Reviews of books, movies, what have you.
The British make the best fake documentaries. There was the BBC’s “Spaghetti Harvest” of 1957 (which resulted in a flood of phone calls from people asking how they could grow their own spaghetti tree), and “Alternative 3”, a show on Anglia TV in 1977 that purported to uncover a secret plan to set up bases on the Moon and Mars (which despite including easily disprovable “facts” and a cast listing at the end is still taken seriously by some conspiracy nuts).
Then there was Ghostwatch…
Pretty much everyone – at least I hope so – is familiar with Cassandra Peterson’s character “Elvira”. The self-styled “Mistress of the Dark” gained fame for her obvious sex appeal while hosting cheap horror movies on syndicated television in the 1980s. The popularity of her shows made her a national icon for Halloween.
The tradition of “horror hosting” that she epitomized goes back much further; at least to the 1950s. American Scary is a documentary that looks at this American tradition as a form of entertainment worthy of our appreciation.
Wars, for much of history, have been filled with drama. The epic clash of huge armies, with the fates of nations at stake. At the personal level, there are tales of heroism and endurance. Most often, our attention is focused on a main front – that’s where all the big battles are. Yes, battles between many thousands of men can be interesting, but so can the battles on the fringes and flanks where the numbers are only in the hundreds.
Subtitled “An Imperial War on the African Continent”, Paice’s book looks at World War I in East Africa. The fighting there was basically the last mad grab for colonies, as Britain went after German East Africa (modern Tanzania). Belgium (Belgian Congo, now DR Congo) and Portugal (Portuguese East Africa, now Mozambique) were also dragged into the fighting.
Tomorrow-Land: The 1964-65 World’s Fair and the Transformation of America
Joseph Tirella
Lyons Press, 2014
Ah, the 1964-65 World’s Fair. The last gasp of 50’s optimism, where good ol’ American Know-How and “can do” spirit would solve all the problems of the world and make the future wonderful. A showcase for America’s industrial might and corporate prowess, as well as a sort of “coming out” party for the new nations of the world that had just achieved independence.
Tirella doesn’t look at the Fair itself. This is not a guidebook. Rather, he uses the Fair as a focal point for all the changes taking place in American culture and society. For the Fair seemed to somehow draw them all into its orbit.
With the imminent arrival of summer (if it’s not already here for all intents and purposes), various movie review/ranking and pop culture websites dust off their lists of the “Best Vacation Movies of All Time”. And without fail, almost all of them overlook the one that really does deserve to head the list. Sadly, Les Vacances des Monsieur Hulot (“Mr. Hulot’s Holiday”) suffers from being both a foreign movie and over sixty years old.
The good old Hollywood Bandwagon. A surprisingly successful movie will (or at least would – copyright lawyers are a bit more active these days) frequently spawn legions of imitators. This happened with Jaws back in the late 70’s, and became common enough so that any movie that even so much as vaguely resembled a previous one got stuck with the “knock-off” or “rip-off” label. Sometimes this was deserved, sometimes it wasn’t. With Starcrash, an Italian space opera, it wasn’t. Sure, there’s the opening shot of a long slow pan across a giant spaceship, light saber-like weapons, and there was that one version of the movie poster that looked like a MAD Magazine parody of a Star Wars poster, but that’s about it. Not everything brown tastes like chocolate…
Einstein’s Clocks, Poincaré s Maps: Empires of Time
Peter Galison
W.W. Norton, 2003
Albert Einstein has become the poster boy for scientific genius. His image is on t-shirts, coffee mugs, and posters. Anytime someone wants a visual symbol for genius, they go with his face. The Theory of Relativity is used as a standard representation of a complex scientific theory, and his equation for the equivalence of mass and energy is bandied about by people who have no real idea what it means.
This mythologizing of Einstein has even crept in to the origin story for the Theory of Relativity. The legend has Einstein sitting idly at the Bern Patent Office, daydreaming away. Suddenly his daydreams coalesce into a complete Theory (and his hair instantaneously turns into an unkempt white mess), and the world changes.
While a pleasant image, especially to the many who aren’t conversant in the language of physics, it gives short shrift to the many other scientists who were working on the same problems at the same time.
One of those who came really close was the French physicist and mathematician Henri Poincaré. Continue reading
It’s rather odd that among all the many werewolf movies over the decades, there are very, very few that make the connection between lycanthropy and a certain biological situation.
Think about it for a minute. You suddenly find yourself undergoing unwilling changes. Your body alters, and so does your personality. Every month, like clockwork, you lose control of your body and it practically rebels against you and your will. On top of the physical changes, your personality may undergo radical changes.
If this sounds like puberty and menstruation to you, give yourself a cookie.
Catastrophe: 1914 by Max Hastings
This year is probably a centennial that no one really wants to commemorate: the start of World War 1. The technology for killing had advanced much farther beyond military strategy, leading to horrific casualty figures. But the war (also known as “The Great War”, “The War to Make the World Safe for Democracy”, and “The War to End All Wars”) should be studied, as it is responsible for shaping the 20th century.
British historian Max Hastings has written a fantastically researched and extremely readable account of the first several months of the conflict. He has dug deep into the archives – not just in Germany, France, and England, but in eastern Europe and the Balkans as well to get information from periodicals, journals, diaries, and private letters. While giving plenty of information on the battles and strategy, he also gets down to the level of individuals, both on the front and at home.
Just as one can argue that there are different types of good movies, there are also different types of bad movies. They can be bad due to directorial overreach, inane dialogue, inept acting, or awful effects. However, the worst sin a movie can commit is to be boring. Movies are inteded to entertain – when a movie fails to do even that, it is irredeemably Bad.
Boring movies are not the ones that attract legions of followers. It’s the others, the ones that fail on technical levels. The ones where we, the audience, can either point and laugh at the great heap of failure on screen, or gape open-mouthed in disbelief at what we have just seen. Those are the ones worth watching. And sometimes, even as we slog through the mountain of garbage, we discover something that makes us say, “You know, that bit wasn’t completely awful.”
Pure Blather 