Looking for clues

Angels & Demons (2009)

Ace symbologist Robert Langdon and his magnifying glass are back! There’s anti-matter loose in Vatican City and it’s up to Langdon and his sidekick, ace CERN physicist and science hottie Vittoria Vetra, to find and diffuse it before there’s a very, very big crater in the Pope’s living room. Oh, and btw, it looks like the Illuminati, centuries old foes of the Catholic Church and thought long vanquished, are responsabile.

Based on the titular novel that was published before The DaVinci Code, but in the movie apparently taking place after Code’s events, the Pope has died (or was he...murdered) and a successor has yet to be chosen. It is during this tense time for the world’s one billion Catholics that the Illuminati strike, stealing the anti-matter from CERN (note to scientific installations studying ridiculously dangerous substances: hire someone other than Paul Blart: Mall Cop to keep an eye on things). Langdon (Big Tom Hanks, collecting a HUGE paycheck again) is asked by the Vatican for his assistance in figuring out, well, stuff - words that are written so they can be read the same backwards and forward, secret codes and watermarks, that kinda thing.

The big bads also have kidnapped the preferiti, the four Cardinals most likely to be elected to the Papacy. Busy little beavers, ain’t they? They’re going to kill one preferiti every hour starting at 8pm. When they’re done with whacking old dudes in robes, they will blow up the anti-matter, and that's the kind of thing that always caused Star Trek’s Scotty to crap his pants.

Langdon has to drag the Swiss Guard all over Vatican City as he deciphers the clues and they try to stop the killings. (Note to the Swiss Guard: the “traditional dress” that some of you wear makes you look like Renaissance Fair rejects. Really--stripes and puffy sleeves are out. Just FYI.)

I don’t know how the novel reads but the movie plays like a sweeps episode of 24 mixed with a Catechism class, with that Freemason-type Illuminati bullstuff thrown in for spice. I enjoyed it as a sort of brainy thrill ride (it’s a good thing the action takes place over several hours one night and not over many days, which adds to the tension). Hanks is always good and he brings real humanity to Langdon. A major plus for the movie is the mixture of familiar faces such as Ewan MacGregor (the Camerlengo) and Stellan Skarsgaard (Cmdr. Richter) with little knowns (at least to U.S. auds) such as Ayelet Zurer (Vittoria) and Thure Lindhardt as Chartrand, the Swiss Guard who keeps a weary eye on Langdon as he peers through the sacred Vatican archives.

Unlike The DaVinci Code, which made the Catholic Church out to be the bad guys and attracted the ire - and simultaneous fascination - of Catholics worldwide, Angels & Demons makes the Catholic Church hierarchy the victims, so there were no calls for protests and boycotts this time around. And Hanks' Langdon is more of an agnostic with a reverence for at least the cultural, if not spiritual, history behind the Church.

This is a fun movie to watch once, but it pretty much vaporizes (like a secret message) from your consciousness once you shut off the DVD player.

OBEY! OBEY! Snow go away!

I found this crafty pic on neatorama.com, which was re-posted from astronomer Phil Plait's Flickr page. Mr. Plait is of course the writer of the awesome science and astronomy blog, Bad Astronomy.

You sort of expected the plunger, but what really gets me is the SHOT GLASSES as the knob-things on the Dalek's head! Genius!

photo: Copyright 2009 Phil Plait. No rights infringement is implied with this post.

X-School is in session

Director/writer Bryan Singer is returning to the X-Mansion with X-Men First Class, according to this DarkHorizons post. It's a look back at young Charles Xavier and his ally Eric Lensherr who start an exclusive school for mutant children.

I'm not jumping up and down with excitement over this. Singer passed up X-Men 3: The Last Stand for Superman Returns, resulting in TWO merely so-so movies in the process. Yes, Brett Ratner did a better job than most everyone thought he would do on X3, but that's damning the movie with faint praise. And the less said about the hugely disappointing Superman Returns, the better. Then there's Singer's Valkyrie which was good, but not great, and his X2: X-Men United was a GREAT superhero film.

So the director has some catching up to do, and some mending of filmic fences. He can do it, but he really needs to hit this one out of the park (or the cornfield for Superman fans).

But how is he going to fight off the studio execs who you KNOW will be trying to push Wolverine into this project: "We know he wasn't there at the start of the school, but he's the most popular X-Man, so find a way to put him in there!"

Phantom Menace taken to task

People, you have GOT to watch this video critique of Episode I: The Phantom Menace on techland.com! The reviewer is Mike from RedLetterMedia in Wisconsin (his YouTube channel also skewers the Star Trek: TNG movies in a similar manner).

It's not the usual fanboy "George Lucas raped my childhood" baloney, but a very astute look at what is so wrong, wrong, wrong with this movie (and by extension, the rest of the Prequel Trilogy).

And to top it off, it is very funny. It's like Zach Galifiankis and Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs ("it puts the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose") were spliced together.

It's in seven segments of ten minutes each. So watch a little here, a little there, but WATCH IT YOU MUST!

Every filmmaker who wants to make a fantasy film, be it space opera or superheroes or toys to movies needs to watch this and TAKE NOTES.

Happy 1st Anniversary!

It was one year ago today that Bad News From Outer Space started broadcasting its own special brand of insanity to the 'Verse with this post.

Thanks to all who have read and commented on this blog for the past year.

We'll try to keep our freak flag flying...even though there is no air in space.

And now a word from BNFOS's Editor in Chief/Senior Reptile in Residence:

Star Trek (C) 2009 and a (R) trademark of CBS Studios, Inc. No infringement of those rights is intended. Screencap from Trekcore.com.

NCC McQuarrie

Here's something you don't see everyday, unless you're a Star Wars fan because Lucasfilm is used to exploiting EVERY corner and facet of that universe.

Anyhoo, this link to ModelerMagic.com shows a pretty awesome miniature (real life, not CGI) that was inspired by concept art by the legendary Ralph McQuarrie of the Original Star Wars Trilogy fame. It's based on designs from an aborted Star Trek film attempt in the mid-1970s. Mr. McQuarrie worked under the supervision of another legendary movie figure, noted James Bond film production designer Ken Adam (for director Phillip Kaufman).

All that was scraped for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. A few small crude study models were built but no full size ILM miniatures. Shame that (I like that big, triangular engineering section - more room for Scotty to stress and fret and pace around).

Trivia factoid (like all this isn't trivia to begin with!): a couple McQuarrie/Adams study models were used in the fleet of destroyed starships in the second half of the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-parter, "Best of Both Worlds."

And knowing is half the battle, etc, etc.

Beaming in sci-fi gossip

Al new gossip and assorted snark from three of the four corners of the Universe and Uranus.

Presenting Perez Horta:

Star Trek is Copyright 2009 and a Registered Trademark of CBS Studios, Inc. No infringement of those rights is intended. This parody has no connection with Perez Hilton. Screencaps from Trekcore.com.

On the eve of cartoon destruction

Ladies and gentlemen, watch this clip of the opening to Thundarr the Barbarian and tell me that 2012 destructo-moviemaker Roland Emmerich didn't crib from this little animated gem.

Just look at the evidence: tidal waves, volcanos erupting in cities, giant seagoing ships tossed about like leaves -- all that's missing is John Cusack and his limo.

Roland, I've discovered your secret: you love old action-adventure cartoons!

Now, if you'll just do a Herculoids movie for real, all will be forgiven.

Cloak and dagger and rapier and flintlocks

New Solomon Kane goodness from QuietEarth.us to be found here.

I like the looks of this dark fantasy horror; it reminds me of Brotherhood of the Wolf.

Solomon Kane looks like what Van Helsing should have been.

Now we just need some U.S. distributor to pick it up. Come on people, what the hell are you waiting for?

Bat-presents

The supercute Whitney Matheson, who writes the blog Pop Candy for USA Today, posted a cool Christmas gift idea for the comic book fan, specifically for fans of El Batman.

You can see her bat-vlog here.

The Tights that Bind

According to this post on Newsarama, DC Comics is remaking/rebooting/reimaging/(insert latest doublespeak here) Superman and Batman for comic book readers. They already rebooted Superman once in the (mostly) celebrated but short-lived John Byrne run from the mid-1980s, but they quickly messed that up.

I have to say I don't like the new Batman costume. It's like a comic book version of a live action version of a comic book's costume. MAKE UP YOUR FRIGGIN' MIND! Without the "underwear over the tights" there's just too much gray there. His new utility belt looks like it has a bunch of old cell phones stuck to it. And what the hell did they do to his cowl, cutting it up like that - I can handle seeing his eyes, instead of having white "slits", but the cowl is now a mess.

Not Bat-cool.

They haven't posted much art on the Superman re-reboot, so I can't judge that yet, but if it's anything like Batman's costume adjustments, well, then it probably super-blows.

It's a good thing I stopped reading comic books a long time ago, or I'd be very upset right about now.

Apple Juice: The Next Generation

Everyone must watch this new viral video, Happy in Paraguay, found on iO9.

A comedy group took a clip from Star Trek: The Next Generation and lip dubbed it.
Think of it as Woody Allen's What's Up Tiger Lilly interpreted by The Mighty Boosh.

VERY funny stuff.

As the Worm Turns

Fringe – “Snakehead”

Chinese nationals are being smuggled into the U.S. and they have no idea what they are truly carrying inside themselves.

Olivia (Anna Torv) lets the Bishop boys, Walter and Peter (John Noble and Joshua Jackson), take the spotlight in this solid stand alone episode, written by David Wilcox and directed by Paul Holahan. Also, Astrid (Jasika Nicole) gets to step out of the lab for a change.

The Chinese mafia or Triad has added to their list of criminal activities; alongside the usual drugs, prostitution and human slavery they now are using human beings as hosts to a mutated worm with some miraculous healing powers. The problem is the worm has to gestate in a human body and then it grows to several feet long, killing its host (and you thought MSG was bad for you). That’s where Fringe Division steps in.

Peter has become a real take charge guy this season. Here we learn he knows Mandarin Chinese and more than the average person about the Triad (his shady past rears its head again). He even does some guy bonding with the teenage son of a suspect to gain information.

Without a doubt John Noble steals the show this time. In fact, when the network starts sending out those “For Your Consideration” clips to Emmy voters they should include several moments from this episode. Walter is trying to show his independence: he takes a cab to the crime scene instead of riding with Peter and he goes sample hunting in Chinatown. Peter asks Astrid to keep an eye on the latter expedition and after collecting his samples they become separated. Walter becomes confused and tries to call Peter from a payphone (he knows the numbers, just not their proper order). Later he breaks down at a bus bench and confesses all this to a woman who speaks no English. For anyone with an elderly parent it just tears you apart thinking that could happen to them.

Astrid can’t find Walter in Chinatown so she assumes he’ll head back to the lab. When she gets there a couple of Triad goons are stealing back their giant worm and they hurt Astrid in the process. When Walter faces Astrid at the end and he sees the blood and bruises on her face and what his little quest for independence has done, it is utterly heartbreaking. If John Noble is not at least nominated for an Emmy on the strength of such tender, moving work, then fuck the Emmys.

Godzilla vs. Gorgon

By request.


Star Trek Copyright 2009 and a Registered Trademark of CBS Studios, Inc. Godzilla is Copyright 2009 and a Registered Trademark of Toho Studios. No infringement of those rights is intended.

Sasquatch and the Fotomat Conspiracy

We've taken incredibly sharp pictures of the wonders of deep space. We've photographed the strangest sea life in the crushing depths of the oceans. We've taken stunning images in the searing heat on top of active volcanoes and in the sub zero temps of Antarctica.

So, why are all Bigfoot pictures always so blurry and out of focus?

Is Bigfoot doing a Mafia-type number on all the film development stores? "Dis pickcha of cousin Harry is too shahp, people will wreckanize him. Blur it some mo, if you knows what's good fo ya. Anudder ting, we was never here."

Kids in the Hall

Star Trek TOS - "And The Children Shall Lead"

Yes, those kids will lead us straight to hell in this third season clunker.

At the time this episode was perhaps most famous for guest starring attorney Melvin Belli as the villain (they even referenced this appearance in David Fincher's great 2007 film Zodiac). But for pop culture fans, it's now probably more famous for guest star Pamelyn Ferdin, who was one of the early voices for Lucy in three Charlie Brown outtings (one feature film and two TV - although she did not originate the voice of the character as some believe). Ferdin also went on to star in 1977's Saturday morning cult fave Space Academy, alongside the improbably named Ric Carrot, and Star Trek's very own James Doohan. Wow, but that's a lot of trivia! When you get to these questions in Trivial Pursuit, you'll thank me.

Is it just me or does Belli's Gorgan costume look like a shower curtain with some crap hot-glued around the collar? In some close ups, it even appears to be that some of the hot-glued crap FELL OFF, and no one fixed it! At this point, they were probably thinking, "This is the last season for this weird Trek shit, so why bother makin' it look good?"

Star Trek Copyright 2009 and a Registered Trademark of CBS Studios, Inc. Hershey's Kiss is a trademark of The Hershey Company. Peanuts is copyright United Media. The Little Drummer Boy lyrics by Katherine K. Davis. No infringement of those rights is intended.

Screencaps from Trekcore.com.

Holding out for a (Guild) Hero

The Guild – Season 3

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! SPOILERS!

The Guild goes up against its own Bizarro: a rival guild, the Axis of Anarchy. They are everything the Knights of Good aren’t: united, mean (okay, Tink is kind of mean), cruel and underhanded. And their assured leader, Fawkes (Wil Wheaton), rocks a kilt.

The Guild becomes leaderless when Vork (Jeff Lewis) turns in his keys and goes on sort of a vision quest (or in his particular case, more of a “van quest”), leaving Codex (Felicia Day) to try and hold things together.

The Guildies try to fill the hole left by Tink’s (Amy Okuda) defection with Clara’s (Robin Thorsen) husband Mr. Wiggly (Brett Sheridan). Bad idea, and just WHO is watching those adorable carpet mice now?

In the end, it all comes down to a cyber battle of wits and strength (albeit one held face to face, screen to screen) between Codex and Fawkes. Winner, well, wins.

Writer/creator Felicia Day delivers another great batch of fun episodes. The highlight, as always, is her vlogs at the beginning of each episode. Her facial expressions, both large and subtle, are a delight. All the Guildies are given their moments to shine and “special guest villain” (to quote the old Batman show) Wil Wheaton proves he can be a real dick and still be charming (isn't that sort of a Bruce Campbell trait?).

And the denouement with Codex waking up in bed with Fawkes – way to cliff-hang the season!

Echo Goes to Washington

Dollhouse

DANGER WILL ROBINSON! SPOILERS

(Episode synopses from Wikipedia)

“The Public Eye”
United States Senator Daniel Perrin has been trying to bring down the Dollhouse for months, but he has never been a danger – until now, when he comes into possession of a material witness. Echo is sent on assignment to stop him and his witness from exposing the Dollhouse while DeWitt and Topher are sent to the Washington, D.C. Dollhouse to meet the head of the main American house as well as the D.C. branch's genius programmer, a woman named Bennett Halverson (special guest star Summer Glau), who has a mysterious connection to Echo's past.

“The Left Hand”
Echo and Bennett have a shocking meeting as DeWitt goes head-to-head with the cold and ruthless head of the Washington, D.C. Dollhouse, Stewart Lipman (special guest star Ray Wise). Topher involves Victor in his own branch of espionage while Senator Perrin struggles to keep control of his investigation and his witness while a seeming house of cards falls down around him.

A good pair of episodes (and this is a fun way to watch series TV, by watching two at a time) after a month-long hiatus. It’s nice to see Buffy vet Alexis Denisoff again, this time as crusading senator Perrin (named after super announcer/voice over actor Vic Perrin, I presume). The series keeps viewers on its toes with Actives/Dolls popping up when/where you least expect them. Perrin’s actual reveal as a Doll was a nice bit of staging and directing.

Echo (Eliza Dushku) has the line of the episode where she tells Perrin’s wife Cindy (Stacey Scowley) after she uses Topher’s neural disruptor on her that she’s “woken up a lot of people, and they all think you’re a bitch.” Nice.

The big surprise though is Summer Glau’s turn as Bennett Halverson, the D.C. Dollhouse’s answer to Topher (Fran Kranz). Bennet is off the scales intelligent, pretty (though she doesn’t know it) and more than a little damaged (and I’m not just talking about her “dead arm”). Glau seems to channel a bit of her previous Joss Whedon character Summer Tam’s mental instability, but she is a good enough actress that she’s not simply aping what she had done on Firefly. Bennett is at turns nervous, giddy, honest, psychotic, charming and unpredictable.

Special mention must be made of Enver Gjokaj’s work. When Topher goes to D.C. he makes Victor into a copy of himself and Gjokaj really hits one outta the park in his impersonation of Topher – the voice and mannerisms are all there - making me wonder if he does celebrity impressions as well. Maybe we’re looking at another Frank Gorshin.

By now you have heard the news: Dollhouse has been canceled; it will complete its 13 episode run and that will be that. If you’re a regular reader of this blog (you ARE, aren’t you?) you know that I’ve struggled with this series. Now just as it’s getting good and delivering on its promise it gets the big ax from Fox. (Aside from The X-Files name one long-running Fox network sci-fi show?)

If Joss Whedon creates another show for television, perhaps he should go to cable. Hey, HBO, give the man a call.

Blogger from another mother

The cyber-folks at IO9 have a great article up, written by Graeme McMillan and detailing some of his frustrations with the ABC sci-fi series FlashForward.

It's like McMillan held a mirror up to my blog: he and I share many of the same problems with this once-promising show.

I haven't yet watched the most recent episode, its "fall finale" until the series returns in March and I'm not expecting much.

It will be interesting to see if co-developer David S. Goyer, who assumed showrunner duties after previous head writer Marc Guggenheim was fired, can turn this ship around in it final clutch of episodes.

It can happen (see the show Lie to Me, after "The Shield" creator Shawn Ryan took over the writers room). And I want it to happen with this show. Good sci-fi is SO hard to come by on network tee vee.

The Slinging 60s

The site Quiet Earth has lived up their name and quietly posted something new and pretty nifty. It's not a trailer for an upcoming series but rather a "sizzle reel" or faux trailer for a proposed series.

And I like what it proposes.

Slingers is summed up as Ocean's 11 meets A.I., and there is a definite element of 1960s cool mixed with the usual British coolness as well, largely thanks to the gravelly voice of Sean Pertwee.

Here's the official synopsis from StupidEvilBastard.com:

Slingers is set in the year 2960 A.D., following mankind’s first interplanetary war. Humanity is now clustered into a finite, but still vast section of the universe known as Enclosed Space. Humanity won the war with an aggressive alien enemy, but at a cost. The way back to Earth is now cut off by an impassable barrier – a side effect of the blast that finally pushed the enemy back.

The show takes its name from a group of people thrown together on board an experimental spacecraft that is capable of Slinging itself to any point in space. In theory it’s the only craft capable of getting home. In reality the crew are using it to carry out a series of high tech heists and get even with those who are now exploiting their positions in the post war hierarchy.

Dominic ‘DM’ Monroe, a special ops war veteran becomes the de facto leader of this small team of thieves who rail against the decision by military command to just ‘stay where they are and make the best of it’. They’re determined to get home and if that means breaking a few rules and picking up a lot of enemies along the way then so be it.

Slingers would make a fine companion series to, say, Torchwood. Howz 'bout it, TV Execs?

Where Every Monkey Knows Your Name

According to this Yahoo News item, monkeys can recognize OTHER monkeys they know when shown photos of them.

The experiment was like a monkey version of those scenes in Cheers where Norm walks into the bar and everyone sees him and yells, "Norm!," but with a lot more poo throwing (the monkeys, not the Cheers gang).

Planet of the Apes Copyright 2009 and a trademark of 20th Century Fox. No infringement of those rights is intended.

A Ripoff of Mars

According to IO9, mock/schlockbuster-makers The Asylum is at it again with ERB's A Princess of Mars.

ERB is short for Edgar Rice Burroughs, the pulp author most famous for creating Tarzan in 1912. He also wrote a series of books chronicling the adventures of John Carter, a Civil War-era soldier magically transported to Barsoom (we call it Mars). Pixar is planning a live action Princess, but that's a few years down the road, so The Asylum - (in)famous for having their ripoffs on DVD shelves at the same time the real thing hits theater screens - is attaching themselves to James Cameron's blue Avatar coattails.

How much do you want to bet that the trailer pretty much showcases ALL the CGI effects in the movie? And looky, they shot at Vasquez Rocks, the most overshot location in all of movie history (fun-nee, dudes).

And as attractive as Traci Lords is, here are two things to note: 1. she doesn't appear nude anymore (and hasn't for years) and 2. she's 41 years old. When one thinks of hot sci-fi/fantasy babes, especially ones running around in a Slave Leia-like bikini number, 41 is about 15, if not 20, years too old. Traci, I thought you were better than this.

Darth Letterman

Top 10 Star Wars Droid Complaints

10. Damn restraining bolts always leave scratch marks
9. People who refer to us as “robots”
8. That wasn’t an oil bath!
7. IG-88 keeps showing up at meetings even though we never invite him.
6. People always confuse us with “robosapiens”
5. Every time we stand at a street corner run, run the risk of being abducted by Jawas
4. That f------ C-3PO never shuts up
3. Had to wait in line for WALL-E like everyone else
2. BEEP BOOP BLOOP BOOP (astro-mech inside joke – very dirty)
1. Everyone keeps trying to jam an iPod into our slots

Living Your Post-Apocalyptic Life a 1/4 Mile at a Time

Here's a moral quandry for you: would you be more interested in a new Riddick movie with Vin Diesel or a new Mad Max movie without Mel Gibson?

Maybe they could combine the two franchises and have Riddick go on a Mad Max-style muscular thrill ride, with little to no CGI. All the pixelated mayhem in movies such as Transformers 2 and GI JOE cannot hold a candle to the action sequences in Road Warrior.

Beedy, beedy, beedy. It's Your New Show, Buck!

This might be good news for some of you (and you know who you are) but according to this Trekweb report James Cawley, the Elvis impersonator/Capt Kirk impersonator from the Star Trek: New Voyages/Phase II fan film series is producing a new web series of Buck Rogers (minus Twiki).

Producer Cawley has managed to cast original NBC series Buck Rogers stars Gil Gerard and Erin Gray for this web show.

To be honest I don't see the appeal of most fan-films, other than perhaps for the people making them (hey, they're playing Trek for real!). Cawley's New Voyages feature incredibly faithful set recreations and cool digital effects, but most suffer from poor stories/direction and ALL suffer from terrible, amateur-at-best, acting. (And Cawley, with his pompador and big sideburns, looks more like Steve McGarrett from Hawaii Five-O than Shatner's Kirk. OH, NO, DON'T TELL ME HE'S GOING TO DO A FAN-FILM OF HAWAII FIVE-O!)

Anyway, getting back to the Buck Rogers webseries, even diehard fans must admit Gerard looks so old and haggard in that photo. And the fact that the new young Buck is played by a New Voyages alum doesn't fill me with joy in the slightest. More terrible acting is on the horizon.

Oh well, at least the special effects will be cool.

Sucks to be Sucked In

"Nothing can escape it, not even light."

If you remember that 1979 sci-fi movie tagline, then you probably remember the movie to which it was attached: The Black Hole.

Remember that tagline because Disney in their infinite wisdom, and according to this Hollywood Reporter write-up, has decided to (waaait for it) REMAKE THE BLACK HOLE!

Yes, that wonderful updated-for-the-1970s version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, featuring deranged Dr. Reinhardt in the Capt. Nemo role, the silent but deadly robot Maximillian, the too cute V.I.N.CENT. and Ernest Borgnine (!) is getting the remake treatment from Joseph Kosinkski, the director of the in-production Tron Legacy.

The Black Hole has a place in the hearts of sci-fi fans (especially if you saw it at a young age) largely due to the incredible production design from Disney veteran Peter Ellenshaw. The Cygnus spaceship's gothic cathedral-like design still holds up today, as do the amazing matte paintings Ellenshaw executed to show the ship's cavernous interiors. And the robot Maximillian looks like he could pal around with Darth Vader.

Never once does the article say that they came up with an astonishing idea or fantastic new take on the original story (like they did with the recent Battlestar Galactica "reimagined" series); to be fair they say the science will be more realistic (no "searching for habitable life" I gather). Disney gets a new studio head, Rich Ross, and the first thing he does apparently is ask, "What haven't we remade already?" Way to show original, out of the box, Internet-era, 21st century thinking Mr. Ross!

SSDD: Same Shit Different Day. Oops, sorry, this is Disney, so that should be Same Stuff, Different Day.

Mates of State

Star Trek is Copyright 2009 and a Registered Trademark of CBS Studios, Inc. No infringement of those rights is intended. Screencaps from Trekcore.com.

It's The End of The World As We Know It

Over the holiday weekend we donned space suits and headed to the cinema.

The Road (2009)

A man and a boy walk the wasteland that is their post-apocalyptic world, seeking a better place.

I just started reading Cormac McCarthy’s novel upon which this John Hillcoat-directed film is based, so I’m not yet in a position to compare the two. However I will say this: there is a truly bleak feeling in McCarthy’s prose that the movie accurately touches on at the beginning, but later seems to give up.

The movie, as in the book, does not specify WHAT happened to turn the earth into a living hell (a meteor, perhaps. Bruce Willis where were you?). The air is always cloudy and gray, ashes fall from the sky constantly. There are often earthquakes, and heavy rain. There is no sunlight, so there are no green growing things. And if there are no green fields there are no animals. So what do you eat?

If you are the Man and the Boy, you eat grasshoppers that have withered and dried up, and any precious canned goods you can get your hands on. And you stay away from the roving gangs of men that have given up on humanity and turned to cannibalism.

When the Man and the Boy were alone is when the movie worked best for me. Similar to Cast Away, when Tom Hanks had to learn to survive alone on the island, it was interesting to see civilized people reduced to being something else. At one point they are huddled under and overpass, boiling water in a hub cap before pouring it into a cut up plastic bottle with some make shift filters stuffed in it to catch impurities. But they soon run into the cannibals (more than once) and have to flee for their lives, and in doing so the film seemed to move from something special and unique to something I’ve seen before with the chase and evade stuff. For a film about a man and a boy walking alone in the wasteland, they seemed to run into a lot of people.

Viggo Mortensen does a heck of a job as the Man to the Boy, his son played by Kodi Smit-McPhee. Mortensen with his scruffy beard, shoulder length greasy hair and stained and torn clothes LOOKS like someone who is barely surviving an apocalypse. The pained expression on his face tells us more in a few glimpses than other actors could in a half hour monologue.

I also liked Smit-McPhee who starts out innocent but learns some hard lessons along the way. Some critics have called him “whiney” (I didn’t see him that way) but if you’re a ten year old boy walking – always walking – in a wasteland, wouldn’t you “whine” about some things once in a while?

The production design on this movie is first rate - for a film only budgeted at $20 million it is even outstanding. There is some CGI matte work and miniatures, but a great deal of the production was shot on actual decayed, decrepit locations in Pennsylvania, such as the Abandoned Turnpike Tunnels and other derelict projects.

The problem with The Road is that it appears to be about nothing (when SNL does their parody, the Man should be Jerry Seinfeld, “What’s up with these cannibals? They’re always hungry!”). The man and boy face incredible hardships and he tries to instill in him a sense of decency by telling him, “We are the good guys” and that they are “carrying the fire (in our hearts).”

But to what end? There appears to be no real hope in this world that things will ever get better. The sun cannot pierce the thick cloud of ash that covers the sky; every green thing – plants, grass, trees – is dead. All the animals have died off. There aren’t enough canned goods to keep them alive indefinitely. This literally is Hell. The earth will eventually heal, but that may take hundreds, even thousands of years. But long before that every last human will die off too. Under these conditions they have to. So why must the Man and Boy walk to the coast. What really is there for them? The Man is also very, very sick. When he dies the Boy will be on his own. What then?

The book is a very poetic read, and I suspect the author’s intent may have been lost in translating it to the screen. What is it all about? What did it all mean? Maybe at the end of the world we’ll never truly know.

Don't Sign Up For This Army

G.I. JOE: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

Another lousy, crappy, dull, uninvolving, and unimaginative summer blockbuster.

What's it about? Good guys fighting bad guys, both with armies of troops, guns, jet planes, attack subs, accelerator suits, and other impossible hardware at their disposal. We also get silly subplots involving one good guy's past with the now-bad hot chick and one silent good ninja's childhood upbringing with another snotty evil ninja.

The acting was uniformly bad. Chris Eccleston, Dennis Quaid, Channing Tatum, Rachel Nichols and Marlon Wayons should all be court martialed for offenses against the craft of acting. I’ve seen elementary school plays with higher quality emoting. Quaid literally appeared to be embarrassed in all his scenes, like he realized he was appearing in a movie based on a Hasbro toy. Tatum has a vacant expression that reminded me a lot of MacCauley Culkin in Home Alone. And Marlon Wayans is the human incarnation of Jar Jar Binks. He was annoying and knocked over things; the only thing he didn't do was step in poodoo, but then that's what sequels are for!

The action scenes were some of the blandest and least involving I’ve ever witnessed, filled with lots of obvious CGI doubling (especially JOE Scarlett racing on a motorcycle - her reation time in turns and spins was what made it stand out as fake). It made me long for the Raiders of the Lost Ark truck chase, which had huge stakes in it as far as the story (the Nazi’s have the Ark and Indy’s desperately trying to retrieve it), amazing, but still believable action (Indy riding up alone on horseback, jumping onto one truck and thwacking Nazis left and right, making his way along the convoy, crackerjack editing timing, all set to an incredible score by John Williams. In JOE, Tatum and Wayons done Iron Man Jr. costumes called accelerator suits and race on foot after the bad guys in their SUV on Paris streets (the baddies what to destroy the Eiffel Tower). The accelerated JOEs never catch the baddies because they spend all their time bouncing around like bionic gymnasts as they smack into and leap over cars. In the big final showdown, the JOEs attack the baddies' underwater city and their aqua-jets or whatever zip around in dogfights that aped Star Wars Death Star trench battle but weren't half as involving. It was all loud and poorly conceived, backed by a completely forgettable score by Alan Silvestri.

Come to think of it, Airwolf, a 1980s action/adventure show for which Silvestri composed a nifty theme is a much better version of G.I. JOE. Both featured secret organizations operating from hidden bases that used futuristic hardware to combat various enemies out to control the world (or at least L.A.). Airwolf’s hero was the cello-playing, wounded-to-his-soul Stringfellow Hawk, who had more depth to him than JOE’s Duke who merely lost his fiancé to the bad guys. Airwolf’s action scenes were more thrilling that all the CGI nonsense of JOE, and they did it for pennies compared to JOE’s $170 million budget.

This movie grossed $150 million, so 9 year old boys had their summer movie, but that is the ONLY audience for this. Hey, I played war as a kid just like millions of other people - if the movie was done well, it should have been made for ALL of us (grown up and not just 9 year old boys).

The makers of this GI JOE movie obviously have little to no imagination (everything looked like a toy!!). Here’s how to do them one better: buy some old GI JOE figures from a discount store (12" or 3/34" it doesn't matter), grab some boxes and foam packaging molds, then find a mound of dirt or sandbox and let your imagination fill in the rest.

Open the blast doors, open the blast doors!

If you've ever wanted to own your own decommissioned missile silo or other missile base property, NOW is the time!

This is some cool ass stuff. Some of the nifty features: half-mile long tunnels, stairs and ladders galore, thousands of feet of floor space (one had 15,000 sq ft!), that great concrete look, giant diesel engines and turbines, old computer thingys with switches (what are those, grandpa?), multi-ton blast doors, and if an area is flooded you can use it for scuba diving!

And since most of it is all underground, you can probably throw up a bunch of solar panels on top, maybe even a wind mill/turbine, and generate your own electricity. Neato!