billgbg Reviews

Way... Way Out (1966)

"Way Out "is Fluffy but Essential Sixties Viewing

[11 March 2006]

We have VHS! So I rented it last night--first laid eyes on this gem back in '66 when I was ten years old. Ten year olds shouldn't see movies like this, hehe.

Jerry Lewis does less of his wacky character here, and tries playing it straight, not for gonzo laughs. He's nearly laid back compared to Robert Morley's curtain rattling performance as Jerry and Connie Stevens "first married couple on the moon. He's a handler like Leo G. Carroll was for Napoleon Solo in the Man From Uncle. Brian Keith appears several times in short inserts as a gruff-but-still-gruffer General who orders third act action where Jerry must "secure the moon".

Sure, all the sets are drenched in futuristic lighting as the story is set sometime after the Sixties, doesn't say when though. So in the background are cool concept cars of the future, during the Earth based scenes. You see solid patches of red and brilliant white furniture,(and very cool clear, plastic pillows), straight out of movies like "In Like Flint" or the British set designer for Sixties movies Ken Adam.

The Moon base location has cool looking pods for sleeping/working--and yes the patented "Batman"-style, big, blinking lights computers are strewn all over your eyeline, which I totally loved as a kid. Lighting-wise, the production simply pours all available light at all times during the indoor moon scenes, which has a television-feel about it; later verified by the technical names, especially Jack Martin Smith, who worked scores of sci-fi/fantasy pics during the Sixties for TV and low budget independents.

The film is super-sexy with tease galore supplied by Anita Ekberg's fab legs, shot from at least three angles during her opening house call on the American married couple living next door on the moon. There's all sort of adult-level innuendo that flew over my head at the time: things about wife swapping, watching two girls makeout on one's wedding night, and others that are cleverly enfolded into the dialog, some PC types of the Two-Thousands would call this "leering" and it probably is, hehe.

Dick Shawn as the Tarzan-like Russian counterpart to Jerry simply does his patented "thing" with grimacing and good accents. There's an extended sequence of everybody getting drunk and kinda swapping, which today's producers would be cutting out because bad things happen to people who drink to excess, right? --oh yeah everybody knows that. The drunk thing was big in the sixties for some reason. Dick Shawn's other picture that year "What Did You Do In The War, Daddy?" had him being drunk through days of story time.

Seeing this movie without any warning would certainly remind some of Austin Powers; it's inescapable really. However I saw this tonight with a 28 year old who reminded me, "Austin Powers got it's look from this, not the other way around"

Star Trek (1966–1969)

Not Stuck in the Sixties

[28 April 2005]

Does anyone need an introduction anymore to this great series? In the beginning Desilu said yes to the budget and schedule of Roddenberry only because there were many space stories being pitched and picked up in the mid-sixties, and this was going to be theirs. NBC used Star Trek to compete with Lost in Space, which was already on CBS the year before.

NBC being the all color network made the series very high key in lighting and primary-colored in the uniforms and the instrument displays, to better sell color TV at the time.

There were so many innovations shown on the screen from Dr.McCoy's diagnostic helpers to the auto door movements to hand communicators, transporters, phased light weapons, all of which impressed viewers. Added to that, they all seemed like they really worked!

People have said that Star Trek was the first to show an alien working harmoniously on a space crew and this is not fully true. You might laugh now, but in 1950 there was a very popular, well written, well acted radio and TV series called "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet" that had that very element working for it. Nothing much was very ground breaking on that show except that the acting was a cut above other shows. Roddenberry did go a few steps farther with Star Trek, adding a multi-racial crew and women having real authority as crew members or aliens.

Prior to Star Trek, the "alien" or "other" was a concept meant to inspire fear and justify violence. However it seemed that the series delighted in reversing this. Repeatedly the aliens are shown to be less dangerous than thought: the Talosians want the best for Capt. Pike, Balok isn't so bad, the Salt Creature is meant to be pitied, and so on. However if the villain was inanimate or a Frankenstein composed of man's ignorance, say NOMAD or the Planet Killer, then all violence the Federation can muster could be justified.

For my money Roddenberry, who appeared to be a casting couch throwback producer from an "Ed Wood" era, accomplished nothing so amazingly wonderful prior to Star Trek, and certainly nothing afterward that ever surpassed this singular achievement. He fought to keep Mr. Spock in the show and oversaw all the writing for a stable consistency,(I'm not a Harlan Ellison fan), so from this perspective, you could say he was born to create Star Trek then step off the stage. His whole life after Trek seemed warped by the show's gravity, and often he was pulled back into it for the 1987 follow on series and the first round of feature films.

Some audience members may prefer TNG, or the feature films. They may look back at the 1966 debut of Star Trek as merely "the future looked a lot like the Sixties". But why is it that the pure human emotions in those 79 episodes still attracts new converts? There must be something there that's communicating beyond the show's original five year mission. Star Trek still works as an adventure; one that considers human drama primary. That is unusual for any science fiction based story, wouldn't you say?

Test Pilot (1938)

Stylized film doing what it can with thirties audiences

[4 April 2005]

Howard Hawks was a formidable talent with the typewriter and the movie crew. His other work, "His Girl Friday" and "Bringing Up Baby" are now considered classics of the thirties and of the genre,(screwball comedy), yet had the problem of not connecting with any significant success at the time.

"Test Pilot" involves people who must choose not to be emotional because their very work involves cheating death with every job. So it becomes interesting to observe how a couple might handle their attraction for each other balanced by their need to deny fear at all times. One plot line here is similar to later pictures where the newly minted bride must turn to the local Army general with one question: how do I keep my man alive long enough to begin the marriage?

Gable is not just a louse, but the biggest louse on the runway. Here louse would mean egomaniac: concerned only with himself and the job. He's got a best friend, Spencer Tracy, but they don't talk much about anything important. They signal instead with "well, you know what I mean..." and "yeah, sure, sure I do. Uh-huh" However the refreshingly good acting of Tracy underlines every scene that has him. Around this time, he took home the best actor Oscar for Captain's Courageous, a Metro picture directed by Victor Fleming, the Director of this film as well.

Gable on the other hand, is so overstating everything, especially when his love interest Myrna Loy in on camera, that you wonder if he'll simply explode in all directions. She's just as bad matching him in near swoons and arms to the face movements. However the situations are sharp, multi-purpose affairs where you see the character learning if she can handle it or not. What's great is that watching it, you're not sure how things will turn out either.

The psychology of the piece is complex and a bit dysfunctional, perfect for today's noir audience expectations, but probably unsettling for late-thirties audiences. The triangle is complicated by Gable's fascination with wrestling and controlling his rogue airplanes, something that Tracy and Loy only watch in equal amazement and attempt to reconcile with.

Ice Princess (2005)

Poor Casting

[23 March 2005]

As seen in your(Disney's)casting of Michelle Trachtenberg in Insp Gadget, She does not do well in FILM. This should have been a made for TV movie. 7 million in an opening week proves this.

I have 3 girls in the age group for this movie but could not get them or their friends to see this in the theaters.That is 20 in all missed audience members for the ICE PRINCESS.

Michelle is just NOT a film star.

And she has no draw to support this casting choice.

How many Disney projects till you figure this out. Also the story just did NOT seem to carry a full feature film.

I think this all adds up to looking into more made for TV movies especially using these B actresses.

Quest for Truth (1992)

Best documentary on the miraculous

[10/10 · 3 January 2005]

Many other groups, National Geographic, In Search Of, Public Television, have used Rossi and his footage again and again because it is simply the best evidence of the miraculous in regards to hands-on healing ever captured on film. I appreciate Rossi's clinical approach, how he experiments by letting everybody pray for the sick rather than one superstar faith healer. Rossi's use of rock music during the healings was heavily criticized by evangelicals and naysayers alike, but it works amazing to hear "See Me, Touch Me, Heal Me...." as the lame approach for healing. I think Richard Rossi's research and experience in faith healing prepared him to tell the story of the miracle woman in his latest feature, "Aimee Semple McPherson."

Aimee Semple McPherson (2006)

Amazing story!!!

[10/10 · 27 December 2004]

Truth is stranger than fiction, and this historical story of a sexy female faith healer who vanishes in the ocean is an amazing story!!! I think it shows how we all sin, even the spiritual giants, yet God forgives us. I read in the newspaper some extremist religious officials were upset that Rossi explores Aimee's two failed marriages, her fatal overdose, and her solitary pain. This is what makes the film controversial and compelling. Kudos to Rossi for not taking the easy route and canonizing McPherson. There is so much love, and heart and soul in this film it has to be seen to understand how it is the most powerful emotional piece I have seen!

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

LOVE is in the mind

[13 November 2004]

This film made me love the characters, (always a good thing) and made me love the writer, Kaufman, even more. Being John M was is one of my top favorite films.

When you think about Clem and Joel during the day, what they may be up to these days, that's says a lot about one writer can do. There actually may be only one writer alive, Kaufman, with other writers, Cheyevky, being dead. There's a few others I haven't mentioned.

Is the movie so good because It has strong characters or because the theme is so neat? I could go on about the study of memory itself, but Isn't the film really a bitter, romantic comedy and not a science story?

One problem with being too rooted in plausibility, is that the story becomes routine, like a trip by air to Hong Kong. Whereas that theme might have been exciting in 1890, it ceases to be currently. So, Watch out for events needing explanation or plausibility. That's quite overrated.