I was pleasantly surprised to get to the end of the trailer and not automatically think “Boy, this is going to suck.”
It might still suck, but it looks like they’re making a good-faith effort to capture the postcyberpunk vibe at the heart of the franchise. Never mind that I’m a much bigger fan of GitS:SAC than I am of the original movies, and that the movie leans much more heavily on the latter. (“No Tachikomas for you!”)
Mood: Cautious optimism.
Another signed Neal Barrett, Jr. book for my collection.
Barrett, Neal, Jr. Judge Dread. First edition paperback original, a Fine- copy with slight touches of edgewear. Signed by Barrett. Based on the Sylvester Stallone movie. Bought for $5 at Armadillocon
Probably because I was searching for various clips following Gene Wilder’s death, this video about Marty Feldman’s life came up on YouTube. I thought I’d see a few minutes of it and actually ended up watching the whole thing.
Here in the U.S. Feldman is probably know mainly for appearing in Young Frankenstein, but in the UK he was revered as a radio and TV comic writing and performing genius who held his own working with many of the people who would later form Monty Python. Indeed, Feldman co-wrote the famous “Four Yorkshiremen” skit Python would later adopt as their own, and when Python first went on the air, Feldman was staring in his own Marty show on the BBC.
It’s worth a watch.
Gene Wilder has died at age 83 of Alzheimer’s.
He was one of his generation’s great comic actors, with a natural gift for underplaying a straight man and perfect deadpan delivery, and was in some of the greatest comedies of the 1970s.
Blazing Saddles, of course:
And who can forget the freaky boat ride from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory:
And here’s an animated overview of his life in his own words:
Really, what action film trailer isn’t improved by “Sabotage”?
I’m pretty sure the use of it in the Star Trek: Beyond trailer probably added a good $5-10 million to that film’s gross. But I suspect Disney doesn’t have the audacity to follow Star Trek and pony up money to make this an official trailer…
If you missed the live broadcast of the MST3K reunion concert, you can still catch the rebroadcast tomorrow, July 12.
Having attended the live simulcast, I highly recommend attending seeing it to any MST3K fans, where the combined Rifftrax/MST3K crews tackle such shorts as Shake Hands With Danger and At Your Fingertips: Grasses, a school arts-and-crafts film of such depressing sadness (“It’s Jim Henson’s Blair Witch Babies!”) that you realize how desperately kids of the 1960s and 70s needed the Internet and video games to be invented.
And new star/test subject Jonah Ray did a pretty good job holding his own in the riffing, only flubbing once.
if you’re a fan of MST3K or riffing, you should definitely check it out.
For your Sunday dose of Shoegaze, here’s The Fauns’ “Road Meets the Sky,” accompanied by the lightcycle race scene from Tron, a combination that, for some strange reason, works really well together…
There’s going to be a live MST3K Reunion concert simulcast across the country tomorrow (June 28). Here’s Mike Nelson and company to explain:
You might still be able to get tickets.
Here’s an interesting piece on the acting in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
You could study Wrath of Khan as a portrait of different performing styles. Consider William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, and a central paradox of their chemistry. Spock is the alien – a being who strives to rid himself of all emotion – but past a certain point, you notice how Nimoy is a much more natural performer, communicating so much with droll phrasing lilts and micro-gestures. Whereas the human Kirk is played by Shatner, one of Hollywood’s great experts in hyperbole. (Khan is Shatner at his most wide-eyed.) As a young actor, Nimoy learned the Method and idolized Brando; Shatner came up performing energetic Shakespeare. That doesn’t make one better nor one worse – the dissonance is the key – but it adds layers to their pairing. You associate Spock with explicit stiffness – he’s a freaking Vulcan – but Nimoy’s acting is maybe more “cinematic,” eye-focused, while Shatner is more “theatrical,” full-bodied.
Plus a lot about how director Nicholas Meyer sets up shots for maximum effect.
It’s a very interesting essay on the best Star Trek movie. Read the whole thing.
(Hat tip: Derek Johnson.)
Next weekend is the Levitation festival in Austin, where Slowdive will be headlining Friday night. In celebration, here’s an entire unreleased Slowdive soundtrack album. Some of these are minor fill pieces, and others you’ve heard before (“Cranium (Film Mix)” is “Blue Skied an’ Clear”). And I already posted “I Believe” a while back, but it’s worked its way into my Slowdive Top 10.
More information (and a download link) here.