The Deconstructionist: A Misplaced, Perhaps Even Lost Affection

Filed Under BBT Magazine, The Deconstructionist, Movies, sex comedies, Lost in Space, Lacey Chambert | 5 Comments

Final-Logo

 It’s a big-screen adaptation of a 1970’s sci-fi tv show! Don’t look at it, Marion!
 
If you are someone who watches a lot of movies, it may be inevitable that you develop a list of films that you feel certain affection for, even if those films have no redeeming qualities. It might be ‘Beastmaster’, or ‘Dreamscape’ or even ‘Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins,’ but most of us have a celluloid skeleton in our closets, a film we can’t possibly defend but we try to anyway.
 
For me, ‘Lost in Space’ is just such a film. I had seen it once years ago when I first came out on video, just a curiosity, as I never much cared for the original series. The film didn’t leave much of a mark on me then but now that it is available as part of my cable company’s on demand menu, I’ve watched it three times.

Read more

Musings #5: The Return of EXTREME!

Filed Under The Deconstructionist, Musings | 5 Comments

Hey all-

Jut a few things: First, thanks to everyone who submitted to but especially everyone who commented on Flash Fiction Contest Beta! We got some great stories and some great feedback on same. FFC-whatever-the-next-letter-is-in-the-Greek-alphabet (coming12-1-07) will have a lot to live up to.

Secondly, if you are an editor or a judge, get your contest votes to me pronto!

I’d also like to talk to you all about a new show on the discovery channel called ‘Fearless Planet.’  At heart, this is a program about geology, but since most of you have already fallen asleep, the producers decided to spice it up by adding (wait for it) EXTREME SPORTS!

Yes, for how else could you learn about volcanoes except by skiing down an active one? Or by mountain biking down an extinct one. Want to talk about glaciers? Better have someone para-glide over an unstable one. Are the glaciers melting? A harrowing kayak trip down a surging run-off stream carved through 10,000 year old ice will find the truth and pucker the assholes of the viewing public at the same time.

The spectacle of people risking thier necks to jazz up science only makes me feel guilty. I want to shout ‘Don’t take foolish risks just to teach me about glaciers! I’ll study harder!’

Also, for me, the promise of the 21st century was leaving all the mania for EXTREME of the 90’s behind. Now it’s back, a cultural meme that’s even harder to put down than disco.

–G

 

 

FFCBeta: Happily and Righteously By Larry Hodges

Filed Under Fiction, FFCBeta, FFCWinner, FFC3rdplace | 2 Comments

 
Peter Noid wasn’t told about the meeting of the Society Of Conspiracy Theorists because they were all against him. So when he showed up uninvited that night in his smelly red pajamas, the president of SOCT, Norma Para, was upset.

Read more

We’ll Make Great Pets!

Filed Under Fantasy, Soylent Screen, Jef Taylor, cartoons, Fantastic planet, Of Traags and Oms | 7 Comments

 

BBT critic Jef Taylor reviews FANTASTIC PLANET (La Planete Sauvage, 1973)

 

How’s this for an idea for a cartoon?  Huge blue humanoid aliens called "Traags" with lidless red eyes and clothes that their boobs poke out of, capture humans and bring them to their planet, where they are treated like the helpless animals they are.  They are literally playthings to the Traag’s children, toyed with to death, or stomped on like bugs.  The secret to salvation for the puny humans may be in figuring out the meditation and reproduction rituals of these centuries-old godlike monsters.  Kind of a Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning thing, or more like a Pixar/Disney movie do you think?  No, I suppose it would have to be written by French artists and animated in Eastern Europe, in the late 60s.

 

Fantastic Planet is supposed to be an allegory about the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, a period of history no doubt important to those directly affected, but let’s face it, obscure to most of us.  But even without knowing that, it’s clearly a statement about the way those with great power have always treated those with less power.  You know: horribly.

The mouse-like humans are called "Oms" (aha! En Francais, "homme").  They scurry about gnawing holes in walls, being treated like pests or pets, depending on the whims of the Traags.  If the film were made today, the Oms would be experimented on, made to have huge Traag ears, which look  like fish fins, growing out of their backs.

Humans are pesky things, so it’s only a matter of time before they irritate the Traags (by, you know, killing one) so much that they call the exterminator.   The scene of the relentless "De-om-ing" by increasingly frightening and impersonal methods is genuinely chilling.

Where Fantastic Planet really succeeds is in depicting a world which is truly alien.  The landscape and the beings that inhabit it are, like no other science fiction or fantasy film, completely original.  There are very few moments in the film that feel familiar–the terror of the helpless Oms is that much more easy to identify with.   There’s a sinister Dr. Seuss feeling to some of the landscape, and it’s clear that the primary artist  Roland Topor was a strong influence on the dreamlike comics of Jim Woodring.  If the goal of a fantasy film is to transport the viewer, consider it done.

The dvd contains an earlier short animated film called "Les Ecargot," by the same artistic team. If anything, I may like it even better, because after all, it’s about how watering your crops with tears can lead to a plague of giant killer snails.

 

Jef Taylor reviews movies for BBT and on his own time writes about mice and snails and such.

Musings #4: Macholes or Macintards?

Filed Under BBT Magazine, The Deconstructionist, Musings | 2 Comments

Final-Logo

I’m trying out new words to describe the morons at my local apple store, and, I suppose, the entire company in general. I brought my 18-month-old  video ipod in because I was only getting one channel and guessed it needed a new headphone jack. The guy on the floor said he’d go ‘check with their geniuses’ (true story) who said it would cost more to fix than it would for me to buy a new one.

Read more

FFCBeta: Over Lunch by Nathaniel Lambert

Filed Under BBT Magazine, Fiction, FFCBeta | 2 Comments

"It’s the goddamn truth, I tell ya," Marty says through a mouthful of ribs. "The government is trying to brainwash every last one of us."

"Marty, shut the hell up and pass them ribs." Zeek says.

Read more

keep looking »