Astute (or extremely activity-challenged) readers will remember I watched 1973′s Westworld again back in July. This evening I saw its later (and lamer) sequel, Futureworld, circa 1976.

So – before I ‘review’ this movie I’m just going to say – I’m not worried about any of you going to rent it (turns out even the Mecca of Movies only had it on VHS) so all plot points (as may exist – and there aren’t many) will be spoiled herein.

So – basically fast forward several years from the events in Westworld – Delos has been rebuilt, bigger and better than ever. Now they have Roman World, Medieval World, Spa World and FutureWorld – no more WestWorld – although they visit its remains in this movie. Given the tragedy of before, Delos needs better PR to encourage people to come back, so they enlist a TV reporter (Blythe Danner) and the newspaper reporter who broke the story the first time around (Peter Fonda). But prior to heading out to Delos, Peter Fonda gets a clue from an informant (who is killed just before PF meets him to discuss the scoop) that something is still very ‘wrong’ at Delos this time around, too.

So they go there, and far too much time is taken up showing all the high-tech stuff, people walking here, people walking there, and there are two bit-characters (a Russian General + wife, and a famous Japanese person, probably a politician) who get some minor screen time. Very little of this advances the plot, save some (seemingly) random sequences showing people very interested in computer recordings and simulations of the main four characters.

It develops that Delos is making (effectively – they don’t name it directly) clones of world leaders and politicians because they don’t trust humans to keep from blowing themselves up. The visitors come to Delos, and the clones are sent out into the world to replace them, under Delos’ control. The movie never says if the robots hatched this plot on their own (one of the major Delos characters, Duffy, turns out to be one) or if they have mad-scientist backers (it is never revealed whether Dr. Schneider is human, robot, or something else) working with them.

At any rate, PF and BD find a (still-human) mechanic named Harry who helps them discover the truth, and then there is more running around with guns until the end, where they both escape Delos and (presumably) tell the world. Yul Brynner is wasted in a weird dream sequence with BD as a fantasy lover – I’m sure I was impressed by this back in 1976 (as a nine-year old) but it’s pretty silly now.

So….without dwelling on what the movie does wrong (mostly far too much tedium in advancing the meager plot) – i’d rather mention a few things that could have made it MUCH more interesting by contrast.

1) Futureworld never explains how the robots figured out how humans always want to destroy themselves (and thus hatched a plot to stop it and save themselves from our stupidity). By way of comparison, the recent BSG remake trickled this info out over the entire length of the series – of course to keep you coming back until the end, but partially because it kept you guessing and interested and inventing your own ideas about where the plot was going, then to watch it and confirm (or see where they went instead).

It might have been very interesting to see the ‘between’ story explained in more detail with more motives and the ‘how’. FW talks about the ’700 series’ robots as being far more advanced than those in the prior movie/robot generation, but it’s only a few lines of spoken dialog at best and nothing beyond that.

2) Just like in the previous movie, the big ‘seller’ behind the concept of Delos is ‘sex with robots’ – but at $1200/day – would that really do it? And I would think more stuff (even Disneyland has Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Haunted Mansion) than just the Middle Ages or Roman times would be required to get people there (the lack of showers and actual cooking comes to mind, but I digress ). Westworld itself might have had some attraction, I agree – but even in 1976 I’d think more would be needed (and Disney had both POTC and THM back THEN, too).

3) It would have been interesting also to see robots who didn’t ‘agree’ with the crazy clone strategy to take over the world, and if they helped PF and BD succeed to blow the story open. Here, BSG did this in various ways and various characters – creating a mosaic of character motives (if done well) can really serve to spice things up, no?

4) finally – what if Delos had actually ‘won’? What if they largely succeeded and THEN a reporter came back say, 20-30 years in the future and found out what had happened? And here comes the broken record, because now that I think of it (literally) BSG did this too – in a way – with the whole idea of Cylons being all-but human in appearance, etc. But they limited its scope by keeping it a limited number of models – in FW’s case, it might have been *many* world leaders over time – what if the clones ushered in a time of peace and world achievement, and then we found out we had all been tricked for 20-30 years? What then? I can’t help thinking of Kent Brockman saying “And I, for one, welcome our new ant overlords” with the paper sign on the wall behind him – too funny.

Anyway, if you find the book of this movie on a seedy bookshelf somewhere, and you are killing time on the beach, read it. Otherwise, just rent BSG and get the same thing only done far, far better. They should have quit while they were ahead with Westworld.

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What is it about Alan Rickman that rocks? Well, for starters I think I’ve liked nearly every movie he’s in (or at minimum, his part in it). Despite being ‘genetically predisposed’ to like Galaxy Quest in being a big nerd – I could only put up with the first half hour or so. However, Alan Rickman’s bit as an alien with the catch phrase (‘By Grapthor’s Hammer’) uttered both at critical plot points – and at the grand openings of car lots – is TOO classic.

Who else goes from German terrorist (Die Hard) to guardian angel (Dogma) to sarcastic, doomsayer robot (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) to Professor Snape (not all the HP movies have near enough of him in them, but most have a good amount )?

I think it’s the combination of subtle, voiced exasperation, sarcasm without even trying, and just his mannerisms that do it for me. The guy just cracks me up!

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(Re)watched the ancient sci-fi classic WestWorld late last night. It was shorter than I remember (in other words gets to the killing spree/chase scenes/etc. faster than I remembered), but definitely some classic performances in there, most notably Yul Brynner in the title role as The Gunslinger.

Since this is an old movie, even for me (in 1973, I was 6) let’s recap – a very expensive ($1,000/day), exotic resort (Delos) opens up in a distant desert (they never say where, but looks like the American Southwest), where there are three distinct ‘worlds’ people can visit – Roman World, Medieval World, and West(ern) World – each is tailored to fulfull guest fantasies based on advanced robots to cater to their every whim, within the theme of each ‘world’. In an early part of the film, an announcer talks about enjoying the ‘relaxed morality of earlier Roman times’ (meaning guilt-free sex with lifelike robots, let’s be clear here ) And this is consistent with the other ‘worlds’ – the main two characters (james Brolin and Richard Benjamin) visit WestWorld (and at least one brothel therein). Then, things subtly start to go wrong, and mayhem ensues in a variety of ways.

So, this is a pioneering and influential sci-fi film in many ways. It is very well made for its time, obviously a bigger budget than some of its contemporaries (yeah, Omega Man, i’m talking to you). The decor, sets and computers/effects are spartan, but still look decent, and unlike many sci-fi movies, don’t get in the way of the plot. Not on the level of the earlier 2001: A Space Odyssey – but almost NO movies (sci-fi or otherwise) compare to that one even now.

WW has to be considered one of the first ‘relentless, unyielding stalking killer’ movies – Yul Brynner’s Gunslinger – used to great effect many times later in countless horror movies but also every Terminator movie ever made, elements of The Matrix movies, etc. Even Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men is reminiscent of this theme (and also very scary). In WW, this may be considered more remarkable because The Gunslinger stalks Richard Benjamin throughout the day – never at night – so his power over the intended victim grows not through cheap special effects or misdirection, but ultimately on the strong, almost silent performance of Yul Brynner (who hardly has more than maybe 3-4 sentences of dialog in the whole movie).

WW’s story also builds one of the earliest ‘no matter how perfect our technology gets, it will get us in the end’ themes – and does it about as subtly as the 16-ton weight from the classic Monty Python sketch. But the early ’70s was definitely a time of ‘man is doomed’ themed-sci-fi movies (Soylent Green, the earlier Omega Man, Silent Running, etc.) so not really surprising in hindsight.

Another thing that struck me this time around has to be the interaction between the resort guests and the robots who serve them. At one point after a barroom shootout, James Brolin remarks about ‘the beauty of the place is you never know if it’s real’ (or words to that effect). The guests feel free to just shoot the place up, start bar brawls, have sword battles (in effect act like a pillaging pirate – no Pirate World? ) etc. – and let someone else pick up the pieces. I guess at $1,000/day, i’d expect the same – but it’s interesting how easily they just slot into it and tear it up with no consequences (well, that was the Delos sales pitch anyway). Given that the director/screenwriter was Michael Crichton – author of this theme many times over (The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, etc.) again, not a big surprise.

Stepping back (to a soapbox) it’s also interesting here is that despite continually warning us of the dangers of technology and how we overreach ourselves far too often in his books and films – MC was one of the biggest global warming deniers on the planet, right up there with Big Oil and James Inhofe! Like Mel Gibson of recent past, MC shows that many times in Hollywood – appearances can be VERY deceiving. Was he having fun at our expense on either side of the issue? I’ll have to look around to see if anyone ever asked him that question – he’s dead now (2008) so we may never know. End soapbox.

All symbolism and soapboxes aside – WestWorld is still an entertaining movie despite being now almost 40 years old. Yul Brynner makes the movie for me – without him, i don’t think WW would have been near as effective – his Gunslinger really is a Hollywood icon, sci-fi or otherwise.

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As seen elsewhere on this blog, i’ve become a fan of anime in the past several years. I think there’s several reasons:

a) I’ve always liked animation, whether movies, TV cartoons, and in many cases, even ads;

b) the diversity of animation just keeps on getting better and more interesting, even if increasingly computer-based. Of course, just as seen in video games over the past 15-20 years, there is no substitute for actual plot, good writing and coherent themes with good character development. The best looking animation(s) can still end up boring and predictive without them (yes, Appleseed Ex Machina – I’m talking to you!);

c) I think in part anime is also interesting because so often the characters are written in a more over-the-top sensibility (certainly every Initial D episode i’ve ever seen qualifies on that score, but many others are right behind) and often have characters act as if they are in ‘life or death’ struggles (which in many cases isn’t true, but they act that way anyway).

d) Anime just has a different take on things. It’s not usually glorified sitcom situations or plots (at least not the anime I watch) and often has crazy inclusions for characters (Poipodor in Mars Daybreak comes to mind) or fantastical futures that all but make no sense (IGPX) but somehow still manage to entertain.

Which brings me to Initial D. This is an anime series about a school kid living in Gunma province in northern Japan, whose father runs a tofu shop and is an ex-street racer. The father, Bunta, subtly encourages this trait in his only son by having him deliver tofu to several accounts in the early morning over a mountain pass. The kid, Takumi Fujiwara, is fairly dense but seems to have a talent for racing and surprises older 20-somethings who race more seriously. In the first several series, we see Takumi’s talents develop until he’s the equal or better of most other racers in the area and beyond. In Stage 4, ‘Project D’ – he’s now become part of a traveling race team led by a former rival, Ryosuke Takahashi, who dreams of conquering japan’s many mountains and street racing teams with his brother Keisuke and Takumi as the two ace racers on the Project D team. They travel around Japan, challenging team after team in tough and varied races.

What’s appealing about this series is as mentioned before – the characters take themselves VERY seriously, which in some cases comes across as laughable but endearing in a way. You’d think the world would end if this kid doesn’t win a given race by the way they act in posturing against each other up to and during each race.

Also cool is simply the thought of blasting down mountain roads in souped up cars at clearly WAY illegal speeds – watching it on animation is about the only way i’d ever do THAT – I don’t like driving SLOW on cliffside roads – ask kerewin about that one when we were driving around on Crete or Santorini last fall!

Also amusing is how no matter where they go, everyone (racer-wise, anyway) knows about them and keeps putting the best racers up against them. Yet no cops ever show up to THROW THEM IN JAIL for such blatant mountain-racing at nearly every mountain pass they encounter? This was amusing in Wangan Midnight too – although in that series they are largely blasting around highways IN THE CITY at ridiculous speeds but also apparently immune to police (or at least, invisible)?

Anyway, Initial D is pretty entertaining – don’t expect detailed character development or much valid social commentary – it’s pretty focused on one thing, blasting down mountain roads in the middle of the night. But it does a good job of handling that story over and over. Hoping there will ultimately be a Stage 5, but time will tell…..

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Saw TS3 this past Sunday. This is a great movie – and like the last Pixar movie we saw – yet another tearjerker in at least two places! I won’t spoil the plot, but suffice it to say there yet more twists ahead for Woody & crew, although I was able to predict the end about 2/3 of the way in.

Like most other Pixar movies, TS3 is a nice blend of silly and adult humor – not quite as many pop-culture references this time around, but still a solid plot and the characters continued to develop from last time around. About the only thing(s) missing (OK, slight spoilers ahead) were a bigger role for my favorite unspeaking character in the 3 TS movies and Kelsey Grammer from the last one – he always plays a great villain. The outtakes at the end with Zurg arriving at the daycare were pretty amusing too.

I’m glad they made this movie – and I’m pretty sure it’s the last one – which is also fine. And this probably has to be one of the few (if not the only) series of movie sequels that actually worked as well as the original? GF3 was sheite, after all – were there any other sequels that worked as of the 3rd movie? And NO, Police Academy was arguably lame the FIRST time out of the gate (sorry Bobcat, love ya!)

go see it!

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It’s no secret Pixar makes great movies. Even their ‘mediocre‘ movies (by Pixar standards) are still a notch above regular theater fare these days. But there are a few that really stand out – both of Brad Bird‘s movies – The Incredibles and Ratatouille, certainly qualify.

Just watched Ratatouille again last night – what an enjoyable movie. The animation is yet again excellent (witness the ‘Remy goes down the sewage pipe on the cookbook’ sequence) – the characters are well-developed, and as per usual, there are a few surprises along the way.

As everyone likely knows by now, Ratatouille is the story of Remy the (country) rat in France who dreams of being a foodie and cook, despite the challenge of (in reality) being a garbage-eating rat. He makes it to Paris by virtue of a local kerfuffle created by himself and his brother Emile, and shortly connects with a poor ‘garbage boy’ simply trying to survive as a janitor in a formerly 4-star restaurant on its downhill slide. The result is a great story, with all the typical Pixar goodness to go with it.

Fave scenes and actors/characters – Peter O’Toole as the kingmaking, snobby food critic Anton Ego; Janeane Garafolo/Colette explaining (through the expert use of BIG knives) how to get ahead as a female French chef; the method used to prep Remy’s rat clan to help in the kitchen; and most of all, when Anton Ego tastes the ratatouille served him (special mention: his review of the food the next morning).

Like all Pixar movies, there are so many little nice touches along the way, it would be tough to list them all (and that’s part of the fun of rewatching them anyway). But one comes to mind, anyway – the ridiculous amount of old Citroen’s and 2CV’s driving around on the streets – I’m sure there are still a lot of them, but like vintage Beetles in the USA – they are getting a lot fewer and far between these days – sad…

One last comment – something I also really like about Pixar is that they aren’t afraid to have true emotion in their movies. The recent Up being a classic example – the montage where Ed Asner’s character’s life is shown in fast-forward review – VERY sad! Or in both Toy Story movies, there are nostalgic looks back via Randy Newman music in the background – again, definitely a human perspective. In Ratatouille, the scene with Remy’s dad showing him WHY humans are a dangerous lot to tangle with – pretty disturbing – but also why these movies are for the whole family, not just kids and not just adults. Well done, guys.

Anyway, watch and enjoy!

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just got back from seeing IM2 – pretty good! Was *slightly* disappointed to not see Terrence Howard back in this one, but Don Cheadle is about the best sub they could have hoped for (otherwise, we might have seen Chris Tucker or Eddie Murphy? – I like them both, but not here!) One pleasant surprise was Mickey Rourke as the bad guy Ivan Venko – I think he’s been on a roll since Sin City, really – and seems to have left loser movies like Wild Orchid far behind, thank god. Sam Rockwell is always funny and entertaining, too, and I’m glad they didn’t really try to have him be the second coming of Jeff Bridges from the last movie, either.

While at least one situation was a bit too much (ok, yeah TS owns the F1 car, but kicking out the driver just before the race is to start and having Tony Stark drive it instead? Yeah…..) – but all in all, this was a good summer movie, good performances all around and they tell us more about Nick Fury and SHIELD, too, so that’s not a bad thing either.

here’s another review (spoiler alert on it) – IMHO it’s way too cynical – lighten up! This is a COMIC BOOK MOVIE, for pete’s sake – not Saving Ryan’s Privates! Just go to IM2 and count the days until TRON Legacy

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I’m not watching any other trailers for this. I’m just glad they made a sequel! Dec. 17 2010, welcome to Cinerama…….

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Pretty d*** cool – if you haven’t ever read him – he was one of the ‘big three’ way back in Weird Tales days – the other two (better known than CAS) were H.P. Lovecraft (Cthulhu sushi, anyone? Tastes better than Soylent Green! ) and Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan the Barbarian).

I had never heard of CAS myself until reading Stephen King’s ‘Different Seasons’ many many years ago – Different Seasons is really four novellas, the first 3 of which have since been made into movies – bu the fourth story – ‘The Breathing Method‘ – has not. If you’ve read it, you probably know why. But several times through the story King references CAS alien landscapes and settings, which got me interested in finding some stories to read.

Given no convenient ‘internets’ to check out at the time – I went to the next best thing – Powell’s Books – which actually had some used paperbacks (imagine that) – CAS is often as hard to find on the stacks as Philip K. Dick and for a while there, I was thinking CAS was harder to find than Kilgore Trout books. But, thankfully other fans exist out there too and besides the existing paperbacks here and there, a few hardback story collections have been put together. CAS didn’t write novels – only short stories and poetry.

Anyway, check out some of the stories here and enjoy – after which you may be ready to find a copy of The City of the Singing Flame all your own…..

candybowl

So finally saw Speed Racer (the 2008 live-action version, not the original 60s anime) tonight. When this movie came out, I was definitely interested in seeing it, but then many reviews were middling to bad, so I didn’t. The Wachowskis are somwhat polarizing filmmakers these days, and have a lot to live up to (and live down) after the Matrix series went from excellent (1st) to good (2nd) to somewhat mediocre (3rd). But V for Vendetta was also excellent (IMHO), so whatevs – most other filmmakers would be completely jealous to have only a *couple* of those movies in their CV, after all.

Anyway, this movie takes in a lot of the original anime’s plot devices (yes, Chim-Chim is here) and I was definitely pleased to see a scene where they go through all the Mach 5′s special devices (but they never used the Ctrl-G ‘Homing Bird’? They used to use that all the time in the anime!). Racer X of course is key to the plot, and he doesn’t disappoint, either. The look of the cars varies from ‘shiny Hot Wheels surrounded by CGI’ to semi-real looking (when the humans are in them or driving them on “normal” streets).

The movie itself owes a LOT to Pixar (Monsters, Inc and The Incredibles most notably for the factory scenes and the Racer family neighboorhood/house/school/etc.). It also definitely takes from at least two PS2 videogames I own – Kinetica (robot battle-racing) and XG3: Extreme-G Racing (hyper-powered motorcycles with weapons) – both games are played on crazy tracks that soar up/down/multiple dimensions/aerial/underwater/you name it. Props must also be given to drift racing/dirt track racing in general (given the way they drive the cars almost horizontally a lot of the time) and the old standby – Initial D, which I’m sure the Wachowskis have watched at least most of. In the big rally race mid-movie, some of those crazy mountain races look a LOT like the way Initial D shows its crazy mountain racing (the latter’s animation being far more primitive, however).

Finally, there is a lot of IGPX here too (a recent anime from 2005) in the look and feel of the racetracks, especially the Fuji race – and the battling between the cars during the race.

As you’d expect, the races themselves are very well done and crazy to watch, and the movie doesn’t try to oversell the characters, either – unlike the mostly cheesy Racer family seen in the anime. I would say the Racers are as appropriate for the story as The Matrix’ characters – without the speechmaking every 15 minutes by Morpheus of course . What was a bit sad was that actor Emile Hirsch (who plays Speed) was BORN the same year I graduated from high school – DOH! I guess you can’t win them all. The usual anime ‘challenges’ confront Speed and the rest to varying degrees – *almost* insurmountable odds, increasingly maniacal opponents, crisis-whew-bigger-crisis-whew, etc. – But it moves along fairly well and has a bit of fun even with camera asides in a few tiny scenes.

In summary, I was far more entertained by this movie than say, Avatar – even though the latter is of course way more advanced effects-wise. Even having seen some of the SR anime before as a kid (probably 30+ years ago) didn’t really spoil anything. This is a great movie, and i’d definitely see it again on the big screen (Cinerama or midnight movie at The Egyptian, anyone?) I watched it this time at home on my computer……

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