Signal Watch Reads: Arthur C. Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama" (1973, audiobook)

After listening to the audiobook of 2001: A Space Odyssey, I got a rec from one of you (I'll assume it was CanadianSimon, as he reads 3 books a week, it seems) to read Arthur C. Clarke's novel of alien contact in our solar system, Rendezvous with Rama (1973).   In my old age, this is exactly the kind of book that is bringing me back to science fiction after a long, long time of not reading the genre.  But, then again, I was always more of a Asimov-Robot-Novel kind of sci-fi reader and felt like I was really pushing the limits of fantasy with Martian Chronicles by Bradbury.

No one is going to accuse Clarke of writing character-driven science fiction, but in imagining both a world in which space travel has become commonplace to the point of interplanetary colonies are treated like nations and how we might react to a truly alien craft entering our solar system (and what it might be like as the crew tapped to take on that challenge) all feels remarkably relevant in 2015 as I am sure it did in 1973 when the book hit shelves.

Follow PaulT as he watches 31 horror movies in 31 days!

PaulT (aka: PlacesLost) is watching and commenting upon a horror movie a day all October.  

Check it out over at his blog.

Halloween Watch: The Mummy (1932)

Hot on the heels of the success of Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931), Universal wanted to catch lightning in a bottle for third time, so they threw in the Egyptology craze that was still echoing a bit after the King Tut discoveries of 1923.*

if the poster makes you think this movie is about a dead guy and a gal in slinky dresses, you are correct

The Mummy (1932) isn't my favorite Universal horror film, but every time I watch it, I like it a bit more.  It's part Dracula, part Jack Pierce make-up genius, has loads of Karloff, a mythology that's been ripped off so many times it feels almost bland in 2015, and Zita Johann, who is busily trying to compete with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford for most memorable eyes in a Hollywood film, 1932.

Weirdly, it's only really book-ended by thrills at the beginning and end of the film, and the rest of the movie is sort of a slow, mystical boil.  For my dollar, one of the creepiest things in a Universal Horror film is the opening of The Mummy's eyes in the first few minutes of the movie.  It's everything you absolutely do not want to see happen around a guy who has been dead for 3 millennia.  And all of that works thanks to the astounding conception of the scene in lighting, make-up, direction and Karloff.

Colonialism Watch: Dark of the Sun (1968)

For some time, SimonUK had been insisting I see this movie after we'd watched Wild Geese (1978).  He assured me Dark of the Sun (1968) would be manly, but I also knew it would have some fairly serious overtones as, like Wild Geese, it's a movie about the end of colonialism, in this case, it's in the revolutionary period in The Congo.  As the colonists gave up and lost power, locals who were trying to maintain their place all across the continent were surprised to find that maybe the locals had taken exception to being under the European boot heel, and maybe that meant, well...  Fast forward to 2015, and check in on the Congo now.

The movie was made when people weren't really sure what would happen, and so takes place as a new President has taken power, but lost the backing of European banks and other supporters.  He calls in a mercenary, played by The Time Machine's Rod Taylor in a role that could not be more different from his starry-eyed scientist, who arrives with Jim Brown, playing a Congolese native who has been educated in the US but is in The Congo trying to lend support where he can to the right causes.

All of this takes a bit to sort out, as our mission is to board a train, get to a mining colony a day's-plus ride away, and get back to the Capital in 3 days with $50 million in diamonds (that's about $340 million in today's dollars).  Oh, and bring back the colonists safely, too.

He recruits a German ex-Nazi soldier working Congolese security and his forces, and a drunkard doctor for color, and they're off.

The movie doesn't pull punches with the risks, the moral compromise or the bodycount.  It also looks both backward at the patriarchal society crumbling and burning (and doesn't seem to have a positive opinion of those stewards), and forward toward the potential for The Congo through the eyes of Jim Brown's character - even as he sees the chaos all around him.

So it's an interesting film for what sometimes wants to be an action film, but at the end of the day has a conscience and a heart.  Curry, Taylor's character, has been taking from the situation for so long, profiting as a mercenary, that when he's asked about how he actually sees the situation around him, you get the feeling he really hasn't thought on it, not in those terms.  He's always had the ability to walk out and go live anywhere else when he wants to, there's nothing at stake for him here.

All this, and gun fights with Spitfires, fistfights that involve trains and chainsaws, and drunk doctors to sober up.  It's a heck of a movie, really.  Highly recommended.

Halloween Watch: Trick 'r Treat (2007)

Well, this was a nice surprise.  I think a few of you had suggested this one to me over the years, but I'd always look at the poster and think "eh, this is one of those movies with a 'scary' antagonist that's more visually interesting than actually all that scary".

I watched the movie with pal SimonUK, and as the WB logo went up, he said "You know, I think this is going to be one of those movies people wind up watching every Halloween."   Which, about 2/3rds of the way into the movie, I paused the movie and said "yes, I can see why you'd say that, and I think you're right on the money."

The Flash, Season 2 debuts Tuesday!

I don't talk about the character as much as Superman or Wonder Woman, but I think it's been pretty clear to longtime readers that I'm a fan of DC's speedster dynasty and the whole Flash concept.  From when Carmine Infantino drew his first strobe-image of Barry Allen in motion, this was a book that looked pretty straightforward, but which got really weird, really fast way back in the Silver Age, and it never turned back.*

And, lest we forget, the whole concept of a multi-verse in comics was spawned in the classic "Flash of Two Worlds" story in The Flash #123, back in 1961.

Speaking of, Tuesday sees the season premier of The Flash as it enters its sophomore year.  And, look who shows up:

hell, yes

Jay Garrick has been vital to the Barry Allen Flash comics since that 1961 issue, and it's awesome to see he'll get screentime and, I hope, a recurring role.

Last season was the most fun I had watching any one TV show.  Maybe it's not as intricate and adult as Mad Men or The Americans, but it does exactly what I want a Flash TV show to do - be super weird, have lots of fun twists and turns, use super speed in new ways all the time, and make Barry Allen an all right kind of guy.

They threw everything at the wall last season, and it mostly worked.  Now we see what happens when they don't just worry about time-travel, they worry about the multiverse.  Let's hope this isn't the season where they drop the ball.

Here's some posters:

That's So Craven! We watch "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "The Hills Have Eyes"

When Wes Craven died, I realized I'd only seen a portion of his filmography.  Sure, I'd seen Scream and a few Freddy movies, but I'd never seen his two earliest hits, The Hills Have Eyes and Last House on the Left.

It had been 20 years or more since I'd last seen A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and I am pretty sure the last time I watched it all the way through was in high school.  There's no question there is genuine horror and a great bit at work in this movie, but there are also some clunky moments, and we're far from thinking of Freddy as the wise-ass franchise character he'd become in subsequent movies.

He-Man Watch: Masters of the Universe (1987)

Friday night we had our first organized Live Tweet event with The Signal Watch when we got together on Twitter and partook of Master of the Universe, the toyline/ cartoon turned into a feature film and probably Burger King glass ware.

I want to thank everyone who came out online and made the event so much fun!  That was pretty great.  I think we had a good time, had our say and I think nothing got broken we can't fix.

We'll do it again at some point, as soon as we find something on Netflix we all want to watch.  So, send your candidates our way.

Down to business:

I wasn't a He-Man kid.  The only one of the figures I spent my own allowance on was Mer-Man.  For some reason, I really liked the sculpt on ol' Mer-Man.  No idea why.

I confess, I just really identified with this guy

But I really liked underwater adventure toys as a kid, so that probably had something to do with it.  Who knows?

In the summer of '87, when the movie was released, I would have already been 12, and, as recently discussed with pals JuanD and PaulT, just past the age where you didn't really know how to play with an action figure anymore.  I might still watch the He-Man cartoon after school, but it was kind of that or stare at a wall until my mom got home from work (lord knows I wasn't going to read, do my homework, or get exercise).

Ferrell Watch: Blades of Glory

There's no good reason to watch most Will Ferrell comedies more than once, but I've seen a good chunk of them, like, eight times.  Not the least of these is Blades of Glory, the 2007-era Jon Heder co-starring comedy that also features the always terrific Amy Poehler, then-husband Will Arnett, pretty darn good in this movie.  It also features Craig T. Nelson as their... coach.  Jenna Fischer trying out feature films.

And there's really no good reason to spend a lot of time writing about it.

So.  Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

Who Wants to Watch "Masters of the Universe: THE MOVIE"?

Well, technically, only Stuart.

What day:  Friday night, October 2nd, in the Year of Our Lord 2015
What time:  9:15 PM start (have your popcorn ready) Central Time
How:  Streaming on Netflix
Live Twitter:  look for me @melbotis
Hashtag:  #noorko (although we're taking better suggestions in the comments and to twitter)
Breaks:  whenever I have to pee
Pre-show:  we'll start rounding people up and talking He-Man around 9:00