Michael Jackson’s Greatest Role

Some will remember Michael Jackson for his music. Some will remember him for his unique style.

I choose to remember him as Captain Eo, battling the evil Supreme Leader with nothing but his ragtag team of muppets, a whole bunch of sub-Star Wars special effects and some smokin’ dance moves.

To paraphrase my friend Rob, there just aren’t enough e’s in cheesy for this.

Fun fact: the annoying elephant thing is played by Tony Cox, who went on to play the sidekick Marcus in Bad Santa.

And check out those credits! George Lucas. James Horner. And Francis Ford Coppola? Really?

Well, I guess Jack doesn’t seem like such an anomaly anymore…

V is for Very Excited

The original 1980s series V was was one my earliest exposures to science fiction, and it’s still good.

The long-awaited remake is almost upon us, and it’s looking amazing.

Yes, that’s Morena Baccarin with a pixie cut. That should nicely offset the presence of Scott Wolf.

Star Trek

Here we go. This is where I add my voice to the growing chorus of admiration for J.J. Abrams and his new Star Trek movie.

I was all keen to hate it too. Star Trek movies have a history of being bloated gabfests or extended TV episodes filmed in 35mm, but this wasn’t. It’s actually really good.

And I hate to admit it, but therein lies the rub. The reason it’s really good is that it’s not really a Star Trek film at all. It’s more like a Star Wars film. (Original trilogy of course, not the later ones. Which ironically were more like Star Trek films. But I digress…)

It’s fun, it’s action packed, it doesn’t pay too much attention to previous canon or scientific principles, and there wasn’t even one scene where Starfleet suits sit around a conference table crapping on about how to deal diplomatically with those darn Romulans.

Rather, we get the classic original series approach of tooling around in starships, shooting first and asking questions later.

The ships are shiny and new, Kirk’s a young punk, Spock’s not quite as emotionless as we remember, Uhura’s sexy as hell and Simon Pegg as Scotty is just hilarious.

The series needed a serious reboot, and this was it. It’s a great universe with great stories to tell, but the stiff stylings of previous cinematic outings weren’t doing its longevity any favours at all.

What J.J. has given us here is most definitely Star Trek, Jim, but not as we know it. And it’s about goddamn time.

4.5 out of 5

Knowing

In a remarkable display of consistency, director Alex Proyas follows up uneven science fiction thriller I, Robot with uneven science fiction thriller Knowing.

Nicolas Cage mopes his way through the movie as grumpy academic John Koestler, whose son finds a sequence of numbers buried in a time capsule which, when analysed, turn out to accurately predict the dates and locations of major disasters.

Happily it’s not just pareidolia, and audience fears that the plot might devolve into the silliness that was Jim Carrey’s The Number 23 are quickly dispelled.

The disasters actually do unfold in predictably spectacular fashion, and the movie thunders along with lots of nice set-pieces and some very impressive effects. In fact, the action is so relentless that one is left with barely a second to ponder the immense implausibility of it all. Which is probably just as well.

Proyas handles it all very nicely, right up until the final sequence when the subtle biblical imagery inexplicably morphs from a tap on the forehead to a sledgehammer in the face. I’m not sure that was strictly necessary.

To top it off, there’s a garbled explanation of Determinism that deserves to join Jurassic Park's treatment of Chaos theory in the Hollywood Hall of Scientific Theory Abuse Fame.

Still, it's all good fun.

On a side note, Melbourne viewers will be amused by the attempts to pass Melbourne off as Boston, particularly when it involves geographical miracles like getting from the CBD to Carlton by heading south on Princes Bridge.

3 out of 5

The Cyborgs are Among Us

When the Terminators arrive they will not descend as an alien force upon an unsuspecting public.

The first cyborgs will arrive with a whimper, not a bang.

We will welcome them, not fear them. We will accept them into our lives.

We will do this because we will be them. And they will be us.

The change will come by degrees. In fact, it has already begun.

Our doctors routinely replace bones and joints with with metal and plastic and carbon fibre. Our paralympic athletes achieve extraordinary physical feats with biomechanical prosthetics. Our soldiers wear movement-enhancing armour and have instant communications projected directly into their vision.

This week we’ve had two notable examples hitting the papers: a filmmaker replacing one eye with a camera, and a programmer replacing his finger with a USB drive.

Interesting, but these are hardly quantum leaps towards our cybernetic future. They’re just the next steps down the road.

Gentlemen, we already have the technology.

Watchmen

Arriving more than twenty years after the famed graphic novel and beleaguered by cries that it is inherently unfilmable, we finally have the much-anticipated Watchmen film.

And I’m a little ashamed to admit I’ve not read the novel.

I would offer the defence that I chose to see the film first, but the prosecution would counter that I only became aware of the novel once talk of the film had begun. And then I would be screwed.

What I will say is that as it stands, this is an excellent film.

In a densely-packed story of all-too-human superheroes, we get to see the social consequences of state-sponsored vigilantism, just how much getting around in an costume fighting crime can fuck you up, and all set in an alternate 1985 where Nixon is still President,

That only one of the eponymous Watchmen is actually a superhero is a brilliant device. This has always been (sticking to the DC universe) the difference between Superman and Batman: while Supes is an alien with real powers, Batman’s just a rich dude with a lot of cool gadgets.

Watchmen shows us that in reality, the idea of them working together in some sort of Justice League is ridiculous.

The superman’s inherent inhumanity will eventually crystallise as apathy, and the gadget guy will be unmasked as one pathetically seeking acceptance (an nice idea explored recently in The Dark Knight).

And so it is here: mutual mistrust eventually blows them apart. And set against the background of 1980s nuclear paranoia, the potential for destruction is made very metaphorically clear.

4.5 out of 5

Rolling the Roads

A nice little piece today from Age scribe Matthew McLean to solve Melbourne’s public transport woes:

They shall construct above-ground, domed corridors, each complete with lanes of non-stop conveyor belts. The corridors will be minimalist but comfortable in design, the roofs fitted with solar panels to power the belts.

Stations will be dismantled. Passengers can mount and dismount at will, with the speed set at a gentle 25 km/h in the CBD, increasing to 40 km/h in the suburbs. Padding will be placed beside the conveyor belts to cushion people's landings. Those laughable blue documents known as "timetables" will be stacked higher than the Eureka Tower, and a massive bonfire will ensue.

It’s a great idea, but hardly original. Heinlein came up with this almost 70 years ago in his short story masterpiece “The Roads Must Roll”.

Now I’m all for giving our cities a retro-future look, and moving walkways are a staple of that particular genre. They’re right up there with jetpacks and robot butlers and silver jumpsuits.

We might want to be careful about this one, though. In Heinlein’s story, this particular idea didn’t turn out so well.

Caprica

The word around the tubes is that Caprica, the prequel series to Battlestar Galactica will be getting a DVD release on April 21, before its first broadcast on SciFi channel sometime in 2010.

Is this the beginning of the end of broadcast TV? Here’s hoping. And isn’t it appropriate that a show about the beginning of the end of mankind would be the harbinger of such a thing? Sigh.

Still, that’s still a good three months off so here’s a trailer.

Check it out. Science fiction, Dallas-style soap opera and proto-Cylon boobs.

This is all looking very promising.

Catch The Frak Up

Battlestar Galactica returns for its final season on Friday.

It’s been a while, so to help you catch up on where we’re at before we launch into the final ten episodes, we present some brief summary videos.

Part 1

 

Part 2

 

Sweet.

New Who

The BBC have announced who will be playing the eleventh Doctor following David Tennant’s retirement from the role later this year.

And the winner is . . . Matt Smith.

A name which, I’ve found, when put into IMDB brings up a bunch of people who aren’t the man in question. For reference, the correct one is Matt Smith (XI).

He’s not done a lot at this stage of his career (he’s only 26, after all) but I’ve seen a bit of what he has done, and it’s impressive.

Right now I’m enjoying his performance as politics nerd Danny Foster in the BBC series Party Animals (currently showing on Your ABC at 8.30 on Tuesday nights). He’s also acted opposite Billie Piper twice already: in The Ruby in the Smoke and Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

There’ll be a lot of cries of “Who?” over the appointment (particularly from the US) but tapping an otherwise unknown to play The Doctor is business as usual for the Beeb.

Even David Tennant, now lauded as one of the best ever in the role was largely unknown before he stepped into the TARDIS.

We await with interest Mr Smith’s work.

The Day The Earth Stood Still

When a film is so beloved by generations of nerds (myself included) any attempt to remake it is well and truly behind the 8-ball before it even begins. It’s bound to be met with scorn, derision, calls for the heads of the producers etc.

Just put “the day the earth stood still sucks” into Google and see if I’m wrong.

A lot of the derision is around the casting of Keanu Reeves as emissary-from-the-stars Klaatu, originally played by Michael Rennie.

I think it’s actually a fine piece of casting. Klaatu’s taken on human form but hasn’t quite got the hang of it yet. What a perfect excuse  for wooden acting and awkward movements.

And of course, the original being 57 years old means that a lot of the plot updates were necessary.

The threat of nuclear destruction (the original film being grounding in Cold War-era nuclear paranoia) has been replaced with the threat of environmental apocalypse, and the government security requires a bit more hoop-jumping for Klaatu to escape.

Other changes are just to ratchet up the cool factor, like the silver-jumpsuited robot Gort becoming an agglomeration of nanobugs and the flying-saucer spaceship a nondescript glowing orb.

The thing I found really interesting was the Klaatu-as-Messiah imagery (only hinted at in the original) being so much stronger, giving the story a very clear link to Christian end-of-days mythology.

Watch out for references to God-born-as-human, healing hands, forgiveness, stigmata, sacrifice and a new world order. They’re all there.

Of course, the point of the film is an admonition to protect the environment and while this important point is made, in a few places it all gets a bit lost in the cheese.

For some reason modern Hollywood scriptwriters stumble when writing profound dialogue. It was managed much better in the original film, but it could be that Michael Rennie was just a better actor than Keanu.

Either way, like most modern cinematic science-fiction this manages to walks a fine line between saying something important and saying it well.

3.5 out of 5

Keanu . . . In . . . Spaaaaaace

Prior to its release here on Planet Earth, the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still will be beamed into space.

Why? Well, it’s not really clear why.

Presumably it’s so some intergalactic David and Margaret can tell us what they think. You know, from the aliens’ point of view.

This seems to be latest funky thing to do. I think it all started earlier this year when NASA beamed the Beatles’ Across the Universe into space to celebrate the agency’s 50th anniversary.

Of course The Day the Earth Stood Still in no way compares to that little masterpiece.

And anyway, given its theme of aliens destroying the intergalactic menace that is humanity, surely it’s not necessarily the best choice?

We need to tell the Universe how nice we are. I’m thinking It’s a Wonderful Life. Or Bambi.

However, if we must go with the alien theme then why not Contact, which shows hyper-advanced and hyper-intelligent races that we might be worth talking to?

Actually now that I think about it, it might be better to go with Independence Day.

At least that shows we’re not to be fucked with.

Q1: Quarantine

Ever since The Blair Witch Project, every punk with a camcorder thinks they can make the next Citizen Kane.

The latest in the don’t-worry-about-the-cinematography-cos-its-all-real-don’t-you-know genre is Quarantine, which actually owes as much to 28 Days Later and I Am Legend as it does to Cloverfield.

We follow the adventures of reporter Angela, as she in turn follows the adventures of a group of Los Angeles fire-fighters, with the disembodied voice of her trusty camera guy in tow.

A call to a city apartment block leads them to a sick old lady, and enough stereotypical residents (mother+daughter, check, grumpy middle-aged guy, check, non-English speaking couple, check) to generate a bit of incidental confrontation along the way.

The shit goes down when the building is quarantined by the Centre for Disease Control, and all of a sudden everyone is looking for a way out and wondering who’s going to get infected next.

If you ignore the plot holes (why, when infection is such an obvious risk, are the sick not being isolated?) and forgive the telegraphing of what-happens-next, there’s a lot to like here.

Jennifer Carpenter is very good as reporter Angela and the supporting cast is strong. The action sequences are reasonably well-framed (particularly given the restrictions inherent in the format) and there are some genuinely suspenseful moments.

On the downside the camera work is probably a bit too messy, and the film loses some points because it becomes pretty clear early on that some key plot developments had been given away in the trailer.

Also, they pinched the final scene from Silence of the Lambs (where it was done much better).

But still, good horrible fun.

3 out of 5

Battlestar Clues!

Battlestar Galactica will be back with its final episodes on January 16, but the producers have decided that's just too long to wait to mess with our heads.

They've started drip-feeding some clues about the identity of the final Cylon, which will give the fans a good six weeks to tie themselves up in nerdy little knots.

Catch all the action over at You Will Know The Truth. There are currently four clues: one text, one audio, one video, and a picture.

I've long suspected that the final Cylon is, in some sense at least, the Cylon God, who has most commonly been manifest as the Six in Baltar's head (and for a while there, the Baltar in Six's head).

Clue 1 begins with "And the fifth, still in shadow, will claw towards the light", which makes me thing that the fifth will be born as the offspring of Tigh and Six. This is also backed up by Clue 4, which is this rather disturbing picture:


Clue 2 is very obscure (Kara finding her own dead body maybe?) and Clue 3 just looks like a red herring.

More to come. Stay tuned.

Jupiter and Beyond

In a lovely example of life following art, NASA have announced they're sending a robotic probe to Jupiter.

Of course the last time they did that (in 2001: A Space Odyssey) it didn't work out so well. So this time it's just the robot. No humans in danger of getting trapped outside the pod-bay doors, then. Good thinking.

Although if some NASA geek programs it to sing Daisy when it gets there, I'll be very impressed.

Anyway the probe (disappointingly called Juno instead of HAL) will do all the usual things . . . you know, take pretty pictures and look for water.

Water? On Jupiter? What are they expecting? Oceans?

Jupiter doesn't actually have a surface in the sense that Earth does. It's just a whole bunch of swirling gas that gradually gets denser and denser until you reach a planetary core of rock or diamond (depending on whose science fiction you prefer).

Any water is just going to be vaporous wisps in the atmosphere.

Still, it's worth a look.

I just hope Juno swings by the moon Europa while it's there. Now that would be interesting.

I've got five bucks that says that's where we'll find our first example of extra-terrestrial life in the solar system.

New Star Trek Pics!

Some new images from J.J.Abrams' re-imagining/reboot of Star Trek are up at trekmovie.com.

Here is a mere sample:

On the bridge, Chris Pine doing his best Shatner as Kirk, Karl Urban as McCoy and Zachary Quinto as Spock.


Da Crew. Note Simon Pegg in the back as Scotty.


And the winner for inspired casting and make-up goes to . . . Eric Bana as bad-guy Romulan Nero.


All signs are positive, but a quick note to Abrams and Co:

"Don't fuck it up. We're watching you."

Obama/Biden/McCain/Palin = ?

There's a sensational new meme over at Fark, in which people can elegantly express, in simple visual terms, their thoughts on the US presidential and vice-presidential candidates.

This one's my favourite:


But of course I've also gone ahead and made my own:

Battlestar Galactica Case Mod

This is one of the nerdiest things I've ever seen.

And I want one.


You can't do that on a Mac, can you? Ha.

V Returns? Maybe.

Rumours are swirling that the ABC network is in talks to re-imagine the 1980s science fiction classic V.

Even Perez Hilton (whom I would not have picked as the nerdy type) is getting all excited.

While I'm all sorts of keen too, let's not start ripping our faces off to show the reptilian flesh underneath just yet.

Producer Kenneth Johnson's official website reports that ABC is looking at developing a new pilot, but Kenny's real plan is to make a feature film.

Either way it could be great, if only so we can see this scene as it was meant to be seen, because surely this wasn't it:



Although at really low bit-rate, and if you squint a bit, it almost looks ok.

Nuthin' Guv, I Swear!