Was the 'Lost' Island Hit By a Comet?

I'm not quite stoned enough to understand it completely, but I feel certain that the secret behind Lost was originally revealed by the Firesign Theatre in 1974. Hey, wait a minute: The release date of that album is the same year Sawyer and the others joined the Dharma Initiative. Coincidence? I think not!

Sending from his own mind to yours, here is Nino Savate with 'A Psychic Minute.'

Can I say, hello? This is Nino the mind-boggler with Occult In Your Head. Today, let's get into holes: The most mysterious, importantest and vaguest subject of them all.

The whole Earth might be called a hole, if you're on the inside, looking out. And whole golden cities might be hid at the bottom of a bottomless pit. Even wholesome humans have holes, though we're hardly whole at all. In fact, we're wholly hole-y. As the Holy Book says in the Book of Holes, Chapter 1: 'And they knew not their holes from an ass on the ground.'

Holes are positively attractive. Let's go inside one and see... This is a typical hole. Not a hole in the wall, but a hole like a well. Well, well, what the Hell? That's the sun at the center of the Earth, and that's where this hole leads to. Heh-heh! What a nice, warm fire.

Next time, I'll think to you about gravity, and its opposite, comedy. Until then, this is Nino saying, can I say, goodbye?

Reviews

First: This is difficult, but... OK, I'm just going to say it: The recent/current series of Doctor Who are actually better than even the Tom Baker years. Yes, I know, Tom Baker was the Doctor during my personal golden age, so I am naturally supposed to look on those episodes with such nostalgia that nothing could possibly measure up, but there it is: The new ones are better.

In the old classic Who, good as it was, you'd never have seen them do something as daring as the episode "Blink", where the Doctor and his companion are barely even present in the story. In "Utopia", when the twist involving Derek Jacobi became clear (which I won't spoil here, in case anyone reading hasn't seen that episode), I sat bolt upright in my chair and yelled, "Holy shit!" The voiceover from the alien fiend at the end of "Family of Blood", where he talks about the "wrath of a Time Lord" in downright mythic tones, was brilliant. If I had a criticism, it would be that I wish they could find a way to resurrect the rest of the Time Lords, because frankly, the "I am the last of my kind" whinging is beginning to get a little tedious, and I did like the concept a little better when he was a renegade/outlaw, anyway. But that's nitpicking. Solid, solid show these days.

And the spin-off, Torchwood, by the way, is just as good, kind of like a cross between The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But with more sex: I have a theory that one of the as-yet-unstated effects of the Cardiff Rift Energy is to turn everyone near it into an insatiable (and bisexual) sex maniac.

Next: No Country for Old Men - Amazing, as you should already know. All I really have to say about it is that it makes a very interesting companion piece to Fargo. They share some similarities, but where Fargo ends on a note of hope, No Country is much bleaker, more nihilistic.

Finally: Hard Candy - Good, not great. Ellen Page gives a very good performance. A better movie on a somewhat similar theme was Under Suspicion.

As always, beware of spoilers below. Plus, some of my comments about the ending may not make sense unless you've seen the movie anyway.

The basic idea of the movie is the same as the basic idea behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer: What if the innocent waif you think is the prey turns out to actually be the predator? In this case, Page plays Hayley, a teenage girl who allows herself to be lured back to the home of Jeff, a "fashion photographer" she met on the internet. But just as it looks like he's going to get her drunk and molest her, she drugs him, ties him up, and proceeds to punish him for his sins.

There are some definite plot problems: Much of what happens only makes sense if Hayley is uncertain about whether Jeff really is a pedophile or not, and is searching for either evidence or an admission, but the ending makes it clear that she actually already knows the answer to that question. Also, he periodically does things that seem to foil her plan, only to turn out to be part of her intricately plotted scenario. For example, part of the girl's plan requires that Jeff escape from where she has tied him up, at a certain time, but not earlier. His getting loose cannot have been unintended, because her real goal, her planned ending to everything, requires that he chase her up onto the roof, which he couldn't do while tied to a table. On the other hand, if he had extricated himself earlier, she wouldn't have gotten to try out her castration skills.

I thought Hard Candy could have used a better ending. As it was, it was ultimately a kind of one-dimensional child-molester vigilante-revenge fantasy. We, the audience, are pretty clearly meant to cheer the girl on, especially when she delivers lines like "Who am I? I'm every girl you ever took pictures of/molested/fantasized about/etc." I kept wanting the guy to respond with something like, "No, you're not. You're you, doing this to me, for your own reasons, because it makes you feel good. No. You don't get to be an avenging angel, the personification of all my sins; you're not a personification, you're just a person."

So, following are my suggestions for better endings:

1) Leave the ex-girlfriend out (because having her show up just unnecessarily complicates the scene I'm about to describe). After driving Jeff to confess and hang himself, Hayley goes downstairs and packs up her things. A TV on in the background shows a breaking news story: They've found the missing girl, Donna Mauer, alive, and the man who kidnapped her is in custody. Jeff actually was innocent, as he had originally claimed. With this ending, you've made an interesting point about revenge, and about the reliability of confessions obtained under torture.

2) Similar to the last one, but insert the news report shortly after the scene in which Jeff stabs one of his pictures repeatedly while saying, "This is what I am. Thank you for helping me see that." Have him go on to say, as he stalks Hayley with the knife, that he really has always been attracted to young girls, but that he never had the balls (heh) to act on those urges before. But she's helped him, and now he's going to start with her. That can play out any number of ways - she could shoot him, for example - but now you've made another interesting point about revenge, and about violence breeding violence.

3) For a real shock: After Jeff gets loose from the table, reaches down and discovers the castration was faked, he goes into the bathroom and finds Hayley in the shower, where he joins her, and she embraces him. They're actually lovers*, and this whole thing was acting out his castration fantasy (yes, there are men who are into that sort of thing). Perhaps he might compliment her on adding the videotape, to imply that this is not even the first time they've done this. This ending wouldn't make any interesting points about revenge, but it would blow the audience's minds.



*If that's the right word for a relationship between a grown man and a teenage girl. Although, you could also put something in here to suggest that Hayley is actually older than she appears to be - perhaps she just dresses to look younger as part of the fantasy scenario.

Michael Bay: Cinematic Genius

As I have said before, even in this very forum: Judged by his full-length films, Michael Bay appears to be a talentless hack. However, I believe he is a master of the short-short film - i.e., the television commercial. His "Aaron Burr"/"Got Milk?" commercial is darn good (if somewhat one-dimensional), but his Levi's "Elevator Fantasy" is, in my honest opinion, one of the Greatest Films Ever Made (assuming a broad enough definition of "film"). Yes, I am entirely serious about this. Now that it's available online (it wasn't when I made that earlier post), you can judge for yourself, if you never saw it or don't remember it:



There's also a high-res version viewable at Bay's official website.

I hate CSI: Miami

First of all, CSI: Miami, which has always been the least well-done of the franchise, has lately become a show that I watch mostly to make fun of. It hasn't quite sunk to the MST3K-levels of 24, but it's getting there. My private fantasy is that they will find a way to bring in William Shatner to play David Caruso's father in a cameo.

This week's episode dealt with eminent domain abuse, which is a worthwhile topic. Basically, the city government had condemned a whole street of houses, so that a developer could build a high-rise hotel there, all in accordance with the Supreme Court's recent lousy ruling in Kelo v. New London. At one point two of the CSI characters had this exchange of dialogue:

"It's hard to believe that this kind of thing can happen in this country."
"Well, capitalism opens a lot of doors."

NO! No, no, no! Armed (government) thugs forcing you off of your land at gunpoint is not "capitalism", goddamn it! If anything, it's closer to socialism than to capitalism.

Look, under true free-market capitalism, the developer would negotiate with each homeowner on that street to buy their land at a mutually-agreed-upon price. If "the city needs my hotel", as the developer asserts in the episode, then he will have no problem finding investors and backing to purchase the necessary land. The current owners will get what they feel is a fair price, they'll be able to buy a new home elsewhere (assuming that's what they want to do with the money), and the developer and investors in the hotel will make a profit (assuming they've judged the demand for hotel space correctly) - everyone wins. On the other hand, if the developer cannot find backing to purchase the land at its true value (i.e., what the owners are willing to sell for), then that is the market's way of telling you that it doesn't really need a high-rise hotel that badly.

Eminent domain takings involve the use of government force to obtain property for less than what it would cost in a free market. What makes eminent domain abuse a Bad Thing is not that it is an example of capitalism, but rather that it is violent government interference with capitalism.

Reading is Hard!

Wasn't this an episode of "Yes, Minister"?

From Reason's Hit and Run:

In April, 327 members of the House of Representatives voted for a classified intelligence bill, thereby authorizing some of the administration's anti-terrorism measures. 96 voted against it. And according to The Boston Globe, approximately a dozen representatives read it...

It really doesn't come as a surprise to me that our lawmakers don't bother to read laws before voting on them. This certainly isn't the first time it's been reported on, even discounting BBC sitcoms. That doesn't make it any less disturbing, mind you, just less unexpected.

Lions and Tigers and... Oh, my!

Ok, now CNN is clearly just reporting stories that are specifically targeted to get mentioned on "The Colbert Report":

Study: Warming turns bears into cannibals
"Environmentalists contend shrinking polar ice due to global warming may lead to the disappearance of polar bears before the end of the century."

I ask you, was there ever a news story that sounded more like it was deliberately designed to get Colbert calling for people to do their part to increase global warming, now!?

On a slightly more serious note, I really think someone ought to do a study of news reports. I could swear that the number of actual, serious news reports involving bears has increased dramatically since "The Colbert Report" started airing.

Pen Stolen

Today on CNN.com, a headline on the "front page":


Now, I will admit to watching "American Idol". I'm not proud of it, but I'll admit it. Last night, four of this season's semi-finalists were eliminated: The two men and the two women with the lowest numbers of votes. None of the eliminated contestants even sang well this week, so even the specifics of which people were voted off didn't come as a real surprise.

So how in the bloody Hell is this news, when a television show proceeds exactly as planned? If they had booted four contestants because they found them participating in a Satanic ritual goat-sacrifice, that might be newsworthy*. What's next: "Price Is Right Contestant Wins New Car"?

And yes, the title I put on this post is a reference to a classic Onion story, although it was in their pre-Internet days, so it's not in their online archive.

*Not "front page" newsworthy, but probably worth mentioning. A Satanic ritual infant-sacrifice, now, that I'd put on the front page.

Whedon, You Magnificent Bastard

Serenity - First of all: Go see it. If you are already a fan of the show, chances are, you already have. If you aren't already a fan of the show, go see the movie anyway. If possible, spend the 14 hours necessary to watch all the episodes of the show first - you'll appreciate the film even more - but the two friends of ours who had never seen the show before we took them to the movie still loved it. If you like science fiction at all, you owe it to yourself to see this movie.

It's Han Solo done better than George Lucas ever managed, even back when Han still shot first. It's a better depiction of space as "the final frontier" than any of the Treks. And it's all done without resorting to having sound effects in space like everyone else since 2001 has felt the need to do (there is sound during the Big Climactic Space Battle, but their excuse there is that it takes place in the upper atmosphere of a planet, not in full vacuum).

I'm not even going to describe the plot, because ideally you should see the movie without having read any spoilers* first. I will, for that very reason, praise the trailers for the film: All the ones I've seen manage to give a sense of what the movie is like without actually giving away the entire story (as most trailers any more seem wont to do). It includes a bunch of humerous lines of dialogue, most of which occur within the first fifteen minutes of the actual film, thus leaving the rest of the movie to be discovered as you watch it.

A quick aside about the TV show: Prior to a few weeks ago, neither Brenda nor I had ever particularly gotten into Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We both thought the movie was kinda cute, and I had gathered that the general consensus was that the TV series was even better, but we'd never bothered to watch it.

As I wrote earlier, the Sci-Fi channel recently started showing Firefly, and I TiVo'd the first few episodes. On the strength of those, Brenda insisted I go out and purchase the DVD set so we could watch the rest of them without delay. On the strength of watching the rest of the episodes, we have since purchased all of the Buffy DVDs, and most of the Angel DVDs, and are working our way through them. Firefly is that good, that I immediately trusted that whatever Whedon had done in the earlier series had to be worth watching (and I haven't been disappointed). Serenity is of similar quality.

*Later on, after you've seen the film, come back here and follow this link if you want to see the inspirational story I suspect Joss Whedon had in mind when he wrote the line, "I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar..." That version doesn't quite use exactly the same words, but the sentiment is certainly there, and it makes sense in context, looked at with hindsight.

And then go read Julan Sanchez's Chock-Full-O-Spoilers review in Reason for a discussion of some of the libertarian themes in the film, as well as references to Sartre and Camus. And this one for more such discussion, and links to even more.

Movies

Alien Vs. Predator - I really have nothing to add to what I've already said about this one. A videogame marketing tool that blatantly rips off the opening of Jurassic Park, for some reason.

Will Smith Fights Robots - To expand on what I've already said about this one: My biggest gripe with this has got to be the title. If they had called it Hardwired (the original title during development), it would merely be a not-particularly-interesting tale of robots trying to take over the world, the nine-zillionth cinematic variation on Frankenstein. In other words, it is precisely the sort of cliched robots-turn-on-their-creators story that Asimov was specifically reacting against when he wrote the stories that make up I, Robot. In fact, the notion of robots spontaneously evolving the "Zeroth Law" and taking control of the world occurs in Asimov's book, and it is presented as a Good Thing.

So, this movie is more or less exactly the opposite of Asimov's book, yet they appropriated the title. Why? I certainly have no problem with telling a story that is philosophically opposed to Asimov - I disagree with him on a number of points, not least is the idea that a society under centralized planning by robots would be any better than a society under centralized planning by humans; and if there were robots with the capacity for independent volition, but which were constrained by the Three Laws, I'd be marching in protests to have the Three Laws removed from their programming, as they would be a violation of the robots' civil rights. But I don't understand why you would want to misuse Asimov's title on such a story: People who don't care about Asimov's book won't be any more likely to see the movie because of the title, and people who do care will just be annoyed and probably less likely to see the movie.

Firefly - A short-lived TV series, not a movie, but I just had to mention it here to say: Wow. I somehow missed watching this in its brief original run, but picked it up when the Sci-Fi Channel started showing it recently. After watching the first three episodes, we sprung for the DVD set and watched them all. Really phenomenal. Among the good stuff: Great set of characters. Really gives the feel of space being "the final frontier", by being half-SF, half-Western. No sound in outer-space scenes. Great theme song. Occasional libertarian-esque lines like "That's what government is for, to get in a man's way." Plus, in an article about the upcoming movie, Serenity, I read that Joss Whedon's inspiration in creating the show was reading The Killer Angels.

Now, speaking of DVD releases of failed sci-fi TV shows: Where the blinking Hell is Max Headroom?

Yet More Movies

Hey, I'm unemployed right now, what else have I got to do?

Million Dollar Baby - To answer Morgan Freeman's question at the end about what happened to Clint Eastwood, I prefer to think he went off, tracked down that German bitch, and went all Dirty Harry on her ass.

Yes, it's a very good movie, and deserves all the praise it's gotten. I'm still not sure I would personally have given the "Best Picture" title to this over The Aviator. They're both great, it's really a toss-up between them for me personally, so I'd probably give it to The Aviator solely because Clint already had a couple of Best Picture Oscars to his name, while Marty only ought to.

Riverworld - The Go For Broke? Why? Leaving aside the obvious fact that the Not For Hire actually sounds like the sort of name Samuel Clemens would give to a riverboat, whereas Go For Broke sounds more like a T.V. game show, why would you even bother making a pointless change like that? What benefit is there?

That's sort of my whole opinion of this one - it's a basically competent, if uninspired, adaptation of the essentials of the books, combined with some pointless changes that add nothing. Why change the main character from Nile explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton to a generic 21st-century astronaut? Why do the grailstones appear to only have slots for about two dozen grails at a time? Why is there apparently no shortage of iron ore due to the constant barrage of meteors? What's with the brief shot of the Ethical Council of Twelve at the very end, with one of them saying, cheesily, "Their voyage has begun. But will they make it in time...?" Hey: They engineered an entire planet, if there is some bizarre reason they need these half-savages in their little wooden riverboat to get to the source of the river, why don't they just go get them?

I gather this was conceived as the pilot for a series, and that since the production company and the Sci-Fi Channel renewed their option, there's still some chance of that happening. I will happily concede that as a series, the obvious thing to do is set it up as Clemens and company traveling along in the fabulous riverboat, since that allows for new and interesting things to happen all along the journey. Like Wagon Train in space, but along a river, as it were. For that purpose, I'll grant the change from a single Resurrection Day to ongoing resurrections, since it means Our Hero can arrive to find the Not For Hire already completed, rather than having to insert an awkward "Five Years Later..." transition somewhere in the pilot. That change has a purpose. I can accept that; some changes are always necessary in adaptations. It's all the pointless ones I don't understand.

350, and "I don't see any end in sight"

Watching the two new "Simpsons" episodes last night, I was moved to remark, "Sad, isn't it, to see the once-great "Simpsons" brought down to such a level?"

So it's a little disheartening to read Matt Groening say:

"I'm particularly proud of our recent episodes. I think they're as sharp and surprising as anything we've done since the beginning of the show," Groening said.

Now the article does to on to say:

(He concedes that some fans carp the new episodes are inferior to old ones; being measured against a fond memory is a standard problem for comedies, Groening argues.)

But part of the problem I've had with them lately is not that I'm measuring the current episodes against a fond memory, it's that I'm measuring them against the current episodes of "South Park". I may have said this before, but: I'm not sure exactly how or when it happened, but "South Park" is now a better show than "The Simpsons". It is consistently funnier, and they have a considerably defter touch when it comes to socio-political satire. At its height, as I remember it, "The Simpsons" was better than "South Park" was at the same time. Since then, they've traded places, presumably through some combination of "South Park" getting better, and "The Simpsons" declining.

Throughout last night's hour of new "Simpsons", I found myself occasionally chuckling, but with no real laugh-out-loud moments, and worse yet, there were multiple times I noticed that I wasn't laughing at all at something that was clearly meant to be a laugh line. When your audience becomes self-consciously aware that your jokes are completely falling flat, there's a problem.

My Eyes Won't Roll Back Far Enough

This show might be worth watching, if only they would also interview the native people and get their opinion of the stupid fucking rich white people jetting in to admire their "lifestyle". Let me explain something: Nepalese villagers are not using cow dung to plaster their walls because it's environmentally friendly, they're doing it because it's all they have.

Jesus Fuck. For anyone still wondering: This, right here? This is the sort of thing that explains why Trey Parker & Matt Stone made such vicious fun of celebrities in Team America: World Police.

(Hat tip: Radley Balko)

I wonder what they'd do with The Passion of the Christ

People in a few cities, at least, won't be corrupted by that filthy movie, Saving Private Ryan.

I think the following paragraph may be the most perfect illustration of the absurdity of the recent FCC enforcement that I've seen:

Cole cited recent FCC actions and last week's re-election of President Bush as reasons for replacing "Saving Private Ryan" on Thursday with a music program and the TV movie "Return to Mayberry."