Happy Friday the 13th!! (True to the folklore, I overslept two hours this morning.)
I hope that you all are having a fun and machete-free day. Except for my one friend who actually OWNS a machete and likes to remind us all from time to time. (Don’t ask.)
I can’t be the only person who’s thought of this. It’s been bugging me since I first saw the footage of Donald Trump throwing paper towels to people in Puerto Rico.
Doesn’t it remind you of villain Max Shreck throwing presents to Gothamites in “Batman Returns” (1992)? It’s at .15 in the clip below.
Those flying white-faced goddam circus freaks near the end of the scene could be his cabinet members. Jeff Sessions could fly that high if somebody threw him, right?
When I was in the first grade, I absolutely loved “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.” It was, technically I guess, a dystopian science fiction story in which a contemporary astronaut is frozen for 500 years, then returns to a post-nuclear earth. Its feature-length pilot was created by Glen Larson, who also wrote the pilot for “Battlestar Galactica” the preceding year. (Weird trivia — Wikipedia informs me that this was released theatrically, along with “Battlestar Galactica” in limited theaters.)
Of course I didn’t realize this at the time, but “Buck Rogers” was pretty bad. It was horribly bad. Indescribably bad. It was even bad by cheesy 1970’s TV sci-fi standards. You can actually find full episodes on Youtube, and I started one, just on a lark. I could only watch about one minute, maybe less — plus that soul-deadening clip of “Twiki” in the second video below. Seriously, it’s as though Larson was intentionally giving the worst script he could come up with to NBC as some sort of prank. (After being told to resuscitate the heroic Buck, one advanced futureperson advises another, “He’s liable to be not too coherent.”)
About Twiki — that little guy fascinated a lot of very young kids in 1979. For a while, it was all the rage for us to do our “deeby-deeby-deeby” Twiki impressions.
Season 1 of Britain’s “Black Mirror” (2011) was absolutely terrific. (To be clear, this first “season” consists of only three episodes, although subsequent seasons have more.) This looks to be a truly superb dystopian science fiction anthology series — I’d rate it a 9 out of 10.
I’d point to two qualities that make this show stellar. First, it’s truly smart stuff. The story devices are thoughtfully invented and quite original. (These are “near-future” -type sci-fi tales depicting how new technology or cultural trends can have unforeseen consequences.) This show doesn’t insult the viewer’s intelligence, it relies on him or her to pay attention and think.
Second, the writers here have a firm grasp of genuine psychological horror. There are no radioactive monsters in the sewers here, or killer robots from the future — but “Black Mirror” manages to be scary without those things. It does just fine presenting the viewer with visions of human shame, fear, jealousy or existential loss. These are stories that deal primarily with the psychology of their characters — and they truly get under your skin.
This is great stuff — I’d recommend it.
… looking south from College Avenue yesterday in Salem, Virginia.
If my sense of geography can be trusted (and it usually can’t) those are technically part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and not the Alleghenies.
Somebody toss some paper towels at me.
That’ll help.
From William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” For Emily. 🙂
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them,—ding-dong, bell.
“Miracle Mile” (1988) actually came highly recommended to me. And that’s perplexing, because this is a pretty bad nuclear war thriller that I’d only grudgingly rate a 4 out of 10.
The script is terrible. We know that from the film’s opening minutes, when it attempts to establish Anthony Edwards as a likable protagonist by showing him performing impromptu stand-up for schoolchildren on a field trip to a Los Angeles natural history museum. (He is not a chaperone for the field trip, or connected with these schoolchildren in any way. He apparently just hangs around alone at museums to inexplicably crack jokes for children he does not know.)
From there, we follow an abortive, cloddishly written romance between two mostly unappealing characters. (Mare Winningham is the other half of the romance doomed by the impending apocalypse.) I won’t bore you with the details about the ensuing end-of-the-world thriller, except that an implausible plot device gives the nascent couple and a handful of secondary characters advance knowledge of the nuclear missiles that will hit Los Angles in just more than an hour.
Even the acting was mostly poor. Surprisingly, this includes the performance by Edwards himself, who has shown nothing but talent in every other role in which I’ve seen him.
The movie comes close to redeeming itself near the end. Its obligatory chaos-in-the-streets set-piece is surprisingly well done for an otherwise mediocre film, and there are a few good lines when the couple reunites at the movie’s finale. I suppose you can also have a lot of fun spotting a bevy of other character-actors from the 80’s and 90’s.
I … can’t actually recommend this, though. I can’t remember the last time I was this disappointed by a film that my friends insisted was great. Check out 1983’s “Special Bulletin,” instead. Or, better yet, hunt down Britain’s superb nuclear war mini-series, “Threads” (1984).
This is only 20 seconds long; it consists of just one stanza from Auden’s poem. Despite their brevity, however, I think that these few lines comprise one of the greatest breakup poems ever.
I finally got around to watching my first episode of “American Horror Story” last night; I started with this season’s critically praised premiere. (People have been enthusiastically recommending this show to me for years, and “Game of Thrones” taught me that the bandwagon isn’t always a bad thing.)
I can’t say that I was overly impressed. Season 7’s opening episode, entitled “Election Night,” consists mostly of heavy-handed political commentary with caricaturized portrayals of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton supporters. Nearly none of the characters are likable; not even the one played by the terrific Evan Peters. (Yes, comics fans, that’s none other than Quicksilver from the latest “X-Men” movies.)
There is a lot of “scary clown” horror here, as anyone who’s seen any marketing for the show at all should know. Between that and the political elements, I suspect I am not the right audience for this show. I simply find clowns obnoxious instead of scary, and political commentary in horror usually falls flat with me. (I’m the rare horror fan who loves George A. Romero’s work only because it’s scary, without caring much about the social statements he’s supposedly making.)
With all of that said, there actually were a couple of creepy moments late in the game. And there was one (as of yet, minor) character that I liked — the child of the liberal couple who were so devastated by the election results. He’s cute, and any kid who hides parentally forbidden horror comics under his pillow is one of my tribe.
I’d somewhat grudgingly rate this a 5 out of 10.
Anyway … scary clowns are ubiquitous now, and we already have the zombie shows we need. I propose that we bring back … body snatchers. Those can be terrifying in the hands of a talented writer, and they require no special effects. Or, what about vampires? Now that “The Strain” has concluded, how about a well written television excursion into Steve Niles’ “30 Days of Night” universe? Or maybe a “Stakeland” TV show? Looking at you, AMC.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 