Matt’s Week in Dork! (8/25/13-8/31/13)

    What did I do this week?  After a good start on Sunday, with a surprise trip to DC and Maryland, the rest of my week seems like a haze.  I’ve done a bunch of reading, sure.  But that doesn’t seem to justify the blank that is my memory of this week.

    On Sunday morning, I watched the first disk of Shogun, the classic TV miniseries.  I remember seeing it when I was a wee lad, and I’ve been wanting to revisit it for some time.  The first part is quite good, with a good cast and surprisingly good production value.  Later, Brad and I headed into DC, and stopped by Politics & Prose on Connecticut Ave.  I like that area of DC, and the bookstore is pretty good.  More character than most box stores, but more proper organization than some of the smaller businesses I’ve seen in these parts.  The café was unimpressive, but the rest of the store was quite nice.  From there, we headed up to favorite haunt, Silver Spring, where we hit the AFI to see Razorback.  Yeah.  Razorback…at the AFI.

Razorback:  On my long list of movies I never conceived of seeing on the big screen, Razorback would be pretty high.  This art-film/giant-boar film is crazy.  I mean, it’s CRAZY.  Don’t go to Australia.  That seems to be the moral of the story.  So 80s.  So Australian.  So much Dicko.  It’s kind of a must for fans of weird film.

Twixt:  OK, so this movie really isn’t good.  It’s watchable, but not particularly well made.  However, Val Kilmer is great.  I like this bloated, middle-aged Kilmer.  He has an odd, slightly desperate charm.

Myra Breckinridge:  One of the worst films of all time?  I can’t argue with that.  This is one of those famous turkeys that turns out to be just as bad as everyone says (like Ishtar).  Everyone feels miscast.  The direction and editing are atrocious.  The humor is broad and clumsy.  And the big sin: it’s boring as all get-out.

Still more fun than watching the movie!

Oklahoma!:  Some catchy tunes and good performances make for a fun musical from that genre’s golden age.  It’s not amazing.  It’s not gonna go on my list of best musicals.  But it’s still a good, solid film.  The humor in it is quite cheeky for an American film of that era, with some jokes I’m surprised slipped past the censors.

    I did some prep-work for trying to put together a game group again.  I’ve got some stuff going on in my life right now that may keep that in a holding pattern for a bit.  But I have more hope about getting something going than I’ve had in a long time.

-Matt

A Fistful of Westerns! (Matt’s Picks)

    I’m a latecomer to this whole Western thing.  I grew up seeing those old White Hat/Black Hat movies on TV and I hated them.  I’ve always had a particular hatred for Country music, never liked cowboy hats, loath John Wayne, and dislike Texan accents.  For a long time, the only Western I liked was the Gene Autry serial The Phantom Empire, and I don’t think that counts.  Especially since I only really liked it once they got to the underground super-science kingdom.  But then I saw Unforgiven sometime after it came out on video.  That’s when things began to change, though it took a long time.  In fact, it was the meeting of co-Dork Brad that led me to more diligently explore the genre, and thus to find many more examples to enjoy.

    A couple years ago, I even enjoyed a Western month, which included a great many movies, some TV, and a surprising amount of time playing the video game Red Dead Redemption (I’m not really much of a video game guy).  And I enjoyed the heck out of the whole thing.  Sure, I saw some dogs.  But I also saw some very cool movies that have fed my hunger to find more good ones.  And, luckily I live in a time where Westerns may be a rare thing at the multiplex, but those few that do come along are typically quite good.

Video games have changed, man.

    So, with the release of this week’s The Lone Ranger, a new interpretation of a character that always represented exactly what I didn’t like about the genre, we’re looking at some of our favorite Westerns.  The shocking thing about The Lone Ranger is that I actually enjoyed the heck out of it.  It’s weird and action packed, without the annoying close-up shaky-cam crap that has become the new industry norm.  Anyway, here are five of my favorites.

5.  Appaloosa:  There have been a bunch of very cool Westerns made in the last few years.  Django Unchained, True Grit, even Open Range.  But Appaloosa captures a lot of what I love.  Yeah, it’s got the heavy, some shootouts, a shrill monster woman, and all that.  But at its heart is a great friendship.

4.  Jeremiah Johnson:  This is a Mountain Man movie, more than a Western, but whatever.  It also features one of my all time least favorite actors, Robert Redford.  Yet, this story of isolation and escape, of a lone guy on the very outer reaches of what could loosely be called civilization, is surprisingly captivating.  The only problem is the awful and out of place folk music soundtrack, which is extremely distracting.

3.  100 Rifles:  Jim Brown, Burt Reynolds, and Raquel Welch are all in top form as they battle their way through Mexico (Spain) in this very cool movie.  It’s late in the days of the ‘Wild West’ and we see hints of the future in Dan O’Herlihy’s car.  But there are still bloody bandits, outlaws, and all the things you expect.

2.  Once Upon a Time in the West:  One of the great Western epics, it combines grand storytelling with the bent sleaze of Spaghetti Westerns.  Awesome cast, great music, nasty behavior, everything you want and need in this kind of thing.

1.  The Outlaw Josey Wales:  Along with Unforgiven, this was one of the first Westerns I really responded to, helping me to realize the genre wasn’t all John Wayne and Custer films.  Eastwood obviously has a rugged, tough-guy appeal, but the story and the side characters were good, too.  And the setting was captivating.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (5/5/13-5/11/13)

    Day after day, week after week, rain and threat of rain.  It’s starting to get to me.  I’ve only done maybe five or six bike trips so far this year, which is unacceptable by this point.  Otherwise, just stress broken up with movies and books.  Woot.

    I got in a few more episodes of Fraggle Rock.  I’m in season 3 now, and the quality has not dropped.  I continue to be impressed by the show’s solid foundation in basic morality without being too preachy or condescending.  Truly one of the greatest youth oriented shows I’ve experienced.

Star Trek: First Contact:  “This far.  No farther!”  Picard faces his Khan, the Borg, in this darned exciting and action packed film.  This should have been the first movie for the Next Gen crew, instead of the wishy-washy, gutless and stupid Generations.  After the Hugh episode of Next Gen pretty much eviscerated the Borg, making them little more than a bumbling bunch of communist thugs, First Contact made them scary and menacing again.  And oddly, by putting a ‘human face’ on them, helped to make them less human.  The so called Borg Queen is, I think, a manifestation of the species’ intellect as opposed to its leader.  As she says, you see disparity where there is none.  She is the Borg.  And she drips with sexual menace and Vaseline, becoming an all consuming fertility goddess, a bottomless hunger that consumes all.  The Borg are obviously the dark side of the potentials of cybernetics.  But they are not evil, simply alien.  Along the way, we also see the story of the fist warp vessel launched by a backyard astronaut-entrepreneur.  The movie looks great, it moves fast, has some really good moments, and a solid story.  I know everyone is about Star Trek II, but First Contact remains my favorite of the franchise’s films.

House on the Edge of the Park:  Well, that was unpleasant.  A film that makes beautiful women taking their clothes off difficult for me to watch.  I guess that’s something.  David Hess is hard to look at.  Don’t.

    As I’ve said before, I grew up in the late 70s and 80s, in the shadow of the Cold War, but also during a fairly tectonic shift in technology and its democratization.  The personal computer, the early days of what would become the internet, the explosion of prosthesis, transplants, and implants.  It was pretty wild.  Every year felt more and more like I was living in a new age, a science fictional world.  Part of that shift was captured in a somewhat short lived, but key movement in science fiction literature that I felt attuned to then, and still hold a special place in my heart for now.  Cyberpunk.  It was a movement born of and reflective of its time, a specifically 80s thing, though ripples of its influences continue to wash through books and movies and culture.  All that is just to bring up that I randomly picked the cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades off the shelf this week and read the story Snake-Eyes by Tom Maddox.  Darned fine and cool tale.  Reading about the protagonist and his desire to experience the strange reminded me of myself.  I think my friends think I’m kidding when I say I want to get 360 degree vision, or the ability to shift my perception through various spectra, or just that I want mechanical legs.  But I’m not.  Not at all.  And here is a character after my own heart, as he struggles with what it means to have these implants within him, unleashing his primitive impulses.  I also like that the story isn’t about ‘tech bad/bio good’ or ‘instinct bad/logic good.’  It’s about the dangers of technology and the benefits, and its about balancing the deepest and most base lusts with the rational control of civilized Man.  I’m all about that.  Good stuff.

The Last Dragon:  “Shonuff!”  Oh, man.  What the heck is up with this movie?  It’s funny (sometimes intentionally) and weird as all get-out.  Bruce Leroy.  Vanity.  Young William H. Macy.  It’s some kind of alternative 1985, fueled by coke, neon, and awful post-funk Motown.  The acting is truly inspired.  And something about Bruce Leroy running around in that rice farmer’s hat seems racist.  I’m not sure how, but it feels racist.  Vanity really was cute, though.  Talentless, but cute.  So, when the Shogun of Harlem is giving you some guff, you just call Bruce Leroy with his Power of the Glow.  This movie is what the Double Dragon film should have been like.

Shonuff!!!

Cat-women of the Moon:  “You‘re too smart for me, baby.  I like ‘em stupid.”  I’m not sure if I’d seen this before, or if it’s so typical of the genre that it just felt that way.  Chicks in unitards hide out in the ruins of an ancient civilization.  The usual battle of the sexes crap.  A bunch of near-immortal sex kittens need to learn what wholesome and slightly dim American men can do for them.  It’s fine, but pretty by the numbers.  But hey, it’s short.

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid:  “I got my shotgun full of 16 thin dimes.  Enough to spread you out like a crazy woman’s quilt.”  Everybody who was alive when this film was made shows up to look ugly as heck and do evil things to each other Peckinpah style.  I’m not a Dylan fan, but his music on this movie isn’t bad, and his extremely affected acting performance is fun.  Otherwise, it’s just nasty, nasty, nasty.  Oh, and depressing.  But it’s also a pretty good flick.  Not going on my list of best Westerns, but it’s a good one.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia:  “I been here before and you don’t know the way.”  Wow.  Ever think you’re just in too good a mood, and want to bring it down a notch?  This is the movie for you.  A relentlessly grim and angry film, it rages at you with whiskey stinking breath and grime covered hands.  You are the white whale, Peckinpah is Ahab, and he’s shooting his heart upon you with his chest cannon.  It isn’t the Western I was expecting, though it often feels like one.  It’s modern, but dingy and aged, beaten by the sun and spit on by life.  I keep thinking of Mister Eddy in Lost Highway with his throat all slashed, gurgling, ‘you and me buddy, we can sure out-ugly them som’bitches.’

Prey:  A dumb young woman and her obsessive lady friend are living the life in a secluded English estate, when a bird hating alien shows up looking for lunch.  One long, awkward dinner party later, who can tell hunter from prey.  This movie has a lot of screeching.  The dumb woman screeches a lot.  A LOT.  Her lady love also screeches…but not as much.  Even the alien screeches a bit.  Maybe they should have called the film Screech.  It’s not a good movie.  But it has a dubious charm.

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad:  “We may be thieves and murderers…but we are not fools.”  One of literature’s great adventure heroes, Sinbad, gets a definitive presentation with this Ray Harryhausen creature packed fantasy film.  Like the tales of the Arabian Nights, it is a hodgepodge of traditional stories from various cultures and whole cloth.  Kerwin Mathews is an adequate Sinbad (though I prefer John Phillip Law), and Kathryn Grant is adorable as his chosen bride.  I notice watching this film, the evil wizard was hardly out of line in his requests for aid.  Granted, his reaction is perhaps a touch extreme, but I really do think he was used rather poorly by Sinbad and his sultan.

    Friday night and Saturday morning, I read new book The Centrist Manifesto by Charles Wheelan.  It’s a solid exploration of the need in American politics for the moderate, centrist elements to stand up and be counted.  The first rational call for a serious and useful third party I’ve seen in my lifetime.

    I also read the prequel graphic novel Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness that leads into next week’s Star Trek: Into Darkness theatrical release.  Can’t say I’m surprised to report it’s not very good.  The art is blah, the script is more blah, and the story isn’t interesting.  The portrayal of Robert April is straight-up silly.  It also does nothing to alive my fears for where they’re taking this new movie.  Conspiracy this, war that; fistfight, fistfight, fistfight!

Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island:  Fleeing a Confederate prison, some Civil War soldiers end up in a balloon, trapped in a powerful seemingly endless gale that takes them away from any known land.  Crash landing on a …mysterious island, they find some danged peculiar things going on.  The film works as a kind of sequel to Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and a nice stylistic companion to Journey to the Center of the Earth (though, that makes its lack of James Mason conspicuous).  Ray Harryhausen once again creates some very cool creatures to menace our heroes.  I love these adventure films.

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad:  “My friend, you can not pick up two melons with one hand, and I cannot work miracles.”  John Phillip Law is definitely the best Sinbad of the Harryhausen era, and my Caroline Munro fetish can not be denied.  Plus, fourth Doctor, Tom Baker as the evil wizard is enjoyably hammy in that stage actor sort of way.  Even the supporting characters are more interesting than usual.  Lavish production and exotic locations give it a grand fantasy feel.  The story is pretty wild and the action solid.  Fantasy movies of this much imagination are not unheard of today, but they are rare.  I’d like to see more.

One Million Years B.C.:  “Errr!”  Hammer Studios takes on history in this caveman epic featuring the awe-inspiring body of Raquel Welch and the stop-motion wizardry of Ray Harryhausen.  Truth be told, this isn’t a particularly good movie.  Its grasp of history is…well, absent.  The acting, even without sensible dialog, is not good.  It’s pretty much made watchable by Welch (who is infinitely watchable) and the cool creatures.  Martine Beswick isn’t too hard on the eyes either, I guess.  The music is interesting.  Where do you find a village of beautiful blonde spear-fishing cavegirls, anyway?  Sweden?  Was this filmed on location?  I do kind of get Tumak.  All Welch’s emotions are weird and she’s kind of clingy.  I wonder if the scriptwriter began with ‘two fur bikini-clad women in sweaty cat-fight’ and worked backward from there.  That seems about right.

Where is this film's Oscar?

    And lastly, I started watching the PBS series Secret Files of the Inquisition, a look into the Vatican’s records.  The narration and dramatization are well done, though the pacing and editing is a bit weird.  It frequently feels like it’s going to commercial, but as it’s from PBS, I assume there wasn’t one.  And there’s a lot of unnecessary foreshadowing, often of events about to be described.

-Matt

History was AWESOME!

Matt’s Week in Dork! (2/26/12-3/3/13)

    I’ve been enjoying my weeks, lately.  Busy, but still full of my nerdy escapes.  And shocked though I was, I got a chance to see Coriolanus at the West End Cinema.  I like that little place.  I wish I was more into video games.  I’ve been looking at all kinds of Mass Effect images and thinking about how cool it seems.  But, knowing my game playing (not to mention current system limitations), it would not be worth my while to try getting into it.  Maybe I’ll read some of the novels. 


The Trans-Atlantic Mystery:  Creeper Donald Meek is back to investigate more nefarious deeds.  Jewel thieves, double crossers, and cold blooded murderers.  I don’t know what the weird doctor would do if there weren’t evil in the world.  He’d probably do some of his own.  What’s weird about this one is how long it takes for the doctor and his cop buddy to show up; more than half the runtime of this short.

Wild Boys of the Road:  The movie starts at a ‘Sophomore Frolic,’ which they did not have when I went to high school, let me tell you.  Our wild boys are with some pretty wild girls, and up to some pretty wild business.  But the Depression, man.  These boys have to face the grim reality of parents being out of work, and the world spitting in their eye.  Then they hop a train and head out into the wide world to find their fortune.  They find all kinds of crime and corruption, and then brutal violence and death.  Things get ugly on the road and on the tracks.  Another movie that shows the problems of today aren’t much different than the problems of yesterday.

Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick:  It feels like William Wellman is a lost great.  He was a driving force behind some really great movies.  At least as colorful as the characters he put on film, he was a crazy and brash worker.  This documentary has an amazing line-up of interview subjects and covers his life with a dramatic flare, helped by narrator Alec Baldwin.  These kind of larger than life folks are the stuff of legendary America.  Some kind of quintessential, mythological essence of life taken on with two fists.  Like a good documentary, it makes me want to know more.  And like a good one about film, it makes me really hungry to watch a bunch of movies.  I found the home movies of Wellman especially effecting.

The Men Who Made Movies: William Wellman:  This documentary goes over much of the same material as Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick, but from different angles.  One of the coolest things about it is the use of actual Wellman interview footage.  Obviously quite the character, hearing him tell his stories is extremely charming.

Isle of the Dead:  Another striking Val Lewton produced horror film.  This time we’re in Greece, and Boris Karloff is a cruel but somewhat tragic military man stuck on a plague infested island where his wife was buried.  Is it the plague?  Or is someone on the island an evil spirit?  An interesting study in paranoia, superstition, duty, and dignity.

Dark of the Sun:  Rod Taylor leads a band of mercenaries through hostile territory to rescue some people and reclaim some diamonds.  In the face of brutality and horror, Taylor and Jim Brown are stoic forces of order.  The plot travels in many strange directions, culminating in a crazy fight.  Broken and dangerous men in a broken and dangerous land.  The movie goes through some dark stuff.  Good though.

God’s Gun:  The great thing about Spagetti westerns is that even when everyone speaks English, they’re horribly dubbed.  Even when they have moderate actors, the acting sucks.  The music is terrible and everything looks crappy.  I’ve got NO idea what Jack Palance was going for.  Villain or no, his mannerisms seem more in keeping with an old time silent comedian.  Lee Van Cleef is double the awesome, though.

Vanilla Sky:  An interesting meditation on loss, love, and idealized youth seen through the eyes of a wealthy media scion.  Tom Cruise is good as the guy who has it all, then looses it to a jilted crazy woman.  The cast is solid (even the normally unbearable Cruz), the visuals interesting, and the music atmospheric.  Though I’ve heard many people complain that the movie was hard to understand, I think if you’ve got even the most rudimentary understanding of science fiction film, or have ever watched an episode of The Twilight Zone (or similar show), you shouldn’t have a hard time following along at home.  Granted, you also have to pay attention, so maybe that’s the issue.  It may not go on my list of best, but this is a worthy movie in the ‘what is reality?’ subgenre.

Smiley’s People:  I found this follow-up to Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy to be far more engaging.  Alec Guinness still plays it about as cool and detached as possible, but I think his more active involvement in the happenings helps.  Plus, the location shooting gives it far more credibility.  There’s something about continental Europe in the late 70s and early 80s, some depressing magic that takes me back with a twisted sort of nostalgia to the constant fear and paranoia of the Cold War.  What can I say, I grew up in the shadow of the Iron Curtain (psychologically) and so it reminds me of my youth.  Overall, I found this second series much more satisfying.  It’s too bad they were not able to make the second book in the semi-trilogy involving Smiley and his hunt for his elusive opposite on the other side.

Coriolanus:  The Beast Fiennes, covered in the gore and grime of fallen foes, spews hate at the mindless and easily swayed masses.  His disgust at the hoard mentality of the common man, fueled by fear and complacency is infectious.  The cast is awesome, and Fiennes loves to keep everyone in uncomfortable close-up.  He revels in everyone’s wrinkles, blemishes, and sweaty, hide-stretched bone structure.  Visceral in the extreme, this is Shakespeare’s Modern Combat.  And another reminder that when you have an ultra-loyal, ultra-competent killer devoted to you, don’t betray him.  It’s just asking for trouble.

Hannie Caulder:  Yikes.  Three degenerates (Strother Martin, Ernest Borgnine, and professional creep Jack Elam) plunder, murder, and rape their way through the wild west.  But they make a big mistake when they leave one victim (Raquel Welch) alive.  Then, in walks Robert Culp and his beard, who introduces her to Christopher Lee and his beard.  Welch is a knockout in this movie, and it’s one of her better performances (not really saying much).  There is some pretty bloody violence, as well as an extremely disturbing (though thankfully not graphic) sexual assault.  The final credit music is shockingly bad, though.  Not sure what’s up with that.  A good western, revenge film.

Frankenstein Conquers the World:  A slow radiated kid turns into a giant (still slow) monster and wanders around doing stuff while scientists waffle about trying to figure out what to talk about maybe doing sometime.  Then a giant demon dog with a glowing horn shows up to eat chickens.  This is Japanese.

Tarzan and His Mate:  Oh, my.  Maureen O’Sullivan is really something in this one.  Sure, the nude swimming scene is a body double/stunt woman.  But even so, O’Sullivan’s Jane is a super-charged, uninhibited sexual creature.  Tarzan remains little more than a grunting animal; a sort of embodiment of nature Jane has not only embraced, but mastered.  When folks from civilization show up with some dresses and make-up, trying to lull her back, Jane will have none of it, having freed herself from the chains of polite society.  And her loincloth get-up is nothing short of genius.

Tarzan Finds a Son:  As the title says, Tarzan (and Jane) find an orphan boy and adopt him.  Growing up in the jungle is dangerous, but fun for the trouble seeking little kid.  When some more interfering white people show up and cause a rumble in the jungle, Tarzan is less than amused.  This movie uses elements of Tarzan’s background from the books and places them on the adopted Boy.  Jane’s costume is a heck of a lot more conservative by this film.  Too bad.  And if these movies have taught me anything, it’s that if you even look at water, crocks will dive in and start chasing you.  There’s also a scene with chimps riding elephants.  Bam.

Bedlam:  Boris Karloff stars in another interesting more psychological horror from producer Val Lewton.  This time, he plays a cruel and conniving doctor at the titular asylum.  When a young woman calls him and his wealthy cronies, on their casual villainy, the bad doctor works to commit her.  Karloff is like the foundation of a good film.  If you give him good material, you can build something great on his shoulders.

    I watched some Tomorrow People this week.  Man, that show is crazy.  70s England mixed with really weird science fiction.  Telepathic kids.  Shifting paintings of alien worlds.  Teleportation.  And a new Tomorrow Person joins the group.  This story arc is all about the blue and the green.

    And to cap off the week, I showed Ben a couple episodes of the original Star Trek, ‘The Cage’ and ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before.’  I’m figuring on giving him a crash course in the best or the original series.  I miss the mad bastardry of that era’s science fiction, rarely captured in this era.

    I got some reading done this past week, which was nice.  Started off with a surprisingly not terrible comic about Burroughs’ Mars, and then ended off the week with two books from my new favorite Norwegian (seriously, what’s up with Norway producing so much awesome lately?).  Check out the reviews here.

-Matt