Archives

Feb252008

Classic Trek Now Streaming Online

A number of my regular blog-reads have already mentioned this, but in case you haven’t heard, CBS.com is now offering all 79 episodes of the original Star Trek series as free streaming videos. They’re supposed to be full-length and uncut (although they do seem to have unskippable commercials inserted at the original act-breaks), and based on my random sampling of a few scenes, they’re clean transfers presented in fairly decent quality. Interestingly, they are the original un-“enhanced” episodes — no modern-day CGI intruding on all the “living color” 1960s yumminess. So apparently not everyone thinks the revised editions are now the only official version of Trek. How refreshing.

(On a somewhat-related tangent, Toshiba’s announcement last week that it was abandoning its HD-DVD technology has left the Star Trek: Remastered project — i.e., the CG’d version — in limbo. Toshiba was funding the update and counting on the series to be one of the prime movers of its HD-DVD format. Now the question is whether sales of the first season of Trek: Remastered have been sufficient to encourage anyone else to take up the reins and finish the final two seasons. This old-school, purist Trekkie would be perfectly happy to see the whole idea fade away…)

Star Trek is being presented as one of several “TV Classics” offered on the site, and I’m thrilled to see the unaltered version of the show getting some respect and some exposure. I will say, however, the CBS.com has a curious definition of “classic.” In addition to Trek, they’re also offering the ’60s-vintage Twilight Zone, Hawaii Five-O, MacGyver, and… Melrose Place? Without getting into any debates over the merits of Melrose as a series, is it even old enough to be called any sort of classic?

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Feb252008

Oscars 2008

I don’t know why I keep watching the Oscars year after year. It’s not like it was back in the old days when I worked at the theater. Back then, I saw pretty much every movie that came out within a week or two of its release, I had very strong opinions about them all, and I enjoyed the validation that the Oscars provided, either by honoring the movies I liked or by giving me the chance to feel superior to those jerks on the Academy when they honored the stuff I didn’t like.

Continue Reading…

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Feb222008

I Need Me One of These

Han Solo in carbonite desk

Okay, sure, my birthday is still six months or so away, but that just gives one of my terribly generous friends out there time to save up the money to get me something really, really cool. Like, oh, I don’t know… maybe a Han-Solo-in-carbonite desk! (Although for my purposes, a coffee table would probably be better… I already have a nice roll-top desk.)

Seriously, though, this thing is really cool. It was custom-made by a company called Tom Spina Designs; if you like movie stuff at all, I recommend you go over there and have a look around. They’ve done a lot of other custom display pieces (some Star Wars-related, much that is not), and there’s a fascinating page showcasing some the restoration work they’ve done on original movie props and masks. Latex is not the most durable material and most movie companies make little effort to preserve costumes and props after shooting wraps, so the actual physical artifacts behind our favorite cinematic fantasies tend to degrade pretty quickly. This company has done some very impressive work on, among other things, puppets from The Dark Crystal and Gremlins, and a whole slew of Ughnaught masks from The Empire Strikes Back. Nice to know that somebody cares about saving this stuff… it’s all precious in my book. As Indy would say, “it belongs in a museum!”

Oh, and for the professional courtesy bit, this item was via Boing Boing. Of course.

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Feb212008

The Joshua Tree, 20 Years On

For the record, I consider U2 to be one of the most overrated bands of the last two centuries.

That remark is based, of course, on the fact that the active phase of their career stretches across both sides of Y2K — there’s a term you haven’t thought about in a while, I’ll bet! — and not because I think U2 sucks hard enough to make them stand out against the vast catalog of recordings that 200 years would encompass, if there actually was 200 years worth of recorded music. Which there isn’t, because recording technology is only 131 years old. But that’s beside the point, because as I said, U2 doesn’t suck that hard. I actually do like a good bit of their music, at least enough of it to warrant buying the basic greatest hits package that was released a few years back.

However, I’ve never understood the intense, near-religious devotion so many of my acquaintances seem to feel for these guys. A couple of my co-workers speak of Bono as if the man can make the blind see and the lame walk simply through the awesomeness of his blue wraparound shades or something, and, well, I just don’t get it. In fact, I so don’t get it that I find it rather distasteful. C’mon, people! The band has a unique sound, but I don’t think their lyrics are profound so much as opaque (occasionally bordering on the tedious), and I also tend to distrust the sincerity of rock stars with causes. But maybe I’m just an old grump that way.

What I do get is, though, is the power of iconic imagery, and there’s no denying that U2’s biggest album, The Joshua Tree, was graced by some beautiful and unforgettable photography that remains instantly recognizable and evocative even 20 years later. And that’s why, despite my ambivalence about the band itself, I found this site so interesting. I love comparing “then and now” photos of changing landscapes, and when they’re familiar landscapes, as these are, my emotional reaction to the changes can sometimes be unexpectedly strong.

Which is my way of saying that I felt rather bad to learn that the Joshua tree has died and toppled over…

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Feb192008

So When Can I Finally Enjoy a Mojito at Ernie’s Place?

The topic du jour this morning was, of course, the news that Fidel Castro is stepping down after decades of rule, followed by the White House’s affirmation that our country’s nearly half-century-old embargo against Cuba will not be relaxed anytime soon, regardless of which Castro is running the show over there.

So, here’s the thing I’ve been wondering all day: is there anyone out there in InternetLand who can explain to me why our country is so unrelenting on this damn-fool embargo? Anyone at all? Really, what purpose does it serve here in the year 2008? Maybe it made sense during JFK’s administration, when the Soviet Union was trying to use Cuba as a proxy against us, and everyone was terrified of communists infiltrating our borders from nearby nations. But the USSR is long gone, and our decades-long effort to keep the island nation isolated have utterly failed to effect any change within Cuba. The communists remain firmly in power and the Cuban people seem reasonably content with that state of affairs. So what’s the point of maintaining the embargo now?

Continue Reading…

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Feb182008

President’s Day Meme

Well, since it turns out that I’m spending my President’s Day holiday at home trying to cough up a yummy lung-fungus instead of doing something fun outside in the sunshine, how about Yet Another Meme™? Here’s one from (who else?) Jaquandor:

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Feb182008

Happy Birthday, Samantha

Molly Ringwald, smokin' at 40

From the Department of Holy-Crap-How-Did-I-Get-to-Be-This-Frakkin’-Old? comes the news that today is Molly Ringwald’s 40th birthday. Forty. Wow. Hard to believe that so much time has passed since I first laid eyes on her in the first season of The Facts of Life. (Yes, I’m one of the three people that actually remembers her being on TFoL, before she was jettisoned along with several other girls in the second-season retool.)

Of course, everyone knows her breakout role was in the seminal Eighties teen flick Sixteen Candles, in which she played hapless Samantha Baker (hence the title of this entry), whose entire family utterly forgets her sweet-sixteen because of the chaos surrounding her older sister’s wedding. (As it so happens, I caught a few minutes of Candles on TV the other night; I still think it’s pretty damn funny, although I grant that you maybe had to be there at the time to think so. If I ever get around to having kids, they probably won’t understand enough of the cultural underpinnings of the movie to get the jokes.)

I’m not shy about admitting that I had a pretty hard crush on Molly back in her Sixteen Candles/Breakfast Club days. She was about my age and her characters seemed like girls I might actually know, as opposed to the usual perfect automatons created by Hollywood make-up artists (Ferris Bueller’s girlfriend Cameron, for example, was utterly cool and utterly beautiful and no one like her has ever existed in any high school anywhere on this — or probably any other — planet.) Molly’s career faltered as she matured — she reportedly turned down the lead roles in both Pretty Woman and Ghost (doh!) — but she luckily managed to avoid the drugs, booze, and general nonsense that befell many of her fellow “Brat Pack” contemporaries.

A year or two back, the Girlfriend and I saw Molly Ringwald in the touring revival of the Broadway musical Sweet Charity, and although I know the critics weren’t very kind about her performance, I thoroughly enjoyed the evening. Maybe that was simply because I enjoy seeing someone I used to like return to the spotlight, or maybe it was just another case of the critics being unnecessarily harsh and snobby. Either way, it was good to see her again. I’d love to hear that a comeback is in the offing…

(Hat tip to SamuraiFrog, who brought this my attention and shares some similar sentiments about Ms. Ringwald…)

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Feb152008

More Than a Feeling? Not!

Heh. This amuses me… according to the gossip site TMZ.com:

Tom Scholz, founder of rock group Boston, wants Mike Huckabee to quit using “More Than a Feeling” as a campaign anthem… because Scholz is an Obama guy, and Huckabee is “the polar opposite” of what Boston stands for.

Funny, I always thought Boston stood for Camaros and excellent doobage… but then I really can’t imagine Mike Huckabee enjoying either of those things, so I guess Tom’s statement does make sense, doesn’t it?

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Feb152008

How Do You Pronounce “Gaiman” Anyhow?

Here’s kind of an interesting little page, whereupon you can listen to “brief recordings of authors and illustrators saying their names.” I must confess that I don’t recognize most of the names on the list, and also it seems that some of the names are pretty self-explanatory — really, who can’t figure out how to pronounce “Ann M. Martin“? — but I like the idea here. It would be especially useful in science fiction circles, where many authors seem to flaunt esoteric and/or eccentric noms de plume.
(Manys the time I’ve encountered some doughy geek-boy in a Doctor Who t-shirt — the sort who claim to despise the original Star Trek but secretly covet Captain Kirk’s skill with the ladies, green-skinned and otherwise — who defiantly insists that Author X says his or her name this way, and anyone who would dare to pronounce it differently is obviously a complete ignoramus. It’s a sci-fi thing, I guess, that unique combination of obstinate arrogance and screaming insecurity.)
In any event, the web site did help me clear up one nagging question for me: Neil Gaiman, author of the amazing Sandman comics among other things, says his last name “GAY-mun,” not “GUY-mun.” Good to know…

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