SF Watch: Explorers (1985)

As a kid I remember not exactly loving this movie.  At the time, I thought it was kind of boring and anti-climactic.  As of last night I kind of think that, like the ship the boys fly in during the movie, it's also a mess assembled out of used garbage piloted by people who have no idea what they're doing.

For example - when you title your movie Explorers (1985), you may want to try including the concept of "exploration" not getting hi-jacked briefly before coming right back home.

I don't mean to be so harsh, but, man...  Back in the 1980's, an era that brought us E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, The Goonies, Monster Squad and other movies about adolescents getting caught up in a magical world of imagination and adventure and maybe learning something about empathy and themselves along the way, this movie ended up as a bit of a renter after not really doing great at the box office.  And it seemed like it should have been great.  Kids doing it for themselves.  Computers.  Space travel.  Aliens!

It feels like this movie kind of knew what the pieces were that went into these coming-of-age movies, a genre enough unto itself that the 2011 JJ Abrams movie Super 8 sought to recreate the feel.  The films required a backdrop of kids not doing great at home - divorced parents, dead parents, grieving or troubled parents.  But the parents were present, if a bit distracted.  The 80's gave us kid rooms that were messy that contained things real kids' rooms of the era might contain like mangled comics, toys, posters strewn around.  Kids weren't particularly nice to each other, even as friends.  The lead would maybe have a crush on some nice girl who wore lots of purple or pink.  And, these were never the cool kids.  They were average, or maybe a little nerdy.

Sure enough, Explorers features 3 outsider kids - the romantic sci-fi nerd (Ethan Hawke), the science-minded nerd who other kids just want to beat the crap out of (River Phoenix in dad-glasses), and the Junior John Bender (the guy you never heard from again but who is actually better than Ethan Hawke in this movie) team up to float around in a pile of garbage inside a space marble and then....

new Supergirl costume is fairly Supergirl-riffic

this is it, there's no turning back now

Sometime in the next several months, CBS is slated to bring Supergirl to the small screen.  Look, I'm a Helen Slater guy from way back, a casting decision I will always support even if Supergirl, as a movie, has... complications.

In the comics, I'm really a fan of only a few eras of Supergirl, if by Supergirl you mean Kara Zor-El and not Cir-El, Matrix/ Mae or Linda Danvers (but, look, I will always support Linda Danvers, and I'm irritated she's mostly forgotten, because today's fangirl community would love her as some sort of Supergirl).

Straight up, I'm a Silver-Bronze Age Kara Zor-El fan when she was portrayed as bright, perhaps naive, but eternally optimistic teen and college kid.  With a flying cat and horse that she sometimes dated.*  If Supergirl isn't trying to see the best in everyone and trying to save the day while she basically fights with identity issues Clark Kent doesn't spend too much time pondering, she isn't really Supergirl.

real Supergirl is perky as all living hell

Wes Anderson's "Uncanny X-Men"

I have to say, I think I'd really enjoy this take on the X-Men at this point in the franchise.

What if Wes Anderson directed X-Men? from Patrick Willems on Vimeo.

TV Watch: Peaky Blinders - recommended

We've been watching the BBC series, now streaming on Netflix, Peaky Blinders.  In BBC or HBO big-budget style, the show is only 6 episodes per season, but the production is incredible per episode with top flight talent in front of, and as near I can tell, behind the camera.

Our resident music snobs will like the soundtrack.  Though the setting is 1919 Birmingham, England, the show makes excellent use of Nick Cave in season 1 (including use of "Red Right Hand" as the credits track) and, as we've just cracked season 2, they've subbed in Ms. Polly Jean Harvey.  The music fits shockingly well against the late Industrial Age backdrop as working-class gangs move like sharks through the factory workers, IRA sympathizers, nascent communists and blue-clad cops on dirt streets in flat caps and tweed.

Season 1 playlist
Season 2 partial playlist

You can't get thrown by the name of the show (the name of the family-based gang at the center of the show) any more than you can get thrown by the accents and patter unfamiliar to American ears, but all of it understandable enough.

The lead of the show, Thomas Shelby, is played by Cillian Murphy - most recognizable to Americans as The Scarecrow from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises.  The cops out to get the gang are led by Jurassic Park's Sam Neill.  One of my favorite characters is Tommy's Aunt Polly, played by Helen McCrory, who you might have seen as Draco Malfoy's mother in the Harry Potter films and briefly in Skyfall.  I hear Thomas Hardy shows up here in Season 2, so I'm ready for that.

Today is Texas Independence Day

On March 2nd, 1836 in the town of Washington on the Brazos (no, really), a group of Texans cooked up a Declaration of Independence, breaking with Mexico and establishing Texas as a Republic.

look, you have your Independence Hall, we have ours

Now, people do this all the time, but history will tell you that it only really counts if you're successful.  Otherwise, you're usually a footnote and a shallow grave.  Weirdly, the scrappy refugees from polite American society who had migrated into Texas wound up winning their brief war for independence after getting essentially massacred at The Alamo but doing pretty well at Gonzalez and Goliad, thank you very much.

On April 21, 1836, the Texian army, under the command of Sam Houston, caught up with the Mexican army, who seemed to believe that if they were behind enemy lines, so long as they were sleeping, it was a "time out".  The Texians stormed in, and in about 30 minutes soundly defeated the Mexican Army and General Antonio de Santa Ana, taking him prisoner.

I don't believe it either, and I live here.

Sam Houston instructs the captured Santa Ana to kiss his rosey red ass

Texas expected to become a state, but the balance of power in the US made this a challenge - as admitting a new slave state would make things awkward - and the concern over sparking a real war with Mexico meant that Texas would remain an independent Republic for 9 long, extremely poor years.

So, take that, Ohio.  You were never your own country and you never fought your own war with generals and cannons and everything.

Texans would go on to become obnoxious, but everyone would move here and keep letting our crackpot politicians drive the national political conversation.  

  

Noir Watch (sorta): High Wall (1947)

So, like a month ago I started watching this movie on a DVD I'd picked up, and got an hour into it and the DVD fritzed out on me.  So I got a replacement copy from Amazon (seriously, their return policy is the bees knees), and finally got around to finishing the movie this evening.

I am not sure I'd recommend High Wall.  By far the best feature of the movie is that it stars Audrey Totter as a psychiatrist who is not afraid to monkey around with experimental brain surgery and the liberal application of medication.  It's only marginally noir, in my book.  More of a suspense thriller with noirish undertones.

Basically, the movie is about a guy who probably really is, at the very least, unstable following his return from WWII, who comes home to a wife he married in the fog of war, only to find out that she wants someone pulling in more bucks than he's worth now that he's not drawing a military salary.  He leaves for Burma to fly cargo and send home paychecks.  When he comes home, he may or may not have killed his wife, who he figures is schtupping her boss - a kind of sleazy dude who happens to be overseeing a Christian Book publisher.

It's all very sordid.

Trek Watch: Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home

As we say good-bye to Leonard Nimoy, I wanted to give one of the Star Trek movies a whirl.  And Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home seemed a good choice.  It's lighter, was directed by Nimoy, and has a strong character thread for Spock.

just a couple of bros, trading colorful metaphors

I'm actually a fan of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, not the least because it truly felt like an episode of the original show taken to its logical extreme - exploration leading to realization of some greater truth about humanity, etc... And the direction by Robert Wise is impeccable.  I'm also a fan of Star Treks II and III, both great action movies, expanding on the ideas from the TV series, both the commentary of The Star Seeds and the pioneering science you'd see Kirk and Co coming upon from planet to planet, episode to episode.

Star Trek IV, of course, picks up the threads of II and III and completes a trilogy of related movies, sending the crew of the Enterprise home to face court-martial for the events of the prior two movies.  Spock has returned to life in the events of III, and keeps up a stoic as he finds his footing.  And, of course, the world will end if we don't travel back into the past, enjoy a Michelob and grab some humpback whales.  Returning to the roots of Trek, Star Trek IV sets up a conflict that can't be resolved with phasers or photon torpedoes, setting up what a wacky adventure for our faithful crew in the 1980's.

Of course, y'all don't need a plot synopsis of Star Trek IV.

And, of course, it's not like I haven't written about the movie before.

This movie marked another evolution in Spock's character - the movie where he fully accepts his human nature and the inherent illogic of humanity as part of his own nature.  His mother's reminder that his friends have substituted the "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one" was ignored to save him, he in turn applies to the comatose Chekov.  And he embraces the human notion of "guessing" rather than working from facts and numbers.

It's not the A Plot of the movie, but it's interesting to see what must have been on the minds of Nimoy and Harve Bennett, who acted as story developers but also as Director and Producer, respectively (for you kids who weren't around yet, saving the whales was kind of a big thing back in the '80's).

Leonard Nimoy Merges With The Infinite

We are assembled here today to pay final respects to our honored dead. And yet it should be noted, in the midst of our sorrow, this death takes place in the shadow of new life, the sunrise of a new world; a world that our beloved comrade gave his life to protect and nourish. He did not feel this sacrifice a vain or empty one, and we will not debate his profound wisdom at these proceedings. Of my friend, I can only say this: Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most.... human.

This one hurts, y'all.

I only post about folks who've gone beyond the veil when it's personal, but this one...  Leonard Nimoy meant a lot to generations of us folks who grew up with Star Trek.  I was too young to get it when DeForest Kelley passed, and was saddened when James Doohan went, but now we've lost Nimoy.

GUEST POST: AmyC talks "Fifty Shades, Forty-Three Dollars"

Editor's Note:  Every once in a great while, there's a particular need to bring in an expert here at The Signal Watch.  I posted on Fifty Shades of Grey on Monday, and mentioned I'd seen the movie with longtime pal, AmyC.  She was game, and I hadn't had opportunity to hang with her in a long time, so it seemed the ideal opportunity.  I want to thank Amy, because not only did she go to the movie, she brought a perspective to the whole event that made it all seem like less my usual descent into madness with a movie like Santa with Muscles, and, instead, she was a fantastic sounding board as we discussed "what does this movie mean?" en route and on the return trip from the movie.  

Without further ado, here's Amy's post...


Fifty Shades, Forty-three Dollars

Ever since The League pitched the idea of going to see Fifty Shades of Grey, I’ve been excited about going to see a movie that I would have otherwise done my level best to ignore, mostly because I think that bad movies transcend themselves when shared, and become transformed into good experiences through the alchemy of shared derision. I actually consider myself something of an aficionado of horrible movies, having snickered my way through The Room, Showgirls, Goblin 2, and various other legendarily bad pieces of dreck. And while I hadn’t managed to get through the book, despite a heroic effort on my part, I’d managed to absorb enough of the story indirectly to be dead-certain it was NOT going to be a good movie. Most of my exposure to the content was through YouTube videos featuring parody-readings of excerpts from the books.

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4

I suppose it’s also worth mentioning that I have spent a good portion of my professional life teaching classes about sexuality. Generally, most of my time was spent talking about sexually-transmitted infections, birth control, and the ins-and-outs of human reproductive anatomy, but I also took every chance I could get to talk to people about consent, the value and power of mutual pleasure, and respect for one’s self and the person or people one becomes intimate with throughout one’s life. I’ve also had the great privilege of helping some people deal with the aftermath of sexual assaults and abusive relationships, which has made me wary of how our culture portrays love and sexuality in our entertainment.

However, since I knew I was going to be seeing it with a friend, in a theater full of people that would mostly be sincere fans, instead of ignoring it or tut-tutting it, I started psyching myself up for seeing it by actively looking for information about tie-in (heh!) products and things that fans were hoping to see in the film. I got a good chuckle about the sex toys, lubricants, and various other odds and ends for sale at Target , and an actual belly laugh out of the existence of a Christian Grey teddy bear in a wee little grey suit, kitted out with a little Venetian mask and a tiny pair of handcuffs. I read a surprisingly thoughtful essay about the transition in the Anastasia character’s make-up and styling from the film’s makeup artist (the lip color gets darker throughout the film since it’s part of the book that Christian is fascinated by Anastasia’s lower lip) that accompanies a set of cosmetics assembled by a high-end cosmetic company Make-Up Forever that’s being sold through Sephora. There’s a lot of official product out there, and it’s fascinating in its variety and far-ranging price-points.

Agent Carter Draws to a Close (and I'm a little sad)

I'm not sure how many episodes there wound up being of Agent Carter, or how many weeks.  I think the answer is "eight", but I didn't major in math, okay?

But it was a great ride, a lot of fun, and I really, really hope people who didn't watch the show during its televised run find it online.  I'd certainly be onboard for another 80 episodes, but I suspect nobody is asking me.

Most certainly tying into the Marvel Universe of both Captain America: The First Avenger and things to come in Captain America: The Winter Soldier - the show was not dependent on either for it's success, and stood alone as a rock solid entry in the Marvel U, working for me in a way that Agents of SHIELD, unfortunately, did not.