Signal Watch Re-Watches: John Carter (2012)

I will be brief.

But, I am documenting every time I watch a movie this year.  And it would seem unfair to not tell you.  Yeah, before it left the theater (I assume first run theaters will be dropping the movie from their screens this week), I wanted to see it again.

And, you know, I liked it just as much a second time, if not more after reading the first three Barsoom books.  Lots of little bits that are throw-aways from the book, or book-accurate bits like the hand-on-shoulder greeting among allies, radium shells from the Thark rifles, what a royal @#$%* Sarkoja can be...

Anyway, it would have been nice to see where they wanted to go with the sequels, especially as they took such an incredible number of liberties with the source material.  At least I would have been kept guessing.  At its core, the movie remains true to each character they represent, even if there's no appearance of Phaidor while we see Matai Shang, etc...  and so its not that hard for me to reconcile the differences.

I'll shut up about John Carter for a bit.

Signal Watch Reads: Warlord of Mars

Well, I have now completed the first three Barsoom novels, just finishing Warlord of Mars.

I will say, of the three, Warlord is, perhaps, the silliest of three fairly ridiculous novels.  Now, when I say the books are ridiculous, these novels are hyperbolic, escapist adventure fantasy.  Its the predecessor to Flash Gordon and Conan by several years, each, and helped launch both genres.  While interesting themes and ideas present themselves in the three books, you'd be hard pressed to say that Edgar Rice Burroughs was pushing an agenda beneath the layers of the Barsoom novels, or that he was seeking to impart a subversive message or pat himself on the back for writing a very important book.  But that doesn't mean they aren't pretty wild fun, and don't work surprisingly well in the context of the modern action enthusiast.

But it can get silly.  Warlord features at least two instance where our hero goes undercover in iffy disguises, knocks himself out more than once, and routinely has to explain that maybe he isn't much of a thinker as he apologizes to the reader for not having a particularly good reason why he has once again pitched himself into a fight that maybe didn't need to happen (while suggesting he thinks to think too hard about these things is sort of for jerks, anyway).  In some ways, John Carter is the Jack Burton of his time and place.  He's a reasonable man caught up in unreasonable circumstances.

Hail to the king, baby

Signal Watch Watches: Trek Nation (2010)

At this point I think there are as many documentaries about Star Trek as there are Star Trek movies.

I'll be honest with you, I have very warm childhood memories of Trek, and I like the movies, but I am not a Trekker, I'm a bit more of a Trekkie.  I rarely get to watch reruns of either the original series or Next Generation.  I never watched much Voyager, DS9, Enterprise or the short-lived Animated Series.

I have, I suppose, muted enthusiasm for certain brands of Trek, especially those that weren't overseen by Gene Roddenberry.

Trek Nation (2010) isn't actually about the fandom of Star Trek, but the relationship between Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and his son, Rod Roddenberry, and Rod's discovery, as an adult, of the impact his father had on the world.

Sure, the Sci-Fi conventions are all there.  The geeks in their Klingon suits get coverage, a few of the aging stars of the franchise get some camera time and interview terrifically well, but far fewer of them than you'd expect.  But  to ask Shatner to reminisce about who Gene Roddenberry was isn't really the focus.  You do get just an astounding amount of behind the scenes footage, archival stuff, candid stuff...  its impressive what they dug up.

The interview subjects also include series writers like DC Fontana (turns out DC is a lady.  I did not know, but very in keeping with Trek, I think), George Lucas and Stan Lee talking about the impact of Trek and a bit of why it worked, and what that might have said about Roddenberry the Sr.  Also included are writers and producers from the later series, leading right up to JJ Abrams talking Trek with the son of Roddenberry.

That Rod Roddenberry so clearly did not know the man with whom he lived until his father died in 1991 is in every bit of the movie, and even if it can tilt toward familiar hagiography at times, its through the eyes of the grown man both thrilled and injured to see his father's legacy and he becomes a part of it.

I do wish they'd dug a bit deeper, perhaps.  There are some ellipses that could have used a full stop when it comes to how and why the Roddenberry men weren't close, but it doesn't feel incomplete.

I caught this as a two-hour broadcast on the Science Channel, just FYI.  I wasn't sure if it counted as a movie of 2012, but I'm counting it.

Signal Reads: 2001 - A Space Odyssey

Because as a kid I liked SPACE, the old man took me to whatever movies were out that featured people slipping free of the bonds of Earth's gravity.  And so it came to pass that he said "We can go see 2010, but I don't think you'll like it.  I've seen the first movie, and this isn't going to be The Last Starfighter."

"Ok," I said.  "I still want to go."

And so it passed that I saw 2010 in the theater and had to have The Admiral explain 2001 to me on the way home.  No, it did not have the visceral thrill of the sci-fi adventures I adored, but I had already seen Star Trek: The Motion Picture, so slow moving sci-fi epics were not outside my scope.  

Perhaps tellingly, very few kids in my grade saw 2010, but all of us in the special nerd math class I was in during 4th grade had seen it and thought it keen.  We also all agreed that Star Trek wasn't properly appreciated, so, you know, there was precedent.  In short - kid nerds of the 1980's.

About two years after 2010, The Admiral and Jason rented 2001 and watched it while I was out of the house.  A bit peeved I'd been left out, I sat down the next day and watched the first half of 2001 by myself until Jason wandered back into the house and finished watching it with me.  

So, yeah, its been a long time in coming that I finally decided to get a bit more of my nerd bonafides and purchased the audiobook of Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey.  

According to Clarke's forward to the audiobook, done in 2000 as we neared the actual year 2001, the book was written basically for Stanley Kubrick so he'd have something to use when he made a sci-fi movie that wasn't, in the filmmaker's estimation, a whole lot of hoo-ha.  And it is interesting to compare and contrast Kubrick's film with the novel, which is written in the very literal terms of mid-20th Century Sci-Fi, and does not contain the ethereal feel or the explanation-by-implication that can leave some viewers feeling stranded in the film's last 20-30 minutes.  

Despite the fact that script and novel were co-developed, there are some differences, including Discovery's destination (Saturn in the novel) and an explicit explanation of HAL's malfunctioning.  

Frankly, I very much enjoyed the book and I'm glad I "read" it after all this time.   The themes of the novel and film reflect very much upon how I personally consider what it means for human beings to continue to look at space as a possibility, which is either because of Kubrick's influence or because I watched too much Trek as a kid.  

The audiobook, by the way, is extremely brief, running under 7 hours.  There's something to how long something like Stranger in a Strange Land runs, and how much information was shared, or how much story was necessary (that audiobook ran about 22 hours, I think), and the impact possible on the reader.  

In comparison to the Barsoom novels I'm also currently reading, well, its more or less two different ends of the spectrum from this genre we call "science fiction".  And with Clarke's scientific high mindedness, even the mystery of the cosmos that Kubrick puts forth gets a near unlimited omniscient narrator's explanation we'd never get from just the visuals of the film, draining away some of the mystery (or confirming what you thought Kubrick was suggesting).  

Its a wonderful novel, and if you can deal with some of the dated concepts and the deadpan characterization of David Bowman, Heywood Floyd and Frank Poole, there's a lot to like if you've never read the book.  Particularly HAL's characterization.  

I should mention, the HAL-related stuff is far less important to the book than the movie, and acts more as a fulcrum toward making a point about men, machines and the perils of both (especially a billion miles from home).

Anyone else read the book?  Thoughts?

Signal Watch Watches: John Carter (of Mars)

Disney won't call the movie by a decent title, so I will.  Let us call it John Carter of Mars, shall we?

As pointed out recently by The Alamo Drafthouse, the Summer of 1982 was an absolutely stunning summer for movies and culturally defining watershed for Gen X.  To celebrate this fact, Summer of 2012, they're having a Summer of 1982 celebration showing a movie per week from that year.

Not all of the movies were a smash at the time (see the final show of the summer, Blade Runner), but this was also the generation of the VCR and HBO.  I didn't see Blade Runner until 1988 or so, but I know when it was released (and you can bet I'll be fighting tooth and nail to be at the screening at the Alamo this summer).

So I'm going to start using Summer of 1982 as a sort of yardmarker for a movie I think could hold a certain distinction.

1.  The movie isn't being loved by critics who are failing to understand it at the time
2.  It likely won't be understood by the mainstream audience at the time
3.  The movie tries to be something grand, really swings for the fences
4.  The movie has the potential to endure in a way that surpasses just the nichey fans you can find anywhere on the internet, but becomes part of the sci-fi geek zeitgeist

Straight up, I @#$%ing loved John Carter (2012).  I believe that it is Summer of 1982 worthy.

You know, this is kind of a terrible poster

The movie is based not just upon the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, A Princess of Mars (1917), but on what I'd guess are a few of the Barsoom/ John Carter novels sort of pulped into a single volume.  That the movie was not just the first book is all right.  The story works well enough and moves at a better pace for the kids that were packed in all around us in the audience at the Alamo.

The movie of John Carter follows Carter (played more than ably by Friday Night Lights alum Taylor Kitsch) as a Virginia gentleman who, more than a decade after the Civil War, makes a hasty call for his nephew, Edgar Rice Burroughs, to come to him.  By the time Burrows arrives, Carter is dead, sealed in a tomb which can only be opened... from the inside.

Getting Better (The Superman Way!) and John Carter, maybe

First of all:  Antibiotics are amazing.  I know its hep to turn to your charm bracelets, magnets or supplements or whatever...  but give me some industrially composited FDA approved mystery pills any day.

WHOOOOOOO

I'm not back at 100%, but I am getting better.

This illness has taught me to respect my body as the delicate piece of machinery it is, and so I pledge to take better care of myself.  I will only treat myself as Superman would treat his own SUPER SELF, in the spirit of Truth, Justice and the American Way!

drinkin' on the back 40 with the old man while the ladies wait on the porch... CHECK

Signal Watch Re-Watches: DUNE (1984)

A few years back I finally read Frank Herbert's Dune, and then watched the David Lynch film adaptation that's a bit of a cult movie, but which showed up DOA in 1984.

The Alamo Ritz had a late night screening of the movie, starting at 11:30 PM on Friday in glorious 35mm which Jason recruited me for (the man likes his Dune).

Whether you're a fan of the book or not, when seen on the big screen, you have to admire the sheer audacity of the movie, of trying to bring the insanely detailed world of Herbert's Arrakis to a 2.5 hour movie.

It's a bit telling they try to start explaining themselves starting on the poster

I still love "The Fantastic Voyage"

On Saturday morning Simon, his ladyfriend Leta and I will made our way down to the Alamo South Lamar for a screening of The Fantastic Voyage (1966).  The Alamo South hosts Kids' Club, about once a month, and I've seen some classics like War of the Worlds as part of the series.  Frankly, its a testament to both the laziness of Austinites and the lack of interest in anything not involving beer that a free screening (FREE) starting at 11:00 AM of one of the sci-fi all-time classics wasn't better attended.

Their loss.

No Post Tuesday

Just another Tuesday for Jamie.

Signal Watch Watches: Queen of Outer Space

Sometimes I just record things off Turner Classic because the name intrigues me.  And that's how I wound up recording Queen of Outer Space (1958).

If you like your gender roles defined by the fevered visions of a clumsy 7th grade boy from 1957, have I got a movie for you!  

Possibly the most cheerfully sexist movie I've ever seen, Queen of Outer Space follows the misadventures daring exploits of three dimbulb brave astronauts in the far future of 1985. Whilst transporting a "professor" to a space station, things go awry and the spaceship lands on Venus.  Venus, wouldn't you know it, turns out to have a population of nothing but dames in high heels and mini-skirts toting ray guns.  Yes yes, its the kind of movie where space vixens all speak English, wear make-up and their hair is done up in the fashions of the day.  And they'd all be a lot better off if they had some men around.  Sure, they're ruled by a despotic queen (of outerspace), but they also have Zsa Zsa Gabor completely half-assing her way through the movie.

There's a cautionary tale in here both about the ravages of war and the victims left behind AND about what every little lady just wants a little smooching and she'll be fine.

No doubt, this is exactly the late night movie Amazon Women on the Moon was spoofing, and its easy to see why.  MST3K must never have secured the rights to this one, but it feels like the sort of thing they would have quite enjoyed working on.

SPOILER

I also like how the movie ends with the promise of sex, sex and more sex for our brave astronauts.  Well done, 1958.

END SPOILER

Yes, I heartily recommend this movie for all the right reasons and to see a just-past-her-prime Zsa Zsa doing her best to at least show up in this movie.


this trailer actually gets a few plot points wrong, but... whatever.

Here's the whole movie.

Reminder: "War of the Worlds" (1953) showing at Alamo South on Saturday

SimonUK reminded me today - the Alamo Kids Club is showing the 1953 version of War of the Worlds at Alamo South on Lamar on Saturday.

You can see info here.

The showtime is 11:45, but I'll be there a full hour early.  Why?  The show is free!  And that means lots of folks come early to ensure they get a seat.

If you've never seen the 1953 War of the Worlds, its an incredible movie.  I like it enough that my b-day present to myself this year was a scale model of one of the Martian ships.

they are here to chew bubble gum and heat blast earthlings.  And they're all outta bubblegum.

I confess, I find a bit weird to show this to small kids as I remember it spooking me a bit even when I saw it in 6th grade (I was not raised on horror movies and was a sensitive child, I guess).  But the effects are fan-freaking-tastic, and the aliens are not kidding around with their plans to heat-beam us all into smithereens.

I hope to see you there!

Signal Watch Watches: Attack the Block

A while back SimonUK mentioned he'd somehow already seen Attack the Block at a festival, and vouched for it, stating that when it came to Austin this summer, we really needed to go see it.  Some of the producers and talent involved are from the group that brought us Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, some loving takes on familiar genres, infused with smart-alec humor and a fan's know-how enough to both play with conventions and know what's important about retaining some of those conventions.  But all without getting too precious, I think.

Attack the Block does not, I repeat, does not feature Simon Pegg, but I promise you it is still a very good movie.

Signal Watch Watches: Aliens (1986) at the Paramount!

The first time I saw the film Aliens, I was in a middle-school academic writing competition.

Somebody anticipated that a bunch of bored kids were going to destroy the school unless properly amused between events, and so they set up a bunch of chairs in a tiered music room, and a few big TV's all playing the same movie.  And some genius put in Jim Cameron's Aliens and then turned off the lights.

Now, Aliens is an R-Rated movie, which used to kind of mean something, especially to a herd of middle school students, and I believe we silently agreed, as kids do, that we all wanted to watch this movie and the only way to do that was if absolutely nobody said one word to the adults and teachers running the event that we all knew perfectly well we weren't supposed to see this movie.

Goodnight Dune now a complete children's book

found by @chris_roberson

I think this looks about right for this crowd...

A while back I linked to an image that was a pretty clever idea/  just a joke called "Goodnight Dune".

Well, its the 2010's, so of course, somebody actually went and made it into a book.

Here.

I strongly suspect Harms will now wish he had children.

I Heart Marauding Martians: War of the Worlds

I was going to write a post about how much I like War of the Worlds, but then I realized:  I have been doing this a long, long time.  I bet I already wrote something on that.  

And then I thought:
League, you clever bastard!  You're good looking AND brilliant.  

Previous War of the Worlds posts:

War of the Worlds, 70 Years Ago
The League goes to see "War of the Worlds"

Lo and behold, there you go.  Two posts to refer to.  And I'm still a fan.  I was looking at my copy of the DVD and realized I hadn't watched it in... oh, two years or so.

Perhaps I respond to the movie because (a) the radio play freaked me out when I first heard it, knowing exactly what the story was with the broadcast, not to mention I was listening to it on cassette, and (b) because I recall watching the movie with The Admiral and being too old to be genuinely scared by movies, but realizing this was really one of the first films I'd seen where "we" lost.

All that aside, some of what's nifty is in the details. I still like that the martians in the 1953 movie are truly non-humanoid (unlike, say, Klaatu). 

They also don't come with a message to save us or demonstrate some sort of enlightenment. In fact, they basically show up with canisters of Humans-B-Gone.

I have only eye/s for you...

I haven't read enough criticism of the book, play or movies, but when I read the book and watch the movie, I can't help but think that the Martians more or less follow the pattern of colonization that humans have been fond of for our long duration, something Bradbury explored in the unrelated Martian Chronicles, which witnesses mankind slowly colonizing the Red Planet.  Wells' martians aren't as stupid and slow about their "colonization", arriving in gas-spewing, death beam projecting blitzkrieg, but the idea is the same.

Land:  they aren't making more of it. And on a gut level, we kind of understand the terror of clearing out the locals to make way for our strip malls and Tasty Freeze franchises (or whatever Martians ultimately planned to do) because that's what we're really good at. Just, you know, the audience reading the book hadn't been on the receiving end in quite a while.

And these sorts of fables stick with you, I suppose.

I'm also a huge fan of the design of the Martian vehicles as designed in the book (at least how its described, which is @#$%ing terrifying, and which Spielberg sort of got right), and while they couldn't animate the tripod legs for the 50's-era film and so made the vehicle a hovercraft, it's still totally rad. One day I shall own a model of the Martian invasion crafts.  Oh, yes, I will.

A surefire way to not get cut off on the freeway.

The opening scenes in Grover's Mill (in the radio broadcast and movie) are epically freaky as humans try to apply reason, goodwill, etc... and are met by (spoilers!) deathray.  From that point on, things just get worse, too.

There have been a few nifty cross-overs for fans like myself.

As you know, Superman appeared in 1938, the same year of the "War of the Worlds" Mercury Theater Broadcast.  Somebody ran some numbers and put this out a while back, which I thought was a nifty read.

Superman tries to prevent these nefarious illegal aliens from dropping anchor babies

And for those of you who've never read it, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 2 is basically the LOEG v. War of the Worlds.

Martian X-treme off-roading

This little post sort of suggested further exploration of War of the Worlds in comics, so I amy need to look into that.

For some serious weirdness,look up Jeff Wayne's prog-rock musical thing of War of the Worlds.