Aliens

Decidedly different from the masterful sci-fi horror original, Aliens in its own right is a thrilling action/suspense sequel that launched the series -- really re-created the series in its own image -- and took no prisoners. Boasting a colorful and memorable cast, the film hits all the right emotional notes. Sigourney Weaver owns the character Ripley, but she has plenty of talent to work off. From Michael Biehn's reluctant corporal-turned-commander to Jenette Goldstein's tough-as-nails Vasquez, to Bill Paxton's quote-making-masterpiece as doomsayer Private Hudson, to Lance Henrikson's quiet but emotional performance as the android Bishop, you feel for the characters and their hopeless situation of escaping from hundreds of Aliens.

James Cameron's ultimate strength remains in weaving memorable characters to a well-paced plot and action. (Did I mention James Horner's score is awesome?) Once caveat is that length does not necessarily make a film better, so I'll have to disagree with him that his 1991 director's cut (157 minutes) is better than the original theatrical cut (135 minutes). I have to side with the studio that the twenty minutes of footage actually serve to draw out the lengthy beginning of the film -- you don't even see an Alien until well-over an hour in. While this works in Jaws, I didn't feel it worked to make a better film here. In the original, Ridley is rescued, you get her situation, get the urgency of the colony, and bam-- we are on our way. Forty-five minutes of tension is plenty before all-hell breaks loose, but either way, Aliens still stands up as one impressive piece of action-filmmaking.

Neuromancer

Imagine a story featuring a world-class hacker whose foolish double-cross of his bosses led to them forcing him to undergo surgery that prevents him from jacking into the matrix. And now imagine that a slender female, who has surgically implanted mirrors for eyes and retractable razors for fingernails, and a former soldier whose personality has been replaced, recruits the hacker on behalf of a ruthless Artificial Intelligence who wants to be set free from its network. Pretty cool concept, kind of a The Matrix meets Terminator meets AI meets The Cell. Now imagine this story was written before any of these movies were made, 25 years ago.

To call Neuromancer a ground-breaking work is an understatement. I've read the work four times now, and there are things about William Gibson's novel that never get old.

Certainly, the further along we get in technology, the more interesting and astounding it is to read about these visionary concepts when the vast majority of people had little idea what a network was let alone RAM. Virtual reality was years away from being even a cult phrase, and hacking was a threat without a target -- who even had a computer at their desk at work in 1983? I still get a tingly thrill reading a story whose made-up-technology coined many of our current concepts and language and remains for the most part (the size of RAM needs updating, but EVERYONE who wrote about advanced computers in the 80's and 90's got the rate of growth wrong).

Of course, the concepts are fascinating, but without the story and Gibson's breathtaking description (opening line: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."), it would be as interesting as a Nostradamus portent. The first act of the story involves the hacker, Case, working with his hired-gun Molly, to break into a highly-guarded computer facility to retrieve the "flatline" of a former hacker. The "flatline" is a self-contained program that resembles the personality of the former hacker and will work with Case to break through the security that houses the AI. Using an implant, Case can 'jack-in' to Molly to receive all her inputs during her break-in, including feeling the actual pain of a gunshot wound and her playful nipple pinch. That caper proves simple compared to the ultimate goal, which they must recruit a sociopath who can project holograms and travel to an orbiting multi-layered mainframe to accomplish their mission.

Wildly creative and original, Neuromancer remains the holy grail of cyberpunk novels, and stands up today as strong as it did 25 years ago.

Clash of the Titans (1981)

With one minute of teaser trailer footage, the 2010 Clash of the Titans remake has firmly grabbed a hold of my youthful nostalgia and nearly made me frothing with desire to see this film in March. This is not because I thought that the original was lacking, but rather that 1981's Clash of the Titans holds up as great adventure tale whose film techniques could use a 21st-century treatment.

1981's Clash was a "big-budget" film using stop-motion animation, the premiere technology at the time for special-effects. While stop-motion animation is still in broad use today, it is relegated to animated films; CGI effects have all-but replaced the technology for realistic effects. Although it was obvious back in '81 that the Krakon was a big clay sculpture, it was enough for the time to get absorbed in the film. Today, watching the piece, it is a lot more noticeable as times have changed and we are used to digital characters that seamlessly integrate with real ones.

What sets Clash apart is the execution of a gang-buster story. Interweaving dozens of classic Greek mythological heroes, gods, and villains, the story still resonates with urgency and menace. One of the classic scenes involves Perseus' confrontation with Medusa, the Gorgon who cannot be looked upon without turning to stone. Perseus must use all his wits and skill to defeat an opponent who has acidic blood, a marksman's skill with arrows, and a face that literally could kill. It's obviously claymation at work, but the scene still to this day carries palpable menace and tension throughout.

The legacy, and challenge, of this remake is to take what was once great and make it great again for a new audience. It's probably the easiest upgrade I can think of; you've got the story, now all you've got to do is throw in some one-liners and adjust the action. And maybe lose the comic-relief gold owl.

The Men Who Stare At Goats

It's often in IT that you see a case where an idea is brilliant in concept, but in execution the flaws become obvious. This is the reason most IT projects or code go through pilot testing to shake out the flaws. If caught early enough, the flaws can be corrected, or the requirements changed to something more practical. But at some point, the cost of changing what you have outweighs the benefits of change, so you have to just do your best and hope the product works out.

In The Men Who Stare At Goats, the main character and narrator, Bob Wilton, is a reporter who travels to Iraq to find some worth in his life. There he meets a man who claims to be part of a secret army crew who are referred to as "Jedi". Throughout the film, Bob plays the neophyte follower who is trying to learn about their "Jedi" ways. As such, he often asks plenty of questions about the "Jedi" and acts confused when new concepts of the "Jedi" are discussed.

In a brilliantly clever, but ultimately undoing casting decision, Bob is played by Ewan McGregor. Anyone who has seen the recent Star Wars films can see the ironic humor of Obi-Wan Kenobi going around befuddled by these New Age "Jedis". If this had been a throw-away concept, a one-time joke, it would have served the film as a clever aside. But, with Ewan / Obi-wan glaring back at you as the narrator constantly confused by references to Jedi, I found it impossible to relax into the film. Instead, it became a meta-character. When the character is not so much enhanced as dependent on the actor being recognizable in another role, and that joke is hammered home repeatedly, the result is you have reminders that these are actors.

Yes, I realize that I was sitting in a theater, and I paid money to watch a film, and yes, these films have actors, and no, it's not real. My problem come in with suspension of disbelief -- the ability of the audience to accept the concept of the film in order to enjoy it. For instance, it's very difficult to enjoy Star Wars if every time you see the Millenium Falcon jump to hyperspace, you snort and deride that is ridiculous. An instance more similar to the casting problem is breaking the fourth wall, where one of the characters address the audience directly. This does not break suspension of disbelief BECAUSE the characters stay in character. It would never work for Woody Allen in Annie Hall to say "You heard that! I know because I wrote this script!" versus "You heard that!" Ewan McGregor as Bob doesn't break the fourth wall, it sneaks around it. It's funny as a Saturday Night Live skit, but not as film.

If the character of Bob is played by ANY other actor (except Liam Neeson or Mark Hamill -- the latter being the most distracting), then entire feel of the film changes. Instead, I have to wonder if the script was written precisely with Ewan in mind, if the producers where intending you to go, "that is ironic and funny that Ewan is asking about Jedi again" every time he's up there, or if there was a pilot process to any of this.

And then there's the ending. The very last scene changes the entire feel of the preceeding 110 minutes. I'm not going to spoil it for you, but I'll guess that you, like me, expected an entirely different result to Ewan's experiment. Where most of the film is grounded in psychic powers that may-or-may-not exist, but if they do they certainly aren't capable of some things, then the end is completely head-shaking.

Did I mention I liked the film? It's a solid 'B' experience, except for those two things. Casting and end. Come to think of it, that's grounds for an official "bungling in execution" label. Next time get Harrison Ford. Wait, maybe not...

The Girl Who Played With Fire

As a sequel, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played With Fire is as satisfying a follow-up as they get, if not downright superior to the first book, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Indeed, while I was reading it, I was savoring each page of character development, malicious characters, and odd anti-heroes. This is the kind of book you are sad that it is so good, because you don’t want it to end. You are also sad because you realize towards the end that the author has given you a giant fucking cliff-hanger. And while you are thoroughly satisfied, thirsty and irritated by the thrall Larsson has over you in his fascinating tale, you really, really hope that the late author wrapped up the story in the third book to be released next summer. Anger, fear, aggression. Well-played… for a book.

Just a note about the movie, and there will be a movie. (There is the Swedish Men Who Hate Women -- the original title of the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo -- which ostensibly looks to have gotten it right. I’m guessing there will be an American series when all is said and done.) The absolute crucial (and probably most sought-after role) casting that will make-or-break the film is for Lisbeth Salander. I could try to explain it using a bunch of adjectives, but suffice to say she’s one of my all-time favorite characters and an absolute joy to follow. Kind of like how Harry Potter fans rabidly follow the casting of those films, this one will be for adults. Or at least those without brooms.

The development of Salander is the most intriguing thing about the series. As I’ve mentioned before, the original title of the first novel, actually the current title in his native Sweden, is “Men Who Hate Women”. This is certainly an appropriate descriptor of the book (and sequel), but somewhere along the line, I get a sense that Larsson discovered what a wonderful character he had developed and slowly, perhaps unconsciously, the book(s) became more about her and her interactions with the plot than the plot itself. And we are rewarded for it.

I wrote a bit about The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo previously, but I am now more struck by the emotional denouement of the piece. At once heartrending, appropriate, and realistic, the end could have entirely been left out of the book, and the novel would have been just as complete. Including the last bit about Salander not only develops the character more, almost as an afterthought, but demands more to the story. Contrast to the end of The Girl Who Played With Fire, which is a downright cliffhanger. Larsson knocks us over the head with one, and teases us with another. Both ways left this reader salivating for more.

PS. The third book is not due for US release until May 2010. So I paid the extra to get it now from the UK. Speaks for itself.

The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death: A Novel

I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think there's something about making your hero a self-avowed and proud-of-it slacker that's an instant turn-off for me. Instead of conforming comfortably into Joseph Campbell's hero arc, or partaking in the ridiculous humor of his situations, I found myself reading Charlie Huston's 'The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death: A Novel', brooding, wishing the "hero" would grow up a little, and get exasperated with his bad attitude. Not a good place to start.

Charlie Huston has written better books, more enthralling books. In fact, every book that I've read of his prior to this one -- seven, the three Hank Thompson series and four Joe Pitt books (going to dig into book five eagerly soon!) -- was better. This story seemed a little too cute for me, a little watered down compared to his other pulp noir works, and just a little too mainstream. That sounds a little strange about a book where its main character makes his business cleaning up gruesome crime scenes. In those areas, the book is interesting, engaging, and amusingly gory, true to Charlie-form. And if you take this book by itself, I think it was good, just good, but not really representative of what Charlie can do. Anyone else, I would give this book a B+, but Charlie gets a B-, because as my favorite 'student', I know he can do better.

Angels & Demons

Angels & Demons, the first book written with character Robert Langdon, is not a prequel of The Da Vinci Code; Da Vinci Code is a true sequel to Angels & Demons. And an inferior one at that, both in novel and film. Not that the film Angels & Demons was any great work, but it's source material was much more tailor-made for screen than it's predecessor. Er, successor. Er, something.When it comes to how so many people I have encountered inexplicably either think The Da Vinci Code book is better than Angels & Demons or the same book is beyond me. Perhaps a clue can be found in the order in which the novels are read. I won't say definitively that every person (let's say my sample size is about 10 people at this point -- in other words, statistically irrefutable so don't even try it!!!) falls in this category, but I found that 9 out of 10 preferred whichever of the two books they read first. The only circumstance I can recall where the audience tended to prefer whichever they saw first was between Austin Powers I and II; in that case, the audience didn't like the second as much because it was mostly the same jokes over again.

I can totally understand that case, but it baffles me where the two Dan Brown books are concerned. You have some common elements -- the church, conniving priests, and mysterious symbology that leads our hero Langdon on a time-intensive desperate search. Granted, the books are similar in this regard, but these are common themes that are expected. Langdon is a friggin' symbologist. This is what he does. It's the formula Brown is using. To expect him to do otherwise would be to expect Indiana Jones 5: Courtroom Drama!

And after that, all the similarities subside. There is science-fiction, more murder and mayhem, more danger, more action, and better pacing in Angels and Demons. Ultimately, The Da Vinci Code is a story about finding the truth, whereas Angels & Demons is a thriller about a race-against-time to save the Vatican from a technological time-bomb that reveals to be a power-grab maneuver from multiple parties. So when people (say of the 5 that liked Da Vinci better) say it's "just the same stuff all over again", I wonder (a) did their parents beat the sense out of them and (b) did I leave the iron on this morning? The answer to both is usually "yes, sadly".

Angels & Demons is a worthwhile, fun and riveting read, but I can't say it fared much better with me at the theater. I can understand (as I have a keen understanding) how The Da Vinci Code would fall short as a film -- it's not exactly a thriller book. But all the potential made me somewhat bitter as I slowly became bored with the film version of Angels & Demons. It's not that I have a problem with Tom Hanks' hair (problem solved in this one!) -- but more of the editing and direction. Historically, Ron Howard has been a drama director (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Backdraft, Frost/Nixon), and the only thriller on his list that I can see is Ransom, although I think that's again mostly drama -- you know who the kidnapper is most of the way through. This film doesn't excite, and it should. I mean, who isn't excited about priests getting murdered? Who??

In short, your scoring guide, and only reference you'll ever need, for Angels & Demons is book: A, movie: C. For Da Vinci Code, book: B, movie C.

Unknown Pleasures

The cover to Joy Division's debut album, Unknown Pleasures is at once minimal, striking, and thought-provoking. The image was:

originally published as a green-white image in 'The Nature of Pulsars' by Jerry Ostriker, Scientific American 224, #1, Jan 1971, page 53. It shows 80 successive pulses of the first pulsar observed, cp1919 stacked on top of one another using the average period of 1.33730 seconds.

From those galactic beginnings, just beats in the distance representing awesome powers, come this amazing debut.

My reaction to listening to Joy Division was akin to the first time I heard Morrissey's voice, but a slow, delayed reaction. Of course I had heard Joy Division's seminal swan song, "Love Will Tear Us Apart", but very little else. I don't know if I can chalk that up to having young ears (again, first time I heard it was in college), or the fact that the song was so unlike Joy Division's other music that I didn't explore their other songs more. Whatever the reason, these songs I had only marginally noticed suddenly became the ones that made my heart thumb nearly 20 years later. It's hard for me to fathom how now anytime I hear Peter Hook's driving, devastating bass line, Sumner's spare and suddenly thickly one-note guitar, Stephen's pounding drums and Ian's compulsive, desperate lungs on "New Dawn Fades", that I could be so drawn in and given pause now, where I would dismiss the song years ago. Unknown Pleasures is just a stunning album filled with that sound, the garage-punk-new-wave-lyrically-tight-somber-jumparound sound. You know, that one. The Joy Division sound. Or if you don't know it, or even if you think you knew it, listen again. You may now be ready for it.