Mega Shark V.S. Giant Octopus

You know, I've long felt that movie titles have been getting too oblique. "No Country for Old Men", "There Will Be Blood", I mean, that's all very nice but you're not selling the sizzle, gents.

No such problem with Mega Shark V.S. Giant Octopus, a straight to DVD release from the fine folks at Asylum Pictures. I guess this might constitute a spoiler, but there is a mega shark AND a giant octopus in this movie.

Unfortunately, there's not a LOT of them. However, there are many scenes of stars Deborah Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas sitting in various submarine looking contraptions looking for/studying/tracking and discussing mega sharks and giant octopuses. And there are two, count 'em, two sequences involving different Naval Captains making lamentably poor command decisions regarding the creatures. If there's a Navy Captain Professional Organization (you know, their La Raza), they might want to lodge a protest. Because according to this movie, military procedure is to fire a few shots at marauding mega-sharks, declare without any proof that the thing is "dead," then get shaky and fearful when it isn't. Not exactly inspiring, especially when it happens twice. And talk about career ending. A mega-shark bites your aircraft carrier in two, I'm guessing that call to join the Joint Chiefs may never come...

Finally, mega-sharks are clearly not very bright, because they like to attack and eat jumbo jets (in flight!), oil platforms, aircraft carriers and the Golden Gate bridge. I am dubious of the nutritional value in any of these "kills," though this dietary faux-pas may explain why the species eventually went extinct...

Mark, CNN, Battlestar, Optimism?!

Check the link for a nice little CNN piece on how science fiction deals with technology. Yours truly offers a few comments on BSG's take on tech and "etc."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/05/29/jetpack/index.html

(thanx for Jake for the tip!)

Dinotopia, Light, Concrete, Battlestar...

James Gurney, creator of Dinotopia and former next-door neighbor, has put up a photo of the "crest" from my first apartment complex after moving to Los Angeles. "The Golden Palms." I wish I could say this had me waxing nostalgic, but truth be told, that place was a real dump. And moving out was one of the sweeter moments of my L.A. sojourn... in the hour it took to load up the rental truck, we were "decorated" by a tagger!

Other memories include catching a tenant selling guns out of the trunk of his car, the night a biker gang decided to party in the courtyard, death threats against a very good friend after he caught a gang member stealing a barbecue (!), and several blood-soaked evenings when "things got out of hand" between assorted tenants. I remember fondly the night I walked up the driveway past puddles of blood to find a drunken tenant being restrained by ambulance attendants... he had severed a vein after punching through his ex-wife's front window. Ahh, memories...

http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2009/05/gp-golden-palms.html

Criminal Neglect...

I was getting pretty good at this blogging thing, but the real world went and smacked me with a ton of work and suddenly blogging is down with "re-grouting the bathroom fixtures" on my daily to-do list. How does a week go by without a single entry? One answer: "easy." When I finally come up for air, I may need a couple sessions with IN TREATMENT'S "Dr. Paul" to straighten myself out.

Speaking of which, I have indeed recently discovered the HBO series IN TREATMENT and find it quite compelling. There's something dreamy and soothing about a show that is essentially all talk. I find myself drifting off at night to emotional tumult about the past, father issues, struggles with cancer and aging... but the tone of the show is so congenial, it's like listening to muzak versions of the Dead Kennedys. This is not a put down, by the way... I think the writing and acting is all top notch. I just find it perversely relaxing...

Oh well. Once I finish the "major project" currently on my plate, hopefully I can get back into the groove of things...

Earthquake!

So there we were, enjoying a lovely Sunday dinner and "silent auction" in support of Homeless Healthcare for Los Angeles, when another rumbler hit. Seems like all I have to do is leave my bunker and the heavens decide to unleash (last time there was a quake, I was trying to watch Gran Torino at a local theater!). Since we were outside in a garden setting surrounded by high rise office buildings, someone wondered if we should duck under our plastic banquet tables. If the quake started taking down fifty story buildings, it seemed unlikely that the tables would offer much protection...

Perhaps most intriguingly, the speakers didn't even feel the shaker and just kept going... a few more Manhattans and I might have been in the same boat!

City Hall...

I hope Springsteen covers "I Fought The Law" again, because hey baby, it fits! Long time readers of this blog will remember my outrage over a traffic ticket I received for illegally using my cell phone... except I wasn't illegally using it, I had an earpiece in, and the cop refused to acknowledge it. Before you could say "ATTICA, ATTICA", I determined to fight this to my last breath. Or, in this case, with a brief written statement challenging the ticket...

Long story short... actually, it's a short story already... I won! There was no explanation offered (or copious apology from the miscreant police officer), but evidently my terse explanation was enough to warm the heart of the Judicial Officer.

And now, the joy of breathing FREE AIR once more...

I Wanna Be Springsteen-adated...

Many fans are suggesting the current Springsteen tour is one of the best runs ever, and I've gotta agree. There's a crazy, anything goes spirit to the shows, totally infectious and uplifting and all that good rock and roll stuff.

Most fun (for me), Springsteen has been doing a lot of wild cover songs in a "stump the band" segment. Some really cool, never before played tunes. For a taste, check out Springsteen's official site. Right now, they've got a frustratingly edited video of the band doing "Expressway To Your Heart," but you never know what's coming next. Other covers this tour included the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated", the Clash's "London Calling", the Troggs' "Wild Thing", Johnny Rivers' "Seventh Son", "Hang on Sloopy" (!) -- the hits just coming!

The videos don't stay up for long, so you need to check back to the site fairly frequently for a full dose of Springsteen-iana. Clearly they are recording every show from the tour, so here's hoping there's another official "live record" to commemorate this stand...

http://www.brucespringsteen.net/news/index.html

New Smithereens - TOMMY Can You Hear Me?

The great band The Smithereens have been releasing new CDs at a remarkable clip the last couple of years, and this latest is another stellar effort. After issuing two CDs of Beatles covers (as well as lead singer Pat DiNizio's tribute to Buddy Holly earlier this year), the Smithereens have tackled The Who is fine form. The new CD won't take the place of the original "Tommy", but it's a worthy adjunct. And a fantastic piece of work from drummer Dennis Diken, who does some amazing stuff here.

Oh, and there's a really cool cover by artist Bill Stout...

I understand the boys are working on an original CD for release this Fall, but until then, this will do...

Martyrs... the mini review... (vague spoilers)

I was in the mood to despair for humanity the other night, so I took a look at the new French horror film Martyrs. It's being hyped as the most horrifying movie ever made, grisly beyond belief, gut-churning, wrenching, etc, etc. The director even shot an introduction where he sort of apologizes for going too far.

Well, okay. "Methinks he doth protest too much." While I'll admit I didn't guess where the movie was going, that speaks more to my lack of interest in the journey than any great revelations. What starts as a variation on Death Wish soon morphs into one of your basic extreme horror tropes. Despite assurances that this isn't just another example of "torture porn", umm, it kinda IS torture porn. Young women doing degrading things, check. Brutal torturers doing brutal torture, check. Chains and weird metal restraints, double check! Over-the-top torture violence, grotesque make-up and ersatz profundity to wrap things up in the now cliche "no hope" finale, you betcha!

I'm thinking this genre is pretty much worn out at this point... like the four or five year spate of Italian cannibal movies that came out in the late 70's/early 80's, eventually it's tough to top yourself. There's only so much to be mined from the "chain 'em in a room and give 'em hell" plot...

Names, names, names...

For reasons too obscure to mention, I was poking around the Battlestar Wiki and found an entry for a character named Stan Gibson. Stan went unnamed on screen, but that was the name we gave the mop-boy at the end of the episode "Final Cut."

One of the fun things about working in television (or comics) is using the names of friends for villains, monsters, heroes or whatever. "Stan" is in fact an old, old friend from Oregon who has turned up one way or another in just about every television series I've done. Perhaps his best appearance was on an episode of The Strip (short-lived UPN show about PI's in Las Vegas) where "Stan," a nice nordic lad from the Northwest, somehow transformed into a Japanese wrestling fan.

But there were other name checks on BSG. The "Shevon" character from "Black Market" was named for a very nice fan up in Oregon named Siobhan (we bastardized the spelling in the script because so many people didn't know how to pronounce it). D'Anna Biers (also in "Final Cut") was a David Eick request, and I'm pretty sure the other writers populated their scripts with equally personal choices. Just a little fun fact as I wile away another day at the computer...

The Corbomite Maneuver...

The first season of Star Trek "the original series" has just been released on Blu-Ray, in a swanky edition that includes both the original episode and the new, remaster/updated version with new FX. This is now the third time I've bought Trek DVDs, but the Blu-Ray high-def transfer is pretty amazing. (I picked up the one season of HD DVDs released in 2007, but never had a chance to see those transfers.) When you can see every hair on Spock's arm and the pits in Sulu's cheeks (under the make-up), you're getting into some SERIOUS high definition.

I don't have time to go through all the episodes, but I did check out one of my favorites, "The Corbomite Maneuver." Aside from interesting direction by Joseph Sargent and excellent remastered special FX (though the original work was excellent), this one always caught my attention because the crew of the Enterprise gets so darn pissy. When you think of Trek, you usually remember the (mostly) good-natured bickering between the characters, but in Corbomite they're on each other big time.

The conflict begins when Kirk's getting a shirtless check-up in sickbay and McCoy doesn't bother telling him there's a red alert (!). Frankly, I would have been irritated too, but this is TV, aren't they supposed to be nice to each other? But no, Kirk angrily barks at McCoy and storms off to attend to business. (Though on his way to the bridge he decides he has time to change his clothes before dealing with the intergalactic menace.) That more or less sets the tone for the crankiness to come...

This episode also features a quirky performance by Anthony D. Call as "Bishop", a clearly over-his-head navigator who prompts a lot of the emotional angst. Dr. McCoy believes Kirk has promoted this kid too quickly, and when Bishop freaks out on Spock over his emotionless reaction to the death threat issued from a gigantic alien spacecraft, you start thinking McCoy's right. But Bones isn't great at picking his moments. With the clock ticking down to total destruction (the aliens gave the Enterprise crew ten Earth minutes to "pray to their Deity" before blowing them to smithereens) and Captain Kirk trying to sweat out a defense, the Doctor picks THAT instant to give Kirk crap about pushing Bishop too hard (!). Kirk yells at Bones, he yells at Spock, and when Yeoman Rand enters in the midst of all this with a carafe of coffee (!) interrupting yet another moment of decision, you're thinking, wow, even Obama would be tempted to pop off at these guys.

It all works out in the end, of course, and I think audiences excuse the petulance because Corbomite also has one of the great Kirk saves, as in "not Chess, Spock -- poker!" But the oddness is probably why it sticks in my mind...