Sci-Fi Friday

Friday night around my house is Sci-Fi Friday. One of the local PBS television stations plays sci-fi movies from the 1930’s through the 1950’s and I get to relive my childhood through those movies.

When I was a child, my Mom used to wake me up on Friday nights to watch whatever ‘monster’ or sci-fi movie was on. She knew they were my favorites, but I think she just didn’t like being home without Dad, he worked the midnight shift and I suspect Mom just didn’t want to be alone.

Anyway, this was back in the mid to late 50’s, back when make-up and special effects were a true art form. Don’t get me wrong, computer graphics can do some pretty amazing things but when I was a kid it all seemed real and somehow more believable than today’s computer graphics.

Tonight’s movie isn’t about prehistoric monsters or nuclear-caused mutants but it is a pretty good adventure story called King Solomon’s Mines.

This 1937 film follows the original novel – written by H. Rider Haggard – much better than the two remakes of 1950 and 1985. Allan Quatermain (Sir Cedric Hardwicke), as the ‘great white hunter’ and his guide help a young Irish woman locate her missing father in unexplored Darkest Africa. A little sappy but still a good story.

The story takes place in 1882 when Irish dream chaser Patrick "Patsy" O'Brien (Arthur Sinclair) and his daughter Kathy (Anna Lee) fail to strike it rich in the diamond mines of Kimberley, South Africa. They persuade a reluctant Allan Quatermain to give them a lift to the coast in his wagon when they meet up with someone who claims to have found the fabled mines. The hunt for riches is on, along the way they run into ‘restless natives’, death, treachery, and romance.

Fairly tame by today’s standards, but it’s a good escape from reality anyway.

‘Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!’ actress dies at 72

Tura Satana, who gained cult status for her role in the 1965 Russ Meyer movie "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" has died of heart failure at age 72.

The Los Angeles Times reports Satana's death was confirmed by her manager, Siouxzan Perry, who said Satana died Friday at a hospital in Reno, Nev.

In "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" Satana played Varla, the leader of a trio of thrill-seeking go-go dancers who kills a man with her bare hands. The women then set out to rob a wealthy older man who lives on a desert ranch with his two sons.

Meyer has said the movie was an "absolute loser" when released but was rediscovered by the 1990s. It has since been shown at film festivals and art house cinemas.

Satana's other credits include the 1963 film "Irma La Douce" and the television shows "Burke's Law" and "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."

Other hot babes who grabbed for their claim to fame did so in cult cinema are Jane Fonda – Barbarella and Linda Harrison - Planet of the Apes.

Jane Fonda - Barbarella

Linda Harrison - Planet of the Apes

Other tasty bits of memorabilia can be found at Cultflicks.net complete with film clips.

3D Will Never Work

Walter Murch, the most respected film editor and sound designer in the modern cinema states these reasons why our brains will never work with 3D:

The biggest problem with 3D is the "convergence/focus" issue. A couple of the other issues -- darkness and "smallness" -- are at least theoretically solvable. But the deeper problem is that the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen -- say it is 80 feet away. This is constant no matter what.

But their eyes must converge at perhaps 10 feet away, then 60 feet, then 120 feet, and so on, depending on what the illusion is. So 3D films require us to focus at one distance and converge at another. And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before. All living things with eyes have always focussed and converged at the same point.

If we look at the salt shaker on the table, close to us, we focus at six feet and our eyeballs converge (tilt in) at six feet. Imagine the base of a triangle between your eyes and the apex of the triangle resting on the thing you are looking at. But then look out the window and you focus at sixty feet and converge also at sixty feet. That imaginary triangle has now "opened up" so that your lines of sight are almost -- almost -- parallel to each other.

We can do this. 3D films would not work if we couldn't. But it is like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time, difficult. So the "CPU" of our perceptual brain has to work extra hard, which is why after 20 minutes or so many people get headaches. They are doing something that 600 million years of evolution never prepared them for. This is a deep problem, which no amount of technical tweaking can fix. Nothing will fix it short of producing true "holographic" images.

And lastly, the question of immersion. 3D films remind the audience that they are in a certain "perspective" relationship to the image. It is almost a Brechtian trick. Whereas if the film story has really gripped an audience they are "in" the picture in a kind of dreamlike "spaceless" space. So a good story will give you more dimensionality than you can ever cope with.

So: dark, small, stroby, headache inducing, alienating. And expensive. The question is: how long will it take people to realize and get fed up?

See Roger Ebert’s Journal for more info:

Peter Cushing

Can kick Chuck Norris’s ass any day of the week.

Tarkovsky Films Now Free Online

Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) firmly positioned himself as the finest Soviet director of the post-War period. But his influence extended well beyond the Soviet Union.  The Cahiers du cinéma consistently ranked his films on their top ten annual lists. Ingmar Bergman went so far as to say, “Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.” And Akira Kurosawa acknowledged his influence too, adding, “I love all of Tarkovsky’s films. I love his personality and all his works. Every cut from his films is a marvelous image in itself.”

You can now watch Tarkovsky’s films online – for free.