Tag: American

A Thousand Words: Jodorowsky’s Dune

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Jodorowsky’s Dune

In the early-mid 1970s, arthouse filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky ended up helming an “adaptation” of Dune. The quotes are deliberate as the movie and its tone would have been Starship Troopers/The Natural levels of intentionally different from the book. In 2013, the story of the most extravagant and absurd movie that never was was finally told in the titular documentary.

This is a great production. Everyone is clearly enjoying themselves as they talk about how the production got more and more crazy. Jodorowsky had his own son play a major role, and of course the son talks about it decades later. The art and effects brought together such figures as Jean “Moebius” Giraud, Dan O’Bannon, and H. R. Giger, the latter two of whom would make a monster movie that was a little successful. Yet the all-star cast was the craziest, featuring Orson Welles (paid in free food) as Baron Harkonnen, Salvador Dali, and Mick Jagger.

What makes the documentary shine is its soundtrack, with Kurt Stenzel’s minimalist electronic score being both a perfect accent and a great piece of music in its own right. (Although I’m biased because I like minimal electronic music, fair warning). The cinematography is also effective.

If I had to have one quibble, it’s that the documentary didn’t have the necessary devil’s advocate/reactor scram button to bring things down to earth. The movie is mentioned as being impossible, but in the sense it was too ambitious for Hollywood. In actuality, it would have been unreleasably bizzare, bound to burn money in its production, and simply strange. (There are scenes in at least some versions of Jodorowsky’s Dune that the documentary doesn’t mention, likely because they’re too weird and/or gross). If it actually got out the door, Jodorowsky’s Dune would probably just have been a bloated mess like Marlon Brando’s The Island of Dr. Moreau.

Still, this is a great documentary about a great story, even if it wouldn’t have been a great movie.

Review: Raven

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Raven

William Kinsolving’s 1983 novel Raven is an aviation pop epic about one Buck Faulkner and his family. Faulkner starts his aviation company in the 1930s, which starts with a 21 seat airliner and moves up. Like many other traditional pop epics of the time, we get a mixture of semi-spicy personal drama and big picture discussion about airline orders.

This is no technothriller and Kinsolving is clearly just modeling the planes on famous existing ones. However, (and this sounds like faint praise), he at least knows the basics. This is no Ian Slater. Some of the names may be a little goofy, but that’s it.

As for the novel itself, it’s a good 51% book. It’s not the absolute greatest, but as a brief time passer, it works. Plus it manages to avoid at least some of the pitfalls of authors writing about technology, so it has that in its favor.

Review: High Disaster

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The Penetrator 22: High Disaster

The name High Disaster is fitting for the 22nd (!) Penetrator novel. By now co-author Chet Cunningham had clearly gotten sick of the series. That was the first problem, though someone as prolific as him could have just powered through a contract potboiler. The second and worse problem is that the ‘kill the mobster’ plot had played out and the ‘kill the terrorist’ plot had not yet become big.

So most men’s adventure novels in that period simply ended, with the oil crises not exactly helping things either. Yet the Penetrator kept going like a large caliber tank shell penetrating through a BMD-1. You ended up with things like High Disaster, where the threat/villain is (without spoiling anything) not exactly overwhelming, and the big gimmick is…. wildfires. In the American West. Which is kind of like rain and floods in Southeast Asia.

To appreciate the highs of a genre, you need to see the lows. And that is the only reason I’d recommend this book.

Review: Death by Pitbull

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Death by Pitbull

Lawyer Richard Morris’ recent Death by Pitbull takes a look into something involved with dogfighting-and not the kind that involves airplanes. Namely, it looks at the Pit Bull Terrier, the monstrous beasts that have terrorized human and other animal alike since the 1800s. The tone is rather sensationalist and its politics are frequently right wing, but it still cites its sources and makes a good argument.

Morris repeatedly hammers the ‘it’s how you raised them’ claim, one as faulty as it is a part of the dangerous Harley Quinn/serial killer lover “Tame the Beast” fantasy. To his credit he also includes a model law and regulation for banning dangerous dogs (since pit bull fans are notorious for mysteriously switching claimed breeds to dodge bans).

I think the book could have used a bit more context with the dogfighting culture to explain why pit bulls ended up, as well as dispelling the misunderstandings people used to tamer dogs have to explain their psychology (you can’t compare two “normal” dogs fighting emotionally over a concrete thing with a breed designed to fight naturally, and instead of lashing them along, pit bull kennels have to work hard to have their dogs not fight until the time comes). But this is a small quibble.

Pit bulls do not belong as pets.

Review: Aircrew Confidential

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Aircrew Confidential

Pilot Chris Manno’s Aircrew Confidential is a set of short stories about airliner crews. He does a convenient disclaimer saying “Oh some is true some might not be, that’s how gossip goes”. I obviously have no way of verifying that but it’s important to note its not being claimed as totally 100% factual. The only real solid historical benchmark is one story that takes place during 9/11.

For all the “look behind the cockpit door”, it’s really nothing one with even the slightest bit of knowledge or experience hasn’t seen or heard a million times before already. None are particularly shocking or funny or even engaging. I just can’t recommend this book.

A Thousand Words: Wreck It Ralph

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Wreck It Ralph

The Disney animated film Wreck It Ralph was one of the most pleasant surprises I’ve ever had. I’ll start by describing the movie itself, which while not an absolute is still a perfectly good animated family fun adventure film. The video game gimmick is actually somewhat mild, because the bulk of the film takes place in only one game, the racing game Sugar Rush.

And this is what sets the movie apart from what I was bracing for. From the trailers I was expecting some kind of post-Shrek “lolwacky” snarky mess of nothing but references to increasingly obscure games. The actual film is not that, with the references there but not overwhelming. And they often pass the “would someone who doesn’t know the referenced material still get the idea?” test.

So sometimes you get surprised for the better.

Review: Atomic Peril

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Atomic Peril

When I saw the words “A nuclear forensics thriller”, I knew I absolutely had to read Atomic Peril. That it’s about nuclear terrorism and involves a scratch-built bomb (a rarity in such cases) made me more eager to finish it. Given the legitimate qualifications of author Sidney Niemeyer, that was even more of a reason to keep going.

The issue is that I know too much. The bomb is a realistic but simple gun type, which is not particularly novel to anyone who knows anything about nuclear weapons beyond the basics. And as a thriller author, its writer is a pretty good nuclear forensics expert. Which is to say the book is a lot more Herman Melville than Tom Clancy. Unsurprisingly, it definitely goes into the “too realistic for its own good if judged as a cheap thriller” category, and even more unsurprisingly, this makes the attempt at a conventional action climax even more dissonant and clumsy.

While I sound like I don’t like this book, I’m actually a lot softer on it than my writing might indicate. Niemeyer had a story he wanted to tell, knowledge that he knew, and was earnest in telling it. And that is to be commended, however many stumbles there are. Besides, if I want a conventional cheap thriller there’s no shortage of “shoot the terrorist before he blows the nuke” books out there.

A Thousand Words: Groundhog Day

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Groundhog Day

It’s Groundhog Day, and the holiday brings two famous events to my mind. One is the time that then-New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, in an event that symbolized his less than stellar mayoralty, fatally dropped a groundhog during a ceremony. The second is of course the Bill Murray movie that is the subject of this post.

The film has a simple time loop premise, to the point where, when describing any other work of fiction with such a cycle, you can just say “like Groundhog Day” and people will understand. Main character Phil Connors goes on a loathed news assignment to Punxsutawney, finds himself snowed in, and then finds it’s the same day again and again and again and again.

What makes it a classic is that it works as both a silly and profound movie. You get both spiritual self-reflection and a man stealing a groundhog before driving off a cliff. The cast of Bill Murray and Andie Macdowell is excellent, and the whole thing is probably one of the greatest holiday films ever.

Review: Earth Fire

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Earth Fire

The ninth Survivalist book and end of the de facto first arc is Earth Fire. It takes the “western Fist of the North Star” theme to its climax as John Rourke prepares his shelter for the firestorm engulfing the world and moves to stop the main Soviet antagonist from using the other suspended animation shelter in Cheyenne Mountain.

I’ve mentioned many times that this was an ideal stopping point for the series. Take this perfectly fine arc and the beginning of Book 10 where Rourke wakes up after the timeskip and sees the Eden Project spaceship lifeboat return and you have an excellent self-contained narrative. As it stood, the series kind of meandered on, becoming first a pet sci-fi setting and then hurriedly sputtering out after 1991.

In fact, later arcs would render this much less important via retcons. Here the Soviet Politburo is shot down as they attempt to reach Cheyenne Mountain because they don’t have a viable shelter of their own. Later on it turns out that the Soviets indeed had an underground city after all! And the Argentines, and the Icelanders, and pretty much everyone! How about that!

Still, this is a fine piece of ridiculous 80s excessive men’s adventure, and can be appreciated for what it is. The later sourness doesn’t make this any less sweet.

A Thousand Words: Half Past Dead

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Half Past Dead

2002’s Half Past Dead was Steven Seagal’s final effort in mainstream cinema before he collapsed entirely into sus no-budget cheapies. Both a rip-off of the earlier and far better The Rock in the exact same setting (Alcatraz) and the general “Die Hard in a ______” trend that was several years out of date, it did not exactly breathe new life into his career.

A story of supervillains storming Alcatraz (see what I said about that other movie), the film is notable for two things besides just having a washed-up Seagal in it. The first is how desperately they tried to go for the “Edgy Extreme” trend of the late 90s and early 2000s, dragging in rappers and garish overcut camera angles to try (unsuccessfully) to put lipstick on the pig. The second is that this is one of the first appearances of the ubquituous Steven Seagal Stunt Double, used for as much as they could get away with. The “Stunt Double” would reach new heights in Seagal’s later films where it would be used not just for any mild exertion, but for things like walking peacefully.

Amazingly, one of the few highlights is “49er 6”, the femme fatale villain played by a 40 year old soap opera actress (Nia Peeples). She apparently relished doing her own stunts, and that is a far cry from Seagal the Double-Man.

As a time capsule/MST3K-style so bad its good, you could do worse than this movie. But I wouldn’t put it anywhere near the top of the cheap thriller pyramid.