Matt’s Week in Dork! (8/11/13-8/18/13)

    A slow start finished big this week, with the ever amazing William Shatner.

Zardoz:  Certainly, Zardoz is not to everyone’s taste.  Possibly because it’s completely bonkers, features some surreally strange acting, wildly improbably turns of event, and Sean Connery running around in red swim-trunks bringing the gift of death to spaced-out psychic flower children while a bit of the ol’ Ludwig Van plays.  Zardoz is a 70s dystopian nightmare unlike any other.  The closest thing I could compare it to are a lot of those ultra-trippy sci-fi shows coming out in the UK at the time, of which Doctor Who was probably the most mainstream and easy to follow.

The Showoff: A borish oaf treats everyone like crap and can’t tell the truth.  Things go from bad to worse, and then they really get pathetic as he blusters his way through life, destroying everyone around him.  The film isn’t all that great, and the main character is bloody awful.  But Louise Brooks is pretty swell as one of the dames.

The Plastic Age:  It’s jocks versus nerds in this pre-sound college comedy that shows little has changed in a hundred years.  Everyone’s got dames and sports on the mind, and they’re all freaking out.  It’s all kinds of goofy, but an interesting look at a long standing subgenre of comedy.  Many of the archetypes are already in place before the first words were spoken.  And of course, it ends with The Big Game.

A Band Called Death:  The trailer for this documentary took hold of my brain.  But, to a degree, it also told the story of the film, so seeing the whole thing is a touch disappointing.  However, the film sizzles with the band’s musical energy.  It is an interesting family story, and of course, a revelation of an unknown band that played Punk before there was Punk.

Escape from New York:  In the crime ridden future of the 1990s, New York City has become the pit of hell everyone thought it was in the late 70s.  Into this comes an anti-hero for the ages, a bitter, gruff, one-eyed bastard who doesn’t much like The Man.  Great action, great score, cool setting, and a great cast of character actors playing colorful roles.  This is one of the coolest films to come out of the 80s.

    We started off ShatAttack with a couple episodes of Thriller (The Grim Reaper & The Hungry Glass.  Both are quite good, with Shatner getting to play both perp and victim.  Up next was an episode of The Fugitive (Strange in the Mirror), featuring more manic madness from the Shat (keep an eye out for Astronaut Dodge from Planet of the Apes!).  And then Alfred Hitchcock Presents (The Glass Eye & Mother May I Go Out to Swim?).  Then on to The Outer Limits with Cold Hands, Warm Heart.

    Day two of ShatAttack started with Escape from Planet Earth and William Shatner’s World Famous Cappuccino Muffins.  Mmm.  And we followed that up, obviously, by The Bastard, part of The Kent Chronicles.  And then it was on to ShatAttack favorite The Devil’s Rain.

Escape from Planet Earth:  No shock that this movie wasn’t very good.  It has a few funny gags, but is mostly about as obvious as it gets.  The jokes are pretty obvious and the ‘social commentary’ is ham fisted.  And I’m not sure, but I think the moral of the story was that being single is bad, being stupid is good, and being a housewife is all a woman should strive for.

The Bastard:  Part one of The Kent Chronicles, this details the life of a French murder-machine as he kills everyone who crosses him, often with their own weapons.  After being raped by a milk-maid, our hero goes on to get set upon by various roughians and thugs, who through either luck, or some grand and hidden methodology, he thwarts, mostly to their death.  Then he heads to America, where I don’t know, I guess he gets into freedom and stuff.  It’s a very forgettable made for TV film that’s entirely too long and very repetitive.  Also, many of the actors, especially Andrew Stevens, seem totally wrong for their parts.  Stevens’s accent comes and goes more than the tide.

The Devil’s Rain:  Over the years since I first saw this film, it has become something of a favorite of mine, at least when the William Shatner mood strikes.  It’s not good.  The ending doesn’t make much sense.  But it’s beautifully shot and has some good performances.  And I like all the weird family history it hints at but never does a very good job of explaining.  And then there’s the pudding poring finale capped with a nonsense ending to give it that final punch.

    Of course, then you’ve just got to throw in a Police Woman episode (Smack).  And then…we put in the amazing, the wondrous, the incomparable Impulse.  After that, we played Star Trek Scene It?  And then it was time for the main event.  Kingdom of the Spiders, the most amazingly…well, a movie.  Following that with Star Trek IV just seemed like the thing to do.  And the follow-up to that was the Star Trek episode A Piece of the Action.

Impulse:  “People like you ought to be ground up and made into dog food.”  I have come to the realization that Impulse is one of the greatest bad movies ever made.  From start to finish, it feels like a rollercoaster of awkward exchanges, poor choices, technical failings, and lack of continuity.  The ‘day for night’ shooting is among the worst outside of an Ed Wood movie.  The slow car murder, the Shatnerrific reactions, that awful little girl…Glorious.  No joke.  This is an absolute MUST see for any fan of cheese.

Kingdom of the Spiders:  Sadly not as genius as it should be, this does feature some great sleazy acting from Shatner and a fun, if poorly executed ending.  But the movie is slow, and the creatures ultimately not very scary (seriously, just get on a bike and you’re home free).  If you’re creeped out by spiders, this should be freaky.  If you’re not, it’s not quite campy enough, but it’s watchable with friends.

Star Trek IV:  One of the only Star Trek films to capture anything of the original series, this is also one of the most fun films of the whole franchise.  The first thing you’ll notices is that there’s no villain.  There’s nobody that needs to be punched or exploded at the end.  Like The Motion Picture, the film is more about identifying and figuring out a problem than it is about action.  If only the makers of the new films, or potential makers of a new TV series, would look at this movie and learn something.  No, that something isn’t ‘we should do time travel.

’

     After a raffle, those few who remained sat down to Big Bad Mama, the Roger Corman classic.  And we finished the evening off with a couple more original series episodes.

Big Bad Mama: This sleazy gangster film feels like a cheap attempt at capturing a taste of the Bonnie & Clyde pie.  It’s low budget and wonky, and it has dubious moral quality.  But it’s also got all kinds of 70s nudity (even Angie Dickinson).  Fun, but not especially good or memorable.

    Any week that involves a ShatAttack is a good week.  And this ended up being a really good week.

-Matt

Star Trek Episode Reviews (in production order): Season 2

    All right, the second season of Star Trek, viewed in production order, as opposed to original airing order.  Though there are some fantastic episodes in the second season, it is generally a step down in writing quility.  The cast seems to have a sold handle on their characters and there are clearly times when they were trying out some wild ideas.  And heck, even most not-so-good episodes are still fun to watch.  Here are my reviews for each episode written just after watching them.

Catspaw:  Ugh.  What an inauspicious opening to the second season.  Originally aired just before Halloween, this goofy adventure into cheesy, haunted house antics is simply tiresome.  I expect more from Lovecraft disciple and Psycho writer, Robert Bloch.  Filled with awkward scenes and dumb looking sets it’s just a dog of an episode.  This was also the first episode to feature Chekov and his idiotic wig.  Yikes.

Metamorphosis:  A cool sound stage and solid guest appearance from Glenn Corbett keep this mostly uninteresting episode watchable.  I do like the underlying message about love transcending traditional boundaries, though.  And a common original series idea that I like creeped in, that man needs obstacles in order to grow stronger.

Friday’s Child:  Lots of humor in this episode, in spite of some violent deaths.  The cast gets a good deal of exercise, as Scotty and the ship go off on a side adventure, while Kirk, Spock, and an especially goofy McCoy have fun dealing with savage warriors with strange customs.  Throw a wily Klingon in the mix for some flavor.  Not a great episode, but a fun watch.

Who Morns for Adonis?:  Yikes.  Not a good episode.  Cringe inducing cheeseball acting from guest star Michael Forest as Apollo doesn’t help.  But really, it’s the script here that’s the problem.  Uninspired writing and a story that could have been cool, but isn’t.

Amok Time:  Finally, season two gets good with this classic episode featuring our first serious look into Spock’s past and his people.  Visiting the Vulcan homeworld, Kirk and McCoy witness some crazy antics on the part of the usually stoic Spock, when his blood drives him to mate.  There are some really good bits in this, with some excellent music.  And more than any previous episode, this one cements the trinity of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

The Doomsday Machine:  The tension gets cranked up to eleven in this episode about a giant something devouring whole star systems.  Then a cracked commodore gets in on the action.  Some great stuff from Scotty and Spock in this story.   In a way, this episode presages not only The Motion Picture, but the arrival of the Borg much later.

Wolf in the Fold:  Robert Bloch and Star Trek don’t mix.  The third and final episode written by Bloch is only slightly less annoying than Catspaw.  Mr. Scott is a bumbling idiot, ruled by his rampant sexual urges, while a cheesy Agatha Christie wannabe ‘who done it’ ambles on.  Everyone getting high as kites in the last ten minutes makes for some fun comic moments.  But this just isn’t a good episode.

The Changeling:  The major precursor to The Motion Picture, this story has the crew facing off against a shockingly powerful and dangerous probe.  Scotty continues to have bad luck, and something pretty drastic happens to Uhura in the episode that probably should have made more of an impact on the future of the show, except for the nature of episodic TV.  A good episode, overall.

The Apple:  Some of the early exploration in this episode is pretty cool, but once they run into the white beehive hairdo people, it all goes downhill pretty quick.  There isn’t much story, some rampant imperialism on the part of Kirk and crew, and a bunch of uncomfortable sexual innuendo.  And for some reason, Spock keeps getting his butt handed to him (shot with poisonous quills, bounced off an energy field, and struck by lightening!).  Fun in a cheesy sort of way, but not a very good episode.

Mirror, Mirror:  One of the very best episodes, I just love what they do with this one.  From the alternate world versions of our familiar characters, to the crazy costumes, it’s a lot of fun.  And Uhura in that midriff baring outfit…wow.  I always wished they’d returned to this setting with the original cast and crew.  “Your agonizer, please!”

The Deadly Years:  Old age is the enemy in this episode.  Nothing really amazing here, but there are a bunch of cool moments for the actors to put on their best ‘old guy’ routines.  The side story of a competency hearing for Kirk serves more as a distraction than a good plot development.

I, Mudd:  Oh, no.  Mudd returns in this annoying and stupid episode.  I’m never a fan of comic Trek episodes, and this is one of the worst.  Filled with terrible gags, characters acting against character, and well, Mudd, it’s nearly unwatchable.  If ever there were a character that didn’t need to return, it was this annoying jerk.  I hate to think that this episode might be someone’s introduction to the series.  Bah.

The Trouble With Tribbles:  I’m never a big fan of Star Trek’s brief forays into comedy, and this episode is certainly no exception.  Though it often makes it on to people’s favorite lists, I find it more grating than anything else.  The trader character is almost as annoying as Harry Mudd.  There are a few good moments, but overall, not a very good episode.

Bread and Circuses:  Getting past the essential silliness of the parallel Earth concept, this episode about a 20th century Rome is pretty cool.  Gladiators as primetime entertainment.  Escaped slaves forming an underground in the hills outside of a Hollywood equivalent.  There are some good bits.  The cheesy Christian moral shoehorned into the finale is pretty out of place.  But I still like the episode.

Journey to Babel:  The second episode to deal with Spock’s heritage in a major way, here we meet his Vulcan father and human mother.  We get a lot more talk about logic and Vulcan culture.  It’s also a chance for the makeup and costume people to go nuts with all the various alien delegations.  There’s a fun murder plot, and a dramatic medical emergency.  Really, the episode is kind of all over the place, but it’s good.  And Kirk, though he takes something of a back seat in the episode, does have an extra cool tough guy sequence near the end.

A Private Little War:  What a crazy episode.  Klingons, white apes with horns, wacky wigs, sexual healing, Spock slapping, and Vietnam War allegory all wrapped up in one not very good, but goofily fun episode.  No shock this was a Roddenberry penned episode, as it’s extremely heavy handed and jumbled.  Nancy Kovack is especially interesting and weird as the over-ambitious, oversexed witch woman who tries to keep men under her thumb with a potent cocktail of sex and drugs.  Not one of the better episodes, but any means.  But it’s not dull.

Obsession:  Had Star Trek not been an extremely episodic show, and had there been some build up or lead in to this episode, it might have worked better.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t and there wasn’t.  So, Kirk’s completely out of character behavior as well as the young crewman who just happens to be the son of Kirk’s Captain who died under similar circumstances many years ago, all seems forced.  It’s not a bad story, and might have made a good premise for a novel or for a film, even.  But the episode is too short and the show’s episodic nature too limiting for it to really work.

The Immunity Syndrome:  A pretty good unbeatable space monster episode, this one features some very cool Spock and McCoy bits.  As the crew is stretched beyond the breaking point, tensions run high, and friendship is tested.  There are echoes of this episode in the films, especially The Motion Picture and Wrath of Khan.  And I really enjoy Tired Kirk.

A Piece of the Action:  What can I say?  This is one seriously goofy episode.  It’s filled with cornball dialog, a pretty silly plot, more Kirk and crew getting captured than a dozen other episodes combined, and gag after gag after gag.  Shatner hams it up on an epic level.  Everyone else seems at a bit of a loss.  But the image of Kirk and Spock in gangster attire is awesome.

By Any Other Name:  Kind of an interesting Lovecraft vibe to this episode.  Not great, but fun.  And there are some great lines and performances.  Scotty says the classic “It’s green!” line that I’ve always loved.  It also has a great bit of Kirk seduction.

Return to Tomorrow:  If nothing else, this episode has a great monologue from Kirk about risk and benefit that sums up my own views of space exploration and technology.  Otherwise, it’s a pretty typical ‘possession’ episode.  The actors get a chance to play out of character for a bit, especially Nimoy, who gets to ham it up as a smug villain.  Shatner does some fantastically crazy Kirk-acting in this one, contorting his body as he pauses and rushes through dialog.  I think everyone’s impersonation of Shatner could come from this episode alone.

Patterns of Force:  A powerful episode, this story deals with some pretty dark subjects, though in typical Trek form, intermixes a bit of humor, especially with Spock.  When a historian decides to help a primitive world, he introduces an old Earth philosophy, and things get out of hand.  An examination on power, hatred, and the lessons of history.  One of the strongest episodes of the second season.

The Ultimate Computer:  Kirk and crew face the possibility of being replaced by machines in this pretty cool episode.  The always awesome William Marshal plays a computer genius who may have a few circuits crossed.  Good, tense action.  Some awesome Kirk moments.  And a great, enraged McCoy.

The Omega Glory:  This episode starts out well enough.  A missing ship, a crew mysteriously missing or dead, a paradise planet below with two warring factions.  Everything is going along fairly smoothly.  And then it all falls apart in the last ten minutes as episode writer Gene Roddenberry pulls out all the stops and bashes us over the head with some of the worst, heavy handed, uncomfortably patriotic allegory this side of a John Wayne movie.  The last ten minutes actually turn this into one of my vary least favorite episodes of the whole series.

Assignment: Earth:  An attempted spin-off of Star Trek, as an episode, this really doesn’t work.  It’s totally out of whack as far as tone and even setting.  There are some cool ideas introduced, and Garry 7 might have made for a good lead in his own show.  But overall, a weak finish to the second season.

    A bad start and a bad ending, the season still had plenty of great highlights.  It was a lot of fun watching the episodes in order.  Though you see less progress/change than in the first half of the first season.  I really do love this show.  A different time, but one filled with wonder.

    Check out my reviews for season one, here.

-Matt