James Doohan, ‘Star Trek’s’ Scotty, dead

A sad day for Star Trek fans. And I believe that there were plenty of “Scotty” fans that weren’t really Star Trek fans, what with so many “Beam me up” jokes and all.

About, oh, 9 years ago, I was working a booth at Gencon. Set-up was a real pain in the ass for everyone involved. It was the morning that the show was to start, and all around there were cranky faces and tired, grump booth workers.

Suddenly over the loudspeakers came a voice. “This is Captain Montgomery Scott speaking….” and he gave a little pep-talk. I don’t really remember what he said now, but I remember when he finished, the entire place erupted into cheers and clapping and suddenly there were smiles all around the place. He was doing an appearance at the show and had arrived early to provide a bit of a morale boost. It was a very cool moment, and it really helped the show get off to a strong start.

So that’s my closest brush with James Doohan. He lived a good long life, and let’s hope he’s going to a final frontier much much nicer than this one.

Just got finished watching Hero, the Jet Li crazy-wire work movie.

I’m really growing to like this ‘real life anime’ style of movie, though when they get totally crazy with the wire work it just starts looking silly. Unfortunately, I watched it off of cable. It was badly dubbed and wasn’t widescreen. I might see if I can find a dvd version and watch it with sub-titles and in widescreen format. The dub was potentially awful. I’m basing that on the fact that they showed two warriors playing Go and referred to it as Chess. If they twisted that detail so badly, I assume they twisted many other details as well.

The overall flow of the movie was very similar to the classic Kurosawa movie Rashomon (the same events seen over and over from differing points of view) but of course the storyline wasn’t as good and the special effects were much better.

This one takes place in China…well, in what we now know as China when it was still broken up into several kingdoms. The King of Qin is fighting to unite the Warring States into a single empire (and eventually does so). Three assassins have been trying to kill the King, and no one can catch them. At least, until The Nameless warrior (Jet Li) does away with all three and is granted an audience with the King to receive his reward. Still, if you enjoyed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers, you’ll enjoy Hero.

Oh, and for us guys, Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk was looking great as Flying Snow. Hard to believe she was almost 40 when she did this movie…

There are bad movies, and then there are BAD movies. House of the Dead is a BAD movie. It isn’t even entertaining in its bad-ness. In fact, there are only two redeeming qualities to the movie.

First, director Uwe Boll does pay homage to the Sega video games that the movie is based on. Both in the title credits and in little ‘cut scene’ transitions between movie scenes, we see brief clips of the game. Often they match what’s going on on-screen.

Second is Ona Grauer as Alicia. This lady looks hot in a bustier, and Boll pays loving attention to her, ahem, assets in some slow motion clips that really educate the viewer on the effect of physics and inertia on the female anatomy. 🙂

Skip this one. It just plain sucks.

Wow, what a trip. House of Flying Daggers is a rather amazing spectacle. It’s full of crazy martial arts special effects similar to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but without going so far as to seem totally silly. And the cinematography was just stunning. The Bamboo Forest scenes alone were worth the price of admission.

The story itself is a classic love triangle affair, with a nice dose of espionage and things not being what they seem. “House of Flying Daggers” is the name of an rebel outfit. If you’re more up on Chinese history than I am, you could probably name the government and tell me if it was really corrupt. Anyway, their ‘special talent’ is, obviously, throwing daggers. But they’re darn good swordsmen as well.

One of their agents, a blind dancer (played by the lovely Ziyi Zhang) is caught by the local police/army. One of the officers then poses as a bandit and frees her, after which he tries to get her to lead him back to Flying Daggers HQ. But as I said, all is not what it appears.

Absolutely a fantastic movie. If you have *any* taste for martial arts, get this film. Even if you feel neutral about martial arts, still get it!

One thing to note, though. If you buy it, play it right away. It would appear that there are some bad copies out in retail. My first copy started to skip about two thirds of the way through, and a Google search tells me there’ve been a lot of problems with the DVD. A second copy worked fine. Also, frankly, the print isn’t as good as it should be. I’d love to see a collector’s edition come out with a better quality print and more extras!

I watched Secretary tonight, starring James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Short synopsis. Gyllenhaal is the secretary, fresh out of a mental institute where she was placed for self-mutilation. Spader is the lawyer in need of a new employee. His gig is that he’s a “Dom” and so drives most of his employees away. We get an inkling of this when, right under his shingle is a carefully painted “Secretary Wanted” sign with a set of lights around it, like a Vacancy sign at a motel.

Mix these two together and you get a quick exploration of the D/s lifestyle. It was pretty interesting to see such a niche fetish getting the Hollywood treatment. Lee (Gyllenhaal) thrives more and more as lawyer Grey (Spader) gets more and more demanding, until they come to a climax, so to speak, and Grey starts feeling guilty/remorseful, not believe that Lee is really into this lifestyle.

Some folks will be disgusted by the movie, others, like me, will just find it an interesting curiosity, and you D/s folks will find it a total turn-on.

I just finished watching Rashomon and had a bit of a relevation. I don’t enjoy anime because it’s anime. I enjoy anime because it’s Japanese. Or at least, that’s the theory I’m going on for now.

Rashomon is a 1950 film from director Akira Kurosawa, probably best known in the US for Seven Samurai. Like Samurai, Rashomon is sub-titled, though its fairly light on dialog.

Its the story, basically, of a murder, as seen by four individuals (included the dead man, via a very creepy medium). Each of the four is giving testimony to an unseen judge, but none of their accounts agree, and as a typical American film viewer I was waiting to see everything tied up at the end and for The Truth to be revealed. Only it wasn’t. Just like a lot of my favorite anime titles, the viewer is left to create his own interpretation of what really happened, and what it all means.

Cinematography is by Kazuo Miyagawa, which I fear meant nothing to me until I watched some of the bonus material. But it’s really interesting. The film is in black and white (of course, like I said…1950) so Miyagawa uses light and shadow to get it texture. Lots of ‘sun through the leaves’ shots abound and… well hell, I’m just parroting the bonus features now, so I’ll shut up.

If you’re up for a bit of a challenge, try this movie. I’ve linked to it at Amazon, but Netflix carries it too. Enjoy!

The friend who loaned me Heathers read my post and wrote me a wonderful email in response. With her permission it is posted in its entirety below:

Whoa — I think you disliked this movie a bit more than you let on. 😉

Here’s what I think:

Sometimes I wonder if a great deal of the delight I took in first viewing this movie was the impact of its originality at the time. “Heathers” was not pretty in pink — it was somewhere between numbing amorality and heartfelt sap. It was released on the heels of a series of John Hughes teen-comedy/teen-angst films such as “The Breakfast Club”, “Sixteen Candles” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” — fun, enjoyable comedies with broad appeal, including transitory themes of a more serious nature (all quickly resolved with pat answers).

The Heathers aren’t giggly, boy-crazy mall rats. They’re political animals in a disturbing world of high school feudalism. I don’t want to make more out of the movie than there is — in spite of its status as a cult classic (and possibly still as the reigning teen-queen of pitch-black comedies), it has plenty of flaws (notably Slater’s son-of-“The Shining” shtick and a loss of steam in the home stretch) — but I feel safe classifying it as a strangely hilarious morality play that pushed the envelope in its time. Every sacred, politically correct cow is skewered but the moral is traditional and well-loved: All men are created equal. Even the geeks.

At its best, “Heathers” is breathtakingly perverse and legitimately startling. A lighthearted, flip tone and bright colors contrast with the deepening guilt and growing awareness of the heroine, all the while maintaining a deliciously nasty tone with an (almost) relentless mean spirit — like some kind of demonic carnival ride.

The best black comedies provide a release that no other comedies can — you find yourself laughing helplessly at the most vicious plot turns, the wickedest jokes. “Heathers” is laced with brilliantly twisted lines, but it’s not realistic — it’s highly stylized and mannered. And then with a single shot of a weeping child, it pulls the rug out from under us and restores the value of life.

A comedy about teen suicide would seem to be reprehensible, especially one released after a rash of teenage suicides throughout the country. Some critics have said as much, but I think they missed the boat. The pointed satire doesn’t mock teen suicide, it mocks the gleeful frenzy of media coverage, the superficial social commentary and the martyrdom of victims — as well as the speed and dexterity with which most people retreat to comfortable topics and routines when faced with actions and statements of a serious or controversial nature. Veronica’s parents have the same conversation with her every day and the scenes are filmed like a lost episode of Ozzie and Harriet. The snippets of Big Fun’s song, “Teenage Suicide: Don’t Do It” are transposed sporadically over alternately flip and cruel or trite and mundane dialogue. Asked what she’s doing after the funeral, the heroine replies, “I don’t know. Mourn, maybe watch some TV.” When the heroine’s mother finally breaks routine to reveal an honest criticism of her daughter, she immediately reverts to formulaic conversation: “Want some pate?”

I guess I’d like to think “Heathers” wants the world to be a better place — but instead of a thoughtful drama presenting an idea of how that might happen, we get a scathing social commentary mocking the state of things instead.

However the film holds up sixteen years later, I think “Heathers” will always have a place in my heart. Okay, maybe that place is surrounded by signs reading “Caution!” and “Enter at Your Own Risk!” but it’s a place in my heart all the same.

As one of the film’s characters puts it, ”The extreme always seems to make an impression.”

[Sorry, comments are turned off on this post due to spammers loving it for some reason.]

A friend at work loaned me her copy of Heathers and I just got finished watching it.

And man, is my head screwed up.

This was one dark, dark teen-angst movie. I can’t decide if it was funny or disturbing. Probably both. First of all, it drips “80’s”, which makes sense since it was made in 1989, but the print of the movie even feels 80-ish in its grainyness. On the other hand, its widescreen and has a THX audio track makes it feel like a ‘modern’ DVD print.

Second thing is, this guy Christian Slater…I’ll admit I’m not familiar with him but he was doing this “Geez, I really really really REALLY want to be a young Jack Nicholson” thing that was just fucking surreal. Maybe he’s always like that…I dunno. But it really was creeping me out.

Oh yeah, and then there’s the story. Winona Ryder stars as Veronica, who is one of the hardcore popular clique of girls in Sherwood High School. The other three are all named Heather, ergo the title. Veronica is the only one with a dribble or so of conscience (while the other three are complete bitches to everyone around them..will there every be a movie where the popular girls are, y’know, liked by their classmates?), and essentially she hates her friends and wishes they were dead. And guess what? She gets her wish. But I won’t go farther into it. Let’s just say suicide becomes the hot new trend at Sherwood High.

Best quote, and I have to paraphrase, is Veronica’s mom telling her “You want to be treated like a grown-up? What do you think, being grown up is all about doubles tennis? Usually a teenager says she wants to be treated like a grown-up exactly WHEN she is being treated like a grown-up.” OK, I’ve butchered it, but it was a great quote.

Really dark, really strange, funny in a sort of shocking “oh my gawd!” way… actually funny isn’t even the word. Amusing would be better. Like when you watch a video clip of some poor kid wiping out spectacularly on his motocross bike and for some reason you cringe and kind of laugh, even though you know the poor bastard probably just broke his leg…. well, Heathers is 90 minutes of that feeling.