57 Anos Depois, Keanu Reeves Vem Para Destruir a Terra

e Deixa Todo Mundo Entediado!

Gênero: Sci-Fi, Ficção, Ação e Suspense

Censura: 12 anos

Direção: Scott Derrickson

Com: Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Kathy Bates, John Cleese, Jaden Smith, Jon Hamm, Aaron Douglas, Alisen Down, J.C. MacKenzie, Mousa Kraish.

Local de Filmagem: Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada; Deer Lake, British Columbia, Canada; Downey Studios – 12214 Lakewood Boulevard, Downey, California, USA – (studio); Los Angeles, California, USA; McDonald’s, Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada; Pacific National Exhibition Grounds, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada; Surrey, British Columbia, Canada; The Bridge Studios, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Vancouver Film Studios, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada e White Rock, British Columbia, Canada
Produção: Paul Harris Boardman, Gregory Goodman, Erwin Stoff

Roteiro: David Scarpa

Trilha Sonora : Tyler Bates

Distribuidora: Fox Films

Estúdio: Earth Canada Productions/ Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

SINOPSE

"O Dia em que a Terra Parou" nos conta a história de um alienígena que chega a Terra para destruí-la. Repleto de efeitos especiais, o longa metragem é estrelado por  Keanu Reeves [The Lake House (2006), Constantine (2005) e Something's Gotta Give (2003)], que interpreta Klaatu, um alienígena cuja chegada desencadeia uma reviravolta de proporções globais.

Enquanto os governos e os cientistas se apressam para solucionar o mistério por trás da aparição desse visitante, uma cientista, Helen Benson, vivida por Jennifer Connelly  [He's Just Not That Into You (2009), Inkheart (2008) e Dark City (1998)] e seu enteado se envolvem na missão dele e passam a entender o porquê de Klaatu se autodenominar “amigo do planeta Terra”.

CRÍTICA

Dia 28 de Setembro de 1951 nos Estados Unidos, estreava The Day the Earth Stood Still em preto e branco e desde então o filme se tornou um clássico. 57 anos depois, o remake chega aos cinemas de todo o mundo, colorido e com Keanu Reeves.

Qualquer que tenha sido o impacto causado pelo longa metragem lançado em 1951, não se compara ao impacto causado pelo remake lançado em 2008. Após ter lido inúmeras críticas sobre o longa, confirmei minhas suspeitas: o filme, de uma maneira geral, foi considerado uma verdadeira bomba pela crítica mundial – desde amadores até profissionais.

Os dois aspectos do longa metragem que viabilizaram seu fracasso foram: o gênero e o tema.

O problema é que filmes de Sci-Fi são tão abundantes que esse não surpreendeu nem um pouquinho, nem a história que tem inúmeras falhas no roteiro e que não atingiram alguns fatores chave na construção do enredo e conseqüentemente falharam na criação do elo entre o público e a história.

Por outro lado é mais um filme de Sci-Fi com apelo aos problemas ambientais que o planeta vem enfrentando pela destruição da natureza. No entanto, além de termos aí um alerta ambiental, ainda temos um drama familiar, uma sociedade violenta, um planeta desconfiado e um alienígena pronto para dar um fim nisso tudo.  Nesse sentido vale a pena sim assistir simplesmente pela diversão e sem mencionar o fato da curiosidade de assistir um remake de um clássico.

Na realidade o que prende mesmo são os efeitos especiais que são bons mas não fantásticos e Keanu é e sempre será "filho de Matrix" e realmente ele precisa se esforçar mais e sair dessa zona de conforto dos longas metragens do gênero Sci-Fi, que garantem a ele e seus produtores bons lucros com as bilheterias.

Tirando o alienígena, o resto nós todos estamos bem familiarizados com a situação caótica da Terra e mesmo assim a 20th Century Fox enviou para o espaço o filme que além de ser um fracasso, pode dar um "bela" de uma impressão errada, ai se esse filme cai em mãos erradas…

CURIOSIDADES

Na época (1951)  em que foi produzido, o longa virou um apelo pacifista pelo fim da Guerra Fria que estava em sua fase inicial. A trama nasceu do conto Farewell to the Master, publicado em 1940 por Harry Bates.

Um ser de outro planeta vem à Terra entregar ao presidente um presente, mas é impedido por soldados. Ele é preso e se esconde em uma pensão onde conhece Helen e seu filho Bobby. Klaatu se decepciona várias vezes com os humanos ao se deparar com o uso desenfreado de armas de fogo.

E, por isso, faz um alerta: A Terra será destruída caso os seus habitantes não mudem essa postura. Jennifer Connelly (“Pecados Íntimos”) e Jaden Smith, o filho de Will Smith que estreou no cinema em "À Procura da Felicidade", completam o elenco principal do filme.

A 20th Century Fox anunciou que será o primeiro estúdio a mandar um filme para o espaço – não no sentido figurado, mas literal mesmo. A transmissão de "O Dia em que a Terra Parou" começou no final de 2008 através da Deep Space Communications Network, no Cabo Canaveral (EUA) e, daqui a quatro anos, qualquer civilização que estiver na órbita de Alpha Centauri poderá ver a Jennifer Connelly em ação.

bom filme!

roberta vieira

www.odiaemqueaterraparou.com.br 

http://www.thedaytheearthstoodstillmovie.com/

Confira o trailer abaixo.

We have an odd and rather morbid fascination with the apocalypse. It seems that every year, there’s at least one blockbuster movie playing up the “World is at an End” motif. Just off the top of my head: Terminator 2, Independence Day, Armageddon, Deep Impact, End of Days, The Day the Earth Stood Still, 28 Days Later, The Matrix, I am Legend and so on and so on and so on and so on.

This year is no different with the release of “2012” based on the Mayan prediction that the world will come to an end on December 21^st, 2012 (12-21-12).

If memory serves me correctly, there’s been a few times in my brief life when the world was supposed to end.  There was Y2K of course, when computers were supposed to rise up and eat us.  There were those crazy Zetas, who warned that the Earth would stop rotating on its axis in 2003.  Most recently, a British group by the name of “The Lord’s Witnesses” promised that a final World War would destroy Earth on March 21, 2008.

These nuts have real balls.  If I were a delusional Nostradamus wannabe I’d pick a date like 2505 when I know for sure I wouldn’t be around. These Zetas and Lord’s Witnesses…what do they do now?  Did they all go back to their alpaca farms? Were they like…”Woe to you Jupiter’s moon! My life has been one big lie!” How many do you figure broke into investment banking, realizing that they’ve got to shine it on for just a while longer than expected?

The Book of Revelations promises signs for the coming apocalypse (see The Four Horsemen).  I’m a Christian, but at the same time I’m a skeptic.  Not about God’s ability to send us real and discernable signs. No, I’m skeptical about all those loonies who see the image of Jesus in their McSkillet Burritos.

But I have to admit that with 12-21-12 quickly approaching, I was a bit rattled when I heard the following news (as sure a sign of the apocalypse as I’ve ever seen):

The Oprah Winfrey Show to End September 2011

Said Winfrey: “I love this show. This show has been my life. And I love it enough to know when it’s time to say goodbye. Twenty-five years feels right in my bones, and it feels right in my spirit. It’s the perfect number—the exact right time. So I hope that you will take this 18-month ride with me right through to the final show.”

Winfrey continued, “So, the countdown to the end of The Oprah Winfrey Show starts now, and until that day in 2011 when it ends, I intend to soak up every meaningful, joy-filled moment with you.”

And so the countdown to the end of days has begun. So allow me to make MY predictions

On that fateful day, a couple things will happen. As soon as the curtain drops on her final show, Oprah will be beamed up to a spacecraft waiting to take her to New Earth located in the EL-RAM X System.

The rest of us will devolve into something like the following (just imagine a horde of dazed and purposeless women in place of the zombies).

Fill your canteens now, people.  Nuclear winter is coming.

If you haven’t seen the 2008 remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and for some reason you still want to, leave now. I’m going to ruin this sonofabitch for you if you continue.

Of course, it deserves to be ruined. Spoiling the ending is all too necessary for the good of movie-renting humankind, because this movie had no ending.

OK, technically, it has an ending. But it’s such a jaw-droppingly stupid one. Such a “what the hell just happened?” one. A complete, “That’s it?” kind of experience.

We spend a couple hours seeing special effects that are, to be honest, pretty damn good.

We see Keanu Reeves in his usual, expressionless mode, but it works perfect here, because he’s an alien in a body constructed to be human…so he is not used to being a human or feeling like a human. So, Keanu’s typical acting weakness, his lack of ability to emote, is actually a strength here.

Jennifer Connelly does a fantastic job of emoting just perfectly and being expressive in all the right ways.

John Cleese is fantastic in his cameo.

Kathy Bates isn’t given nearly enough to do with her role, but she does it well.

But what we end up with is a movie about a collection of alien races who send Klaatu (played by Reeves) to Earth to make the final decision about us. And that decision is…

…remember, I’m going to spoil this for you…

…last chance…

…I mean it…

OK, you’re still here. He is here to push the button on the human race. To save Earth, the aliens figure humans have to go, so that the planet can heal and other life can go on. The notion is that only a tiny fraction of planets in the universe can support complex life, and so they are not willing to spare one species…that is, us…and lose the planet. Essentially, we are seen as a cancer that needs to be removed so that the patient, the Earth, can live.

Actually, as far as concepts go, that ain’t bad. It’s a decent update for our time, since the original version of the film dealt with aliens being mad that we were pursuing nuclear science, and were too immature for it. That’s probably true, but it would be  a little late for them to complain about that now, so the environmental theme works better now.

Predictably, after making it clear that he thinks we’re unredeemable as a species, and must be wiped out, he decides after starting a nanotech “plague of high tech locusts” end of the world that hey, because one little kid cries and his stepmom hugs him, we must be OK. So then the rush to reverse Armageddon so that we won’t be wiped out, with some queer comment about, “It will come at a cost. You will have to change” or something like that.

And what changes?

Klaatu turns off our power.

Yeah. That’s the end of the movie. Klaatu returns to his vessel, turns of the nanotech bug swarm, and shuts off every powered device in the world, including wristwatches.

And leaves without a single word.

That’s right. Everything’s shut off (including, presumably, life support machines for patients, heat in places where people will die of hypothermia without it, and so on).

Nobody tells the world why. Nobody says, “OK, this is your last chance. Start from scratch.” Nobody tells the people of the world one damn word about why the power was shut off and what step we need to take…or goals we need to meet…to prevent a return to destroy us.

All that work with the special effects, some pretty good acting overall, an interesting take on the robot Gort this time around, a story that had promise for maybe most of the first 2/3 or 3/4 of the affair…all to get a contrived “I understand you humans now” change of personality from Klaatu, and a head-scratching ending that just left me pissed off more than any other crappy movie ending I’ve ever seen.

I mean, I said to my computer screen: “What kind of useless shitting ending is that?”

I never talk to the screen when I watch a movie.

The 1951 movie shouldn’t have been remade to begin with. But if you’re going to remake it, can’t you at least give us an ending that makes at least some small fraction of sense?

(If there are typos galore in this, I’m not surprised. It’s almost 2 a.m. and I’m headed to bed, and I have no plans to go back and edit this.)

I was thinking about film today, as I do pretty often, wondering what I’d pick if I tried to come up with a combo list of slightly strange sci-fi movies including some post apocalyptic stuff.  Films I liked.  Films that had an impact on me… couldn’t forget scenes from them, made me think a bit… that sort of thing.  This is what I came up with…. in no particular order.

2001: A Space Odyssey (68)

2010 (84)

A Boy and his Dog (75)

A Scanner Darkly (06)

Bicentennial Man (99)

Blade Runner (82)

Brave New World (80)

Capricorn One (77)

Cherry 2000 (87)

Damnation Alley (77)

Dark City (98)

Demolition Man (93)

Dreamscape (84)

Escape from New York (81)

Gattaca (97)

Handmaid’s Tale (90)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (78)

Jacob’s Ladder (90)

Liquid Sky (82)

Logan’s Run (76)

Mad Max Movies (79-85)

Matrix Trilogy (99-03)

Metropolis (27)

Minority Report (02)

Mission to Mars (00)

Omega Man (71)

On The Beach (59)

Planet of the Apes Films (68-73)

Quatermass and the Pit (68)

Scanners (81)

Red Planet (00)

Silent Running (72)

Soylent Green (73)

Stargate (94)

Tank Girl (95)

The Running Man (87)

The Day The Earth Stood Still (51)

The Island (05)

The Island of Dr. Moreau (77)

The Andromeda Strain (71)

The Time Machine (60)

They Live (88)

The Thing (82)

V for Vendetta (05)

Total Recall (90)

Videodrome (83)

The Warriors (79)

Waterworld (95)

Westworld (73)

Zardoz (74)

There aren’t a lot of bands left in rock today interested in treading the wretchingly hopeless and simultaneously Candyland-vivid worlds of depression that Black Heart Procession does.  Their new record, 6, is one of the most solid and satisfyingly dreary things they’ve ever accomplished.  I got Tobias Nathanial on the phone from San Diego in the middle of rehearsals for this fall’s tour to try and break down their formula a bit…

No surprise, then, that Tobias Nathaniel is a big fan of old soundtrack music like the tense, otherworldly accompaniments to Psycho and The Day the Earth Stood Still. “I really love Bernard Herrmann,” he says over the phone from the group’s headquarters in San Diego. “I also love [Krzysztof] Penderecki, who was eventually used in parts of The Shining.” These burgeoning interests led him to recent bouts of digging into the war-torn cacophony of 20th-century Eastern European composers, from Béla Bartók to Alfred Schnittke. “I really just love stark music that hits me somewhere.”

Link to full article at the Boston Phoenix here.

So November 4, 2009, I gained another year of experience in life. Throughout my day of yearly reflection and festivity, I wondered what my dear friends would do for me on this particular day of days. One of my fellow editors here chipped in with a few others and handed me an origami card. Upon opening it, I found a picture of the inimitable Léon Theremin working his magic and a speech bubble coming out of his theremin and saying: “I am coming for you in the mail.”

What is a theremin, you might ask? It’s a box (mine is white) that senses the position of its players hands relative to two antennae, one vertical, the other horizontal and looped, and emits sounds at varying frequencies and volumes to correspond to it.

The theremin is well-known for being the instrument used to make those really weird, oscillating noises in scary movies. Its filmography includes The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Red House, Spellbound, Ed Wood, The Machinist, and Hellboy. Moreover, pop musicians the world over have used it throughout music history, including The Beach Boys, The Flaming Lips, The White Stripes, Pink Floyd, Pixies, and Of Montreal, among others.

Because of the method behind its operation (waving your hands around the antennae), the theremin is notorious for being difficult to play properly. I know I can’t wait to start learning!

– Eric Vilas-Boas, Managing Editor

Actually, I wanted to watch the 3D animated film, Battle for Terra, which started screening yesterday. I took half a day off from work for this purpose. I left the office at 12:00NN but, despite my intentions, I missed the screening by three minutes. I was told that I could still go in, however, the show already started. The cinema doesn’t allow repeat viewing of 3D films, so it’s either wait for the next screening time or never mind missing the opening. The latter was definitely out of the question, and I didn’t want to wander anywhere for two hours. My resolve? Go home and rent a VCD. Battle for Terra can wait for tomorrow or even on Saturday; the weekend is near anyway.

Wallpaper of The Day the Earth Stood Still from the official website.

And so, there it was. I picked out The Day the Earth Stood Still, just to satisfy my curiosity. I wanted to watch the original 1951 film first, but it wasn’t anywhere in sight. I wonder why the original wasn’t reproduced during the release of its adaptation. Or was it? Anyway, I went to the current film’s official website and it said there that the original adaptation is available together with the current film on DVD and Blu-Ray. This would definitely entice people to buy the DVD and Blu-Ray copies. Nice marketing strategy, eh? You can visit the official site here.

Basing from accounts of the original film, an alien visits Earth after World War II (1939-1945) to warn people of a possible nuclear destruction. The alien, Klaatu (played then by Michael Rennie) and his robot, Gort (Lock Martin) land at a mall in Washington. Of course, the aliens were attacked by soldiers and Klaatu was wounded. Gort retaliates but he was eventually stopped by Klaatu. Klaatu then throws on a disguise and lives among the human race to understand humankind. He warns humanity to stop using nuclear weapons. He is shot dead within the film, gets revived by Gort after a receiving a message (“Klaatu barada niktu,” whatever that means) and leaves Earth, advising the human race not to extend violence to outer space.

Poster of the original film.

Now, the present adaptation is much different. Instead of post 1945, the aliens visit Earth in 2008, not to warn against nuclear destruction, but to actually determine if it should be destroyed. See, there’s one of them already living in the Earth for 75 years—his mission was to monitor human activity and attitude. Now according to his diagnosis, we are destructive and any negotiations with us are futile. This convinces Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) to proceed with “Operation Save the Earth—Save the Earth from Humanity.” According to Klaatu, if the Earth dies, humanity dies; but if humanity dies first, the Earth will go on living. Sort of like Earth’s way of self-preservation. Walang personalan! (Don’t get too personal!)

Now, Klaatu and Gort (he’s CGI in here) arrive on an orb-shaped ship not in a Washington mall, but in Central Park, Manhattan. Everything else stays truthful to the original film, except (I think) for the role of Jacob Benson (Jaden Smith). Also, the Helen Benson in the original film (played by Patricia Neal) is now Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) in the present. It is because of Jacob and Helen’s portrayal of the good side of human emotion that Earth is spared from eradication.

I didn’t like it… and I didn’t hate it either. It’s one of those films that I consider to be “in-between.” I actually didn’t like the story—not very much engaging—I knew how it would end. However, the acting was above average, and the effects were actually great! I got teary-eyed towards the end, but the tears never did fall. That’s just it! I’m not too excited about it, but it never did fail to entertain. I don’t know with fanatics of the original, but I figured they were disappointed with this modern revival. Oh well…

Let me know what you thought of the film.

By Cheryl Mahoney

If you’ve been following past posts, you may have noticed that the environment is an important cause for me.  You probably haven’t noticed that I love science fiction movies–but more on that later.  On the subject of the environment, I was excited to find out that the Blog Action Day topic this year is Climate Change.  All across the blogosphere, bloggers are uniting today, October 15th, to write on this one topic, and I’m excited to join in.

The whole concept of Climate Change is one which, if I think about it too long, tends to freak me out a bit.  It’s so big, so overarching.  There are so many other causes and concerns and problems, and I would never downplay any of them, but climate change–it has a way of dwarfing other things.  You can’t deal with poverty or wipe out AIDS or fix the economy if you don’t have a planet to do all of that on.  But with a problem that big, where do you even begin?

Well.  Turn out the lights if you’re not in the room.  Buy local produce.  Recycle all your paper.  Use reusable water bottles.  Join 350.org or Repower America or both.  Write to someone on Capitol Hill who might be making decisions on this subject.  Protect the rainforest.  Plant a tree with a click.

But the big question: does it all make any difference?

I was actually having a conversation about this last week, about whether these small things really make a difference.  You know I believe that a million small actions make for a really, really big action.  And I do believe we’re moving forward.  We haven’t fixed things yet, but there’s definitely been a shift in awareness.

Let me give you an example, by going back to those science fiction movies.  Have you seen last year’s remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still?  No?  Good.  Don’t.  It’s frankly terrible, and if you feel an impulse to watch it, find the original instead.  However, there is one interesting point to be found in comparing the two.  In the original, Klaatu (the spaceman) came to Earth to warn us that we’d better shape up and stop fighting with each other because the galactic community wasn’t happy about all these nuclear weapons, and were starting to worry that we were going to cause problems on a multi-planet level–which they would take severe action to prevent.  In the new version, Klaatu is really displeased that we’re ruining the environment.  The original was made in 1951–Cold War era, and nuclear weapons were the hot-button issue that everyone was concerned about.  The remake is from 2008.  Nuclear weapons and war have not gone away as issues, but the fact that the filmmakers chose the environment as the issue to focus on says something huge about cultural perceptions on what important issues are.

I think it’s highly unlikely that Klaatu is going to land any time soon to give us the impetus to get things together, so we’d better get on that ourselves without him.  The heroine in the recent version keeps insisting “we can change, we can change” to the point where it’s almost annoying–but I do hope she’s right.  I would like to believe she’s right.

We need to change what we’re doing, so that the climate doesn’t.  The question is whether we’re going to change faster than the temperature goes up, than the rainforests die, than the sea levels rise, than the polar bears find out that their glaciers are disappearing.  So let’s do something.  Today.  Even if it’s small.  Better if it’s big, but even if it’s small, we can all do something.  And I don’t think you need me to tell you that doing something is becoming more vital every day.  Or pretty soon, it won’t be Klaatu we have to worry about destroying the Earth.

Jews, Marx And Flying Saucers

by

R.E. Prindle

     Seth Lipsky in his review of Norman Podhoretz’ Why Are Jews Liberals in the online Tablet Magazine quotes the Catholic writer, G.K. Chesterton as observing:  “When men stop believing in God they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.”

     Lipsky’s comment is that the Jews didn’t believe in anything they believed in Marx.  Lipsky misses the point- Chesterton included Marxism under the category ‘Anything.’  Marxism by any standard is a stretcher.  If you’re going to believe in Marx you may as well believe in Flying Saucers; in fact, a great many people do believe in Flying Saucers and for the same reason.

     Witness the popular film of the early fifties- The Day The Earth Stood Still- recently remade.  A more impressive film on first viewing than it is on subsequent viewings.  Rather tedious actually.

     The Day The Earth Stood Still is a  virtual metaphor for the Second Coming of Christ.  Klaatu didn’t do any better than the original.  The motivations of the believers in deliverance from outer  space aren’t any different than the believers in deliverance from some stupid ideology.

     Lipsky quotes Podhoretz as asking:  The question then arises of why Jews who joined the radical camp were not put off by the egregious anti-Semitism of Marx.  He then quotes Rosa Luxembourg as gratuitously asking:  Why do you come with your special Jewish sorrows?

      Well, there you have it.  Jews and Flying Saucer nuts are seeking ‘Close Encounters Of  The Third Kind,’  Redemption, deliverance from their special sorrows, the Second Coming, a trip in that old Gospel ship to a land way beyond the stars.’

     It isn’t necessary to try that hard, Seth; the answers are much more down to earth than one might think on first blush.

It looks as if Canadian actor David Richmond-Peck has signed on to star as Gammons in Joe Carnahan’s big screen adaptation of The A-Team. The actor most recently worked with the director on a sequel to Smokin’ Aces. He was also the bloke who interrogated Keanu Reeves in The Day The Earth Stood Still.

Richmond-Peck originally tested for the role of the main villian, Lynch, in the film before grabbing the role he has now. The script’s plot has The A-Team hailing from the war in the Middle East as opposed to the Vietnam War. But the premise will remain the same as the television series, which sees four war vets wrongly accused of armed robbery that escape military prison to become an elite band of do-good mercenaries. The main adversary for the troupe is Lynch, a CIA agent linked to the Army. Commander of Fort Bragg, which housed the stockade from which the team escaped, Lynch is in pursuit of The A-Team, who he has a personal vendetta against.

Liam Neeson has been cast as Col. John “Hannibal” Smith, with Bradley Cooper confirmed as Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck and Rampage Jackson confirmed as B.A. Baracus.

Though Howling Mad Murdock has yet to be cast, rumours suggest that District 9’s Sharlto Copley is looking to take over the role.

So one of the bad guys has been cast. Who do you see playing the main villain, Lynch?

Source: MovieWeb

Robert Wise

Robert Earl Wise (September 10, 1914 – September 14, 2005) was an American sound effects editor, film editor, film producer and director. Among his films are Citizen Kane (as an editor); The Sand Pebbles; The Sound of Music; West Side Story; The Hindenburg; Star Trek: The Motion Picture; The Day the Earth Stood Still; Run Silent, Run Deep; The Andromeda Strain; The Set-Up; The Haunting; and The Body Snatcher. Wise’s working period spanned the 1930s to the 1990s.

Often contrasted with contemporary “auteur” directors such as Stanley Kubrick who tended to bring a distinctive directorial “look” to a particular genre, Wise is famously viewed to have allowed his (sometimes studio assigned) story dictate style. Later critics such as Martin Scorsese would go on to expand that characterization, insisting that despite Wise’s notorious workaday concentration on stylistic perfection within the confines of genre and budget, his choice of subject matter and approach still functioned to identify Wise as an artist and not merely an artisan. Through whatever means, Wise’s approach would bring him critical success as a director in many different traditional film genres: from horror to noir to Western to war films to science fiction, to musical and drama, with many repeat hits within each genre. Wise’s tendency towards professionalism led to a degree of preparedness which, though nominally motivated by studio budget constraints, nevertheless advanced the moviemaking art, with many Academy Award-winning films the result. Robert Wise received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1998.

Star Trek the Motion Picture

Trivia:

Was an avid fan of commercial Indian cinema.

1971-75: President of the Directors Guild of America (DGA).

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. “World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945.” Pages 1210-1219. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.

Directed nine different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Nina Foch, Susan Hayward, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, Julie Andrews, Peggy Wood, Steve McQueen, Mako, and Daniel Massey. Hayward, Moreno and Chakiris won Oscars.

1987: He accepted the Oscar for “Best Actor in a Leading Role” on behalf of Paul Newman, who wasn’t present at the awards ceremony.

1982: Awarded honorary membership in the Society of Operating Cameramen (SOC).

Was the last surviving crew member of Citizen Kane (1941).

2005: Celebrated his 91st birthday the weekend prior to his death.

1998: Received the American Film Institute Life Achievement award.

Agreed to direct The Sound of Music (1965) after it had been abandoned by William Wyler on the condition that 20th Century-Fox agree to finance The Sand Pebbles (1966). Wise, who also produced the musical, won his second Best Director Oscar and the Best Picture Oscar. The next year, “The Sand Pebbles” was nominated for Best Picture and Wise was awarded the Irving Thalberg Award, the highest honor for producers.

1992: He was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts by the National Endowment of the Arts in Washington, DC.

1985-1988: President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

When he and Jerome Robbins won the Best Director Oscar in 1962 for West Side Story (1961), it was the first time that a directing Oscar was shared among collaborators.

Interviewed in “It Came from Horrorwood: Interviews with Moviemakers in the SF and Horror Tradition” by Tom Weaver (McFarland, 1996).

Only three times in Academy Award history have director-collaborators been nominated for Best Directing Oscars: Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story (1961), Warren Beatty and Buck Henry for Heaven Can Wait (1978) and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men (2007). (Wise/Robbins and the Coens actually won the award).

He was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of his outstanding contribution to film culture.

Profiled in “Conversations with Directors: An Anthology of Interviews from Literature/Film Quarterly”, E.M. Walker, D.T. Johnson, eds. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008.

Interviewed in Tom Weaver’s “It Came from Weaver Five” (McFarland & Co., 1996).

2005: Retrospective at the 53rd San Sebastián International Film Festival in Spain.

In preparation for “I want to live” in which Susan Hayward is executed, he actually attended a real execution.

PASSARAM-SE  oito anos e a memória ainda é muito nítida. Nem mesmo a imaginação mais delirante do mais criativo cineasta de Hollywood, daqueles que vivem destruindo o mundo a partir de Nova York, poderia engendrar uma situação semelhante. O coração dos Estados Unidos da América sendo apunhalado não por aliens em naves espaciais, mas por pessoas em aviões comerciais. A ameaça estava dentro do próprio território americano.

Todos nós que testemunhamos o dia 11 de setembro de 2001 temos uma conexão estranha com a data. É mais ou menos como uma final de Copa do Mundo, um velório de um parente, algo estranho assim… Muito já foi dito sobre todos os desdobramentos do ataque daquele dia 11, mas o que não foi dito e isso é o que amedronta muito mais, é que tudo é muito vulnerável. Da mesma forma que estamos todos sujeitos à violência crônica das grandes cidades do Brasil, a maior potência militar do planeta também pode ser alvo dos ódios que ela mesma desperta, conscientemente ou não.

Esse é o momento daquele dia em que a terra parou…

Na minha memória, ficou como um pesadelo do qual o mundo jamais despertou. Acompanhei o início da cobertura pela TV, depois tive que me deslocar e o rádio foi então quem me fez imaginar o pandemônio criado pelo segundo avião. As pessoas se jogando pelo medo do fogo. Os que morreram literalmente de susto. E todas as nuances de uma tragédia inimaginável em ´´tempos de paz´´. Mas em que tempo a PAZ se perdeu deste mundo? Será que Ela já existiu? Em que momento abdicamos de viver em Paz, de sonhar com a Paz…

Antecipo aqui a pergunta que se ouvirá amanhã:  E você, o que estava fazendo naquele 11 de setembro de 2001? No fim daquela manhã, os aviões  entrando como mísseis naquelas torres e a sensação estranha de testemunhar a História.

Knowing (2009)
★★ / ★★★★

“Knowing,” directed by Alex Proyas, was about a man who stumbled upon a message from a time capsule written by a strange girl fifty years ago. The message consisted of seemingly random numbers but if one decided to look closer, one would find out that it recorded the events of major disasters that were to transpire in the future. Because of all the negative reviews, I had low expectations coming into it. However, the first third was so effective so I naturally thought that the rest of the picture would be as smart and suspenseful. I couldn’t be any more wrong. Nicolas Cage tends to overact in most of his movies and this one is no exception. To me, he was most effective when he first figured out what all the numbers meant. He was able to balance fear, anxiety and excitement while still being that intellectual that he was presented as in the beginning of the film. But the moment Rose Byrne entered the movie, everything started to feel so unbelievable to point where I lost interest. I can’t believe I’m saying this but she actually upstaged Cage when it came to overacting. I actually said, “Just shut up” during one of the scenes because she interpreted her character in such an irksome manner. As for its special and visual effects, sometimes they looked like scenes from video games but sometimes they impressed me. I particularly liked those plane and subway scenes. They looked really haunting and it was very difficult to dispel the images from my head. If such disasters happened, I was convinced that it would look like that. The last third of the movie felt like a completely different movie altogether. I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to that patient and sometimes creepy style of storytelling that pervaded the first third. The third act felt like “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (the most recent version), which is not a good thing. Everything felt forced and I had to wonder why the writers felt like they had to do something grand for the sake of being grand. Ultimately, “Knowing” drowned in its own mediocrity. However, I did appreciate its efforts to want to be something more than typical despite its unfortunate yet inevitable outcome.

Posted on Starpulse.com

For centuries human beings have considered the world beyond Earth and wondered if there was life outside of what we know. There have been essays, books, movies, television, and plenty of conspiracy theories about the existence of aliens or extraterrestrial life.

In the past 50 years or so pop culture has been fascinated by this idea and what would happen if the alien nation found its way to our Earth. Would they be like Star Trek, some hostile and some friendly to humankind? Or would they be like Aliens and plan to tear the flesh off our bones?

With ABC bringing back a TV series about alien invasion named “V” this season and “District 9” winning the weekend box office with $37 million last weekend, Starpulse decided to take a look back at the best movies and television about aliens and their nefarious plans for the Earth.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

This movie was based on a novel by Jack Finney. It is considered one of the essential alien and sci-fi movies, and it was voted into the American Film Institute’s top ten science fiction films. Based in California, it is about a doctor named Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) who has several patients that start accusing their partners of being imposters. One of them is his former girlfriend Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter). At first everyone brushes off these allegations as rubbish, but Bennell soon realizes that the accused citizens are actually Pod People. They come from plant pods and emerge identical to the humans they have killed and intend to slowly take over the entire world. It is sincerely terrifying to think of your loved one secretly being taken over by an alien and all without you even realizing it before you’re next on their list. The movie has an ambiguous ending with no resolution, and it struck fear into the hearts of all the movie goers. You’re next, you’re next! The term “pod people” has stuck in pop culture and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” still holds a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. There have been remakes since, but none of them hold up to the original, spine-chilling film.

The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

Forget the updated Keanu Reeves film, because the original far surpasses it. The original film involves an UFO arriving in Washington, D.C. and the pilot Klaatu (Michael Rennie) coming out to declare himself a diplomat. He is wounded by a soldier since tension is on the rise, and it causes the first appearance of his robot friend Gort to come out and threaten the humans. Gort keeps them from entering Klaatu’s ship as he tries to meet with the world leaders. Klaatu escapes the government to try and live as a normal human and get to know the species from the inside. In time he reveals that he is there to warn mankind that if they continued on the path of self-destruction and violence against one another, the aliens would have to step in. They would destroy Earth to protect their danger from spreading. This film was a veiled attempt at discussing the rising tension between different nations in the real world and how dangerous a path mankind was stepping down as nuclear weapons were being created. It was also part of AFI’s top ten science fiction films, and while no aliens actually invaded planet Earth, the warning was more than enough to get the audience thinking.

Independence Day (1996)

Alright, Independence Day is not nearly as thoughtful as the last two films, but it still made over $800 million dollars worldwide and is one of the most memorable alien-attack films of all time. On July 2 several giant alien ships arrive and stop over important cities all over the world. No one knows what they are there for, until cable man (genius) David (Jeff Goldblum) finds a transmission that shows a timer counting down. To what? Well, what do you think! He manages to save his ex-wife Constance (Margaret Colin) and with her help convince the President (Bill Pullman) to leave Washington before the aliens attack. The attack itself is a visually horrifying thing to witness, with the cities blown to pieces and millions of lives lost in an instant. With the help of fighter pilot Steven (Will Smith), David figures out a plan to take the alien mothership down before any more human blood can be spilled. At the time it was released, this was one of the best special effects movies, and it won the Academy Award for Visual Effects. While there wasn’t much social commentary or underlining themes, it was entertaining, fun, action-packed, and a great summer blockbuster.

V (1984-85)

“V: The Series” only lasted one season on NBC, unfortunately. It came after two mini-series about a group of aliens called “The Visitors” who tried to take over the Earth. The Visitors are reptiles that take on the form of humans, and they originally come promising peace and friendship to humanity. They share technology in return for minerals that they need, but slowly the Visitors start taking over the planet and turn human minds against one another by using propaganda and subterfuge. The humans create a resistance movement and the actual TV show takes place after many battles have gone on. It is a shame the show did not get more time considering how fascinating the mini-series were, but now it is getting a brand new shot at success thanks to ABC. It remains to be seen how much the new series “V” will have in common with this show, but it couldn’t hurt to be in the know. Wink wink nudge nudge.

The X-Files (1993-2002)

The truth is out there! Just ask Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). After nine seasons of “The X-Files,” they know the truth and are probably very tired of it. The show is one of the most long lasting science fiction series on television, although “Stargate SG-1” did officially surpass it at ten seasons. It’s overwhelming fan support and millions of viewers kept it on the air for a long time, and “The X-Files” was all about the unknown. Mulder’s real obsession on the show, however, was aliens. His sister disappeared in his childhood, and it led Fox to eventually conclude that she was abducted by aliens. This led him into the mystery and eventually he was assigned to the secret paranormal investigations unit of the FBI. While “The X-Files” dealt with government conspiracy and paranormal creatures of all kinds, it always came back to the aliens. Especially when he got abducted himself; then it got even more personal!

3rd Rock from the Sun (1996-2001)

This quirky sitcom lasted six seasons on NBC and starred a group of four aliens who come to planet Earth on an investigation mission. They consider Earth to be a low priority, and it may explain why the family is rather inept at their job. Still, the purpose is to gather information so that one day their race can take over Earth. What kind of aliens they are is never explained, but their leader is apparently called “The Big Giant Head.” The sitcom starred John Lithgow as the leader Dick, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the teenager Tommy, Kristen Johnston as Sally the woman, and French Stewart as Harry … the weirdo. They each dealt with human life and began to attach to humans, establishing jobs and relationships along the way. Most of the humor derives from their utter innocence about human culture, although occasionally it was about snickering at humans for their “stupidity” compared to alien races. It was an amusing and successful sitcom for many years, and come on, if you had to be taken over by a race of aliens, wouldn’t the Soloman’s be the best choice?

The surprise hit movie of the summer has got to be the sci-fi thriller District 9. The film is produced by Peter Jackson and conceived and directed by a 29 year old South African named Neill Blomkamp. There are some wonderful lessons to be learned from the story of this very talented artist who began his career as a 3-D animator. Though his family relocated to Canada when Neill was 18, he never forgot the South Africa of his youth, an area ravaged by the effects of apartheid. It is the application of allegory, brought about by Blomkamp’s South African upbringing, that gives District 9 real authenticity and relevance that connects with audiences in in a relatable way. In other words, it is born from the truth of experience.

Blomkamp attended the prestigious Vancouver Film School and worked as a 3-D animator on projects like Stargate SG-1 and Smallville. As a rising young star he directed, wrote, and produced a small short film in 2005 called Alive in Joburg. The clip below is his original film that was to become District 9.

Blomkamp was tapped by Peter Jackson to direct a movie based on the popular video game Halo. When the deal to complete the film fell through, Jackson felt compelled to allow Blomkamp to direct a larger version of Alive in Joburg. Jackson arranged the financing to back the film for $30 million, a tiny budget compared to, say, Transformers 2 which cost in excess of $300 million. And District 9 is far and away a better film. Here’s a link to the trailer of District 9.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6PDlMggROA

Here are 5 things that we can learn from the creative process of Neill Blomkamp.

1. Create from the core of you. This single factor is what sets Blomkamp apart from so many young creators ( and old ones as well) and why his movie is so fresh and feels so original. He incorporated his own personal reflections of the environment he grew up in and translated it into a new story arch. He not only wrote what he knew and what he had experienced but found the right kind of story to share those experiences.
2.Follow your bliss. Blomkamp combined his love for science fiction, his affinity for video games, his talent and background in special effects together with his own life experience to create something real.
3. Let your influences inspire, not conspire. Blomkamp’s creative influences are apparent in District 9. The basic premise for the movie is taken from 1988’s Alien Nation, as well as other science fiction classics like The Day the Earth Stood Still and Independence Day. Even his love of the game Halo is a part of the making of this film. But Blomkamp puts a fresh, new original spin on the genre, and makes it his own. Though the influences are there, they are part of the creative process, not than the creative outcome. It takes creative confidence to achieve that, one that is born from a lot of experience. Sure, Blomkamp is only 29, but he started as a 3-D animator at 16. He listened to that internal voice to create from. The inspirations were only a part of the mix.
4. Give the process time. The gestation period for creative projects varies, but it is often years in the subconscious before it comes to the forefront. I’ve read stories about creators who work amazingly fast (John Hughes, for instance, in one our previous blog posts), but rest assured the seeds for stories, paintings, songs, comics, and screenwriting are planted long before they blossom. Blomkamps short film Alive in Joburg was done in 2005, but it’s story was conceived in the miind of the creator years before it came to the big screen as District 9 in August 2009.
5. Don’t let a defeat dictate your destiny. Creativity of any kind faces obstacles. The moment that Blomkamp learned that the film he was supposed to direct ,“Halo”, had been shelved, my guess is he probably didn’t consider it one of the greatest days of his life. But it was. He went on to direct District 9, a more original film, one that will better position him to achieve more as a director and creator. Every act of creativity takes courage. The road is never easy. In 1982, I had a newspaper editor tell me that I had absolutely no talent, and that I needed to get out of the cartooning business. Rather than let it defeat me, I used it as a driving force to land a cartooning job for a paper in Colorado. It kept me motivated during my 26 year career there (the paper folded in February 2009) and still pushes me to continue to create in new ways as I continue my career. So standing firm in the face of adversity, believing in your creative product and persevering until it comes alive makes the outcome so much sweeter.
Remember: Be Fearless. Create Boldly.

The writer of Ecclesiastes claimed there was nothing new under the sun. In terms of movies and creative ideas this certainly appears to be true. Most movies are either a new twist on an old idea or a complete remake of something made fifty years ago or more. This summer has yielded several remakes–for me, anyways.

On Friday my husband and I watched The Day the Earth Stood Still. Can I just say that Keanu Reeves is just about the flatest actor I’ve seen? I can say upfront that I loved him in the Matrix trilogy, but haven’t liked him in any other role. I have this love for the Shakespearean play “Much Ado About Nothing” and saw Reeves in a film version, and once again he delievered a flat performance, even though all-in-all he was playing the villain. Unlikeable actors distance themselves from the audience. In The Matrix Reeves managed to appear aloof, but not unbelievably so. His aloof nature in all other roles just alienates me as a viewer. Regardless, in case you couldn’t tell by now, I didn’t like Reeves in The Day the Earth Stood Still. In fact after the first thirty minutes or so I had figure out where the plot was going and became very bored. Jaden Smith is a cute kid, but as a kid he’s not yet peaked. Jennifer Connelly, however, was the movies only saving grace. She was human, likeable, and even relateable. But the script was flat, overall the acting was flat, and the movie couldn’t be redeemed for me after I’d puzzled through the entire thing. If you have to watch this movie, I suggest that you keep in mind that it is indeed a remake and I think in the process of creating it–as a remake–the director inconsistently melded ideas without smooth transitions from one scene to the next. I have to admit that I managed to watch the entire movie, so it wasn’t so dull that I fell asleep or abandoned it altogether, consquently I give it 1.5/5 stars.

Likely the best remake I’ve seen all summer is Star Trek. I am going to admit to something I try to avoid in the event I might be labelled a “Trekkie,” but growing up I watched each of the current Trek series. I watched Picard and Riker on the Enterprise, Sisco manage a space station, and Janeway navigate the Delta Quadrant, but I never had acquired a taste for Kirk. In all honesty, something about Kirk used to irritate me. This is probably why I cringed when I heard a Kirk-centred Star Trek movie was in development. And then JJ Abrams signed on. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Abrams as a movie-guy, allow me to enlighten you. He was the man that brought us Felicity, Alias, and LOST, and he directed the latest Mission Impossible movie starring Tom Cruise. Abrams has a way of making almost anything on film a character-centred piece. I’ve always found his work to be thoughtful–and while he can lost track in his work (Alias season 3+), he knows how to write well when he has an arc in mind from the start. That said, when JJ Abrams signed on for Star Trek, I got excited. And then Zachary Quinto (Sylar in Heroes) signed on for Spock, my interest increased. And then I saw the trailer, and I knew I would see this movie in theatre.

For the benefit of those three people in the world who haven’t seen this movie, I won’t divulge too many spoilers, but I will say that this Star Trek  is well-done. I have a friend who is anti-science fiction and saw this movie three times in the theatre. It works as just a movie–you don’t need prior knowledge to get what they’re talking about. Now if you ARE a Star Trek fan, they put tidbits in the movie specifically for you–things you’d know and connect to that new viewers won’t. If you approach it with an open mind, I think you’ll probably like it. I give Star Trek 4.5/5 stars.

For over twenty years an alien spaceship has been hovering over the South African city Johannesburg. Its stranded alien occupants have since been living in slum conditions in a militarised camp know as District 9. Tensions between the human and alien population are running thin so the private company Multi-National United (MNU), who have a commercial interest in harnessing the alien technology for weaponry, are sent in to relocate the aliens. The mass eviction campaign is lead by Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley in his acting début), a petty bureaucrat who, like most humans, refers to the aliens derogatively as ‘prawns’. However, when Wikus becomes exposed to a black fluid he finds in one of the slum shacks he finds himself undergoing a radical genetic transformation. Now hunted by the ruthless MNU military division and the exploitive slum crime syndicates, Wikus has nowhere else to hide but within District 9.

Produced by Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings) District 9 is the feature writing and directing début of South African visual effects artist Neill Blomkamp. The genesis of District 9 is contained within Blomkamp’s impressive 2005 short film Alive in Joburg, where he first introduced the idea of using an alien and human encounter to explore issues of discrimination. Just as films about misunderstood benevolent aliens in the 1950s (The Day the Earth Stood Still, It Came from Outer Space) were calling for an end to the Cold War us-and-them mentality, District 9 is likewise making a strong statement about the damage that can be done when refugees are treated with suspicion before being given any compassion. It is a fascinating contrast to the politics of alien invasion films such as Independence Day and War of the Worlds (original and remake). District 9 is an incredibly effective parable about human rights abuses against refugees, while also functioning as a thrilling science-fiction action film.

District 9 is very fast paced and has a constant feeling of immediacy. Blomkamp uses extensive use of the faux documentary new-media style of filmmaking where mock footage from security tapes and news reports are seamlessly integrated into the action. The world of the film is further fleshed out due to the amazing visual effects used to so vividly create the aliens, their spaceship and other pieces of hardware. This is a rare case in modern cinema where the effects actually look real rather than something designed by committee on a computer during postproduction.

The final key to the why District 9 works so effectively is that it has been written intelligently. As the lead character, Wikus is an unlikely hero as he is selfish, cowardly and prejudiced. However, he is nevertheless identifiable and not beyond redemption. The alien characters are also rendered as fully fleshed out characters and Blomkamp generates an enormous amount of sympathy for them. There is nothing clean-cut or contrived in District 9 and it doesn’t even resolve traditionally. The lack of complete closure naturally leaves open the potential for a sequel but it also feels true in the sense of that the racial conflict at the heart of the film is not something that can be neatly resolved. District 9 is the most original, innovative and entertaining science-fiction film in years and contains the best mix of politics and spectacle since Starship Troopers.

© Thomas Caldwell, 2009

Read more reviews at MRQE

Alive in Joburg (Neill Blomkamp, 2005)

Programmierbare Nanotechnologie.

Die Jungs bei Paramount sind echte Witzbolde. Weil das Ungleichgewicht zwischen Kritiker- und Zuschauerreaktion im Fall von „Transformers – Revenge of the Fallen“ kaum größer hätte ausfallen können, hat man sich in den USA die überflüssige und im Grunde auch ziemlich lästige Antiwerbung, die negative Presse mit sich bringen kann, für die ähnlich gelagerte Spielzeugverfilmung um harte Kämpfer in schicken Uniformen einfach mal gespart und die Parasiten von der Schreibfront außen vor gelassen („Sollen die sich doch ihre Tickets selber kaufen“, wird man sich gesagt haben, „kostenlose Pre-Screenings fallen diesmal jedenfalls aus“). Für die großen Studios ist die Filmkritik eben nur noch ein verlängerter Arm der Marketingabteilung, und wenn der Effekt ohnehin gleich Null ist, warum dann noch Aufwand betreiben? Ökonomisch betrachtet hat ein solches Vorgehen durchaus seinen guten Sinn, und für geringer budgetierte Schlachtplatten aus dem Slasher-Umfeld ist Derartiges schon lange gängige Praxis, bei einem Blockbuster wie „G.I. Joe – Geheimauftrag Cobra / Rise of the Cobra“ jedoch ein Novum, das vermutlich Schule machen wird. Das anvisierte Publikum liest ohnehin keine Kritiken und sucht sich seine Empfehlungen lieber in den einschlägigen sozialen Netzwerken und Blogs. Dem gemäß gab es dann doch ein paar Privilegierte, die vorab einen Blick auf den Film werfen durften. Dabei achtete man allerdings peinlich genau darauf, wer hier nützlich sein könnte (also mit großer Wahrscheinlichkeit positiv schreiben würde), und wer eben nicht. Multiplikatoren wurden gesucht, keine Kritiker. Über die Qualität des Films sagt das zunächst einmal rein gar nichts aus, wohl aber eine Menge über diejenige Bedeutung, die Kulturkritik aus Sicht der US-Studios für ein Blockbuster-Publikum hat: Keine nämlich. Schnell ist man versucht, die Schuld ganz auf die Verantwortlichen abzuwälzen, aber vielleicht liegt das Problem auch zu einem nicht unbedeutenden Teil auf Seiten der Filmkritik selber. Bevor die Welle auch hierzulande ankommt, ist für so manche Feuilleton-Redaktion jedenfalls derzeit noch genügend Zeit, den Gedanken bestenfalls nicht einfach so von sich zu weisen.

Zu denjenigen, die kein Stück interessiert, was die Kritiker zu sagen haben, gehört neben dem Studio und dem Zielpublikum vor allem auch Spielzeughersteller Hasbro, der offenbar ganz gehörig Blut geleckt hat. Man mag sich lieber nicht vorstellen, wie groß die Stückzahl an Transformern ist, die seit dem ersten Film, und nun erst recht nach dem zweiten zusätzlich über die Ladentheke gegangen sind – von Lizenzgeldern für allerhand weiteres Merchandising ganz abgesehen. Nicht anders wird es im Fall von „G.I. Joe“ aussehen, und eine spezielle Movie-Edition der Elitetruppe ist selbstverständlich längst erhältlich. Nun hat man sich wohl gedacht, was mit Actionfiguren gut funktioniert, kann mit anderem Spielgut aus dem Unternehmensbestand wohl kaum schlechter laufen – zum Beispiel Brettspielen. Wer es nicht glaubt: Ridley Scott arbeitet bereits an einer Filmversion von (bitte festhalten) „Monopoly“. Und wem bei dem Gedanken gerade der Zauberwürfel (Hersteller – na wer wohl?) aus der Hand gefallen ist, sollte sich darüber im Klaren sein, dass Hasbro auch die Rechte an „Scrabble“ hält. Außerdem „Trivial Pursuit“ (ideal für ein US-Remake von „Slumdog Millionaire“), „Taboo“ (Zotenhumor mit Adam Sandler) und „Play-Doh“ („The Blob“ für das neue Jahrtausend). Also bitte.

Hasbro gehört neben Marvel ganz klar zu den Gewinnern unter den Seiteneinsteigern im Blockbusterkino. Was seitens der Computerspieleindustrie bisher nur sehr eingeschränkt funktioniert hat, nämlich den eigenen Produkten eine passende filmische Form zu verpassen, führt hier zu ganz beachtlichen Erfolgen. Marvel war es irgendwann leid, an den Leinwandversionen ihrer Hausmarken nur marginal mitzuverdienen, und so entschloss man sich 2007, einfach selber als Studio aufzutreten. Wenig später belegte „Iron Man“ in aller Deutlichkeit, dass diese Entscheidung goldrichtig war – selbst wenn seitdem keine der sonstigen Eigenproduktionen („The Incredible Hulk“ oder gar „Punisher: War Zone“) an den Siegeszug des Mannes im Stahlkostüm anschließen konnte.

Übrigens Stahlkostüm: Stark Industries scheinen offensichtlich auch die Eliteeinheit auszustatten, die unter dem Decknamen „G.I. Joe“ operiert. Beweis: Eine mechanische Rüstung mit dem ebenso beliebigen wie nichtssagenden Namen Delta-6 erlaubt seinem Träger, mal schnell mit 100 km/h voranzuspurten oder in kugelsicheren Siebenmeilenstiefeln größere Schritte zu machen als King Kong und der Marshmellowman zusammen. Dass der „flexible, aus einer metallischen Mehrkomponentenlegierung bestehende Anzug“ (O-Ton deutsches Presseheft, das angesichts derartiger Anpreisungen eher wie ein Bestellkatalog für die US-Army anmutet) zudem mit allerlei Schusswaffen ausgestattet ist, versteht sich von selbst.

Aber auch sonst bedient sich die erwartungsgemäß äußerst CGI-lastige Actionfantasie von Stephen Sommers („Die Mumie“ und „Van Helsing“) ungeniert hier und dort. Eine zerstörerische neue Superwaffe, die in der Lage ist, ganze Städte dem Erdboden gleichzumachen, und in gewissem Sinn als MacGuffin der Geschichte fungiert, verkauft sich zwar als „programmierbare Nanotechnologie“, bei der „[j]eder Sprengkopf … sieben Millionen Nanomilben (enthält), mikroskopisch kleine Roboter, die gemeinsam ihre Aufgabe auf molekularer Ebene ausführen“ (so jedenfalls erklären es erneut die Quantenmechaniker aus der PR-Abteilung von Paramount), in Wahrheit haben die Waffenexperten von MARS Industries (Military Armaments Research Syndicate) jedoch einen Pakt mit Klaatu, dem außerirdischen Besucher aus „The Day the Earth stood still“ geschlossen und ihm die Baupläne für dessen Erdzerstörungstechnologie abgekauft – oder vermutlich eher abgeluchst, denn hinter MARS verbirgt sich – das weiß der Zuschauer, sobald er das erste Mal in die grimmigen Augen des Konzernvorstandes James McCullen blickt (Christopher Eccleston mit forciertem schottischen Akzent) – eine ziemlich größenwahnsinnige Terrororganisation.

Deren eigentliches Mastermind ist jedoch ein anderer, und der geht möglicherweise mit dem Gedanken schwanger, sich langfristig seinen eigenen Todesstern zu bauen. Jedenfalls hat es „The Doctor“ etwas arg ernst genommen mit seiner Bewunderung für einen anderen Allmachtsfantasten der Filmgeschichte. Von Verbrennungen vollkommen entstellt, trägt er beständig eine Atemmaske, welche die untere Hälfte seines Gesichtes gänzlich verdeckt, und ihn deshalb nicht nur aussehen, sondern auch noch röcheln lässt wie – tja, wer wohl?

Ansonsten ist „G.I. Joe – Rise of the Cobra“ vor allem eine Art Ensemble-Bond im Umfeld von „Moonraker“ und anderen 007-Spektakeln aus der Pre-Craig-Ära, bei denen der Gegenspieler für gewöhnlich in riesigen unterirdischen Kampfstationen daran arbeitete, die Welt wahlweise zu beherrschen oder zu zerstören. Bei MARS ist es wohl eine Mischung aus beidem, und an die Stelle des Lieblingsspions seiner Mäjestät tritt eine vergleichsweise disparate Gruppe von Elitekämpfern, die von einer geheimen, ultramodern ausgestatteten Gefechtsstation aus operieren. Q bleibt hier zwar gesichtslos, entwickelt aber äußerst fleißig ein absurdes Kriegsspielzeug nach dem anderen: Eine Armbrust, die Laserpfeile schießt, flüssige Rüstungen, unsichtbarmachende Tarnanzüge und anderes mehr – Spielzeuge, an denen angeblich längst auch reale US-Militärexperten herumbasteln. Denn schließlich ist die Geschichte in der nahen Zukunft angesiedelt, und da soll aus Sicht der Macher alles eben möglichst realistisch aussehen.

Realistisch ist ansonsten allerdings so ziemlich das letzte Attribut, das man diesem Film zuordnen würde. Aber wozu auch? In erster Linie bietet „G.I. Joe“ rasantes, explosionslastiges, buntes und niemals ideenloses Entertainment, das sich auf der großen Leinwand gut macht. Die einzelnen Figuren bringen ihre Historie aus den Comics mit, die seit 1982 auch den Gegner „Cobra“ kennen, und einer TV-Serie aus den 80ern. Immerhin verhilft diese Tatsache einigen Charakteren zu einer gemeinsamen Vergangenheit, die sich in Form von Rückblenden immer wieder in die rastlose Action der Haupthandlung einfügen und der ganzen Sache so doch zumindest eine gewisse Ration Identifikationsfutter unterjubeln.

Schauspielerisch ist dieser Film selbstverständlich eher eine Dehnübung. Die meisten Darsteller fallen nicht wirklich sonderlich auf. Sienna Miller ist bereits damit ausgelastet, sich in ihrem hautengen Ganzkörperkostüm möglichst geschmeidig zu bewegen, Dennis Quaid chargiert, als gäbe es kein Morgen, und Channing Tatum entscheidet sich geradewegs für die entgegengesetzte Richtung: Er spielt einfach gar nicht. Dass der US-Präsident in diesem Film übrigens das Klischee des weißen (nicht unbedingt weisen, aber vor allem halt nicht farbigen) elder Statesman bedient (Jonathan Pryce, war sowohl schon mal Bond-Gegner als auch Regierungschef – wenn auch von Argentinien), hat seinen guten Grund und liefert eine durchaus sehenswerte Pointe. Aber für die muss man schon bis zum Ende durchhalten.

Artikel © 2009 Thomas Lenz. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.
Filmplakat: Paramount Pictures Germany GmbH

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Jenni Baird as Tammy in ALIEN TRESPASS

Rick Bentley – McClatchy Newspapers

When actress Jenni Baird was cast in “Alien Trespass,” the campy science-fiction film released on DVD Tuesday, she was given homework.

Director R.W. Goodwin told her to go home and watch the original versions of “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” ”War of the Worlds” and “It Came from Outer Space.” He wanted Baird to get familiar with the movies that were the inspiration for his salute to the 1950s creature features.

Goodwin’s film looks likeit was shot in the ’50s, when movie monsters were often made of scraps of material and had exposed zippers. The task of the beautiful woman — fellow scientist, secretary, spouse — was to scream bloody murder.

Baird’s character is different. She plays a waitress who won’t back down to any little green men in flying saucers.

“I was told that my character does not exist in the original form,” said Baird during a break from meeting with WonderCon conventioneers earlier this year. She’s joined fellow actors Eric McCormack and Dan Lauria, plus Goodwin, to drum up interest in the movie at the comic book/movie/television event.

Goodwin, who grew up in Los Angeles, has seen countless old monster movies. He would take a bus to Inglewood, where a theater played double bills of ’50s science-fiction movies.

“It was important that we make an original movie and not do a remake. The story idea is an amalgam of a bunch of the real classic ’50s movies. Combine that with going back and looking at the films and realizing how funny they are today, I figured if we stuck to our guns and made an authentic ’50s movie, it could be charming and scary and fun,” Goodwin says.

McCormack’s biggest adjustment was how he delivered dialogue. These days, it’s not unusual for actors to pause, stutter or misspeak. Back in the ’50s, everyone delivered flawless lines of dialogue.

“It is hard to get in that frame of mind that it is not a good take until you have said everything just perfectly and not sound human at all,” McCormack says. “I think there are times in this movie where the alien sounds more human than the actual humans.”

McCormack worked on “Alien Trespass” just after working on the updated version of “The Andromeda Strain.” Before the films he spent eight years starring in the situation comedy “Will&Grace.”

As for his range of roles, McCormack says, “I have artistic A.D.D.”

Effects Crew for Alien Trespass:

Make Up Department
  Jill Bailey … makeup assistant
  Ian C. Ballard … key hair stylist
  Julia Bors … extras makeup artist
  Susan Boyd … hair stylist
  Rachel Griffin … special makeup effects artist
  Michael Nickiforek … creature fabricator
  Michael Nickiforek … creature sculptor
  Connie Parker … key makeup artist
  Jessica Rain … hair stylist

Special Effects Department
  Agnieszka Echallier … creature effects
  Joel Echallier … creature effects
  John W. Fisher … special effects assistant
  Chris Flemington … special effects assistant
  Rachel Griffin … creature creator
  Tony Lazarowich … special effects coordinator
  Robert Yeager … special effects best boy

Visual Effects Department
  Eric Chauvin … visual effects supervisor
  Andrea Chlebak … digital intermediate colorist
  Lars Simkins … digital compositor

Amazon Specials!

Final Part

Mike and me watched Blind John alone at his table across the cafeteria. He somehow found the ketchup bottle by feel — the square shape, Mike said — and checked the edge of his plate with the first finger of his other hand, then slid the finger in towards the middle until it touched his hamburger. He undid the lid and poured some ketchup on his burger. He only spilled a little. “You know, Andy, Blind John likes you,” Mike said.

“We’re sort of friends, yeah.”

“No, I mean he really really likes you.”

“Sort of buddies, sure.”

“Blind John is a fairy nice guy,” Mike said, and laughed.

“Was that supposed to be a joke?” I said.

“Ha!” Mike said. “He’s a flat-out fag.”

“Don’t be stupid, being blind is all that’s wrong with him!”

“Watch his walk,” she said. “It’s girl steps. Listen how he talks.”

After school Blind John was on the corner with a crowd of kids who could see — he didn’t spend time with blind kids if he could help it. I went by and bumped him just for meanness’ sake. “Hello, Andy,” he said.

In a different voice I said, “’Scuse me,” still trying to fool him.

He touched my face and smiled. “Nice to see you, Andy.”

How did he know? My footsteps? What else? How I smelled? I stuck my nose in my armpit and got the answer.

Wilson said I had to see that movie so that’s why, when Blind John asked me to go with him, I went. Wilson claimed that The Day the Earth Stood Still was another bombshell movie to hit Baltimore. He said after I saw it I’d understand why we had to duck-and-cover under our school desks once a month for atomic bomb practice. “Also, Billy Gray is your twin brother,” he said, “right down to the freckles and messy red hair.”

In the picture a flying saucer from space lands in Washington across from the Capitol Building. It comes down with crazy music and gets surrounded by Army guys with guns. I put my mouth close to Blind John’s ear and whispered, “It’s night. Beautiful shadows. The flying saucer is silver and — ” Blind John cut me off with a little grunt. Next thing in the movie is when a nervous soldier shoots the alien guy in the shoulder, and his robot, Gort, disintegrates all their rifles. The tall alien tells a government man, “We have come to visit you in peace and with goodwill.” His name is “Klaatu” and he sounds like a radio news guy from England. “I merely tell you the future of your planet is at stake.” He also says, kind of snotty, “I’m impatient with stupidity. My people have learned to live without it.”

Later, Klaatu escapes from the hospital and goes to live in a rooming house with Patricia Neal and Billy Gray so he can learn humans better. Klaatu tells her his name is Mr. Carpenter and for some reason she believes him. I whispered to Blind John, “You can tell she likes him.”

“It’s that background music,” Blind John said, “plus the music in his voice — she lets him seduce her with his accent.”

“Seduce her?”

“She’s unhappy — a widow — she’s lonely.”

“But he’s an alien from outer space!”

“So what?”

Pretty soon Klaatu — Mr. Carpenter — he stops the electricity in the whole world for thirty minutes to teach us a lesson. The crazy music comes back. I told Blind John how the pictures showed everything on the planet screeched to a halt, but he just sighed. “Patricia Neal looks worried,” I whispered. Blind John squirmed in his seat. We both stayed quiet until the part where Klaatu gets shot again. “Patricia Neal looks sad,” I said. Right then, all of a sudden out of nowhere, Blind John threw a handful of popcorn in my face — popcorn I had paid for out of my newspaper money. “Hey,” I yelled, “why’d you do that?“

“I ain’t deaf! I can tell from her voice and the music how she looks.”

Klaatu tells Patricia Neal to run to the spaceship and say to the robot, “Gort, Klaatu barada nikto!” She asks Mr. Carpenter what it means but he says to just never mind and dies. Later, Gort brings Mr. Carpenter back to life on the spaceship. At the end of the movie Klaatu makes a big speech to warn us to be good before it’s too late. That movie had real good shadows but didn’t make much sense. If we were about to blow ourselves up with atomic bombs, why would Klaatu want to burn us up to save us? But when it was all over Blind John was on the edge of his seat, had a tight grip on my arm, and a fist jammed in his mouth. “Beautiful!” he said. “Patricia Neal was transformed!”

“Big deal,” I said. “Her guy gets back on his spaceship and leaves.”

“Yeah, but now she feels loved.“

I shrugged. “Didn’t get that part.”

Wilson claimed there were five white boys in South Baltimore named Andy, all of them weird, and all but two were either ugly or stupid or both. He didn’t say where I fit in, but he did say I wouldn’t know a good movie if it hit me in the back of my head. Which kind of turned out to be sort of funny in a strange sort of way. I never did see that truck that came down Charles Street when I ran between parked cars, rushing to get Daddy out of Lombardi’s bar before he spent his pay. When I woke up in the hospital Miss Flower, the night nurse, was holding my hand. She was big-boned but not fat, with coal-black hair, pale skin, and she wore huge rings and laughed real big. From my eyebrows up was mostly bandages, and under that were scalp stitches front and back. I tried to picture how the doctors worked the needle and thread, like Momma sewing on a sock hole. I was “in traction,” Miss Flower said — my legs tied in ropes with counterweights to keep them up. She claimed I was lucky, that I only had a concussion and some cuts, but no cracked skull. “But you’ll live,” Miss Flower said, “mean as you are.”

People came and went. Momma came to visit on a Sunday — but no Daddy, Daddy never did come, being off drunk someplace. Kids from school did. Blind John did, found his way to the hospital by himself somehow. Mike came a bunch of times but never stayed long. She acted funny though, more like a girl. I noticed she was starting to get titties and it seemed like the little bumps made her nervous. “When you get better,” she said, “we’ll go to the movies,” and she batted her eyes like Kathryn Grayson in a musical. All I did was nod. When you get hit by a truck, people take notice. You are an automatic hero.

Wilson came to see me once and stayed just long enough to mystify me. Claimed he didn’t like how the nurses looked at him. No surprise there, he had a chip on his shoulder for white people in general. Told me he wouldn’t trust most of them farther than he could throw one over Cross Street Market. At first Wilson stayed on his side of the room and stared at me. There was a chair over there but he leaned on the wall, casual-like. Then, after a while, he said, “My blood commanded I come, Andy.”

“Huh?”

“My blood talks to me, tells me what to do.”

“Yeah, right.“

“Tells me right from wrong. I hear the voices and know what the African gods expect from me.” He smiled. “This time they wanted me to visit a banged-up white boy.” I kept quiet. “When Africa speaks,” Wilson said, “I listen.” I started to laugh but caught myself because I wasn’t sure it was a joke. Then Wilson laughed big and said, “Don’t you get it, white boy?”

“’Fraid not.”

“Think about it,” Wilson said. I just shrugged. “Africa Speaks? The movie?” Wilson moved closer to my bed, his eyes shifting from my face to my head bandages. He reached out his hand and smoothed down what messy hair there was sticking out.

“What do you say, Billy Gray?” he said.

“What?” I said.

Wilson rubbed my head softly, and said, “Klaatu barada nikto?”

I said it back. “Klaatu barada nikto.” Then we said it together three times — “Klaatu barada nikto, Klaatu barada nikto, Klaatu barada nikto!” — and banged fists.

Copyright © 2009 Jim Sizemore.

Talk about a badly written and frustratingly stupid movie to sit through.  Enough with the remakes already, especially if they are going to made badly.  I am going to be a lot more merciless when it comes to films that are so based on an older movie.  They try to pass it off under the misguided theory that it is a re-imagining when in actuality it is simply an attempt to open the cash register on the same story a second time. 

The original “Day The Earth Stood Still” is considered a classic of it’s time.   I have  not seen it in many years, so I can only loosely recall the iconic moments.  What I can say about the ‘reimagining’ is that it basically turns those moments in to some unintended laughs.  Take for example when the alien, Klatuu, played by Keau Reeves” arrives on the planet.  His space craft lands in Central Park New York.  Like it would ever land anywhere else, but that is besides the point.  When he emerges from his vessel, what does the surrounding army do?  Gun him down of course. 

Now the government was aware that something was heading towards earth from the outer reaches of space.  They just thought it was a meteor that was about to turn New York in to a canyon.  But they were wrong.  In anticipation they do the generic thing, which is gather up a lot of scientists who specialize in a lot of neat sounding field, tell them nothing until they get in to a room with a big projector, show them the usual graphs and give them a giant digital read out which is counting down to doom. 

After the alien being who has arrived to warn us about an impending attack is shot upon his arrival, he is taken to a heavily guarded base where he is drugged and interrogated for information he was willing to provide.  This decision is made by a high ranking government official played by Kathy Bates.  Now I personally love Kathy Bates.  She is one of a few actress’ working who always gives a strong performance in a movie.  Here I do not blame her because she did not write this characters dialogue or motivations.  This character single handily drives this movie in to the ground by making some of the most ignorant and dumbest decisions I’ve seen from a film character in a long time.  Why, for example, would you torture an alien for information that it is willing to give to the UN?? He simply wants to warn all the nations of the world.  If anything Americans should be offended by this character.  She believes that American is the only one who has a right to know about a global threat.  “Our national security is at stake!!”

The movie has a running time of about an hour and a half and believe me, it feels short.  None of the characters are ever developed properly and there is not suspense about the impending arrival of an alien civilization.  They show up in the first fifteen minutes, and about an hour later the human race is nearly killed.  In the end this movie came, went, and will be forgoten.

Part One

Klaatu Barada Nikto! was originally published in the August, 2008, issue of Urbanite magazine, which featured short fiction intended, I suppose, as beach reading material. With a similar purpose in mind, I’m posting it on the blog this first week of August, 2009, but in three installments. Each part runs just a bit over 1,000 words, so it’s an easy read. Part 2 will post this Wednesday and part three posts on Friday.

I watched as dried sweat made white lines on the colored men’s skin, which was not just brown but had purple and blue in it, even some green, especially in the shadow parts. Their muscles bulged from the stuff they moved: lumber, vegetables, crates of oysters. New sweat washed away old and changed the line patterns on their chests and backs like a crazy Picasso couldn’t make up his mind. The men did a song I couldn’t make out, but the tune kept perfect time with how they moved on the gangplank. When they went from the bright sunlight into the shadows they got to be invisible, but their song kept on, lower, and mixed in with the clang noises from the shipyard, the bells and horns and whistles off the ships. Wave sounds came up from the pier pilings and brought the oily water smell to my nose, a sharp chemical odor, soft at the edges. A white bay steamer waited for sunset to sail. Rows of skipjacks with furled sails the color of old ivory, cleaned of oysters, fish, crabs, corn, and melons from across Chesapeake Bay, rocked in the tide.

Later, at Wilson’s Light Street newsstand, under the restaurant awning next to Cross Street Market, I asked him about shadows in movies. Big mistake. I expected he’d preach about movies that had important messages for U.S. citizens, but instead he went off on his own subject.

“Indulge me on this, Andy,” he said. “Popcorn has two flavors. Ever notice that? On top popcorn tastes one way, but on the bottom of the bag it’s different.”

I knew that, but it never came in my brain to mention it. I decided to play him some. “Why is that, I wonder?”

“Gravity,” he said. “Because it’s heavier, butter sinks to the bottom.” Wilson smiled. “Go ’head, tell me I’m wrong.”

I just nodded. Sometimes Wilson tried to shame me with his words, the strangest talk of any person I knew, white or colored. Right then a girl strutted up the sidewalk across the street. Wilson saw her and hollered, “Hey, Shirley!”

She stopped, looked over. “Yeah, Fool, what you want?”

“How you doin’, babe?”

“I’m all right.”

“Good! Good!” Wilson gave her his one-hundred-watt smile. “Doin’ all kinds of shit myself just to avoid other shit.” He paused dramatic, then, “Where you goin’ at?”

“Store.” Then Shirley got prissy fast, hands on her hips. “Why?”

“You got a dollar?”

“Yeah, so what?”

“On your way back, Sweetness, bring me a pair of socks.”

Shirley looked at Wilson like he was crazy — slowly shook her head — smiled and went on. Wilson started to sing, mostly to himself:

Blow it, preach it, Say a taste tonight.

Make it talk tonight.

Blow that shit, man — Work it on out.

Then he turned my way. “Don’t mind me, Andy — I lost what little sense I had three girlfriends ago.” He pointed at Shirley, halfway down the block. “Pay attention,” he said. “See what I did there?”

Was that supposed to be funny?”

“Gals like it when you tweak ’em.” Wilson put his arm around my neck like he was my buddy. “The other thing you should know is this: The Beacon has the best popcorn of any theater in Baltimore.” Wilson laughed big again. “Look and learn kid,” he said. “Look and learn.”

Wilson was this colored kind of guy who looked like Satchmo but not fat. I figured he was 13 or 14. Maybe 16. Hard to say with colored people because they looked younger than they really were. And for a long time I couldn’t tell them apart, either, but later I figured that was dumb. Colored people are as different as you and me. If you can’t see that you don’t have eyes. But all that off to one side, Wilson drove me nuts with his wise-ass ways — expert on everything, crazy stuff. Like he claimed white people couldn’t dance, said they just “vacillate” to the music. Is that even a real word? When I called him on it, Wilson backed off and said he’d agree that white people were born with the same rhythm as colored people, but they were scared of it. Scared of it? Right there I did him like he did me and just changed subjects.

“Well,” I said, “Bob Hope is great on the radio.”

“Hope does the same material every week,” Wilson said, “only the names change.”

“Jack Benny’s good.”

“Who’s he think he’s kidding with all those stupid hair jokes?”

“Burns and Allen?”

“They still on?”

“You like anything, Wilson?”

“Only radio joker with half a brain is Fred Allen,” he said. “Allen’s smart and funny.”

“I don’t get that guy.”

Wilson smiled. “Of course you wouldn’t, Andy.”

Now what did he mean by that tone of voice — some kind of disrespect? I just let it go. Anyways, my secret job was to learn all I could about the newspaper business. I watched how Wilson kidded people and made change and such. He didn’t seem to mind that I hung around, but he didn’t volunteer information, either. The wind shifted and rain started. We moved his stacks of papers to the other end of the awning to keep dry. He took a News Post and opened it to the movie listings. After five minutes of no talk Wilson finally said, “Andy, you seen Panic in the Streets with Richard Widmark and Jack Palance?”

“Yeah,” I said, and right there I thought I had him. “Palance plays the bad guy, see — name of Blackie. This doctor chases him ’cause —

” Wilson looked surprised. “A doctor chased him?”

“Thought you seen it.” “Didn’t say I saw the damn thing, wanted to know if you did.”

“Yep, caught it at the Echo on Fort Avenue. See, Widmark plays this health doctor and he’s gotta find Palance ’cause Palance has the plague and . . .”

“Shut up!” Wilson hollered. “Shut yo’ fat white mouth!” He laughed. “Don’t ruin it for me, Andy — Christ!”

“I didn’t tell the plague details. That’s the real story.”

Wilson just put his finger on his lips.

“You gotta see Palance,” I said. “Face like Frankenstein. There oughta be a law against that much ugly in public.”

Wilson sort of smiled. “Sounds good” was all he said.

I had won! For once I shut Wilson down cold.

Part 2 of Klaatu Barada Nikto! will post this Wednesday.