Matt’s Week in Dork! (2/2/14-2/8/14)

    I’m still doing a lot of reading and idea jotting for my upcoming Call of Cthulhu game.  Reading a lot of stuff about the 20s, and trying to steep myself in some of the better parts of Lovecraft & Friends’ Mythos.  Little else, I’m afraid.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit:  Getting past the absolutely awful title, this is a perfectly acceptable, if not especially memorable exercise in spy-game shenanigans.  Everyone is fine.  It looks pretty good.  The hand-held only gets annoying a couple of times.  The villainous plot isn’t totally idiotic.  And the actions of the heroes don’t rely purely on blind luck.  I gather it stays pretty true to the Tom Clancy character background, though I feel like the style is a bit too much post-Bourne movie to feel quite right.  Not one for the books, but if you enjoy these sorts of films, it doesn’t suck.  One thing I noticed more than I have before is Keira Knightley’s messed up teeth, which I found both distracting and somehow very charming.

Top Hat:  A comedy of mistaken identity, singing and dancing, and innuendo to beat the band.  It’s very charming, with plenty of impressive dance numbers and catchy tunes.  The script and the actors are spot on.  The whole thing works.  I wasn’t as wowed by it as I was with, say Singin’ in the Rain.  But that’s not at all a negative.  Very much a film to see.

Anastasia:  Ingrid Bergman plays a psychologically and emotionally ruined woman who looks a good deal like an adult version of the rumored living Romanov.  Is she, or isn’t she?  Does it matter?  Various people, with various agendas think it does and they’re willing to lie and cheat to make the right people believe it.  There are some good performances.  Bergman has been better, but Yul Brynner is especially compelling as the conflicted general.  It’s not a bad movie, but no classic.

The Lost Weekend:  “I’m not a drinker.  I’m a drunk.”  Ray Milland plays one sad bastard.  One sad, drunk bastard.  An absolutely hopeless, raging, falling down alcoholic, our hero abuses himself and everyone around him in his quest to deaden his self hatred.  Too much of a looser to even properly kill himself, he’s a failure at everything but finding a drink.  And he’s not even super successful at that.  His all consuming hunger for the burn of booze is heart wrenching and pathetic.

The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox:  I’m sure there’s someone out there who thinks this movie is a hoot.  Someone who thinks the jokes are just hi-larious.  I’m not that someone.  Less than two minutes in, freeze frame on a woman’s be-bloomered butt while the credits rolled and I knew what sort of a movie I’d started.  I wasn’t wrong.  It’s one of those ‘comedy-westerns’ I can only imagine appealing to old men wearing lots of plaid who don’t like those dark skinned folk.  (I’m not saying you’ve got to be racist to like it, Internet. I’m just saying I have an image of the person who laughs at these cornball jokes, and that image is a racist. …I’m not crazy.  You are!).  The whole thing goes on for far too long, with far too few laughs and far too much mugging.  And the two leads have all the charm of a brick.  If you’re someone who finds Goldie Hawn attractive, I guess the film has that going for it.  I guess.

Imagine this, for 90 minutes...

Closed Circuit:  Right out of the gate, this movie feels like a lot of stuff you’ve seen before.  Enemy of the State, Vantage Point, The Enemy Within, The Package, the list goes on.  Everyone’s in on it.  You can’t trust anyone.  Everyone’s out to get you.  I like the cast.  And it’s competently crafted.  It’s just not especially interesting.  If you like this sort of film, it’s a mid-level entry.  Not bad, but not very good, either.

I hold here an ounce of originality...I will now throw it away.

    In the mood for some weird and spooky tales, I listened to neo-radio shows by The Colonial Radio Theater.  Their Vincent Price Presents series isn’t quite what I was expecting.  It’s not Price reading, nor even adaptations of Price films.  The four stories contained are adapted from Blue Water Comics (?) comic book shorts.  There are four, The Tinglers, Fade Away, Canus, and Road Rage.  The Tinglers is probably the best, being a somewhat silly jungle adventure tale with something of a King Kong or Lost World vibe.  Fade Away feels like any given episode of Tales from the Crypt.  Canus seems like a good idea, but the voice actor for the kid is so danged bad, I couldn’t concentrate on the story.  And finally Road Rage is well acted but has an extremely awkward framing story that doesn’t work at all.  Overall, it’s a fun listen, but not great.  Anyone interested in these new radio show style presentations would be better off with the HPLHS adaptations of Lovecraft stories.  But these are still worth a listen.  ISBN: 978-1-4558-1291-2.

The Last Boy Scout:  Maybe if I’d seen this movie when I was a lad, I’d have fond memories of it now.  But I didn’t, and watching it at this late date, I can’t help but notice how it seemed to be a perfect mix of the worst elements of the failing 80s, and what would be the new norm of the 90s.  The macho, one-liner spouting leading men were kind of played out.  The Last Action Hero, the parody of the genre that had become a parody of itself was only two years away, and Bruce Willis’s excruciatingly awful Die Hard 2 had just come out.  Terminator 2, the unofficial end of the creative 80s, and the beginning of the ultra-sanitized, paint-by-numbers 90s was months old when this film hit theaters.  The script is just one chincy line after another, delivered by a barely present Bruce Willis and an confused Damon Wayans.  Tony Scott color-saturates the crap out of every scene, and lights everyone in the most off-putting way possible.  Everything about the movie feels like a half assed Walter Hill movie (or any given Walter Hill movie of the 90s).  No, it’s not awful.  I mean, it’s awful; but it’s the kind of awful I understand enjoying.  However, Tony Scott’s particular brand of filmmaking has never much impressed me.  And while better than some of his others, it’s still pretty much the lame movie I expected.  Did I bring baggage with me when I watched it?  Yup.  But there it is.  Not going on my list of lost gems.

Vikingdom: The Blood Eclipse:  The music started, the first images lit my screen, and I knew I’d made a mistake.  “Oh, no.”  That’s what I said.  My reaction wasn’t wrong.  Awful post-300 CG effects, dreadful sets, terrible wigs, and acting that puts them all to shame.  I do think a Viking based high fantasy adventure film could be a lot of fun.  But the 1994 video game cut scene quality of the effects, the Target bought Halloween costumes, and the terrible writing sink this turkey.  I get the feeling that the idea behind the film was to do a Ray Harryhausen-type adventure film.  But without any of the resources, skills, or heart, everything fails.  50 million dollars and a couple good actors might have made this pretty good.  Alas.

    I’ve been watching The White Queen, which is certainly the best thing I’ve seen from Starz so far.  Plenty of the expected nudity and scandalous behavior, but without the crassness and dreadful writing one expects from the people who brought us Spartacus.  It’s not great.  It’s not HBO level of quality.  But it’s shockingly better than average.  I like much of the cast and the storylines are pretty well handled.  A few cast members are kind of annoying, but you’ve got to take the good with the bad on a show like this.  One thing that stood out as particularly anachronistic was the sex.  No, not that they were having sex, or having sex outside of wedlock.  That wasn’t weird.  But having the woman on top or...um...from behind... was considered unnatural and ‘morally questionable,’ especially as it was thought to be more likely to cause the woman pleasure, which was obviously not proper.  It could be punished with up to three years penance (for the woman, of course…this was still 1400s Europe).  The so called 'missionary' position was considered the least sinful way of engaging in sex.  You were, of course, still supposed to feel ashamed for doing it, but there was no punishment.

War-Gods of the Deep: Vincent Price did a lot of movies, some less traditionally ‘good’ than others.  I really enjoy this one, though it’s hardly a classic.  It features dashes of Atlantis myth, a Jules Verne like plot, and the incomparable Price as a megalomaniac trying to save an undersea kingdom.  One could argue that the film isn’t especially exciting, but I find it entertaining and atmospheric enough to enjoy.

    I was prompted to enjoy a Vincent Price movie because there’s a petition campaign to get him on a US Postage stamp.  I think that would be swell.  I signed.  So should you!

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (10/27/13-11/2/13)

    This time of year just isn’t fun for me.  The holidays, sadly, lost all charm when I started working in corporate retail back in 2001.  It’s just a brutal slog through frustration, anxiety, exhaustion, punctuated by occasional soulless expenditures.  Is that cynical?  Sure, I guess.  But whatever, I’m tired.  Still, my Dork Life gives me some joy, and this week had a lot of good in it.  And it started early Sunday morning when I watched an unexpectedly good Robert Redford (Zzzzzz) movie.

All is Lost:  With all of maybe five lines of dialog, this movie is about watching Old Man Redford in a Series of Unfortunate Events.  Some bad choices and a lot of bad luck send our hero into a spiral of diminishing options as he battles nature and the refuse of Man.  The movie looks really good and has some thrilling adventure bits.  It also doesn’t tend to drag, as a film like this might easily do.  Near the end, things get a bit tiresome, but it’s still not bad.  I did find myself nitpicking a bit.  Why wait until everything was going horribly to start making preparations for it?  That tool you’ve got has a hook/lanyard on it for a reason, why don’t you have it secured?  It’s raining and you’ve got no power; why aren’t you collecting water?  Still, overall, the movie is quite effective, and if you can turn off that over-critical part of your brain (I usually can, and honestly it only started to come out a few times during the film), it’s very tense and frightening.  Yet, there are scenes (that shot of him steering during the storm) that make me want to brave the elements for a bit.  That said, if I ever sailed around the world or whatever, I’d still follow the Buddy System.  Not gonna do that sort of thing alone.

War of the Gargantuas:  Another fun Toho slice of kaiju madness, this is a really weird sequel to Frankenstein escapes.  A lot of the usual notes are hit, but it’s a lot of fun, and there are some crazy fights.  It’s interesting to see slightly smaller kaiju, so the structures they’re bashing are comparatively larger.  They can actually hide behind trees and buildings, for example.  The titular Gargantuas are powerfully ugly, hairy things, but human than many Japanese monsters.  I guess this lends them a bit more personality …maybe?

Escape Plan:  If this were 1991, and Escape Plan was the latest straight to video movie featuring Christopher Lambert and Lorenzo Lamas (no doubt Lance Henriksen playing the villain), then the world would make some sense.  But this is 2013, and Escape Plan is so off the mark, it’s like a cautionary tale on how not to do a movie.  The script starts bad and gets worse.  The one-liners, the ones that make any sense, suck.  The plot is like an episode of Silk Stalkings or Viper.  And the two leads…well, they’re just not acting their age.  If you know me, you know I love watching old dudes kick ass.  But in an old dude way.  These two are trying to play it like the young guys, and it just looks bad.  And as with Bullet in the Head and The Last Stand, it commits the cardinal sin.  It’s boring.

The Counselor:  Sometimes you see a movie, and it’s just so danged odd that you know you’re watching something special.  Maybe not something good, but something special.  That was the case with The Counselor.  It’s a darned peculiar film.  One thing you’ve got to know is that it’s an extremely, intensely mean spirited movie with an exceptionally ugly view of people that does not let up.  So if you think that might bother you, skip it.  There’s also a tendency toward obscure speeches.  Oh, and much of the plot or whatever is not explained, much less who most of the people are or what they’re doing.  But every frickin’ moment of Javier Bardem is like pure distilled mountain genius being pored into your brain.  I can see why people weren’t thrilled with the movie.  It’s challenging, and not just because it’s hard to follow or figure out.  It’s an ugly, rough, tough movie along the lines of late Peckinpah, where there are no good guys, just a bunch of unhappy people doing unkind things.

    I watched some of the new SyFy series Defiance.  I kind of want to like the show, but they’re making it hard.  There are some very cool things, nice ideas, some nice visuals, etc.  But I can’t help noticing how often it falls back into typical, cliché plot-lines, characters, etc.  You’ve got the Romeo & Juliette couple, the mobster trying to go straight, the whore with the heart of gold, the rugged soldier whose only weakness is his kid, and that kid is an orphaned alien (or insert war-torn region’s ethnicity).  There’s the vision-plagued character who may also be the ‘chosen one’ character, who is also the emotionally broken, deceptively cute, tiny woman who is actually a badass warrior (and is also the afore mentioned orphaned alien…they really heaped the clichés on that character).  And the list goes on.  It’s also another Sci-fi mixed with Western thing, which wasn’t even close to new when Firefly did it a decade ago.  Oh yeah, and there’s an evil government from ‘back east’ that is trying to get its hands on the wealth and power of the independent city that is the center of the show.  And there are savage alien tribes out in the badlands.  I mean, it just throws the overused ideas at you left and right.  Yet, for all its many faults, I’m finding myself watching episode after episode.  I keep thinking back to how iffy the first season of Farscape was, and how good that got.  Can this do the same?

"Hi. You may remember us from a dozen other shows."

Monsters University:  It’s cute, and if you’re a fan of the first film, it’s fine.  But it’s also not all that interesting.  For a Pixar film, it’s kind of …meh.  Which, sadly, seems to be their new norm.  Sad.  The kiddies should find plenty to enjoy, but the adults might be a bit bored, as there’s precious little meat.

    On Saturday morning, my annual Charlton Heston film fest, HestFest began with Brad and I, and a basic breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee.

The Big Country:  Gregory Peck shows up in the middle of a clan war and is mistaken for an East Coast dandy.  Two families have been in conflict for as long as they can remember, and they don’t have any patience for a man who isn’t concerned with honor and appearances.  His romantic rival, Charlton Heston, thinks he’s a coward because he won’t brawl.  His fiancé is drowning in daddy issues.  And creepy rapist wannabe Chuck Connors thinks…well he doesn’t think all that much.  But Peck doesn’t care.  He just takes his time, does his thing, and rises above.  Peck plays one of those classic movie heroes whose lessons have been largely forgotten in our knee-jerk, anti-intellectual public arena, that morality doesn’t come from old books or from the opinions of others.  Morality is what you do when nobody, god or man, is looking.  The film also features one of the great cinematic fistfights.  Unfortunately, it’s about 40 minutes too long.  The final confrontation between families, ostensibly over Jean Simmons (but she’s just an excuse), drags and drags, and doesn’t really pay off.  For me, the movie is kind of over when Heston realizes what kind of a man Peck really is.  That’s the point of the movie, I think, and once it’s been made, there isn’t all that much more to say.

    For Khartoum, I broke out some horseradish chips.  …What can I say, I didn’t think to get anything for this movie.  Oops.

Khartoum:  There are things I really like about this movie.  But they are few and far between.  The location shooting is quite nice.  Heston is fine.  The ending stand-off is cool.  Otherwise, it’s kind of a dull exercise in hitting the expected notes.  It feels like a desperate grab at the success, four years earlier, of Lawrence of Arabia.  But I never found the film especially engaging, and (apologies to the rabid fans) Laurence Olivier sucks…bad.  Every scene he’s in grinds the film to a halt.  I watched the movie years ago when I picked up the DVD, and I remembered not being thrilled with it.  Sadly, my second viewing reinforces that opinion.  It’s not terrible, but it’s too long and not very exciting.

    Peanut Better sandwiches were served for a light lunch.  Peanut butter was a food Heston took with him whenever he traveled overseas, because, apparently, you can’t get it in many places, and it was something he had to have.  I also broke out the rum (pirates, man) and some sea-salt & cracked pepper chips…you know, ‘cause of the ocean and stuff.

The Buccaneer:  Yul Brynner as a pirate captain living in the bayou near New Orleans?  Charlton Heston as Andrew Jackson?  How could it possibly fail to be amazing?  Just watch and find out.  Brynner is an actor I generally love, even when he’s in bad films (The Ultimate Warrior!).  But he’s so boring in this movie, he seems to be sleepwalking through.  The middle part of the film, involving a boring love story and some back stabbing officials, as well as some pirate politics, is just dull.  The best parts of the film are when Heston shows up, but that’s just the first few minutes and then near the climax.  The film was originally conceived as a musical, and more than many movies of the era, it really looks like a musical.  The colors, the costumes, the sets.  The soundstage work is so unreal it felt like an artistic choice to lend the film a fantasy vibe, but that doesn’t make much sense with the film’s content.  Other than Heston’s Jackson, the movie’s only other major selling point is that it’s about the War of 1812, and how many movies can make that claim?

The Last Hard Men:  Well, they’re men, and they’re hard.  Some brutal prisoners, led by James Coburn, escape a chain gang only to run into fresh-out-of-retirement lawman Charlton Heston.  What follows are a series of nasty confrontations and dastardly deeds, leading to a confusing and ugly finale.  The movie fully embraces the ugly meanness of the 70s, where even the heroes are scumbags, and the scumbags are worse than animals.  And unfortunately, Chris Mitchum.

    For The Agony and the Ecstasy, I served noodles with a meat sauce provided by Jill and Nero d’Avola wine.  Italy, man.

The Agony and the Ecstasy:  The lavish spectacle of the film competes with the lavish spectacle of the reality, in this adaptation of the classic novel about a genius artist and a bellicose pope.  Like many movies from this era, there’s a certain cleanness that I find slightly jarring.  Even its messes are clean.  The people are a bit too iconic, and some of their shades of grey were taboo, as the Hayes Codes were only just losing their grip on Hollywood.  But the issue at hand, the struggle of the artist with his benefactor, that created one of the most iconic pieces of art in history, is compelling, whatever the shortcomings of political and personal detail.  Italy during this era was a fascinating and multifaceted thing, a puzzle box of twisting history with connections and disconnects to birth countless stories.  I guess I can’t expect one movie to have them all.  Heston and Harrison play well off each other, and there are moments of emotional power, for sure.  My viewing of the film was not ideal, so sometime coming up, I’m going to have to give it another, more focused watch and see what I think then.

    With the beginning of Soylent Green, I broke out the seaweed snacks, which made for a good tie-in.  Those things are good, and so few people are willing to try them.  Still, more for the rest of us.

Soylent Green:  The world is winding down, burdened by the weight of too much Humanity in this ugly vision of a horrible, slow-death future.  Everything is bleak, social justice is dead, the world is burning up, and nobody’s got anything to eat.  The wealthiest few still manage to live in luxury, while the huddled masses suffer through drab, meaningless existence, and only those willing to sell their souls and bodies to the rich get any taste of fleeting happiness.  With the murder of a pampered rich man, a cop enters the world of the powerful and begins to unravel a mystery that is too much for most people to bear.  Everyone is a whore in this film, selling themselves for scraps from the table of powerful people; who are themselves driving the whole world into ruin, and willing to do anything, make people believe anything, to keep their positions of power, no matter what the cost.  Who’d have thought?  The film still resonates today.

    For next year, I need to remember to start the day with more chips.  Early on, every time I opened a bag of chips, it was gone in an instant.  But, by the time most people started showing up, and bringing more, the chip eating rate balanced out and all was well.  Next time, start with more.  I can do that.  Otherwise, I think HestFest 2013 went very well, and I feel pretty good about it.

-Matt

Brad's Week in Shat! (5/6/12-5/12/12)

This week was all about the build towards Saturday's Shat Attack V -Battle For The Planet Of The Shatner.  And I spent 99& of the rest of the week obsessing and planning all things William Shatner.  Yes, I did see The Avengers again and The Wife took me out to see Aardman Studios latest claymation wonder.  But mostly I just watched Star Trek as prep.  And I loved every second of the prep; almost as much as the weekend's ridiculous festivities.

TV OF THE WEEK!

Star Trek "Arena": I watched a few other episodes this week, but the only one I stopped and really absorbed was this Gorntastic showdown.  Who doesn't love the Gorn Captain design?  It's a cheap Godzilla-like suit but for me, it's almost as iconic as The Creature From The Black Lagoon.  I see him on screen and I get chills.  And I genuinely love the concept of this episode as well.  Some Q-like alien a-holes called the Metrons transport Kirk & the Gorn onto a devil rock planet and the two Captains are forced to battle one another in gladiatorial combat.  Not sure if "Arena" cracks my top five favorite Trek episodes but it definitely comes close.

MOVIES OF THE WEEK!

The Avengers:  I finished off last week with a double shot of The Avengers and started off this week with another round.  Obviously, I still love this movie.  And I've got a distinct feeling that I'll be seeing it again real soon.  My opinion has not wavered.  It might very well be the most comic comic book movie we've encountered so far and that pleases me to no end.  And talking to friends and coworkers it seems like most people agree with me.  Sure, there are a few contrarians out there but most of those folks didn't grow up with these characters-they don't understand or care how amazing it is to witness Thor spin Mjolnir a certain way.  But it's those little touches are just as important as the big sweeping action scenes, and I cheer more at how Banner & Spark interact than I do at HULK smashing big bad Fin Fang Foom wannabes...although I still cheer at those as well.  Basically, The Avengers is pure geek nirvana.  Check out my gushing real "review" of the film is over at Daily Grindhouse.

The Pirates:  Hugh Grant's Pirate Captain leads his merry band of misfits against Queen Victoria while competing for Pirate of the Year and battling it out with Charles Darwin and his mischievous man monkey! It's another wonderful lark from the creators of Wallace & Gromit and even if it's not a gut buster, it's ridiculously clever and charming with its Elephant Man abuse at the hands of bitch Jane Austen.  And yeah, it's downright revelatory when it comes to acknowledging the true joys of being a pirate--the answer, Ham Night of course.

White Comanche:  "In The Place Called Rio Hondo The Pale Eyes Will Die!!!" Filmed during a hiatus from Star Trek, William Shatner plays twin brothers; one raised as a noble cowboy, the other raised as a savage rapist comanche. It's Shat vs Shat! And that's the only reason you're going to want to see this horribly boring spaghetti western. Seeing two bare chested Shatners charging on horseback towards each other with guns a blazing is well worth the bits of drag and the weirdo jazzy bass score you must first suffer. So yeah, if you're a fan of The Shat than you gotta see it. Otherwise, stay away.  But if you wanter further ramblings than check out my review over at cineAWESOME!

Star Trek - The Motion Picture:  "The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning." The first cinematic outing for the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise is a grand space adventure exploring the concept of god and the future of humanity. Director Robert Wise does his best to elevate the television show to the heights of Stanley Kubrick's 2001. The Five Year Mission might be over, but the old dogs return with Admiral James T Kirk outranking whiny brat Captain William Decker as he returns to space to go where no man has gone before. What I love about this first film is that it's not a punch 'em up actioner, its a thickly layered narrative with grandiose Jerry Goldsmith score and lingering tracking model shots. It's easy to see why it might alienate some, but watching the film in glorious high definition and with the hindsight 20/20 vision of what the sequels would transform the series into (action films), Star Trek The Motion Picture is a proper epic full of scope and beauty.

Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan:  "Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young. Doctor."  Gosh, how many times have I watched this movie?  50?  100?  Whatever the answer, I can still say without a doubt, that The Wrath of Kahn is my favorite Star Trek film and it still sits nicely at #5 in my Top Ten films of all time.  Obviously, I love the reverse revenge story of pitting Khan's Hate against Captain Kirk, but it's theme of time and aging (something Star Trek Generations would try to pull off as well) that grounds the space battles with humanity.  And yeah, I just watched this a couple weeks ago and I still get choked up watching Kirk say goodbye to Spock through that damn engineering glass.  And James Horner's music?  Ah, so damn cool.  It's thumping when the action ramps up, haunting when the doom approaches, and wonderfully hopeful at the birth of the Genesis planet.  Simply, great stuff.

Star Trek III - The Search For Spock:  "I Choose The Danger." Initially, The Search for Spock may have taken some of the punch out of The Wrath of Khan's emotional climax but the third film in the franchise wonderfully illustrates the love felt between Kirk, Spock, & McCoy (and the rest to a lesser degree) as the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many when the bridge crew of the USS Enterprise breaks free from Starfleet to reconnect Spock's katra to his rejuvenated body. Sure, they have to suffer through some Christopher Lloyd Klingon Genesis selfishness and loose not only the ship in the process, but Kirk's kid as well, but the quiet return of their science officer at the finale is nearly as powerful as his loss at the end of Part II. "I Have Been And Ever Shall Be Your Friend" Damn, it hits me harder than anything else in the Trek saga.

Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home:  "Double Dumb Ass On You!" Captain Kirk and the crew of the mutinous Klingon Bounty travel back in time to the colorfully metaphored 1980s.  Their goal is to return a couple of Humpback Whales to their era where a mysterious, unknowable space probe is devastating the Earth in a search for the extinct race of mammals. A goofy, goofy concept but a very funny flick for Trek fans; a light hearted conclusions to a fairly dark trilogy of films (Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock, The Voyage Home).  This was the first Trek film that I saw in the theater, and it pretty much spawned the Trekkie I am today.  Sure, it only seems concerned with giving you a good chuckle, but if you have a love for these characters than you'll eat it up. "Hello Computer..."

Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country:  "In space, all warriors are cold warriors." Yes, it's probably technically a better film than Part V's Search For God, but The Undiscovered Country still trails far, far behind the great films of parts 1, 2, and 3. I dig all the Cold War analogies, and Christopher Plummer's one-eyed Klingon bastard General Chang is definitely a classic villain.  We do get some serious Shat on Shat action reminiscent of White Comanche thanks to a conveniently shape shifting Iman, but the plotting is so damn obvious and the mystery of the conspiracy not at all compelling.  Still, I love the cast and I could have watched twenty more Old Man Star Trek films in place of the not quite right Next Generation crew.

Star Trek - Generations:  "Who Am I To Argue With The Captain Of The Enterprise?" A tremendously flawed film that manages to infuriate, or at least frustrate this long time Trekkie. But I really do enjoy the Enterprise B opening with Kirk as media icon and his ultimate demise at the climax is still emotionally devastating even if it is horribly staged. The real travesty is the short straw delivered to the crew of the Next Generation; all parties involved feel like they've been given a reboot with seven seasons of the show seemingly unimportant to the blah plot steered by Malcolm McDowell's boring madman. And Data is transformed into a pathetic butt of a joke, the implementation of the emotion chip is a cheap story telling device. And is it me, or is Trek still stuck in the Nexus?

COMIC OF THE WEEK!

Star Trek - Khan Ruling In Hell:  Set between the time when Captain Kirk dumped Khan Noonien Singh on the paradise planet of Ceti Alpha Five in "The Space Seed" and the moment Chekhov and the Reliant discovered the super humans on the transformed desert planet of Star Trek II, this IDW graphic novel seems to get everything wrong about the mad dictator. From Khan's bewildering belief in the Federation to his horribly annoying passive behavior, Ruling in Hell is an incredibly frustrating read for Trekkies. It's a tremendous waste of an opportunity and turns the greatest villain in the Star Trek universe into a bit of a whelp. Lame.

SHAT ATTACK V!

For Matt, The Wife, and I Shat Attack V started on Friday night.  We popped in a couple of Star Trek episodes to have on in the background as we got settled into the party preparations.  Five years ago, Shat Attack started out as a small group of friends watching Wrath of Khan, some TJ Hooker, and The Devil's Rain.  By the second year we had a dozen guests.  Shat Attack III had sixteen guests.  And Shat Attack IV had 23 guests.  Shat Attack V was the most epic movie weekend marathon we've had yet.  We had 29 guests stuffed into this tiny apartment at once, and the party lasted 31 Hours from Friday night to early Sunday morning.  And I'd say it was a rip-roaring success with a crazy array of Shatner related viewing as well as a couple good rounds of Shatner Jeopardy in which every guest eventally teamed up against Matt's superior Mr. Know-It-Allness.  

And I must give mucho kudos to The Wife for preparing a wonderful feast of Shatner related food.  From the Delta Shield Scone breakfast to the William Shatner's Grandmother's Matzoh Kneidlach lunch to the Sybock Choy & McCoy's Famous Beans dinner.  Plus oodles and oodles of Shatner snacks.  She's the bestest.  

The Brothers Karamazov:  "Lunatic, I Loathe You." Yul Brynner is a monster of a man as he battles it out with his equally monstrous father Lee J Cobb, exchanging violent wits as well as crushing gorilla punches. It all has something to do with money, women, and the existence of god and their rivalry will eventually destroy (emotionally, at the very least) the rest of the family. Shatner plays the young pious Alexey with an incredibly creepy sinister stare of righteousness. Richard Basehart is his atheist opposite and their minor philosophical struggles provide respite when Breyner and Cobb aren't throttling each other. I have no idea if this is a good adaptation of the book cuz I can never get past the first fifty pages of those Russian epic depression fests, but the movie is long and enjoyably brutal.

Columbo - Butterflies in Shades of Grey:  17 years after he appeared in the original Columbo television series, William Shatner returns for this TV Movie, playing a Rush Limbaugh-like radio show host who not-so-cleverly shot his daughter’s literary agent in the back.  I’ve never quite understood the appeal of the Columbo series with the first fifteen minutes detailing the murder, the next ten minutes showing the audience that Columbo’s figured it all out, and then for the final hour we just have to agonize through the detectives bumbling style of “I GOT YOU!”  Shatner is kinda fantastic in his impression of easy-target Limbaugh (and this is 1993 when all his crazy wasn’t even fully revealed yet) but man, I get tired of Peter Falk’s antics fairly quickly.

The True Story of Puss ‘n Boots: Technically this very French animated adaptation of the classic fairy tale does not look like complete and utter garbage. It looks cheap, sure. Made on a laptop. But if it was not for the horrible voice cast, including William Shatner's horrifyingly old man humor lady voice for the titular cat in boots than maybe, just maybe, there is a fun little kids movie to be seen. Uh...naw, this sucks. Man, Shatner really does say "Yes" to every project.

The Six Million Dollar Man “Burning Bright”: “I Want To Take A Bath In Whatever Zapped Me. It Felt Good!” Lee Majors is recruited by NASA to help Shatner’s great barrier defying astronaut, a humorless jokester who’s returned from space with psychic abilities. Yes, not only can he Scan his jerkwad boss but he can command an army of dolphins if he should choose…but he just encourages them to do backflips for his amusement. One of the better Six Millioin Dollar Man eps, but I have to agree with my fellow co-dork when he suggested that Shatner’s Big Brain should have teamed up with the Bionic Man for further adventures, rather than just succumbing to the typical Versus battle.

The People: “Don’t Let Your Fear Kill All That Is Ours, Old One.” An incredibly boring adaptation of Zenna Henderson’s big book of woo. Kim Darby plays a young teacher trying to understand the cult-like community she finds herself attached to while also avoiding their glowy hand powers of levitation. Shatner pops by occasionally as an understanding veterinarian who just wants to look at your horse and not worry about the voodoo taking over the local farms.  Apparently Francis Ford Coppola had something to do with this dreck, but I can only imagine it was for tax purposes or family obligation or something like that.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents “Mother May I Go Out To Swim”: Honestly I was hard at work getting the apartment ready for the night and I did not pay enough attention to either this episode or the “Hungry Glass” Thriller ep that followed. There’s plenty of Shatner screaming and grimacing going on, but I was not following the plot at all at this point of Shat Attack V.

The Devil’s Rain: The plot might be laughable and the acting wonderfully over-the-top, but thanks to the direction of Robert Fuest (The Abominable Dr. Phibes) and the cinematography of Alex Phillips Jr (Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia) The Devil’s Rain is a stylish Satanist flick looking to steal the blockbuster audience of Rosemary’s Baby. The Opening Confrontation between Shatner and Ernest Borgnine is genuinely epic and the film never quite matches the power of their Faith Off. And with Tom Skeritt, Eddie Albert, Keenan Wynn, Ida Lupino, and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him John Travolta, The Devil’s Rain is never boring even when it’s endlessly gooey.

Boston Legal “Thanksgiving”: This is not an episode to expose to newbies, but if you’re already a fan of the series than the Thanksgiving show of the final season is rather amazing. Friends and enemies collide at Candice Bergen’s dinner table and when they’re not going to war over grace then they’re spitting venom at each other over the inherent racism still plaguing contemporary America.  There’s plenty of Double Hoot fun and genuine lump-in-the-throat emotion with a typically bizarre marriage proposal. Boston Legal is one of the best things Shatner has ever been associated with and more folks out there should chomp into this brilliantly biting one hour dramady (damn, I hate that word, but there ya go).

Barnaby Jones “To Catch A Dead Man”: I did not grow up with Barnaby Jones.  And as a result I just don’t get this milk drinking detective. That being said, I love this episode for it’s use of glued goatee murdering Shatner. He plays a somewhat notorious sea captain who fakes his death to escape his shrill wife and score on the insurance money. Unfortunately, he picks the wrong double to play his corpse and Buddy Epsen’s Columbo-esque detective stumbles about until he solves the crime. The highlight of the ep though is when Shatner Teeth Kisses his girlfriend to death just after ranting and screaming about her kittie, “THE CAT! THE CAT! THE CAT!”

William Shatner’s Gonzo Ballet: "We're taking the rhythm of the skins into our music and its feeding each other!" Honestly, one of my favorite bits of Shatner Madness is his album Has Been. It's not the oddity that is The Transformed Man, it's a genuine piece of emotional art in which Shatner attempts to reach the everyman through the lens of his Icon Colored Glasses. And world-renowned choreographer Margo Sappington, after hearing a review on NPR, thought it a smart idea to put The Shat's "Music" to dance. I don't know what it all means, but it's wondrous to watch. I only wish that this short documentary did a better job of photographing the humans on display. It just seems like a mess of limbs to me. But there is heart in the concept and it's great to hear from folks like Henry Rollins and Ben Folds on what it's like to bathe in the William Shatner mindset.

Burke’s Law “Who Killed Carrie Cornell?”: Similar to Columbo & Barnaby Jones, I find Burke’s Law to be confounding. Here’s this super rich police captain being chauffeured around in his limo while he makes wisecracks about corpses. He’s super serious, but also a bit of an ass. Soon-to-be Starfleet Captain William Shatner & soon-to-be Klingon Michael Ansara might be lovers here and at least one of them is definitely a psychotic murdering vegetarian and their vile beatnik hatred makes this episode a fantastic intro to classic detective tv, especially for those raised on spoon fed CSI programming. There is some seriously bonkers stuff at play here.

Star Trek “The Enemy Within”:  The Main Event started at 7:00 PM with this Kirk vs Kirk crowd pleaser.  A few folks had trickled into the apartment throughout the day, but now we had 25 plus packed into our small two-bedroom joint.  As people mingle about and chat with each other it’s always best to start with a one hour program but when Kirk starts screaming for Brandy, the chatter starts to die down and people take notice of the crazy going on screen. 

Impulse: This Shat Attack staple is one of my all time favorite Shatner performances. Yes, it's a terrible movie. Maybe, one of the worst films ever. However, I dare you not to have fun while watching accidental serial killer William Shatner stab and strangle his way through shifty international investments. Filmed during the dark years after the Star Trek television series and before his iconic rebirth in The Motion Picuture, Shatner still throws in every bit of SHAcTting talent he has and performs the hell outta William Grefe's wonky but seriously disturbing screenplay. Toss in Harold Sakata's Karate Pete car wash chase, some unbelievable goofy 70s fashion, and some of the worst day for night shooting you'll ever encounter, and you've got a recipe for an uproarious party movie.

Star Trek V – The Final Frontier: It is easy to hate on this Shatner helmed Trek adventure (Jokey yet unfunny one liners, horrible God hunting concept, cheap effects, awkward Scotty/Uhura love pecks, Uhura naked fan dance) but at the same time this is the closest film to capture the tone of the original series. And it's the only movie to truly focus on the trilogy of Kirk, Spock, & McCoy. The Row Row Row Your Boat campfire sequence warms my heart; their bickering in the brig is classic Trek and the flashback/visions for both McCoy and Spock are rather brilliant character beats. Is this really the worst of the Star Trek films? Watch it again. Then watch The Undiscovered Country and Nemesis and I dare you to crap on The Final Frontier.  One of the highlights of this year's Shat Attack was hearing several haters rethink their opinion on the fifth film.

The Captains: Obviously, your enjoyment of this documentary depends on how much you love Star Trek and since I LOVE STAR TREK I seriously enjoyed this weird scramble of interviews starring everyone's favorite Captains (including Star Trek VI's Christopher Plummer, but not Star Trek VI's George Takai). It's loads of fun even when its incredibly awkward with the mellow jazz philosophy of Avery Brooks or Shatner's own thematic question steering. The best bits involve Patrick Stewart and Scott Bakula opening up about job vs. family--for brief moments some serious stuff gets discussed, and the rest of it is just light, frothy Trekkie fun. Sure, it's a all ego. But what else do you expect from The Shat.  I will say that this was the film during Shat Attack V that sent people on their way.  The credits rolled around 2AM early Friday morning and the remaining half dozen Shat Attackers stuck it out for...

Secrets of a Married Man: When Michelle Phillips refuses to wear the silky neglige Shatner creepily purchased for her, he dives into a rampant parade of prostitutes that climaxes with Cybil Shepard's maybe/sorta hooker with a heart of gold. This TV movie is complete scare-ya-straight moralizing cheese, but thanks to Shatner's squirmy STDed ho addict and the third reel appearance of Glenn Thurman's friendly businessman pimp, Secrets of a Married Man is a low-rent, but enjoyable entry in the 80s era Shatnerverse.  By the end of this film only four Shat Attackers had their eyes open...but sleep came quickly after.

Star Trek – The Animated Series: As the surviving members of Shat Attack V began to awaken, pull themselves free from their carpet slumber, and shuffle out the door and back into the real world of boring, non-Shatner celebrating reality I popped in a few random episodes from the animated series. I started with “The Counter Clock Incident,” the show that reveals Commodore Robert April to be the first Captain of the Enterprise and hopefully set up some crazy JJ Abrams sequel plotting for next year (I love the rumor of Peter Weller taking this role, dork fingers crossed). The Animated Series suffers from an incredibly pathetic budget but I love the high concept crazy of some of these plots. From Kirk & Co battling it out with the Aztech god Culocon to the war crimes of Dr. Leonard McCoy, this brief series really went for the bananas when scripting and even though the execution was questionable I still manage to pull great enjoyment from their efforts.

 

--Brad