no longer into seeing loud, violent movies that much anymore, but I got the chance to watch the DVD for free and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a decent enough picture. So what I would like to talk about today is film scores.

See, while Iron Man 3 was a pretty good popcorn flick with some actual intelligent themes thrown in, the music was pretty much a non-entity. I had never even heard of the guy who did the music when I glimpsed his name in the credits. And this got me to thinking that it has been a long time since I have run into a film score that was actually good, or even memorable (I think Howard Shore’s scores for the Lord of the Rings movies were the last decent batch that I’ve heard and that was what – 10 years ago?). Amongst the many faults of the new reboot Star Trek film series (and that is a whole other post that I don’t want to do because I try to be a positive person) is the music or lack thereof, and I remember feeling disappointed that the score for a film series that should contain great music was instead bland, generic and forgettable. Likewise, everyone oohed and awed over the Nolan trilogy of Batman movies and I found them entertaining enough, but the Hans Zimmer scores did nothing for me. I don’t necessarily need catchy hooks at every point in the score – that’s not what film soundtracks are necessarily for – but even the main theme was forgettable… I literally could not hum for you Zimmer’s main Batman theme (same goes for Giacchino’s Star Trek theme). If you can’t even give the main theme of your movie a memorable melody, then people, you got problems.

I think the main problem is that a lot of film composers are just that – film composers… they don’t attempt to do any music outside film music. They are also influenced by previous film composers *only*, and that is a huge problem. See, the whole thing is that the movie composers of 25+ years ago (the generation back from the current crop) is that they were directly influenced by the classical composers (and sometimes jazz and folk music of various cultures) like Wagner, Strauss, Stravinsky and so on (but mainly Wagner). I actually watched a documentary on TV a few months ago about film music and they had interviews with some of these new movie composers, and these guys were going on and on about how they were influenced so much by these other film composers (most of whom weren’t even dead yet) and they weren’t mentioning any other forms of music and I thought, “it figures… all these new scores sound like rehashed scores from twenty years ago, which in turn rehashed classical music from a hundred years ago.” So what we have today (for the most part) is composers getting music filtered through a filter of a filter.

That’s why the film scores of yesteryear are better (god, I sound like a total geezer). See, the composers actually listened to classical music and jazz and other stuff and it directly influenced how they wrote music. Yeah, their stuff is derivative but it still sounds good, dammit.

So to end this post on a positive note, I'm gonna share some of my favorite film scores and explain what they mean to me (I'm a selfish bastard).

Conan the Barbarian (1982) - My favorite film score of all time.  Yes, it is derivative of Wagner (there's something new), Orff's Carmina Burana and Richard Strauss amongst others, but you know what?  Basil Poledouris' music moves me.  I feel anger, love, joy, tragedy, triumph and even a few emotions I can't name.  I love it so much that I bought it twice.  You wouldn't expect that from a score to an eighties barbarian fantasy epic, would you?

Ben-Hur (1959) - Poledouris was also influenced by Hungarian composer Miklós Rózsa, who scored this film (in fact Rózsa was his music teacher).  And what a score!  This is another one that moves me emotionally. I get tears in my eyes when I hear the overture.  The overture!  And the Rowing Of The Galley Slaves theme has become the mental soundtrack to my menial work over the years... every time I work retail I can almost hear "Battle Speed!"

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) - Now this is Star Trek music.  Jerry Goldsmith is the greatest American film composer who ever lived.  He knew how to score a scene and give the audience an emotional and musical punch in the stomach.  TMP actually becomes a better movie because of its music.  Yeah, large swaths of it are ripped off from Daphnis et Chloé, but that's an awesome piece of music so I'm not gonna complain too much.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) - Old-timey goodness from Erich Wolfgang Korngold.  Korngold was also an opera composer, and it shows in his film scores.  Again, massive Wagnerian influence (detecting a theme here....).  When you hear this music you will want to leap up and wave a sword around Errol Flynn style.  Don't do it though because you will never be as cool as Errol Flynn.  The quieter bits are great too.  All-around near perfect.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) - Already covered this one in my love letter to that movie.  John Williams is an overrated composer who liberally rips from the classics (more than others, anyway) but this score is one of the greatest ever.  And my favorite moment isn't even the rousing march or the exciting action music - it's the theme for the ark itself.  Ancient, eerie, enigmatic and powerful... when I hear that theme I am transported back 3000 years into an ancient world of mystery.  It sends shivers down my spine.

Alexander Nevsky (1938) - Another movie from '38.  This one is by an actual classical composer:  Sergei Prokofiev, who basically invented the action movie score with his music for this Stalin-era Soviet propaganda pic.  The Battle On The Ice theme is awesome, and massively influenced movie scoring for years to come.  It  was actually used in the teaser trailer for Conan the Barbarian... oh yeah, I forgot to mention Prokofiev as an influence on that score earlier.  Oops.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966) - Cue Ennio Morricone.  Another classic film, another classic score.  An interesting thing about Morricone's take on the music for this classic western is in his use of the leitmotiv.  While most composers (including you-know-who) use a certain melody for different characters or ideas in a piece of dramatic music, Morricone uses the same melody but played in a different way for the three eponymous main characters, symbolizing how each alike they all are at the core and how all three are aspects of humanity in general.  Ooh, deep.


Well, that's it.  Seven scores I love.  There are more, but I'll save gushing about them for another day.

Until then....

The Motion Never Stops

Before I get to my special theme for this month which I'll post in a couple of days, I just wanted to take a quick opportunity to note the passing of Ray Harryhausen, special effects pioneer extraordinaire.

It's a shame we don't have visualists like him around anymore - I have never really liked CGI, I think that 99% of the time that computer graphics will never look as good as a real physical object... even if the computer image is excellent and the physical object is kinda cheesy.  I just don't think that we can make CG that looks real yet.  And I realize when I say this that computer programming and graphics are hard work, but I just don't think that the FX of today can stand up just because it's too *easy*... a director and an effects supervisor can just sit down at a computer and bash out what they want with none of the painstaking labor and craftsmanship that used to be put into movie visuals... by people like Mr. Harryhausen.

His movies occupy a special place in my collection.  I have always enjoyed fantasy and science fiction films (no!) and I remember watching some of Harryhausen's movies like Jason and the Argonauts whenever they would come on TV.  His fantasy movie collection also happens to be one of the oldest DVD boxsets that I own, having got it as a gift close to ten years ago now.  I have had ample to time to enjoy the fruits of his labors, again and again and again and again.

And in this age of home video thankfully everyone can.  So here's to you Mr. Ray Harryhausen.  I would say I hope you go to heaven if there is one, but I don't think they have any cool monsters there.

Ghost Writer In The Sky....

Roger Ebert died today.  It's kind of weird when you think about it.  Sometimes we get so used to certain people being around it's so damn... strange when they no longer inhabit our plane of existence.  I had the same feeling after James Brown died... I suddenly lived in a world without James Brown, and that seemed both bizarre and unacceptable at the same time.  But, you say, James Brown was a creator, an inventor - he basically invented funk music, he was the Godfather of Soul, he influenced whole musical genres in addition to artists with his music.  Roger Ebert was a film critic, his whole job was just to analyze what other people created and tell an audience whether he thought they should see it or not.  How can he be considered special?

Well, Roger Ebert actually worked on a couple of movies himself.  No he wasn't a director or actor but he was a (surprise) writer, writing a couple of movies for Russ Meyer in the 70s, one of which being the infamous Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls.  Both of these movies were very, very bad (but in a laughable, fun kinda way).  But the point is, Ebert *did it*.  He actually participated in filmmaking, understood the process.  When Roger Ebert criticized some movie for being bad, he would know because he wrote some bad movies himself.  This is more than most movie critics could and can do.  Nowadays your average film critic is just some hack who took writing and film courses in college and thinks that they know more than you will ever know about film just because they studied it in school.  The sad truth is that anyone who can pick up a book and read or sit still enough to watch a movie for a couple of hours can write a half-intelligent movie review.  But few can write movies reviews well and with  true knowledge of the craft, and Ebert was one of them.

Even when he was wrong.  I remember reading a negative review of his on the original 1954 Godzilla.  I was nearly foaming at the mouth and proclaiming that Ebert wouldn't know a good movie if it came up and bit him in the ass.  But you know what?  I had that reaction because his opinion *mattered*... because he wrote well.  Most other reviewers (few can actually be called true critics) don't get that kind of response out of me.  I read their shit and say, "Hmm", and forget about it a minute later, even if I find their viewpoint contentious.  Ebert made you care with his opinion, and that is rare in modern film criticism, where most writers are just trying to impress you with their writing "talent."

I actually have no pretenses to Mr. Ebert's job.  I am not a film critic.  I am simply some dude on the internet ejaculating forth his opinions because it gives him an excuse to write, to hone his composition skills.  If someone comes along and engages me on something I wrote, that's great but it's not my purpose.  The point to all this is, Roger Ebert was a true film critic and I am not, but I'm writing this tribute anyway because... I want to.  It's not some gushing from one professional to another but some honest thoughts from someone who enjoyed reading his stuff.  Even if no one else sees this I want to write how much his film reviews and writing in general meant to me.  Even if he was dead wrong sometimes.

And that was the fun part.

How To And How Not To Celebrate The Birthday Of A Famous Filmmaker

Today is the birthday of Akira Kurosawa, who would have been 103 this year.  To mark the occasion, Hulu is putting up a good chunk of his movies free to view for the duration of the entire weekend.

However, I must warn any potential viewer *NOT* to take them up on this, as without Hulu Plus (which you have to pay for) you get multiple ads during the movies.  I started watching one, and about fifteen minutes in was suddenly rudely shocked by having an advertisement for Spring Breakers shoved into my face.  This is akin to having a five-star gourmet Italian meal and having venom-covered wood spikes rammed into your eyeballs and goat diarrhea poured down your throat every fifteen minutes.  Not worth it.

I understand if you want to put ads on during your TV shows, Hulu.  Hell, even doing that with most movies is fine, I understand you have to make money.  But not Kurosawa.  Having you do this is like me going to a Jewish synagogue wearing a Passion Of The Christ t-shirt or running naked into a Catholic cathedral during mass and screaming "FUCK THE DEVIL!  FUCK THE DEVIL!" while masturbating and shitting everywhere.

So anyway, if you want to commemorate Kurosawa's birthday and watch one of his movies, I suggest that you just go out and buy one of them - Seven Samurai is a good choice if you haven't already seen it, and if you haven't you need to buy it now... every movie collection is incomplete without Seven Samurai.  After that you can pick from any of his work... you can't go wrong with a Kurosawa movie.

Obligatory Halloween Sequel

This Halloween, three more Scary Movies that you won’t see on television. All three are worth tracking down and without further ado here they are:

Onibaba (1964) – An old woman and her daughter-in-law live in the middle of a swamp in Feudal Japan. They make a living by murdering lost samurai and selling their looted weapons and armor for food they desperately need. One day a friend of their son/husband comes home and tells them that he was killed in the war – but he’s available if they need to have a man around (wink, wink). What follows is an unfolding tale of psychological savagery, with a mix of jealousy, sexuality, hate, love, lust, fear and violence that would make Freud orgasm about fifty times over. I know that I just made this movie sound like a psychological drama rather than a horror movie, but the key is all in the mood… this movie can get very creepy, and there is a horrific element that enters the film in the latter part that qualifies Onibaba as a bona fide horror classic.



Scanners (1981) – A woman is gripped by unexplained seizures in a shopping mall. A man’s head literally explodes in front of a corporate conference. Both of these events are the result of Scanners – telepaths with the ability to not only read minds but completely interface with the body of another human being. One of these scanners, until recently a homeless derelict is recruited to hunt down the leader of a dangerous group of his brethren – a group whose mission it is to eliminate all “normals” and establish scanner supremacy.  Any other movie dealing with human telepathy would be a straight-up sci-fi movie, but since this movie is directed by David Cronenberg you’re going to get a lot of body horror watching this. Cronenberg seems to be more

interested in the negative (and gruesome) consequences of human telepathy rather than the positive implications. Well, at least it gives us a pretty good sci-fi horror yarn with some great special effects. Oh yeah, and Patrick McGoohan’s in it. And yes, even though it is never shown on television and hardly anyone anymore has seen it, it is the movie which gave us this famous image:





Prince of Darkness (1987) – An L.A. church is housing an ancient and deadly secret… a canister of green goo that has been locked away for more than two thousand years. A team of scientists and grad students is called in to study it, and they find out what it is: pure Liquid Satan (now 50% more refreshing!). The evil substance calls out to the homeless population of Los Angeles and they besiege the church, while inside the science team is slowly taken over one by one by the soft drink/unholy terror. This is easily John Carpenter’s most underrated film – for some reason a lot of people don’t like this one as much as his other stuff. I can kind of see why: it is a little clunky and not as well put together as some of his other movies. But the premise is interesting, the ideas are cool and the atmosphere is genuinely scary. I certainly consider it to be better than Halloween, which is considered by most to be his best film but that I find overrated (sorry). This movie has a lot to recommend: good FX, Alice Cooper and a truly frightening pornstache. Check it out.




Well, there you go. My personal recommendations for a Horror Movie Night. And keep in mind that these don’t have to watched only on Halloween – Horror is good year round! ‘Cause when you continually confront the dull existential horror of your everyday life, the best way to entertain yourself at the end of the day is watching the horror of seeing someone’s eyes imploding or seeing the grim spectacle of endless corpses being dumped into a bottomless pit.

Pleasant dreams.

Happy Anniversary

Well, here we are...


At Saint Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast, Where I stole the margarine!


AND WIDDLED ON THE BINGO CARDS IN LIEU OF THE –


Where was I? Oh yes.


Here we are at the anniversary of the Pharonic Fantasy Theatre. So much has happened and yet so little has happened in the year since I started this blog. I got a job. I quit my job. I lost a grandmother. I met new people. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was


STINK-FOOT! STINK-FOOT DARLIN', STINK-FOOT!


– Sorry.Well, anyways, this blog has itself seen some changes since it's inception. For example, I no longer over-analyze fluffy anime romantic comedies like I did in the beginning with Oh My Goddess (I'm so embarrassed by that now, although I guess if Susan Napier can do so can I, although I'm still not proud of it). I also do less reviews these days and more articles or insubstantial stuff to cover the fact that I'm lazy and can't find the time to write that much while I try to find a job (again). But today is different. Today, the ritual gives no comfort, today.... oh, crap, I'm sorry. No, today I'm posting up a review in the old fashioned style like the very first one put on this site (though not as long-winded).


Also, I'll be going through this week and cleaning up the site a bit: fixing some grammar here, adding a word or two there. I'm not rewriting any articles or making any huge adjustments though – I kinda like reading my blog from time to time and seeing how it's changed (and I'm the only one).


Anyway, to those reading this, and I know that this is a total of three people, probably four if you count me, well I don't know if I should count me

GET ON WITH IT!

Sorry. Anyways, if you are reading this blog because you stumbled across it on the web somehow, leave a comment on what you think of this site. I wouldn't mind having some feedback. This has been mainly an exercise in writing for me, but I am somewhat interested in what others think... it would help me improve my writing.


Plus I haven't gotten any comments yet.


(Tear)


Anyways, have fun and here's to another year of the Pharonic Fantasy Theatre.

2010, The Year We... Got Slimed By BP And Groped By The TSA

Well, here we are at the end of the year.  Before we proceed into the next year I would like to reflect on 2010... both the year and the movie.  This is not just a gimmicky way to start a traditional movie review this time though... in fact this is not going to be a traditional movie review seeing as how I want to get a few things off my chest, both about the movie and how the actual year is different from the vision of the future presented by Arthur C. Clarke and the makers of the film based on his novel.  Let's talk about the movie first.

The Movie

(This little editorial will assume that you have seen the movie so a warning of SPOILERS AHOY!)

First, let me say what every movie reviewer since 1984 has said a million times: this film is not the same as nor is it as good as it's prequel, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Now let me say this: none of that matters.  2010 is a good movie in it's own right and a worthy sequel to one of the greatest films of all time.  Yes, this is a more conventional science fiction film than 2001 and it is not as ambitious, but you know what?  It's all the better for it.  If any filmmaker tries to make a sequel to 2001 in the same style as Kubrick they would have failed utterly and probably embarrassed the shit out of themself in the process.  Peter Hyams was wise not to even try to make a film like 2001 but instead just straight up adapt Arthur C. Clarke's novel (except for adding the whole subplot about the Cold War which wasn't in the original book.  I guess America needs even the possibility of something blowing up in it's sci-fi movies post Star Wars.  Thank you, George Lucas).

Almost everything about this movie is underrated.  The story is actually quite good, if again more conventional than 2001.  The acting is decent enough (and they actually got some real Russians to play some of the Soviet crew!  In the EIGHTIES!).  I quite enjoyed the music score (which employs the same "blaster beam" from Star Trek: The Motion Picture - another underrated film by the way).  And the special effects match if not exceed those of the original which is no surprise considering that 2010's Richard Edlund like 2001's  Douglas Trumbull is an FX God.

One thing that tickles me pink about 2010 is how faithful it tries to be to the original 2001 even if it doesn't try to match it in tone or execution.  The fact that the filmmakers were able to accurately reconstruct the USS Discovery even though Stanley Kubrick had the original sets and models destroyed right after making his magnum opus (he probably had nightmares of Roger Corman stealing them) is a testament to the dedication and love that the film crew had for both this film and it's predecessor.  Also the fact that they actually got Keir Dullea and Douglas Rain to reprise their roles as David Bowman and HAL.  Any other hack director would have said, "You know what, fuck it.  Get some look-alike actor and a cheap voice actor and let's make this puppy" but Peter Hyams knew that anything less than the originals wasn't going to do (he did recast the role of Heywood Floyd, though.  Oh well - Roy Scheider was more interesting in the role anyway).

You know what strikes me the most about this movie though?  How eerie it is.  I remember being creeped out by this movie as a kid (Yes!  Another movie from my childhood!  I was an odd tyke).  The scene where Heywood Floyd meets Dave Bowman, the imposing monolith, even the image of the sulfur covered Discovery tumbling in space over the volcanic hell-moon Io.  This was probably the first movie to give me an idea of the vast emptiness and... cosmic deepness of space, and how cold and dangerous and truly breathtaking it is (or probably is.  I've never been myself).  Yes, 2001 was realistic with it's physics and astronomy and stuff too but that was made before the Voyager probes were launched it it was more of a space ballet and freak-out set to classical music anyway.  2010 makes you feel that you are watching an actual space flight to Jupiter....

Rant

....which hasn't happened yet.  And probably never will.  Confession:  I cry when watching the opening bit of 2001: A Space Odyssey.  No, not the part with the monkeys, the part with the space planes and the space station and stuff.  The first reason I weep like a baby is Kubrick's gorgeous cinematic choreography and marriage of beautiful imagery with Strauss' Blue Danube.  The other reason is because none of this has come to pass.  When 2001 rolled around I was depressed because we weren't making regular trips to the moon or sending manned flights to Jupiter.  And you know what?  I get misty eyed while watching 2010 too.  Not just because of the beautiful ending but also because none of this has fucking happened.  Look, I'm glad we don't have the Soviet Union or the Cold War in the real 2010 (and actually having the US and USSR near DEFCON 1 status even in 1984 was a little bit of a stretch, considering that relations were thawing and Gorbechev was right around the corner).  And to our credit, if you told someone from 1984 that in 2010 we would have a black president they would probably be shocked.  Also on the plus side the San Fransisco Giants finally won a World Series.  No one could have predicted the modern internet back then either (although Clarke and Hyams did correspond via early email).  And where is Doctor Floyd's cell phone and flat-screen TV?  But look at all the stuff we still don't have.  True artificial intelligence in computers (although admittedly our PCs aren't trying to kill us, either.  OR ARE THEY?). A massive space program.  MANNED FLIGHTS TO JUPITER.  Or Jupiter turning into a star - although I don't know if we would actually want that to happen as the ensuing supernova would kill all life in the solar system with massive radiation (one small scientific fact the Clarke overlooked - normally he was spot on with his science).

The biggest thing that sticks in my craw though is the whole space program thing.  And the sad thing is that the future of 2001/2010 presented in 1984 when this movie came out was improbable even then.  You see, when 2001 was released in 1968 there was actually some optimism about the space program with sci-fi writers and many thought that we just might make it to Jupiter by 2001.  This was because NASA was progressing rapidly towards the moon landing and it could only go upward from there, right?  Unfortunately what the scientists and sci-fi writers and filmmakers didn't count on was politicians and human pettiness.  Or maybe they did.  The sad truth us that the United States was never in the Space Race for scientific knowledge or to advance humanity or anything like that - no, we were in it to beat the Russkies to the moon, to affirm our superiority over Communism.  Thus the Space RACE - and not a race to to the future of humanity either, just a race of pettiness between two superpowers who should have realized that having differing economic systems was not an adequate reason for pointing pants-shittingly frightening nuclear weapons at each other and competing with each other to see which one could get their rocket to the moon first in the ultimate game of "king of the hill."  Well, America won that race and after about, oh, say 1975 our manned space program went right down the toilet.  Oh, sure the Space Shuttle was a beacon of hope for a while - a reusable spacecraft! - and the ISS is a small step in the right direction but the shuttle fleet was used for way too long (and look at the tragic consequences of that) and the only way we can get to the International Space Station is to rely on the Russians (insert Edvard Munch scream here).  So here we are in 2010 with basically no US manned space program.  Oh, excuse me - for a while they were talking about going back to using capsules until they could think up something else... so we were effectively not just going to stop but go backward.  Maybe we could all start wearing love-beads and go-go boots again too.  The only thing left to NASA is basically the unmanned probes.  And even they would probably stop getting launched if the politicians got their way.  All of this really hurts too and should piss off more Americans - aren't we supposed to be a nation of progress, always being on the cutting edge of technology and leading the world in engineering and science?  I guess the answer nowadays is yes only if were talking about making consumer toys and learning new ways to blow people up - the average American doesn't care about scientific progress as long as they have their reality TV and internet porn (made possible, oddly enough by science) while politicians and the military (which completely drives the aerospace industry today) care about science and engineering only enough to have them help to develop weapons systems to the point where we can accomplish the feat of allowing one US Navy aircraft carrier to single-handedly waste a third-world country.  You know what?  The horrible realization that dawns on me is that America's (and let's be fair, Russia's too) manned space program was a sham to begin with - simply another extension of nationalism and global power politics.

I know that this makes me sound bitter and disillusioned, and maybe that's just a little bit true.  Only a little bit though.  Every astronaut who has gone into space automatically earns my respect (I couldn't do it).  Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn, Alexei Leonov, Neil Armstrong and countless other explorers are still timeless heroes in my eyes.  And the engineers and flight controllers who applied their brain power to some of the most baffling problems to ever face humanity (and smoked a lot of cigarettes and drank a lot of coffee in the process) get my admiration for what they achieved.  I just wish all their hard work and sacrifices had been for something that wasn't so... petty.

You now what my problem might be? I think maybe I'm naive.  Maybe I expected the human race to actually undertake massive projects and exploratory undertakings like the space program for reasons other than greed or politics or whatnought.  Maybe I expected humans to be more evolved than our ape ancestors and actually strive for something higher with a more altruistic and noble purpose.



Now I'm depressed.  Where's a Monolith when you really need one?

Obligatory Halloween Movie Post

Holiday movies normally suck, and the reason for this is that holiday movies often have to have a genre of films made up just for them:  the Christmas movie, the Thanksgiving movie and so on.  Also, you can only really watch them one time of the year.  Who wants to watch a Christmas movie in July?

But Halloween is different.  Halloween has a genre of movies that can be watched year-round and is not necessarily slaved to the holiday:  the horror movie.  Unfortunately, despite this Halloween can also suck movie-wise because all of the TV channels and video stores hawk the same shit year after year.  Some horror movies watched every year by the masses on Halloween are true classics; others are pure drivel.  But I get tired of watching even the good ones over and over again so this year for Halloween I thought I would share three good horror movies that aren’t replayed to death.  In fact, some of these are pretty out-of-the-way and, dare I say, cult.

Here they are.  Enjoy.

Matango (1963) – A rich business man, a movie star, a professor and his student along with the ship’s captain and first mate are sailing a yacht on a pleasure cruise when they are swept in a colossal storm that leaves them stranded on a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific.  Sound familiar?  Except that instead of being a crappy sitcom this is a psychological horror movie where the castaways start going for each other’s throats as their mini-society devolves and they find mysterious mushrooms that are both mind and body altering.  This is Godzilla director Ishiro Honda’s favorite of his movies, and it’s one of mine, too. 

Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter (1974) – Not all vampires attack the same.  In a nineteenth century European village young girls are being found dead as wrinkled old crones, having been aged to death by something unknown.  The wandering titular vampire hunter is summoned by his doctor friend to find and slay the undead threat.  This is one of Hammer Horror’s last movies, and one of their most fun.  Where else can you see a katana-swinging Napoleonic vampire hunter with a hunchback professor sidekick slay evil beasts and bed Caroline Munro? 

The Fog (1980) – A small Pacific seaside town is celebrating its anniversary when a mysterious fog rolls in.  One by one people start dying and the local priest has a suspicion of why:  the town harbors a shameful secret, a secret that may spell death and disaster for many innocent people.  This is one of John Carpenter’s most underrated works.  It isn’t one of his best, but it is a good, spooky little film that manages to genuinely creep you out a few times.  It also actually makes ghost pirates seem like a scary idea and not a joke.

So there you go... three non-standard good horror movies for your Halloween viewing pleasure.  Now if you'll excuse me I'm gonna go eat candy and drink cider until I throw up.