Thursday, December 30, 2010

Remembering 2010 on the Blog

Well, it was not  "the year we made contact" with aliens (per 2010 [1984]), but it has been an amazing span here on the blog nonetheless, and I want to thank all of you for making it so.  

For without you, I am nothing...

When last I checked (on December 27), 2010 had already seen a whopping 110,000+ more visitor hits than 2009, the previous biggest year for Reflections on Film/TV -- which is pretty incredible.

So, thank you all so much for visiting this year, and for joining the ongoing discussion  and debate on film, television, nostalgia and retro-toys. 

It's back to more cult movie reviews, and TV flashbacks in the days and weeks ahead, but first -- one last look back at 2010.

Below are the ten most visited blog posts of the year.  I don't know what any of this really means, precisely, except that these are the pages most visited by people, listed  from 10 to number 1.   Last year's number one review, of a Spielberg blockbuster from 1975, was unseated this year by a 1982 film, which saw a sequel released a few weeks ago.  There are some De Palma titles here, some cult-TV episode reviews and even a look at a famous cinematic serial killer.

Anyway, the top ten most-visited Reflections on Film/TV posts of 2010 were:


















and


 

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

The Cult-TV Faces of: The Kiss

















Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas!!!!!!



Dear Readers,

I hope you all have a safe and happy Christmas this year.  May all your holiday wishes -- Micronauts, ROM, Star Bird, Rock Lords, Maskatron, and otherwise -- come true.

And watch out for Larry Drake in a Santa suit.

warmest holiday wishes,

The Muirs

Friday, December 24, 2010

All I Want for Retro-Christmas Countdown (1 Day Left): Milton Bradley's Star Bird!

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week


 "The dead don't die. They look on and help."

- Minority Report (2002)

All I Want for Retro-Christmas Countdown (2 Days Left...): Kenner's Alien

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

CULT MOVIE REVIEW: TRON Legacy (2010)

"The Grid: a digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they traveled through the computer. Ships, motorcycles, with the circuits like freeways. I kept dreaming of a world I thought I'd never see. And then, one day, I got in."

-Programmer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) describes a breakthrough in human knowledge in TRON Legacy.

Nearly thirty years ago, the state-of-the-art cinematic fantasy TRON (1982) ended with a beautiful and resonant image: 

Day slides quietly into night and a 1980s brick-and-mortar metropolis changes before our eyes.   All the roads, skyscrapers and moving cars in the frame seem to morph into the raw, blinking data of the virtual Grid, of the movie's neon computer world.  Our eyes detect colorful light trails just like those generated by the light cycles, but these light trails exist here in our world; in our cities and on our streets.

I wrote in my original review of TRON that this valedictory and artistic composition  is "an image that connects man's natural world and his technological one, and reminds us, visually, that we inhabit both.  To our detriment or to our glorification."

Joseph Kosinski's commercially-successful, action-adventure sequel, TRON Legacy, is constructed upon this very notion; upon the passing of a gift -- a legacy -- whose nature each ensuing generation must interpret for itself .
 
Specifically, ENCOM programmer Kevin Flynn's (Jeff Bridges)  legacy to his adult son, Sam  (Garrett Hedlund) is a virtual Grid that has miraculously sprouted independent, artificial life.  The Grid and its young life forms -- Isos -- can either prove detrimental to the human race or something completely glorious: a change (or evolution?) to rock the very foundations of medicine, science, and even religion.  
 
And as the sequel ends, Sam becomes the keeper of that torch for the time being.  He can either repeat his father's mistakes...or learn from them

That's the narrative terrain of the movie, and TRON Legacy explores it about as deeply and as meaningfully as one would desire from a high-tech, 3-D, action entertainment.  Niggling complaints aside, this is a genre film featuring just about the right alchemical equation of thrills and heart.
 
Despite this relatively adroit balance of action and "think" sequences -- plus some truly kick-ass 3-D moments -- many film reviewers have been grievously unkind to TRON Legacy.  But really, this just is deju vu all over again.  Those of us who were around in 1982 remember that TRON also earned bad notices for the most part.

For instance, New York Times critic Janet Maslin essentially called the original Lisberger effort beautiful but stupid.  And that's a variation of the same charge leveled against this sequel in the closing weeks of 2010.

However, if you enjoyed and appreciated the original TRON, it's probably a safe bet you will also appreciate this very faithful, very enjoyable follow-up film.  It seems like many critics -- echoing the film's villain, CLU -- are seeking their own personal brand of "perfection."  Not finding it,  these reviewers fail to enjoy the movie's on its own stated terms.

In terms of narrative structure, the 2010 sequel almost slavishly apes the blueprint of the original film, and in terms of human interest, the sequel dramatizes the affecting story of an ambitious father who seeks perfection outside the human realm of his family...and ultimately comes to regret his mistake.  After correcting that mistake, he passes on his legacy to another protector: the son he once abandoned.

There are indeed minor resonances of Apocalypse Now (1979) in the TRON Legacy mix too, as I had hoped there would be after seeing the early previews.  Jeff Bridge's older (but not necessarily wiser...) Flynn is a Kurtz-like figure who leaves the difficult, emotional world of family and responsibility behind, and who then stakes out his own fiefdom "up river," in the virtual world, seeking to shape it exactly to his liking. 

These background touches lend TRON Legacy a solid grounding in the human realm, even when the intense gladiatorial sequences come hot and heavy, and the screen is splashed with dazzling, dueling neon lights.  In terms of action, the movie is also pretty much unimpeachable: it's an exciting film, legitimately augmented by the 3-D process so to feel totally immersing.
 
"Change the scheme! Alter the mood! Electrify the boys and girls if you'd be so kind."  

TRON Legacy begins in 1989, some seven years after the events of TRON. Kevin Flynn has defeated Dillinger and the MCP, and reclaimed ENCOM. One night, Flynn informs his young son, Sam, of a breakthrough on The Grid; a miracle that could "change everything."

He is never seen again.

Decades later, a grown Sam -- aimless and hurt over the disappearance of his Dad all those years ago -- continues to be a thorn in the side of ENCOM, a software company threatening to fall into the clutches of Dillinger's money-hungry son (Cillian Murphy). 

Although Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) speaks up for the missing Flynn's philosophy and wishes, the inhuman corporation is only interested in profits.  Sam's attempts to hijack ENCOM"s new release (a new- but-not-improved operating system) are not greeted warmly by the Board.

Then, however, Alan comes to Sam with curious news that he  has received a page from Flynn; a page originating from Flynn's Arcade.  Sam visits the old Arcade and finds the means -- in the basement -- to transport himself to the Grid.  Almost immediately, Sam is apprehended there, in the computer world, by the gestapo-like forces of the Grid's commandant, CLU (Jeff Bridges). 
 
CLU -- Kevin Flynn's doppelganger -- dispatches Sam to the life-or-death gladiatorial games that the Grid's Program's seem to hunger for, but the lad escapes at the last minute, thanks to the intervention of the beautiful Quorra (Olivia Wilde).  She takes Flynn to meet with his father, and Sam learns of the Virtual World's history; a history marred by Clu's attempt to achieve a "perfect system."

In attaining that lofty goal, Clu has actually resorted to genocide, destroying the self-aware beings who were born inside the grid, the Isos.  Now, Clu wants to go even further: he wants to take his genocidal ways to the outside world and reshape our human life.  But he needs Flynn's identity disc to accomplish this goal; to find the hidden way out of the computer world... 

"Out there is a new world! Out there... is our destiny!"

In very specific terms, TRON Legacy, mimics the narrative flow of the original Lisberger film.  In the 1982 effort, Flynn entered the computer world and was captured.  He was then -- rather promptly -- put on the game grid.   The elder Flynn first had to battle a single enemy on a dangerous game platform, and later had to engage other Programs in battle inside the light-cycle arena.  Following an escape, Flynn and his friends used a beam rider as transport to cross the virtual wasteland and reach their quarry: the malevolent MCP.

In the 2010 sequel, the same sequence repeats.  Sam is zapped into the Grid, and captured by a Recognizer.  He is forced into disc-on-disc combat against a single opponent, and then put into light cycle combat.  After an escape with Quorra, Flynn and his Dad use a beam rider to transport across the virtual wasteland and reach their quarry: a portal that can return them to the "real world." 

The characters are similar too.  In both films, we encounter a triumvirate or triangle involving one female and two males. 

The identical order of events -- and deliberately re-use of  trademark franchise moments such as the disc battle, light-cycle race and beam-rider interlude -- suggest that this "Grid test," as it were, is actually symbolic.  It's a rite of passage.  First the Dad had to survive it, and now it is the son's turn to run the same gauntlet. 

Since so much of TRON Legacy concerns the the son growing up, and (hopefully) avoiding the mistakes of his father, this narrative structure does not feel like a re-hash of the earlier film, but rather an important point of context.  This is life, the broaching of adulthood and responsibility, the movie seems to intimate. And by putting our new hero, Sam through the same events his father endured -- and in the same order, no less --the film gets that point across rather nicely, and without forcing the issue. 

The prime difference between original and sequel arises not in the order which the the action-packed events occur, but rather in the perspective in which how they are viewed.  In the first film, Flynn attempted to survive in someone else's system. 

Here, Kevin and his son are struggling in the system the Father engineered...a system controlled by a monstrous, calculating alter ego called CLU (voiced by Bridges and visualized by CGI). 

In other words, this is the story of one father and two sons. 

Sam is the human son Kevin left behind for the technological "miracles" of his work, his job.  And CLU is the technological son Kevin  abandoned when CLU's viewpoints about a "perfect system" diverged from his Father's ideals.  Everything that occurs in the virtual world of TRON Legacy is a clear result of dear old Dad's mistakes; his vanity and arrogance.  His "God Complex," if you will.

Kevin Flynn believed he could craft a utopia, a perfect system, but didn't stop to consider  that his "computer" son, CLU, might execute his will in an inhuman manner (owing to his nature as a machine.)  When Flynn is later greeted by his (prodigal?) son, Sam -- a fallible but wholly human creation -- he realizes, in a sense, the error of his ways.  He realies that "perfection" was indeed within in his reach all along, but it was a "perfection" resting in his feelings of love and devotion for his biological, human son. "Engineering" perfection was an impossibility all along.  Perhaps only God -- who created both Kevin and the Isos -- could engineer such perfect creations.

It's not too difficult, given this context, to view TRON Legacy as a kind of critique or commentary on the different stages of adulthood, really.  As a young man, Flynn rebelled against "The System," (the MCP, Dillinger running ENCOM, etc.) and took down that system.  Now, years later...as an older man, Kevin Flynn is The System.  And all the problems encountered in the sequel are not external ones of another individual's making.  They are his mistakes.

Again, this is how life is. 

As youngsters, we have so much to rail and rage against: the Establishment, the way-of-things, the world at large, the slow pace of change.  As middle-aged men and women, we are the ones to be rebelled against; the living, breathing results of a million choices and (some) bad decisions.   The world around us is one we've made, or at least shaped. 

I should hasten to add, this 2010 sequel is clearly and cleverly designed for the contemporary middle aged guy, like me. It arrives in theaters nearly three decades after the original TRON.  I was twelve years old when I saw the original; only-just forty one when I saw the sequel. 

Smartly, the movie makers take into account that so much time has passed and have crafted a film that appeals to that same audience, only grown up.  We are now the fathers, not the sons.  We are the ones who have made the mistakes.  How do we want to be remembered?

TRON Legacy both passes the torch to the next generation, and brings Kevin Flynn some measure of peace and understanding about his amazing life; and the mistakes he has made.   His acceptance of his flaws is visualized perfectly, and in distinctly sci-fi terms, when he must literally take them all back.  Those errors and foibles have coalesced in the person of CLU, and in the end, Flynn must re-absorb CLU into himself.  It's the ultimate act of responsibility, and one that paves the way for Sam and Quorra to have a positive future.

Perhaps this plot line is the reason why the younger fan boys may not groove so much on the film.  Though youthful Sam is undeniably the physical hero of the pic, Kevin Flynn remains the heart and soul of the Tron universe.  His journey is the one that resonates deeply, at least with those who fell in love with TRON twenty-eight years ago. 

And I should add as well, that the journey of TRON (Boxleitner) himself nicely  reflects and augments Flynn's journey of self-discovery.  TRON too has changed over the years -- veritably going to the dark side -- before a last minute redemption saves the day.  Watching our two heroes of yesteryear in this film -- responsible for and absorbed by the prevailing system -- men of my age must wonder if this too has happened to us, in the "real world."

In very simple terms, the movie reminds us to pay attention to our children, and not to let professional ambition interfere with what is perhaps the only truly perfect, unconditional thing in this mortal coil: the love of a son or daughter

To some that idea may sound hokey or corny, and I rarely make blanket statements like "you need to be a parent" to enjoy this film.  But in the case of TRON Legacy  it certainly helps you enjoy this film if you are over thirty, have some familiarity and nostalgia for the original, and are the parent of a child.

In terms of visual expression and ingenuity, I would still give the nod to TRON as a superior genre film, but I feel that TRON Legacy does not dishonor the original's accomplishments in any, way, shape or form

Indeed, this 2010 sequel culminates on a tight, unassuming two-shot of Sam and Quorra (Olivia Wilde) -- an artificial life form called an "ISO" -- riding off on a motorcycle together into the unwritten, unprogrammed future.

This is an appropriate and timely image, for Man and his technology have become infinitely more intertwined in 2010 than they were in 1982. The sequel's ending thus reflects our increasing sense of comfort with computers, software and "applications." Monolithic, computerized monstrosities such as HAL and the MCP don't carry the same dramatic power they once did because so many of us "interface" with our Droids, desktops, laptops, Internet and other high-tech tools several times a day.

Not once have these advanced tools tried to bite our hands, or transform us into malevolent, unfeeling cyborgs.

So TRON Legacy's final visual flourish -- the motorcycle two-shot with Sam and Quorra -- actually portends a kind of welcoming man/machine intimacy: the total marriage of the natural world and the technological one. A new direction that -- given our vigilance -- can open up a new information age and broaden our understanding of creation itself.
Technology is our co-pilot, in other words.

This idea is a dramatic and valid next step beyond TRON's Reagan-era ending, a deliberate moving of the ball down the field to our current epoch and its unique pitfalls and promises. 

In this fashion and in this ending, the 2010 sequel speaks to today's youth in the same literate and cinematic matter as its predecessor spoke to my generation. 

In the end, both TRON and TRON Legacy are not about video "games," but about how people choose to use or misuse technology.  Intriguingly, these movies also show how our high-tech creation's mirror -- more and more -- their creators.

Let's hope that these "programs" will continue to "fight for the users" on the Grid -- and in reality -- for generations to come.

All I Want for Retro-Christmas Countdown (3 Days Left...): Merlin!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

The Cult-TV Faces of: Childhood
















All I Want for Retro-Christmas Countdown (4 Days Left...): Ideal's Zeroids!

Monday, December 20, 2010

All I Want for Retro-Christmas Countdown (5 Days Left): ROM the Space Knight!

Sunday, December 19, 2010

CULT TV FLASHBACK # 125: Nightmare Cafe (1992)


"Lost somewhere between life and death, time and eternity, there are places which...leave you forever changed. This is one such place...Each door leads someone to that second chance that will turn their life around and to others that reckoning that will end their sleep forever. Welcome to...the Nightmare Cafe."

- The opening narration to Wes Craven's Nightmare Cafe (1992).

On January 29, 1992, auteur Wes Craven and horror icon Robert Englund introduced the world to their latest genre collaboration: the NBC TV series called Nightmare Cafe. 

Although the series only lasted for six hour-long episodes before abrupt cancellation, it nonetheless remains a fascinating and unusual entry in the cult-tv Valhalla. 

At the time the show premiered (the year following David Lynch's Twin Peaks...), many people involved in the production referred to the program as "The Twilight Zone meets Cheers."

Writing for New York Magazine, critic John Leonard called the Craven TV series "rather witty" (March 2, 1992, page 59) though, in contrast, Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker opined that Nightmare Cafe was "Dull, stupid, and really annoying." (February 28, 1992, page 42).                         

Nightmare Cafe involves two "average joes," Faye Perronovic (Lindsay Frost) and Frank Nolan (Jack Coleman) as they unexpectedly become entangled with a supernatural, or perhaps mystical edifice: the Nightmare Cafe. 

The cafe itself is a kind of art deco, retro-noir-styled eating establishment perched on a seedy waterfront; the kind of joint -- or "dive" -- that is open all night every night, and no one seems to notice...or care.  In one episode, the diner is even called "a dump."

Already stationed inside the mysterious cafe is a third character: Blackie (Robert Englund), a sardonic, faintly-demonic man of unknown origin, motives and agenda.  In the first episode of Nightmare Cafe, he informs Faye and Frank that "Good or bad, dead or alive," the Cafe gets "all kinds" and that this duo  has "been selected" (by the cafe...) to help such strangers "and maybe learn something" about themselves "along the way."

So, rather unconventionally, Blackie serves as both the "Rod Serling" of the unusual TV series -- a narrator and master of ceremonies in the individual installments -- and an unpredictable, Loki-like player in the proceedings themselves.   At various points, you wonder if Blackie is the Devil, or simply a reformed soul doing "penance" for bad deeds in life.

In various guises and appearances, Blackie leads men and women (the series guest stars...) either to redemption or doom, and Englund is perfect in this unique role.  After all, Englund had played both the innocent Willie on V: The Series (1985) and the most famous screen-monster of the 1980s, Freddy Krueger.  A truly versatile player, Englund's Blackie proves a "wild card" and his very presence in Nightmare Cafe -- so ambiguous and unexcavated -- adds a sense of fun to each segment.

After confronting their own personal demons in the pilot episode directed by Philip Noyce, Faye becomes waitress in the cafe; Frank the short order cook.  And their weekly clientele is anyone who happens to wander in, perhaps at the heeding of the sentient Cafe itself. 

Various doorways in the colorful cafe lead to other worlds, to other times, and to alternate possibilities.  In fact, the Cafe is not entirely unlike Dr. Who's famous TARDIS: it can come and go to different locales as it chooses, and seems very much alive.  In one episode, "Faye and Ivy," the Cafe even nurses hurt feelings for a time.

In interviews at the time, Wes Craven described the Nightmare Cafe premise this way: "two people inherit a cafe that's somewhere between life and death," and that "People come to experience their worst nightmare...turning point...comeuppance...breakthrough. (Steve Biodrowski. Cinefantastique, Volume # 22, Number 2: "Wes Craven, Alive and Shocking." October 1991, page 11).

In other words, imagine the Twilight Zone as a diner; but with a set of continuing characters to shepherd visitors through the strange happenings and twisty narratives.  Thus Nightmare Cafe is a wholly unique show: part-anthology and part serial adventure with regular characters.  Perhaps the clearest, most familiar TV antecedent is ABC's Fantasy Island (1977 - 1984), which also saw regular characters (Mr. Roarke and Tattoo...) leading guest stars through weekly stories that could leap across established genres.  Romances, horror tales, fantasy, etc...
Accordingly, the six episodes in Nightmare Cafe's stable really run the gamut in terms of narratives and style. 

"Dying Well is the Best Revenge" (March 6, 1992) is a film  noir-styled murder story, replete with a femme-fatale and a would-be "patsy," Frank himself. 

"Faye and Ivy" (March 13, 1992) is a kind of family drama about Faye making peace with her long-estranged sister, Ivy (Penny Fuller). 

"The Heart of the Mystery" (March 20, 1992)  involves another interesting variation on noir conventions, with an obsessed detective (Timothy Carhart) offered the opportunity to travel back in time and witness a crime that he has never been able to solve. 

"Sanctuary for a Child" (March 27, 1992) -- starring Angela Bassett and William B. Davis -- involves a dying boy, Luke (Brandon Adams, of Craven's The People Under the Stairs [1991]) -- who cannot ascend to the spiritual realm until his bickering, resentful parents reconcile. 

And finally, "Aliens Ate My Lunch" (April 3, 1992) is a crazy satire about a Tabloid reporter who makes up a story about alien invaders.  The Cafe makes his unbelievable story all too true, and Craven uses this story (which he penned) to make a comment on the "mob mentality," in the very spirit of Serling's "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street."

In many ways, Nightmare Cafe remains an important element in the career of Wes Craven.  At the time of the program's broadcast, it was the latest development in his "rubber reality" horror formula (which included the Nightmare on Elm Street films, Serpent and the Rainbow [1987], and Shocker [1989]) and an indication of the Pirandello-esque direction he would soon take in cinematic efforts such as Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) and the blockbuster, Scream (1996).

I've always believed that given a little more time -- and some patience from NBC -- Nightmare Cafe could have proved a really potent, beloved, and long-lived horror series.  But with only six episodes in its canon, one might feel rightlfy that the show never truly found a consistent voice or approach.

Following cancellation, Nightmare Cafe matriculated to the Sci-Fi Channel in the mid-1990s.  There, it would often air as part of the "Series Collection" at 5:00 am on Sunday mornings, a time slot no better for the unusual series than its original Friday night perch. 

Under that umbrella "Series Collectin" description, Nightmare Cafe joined other failed -- but oft-remembered and appreciated efforts -- series such as Planet of the Apes (1974), The Fantastic Journey (1977),  The Amazing Spider-man (1978), and Darkroom (1981).
 

All I Want for Retro-Christmas Countdown (6 Days Left): Shogun Warriors

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Book Review: Horror Noir

In 2008, I had the pleasure of receiving a review copy of Tech-Noir: The Fusion of Science Fiction and Film Noir by Paul Meehan. 

That highly-detailed film reference book utterly captivated me, and was a creative, thoughtful and thorough examination of the ties binding the film noir to the science fiction genre since the origination of film as an art form.

I've read and re-read Meehan's Tech-Noir ever since -- especially because I have hopes of crafting a Tech-Noir web or film production one of these days (named "Goblin Market")  -- and so I looked forward with great anticipation to the author's follow-up sister text, Horror Noir: Where Cinema's Dark Sisters Meet.

In short, this 2010 film book from McFarland doesn't disappoint. 

Meehan returns to his film studies with a well-written monograph on the "juncture of criminality and monstrosity" in cinema, the crossroads where horror and film noir  intersect.

In his introduction, Meehan rightly notes that, in large part, film noir and the horror film share a "realm of cinematic style," meaning, as he enumerates them: low-key ratio-lighting, absence of fill-light, wide-angle lens use in close-ups to distort faces, etc. 

Meehan also points out the deployment in both genres of "anti-traditional narrative techniques," meaning flashbacks and voice-over narration specifically. This chapter nicely sets the parameters of the ensuing survey, allowing the reader to understand which productions exist in the unique "space" of the horror noir, and why so.

Following the introduction, Meehan provides a nifty and pithy distinction between supernatural and psychological horror, and then launches right into the macabre meat of the book: a decade-by-decade survey of films he highlights as belonging to this union of genres; to this so-called "horror noir." 

The author begins the study in the 1930s with films such as Dr. X (1932) and Freaks (1932) and then moves into the 1940s with examples such as Nightmare Alley (1947) and Night has a Thousand Eyes (1948). 

The chapter-by-chapter scan of the decades brings readers right up to the present with discussions of recent films such as The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008). That often-derided (but I think genius...) Chris Carter film is actually the epitome of horror noir, particularly in its emphasis on the film noir theme of "black medicine," (think Eyes without a Face, as Meehan trenchantly points out...).  

I must confess, this was not an angle of the Carter film I had really considered thoroughly, and which makes an I Want to Believe re-watch absolutely necessary.  On a side-note, I deeply respect and admire film books that achieve this goal; they make me want to go back and see a film again, with new information critical to a different interpretation of it.  In the course of the book, Meehan achieves this threshold over and over, bringing a new and valid viewpoint to films you have enjoyed in the past, but perhaps on a different basis.

In between the decade survey chapters, Meehan takes the reader down some fascinating side alleys too, into "Monster Noir," "Hitchcock's Psychological Ghosts and Dopplegangers," "The Noir Horrors of Hannibal the Cannibal" and my personal favorite, "Mean Streets of Hell," the chapter that discusses Exorcist III (1990), Jacob's Ladder (1990), Se7en (1995), Lord of Illusion (1995) and Scorses's Shutter Island (2010).  All of these films endlessly fascinate me -- even if some don't quite work -- and it was illuminating to read about them under this new, organizing rubric of horror noir.

As a writer of reference books myself, I am sensitive to reviews that note how I reviewed 300 films reaaly well, but forgot one.  I mean...nobody's perfect, you know?  Gee whiz!   I don't want to be a book reviewer who can't see the forest through the trees like that.  

However,  -- that caveat established -- I must point out that Horror Noir does not mention or review the film I consider to be the greatest horror noir of the 1990s, and one made by the film noir's greatest modern director, Roman Polanski. 

I'm talking about 1999's The Ninth Gate, starring Johnny Depp.  That work of supreme intelligence and depth co-opts the highest quality of the film noir (the outward "investigation" leading to an inner discovery about the nature of self) to imply a world beyond our mortal perception; a world of authentic evil.  The Polanski film also features a great, infinitely ambiguous ending which was perfect for the Y2K times in which the film was crafted.

Beside that gap in the discourse, however, Meehan ably and intelligently surveys over 110 horror noirs (from Alias Nick Beal [1949] to The X-Files I Want to Believe [2008]) here.  And to his credit, does a fantastic job discussing and analyzing Polanksi's famous Rosemary's Baby (1968) and the noir elements it co-opts so successfully.

Meehan ends his nearly-three-hundred page film survey with the thought that film's evil twins -- horror and noir -- will take new shapes in the years and decades to come.  If so, I hope Meehan will continue to document these evolutions and revolutions, and perhaps even tackle another intriguing subject he mentions tangentially in the text: Western Noir.

Paul Meehan's Horror Noir: Where Cinema's Dark Sisters Meet  is now available at Amazon.com and also through the publisher, McFarland, here.  I can recommend the latest Meehan book without reservation, and also suggest you pick up a copy of Meehan's groundbreaking Tech Noir.

All I Want for Retro-Christmas Countdown (7 Days Left...): Rock Lords

Friday, December 17, 2010

Destiny Destroyed: SGU Gets the Axe.


Sources all over the next are reporting that Stargate: Universe (SGU) has been cancelled.  The sci-fi series' final ten episodes will air on the Sy Fy Channel in Spring of 2011.

I must admit, I'm deeply bummed about this news.  I caught up with the first season of SGU on Netflix and found it not merely enjoyable, but actually the most daring, entertaining, and serious-minded of the entire, long-lived Stargate franchise. 

Here's the word:

Syfy will end its original action-adventure series Stargate Universe when the show returns with the final 10 episodes of its second season in the Spring of 2011. The Stargate franchise — consisting of Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe — has aired on Syfy since 2002. Syfy has a slate of new scripted projects lined up for 2011 including the series premiere of Being Human on January 17, the recently green lit one-hour drama series Alphas and the much anticipated, Battlestar prequel pilot movie, Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome. Warehouse 13, Eureka & Haven will also return w/new seasons next year


And here's some of my original review of the series from June of this year:

Stargate Universe is a bit edgier, somewhat more serious in intent, and far more mysterious than what I've seen of the other Stargate series. It showcases flawed but interesting human characters instead of gun-toting, romanticized ideals. It's also -- at least from what I've seen -- not as overtly militarized in bent. There are still several military characters involved in the drama, but the show isn't all guns and salutes. Not hardly.

SGU dramatizes a tale of disaster and survival. A group of officers, scientists and technicians from Earth are unexpectedly forced to abandon an off-world base called Icarus following a surprise attack on the installation.

But when the group evacuates through a star gate, it returns not to Earth, but lands bumpily aboard a damaged, colossal spaceship traveling at faster-than-light velocities towards the end of the universe itself.

The man responsible for this selection of destination is the inscrutable Dr. Nicholas Rush (Robert Carlyle), who has been working for years to puzzle out the last "chevron" on the Stargate technology in hopes of discovering more about the race that constructed it: The Ancients.

So, a group of about fifty or so people -- the "wrong people" -- according to Colonel Young (Louis Ferrara) are now trapped together aboard this inhospitable vessel named Destiny. In the opening three-part episode, "Air," life-support power fails and the crew is forced to scour a desert planet for resources needed to repair the C02 scrubbers. In the second episode, "Darkness," the ship's power fails completely, and in the third, "Light," Destiny becomes trapped on an apparent collision course with an alien star. A lottery is held to see which fifteen people will board an escape shuttle, and who will be forced to remain aboard the ship as it plummets towards the sun...

Outside of the Stargate franchise, SGU is heir to a rich cinematic and television legacy of space adventuring. The series' impressive opening shot -- of the huge Destiny gliding through the void -- puts the Empire's Star Destroyer and the inaugural shot of Star Wars [1977] -- to shame. Then, in the very next shot, the opener cuts to a Ridley Scott-esque tour of quiescent interior corridors, evoking the Nostromo in Alien (1979).

The notion of boarding and deciphering a starship of alien construction reminds me of the Liberator and Terry Nation's Blake's 7. And the scenario of men and women trapped on an out-of-control "vessel" unable to control speed or trajectory made me think of Space:1999's Moonbase Alpha. For good measure, the opener also throws in some (largely unnecessary) character flashbacks that evoke the early years of Lost (2004-2010).

And did I mention that the soundtrack boasts the Far Eastern, melancholy feel of Firefly?

Despite all these familiar touchstones, SGU makes some intriguing and positive modifications on formula. For one thing, the series eschews the horrible techno-babble that scuttled late-era Star Trek (Next Gen, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise).

On those 1990s programs (which have not aged well, for the most part...), the resolution of the crisis of the week always involved a simple re-shuffling of a deck of cards. Let's re-modulate the power array to shoot a graviton pulse at this tertiary domain of subspace that will seal the space/time rift blah blah blah.

Somehow, no matter what hand the crew of the Enterprise-D, Deep Space Nine or Voyager was dealt, it always managed to pull an ace from that deck. Once or twice of course, this was fine but after a while, the cumulative effect was actually a negative statement about humanity and the supposedly-heroic Starfleet characters. They had no real resourcefulness or ingenuity of their own but they did have great technology, and simply by reshuffling the same deck every week, they could survive and flourish in the universe.

My hero and mentor, the late Johnny Byrne -- who served as story editor on the first year of Space: 1999 -- once compared late era Trek and Space: 1999 in the following way. He said that shows like Next Gen and Voyager assumed the characters already had everything they needed to succeed, whereas Space: 1999 adopted the perspective that the characters did not already have what they needed to survive.

Which approach do you think is inherently more dramatic?

And indeed, this is reason why so many episodes of Next Gen, Voyager and Enterprise feel so rote. The sense of danger is missing. In drama, when characters have everything that they need (even when separated from home base by a quadrant or two...), space adventuring just becomes a workaday job. And besides, the holodeck is open all night...

Refreshingly, SGU revives the earlier template, and adopts the perspective that the characters don't have the resources or know-how they need to survive, or, at the very least, don't yet understand how to master the technology that would permit survival to be anything approaching easy.

In other words, the Destiny may provide for all, but the crew -- again, the "wrong people" -- don't necessarily have the skill set to figure it all out. This is Johnny Byrne's Space:1999 principle applied, and applied well.

What I admire about SGU is that, even in these early shows, there's a lot of trial and error on display, a lot of attempts that go nowhere. At one crisis point in "Darkness," I was suddenly, out-of-the-blue, reminded of the Apollo 13 incident in 1970...of people working in space to solve pressing (nay, urgent...) problems with ingenuity, grace, available resources, and luck. The series really captures this vibe well. It's something about the danger of space travel and human inspiration intertwined...and it works. It's a concept that in large part, modern space adventure series have abandoned, and it's nice to see it back at the forefront of the medium.

SGU also gets something else right, and this is crucial. By and large, SGU allows the viewer to scan the drama for subtext rather than spelling out that subtext as, well, actual text.

This was always my primary concern with the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica [2005-2009]. Not that the producers seemed more interested in telling stories about Abu Ghraib, September 11th, Al Qaeda, the Geneva Conventions and late 20th century East/West perceptions of God than tales of survival in hostile galaxy, but that they did so in such an on-the-nose, obvious fashion.

By contrast, the early episodes of SGU feature some vivid human drama, but the series isn't crushingly self-important or pretentious in the way that Galactica often was. It doesn't spoon-feed you with obvious analogs for current events. It doesn't pat viewers on the back for knowing that "go frak yourself" is the same as Dick Cheney's famous "go fuck yourself." I mean, we get it, right?

Also, the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series was alarmingly lazy about creating the universe around itts human characters. On alien planets half-way across the universe, people drove late 20th century, American-produced Humvees. This was basically an admission on the part of the producers that television can't believably do "sci fi" -- a theorem I disagree vehemently with -- and so no real imagination was afforded for the look or design of the show; to create believable alien vistas, technology or cultures. The only civilizations in all of Battlestar Galactica were humans and their creation, the human-looking Cylons.

I just find that idea...immensely depressing. Kind of like us getting to outer space and discovering that in all the cosmos, in all the stars, there are just Liberals and Conservatives, or just Muslims and Christians. As a sci-fi series taking place in the great unknown, Battlestar Galactica could dream nothing better for mankind than perpetual divisiveness and partisanship. Of course, this is an entirely valid philosophy and approach...just not one that engaged me, personally, I suppose. I could always watch the series as an adrenaline-inducing pressure cooker...it worked very well in that sense. But the new BSG had no curiosity about the universe itself.

I have enjoyed what I've seen so far of Stargate SGU because it remembers that there is more in Heaven and Earth than is dreamed of in our human philosophy. The universe is a riddle; human nature is a riddle. There are mysteries and terrors in space beyond anything we can imagine. The series is actually based on a riddle itself, the mastery of an alien ship, Destiny. Why was the ship built? Where is it headed? What was its mission?

Because I am so immersed in the history, details and minutiae of sci-fi television, I often check with my barometer, my wife, Kathryn to see how she registers new programs. She watched the first disc of SGU episodes with me and, if anything, enjoyed the show even more than I did. She's no pushover. On the contrary, because she is not strictly a "sci-fi" fan, Kathryn can be cutting, even brutal, in her assessments of these programs.

One of her observations I found especially trenchant. She noted that the actors in the series seemed to have been cast for their abilities, not for their looks or youth. There are few underwear models here, in other words. The characters aren't all "smoldering" hotties in their early twenties, but real people doing their best in a difficult environment. And again, being the "wrong people," being unprepared for this journey, makes them, by and large, interesting to follow. Young clings to his military training. Rush clings to his belief that he can learn everything on Destiny...if given time, Eli clings to his sense of humor, and so on.

You can never guess what right or wrong turns a series will take as it continues down the long years, but in these early episodes, SGU is promising, dramatic and much better than I expected it would be. It hasn't dropped any land mines that may come back to haunt it (like the identity of the fifth Cylon, or the invisible tree-shaking monsters), and instead seems focused on a good concept and, so far, solid scripts.

I appreciate SGU for the same reason that I've always enjoyed original Trek and Space:1999. It's a program about Humans -- us -- trying to make our way in the stars with danger -- and opportunity -- around every turn. In each adventure, human constitution and ingenuity gets put on the table. Sometimes it fails, sometimes it succeeds in completing the task at hand. But these are programs that tell us, in every hour, that despite the failures, the sky can still be the limit.

Anyway, I'm disappointed to lose SGU as an ongoing series. 
 
Personally, I think it's folly for Sy Fy to double-down on the shaky Galactica franchise after the dramatic failiure of the prequel Caprica to lure an audience.   Blood and Chrome better be exquisite, but here's the thing: even a weekly war drama with robots, set in the past of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, is going to have to contend with the (poor...) way the earlier series ended.  Why?  What kept a majority of fans going on BSG throughout the up-an-down, rocky network run was the tantalizing notion of a "Cylon plan" emerging, and the solution to a compelling mystery, or rather set of mysteries.  What are the Cylons doing (what's their strategy)? Who are they (in terms of the hidden final five)? How does this saga connect to us here on Earth? 
 
Those questions answered, Blood and Chrome can only give us young (meaning re-cast...) versions of familiar characters, and an enemy we already fully understand, and whose endgame we now know.  Which mean it's just going to be space warfare, evil robots, and sexy pilots, apparently.    Now, I've always appreciated the world-weariness and experience of Olmos' Commander Adama, who wore the years of battle and combat on his fatigued, wise face.  But I'm simply not that intrigued with the idea of seeing Adama as a young, inexperienced buck blowing up Toasters from his viper cockpit.  Good for a flashback or two, sure, but as the milieu for a new, ongoing series?

By pointed contrast, SGU revealed that the makers of another and familiar, long-lived franchise were intent on exploring new horizons; delving into new and daring territory rather than treading into the familiar, safe past of a universe that many believed was past its prime.   It's a shame that such creativity and experimentation wasn't rewarded, and that Sy Fy is putting all its eggs in the Galactica prequel basket instead.

 We hardly knew SGU, but down the long years to come, I suspect the program's reputation as a worthy science fiction series will only grow; especially as the pop culture descends further into the pit of unnecessary prequels of re-imaginations.

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