The Fredösphere

The title says it all:  The Revolution Will Not Be Pasteurized.  (Hat tip 2Blowhards.)

Meanwhile...

Rene's Apple will have what Ann Althouse is having:

I'd rather see a show where philosophers descend on a woman with a perfect exterior and rip into her for her intellectual and spiritual failings, put her on some kind of internally transformative regime, and turn her into a human being of substance. Can we get that?

...and furthermore...

Man Babies.  Plus, have a look at Nazis on the Moon.

Labels: Culture, fun, Futurism, movie, VideoClip

In an earlier post I commented with pleasant surprise on a Swedish composer's attempt to create an opera on a science fiction theme.  Commenters assured me this was hardly the first composer to attempt such a feat.  Daniel Wolf cited as ancient an example as Haydn, which impressed me to no end.  Those of you familiar with my Haydn animus won't be surprised my mental picture of Haydn as a space opera-tor is that of the salt vampire of Planet M-113.

Anyhoo, I'm pleased to add another work to this growing list:  Jacques Offenbach's adaptation of Jules Verne's Le Voyage dans la Lune.  Wikipedia has the details, including a wonderful photo showing costumes and a set from the original lush (but to the modern eye, goofy) production.  Kudos is due (hey!  I conjugates that verb real good!) to io9 for dredging up this information (especially considering that deep historical perspective is not what you expect from a Gawker-related site) in a terribly interesting roundup of info on Georges Méliès' groundbreaking 1902 SF film A Trip to the Moon, which itself was recycled in a trippy music video by The Smashing Pumpkins called Tonight, Tonight:



And I suppose I'll have to comment on The Man that Fell to Earth if I ever get up the courage to watch it.

Space.  And opera.  What else have I overlooked?

Labels: Composition, Culture, Futurism, movie, Opera, sci-fi, VideoClip

I am so looking forward to Prince Caspian.  First, because it's my favorite of the seven Narnia books.  Indeed, the opening sequence--when the Pevensie children dig through ruins to learn that their own castle, and even their own past lives, are now relegated to half-forgotten legends--is the spookiest, most melancholy thing I've ever read in all of fantasy literature.  It is my sword Rhindon; with it I killed the Wolf.  Ooooh, yes!

I'm also hoping this movie will not disappoint as the previous one did.  I'd like to see a little more compelling performances and a little less cringe-making dialog (but the trailer does not inspire a lot of hope along those lines).  I'd also prefer no more of the kind of scene we saw in the first movie, where Aslan comes to the underground lake, and the White Witch emerges from the water wearing little more than stiletto heels and a thick layer of gold paint, and I'm like, whoa, dude, I don't remember this being in the book.

Watch the trailer and hear our hero introduce himself:  "Ah im Printz Gespian!"  What's with the vaguely continental accent?  Is it an artifact of the trailer, or does he talk like that all the time?  Here, the ugly head of linguistic nit-picking opens its Pandora's box:  how is it that 20th century English is spoken in Narnia--over a period lasting many centuries?  Did the filmmakers decide to throw in a little weirdness in the Narnian accents to slightly cover their hienies on the issue of linguistic drift?  I really doubt it, but it's fun to imagine they did.

Labels: movie, VideoClip

Via SF Signal, it's High Noon exactly as you remember it.  Well, as I remember it anyway:



Via Ionarts (who got it from Boing Boing, who got it from Laughing Squid), it's a cat playing a theremin.  I definitely detect the influence of Messiaen, although I'm thinking not so much the Turangalîla Symphonie as some of the more pointillistic moments in Des Canyons aux Etoiles:

Labels: fun, movie, VideoClip

No doubt I'm the last to find out.  The new movie Jumper was partially filmed right here in Ann Arbor.

Labels: local, movie

I emerge from my blogging hibernation with an important message.

The kids and I saw Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium with the Maharincess' friend Lydia and her dad, my good friend, Thad.  The movie was good enough, although I've never been much of a fan of Peter Panesque paeans to pre-pubescent precipitancy.  Nevertheless, it was clearly worth the price of admission, considering we were at a one-dollar movie theater that had no truth-in-labeling issues--a ticket really cost only one buck.

What got my attention was Natalie Portman's scene at the climax.  She plays a young woman whose precocious talent as a pianist was sidetracked when she took a job as a clerk in a magic toy store.  She and the store are transformed when she accepts her new role as store owner; she understands a toy store may be as worthy an object of her creative efforts as a concert stage.  (Fine, fine; I'm not buying it, but whatever, it's just a movie.)  What happens in that scene is that Portman waves her arms as various toys in the store come to life.  The strings are cued and the soundtrack soars...and suddenly you realize Portman is conducting the music.  More precisely, Portman is portraying someone who is conducting music.  And she's doing it very, very badly.

This is hardly the first time I've seen this phenomenon.  Actors are asked to fake all kinds of stuff; why is conducting, of all things, so commonly botched?  Why, on the other hand, are musicians so commonly (although not universally) able to do it?  In particular, is there something about experience in ensemble playing that provides the missing, uh, magic?  I really want to know.  Why isn't conducting like falling off a log for these people?

Labels: movie

What's the coolest thing about the latest CD by English vocal composer John Tavener?  It's been reviewed at scifi.com.  It seems Sir John wrote "Fragments of a Prayer" for use in the futuristic movie Children of Men.  To be clear, he's not the composer of the full soundtrack, which includes music from diverse sources, but his music "is used sparingly throughout the movie during scenes of hope or sorrow."

"Fragments" delivers the gorgeous tone bath we expect from a Tavener song, and it's presence in the movie signals the composer's willingness to provide a bit of class to the film where it's wanted.   Just as we expect 5 percent of all music sales to be classical, it seems nowdays we expect 5 percent of each movie soundtrack to be classical as well.

My favorite part of the review is the summary at the end.  The reviewer assures us that time spent getting the album's strange music into our ears "will be amply repaid."  Something about this pain-gain observation cracked me up -- maybe it was the implication that the typical reader would find the concept novel.

That's all I have to say, except to note smugly the confluence of vocal music and science fiction is so utterly my topic, and that in the whole internet it is at the Fredösphere alone you find the exhaustive analysis you crave of the liturgical music found in Beneath the Planet of the Apes (to cite the most perfect example).   It's the reason you, my loyal fans, keep coming back for more.  You may now return to your regularly scheduled lives.

Labels: movie, PlanetOfTheApes, sci-fi, Tavener, vocal

Today's topic is Invasion of the Body Snatchers in its original 1956 incarnation, which starred Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter.  But first, let's set the mood by heading over to The New Criterion and reading "A science fiction writer of the Fifties," a poem by Brad Leithauser.

I really regret that my youth was misspent on a too-steady diet of Isaac Asimov when it could have been misspent on more varied science fiction fare.  Yet I can testify that, in the old books, the women are indeed "keen / To fix the meals and be the secretaries."

Anyway, part of our weekend was spent staying with old friends over in Grand Rapids.  Through a long process that involved some tense negotiations, finally resolved by means of a stochastic algorithm (we drew names from a hat), we chose to watch the Body Snatchers movie.  Yes, it contains its share of plot holes and logical inconsistencies, and yes, we could argue all day whether its message is anti- or anti-anti- communist (or even anti-immigrant), but the real point is that the old flick still packs a nice horror punch.  (This in spite of the change of ending ordered ironically by pod people from studio management.)  The movie succeeds in part because it does not rely on elaborate futuristic visuals.  Nevertheless, I was stunned by one special effect:  Dana Wynter's wardrobe.

"I'm so glad to see you again, Miles.  In fact, I filled my dress with Reddi-wip just for the occasion."

Kevin McCarthy is quite old now, but still hard at work, and not too vain to have some fun appearing in a retro-future film.  His website has the story.

Labels: movie, sci-fi

I taped that Earthsea miniseries that aired on the Sci-Fi Channel, and we've been watching it over the last few nights.  A month ago, I asked, "is there any possibility that this mini-series will not be a crashing disappointment?"  Apparently, the answer is:  no.

Why didn't they decide to cover only the first book?  Instead they overlapped the plots of the three books into one time frame.  To make the overlapping work, the plot of the second book was completely scrambled.  You will not be shocked to learn the changes did not result in a net improvement to the story.  The book had priestesses from competing temples playing a deadly game of cat and dog in a very believable context of religious politics (or politicized religion).  In the miniseries, we get a reverend mother burbling on about how the strength of the faith of her fellow priestesses holds the evil Nameless Ones at bay.

Memo to screenwriters everywhere:  people of faith don't talk about their faith - they talk about the object of their faith.  Religious people have things called gods.  One's God is the principle focus of religious activity.  There is a hint that this is true, in the way verbs are used that ought to receive subjects:  Faith in what?  Prayers to whom?  The dialog in the Earthsea miniseries sounds like it is written by someone who doesn't understand religion -- or maybe someone prevented from representing it truthfully, either due to P.C. constraints or some other Hollywood "logic."

Speaking of goofy movie depictions of religion:  the promised Choir Music In Sci-Fi post is coming soon.  It's going to be big.  Real big.  Here's a tease:

Hi. My name is Bruce. I'll be your worship facilitator today.

It so perfectly fulfills the mission statement of this blog, I may have nothing to say once it's done.  In fact, it may fulfill the Meaning of my Life.  There may be no reason for me to stay on this earth once I've posted it.

Labels: movie, PlanetOfTheApes