Interstellar

Since this film came out November 2014 and the DVD release which happened on my birthday, March 30, 2015, I have spent time re-watching, reading about, and contemplating the ideas behind this film. Of course this film is about love, the best and greatest emotion to evolve on our planet. There was too much controversy over this theme during the film’s debut. For the lay person, a romantic story of love lost and regained is all that may be require to experience fulfillment at the cinema. For many others science fiction does not interest them, and it is still a mystery to me why these folks spend hard-earned cash on a film bound to disappoint. However, for those of us open to speculation, that love the idea of scientific facts taken to creative ends through fiction, this film is everything you can hope for or dream.

In a dystopian future, not too very distant from our world today, a family struggles to scratch out a living on one of the last farms in America. They grow corn, the last of the genetically manipulated foods still edible for human consumption. Doom is all around, even if the characters never say it. From the gigantic dust storms that blow through with 40, 50, 60 mph winds, to the very frightening idea that the planet’s atmosphere is losing its oxygen content, the uncomfortable idea settles in – humanity hasn’t much time left on planet Earth. The images created for this film by Christopher Nolan and his crew mix the horror of what’s to come with the beauty of what is being lost. A sadness creeps into the viewer as one’s own thoughts of the earth’s changing weather patterns are mimicked on the big screen.

Enter the big idea: find a new home for humanity. For our main family this idea is introduced by accident. A drone, left over from a technological world no longer relevant, streaks through the sky above them and lands not far ahead, setting before them an adventure that may well prove to be the last and best saving grace for humanity.

Matthew McConaughey, as Cooper, our main character, astronaut turned farmer, father of two and a fierce family man who has yet to leave his scientific brain in the dirt as the inevitable slip into dystopian oblivion settles around them, recognizes all too clearly what is coming, and even discusses the fact with his father (John Lithgow). He fights, he stands up, he carries his belief and the truths of the old life into an adventure to save the world, for one reason only – the love of his family.

Those of you yet to have children may not understand the sacrifices most of us would gladly take to save our children’s lives, but suffice it to say, I am certain I and many of the parents I know would go to these extremes to solidify a healthy and secure future for our children. Thus Cooper must decide to leave his family behind to ultimately save them. On the way he is reminded of how deeply love touches our soul as well as the knife strike of fear and how it can drive reasonable people to choose illogical means as their path.

The science in this film is profoundly sound. Quantum physics and theory are my interests and hobbies. I work in a science academy that more often than not delves into energy generation and climate change. I was quite satisfied with where this film took its audience and the fact that it did not distort real scientific fact to make its point. Of course, traveling through wormholes and black holes is just theory and so the creative part of these plot devices and settings is fiction, but good, believable fiction (so much more believable than warp-drive space ships that generate their own false gravity). This film is based on scientific fact and speculation and I found it refreshing as well as exhilarating.

The wormhole adventure, the wend into a black hole, TARS and CASE (the most appealing robots I have seen in a very long time), the dust storms on earth, Michael Cane as an old, dying scientist with a big secret, are reasons enough to watch this film. The cinematography is gorgeous, the special effects take your breath away, but it is the star of this film, McConaughey, that yanks you out of your comfort zone and places you smack dab in the middle of this epic dilemma and remains the most powerful element in the story. His command of topic, scene, and emotion remind me why he is our best leading male actor in 2015. I dare you to walk away while he is on the screen. Its simply impossible. He is a giant among the stars.

The end of this adventure literally made me cry… not the very end of the film which is a tear-jerker also, but the climatic end where Cooper’s sacrifice and destiny blend to bring comprehension of complicated quantum theories to a lay person in the audience open to fantastic ideas. The willingness of some people to give up everything, to sacrifice life itself so the rest of us can live uncomplicated lives cannot be down-played or overstated. These folks are simply heroes, in fiction and in real life, and though the theme of this film is more to do with family love, the love of humanity also shines through.

As your list of summertime films to watch grows I urge you to include Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Its hot outside and if you are unlucky enough to live in California where our water consumption has been restricted by climate change and cannot hang out at poolside, hang out on the couch and watch this marvelous piece of science fiction filmmaking. I promise, you will not regret the hours spent with this film or the ideas that swirl through your mind when you contemplate humanities’ future.  However, if you do find that you regret watching Interstellar as a waste of your precious time please – again – please tell me so, I may as a conciliation, send you a bag of genetically altered popcorn for your incredibly convenient microwave oven to make up for your lost hours of enjoyment.

Movie trailer can be seen here: https://youtu.be/0vxOhd4qlnA

Why I Love X-Men

Watching a Bryan Singer X-Men film is always a joy to me. There are so many hidden symbols and ideas in the periphery of each frame and each setting, that it takes several viewings to understand the author intent (director) of his films. Several times during the 2 plus hours of X-Men Apocalypse I found tears welling in my eyes or streaming down my cheeks. From my own childhood nightmare came nuclear missiles launching from their underground towers. Frightening. Heart-stopping to a child born in the cold war. From my first years as a young mother and the utter devastation of the near loss of my first born child this film had my emotions twisted into knots. Good film making tries to achieve this. Great film making brings this emotions to the forefront and asks you to philosophize your own place in these situations.

For me, X-Men is about Eric, is always about Eric, and will continue to be about Eric. The quality and depth of human experience brought to life by Michael Fassbender is nothing more than brilliance in acting.

I do not know how Fassbender was convinced to take on the role of Magnito, but his performances, grasping the raw power of Eric’s soul wrenching sorrow, is beyond even the convincing pain and suffering Hugh Jackman brings to Wolverine. I have seen many films in which Michael Fassbender gives award winning performances, and I mean in no way to dishonor those that have played Magnito in the past, but Fassbender brings such emotional power to Eric/Magnito that in my Pea-Brain he is the one and only Magnito.

For example, as he stands before the men he he has worked with for over half a decade, the same men of which he risked everything to save lives, and became exposed for doing so, his eyes literally burn with a mixture of hatred and sadness as he pronounces his judgement on them. A powerful moment indeed for Eric, yet stolen but not forgotten in a spplit second. Fassbender brings every emotion and reaction any one of us would experience to this complete scene. With Singer’s direction Fassbender creates a moment that is both horrifically frightening but secretly satisfying as he seeks his angry revenge.

This is what makes X-Men films great. In a scene that could have come off as just cheesy, but instead is humorous by reminding all of us just how silly we can be when we are confronted, in real time, with a long lost love. When Charles again comes face to face with Moira after many, many years his fascination with her is barely controllable and leads the audience toward an endearment for him and his awkward predicament. These emotions that do not play as cheesy but as true to what we would all actually experience if we in Charles seat and where the genius of Bryan Singer as director comes into play.

There is also the way in which CGI is used that other film makers should take note, especially Disney with its Star Wars treatments… CGI in an X-Men movie piloted by Singer is always necessary and never gratuitous. There is a purpose behind every fantastic use and it always enhances the story rather than takes attention away. For example, as the pyramid crumbles around Apocalypse (En Sabah Nur) instead of focusing on the gigantic boulders reigning down on the followers of this god, Singer has the camera focus on the expressions of those whose lives will be crushed under those boulders. There in the faces and eyes of the soon to be dead runs the emotional gambit and you are forced, as an audience member, to think of these minor characters as emotional beings at the moment of an horrific death.

X-Men is all about death, and life, and how we each choose to live it.Mystique reminds Eric that he still has a life to live and that she chooses to make the very best of it even if she is to breath her last in a moment or two. Her message reaches down to the pit of what it means to be human and Eric, as well as the audience, hears her determination to make life rather than revenge the most important choice.

Fassbender at that moment says no words but in Magnito’s eyes, in the expression of his magnificent face, Eric’s love for humanity, for his family, for all that have families and love others, burst forth and his choice for life is unselfish and sacrificial.

This is why I love X-Men.

Science Fiction or Horror: The Difference

A Difference as Wide as the Grand Canyon: Science Fiction and Horror Are Not the Same Genre

4KERRA

I work with teenagers everyday. It is a given in my job that this group of humanis ignorant about a lot of things in our world. It is the reason we call cshool education, we teachers educate the ignorant. Teenagers love the horror genre. They seem to love the blood and gore and love to be scared for silly reasons that have no foundation in the real world. That is okay with me and when filmmakers create a new way of scaring people i applaud the effort.

In my job however I use science fiction to teach many literary terms and devices. In the roots of science fiction are science facts. I suppose the same could be said for really well written horror stories, but overall the main idea in horror is to scare whereas in science fiction it is to question and dream based upon scientofic theory.

Our good friend Jessica and The Velvet Cafe (wordpress.com), just the other day, reviewed the great film Dark City. There is no doubt that Dark City is a science fiction genre film, and yet it has unmistakable elements of horror wrapped within its plot. Its mysterious “men in black” resemble things of which nightares are made rather than and an alien space race. The mystery and intrugue of the opening murder scene plays out more like a horror story than a science fiction film, and yet, in the end this movie is a science fiction genre film.

So then, what is the difference between the two genre’s and how can an audience member distinguish between the two?

Science fiction must, from the out set have science in it. We are not looking for a scientist doing scientific work, but the theme or story must have a predominately science face to it. Let us look back a few decades to the famous comic Dick Tracy to clarify this point.

Dick Tracy wore upon his wrist what looked to be a watch, but in 1946 it was reveal as a two-way communications device. Small and concealable this device led to Tracy’s talent for capturing criminals. Today most of carry a device much similar to that device but instead of it being a watch we call them cell phones.

This little device transformed a detective comic into a science fiction comic. Soon after the invention of the scifi wrist watch Tracy began using other devices linked to technology theorized for the future. This in itself is the basis for science fiction. Taking the technology of the day and theorizing its evolution in the future.

Horror on the other hand is all about the scare. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts and hatchet killers are meant to scare the average person and with the exception of hatchet killers have no link to the real world.

Dark City (Warning Big Time Spoilers!!!!) tricks the audience into believing it is a horror film by focusing on the amnesia of its main character and the mysterious murder. Lots of blood in that scene set the audience up for the horror-mystery however as the story movies along sets change in such a strange way that only a science fiction plot would make believable. As the powers of the men in black are more readily revealed we see them have the power to fly or float and a great machine is revealed that seems to harness the laws of universal physics and turn them inside out. As the science of the story becomes more prevalant the horror is set aside for the grand finale. In the end a mind-blowing scenario is presented that underscores the science over the horror. Only on a spaceship can the events the main characters witness or run through actually happen.

Alien is another film that mixes the genre’s and yet, in the end, can only be science fiction. No doubt the horror buffs out there believe Alien to be classic horror, but when examined for specific genre devices Alien fits squarely into science fiction. The horror elements abound. Dark, cramped spaces that can lead to paranoia; a monster of the likes no one had ever seen or imagined before; the solitary quest for at least one human to survive the drama of almost certain violent death: these are evidence of horror devices and they work very well to scare the living daylights out of the audience.

The science fiction elements and devices however out weigh the horror thus makingAlien squarely science fiction at its best. The opening scene. We see what looks like ordinary people waking out of cryo-sleep. Soon we come to understand they are space miners working for a company only known as The Company, but instead of being awakened within earth based space territory they find themselves about to orbit an alien and as of yet unknown (to them) moon of a gas giant. Their space ship has responded to an SOS plea and they are now under contract to check it out.

Every element that drives this story up to the chest-bursting moment is steeped in science fiction based on science fact. Mining in outer space has always been a goal of futurists and in the second decade of the 21st century will become science fact. Beyond this we are faced with the cryo-sleep chambers of which it is rumored Walt Disney’s head is preserved in one. Science fiction? Science fact? Who knows for certain, but these elements are necessary to tell this particular story.

As the Alien story begin to unfold and after the chest-burster escapes into the vastness of the mining space ship the story begins to borrow horror elements I mentioned above. Every mystery and/or detective storyline in novels and film use these devices to one extent or another, but are not mistaken for horror genre. They are necessary to build suspense and keep the audience guessing.

The most in-your-face science fiction moment in Alien is when it is revealed that the science officer Ash is actually an andriod… a robotic man sent on the expidition to carry out the hidden agenda. Without the element of this science fiction plot twist Alien would have been almost 50/50 scifi and horror, however one cannot deny with all this science fiction elements in place this story fits most snugly into science fiction with horror overtones.

It is easy to see how the unintiated firn horror and science fiction hard to distinguish since both use many of the same story telling devices. It is then always good to remember that if you doubt what you are watching and its category you remember these couple of criteria.

*Horror is meant to scare.

*Science fiction although can be quite scary, is meant to take science theory to a new and intriguing level of postulation and questioning.

*Horror is usually bloody.

*Science fiction leaves the audience with a mind full of wonder, excitment, and specualtion.

Go out my friends and explore the world of film, and hopefully you shall have a better understanding of genre and what it is you are watching. Enjoy for all is meant to entertain and please.

Marvel Universe from the Female POV

This article with feedback was written several years ago, however the ideas (from my very female point of view) are still solid, maybe even more so as Marvel adds to its universe so many gorgeous male specimens.

Marvel Comics or Muscle Mania? Who Cares When The Men Are This Hot!

4KERRA

I can’t be the only female out there whose noticed that Marvel Comics films have, lately, and consistantly become an incredible source of flaming-hot leading men. These are jalepeno-spiced hunks who can also act as well as they look. All I can say, is thank the movie gods (Athena, Aphrodite, Hollywood casting agents), for finally giving us women that which men get as a given in almost every film: shirtless hotness, skin galore, with handsome on top!

Now, I am not suggesting that leading men in other films are not gorgeous. I would never turn down the opportunity to, let’s say, date Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, or Jeremy Renner. However, the truth of the matter is this: in film, a woman does not have to put on a super hero costume to turn the men in the audience into quivering piles of man-flesh. A slinky silk dress or lacey lingere, common in all films these days, is there for the tantalization as well as a detail to advance the story or plot… well, at least that’s what they say.

So that’s a given, and it always turns out that I have to listen to the oooos and awes of men like Karl on how freakn’ hot this leading lady or that supporting actress was in or out of the outfit. This use to bother the hell out of me because I would think, oh yeah, the leading guy is hot, but not once did he take off his shirt, or skip around in his skivvies.

Then came a curious and very welcome turn of events. The Marvel Action Hero with all his rippling muscles and handsomely chisled body burst upon the movie screen. These men are not just boyishly cute or ruggedly handsome. They are drop-dead gorgeous. What woman last summer didn’t wipe the drool from her chin and wish to be Ms. Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) standing in front of Chris Evans in the “reveal” scene in Captain America. Oooooh man! My skirt caught fire! Women finally got a taste of what men are given in regular doses. And what could be better than Chris Evans as Captain America? Ummmm, how about Chris Hemsworth as Thor. Geeze just lazar-melt me right now. I mean could there be an average gym hopping, party-busting guy out there with arms as gorgeously buff, eyes that sparkle so cerulean, and a smile sure to stop Medusa in her tracks? Triple drool time.

Oh, sorry, apologies, I guess this article has devolved into that pool of drool I find near the middle of my blouse every time I watch one of these films.

Men have been doing this forever, and damnit, its about time women hold those chins up and say… yes, more time with Ironman as he has problems with that cool power-pack-thing embedded in his chest so we can see that strong-lean hunk of a man, Robert Downey Jr. shirtlessly wrestle himself into a sweaty fit for 5 more minutes. Convince me people that the women who line up to see these super hero films are there for the intricacies of plot, twists in storyline, and 3-dimensional charactarization. I’m all for a film that tells a good story, and most of these Marvel Comics films have a decent story behind them, but I will pass up another 3-hour, plodding Dragon-Tattoo movie or Hornet’s Nest film to watch a Super Hero take off his shirt.

Hooray for Marvel Comics Heroes like X-Men Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber as half brothers Wolverine and Sabertooth bare-chested and fighting. Yipee for this summer’s up-coming Avengers film where both Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth will be shirtless together, in the same scene, same room, standing almost next to each other in the deep reaches of S.H.I.E.L.D’s super-secret underground. Eye-candy? You betcha, as Marge Gunderson would say, as I firmly believe Marge is kicking back along with me on my little hot-bod-party-boat enjoying these film’s fine attributes.

Actually, its about time. Costumed Super Heroes have revolutionized the summertime viewing experience for woman across the globe. The count-down to May is on and the warm-weather movie rush will soon be with us. Heroic Marvel Comics characters will flash across my neighborhood movie screen with glowing, youthful energy, clever banter, shining smiles to-die-for, and those magnificant hot-bods. Got movie tickets? Cheers ladies.

*Update on Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 10:09AM by Karl

Wow!!  What else can I say?? You actually admitted you’re just like me!! You objectify your gender-preference just like I do!!

I guess that means all your complaining about my lust for Gina Carano is null and void, because you have the same drool reaction as I do??

BTW- here’s a tip- bring an absorbent towel to “The Avengers” when it opens this summer. That wet spot on your blouse is really not that attractive.

Again, I stand by what I said in my “Full Moon” posting…women deserve the same treatment with eye-candy and fanservice as we men do.  Go ahead and pant for those boys, Vicki.  I applaud you for doing so, and I will always stand by your right as a female viewer to be the same as us men.

Of course, dear readers, I should mention that she has that same reaction when she sees Steve Buscemi on the screen…..oh whoopsie, I shouldn’t have posted that.

So in all fairmess to Vicki, and to stop her from spilling the beans, I have one thing to say….

Kathy Bates- HAB baby, HAB!!!! (Hot as ba**s).

*Update on Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 11:34AM by 4Kerra

Halt! Stop right there big guy. You assume a connection where the string holding our opinions together is more like fraying yarn. Never in a million life times, or in the myriad of the multiverse, will I ever be just like you! Get that out of your thick skull right now. Although lust is a good thing (a very, very good thing) it rarely taints my movie experience in quite the same way as it does yours. I have lusted after (as Jimmy Carter might say, in my fantasy life) McGregor, Fassbender, and Renner in roles other than their heroic charactarizations in films like The Island, Centurion, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, but my point was and still is the amount of male bare skin in these films.

Steve Buscemi, Jeffrey Combs, Brad Dourif, Bruce Campbell quite interesting men/actors, all of them. Would I date them? Hell yes, in a heart beat, I am not a “bod” woman per say. My apologies to all the wives, but yes, any of these men I find “hot” in their own way, but that is not the point Karl. And perhaps you protest too much and try to have me jump on the drool bandwagon too quickly. Why is that?

My “lust” for leading men does not stem from an adolescent desire. If the lust factor pops up it usually has something to do with the character and its symbolism. However, the lust factor in movies such as Thor and Captain America slide it into objectification with beautiful man bodies that cannot be ignored. I know 80 year-old women who comment lustily after those two young men. Right or wrong or perhaps “normal” it is about time that we acknowledge women lust also.

Yet my deeper point, of which I think is valid and waaaay overlooked in the “Entertainment” industry, is that women deserve equal treatment. If you are going to objectify the female form then the same should apply to the male form. In fact, I would say that if it were to happen equally, that one day an intellectual break-through may occur and we can get to the point where the human body can be admired and even lusted after without a sense of guilt, so we can then move on with the importance of ideas and true freedom between genders.

Is that a little too polictical for a Saturday morning? My point should not be lost in a battle between which one of us can score more points against the other. 🙂

*Update on Monday, January 30, 2012 at 3:03PM by Karl

Vicki, I just find it amusing that even when we agree, we disagree!! Have all those Jimmy Carter fantasies in your imagination just like I do. 🙂

And no, we’re definitely not alike.  That should be apparent to all our readers! 🙂

My Favorite Monster Films sans Godzilla (because he is the King)!

Iceland’s viral footage of its Loch Ness Monster sure put a chill in my bone… a bone chilling duh. What was that? A plastic child’s toy towed behind a Viking Karve in an unaccessable part of Nordland? Give me a break. The Predator hybrid in AvP: Requim was more realistic.  However it got me to thinking about how much I love monster movies and how a good monster film can be as satisfying as say…. well, you know, a good piece of chocolate cake.

Cloverfield, supposedly a break-through thriller film with a scary freakn’ monster, that ended up rarely showing the scary freakin monster, didn’t scare me one iota. Instead gave me motion sickness so bad, in no time, up came all my popcorn. Not quite the reaction J.J. Abrams intended, I think. In fact, I really don’t want a cleverly promoted monster movie to turn my stomach, even in the least. I want it to turn my mind and scare the holy hell out of me. Cloverfield? No. John Carpenter’s The Thing? Yes, and yes again.  Couldn’t sleep for the entire weekend. Kept thinking, what if my neighbor had visited the tundra recently and wasn’t quite what he seemed? He had been out cleaning up his yard, of which had not been tended in well over 6 months, so yes, he was suspect of being a Thing trying to fit in. Seriously, a good monster movie has to have a great, scary monster.

Godzilla, king of all monsters (do you actually think his name coincedentally has the name god in it for nothing?) was pretty dang scary right after one nation creamed another with an atomic bomb, and is the way I prefer my monster movies…. lots of monster scenes. The Japanese understood this fairly basic desire. Carpenter knew this also and as his scary “f”n film moves along we go from monster-dog to monster-human to a giant monster-man/dog thing that is so frightening people in the theater were actually screaming. Yes! That’s what you want: scared, screaming people who walk out of the film looking over their shoulder for “that” monster to jump out from behind those annoying cardboard advertizments for the next kiddie film.

Who can forget the first time they saw cute little chest-burster crack the ribs of actor John Hurt spraying blood all over Veronica Cartwright during the family dining hour of Alien? I can remember being so shocked I felt as if a train and a semi-truck had hit me. The shock was unbelievably real. My adrenalin spiked for the rest of the movie and I didn’t need morning coffee until the middle of the next week. Just think, by the end of that movie we get to be scared right out of our skin as then newcomer Sigourney Weaver slips on a space suit and out smarts the fully revealed alien.

Knock-knock film makers. We want monsters, and we want them revealed, and we want them scary, not unecessarily bloody, just freakn scary. You can bet your last corporate dollar doing that will bring in the greenbacks you’re pinning all that CGI bullshit on.

So, now, without further ramblings, here are my 10 favorite scary film monsters.

10) Pumpkin Head : What would you do if you saw this freakish demon headed your way after you murdered a little boy? Scream and wet your pants. Yep.

9) The Predator: scary monster-hunter-guy from outer space. Cool fucking technology that even made Arnold envious.

8) Seth Brundle, the scariest hybrid you’ll ever meet (good on gas mileage but doesn’t really go any where). Since flies are not really flesh eaters or aggressive in the true monster fashion, he makes this list because he is so pitifully hideous to look at.

7) Subterranean Humaniod Monsters in The Descent. First I will never meet these fleshing-eating bastards because I will never venture down into their hole, but watching those crazy bitches that did, yow, that was freakin scary!

6) Humans infected with the Rage virus. Monsters all, in 28 Days Later. Holy shit! Not only were they scary to look at but they seemed to be just a little faster than the average human. Definately they were a little more pissed off than the average human, and what really made them scary is that once infected it took only a few pumps of the heart to turn them into raging monsters. Do you think garlic breath would help stave them off?

5) Freddy Kruger. Nightmare on Elm Street? No, a maniac going to slash me when I fall alseep. Maybe no one noticed but Freddy Krugar didn’t stay put on Elm Street when he went after his victims. Wherever they fell asleep is where he found them. Insomnia became a good idea. How do you stay awake forever? You don’t. So no matter what, all Freddy needed was a little patience. Scary!

4) Pinhead of Hellraiser. Geeze, put the sewing needles away. What sort of freak is this demon? If going to hell isn’t scary enough now there is Pinhead who tortures your dead flesh with chains and needles and meat hooks.  Pinhead is truly what you thought was in your closet when you were a little kid and wet your pajamas because you were too scared to cross your bedroom floor to go to the bathroom. It was that child inner certainty that you possessed in which you knew Pinhead was the closet demon, and he would without question grab you by the pajama collar and drag you straight to hell.

3) The Shark in Jaws. Never and I mean never have I gone into the ocean deeper than my waist, and now that I resemble the food sharks like to dine on best, it may be a cold day in hell before I ever wade deeper than my ankles into any body of water with a high salt content. Eaten by a shark? Are you crazy?? Did you see what it did to poor Robert Shaw? Jaws and teeth and jaws. No thank you momma.

2) The Thing in The Thing. Parasitic shape-shifter insideously penetrating your body and before you know it you’ve become a monster. Eegads! A flame-thrower just doesn’t seem comforting enough. Bring a thermonuclear device… please.

1) The Alien in Alien. Certainly the Alien Queen was scary in Aliens, but it was the introduction of this shiny, muted-metalic monster from hell that burns like acid blood in my mind. Scary, hell yes, beyond scary. Scary enough for me to pray to god that this is truly the figment of some sick guy in Hollywood’s scifi imagination and not a real creature waiting to attack me in my garage once the garage door comes down.

By the way, King of Monsters, Godzilla does not make this top 10 scary monster list because Godzilla never scared me. I love the damn beast. He is my comfort monster. He brings warm, fuzzy, good feelings to my over taxed mind. Godzilla is King of Monsters because he is beyond the scare factor. He beats up other monsters for us. As many times as he has destroyed Japan he has also defended it. He is like the scary older brother that brings pie and stuffed animals to family holidays but will beat the next door neighbor over the head with a pipe wrench if he calls beloved granny a skinny old lady. Godzilla is the Zues of monsters, lords over them all and has never, ever been defeated. I like that in my King.

Radio Free Albemuth – Vick’s Pen Review

My thoughts on the newest Philip K Dick film… Radio Free Albemuth

Conspiracies, paranoia, secret societies are all part of the worlds’ author Philip K Dick created in his science fiction and philosophical writings. In a word, one could say he was obsessed with these ideas to the point where he believed he was actually being watched by powerful government and other-worldly beings. The beauty of his musing? He makes a good case that they are true.

In a brilliant effort to bring the majesty and paranoia of PKD to the public, producer, writer, director John Alan Simon, has spent nearly 15 years of his life with a PKD novel that introduces to the audience Dick’s ideas that drove all his final writings.

Radio Free Albemuth is the newest Philip K Dick novel to be made into a feature length film. It is said to be, along with, A Scanner Darkly, the most honest of all adaptations to its source material. As I have not read this particular novel I am unable to speak to that point, and yet, after a lengthy conversation with John Alan Simon about his film, and after watching it twice through, I am convinced that Simon, both director and screenwriter, took major pains to bring more than just the essence of Dick’s novel to the big screen. It seems to be a true rendition of the novel itself, a “Dickian” point of view that all fans and scholars would find satisfying and appreciate.

Paranoia has long been associated with PKD and Radio Free Albemuth is no exception, in fact, it is the spring board novel. The story revolves around a man’s fear that society is not exactly what government and corporations lead the population to believe. Fostering these fears are visions our protagonist, Nick Brady, receives from what he describes as a satellite orbiting earth of which he has named VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System). This satellite is not terrestrial, not build from human undertaking and is revealed by Nick as alien from star system many, many light years from Earth. Nick shares this secret knowledge with only two people, his best friend, Phil (the characterization of Philip K Dick) and his wife, Rachel. An informal triumvirate is then formed and the story moves along this paranoid, yet seemingly true path as Nick and Phil discover lies and misrepresentations beyond societies’ set perimeters and the conscious awareness of the three.

In everyday life, when a person becomes confused by circumstances there is almost inevitably a lie underneath. Lies foster confusion. This is a main theme to all of PKD’s writings. Once Nick Brady begins receiving the visions from VALIS, his seemingly charmed life becomes even better even as his paranoia ramps up. On a decision based solely from a VALIS vision he decides to move his family from the San Francisco bay area to L.A. and expand his talents in the music business. Before leaving the bay area he confides in his writer friend, Philip, about his visions from VALIS. His wife, Rachel, goes along with her husband’s ideas and tries her best to believe in the visions Nick explains to her. Although her belief is shallow she stands firmly behind her husband. Phil, on the other hand is completely supportive of Nick. Through what appears to be Socratic questioning Phil does his best to pinpoint his friend’s precise understanding of the VALIS messages. In the end Phil encourages Nick to follow the visions and passion he sees so prominently driving his friend.

It is in L. A. where most of the story takes place. Simon has taken great pains to create a Los Angeles of an alternate reality into, on the surface, an inviting place to live. Circa 1985, in an America that is ruled under a totalitarian president named Fremont, it is easy for the audience to draw parallels between George W. Bush and President Fremont, although Fremont was loosely patterned after Nixon. How could PKD imagine post 9/11 America with its Patriot Act from the vantage of the 1980s, and yet it’s unmistakably written into the story plot. Paranoia has its genius. PKD tapped it, and John Alan Simon brought it to life in this film.

The color palette of the film is as much a character as the characters themselves. The purples and blues of the VALIS visions lend to the other-worldly feel to Nick’s growing new consciousness and paranoia of society. The prominent use of the color and shades of yellow during philosophical and edgy paranoid conversations brings the idea of truth-uncovered as in enlightenment and/or walking a narrow path toward a new reality.

Setting is used as symbol. In San Francisco, the homes of the main characters are average and seemingly normal of the area. Normalcy is the Bay Area but the lure of something greater begins in the average; in the everyday life of average people. In all his novels PKD emphasizes that change occurs when the average person taps into the extraordinary. Simon captures this PKD idea perfectly in scenes that build upon each other in importance from a linier perspective of average to extraordinary. The average house in San Francisco becomes the L. A. home with glass walls encouraging the audience to remember the idiom of living in glass houses. Phil’s little home (once he moves to L.A.) in a run-down section of town becomes the focus of the conspiracy unveiled and its cramped quarters lend a touch of smothered claustrophobia to the story.

Simon, in choosing to use color and setting to foster the broader emotions underlying the film’s story has created what I believe critics of this film fail to see… the genius of the painter or sculpture in creating visuals that enhance philosophical meaning; a palette to touch the soul. This is part of the PKD world that few filmmakers place much effort into creating. Using the PKD source material Ridley Scott did it with his rich textures in Blade Runner. Steven Speilberg did it with his exploitation of color saturation in Minority Report. Simon does it in Radio Free Albemuth, most notably, with the purples and yellows. A thoughtful process realized in this film that few critics have noticed let alone mentioned.

In my conversation with Simon, I asked about these details and he remarked how he put a great amount of effort and thought into “getting the colors right for each scene,” and how location was always a budgetary concern, yet each location seemed to fit precisely to the mood of the scene. Due to a wild fire the location for the desert scene where Nick explains the nature of VALIS, my favorite setting in this movie, had to be moved and was filmed in the area around Vasquez Rocks in the county of Los Angeles. It became the perfect location for this moment of revelation into the nature of VALIS. Problems like these were turned into location gems by Simon through an almost devout emotional attachment to the source material.

Upon close examination of the film are these little surprises revealed, highlighting the care Simon used in bringing together the profound ideas and paranoia behind PKD’s passion in the VALIS novels. I encourage PKD fans as well as those who find alternate points of view and realities fascinating, to cue this film on your favorite rental service and consider giving it a couple viewings. A study of this rich and textured world lends an insight into the psyche of PKD and is well worth your movie watching time. It may just open a window to an alternate view of the world in which you participate and live.

Prometheus Is A Christmas Movie

Written December 2012- Reposted here in preparation of radio-talk show theme on Steve’s Video Store.

Prometheus is a film about hope. Yes, hope. The theme is clearly that of humanities’ search for their creator, but in the end, through the symbolism and conversations offered by the film-writer collaborating with the director, this film offers to its viewers hope of something greater than our pety, ego-centric selves.

So much anger, and literally some hate, has been spewed toward this film, quite undeservedly, that I feel a need to revisit its theme especially at Christmas time. Since Ridley Scott never said to the “Alien” loving public that his film would explicitly bring answers to all the open ended questions to the 1979 film, Alien; I guess I seek to clarify a few misconceptions. People love to whine and cry when they don’t get what they think they deserve, and the pop-culture followers of the Alien films, fall into this superficial category.

What Ridley Scott did mention in all the interviews before the premier of Prometheus is that a new universe of science fiction wonder would be opened and maybe some of it would relate to the film Alien.

There is no doubt in my mind after viewing Prometheus many times that this film relates to Alien in a profound manner. The imagery, the architecture, the mural, so many small, meaningful details culminate into the final scene where a creature much similar to an alien from the Alien movies, is born. How could anyone doubt that roots from the 1979 film stem directly to Prometheus?

I have written extensively about the imagery in this film, but a couple of details remain unexamined: the Christmas tree and Shaw’s cross are two major examples. The Christmas tree in Christian faith is a symbol of the birth of Jesus Christ. The cross represents the death of Jesus and the later resurrection of Christ the Savior. These symbols are not randomly placed within the script of this movie, and I believe they carry the intended central theme of the film.

The “holy” trinity of Prometheus: Holloway, Shaw, and David 8.

Its Holloway who says it… he wants to meet his maker. He wishes to meet his God, just as Weyland desires the same; yet all they really get are Engineers. It is critical to remember that Holloway wants the answer to a question: why did you makes us. Weyland, though interested in the same question is looking for resurrection. The essential question is basically the same but it will lead to different answers depending on which character asks it.

This is central to the continuing need in humans to understand beginnings, most importantly, our own beginning. The scene at the start of the film where the child Shaw asks her father profound yet simple questions about the death of a tribesmen and the death of her own mother lays the foundation for the “Christmas” theme.

In the pivotal scene where Holloway becomes infected with the “black goo” by David8, the conversation turns upon the idea of the search for a creator. As this conversation evolves the camera angle slowly turns to include in the foreground the Christmas tree that was decorated by Captain Janek, perhaps the most outwardly human character of them all. In that scene where the crew has just been “resurrected” from cryo-sleep, the Christmas tree seems almost a joke, a side-bar detail about the state of mind of the Prometheus’ Captain. However, it is really the conversation of the crew that are the side-bars to this scene. The introduction of the Christmas tree is crucial to the film’s theme.

What is it, deep down inside most all of us that makes Christmas time so important? To answer that question is to uncover the entire point of the Prometheus mission. Resurrection, death, life, creation, definately a Christmas theme and most definately the theme of Prometheus.

Dr. Elizabeth Shaw is arguably the main character of the film. It is plain by writer and director intention that she is a Christian who chooses to believe in the resurrection of Christ, symbolized by the cross dangling from her necklace. Shaw’s life is detailed from earlier to mid-story of the film. Her mother died when she was very young. Her father although a scientist and archeologist also observed the Christian faith. Shaw was given the cross/necklace by her father after her mother died as a keepsake. Shaw never explains exactly why the cross is so important to her, whether it is cherished because it once belonged to her mother or because she so profoundly believes in the symbolism of the cross. She does, however, reply to her fellow scientist and lover’s snide comment about ditching the cross (since he has lost hope in finding “his” god), that she chooses to believe in something higher because something obviously made the so-called Engineers.

Another fine point that seems lost in all the “Alien” debate over this film is another Christmas theme: the immaculate conception. Shaw, in tears, informs the audience, through another reply to Holloway’s lack of sensitivity about how “easy” it is to create life… anyone can do it. Shaw is a barrien woman, unable to create life and Holloway’s comment cements the idea of life from something other than the joining of egg and sperm (witnessed in the other Alien films and part of the Alien mythology).

Holloway’s response to his callousness toward Shaw’s inability to mother children is to make love to her. As the action picks up several scenes later David (an andriod with his own creator issues) discovers that Shaw is pregnant. A stunned Elizabeth says she can’t be and David replies that the pregnancy isn’t exactly normal. Clearly this is a reference to the conception of Christ himself, who of course wasn’t quite a normal human either. Even though it is at this point the Shaw story seems to skew away from the Christ story, for she inflicts upon herself a self initiated cesaeren, this new life form is a fairly tough little bugger (wink to Ash from Alien), and ends up surviving Shaw’s attempt at killing it. In the end, this hybrid human creature comes to the rescue of its disenfranchised mother and uses its mother’s attacker (an Engineer, the original creator) to create yet another new life form. . . the proto-alien all the Alien fans were waiting to see.

In the David 8 character we see another version of the creation story, but one that follows more closely on the arrogance of human ego and quite frankly a comment on the Christian Bible ideas in the Old Testement and the fall of Man from Eden. God (the Engineers) give life to human beings, but for some reason humanity is not worthy to continue. God, or the Engineers,  plan to annihilate humanity with a Great Flood or with the black goo; and this relates back to that scene so beautifully detailed from the beginning of the film seems to be the precurser to life on planet earth.

As Shaw picks up the pieces of David 8 who has pledged to help her survive, the film comes to an end. If we are looking for extended Christmas metaphors it is plain that the new Testement of Christ and the resurrection to save humanity is symbolized by the character of Shaw (the belief in hope). As she cradles the head of David 8 (knowledge of humanity encompassing ideas of ego and the Old Testement) she assures him that he will be fine thus humanity continues on its quest for knowledge. The two then shoot off into space like a shooting star in search of more answers.

The Christmas theme is intact and has come full circle. Prometheus, bringing fire to man and enlightenment to humanity, inspires the search for knowledge and the understanding of creation, in an attempt to be at peace with human destiny.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Life of Pi… The Curious Search for Meaning to One’s Life

This article was written in March 2013… but I find that the ideas are worthy even today. Please bear with the “datedness” of the writing and dig for the more philosophical meaning lying within.

Its been less than 6 months since Cloud Atlas was showing in theaters but not a person talks about the grand ideas brought out in that film. Life of Pi came out in November and won Best Picture for 2012 at the Oscars. I will grant you this, Life of Pi is a better film and in my estimations, being a Literature major and not a Film major, deserved the award.

“When you begin explaining life experiences in metaphor you will find that you have indeed become a writer of consequence.” A paraphrase to be sure, but that is the lesson I learned from one of my favorite and best writing teachers. When I began writing about my life as a series of miniture nuclear bombs going off at particularly critical points in my life, my writing teacher was quite pleased.

Life of Pi cements this idea to my writer’s heart. It is in the “how” we relate a story much more than the intent that comes across for our audience.

Clearly the audience of Life of Pi got it and the audience of Cloud Atlas did not. However, what I find a bit sad is that the metaphor had to be explained by one of the only human characters in Life of Pi. Cloud Atlas had no such character therefore left the ideas and conclusions strictly up to the audience. Clearly that was a mistake.

Life of Pi was visually stunning. No doubt about that, but so was Cloud Atlas. I remember how I gasped in wonder at the futuristic city and the beauty of the natural world far, far in the Earth’s future. As everyone I loved the gorgeous jellyfish scene in Life of Pi and marveled also at the beauty and desctructiveness of the whale. All metaphor. All beautiful. All sending some sort of message.

As I thought over the gorgeousness of Life of Pi and its extraordinary tale of survival I began to recall Cloud Atlas and its extraordinary tale of survival. One story is of the survival of a single human in tragic circumstances, and the other is a story of survival over the ages by several humans in tragic circumstances.

So, what makes these two films completely different? What makes these films generate such love and hate when both strive to send nearly the same message? Execution? A single straight forward form of story-telling verse a much more complicated layering of story-telling? Is it because Pi is a much easier character to like and identify with rather than the many incarnations of Halle Berry or Tom Hanks? Is it that audiences are lazy? Is it that the modern human does not like to think profoundly and would much rather have its ideas served on a silver plate?

These are questions I believe I know the answer and yet I pose them to your, dear reader, since it is to you I write these phiosophical musings. Is your life filled with wonder? Can you witness the extraordinary in an ordinary day? Can your neighbor? Your best friend?

Watching Life of Pi opened my philosophical mind and I find that I cannot write a plot review without giving too much away. All I really wish to relate is that its a film worth spending your time watching and the end is worth thinking about. Is meaning in your life, to your life, worth some profound thought? For me it reopened the ideas I had after watching Cloud Atlas and find that to be a very good thing indeed.

Playstation vs Xbox… Why its important for Gamers

At this blog I mostly focus on film entertainment.  For more than 100 years film has been a way to capture the imagination where novels and books had always reigned supreme. Being smack in the middle of my life I am of course fixed upon the entertainment industry that has been the greatest influence, film. This is only obvious and true for my generation, but it is not so true for the newst adult generation of which my youngest son belongs.

The world of gaming stretches back as far as my own teenage years. I remember when my local pizza gallery installed the first Pong machine. I was thrilled and could not get enough. Next came the gaming arcades along with primative home consoles. I spent an embarrassing amount of time and money enjoying the technology of the 1980s. Over the decades since “Pong” I have played and purchased almost every gaming system that has ever hit the market. Being a mom of sons I realized that this would impact upon their lives but I had not the vision to see how it would change the entertainment industry.

E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) was held this last week in L.A. and the grand controversy stemming from the newest gaming consoles soon to hit the market exploded in a volcanic epiphany for gamers of all loyalties. The reveal that Sony does still care about its “Gamer” base whereas Microsoft is, and always has been, a stockholders paradise shown like crystal. The next level of gaming consoles of course will sport the highest technology and that is just a given, but what has been controversial for many weeks has been the idea that used games were to be shunned by the industry hit the independent Gaming stores and their customers like the hacking job hit Sony’s Playstation Network a couple of years ago… real emotions of confusion and hate bubbled to the surface. As talk of Microsoft’s proposal of no longer allowing used games to play on its new console XBox One along with the idiotic idea of on “always on” connection to the Internet exploded as the hottest topic upcoming at the annual E3 in many years.

What will Sony reveal when they unveil the Playstation 4? It was a question that generated its own Internet frenzy over the weeks leading to the Expo.

As it is now well-known to us gamers Sony blasted the controversy away with its reveal that they “trust” their gaming base and will continue to support used games along with sharing and no proof of an everyday connection to the Internet. The optimum word here is trust and that is why it is so important.

Over the years of the recession and stretching back into the first decade of the 21st century, businesses have literally moved off the charts by shrinking the trust in their customers. They use tracking software to keep track of us and our buying habits. They pinpoint what they believe our tastes are and pound us with ads and coupons to keep us loyal while the quality of customer service and product deteriorates.

I can confidently say Sony has not fallen to these low standards. Their products have always been high quality and their customer service has been top-notch. Cannot compare Microsoft on this level at all for Microsoft even today with Windows 8 shows the consumers that it still values customer dollars over customer satisfaction.

Why is all of this important to the film industry? For one the young peopl of my son’s generation spend more of their dollars on gaming than on film. It is a satistic that was inevitable and yet revealing as to where entertainment is headed. For example, today I will buy two major entertainment titles and pre-order one, whereas my son will skip one of the three to satisfy his entertainment needs.

One movie ticket to see Man of Steel, the purchase of the newest PS3 game title, The Last of Us, and the pre-order of the PS4 are on my list and within my budget. In my son’s immediate budget, the Man of Steel loses. Many hours of gaming satisfaction compared to one two hour stint at the movie theater. How important is this statistic? Today? It is gigantic if you are a statitician because the wave of future entertainment is upon us.

Playstation wins over XBox because Sony gives back the trust in its customer base that Microsoft has never cultivated. Gaming industry grows more powerful with a new generation looking more toward games and consoles as their number one choice in entertainment rather than blockbuster films. Microsoft is shown to be the greedy bastards they are, and Sony gains power by winning over new customers with quality of product and customer relations.

Why is this important? You decide. I believe the gaming industry has its finger on the pulse of future American entertainment and Sony is quite literally the heart pumping the blood through the body of entertainment.

Secrets and Lies and How Television Copes

During this unusually humid summer I have done a bit of Netflix binging. Normally I chose the science fiction shows to watch, but Netflix has experienced a recent dearth of the genre. Forced to choose something else I have clicked on a couple of lengthy mini-series that have, at their core, the subject of lying, secrets, and the consequences of such actions. The three series I have watched in seriously rapid succession are: The Red Road, Bloodline, and Life. All three take the subject of hidden truth down the long path of consequence and give the audience a glimpse of what happens when lies and secrets become casual human functions. Casual is the optimum word in the analysis because I think that these stories are reflecting a change, for the negative, in human thinking and it may actually endanger our very existence.

The Red Road tells the story of a hidden truth behind the drowning of a teenage boy. It sets up a story of lives changed and some not given a chance because the lie and subsequent secret were never discussed past the formal consequence of placing guilt.

Bloodline, much like The Red Road, also tells the story of consequences after a drowning of a 10 year old girl. It explores the power parents have over their children and the destructive cost of teaching children to become good liars (and thus deniers of the truth of their own experiences).

Life, another story about lies and secrets, finds our main character not only convicted of murders he did not commit but must spend 12 years in one of the most notorious prisons in America. Taking away one life and replacing it with another life, usually negative and worse in all circumstances, the examination of hidden truth through lies and secrets, reveals more about the consequences of the liars and the ripples into innocent lives, then the transformation of the main character.

One other series, the highly successful Dexter, also deals with this subject, lies covering up horrible truths leading to perversity in people’s lives, with far-reaching consequences. It is in the nature of a lie to temporarily protect the liar from negative reactions and prosper an ideal of ignorant continuity for others, that the damage is most profoundly done. In Dexter it is the adultery of the father and the bloody death of the mother that set the lives of the innocent into a tailspin.

In my favorite science fiction series, Babylon 5, commander Jeffrey Sinclair, makes the most profound statement to his chief of security of the anatomy of a lie… “”Everyone lies, Michael. The innocent lie because they don’t want to be blamed for something they didn’t do, and the guilty lie because they don’t have any other choice.”

So the truth of the lie boils down to fear. My question is: why do we do this to each other? If we want to live in peace and security then why do we become liars only to hurt others? It is a question I have asked all my life since the day I realized one and then the other of my parents bold-faced lied to me.

Our art tries to shed light on this purely human phenomenon and it constantly begs the question… why we choose a lie over the truth. I believe Commander Sinclair had a handle on the answer.