Friday Ephemera
Lightning seen from above, the Earth rolling below. // A map of undersea cables. // Mostly blue. // Bathtub of note. // Does your yacht look like this? // On the merits of the Oxford comma. // When “diversity” means racism. // Flotsam & Jetsam. // Photographing the locals. // San Francisco time-lapsed. // Make way for the Panzer Soundtank. // An animated primer of the Israel-Palestine conflict. // Sakhalin Island and its inhabitants, 1894-1905. // Sponge nudes. // Engraved milk bottles. // At last, the hydraulic cocktail typewriter. // And finally, I fear there’s something under the ice. But will it be a patch on the 1982 version?
Bathtub of note.
I don’t think I’m classy enough to have a bathtub like that.
I’ll take the yacht though…
“I don’t think I’m classy enough to have a bathtub like that.”
Watching the promotional video, you could easily get the impression that each bathtub was hand-carved from a meteorite that fell from the stars.
the hydraulic cocktail typewriter.
The word you’re looking for is Wonka-esque.
Adastra: wondering what the Perardua looks like?
I dunno, that bathtub just isn’t to my tastes. What can I say, I’m very picky about bathroom fixtures.
Re the people getting their photos taken in Mongolia: I love how in the comments people are fussing over whether the film is really Polaroid or Fuji Instax (Polaroid does still make instant film for their Mio brand of cameras which is similar to the Fuji Instax cameras), and also fussing at the people who put up the video for somehow being patronizing of the Mongolians. What a world.
I fear there’s something under the ice. But will it be a patch on the 1982 version?
I’d bet no. Just based on the fact the trailer gives too much away. The John Carpenter version is a classic.
“The John Carpenter version is a classic.”
I saw it again a few months ago and it stands up surprisingly well, despite having Kurt Russell in it. The ‘spider-heads’, canine ‘flowers’ and assorted hydraulic viscera still look bizarre. It’s quite rare to see a film so inventively disgusting.
An animated primer of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Related – great UN speech by Netanyahu:
“It’s here year after year that Israel is unjustly singled out for condemnation. It’s singled out for condemnation more often than all the nations of the world combined. Twenty-one out of the 27 General Assembly resolutions condemn Israel — the one true democracy in the Middle East. Well, this is an unfortunate part of the U.N. institution. It’s the — the theater of the absurd. It doesn’t only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi’s Libya chaired the U.N. Commission on Human Rights; Saddam’s Iraq headed the U.N. Committee on Disarmament. You might say: That’s the past. Well, here’s what’s happening now — right now, today. Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon now presides over the U.N. Security Council. This means, in effect, that a terror organization presides over the body entrusted with guaranteeing the world’s security. You couldn’t make this thing up.”
http://weaselzippers.us/2011/09/23/video-netanyahus-u-n-speech-insatiable-crocodile-of-militant-islam/
the 1982 version?
sheesh..D’yis not know the original Thing from Another World? (was it 1951?)
Here’s a link – much better in black&white if you ask me/them were the days etcetc
Henry,
“D’yis not know the original Thing from Another World?”
Oh yes. (Hence my writing “the 1982 version,” and not “the original.”) I hadn’t seen the colourised version of the Nyby film though, so I may take a squint at that. If memory serves, Carpenter’s film is actually much closer to – and much better than – the John W Campbell novella, which I guess is the original original version.
[ Added: ]
Oh wow. I’d forgotten how underwhelming Nyby’s alien menace is. Carpenter gives us a shape-shifting parasite that’s revolting, visually boggling and thoroughly indecent. In the Nyby film, we get a tall guy with a plank.
lol. Nay – you get suspense and sharp dialogue in the 1951. I snoozed through some of John Carpenter’s effort so maybe it perked up later on.
..and the vegetable with a plank. Well I grew up suspending disbelief watching Dr Who.
But the less you see of the alien, the more scary – see Alien (and Karla IMO)
Henry,
“But the less you see of the alien, the more scary…”
I should point out I’m not a big John Carpenter fan; most of his films are pretty dismal, I think. And I’m not a huge fan of horror films in general. But The Thing was one of the first contemporary horror films that made a real impression, along with Alien, with which it has quite a lot in common and which I saw at around the same time. (On a school friend’s dad’s state-of-the-art Betamax, I recall.) What impressed me was the visual ingenuity – the fact that what we do see of the creature is so outlandish. It’s genuinely alien. The beastie is more like an infection; it has no shape of its own as such – it just uses whatever raw material is to hand. Or tentacle. Or alarming prehensile tongue. That was the appeal – we saw plenty of monster and it was different – and more disgusting – each time.
A burly chap with a plank didn’t cut it after that.
The opening sequence with the running dog and the helicopter is superb. But as the film goes on I find myself detaching from the proceedings, purely because the Thing and its abilities are so far-fetched. I’m no biologist, but the whole shape-shifting thing seemed highly unlikely; yet the film is played more or less straight. In my opinion you either need a more plausible monster, like the alien in Aliens, or a sillier tone, as in Slithers or The Faculty.
On the other hand my sister says it’s the scariest thing she’s ever seen, so it works for some.
witwoud,
“The opening sequence with the running dog and the helicopter is superb.”
It’s a great set-up with some wonderful misdirection. (Why are those nasty Norwegian people trying to hurt that adorable dog? The fiends.)
And some of the stranger scenes don’t involve any hissing viscera or heads running away under their own steam. For instance, when the dog (or “dog”) is just sitting at a window and watching the humans, presumably studying them, or when it gets caged with the other dogs and promptly lays in a very odd, ‘un-doglike’ way. (Of course it then starts turning itself inside out and absorbing the other animals, but still, the set-up is quite eerie in itself.) As a gangly adolescent awed by the power of Betamax, this stuff was very impressive.
“…the Thing and its abilities are so far-fetched.”
I’m not sure how to gauge plausibility when it comes to inadvertently thawing voracious alien parasites. I do, though, know that a bloke with stack heels and a plank doesn’t exactly scream The Last Word In Horror.
Re The Thing,
I find the whole corpus of The Thing to be almost offensively homo-centric, and would like to point out that this is not the only narrative possible for analyzing the movies. Peter Watts (author of the absolutely brilliant ‘Blindsight’) wrote this xeno-centric short;
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/
On non-homo-centric narratives. I’ve been promised an alternate re-imagining view of the Aliens universe as well, with the working-title ‘I have two mouths, and I must breed‘.
I fear it’ll turn out as a piece of Bishop/Ripley slash-fiction rather than anything else, but I can still hope, right?
-S
Simen,
“I will save them from the inside…”
Heh.
Something to discuss at the next Guild of Evil meeting. Gotta get ahead of the PR curve (via Ace of Spades):
http://www.toledoblade.com/UT/2011/09/24/Big-East-issues-statement-regarding-Toledo-loss.html
OK…cut & paste fail…though that’s not a bad topic for discussion either…try this one instead:
http://www.juliansanchez.com/2011/09/21/ceos-in-comics-villains-earn-heroes-inherit/
David,
Thanks for the Israel / Palestine link. It seems that I can add suspicion of the seemingly absurd but nonetheless pervasive pro-palestinian narrative to the list of things that we have in common.
I still can’t fathom how anyone can take seriously any viewpoint which is loudly promoted by the monstrous bully George Galloway. Apparently they do. And quite vehemently!
I may be a heretic, but I think John Carpenter was at his best when he didn’t do horror – particularly with ‘Escape from New York’ and (my favourite out of all his films) ‘Assault on Precinct 13’. Oh, and ‘Big Trouble in Little China’ is a guilty pleasure as well.
Ha! Thanks for reminding me about Precinct 13, Sackcloth. Haven’t watched it in about 20 years.
Downloading it right now. 26 minutes remaining … c’mon … c’mon…
Excellent comments by David on Carpenter’s The Thing. However nobody has mentioned easily the best thing about it: Ennio Morricone’s score. Not all the music he wrote made the film, but I’ll never forget the recurring doom laden synth theme – proof of Morricone’s mastery of all music forms.
Carpenter’ best films are Dark Star, Escape from NY and Assult on Precinct 13. The Thing was the last truly great film he made, in a career that faded in the most surprising way.
BTW if my teenage memory serves me right I saw The Thing, Blade Runner and Scarface within a few months of each other. What a cinematic year!
If we had a hundred wild monkeys pounding on typewriters, how long before they came up with a decent Manhattan?
@ witwoud
‘Got a smoke?’
@ Sgt Pinback
(Kicking myself metaphorically) Damn, I forgot all about ‘Dark Star’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j-MzxDad2c
Two hours later … oh, yeah, that hit the spot. It’s like a zombie movie but better because it doesn’t have zombies in it. I love that toned-down, scruffy 1970s style, and the complete lack of sentimentality. Nice one, Sackcloth!
A magical place, Sakhalin. Few of us who lived there and left didn’t leave a piece of our hearts behind. So much so in my case that I’ll be there on holiday – for the second time – in October.
David,
Was Childs Infected?
http://youtu.be/SppG-I_Dhxw
http://youtu.be/bgRWMbGSUec
Rafi,
Thanks.