Author Archives: Bob Evans

Sunday Night Movie:Rollerball (1975)

Jonathan E. only wants two things out of life, to have his wife back and to play Rollerball. He’s played Rollerball for the Houston team on behalf of the Energy Corporation for nearly ten years. Longer than any other man has ever player the brutal and often deadly sport. Now the Corporation, one of seven that rule in a world without nations, has told him to retire. Jonathan, one man, stands against the corporate machine in defiance and the corporation will not be defied.

Rollerball is one of the first stories that can be called cyberpunk. Made in 1975 the film depicts a world without want, without suffering, with war, and without freedom. A world where the nation-state has withered away, but communism did not rise rather corporations did. They manage the world and provide for everyone’s needs, all they ask is that people keep out of managerial decisions.

Rollerball stars James Cann as Jonathan e, the best Rollerballer the world has ever seen, and that is a danger to the corporation. The game is both gladiatorial bloodsport to keep the masses happy and entertained and symbolic message that one man can not make a difference.

This is a brand of SF filmmaking from the 70’s that I truly miss. Before Star Wars, the Sf films of the 70’s by and large had important themes and messages. They were concerned with ideas and the implications of those ideas. Thanks to ground breaking films before them. 2001, The Planet Of The Apes, The Day The Earth Stood Still, SF films were beginning to be seen as a fully adult medium for story telling. this fully matured in the 70’s until Star Wars.

Don’t get me wrong I love me my fun action filled Star Wars, but it displaced by the massive box office it generated, the idea of the small thoughtful SF movie. Science Fiction at the theater became the domain of the block buster, the wanna be blockbuster, always with more and more elaborate special effects.It is like the SF buffet was now comprised solely of Ice cream and Cookies.

We’ve seen a few thoughtful Sf films post Star Wars, but by and large the spectacle has ruled the day.

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Blew my streak

I had posted, even if it was just a tiny, every singe days for nearly two months. I think that was a new record for me, until yesterday.

Sadly I was afflicted with a fairly intense headache yesterday. It passed, but I had to scrambled to get ready for the D&D (3.5) game I run. This was the introductory run of a new campaign with new characters starting over at first level. Sorry I missed posting, but on the plus side the game seemed to go rather well and people seemed happy with the change in gamemastering style I started.

Tonight I shall relax by watching a Sunday Night Movie.

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Movie review:Megamind

So, as I mentioned in last night’s post I went out to the movies and saw Megamind, the new animated film from Dreamworks SKG starring Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, and Brad Pitt.

I am not a huge fan of Mr. Ferrells’ work, but I do know that when given a  good script and sharp direction he can turn in a wonderful performance as he did in the film Stranger Than Fiction. (You must see it if you have not.) Megamind is another film I am going to end up owning.

If you have seen the previews you can pretty much chart the overall arc of this picture.  This is not a deep dissertation into the human condition. This is a fun super-hero parody. It is the movie I wanted the Incredibles to be, but wasn’t. (I know many people really liked that film, for me it wasn’t bad it was just so-so and came of more of a Bond parody than a superhero parody.)

If you have not seen the previews, Megamind is the story of two aliens rocketed to earth as babes. One handsome and lovely who is nurtured and accept and the other blue and strange who is ostracized and shunned. The handsome child become a hero, MetroMan while the shunned child become a villain, Megamind.

Of course in a film of this nature, with an eye to the young people who will be seeing it, good must always triumph and evil punished, so Megamind suffers defeat after defeat. In many ways this reminded me of and would back a good paring with Dr Horrible’s Sing-along Blog. Both films use a villain as a hero, both explore the villain as outcast and both take their villains on journeys that both seek, but did not expect.

There are plenty of reference suitable for both adult and children in the movie. (I the picture you can see a reference to the SciFi cult film Robot Monster.) The two hours of running time passed quickly and I laughed many times. I become so engrossed int eh picture that I stopped trying to predict the plot and simply enjoyed it. That to me is the mark of a film that is well made.

I ended up seeing the film in 3D, not because I have any love for that particular schedule gimmick, but because the 3D showing fit my evening the best. That said the 3D in this film was performed flawlessly. So well in fact that I stopped marveling at the effect and simply accepted the film as it was presented. This director understood how to pace his editing for the effect so that he never strained the viewers eyes.

Overall this film is a big thumbs up and well worth the price of admission.

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Another movie purchased

I thought that the 1948 Orson Welles’ film version of Macbeth had not been released on DVD, just VHS, but I was wrong.

It turns out that there is an import (region free) DVD copy of the film, one of the last made my Orson Welles before he was ejected from the Studio System. The theatrical release of this film trimmed 20 minutes from Welles’ vision of the film and the studio forced him to re-dub ALL the dialogue.

Welles had rehearsed the actors to have them deliver the text in Scottish accents, but the studio brass found that hard to follow and replaced it with a ‘no accent’ version.

The DVD is a restored version, back to Welles’ original vision. It should arrive on Friday and I am looking forward to seeing it.

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Cawdor update

So if you have been following my blog you know I spent a good chunk of this year working on my SF novel, Cawdor. Based on the beta-read feedback I have to conclude that this version has missed the mark and is not salvageable in its current state.

I’ve been giving it a lot of thought and I have decided to plunge into Cawdor 2.0. I think I can see where this process went off the rails and what I should do to breathe some life into the project.

Here’s how this project came about.

For more than 10 years I’ve had an idea that I would like to do an SF version of the story of Macbeth. I knew it would be novel-sized and I also knew for most of that time I had not cracked an approach to the story. I did not want to do a  beat-for-beat translation.

Last year the final pieces were falling into place and I was suddenly engrossed in the most detailed world-building I had ever done on a story. The more I dug into it the more I kept finding.

I built a world and a situation that I thought would evolve the  plot naturally. That turned out to be in error. I took a world that I really liked and I hammered Macbeth onto it. This is not the time nor place for a MAcbeth, Cawdor requires a plot of its own and it very nearly grew one inside the Macbeth plotlines.

This yielded a muddled novel that did not know what it wanted or needed to be.

Cawdor 2.0 will ditch any attempt to follow Macbeth and its plot will grow organically from from the situations and the characters that are stuck on the distant and dying world of Cawdor.

While driving back from my Vegas Adventure I had an epiphany where the story had to go. What crucial scene had to be excised and changed radically about. The one scene that when removed and so altered would forever separate this from Macbeth. Macbeth’s murder of Kind Duncan.

I suspect the next sic months or so will be an interesting ride.

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Sunday Night Movie: Journey To The Seventh Planet

So there I was last night playing around with the Netflix instant queue on my Xbox 360 when I saw this title pop up.

Hmm, this is a 50’s SF film I had never heard of and I was in the mood for something light and fairly mindless. A badly imagined trip to the planet Uranus just was the thing.

This film from 1962 is Danish. I wonder just how many danish SF films are there? T stars John Agar who made a career out fo B-Sf films though this particular movie is several grade lower than his standard fare.

It starts with voice-over narration to let us know that it is the year 2001 and mankind has made the earth a paradise. There are no nations and no wars and all of man energies have been harnessed for peaceful and exploratory goals. To quote the narration: ‘All the planets close to the sun, including Saturn, have been explored.’ The writers were clearly using values of ‘close’ that are unfamiliar to me.

Anyway the UN has noticed regular radiation pulses coming from the planet Uranus and has dispatched an international crew to investigate and see if there is life. There is little expectation for life as they suspect that the planet has a surface temperature of negative 400 degrees. As they enter orbit and a brief period of weightlessness an alien intelligence, vast, cool, and unsympathetic —wait that’s from a better story — the evil alien mind takes over theirs and probes it for their dreams and fears. (1962? I wonder if this film was a favorite of Gene Roddenberry?)

They land and the landscape around the ship changes from bleak and frozen to lush and rich woodland. Our intrepid crew don’t realize this ’cause apparently they have no external cameras. They plan to take hours testing the suddenly hospitable atmosphere before exiting the ship. The Evil Alien Presence — as impatient as an author awaiting a rejection slip —  opens the door to their craft flooding it with rich breathable air.

Freaked beyond measure, the crew logically decided to leave and head for home. No they didn’t, they went ahead and walked outside, sans suits. I couldn’t PAY my players to be that stupid.

They quickly encounter old flames, childhood homes, and apple trees, all apparently equally loved by the repercussive crewmen. Let’s not consider where the apple-fetish might take us,

Further exploration indicates that a forcefield surrounds their landing site. A handy stick can be pushed through the field so they know it can be penetrated, but have no way to determine what the conditions are beyond. With due care and planning remote probes are sent through the barrier to ascertain the conditions. You don’t believe me do you? Well, you’re right. The German kid, on his first mission, sticks his arm through and finds out what it feels like to be a frozen TV dinner. Lucky for him the budget did not include one-arm effects and he is allowed to recover in a day with no ill effects.

The rest of the film is the crew exploring the frozen world in very thick non-pressure suits, encountering lovely ladies and accepting them as their long lost loves, fighting giant one-eyes bipedal rats,  and fighting with a Cycloptic-brain that pulses radiation at 750 roentgens.

If you are into MST3K fare, but without Joel and the Bots then this might be for you.

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Relaxing Sunday

Today I hung out with my Sweetie-wife for the day. We started the day at the World Famous San Diego Zoo. (While I was off have my Vegas Adventure, she had gotten us new memberships at the Zoo.) Sadly my knees were less than stellar and I could only amble around the Zoo for just over an hour.

Afterwards we shopped, had lunch and then returned home for a relaxing day of just the two of us.

Nothing exciting, but the happy little moments that define a happy life.

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