Gaily Forward

The Knowers Part II

2011-12-28T16:51:00.000-08:00

I had decided I was going to play crazy. I could pretend that all of my memories were just fiction and what I Knew was completely and utterly wrong. I had to convince myself of that as a survival technique against the fact that no one would believe me. I had no proof, no credible credentials of any kind. There wasn’t much I could do about it anyways. The past was playing out again, and I was in no position to alter anything as the course of history made a beeline for its own titanic iceberg.

The financial crisis was already well underway at the point when we landed. I have no clue as to why the hell we weren’t waybacked to a point where we could assassinate the President or stop the planes from being hijacked or kill Hilter or sink the Mayflower or any number of momentous changes that would have taken care of all of this before it started. That would have been too easy. I’m not sure what they expect us to do apart from lashing ourselves to missile silo doors and refusing to budge until the world hugs and makes up.

I sat in the coffee house I had sat in countless hours before the end, reading the news that I had read before. With Iran just starting to shake its penis at the world over the Straight of Hormuz, time was running its last lap. A soul-hitching depression was clouding me, only part of it having to do with the world’s woes. Most of it had to do with him.

I know he thinks I’m nuts. That first moment back, after the shock of being suddenly yanked out of the middle of a global nuclear war had passed, I ran down to the coffee house to see him. I was still sorting it out, hoping it was a bad dream but Knowing it wasn’t. I wanted to hug him. Tell him that I loved him. I’m probably lucky that he didn’t have me arrested.

It was the look on his face that did it. The polite smile supporting suspicious eyes stopped me cold. “I think you have me mixed up with someone else,” he said. “What can I get you to drink?”

That killed me. Not knowing my coffee order. I courted him in that coffee house. A year passed with me ordering the same damn drink every damn day as I mooned over him from a table near the window before I worked up the nerve to ask him out. Five years of our lives spent together after that, with me never missing a day seeing him at work before we’d walk home together after his shift. He knew damn well what I wanted to drink. Only he didn’t. He didn’t know me at all. Family, friends, coworkers, lovers…nobody knows us. The weird thing is, we Know each other.

The Knowers - Part 1

2011-11-19T17:35:00.000-08:00

It wasn’t a big surprise, looking back. Or ahead. Whatever. Time travel fucks with your verb tenses and your perspective on history. When the future’s in your past and you’re living it all over again in the most amazingly realistic high-def 3-D imaginable, you can’t help but have an irritating and completely accurate sense of hindsight.

What was a surprise was how insidious the lead-up was. Unless you were able to connect the dots on the competing news franchises, the writing on the wall flew in stealth mode well below the radar. There were a lot of dumb looks on the faces that turned from their Blackberries skyward, following the contrails of their country’s respective nuclear arsenals headed for other countries. The dots were financial crises, a wonky environment, followed by the droughts and natural disasters causing food shortages. Energy was in short supply and those who had oil weren’t interested in giving it to those who didn’t. Those who didn’t went to take it anyways, and the world blew up.

Connecting the dots is easy now. It’s just what we do.

I don’t know why we were picked. Out of the seven billion-ish souls on planet Earth, a scant hundred were the chosen few. Parker thinks there’s a pattern; a rhyme and reason to those of us who ended up in the wayback machine. He says it’s there, he just needs more time to figure it out, which is a commodity that’s in short supply. I called bullshit on the Parker theory early on, because believe me…we’re a pretty sorry group.

Take Mary for example. Something must have happened in the wayback process, or the stuff in her brain was just too big for her to handle and she blew a fuse. All she can do is stand on the corner, dressed in donation box fashions, and scream about the end of the world. The sad part is that she’s one hundred percent correct, and everyone thinks she’s the crazy one. Of course, she could have been a total lunatic before she got waybacked.

That’s the part that makes me think this has happened before. Those folks who spent their time wearing the sandwich boards preaching Armageddon may have just had something. Something they knew; something they were obligated to tell the rest of us reality TV-obsessed dopes who looked the other way as we walked by, turning up the iTunes to screen out the bleak but oh-so-real message of doom.

I don’t know how many chances we got, but I know this is it. The last chance. We are the last hope to change it all and this time it’s for keeps. No more waybacks; no more warnings; no more Crazy Marys shouting at the decaf skinny latte people. We have to change it. We Know.

Solstice Magic

2010-12-20T19:49:00.000-08:00

Click image for larger version.
Copyright 2010
Larry Parrigin

It's Not Fair

2010-11-12T15:42:00.000-08:00

Something hideous has taken root inside my friend Hank. The cancer he had so valiantly fought for months and had thought banished is back. I see the fear in his eyes; the fear that speaks of weakness and nausea and pain. I see the crushing of hope. I see the utter panic inherent in knowing what is in store and being unable to stop it. I feel the utter panic of seeing a friend so desperately scared and in pain and not being able to do a damn thing about it.

It's not fair.

I say that, and it goes unheard.

I SCREAM that to my ceiling, the sky, the ever-fucking-airplanes that remind me of him, the edge of space, the heavens, and still it goes unheard.

What sense does that make?

Unrelenting proof of the non-existence of God.

I have to believe that. I have to believe that there's no God, or I go insane. Insane with the though that if there is a God, It's one sick sonofabitch to allow this to happen to someone like Hank. According to Christian myth, God is all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful. God is benevelant; God rains his goodness upon mankind.

Bull fucking shit.

All I see is random fate; random associations of chemicals, DNA, and human physiology coming together to ruin the life of someone unique. Someone who has left an indeleable mark on my life. Someone who gives with great humor and humility and got royally fucked in return. If God is behind this, He's evil.

Christians usually say there's a purpose to everything, summing it all up with catchphrases like "God doesn't close a door without opening a window." I'm not sure what possible purpose there could be for torturing Hank. What could Hank have possibly done to deserve this? What lesson does he have to learn by this? If not for Hank's benefit, then for whose? If God abuses the innocent to teach the guilty a lesson, then God is the ultimate sadist.

I can't think. All I want to do is strike out in blind rage at an impossible situation. It's not fucking fair.

In the DVD Player 5

2007-03-18T13:41:00.000-07:00

The Tomorrow People
Thames Television
Starring Nicholas Young, Peter Vaughan-Clarke, and Elizabeth Adare

For those of us who tuned into "Nickleodeon" on weekday afternoons in the 1980's, the US-formatted DVD release of "The Tomorrow People" is a blast to our Gen-X retro past. Yeah, the special effects were cheesy and the acting amateurish in that special British sci-fi way, but the stories were powerful and spoke to those of us who felt "different." For those who value style over substance in a sci-fi series, just compare the forty-plus year run of "Doctor Who" to the twenty-seven year run of the Roddenberry "Trek" franchise. Which one is still currently in production? That's right. "Doctor Who." And the "Lucasing" of Original Series Trek doesn't count.

The premise is one explored in the Marvel Comics' universe: people developing powers through natural mutation and evolution; the powers manifest themselves at the onset of puberty in a traumatic process called "breaking out" in the series. While powers acquired through mutation in the Marvel universe are usually singular and specific (laser eyes, control of weather, etc.), the powers displayed by the Tomorrow People include telekinesis, telepathy, and teleportation. Each of the Tomorrow People display all three abilities, but some have a greater degree of specialty in one or the other. One character is adept at telekinetically picking locks, while another is able to project images of ghosts through telepathy.

A mainstay of the series is the characters' ability to teleport, or "jaunt," a term borrowed from the novel "My Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester. Just by thinking about it, they can teleport to any location they can imagine. They are mechanically assisted by "jaunting belts" which fine-tune their abilities and give them greater range. The characters are assisted in their adventures by a biomechanical computer named "TIM," voiced by Phillip Gilbert. Gilbert's is one of the classic sci-fi computer/robot voices, right up there with Roddy McDowell, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, Douglas Rain, and Dick Tufeld.

The episodes in the DVD sets are presented in their original 30-minute "serial" format, with opening and closing credits between each episode. While this makes for disjointed viewing of the entire story and can be tedious to view the "flashback" sequences from the previous episode, the format keeps the entire set true to the original series. The lack of original series artwork on the box makes it hard to spot on the shelf; for some reason A&E elected to go with original art on the box and DVD cases.

In any case, it's a set worth owning. Here's to A&E for finally bringing this series to DVD on our shores.

Fantastic Voyage

2006-12-16T15:21:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure I understand the reported controversy surrounding the Body Worlds Exhibit at the Dallas Fair Park museum of Nature and Science. Okay, so the thought that these displays used to be people and have been immortalized by a process called plastination can seem a little Night of the Living Dead, but the works on display were so much more than mere cadavers. They're almost fluidic, kinesthetic sculptures; works of art that just happen to result from the anatomical study of human beings.

There's precedent for this: Renaissance artists like Leonardo da Vinci created detailed anatomical drawings from dissected corpses. Granted, the artist was the only one who actually saw the squidgy bits, but the basic concept was the same. The artist was preserving the anatomy in the only way possible given the science at the time. If the technology had been available, I'm sure ol' Leo would have been dunking specimens in plastics right and left. I suppose it's possible that anatomical studies were controversial during the Renaissance, but I'd like to think that they were somewhat more enlightened than your average Bible Belt resident.

The exhibit itself is almost whimsical, if that's at all possible. It's borderline inappropriate to refer to the displays as "corpses" or "cadavers," although technically that's exactly what they are. One is posed as a goalie, reaching to block a soccer ball with one outstretched arm. The opposite arm is holding aloft the body's abdominal organs, almost as if they were a trophy won at the World Cup. Another figure has the muscles splayed to allow one to see the attachment points of the ligaments. It is posed with what appear to be "jazz hands" and a jaunty hat perched on the visible muscles attached to the skull. A female figure kneels in repose, holding aloft the disembodied circulatory system of two birds as if freeing them to fly. The smoker with black lungs is posed holding what appears to be a lighted cigarette. A skeleton rests its hand on the shoulder of its suit of muscles that ordinarily belong around the bony frame as if to say, "Hey! Where do you think YOU'RE going?" While these touches of humor may appear blasphemous on the surface, it further blurs the line between life and death...a point made in the ubiquitous museum placards at the beginning of the exhibition.

Whimsy aside, the beauty lies in the fact that we're seeing these...bodies...in natural poses of rest and action, instead of eviscerated on the cold steel of a coroner's table. The muscles are dynamic. There's a sense of motion that a mere corpse cannot convey. The "exploded views"...figures posed with their parts exposed much like a cutaway drawing of a complex mechanical device...give a sense of proportion that's not available in any medical text. I never knew kidneys were actually that small or that the muscle surrounding the heart was spiral to allow for squeezing motion. Educational, to say the least.

I was disappointed in the fact that the curators chose to hide the pregnant figure and the series of preserved fetuses behind a curtain in a separate display. I suppose it's inherently controversial, but temper the gut reaction against the fact that none of the unborn children were products of abortion. The unborn child inside the female was beautiful and gave a sense of scale to the miracle that is conception. The fetal displays were from the second trimester on, and showed just how developed a fetus becomes in a relatively short amount of time. If the Bible-bangers were upset at the display of deceased fetuses, they should really reconsider their stance. I am, by and large, neutral on the subject of abortion. Not my body, not my decision. However, the display clearly shows without any doubt that what's growing in there is a complete little person. It seems to me that any anti-abortion activist would be buying tickets for the non-believers just to drive that point home. But by and large, the religious types just don't think that way.

Another potentially controversial point was the unabashed display of genitalia. Get over it, folks. United States-ians are so immature when it comes to concepts of the body. People have penises, testicles, vaginas, and breasts, respectively. Just the facts. They had no figures posed in the act of copulating; they had no erections or splayed vulvas. They simply were what they were: anatomical features represented in context along with the rest of the body. I'm deeply disappointed in some of the comments left by the visitors to the exhibit: "I haven't seen so many dicks and balls in one place before." So much for Dallas being a sophisticated and urban center of culture. The guy leaving the comment really isn't going to the right parties.

My only criticism of the exhibit has to do with my own squeamishness. While I found the full figures to be aesthetically pleasing, the individual organs on display in the coldly lit cases in between figures was a little ghoulish, if not downright Ed Gein-ish. But to some, the display of organs out of context is almost comforting in its scientific detachment. Judging from some of the comments left behind, some of us could use just a little more detachment.

In The DVD Player 4

2006-09-02T13:54:00.000-07:00

"Soylent Green"
Starring Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young, and Edward G. Robinson
1973

Apparently, it's made from people. Okay, okay...even if you're pop-culturally challenged or oblivious to Charlton Heston's iconic utterance or simply misheard the quote and lived under the mistaken assumption for the past three decades that the titular substance was made from puppies, the revelation that a mass-produced foodstuff was made from recycled human remains really isn't all that odd.

Given the living conditions in the film: overcrowding, no jobs, scarce food, technology failing, the environment all wonky...the recycling of human remains made sense in the context of the level of crisis humanity was facing in the film. It's not like they were stealing babies in the middle of the night or herding groups of people cattle-like to the abattoir to get air-hammered in the head; the good ol' boys down at the Soylent Corporation simply saw an opportunity to turn lemons into lemonade. They were capitalizing on a world-wide waste disposal problem. A smart solution, in my opinion. In the great tradition started by Donner and Co., resources at hand were being used to benefit the rest of humanity. Problem solved. Next, tackling the crisis of Leigh Taylor-Young's god-awful travesty of interior decorating. That apartment was tacky, even for 1970's-cum-2022 standards.

Ya know, I'd have probably been MORE scandalized had they been making Soylent Green from puppies. For some reason, the sheet-shrouded bodies moving along the conveyor belt didn't strike any particular sick chord with me, but the thought of dogs being processed for food is nauseating. Apparently, my priorities got screwed up somewhere along the way.

The Best Cult TV You've Never Seen, #2

2006-03-29T19:08:00.000-08:00

Land of the Lost

At first glance, it's easy to dismiss this mid-1970's Sid and Marty Krofft offering as mere background clutter by which to chow down on your Cap'n Crunch. However, the stop-motion dinosaur puppets, fiberglas sets, and amateurish acting often disguised a show that was not only good action-adventure for the gradeschool set, but serious sci-fi for those who paid attention to the stories.

Take the writing credits. D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold, and Walter Koenig, all "Star Trek" alumns, were but three of the writers for a series with distinct geek cred. For those unfamiliar with the basic plot, Rick, Will and Holly Marshall were on a "routine expedition" when they encountered an earthquake that sent them over the edge of a waterfall and through a dimensional doorway. They woke up in what at first appears to be a prehistoric land, complete with living dinosaurs. As they explore their environment, they discover a small tribe of proto-humans they dub "Paku" and a race of malevolent insect-like creatures called "Sleestak." Most of their adventures involved exploring their new world and looking for a way home.

"Land of the Lost" was more than simply a time-travel story. As the seasons progressed, we learned more about the environment in which the Marshall family found themselves trapped. The Land of the Lost was a micro-world; a "closed" universe in which various beings from different worlds and times became mired. The world's climate was controlled through a series of pyramid-like structures called "pylons," their dimensionally transcendental interiors housing a complex control matrix of crystals. Certain color combinations of crystals would allow control over the environment, even opening a doorway out of the Land if the right sequence were entered. Dinosaurs, Paku, and Sleestak weren't the only inhabitants trapped; humans and aliens both found their way into the Land. This was sophisticated storytelling, and anyone who blows it off as fluff hasn't really looked past the surface into the mythos that is "Land of the Lost."

Complicated laws governed the Land: certain color combinations of crystals could produce light or even a paralyzing shock; mess with the crystals in a pylon and you change the weather; if something were to leave the Land, something of an equal mass and temporal energy had to enter. This series had more convoluted story twists and rules than a "Doctor Who" episode, and it made for damn good plots.

The entire series is out on DVD; you could do worse than to pick up the boxed set for a slap in the nostalgia node. This time, when you hear that music start to tell you about that "routine expedition," turn on the brain and see the magic that is the "Land of the Lost."

The Best Cult TV You've Never Seen, #1

2005-11-26T00:11:00.000-08:00

Josie and the Pussycats

"Josie and the Pussycats" was one of those Saturday-morning cartoons from the same Hanna-Barbera stable that brought us "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids," "Jabberjaw," and "Speed Buggy." Before they ended up being defendants on "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law," they roamed the world and solved mysteries. Some, like the "Scooby-Doo" gang, were just in it for the kicks. Others, like the "Jabberjaw" crowd, actually toured as pop bands.

"Josie and the Pussycats" were a pop act, touring the world and getting involved in various nefarious plots by simply stumbling across them. They didn't seek out the villains they ultimately helped capture...intentionally "meddling," if you will...they were just in the wrong place at the right time. In Holland to do a gig at the annual tulip festival? All goes well until one of the gang accidentally purchases a pair of wooden shoes containing secret microfilm documents.

Another element that set them apart from their Mystery Machine-driving counterparts was the level of villain. The Josie crowd dealt with evil. These weren't your everyday crooks, disguising themselves as the marsh monster (who was legend in them parts) simply to scare off those curious souls who might stumble across the two-bit counterfeiting scheme. Josie villains were hell-bent on world domination through the use of super-science applied by painstakingly thought-out plans. Which of the Scooby Gang's monsters would have the cajones to destroy all of the world's gold using a gold-eating microbe mist?

The cast was unique in itself; the majority of the characters were female. The core group - Josie, Valerie, and Melody - made up the band. Josie was the lead singer and guitar player. Melody played drums. Valerie played the tambourines. For 1970, including Valerie, a black woman, was about as progressive as television got. The fact that they made her the brains of the group was an unprecedented message of multiculturalism to children. That's not to say that they didn't resort to stereotypes; Melody was the typical "dumb blonde," giggling her way through each episode.

The supporting cast included the group's manager Alex, a Shaggy-inspired coward who was ironically also voiced by Casey Kasem. The group's roadie and Josie's love interest Alan was almost a clone of Scooby's Fred. Alex's sister, Alexandra, was also along for the ride to create conflict within the group. Alexandra wanted to steal Alan away from Josie, be the lead singer of the Pussycats, and take the group in new directions. A Yoko Ono for the cartoon crowd.

Music was integral to the show. They were a pop band, after all. From their humble ensemble of instruments, the group managed to produce a symphony of sounds during their "live" concerts. Every chase scene - a staple of the Hanna-Barbera mystery-solving crowd - was to the tune of a Josie song. More often than not, the band would perform the same song at the end of the show. An almost mythical LP of Josie tunes was released in the early 1970's, but has failed to turn up during any e-bay search. Maybe someone will get smart and release the CD. Maybe.

After the first season, Josie ended up getting blasted into outer space. They toured various planets in a vain attempt to return to earth, but never quite found home. The "lost in space" theme was an attempt at boosting sagging ratings, but badly written stories and second-rate animation caused the show's ultimate demise.

"Josie" enjoyed a renaissance of sorts when Cartoon Network aired the episodes during the mid-1990's. After that stinker of a movie came out, the cartoons disappeared. There are a couple of episodes that have been released to VHS. What we want is the complete series on DVD, ala "Johnny Quest" and "Scooby-Doo." I suppose there's a lot of legal going-ons behind the scenes. This show deserves its place among the greats; it deserves a place on DVD.

In the DVD Player 3

2005-09-19T21:27:00.000-07:00

Phantasm
Starring: Angus Scrimm, A. Michael Baldwin, and Reggie Bannister

I remember a dark, wind-torn night in Andrews, Texas. It was spring break 1978, the year I discovered Blondie. My two sisters and I had been shipped off to Andrews for a week of bonding time with the white-trash side of the family. A “character building” experience, no doubt concocted by my father who was convinced that forging strong family ties in the heart of Texas oilfield country would mold our fragile young minds into the stuff of which God-fearing Americans, and more importantly Texans, were made.

I was separated by a hundred miles of ripening cotton fields from my white plastic stereo turntable upon which I had played “Heart of Glass” incessantly for the past four months, learning every nuance of Debbie’s vocal delivery until I could lip-synch the entire song in a style that was entirely Deborah Ann Harry. This was undoubtedly disturbing to my father, who then spirited me away to nowheresville in a desperate attempt to butch me up.

The attempt was in vain, as I learned during a commercial break in some god-awful motorcycle sidecar racing film entitled Sidehackers, which my uncle had insisted on watching in its entirety. I have since seen Sidehackers on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and feel somewhat vindicated. Much to my pop-culturally deprived delight, Blondie was going to be on Solid Gold that very night, 10:00 pm, performing “Heart of Glass” live. I pleaded with my aunt to be allowed to stay up and watch the show, my argument being that “It’s BLOOOONNNNNDIE!”

“You know that’s not the cartoon, don’t you?” she asked, clearly horrified that I would want to waste my precious sleeping time watching some peroxided bimbette…from New York, no less…singing “that rock and roll garbage.”

“He knows,” my eldest sister sighed on my behalf, rolling her eyes at the thought of the lyrics to my favorite song blaring out of my room at all hours of the day. I had no idea what they were talking about. A viewing of a performance by my future diva was at stake, and they were talking nonsense. I wouldn’t be aware of the existence of a cartoon institution known as “Blondie and Dagwood” until years later. My aunt and I were on the same planet, but living in very different worlds.

Supported by sibling intervention, it was agreed that I could stay up and watch the show, as long as the volume stayed at a barely audible level. I was in heaven, and burrowed under a quilt on the couch. A thunderstorm had rolled in, terrifying me no end; I was a West Texas boy by birth and knew of the horrid effects of Spring Break tornadoes on small, flat Texas towns. Thus nested and appropriately skittish, I waited through dance numbers to the tune of the Village People and Donna Summer for my Debbie to appear.

“What in the hell,” you ask, banging your empty latté cup upon the table top in frustration, “does any of this have to do with Phantasm? We want a movie review and this chump gives us a page-long dissertation on Blondie. What’s up with that?”

Buck up, little kemosabe. That was just the exposition. The plot will become clear momentarily, because as I cowered there, watching Solid Gold on that (dare I say it?) dark and stormy night, I chanced across a preview for a brand-new drive-in schlock horror flick known as Phantasm.

The preview was like all horror-film previews that came before it and will come after: a scene from the movie was cut with adjectives by obscure critics ripped out of context to praise the film and a droll announcer making scale pay by saying things like “If this one doesn’t scare you, you’re already dead.” Strange as it may seem, that one preview was to change my perceptions and haunt my dreams. The scene they showed was the sphere.

For those unfamiliar with the Phantasm franchise, “the sphere” is just that: a silver sphere, the size of a regulation softball, which flies around a mausoleum and kills people by drilling holes in their heads and pumping out their blood. It was a totally unique concept in the annals of sci-fi/horror. Viewed in the dark, creepy confines of a strange house in the middle of a thunderstorm, miles from the safety of my parents and all things familiar, that scene with the sphere did something to my mind. I was terrified beyond all rational thought; I was certain that the sphere would come zipping around a corner and stick itself to my head. For months, my dreams were invariably invaded by the killer sphere. I wrote stories about it. I drew pictures of it drilling out people’s eyes, earning myself a trip to the school psychologist. I became thin and gaunt, skulking through the hallways at school and slipping furtively from room to room at home. I stopped listening to the soothing Euro-pop beat of “Heart of Glass” and cranked up the punk guitar riffs of “One Way or Another.” I was forever changed.

Oddly enough, I never viewed Phantasm in its original release; I was deemed too young in the eyes of my mother to be subjected to “R” rated films. But the damage was done; my fertile imagination would play that sphere scene over and over in my head. Imagination being what it is, I would add to the scene and invent all sorts of gory details until Phantasm had achieved a kind of mythical status in my brain. I was sure that if I were to ever view the film, the horror presented on celluloid would undoubtedly be so gruesome and terrifying that my head would explode right then and there. This certainty would continue to follow me through my formative years. Let’s fast-forward to 1988.

Debbie was now doing solo gigs, and “French Kissin’” was top of the pops in England and perhaps Australia. I’m itching to graduate from high school, a momentous occasion several months in my future. As I sat there, watching a first-season original run of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I was floored by a pre-emptive attack of déjà vu. It’s the same damn preview, sphere attack and all, souped up for the Regan era. A voice proclaimed, “This summer, the ball is back!” Phantasm II was born.

All my childhood memories of that night in Andrews, Texas came flooding back to me. I broke out the Parallel Lines album, played “Heart of Glass” a half-dozen times for renewal of purpose, and drove myself down to the only all-Betamax video store in town to finally face my demons and rent the movie. I took Phantasm home, and with a reverence usually reserved for one’s first sexual experience, slipped it into the VCR.

With age comes wisdom, and it dawned on me that viewing this particular film was not about to cause me to spontaneously combust. In fact, the whole production was remarkably amateur. After I laughed off ten years of repressed trauma, I paid attention to the story and became ensnarled in the plot twists of dream versus reality, all made years before Freddy Kruger put on his glove and sweater. Phantasm was everything I ever looked for in a horror film: a flick that goes “boo,” then leaves you asking, “Okay…now what the hell just happened?”

The premise of the film is fairly straight forward. Three friends end up running afoul of the creepy undertaker they refer to as “the Tall Man,” who is doing nasty things to the corpses up at the old cemetery. They team up to stop the Tall Man, facing down dwarves in hoods and the flying silver sphere. You get enough exposition to get involved in the character’s lives; it’s obvious that Reggie, Mike, and Jody all have some serious history together. But just when you think you know what’s going on, you get thrown a twist and questions remain. There are plenty of loose ends and the film spawns that beautiful horror-flick offspring: the sequel.

Phantasm is such a slice of 1970's cinema; it would be unheard of in today's blockbuster megaplex culture to find a low-budget horror flick (rated "R", no less...) in wide release today. It's a gritty little art-house horror flick that keeps the promise of good storytelling alive. Maybe today's box office slump could learn a little from the past; creativity and passion for the subject can sometimes outweigh formulas and CGI. Phantasm does just that: it takes convention and sticks a lethal silver ball to its head.

In the DVD Player 2

2005-07-16T15:12:00.000-07:00

The Black Hole
Starring: Anthony Perkins, Ernest Borgnine, and Joseph Bottoms

The late 70's and early 80's were traumatic times for young sci-fi fans such as myself. This was pre-megaplex stadium seating. No THX surround sound or cup holders on the arms of your chair. Movies were viewed in dark, humid theaters with threadbare seats, dusty curtains, and extra sticky floors. It was in such surroundings that I found myself exposed to the horrors that were to make up my post-Star Wars cinematic experiences.

I was a seasoned sci-fi fan prior to George Lucas' golden goose hitting the screen with all its might and glory. I was already desensitized to the mayhem of shuttlecraft crashes, phaser disintegrations, and sudden decompressions hurtling you out of the safety of your moonbase. Granted, at the time, I thought you simply suffocated in a vacuum. Little did I know that you exploded like an overripe tomato. In spite of being accustomed to mild violence on television, I was ill-prepared for the intensity of big-screen science fiction.

So there I sat in all innocence, size five "Keds" swinging inches above a glutinous coating of spilled sodas and crushed candy, becoming emotionally scarred by transporter accidents turning people inside out, astronauts exploding when their spacesuits rip, a miniaturized Lily Tomlin narrowly escaping death in a kitchen garbage disposal, and a strangely erotic Flash Gordon parading around in leather underwear to a soundtrack by Queen. None of these, though, could hold a candle to that grand-daddy of all Generation X childhood nightmares: the evil red robot blending Anthony Perkins' guts into pate.

I suppose I should have seen it coming. If the director was going to go through the trouble of putting in a scene that makes a point of showing that the robot had cuisinart hands, you knew that somebody was going to get chopped up sooner or later. But what did I know about foreshadowing? Besides, I read the book before I saw the movie, and all it said was that the robot killed Tony's character. It didn't say how. I simply assumed that he bonked him over the head with a two-by-four.

The Black Hole, for all intents and purposes, is a big old hunk of Disney cheese. The story is a thinly disguised rip-off of The Tempest colliding with Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The dialogue was embarrassing, and the acting made Gerry Anderson marionettes look like Oscar contenders. I would be totally unsurprised if Disney eventually fesses up to having all the actors replaced with audioanimatronic look-alikes.

No one can really blame Disney. Star Wars was big business and Star Trek had been souped up for the wide screen. It was a Hollywood free-for-all to see who could have the best special effects and the cutest wisecracking robots. Unfortunately, the special effects are about it for the redeeming qualities of the film, and even they look hopelessly dated on the DVD release. Minor technicalities like basic physics and character development are thrown out the window.

Granted, Disney was coming from a long line of live-action films that were basically cartoons with actors, but those movies knew what they were and didn't try to rise above themselves. The Black Hole took itself too seriously and had its credibility slashed to the bone. Disney had the star power to try and make it work: Anthony Perkins and Ernest Borgnine, just to name two. However, the movie was a showcase for Disney's animation effects department, so the actors tended to be little more than human props. I swear you can see the wires controlling Joseph Bottoms. Besides, the robots got all the best lines and you can'’t compete with robots voiced by Roddy McDowell and Slim Pickens.

The movie is filmed in "Technovision," that Disney style that makes all the colors look cartoonish and hyper-real. The visual effects and model work look substantially different from Star Wars. If you're a fan of live-action Disney films, you'll know what I'm talking about. I do recommend the soundtrack, if you can find a copy of it on vinyl anywhere. The repetitive orchestration and addition of electronic instruments makes the soundtrack a definite forefather of modern techno music. Maybe Moby will find the time to remix it and we'll all end up dancing to it at the clubs.

Nearly ten years after the theatrical release went by before I could bring myself to rent the film. As I watched the big red robot tear into poor old Anthony, I realized how jaded I've become to film violence. The scene no longer grossed me out; compared to today's science fiction and horror movies, it'’s downright tame. I'm not sure just what had changed my perceptions during the intervening years. Perhaps it was the evening news, the discovery of R-rated movies marrying sex and violence, or seeing my first hard-core porno flick. In any case, Anthony Perkins' death scene in The Black Hole is one of my favorites in all of moviedom; I watch it and remember a time that existed before my innocence was revoked.

Random Linkage

2005-07-06T18:10:00.000-07:00

Getting the hang of this blog thing. Added random links to websites:

North Texas Basset Rescue: if you're looking for a dog in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, you could do worse than a rescue Basset. If you need a charitable donation opportunity, take one look at those eyes and you'll be breaking out the checkbook.

Airliners.net: the web's biggest photo database of commercial airliners, searchable by airline, aircraft type, airport, and just about any other criteria you can imagine. Historical data on most aircraft, industry gossip, and aviation news make this a must-see site for airline geeks everywhere.

SetLoveFree.com: The official website dedicated to repealing the Wright Amendment, which limits flights out of Dallas Love Field, stifles competition, and keeps North Texas airfares criminally high. Even if you don't live in the Dallas area, repealing the Wright Amendment will lower airfares between other major metropolitan areas around the nation and Dallas.

As the urge arises, I guess I'll add more to the list of links. Probably random crap, but that's what the web is all about.

In the DVD Player

2004-06-16T16:55:00.000-07:00

Airport (1970) Starring Dean Martin, Jacqueline Bissett, and George Kennedy

As with all book-to-screen adaptations in the late 1960's, the celluloid version of Arthur Hailey's Airport is groovy, hip, and chock full of cheese. My mother, a reservations clerk during TWA's Howard Hughes heyday, would never pass up a chance to catch the one and only Original Disaster Movie on the Tuesday night TV flick of the week. I would sit beside her, spellbound, and receive more of an education than I ever thought possible.

"Working for the airlines was just like that," she'd say, watching the final credits roll. "Except for that part about the bomb."

At the time, I never really understood what she meant. As an elementary school connoisseur of disaster movies, the vital plot was the bomb being smuggled aboard a packed flight to Rome. I'd simply shrug and go play "explosive decompression" with my chairs lined up to resemble the coach section of a 707, screaming instructions to my stuffed animal passengers, each wearing a Dixie cup oxygen mask held in place by a stapled-on rubber band.

As I grew older, successive viewings revealed the swinging post-Pill world of pre-AIDS sex, and I understood what my mother meant. It was all sugar-coated and buffed to a high gloss...the film is currently rated "G"...but it was there for anyone with a junior-high schoolyard education and an American Heritage dictionary to see. The airport manager was cheating on his wife with the airline agent. His wife was cheating on him. The airline pilot was cheating on his wife with any number of stewardesses. His wife knew and didn't care. I'm assuming my mother meant that working for the airlines was like that for other people; as far as I know I was conceived without any really original sin.

The ways in which these various situations play out really date this movie; there is an unwanted pregnancy and abortion is mentioned as an option, but the word "abortion" is never uttered in the film. Divorce is discussed, but it seems to be an ugly, distasteful concept with genuine concern about the children coming from a "broken home." All the sleeping around is talked about in the most general terms like, "There's someone else" and "You've been bragging about your scrambled eggs. It's time I found out how good they really are." Everyone wondered why I sniggered at breakfast for years.

In spite of the blatant omission of sexual phraseology, the movie follows the book with remarkable precision. All the major plot points, character names, and locations stay the same. What the movie does is take out all the painfully detailed prose about the inner workings of the airport and airlines with which Hailey padded his book and presents a tighter package to the audience. It's almost presented as two movies in one; the story of a harried airport manager trying to keep Lincoln Memorial open during a winter blizzard, and the story of an airplane in peril as a mad plot ensues to collect insurance money.

The whole thing is one big tribute to Boeing, its 707 a featured player in the film. I don't recall the interior of any aircraft being quite that spacious; the coach cabin chairs look like Barcaloungers and the aisle is wide enough to accommodate a Volkswagen. As far as airline procedures and equipment goes, the whole thing stays true to life, even including genuine American Airlines Hostess Patty Paulson in the cast of stewardesses to consult on technical matters (she's the blonde).

The movie boils down to the will-he-won't-he-can-we-catch-him-in-time mad bomber plot. The bomb does blow up, and to their credit the effects people put together the most accurate portrayal of rapid decompression seen on celluloid. Paper flies, Dean Martin is dragged down the aisle, and Jacqueline Bissett is hanging onto the galley curtains for dear life. The suction stops, and the masks drop down. The little bags all inflate, although real flight attendants will tell you that they won't. There's only a single fatality; the mad bomber gets blown up and sucked out of the aircraft when his dynamite goes off. Quite a difference when you consider the massing body counts of subsequent airline disaster films.

The only cinematically important item from this movie is Helen Hayes' Oscar for best supporting actress. She played the little old lady stowaway. That's about as noteworthy as it gets, unless you count this as the movie that laid down the law for all other airline disaster flicks. Apart from the series of sequels (Airports '75, '77, and '79, respectively), movies such as Executive Decision, Passenger 57, and Turbulence all fall into that distinctive Airport mold.

Considering all that's happened in the aviation industry recently, it's nice to trace those roots back to a time before terrorism, security, fuel costs, and hard times befell the airlines. Grab the wide-screen version of Airport on DVD, tip your seat back, put your tray table down, and toast the past with a miniature bottle of whiskey.