Your sun asplodes!

So,  I imagine it went something like this:

"Guys, we just finished this movie. A spaceship with an experimental drive crashes into the sun and sets off a chain reaction that threatens all life on Earth. We need a killer science-fiction disaster movie title. What do you have for us?"

"The space ship makes the sun explode? How is that even possible?"

"Well, it's an experimental quantum scalar mumble mumble, polarity atomic mumble mumble."

"Cool. Okay - let's call it Exploding Sun!"

"Well, the sun doesn't actually explode -- it kinda gets all stirred up and emits cosmic rays and microwaves and EMPs and mumble mumble."

"So it's more like Cosmic-Ray-Emitting Sun? How about Energetically-Active Sun? Or Sub-Atomically-Excited Sun?"

"Okay then, Exploding Sun it is!

***

I'm still not quite sure why Wonder Wife and I sat through all of this disaster of a disaster movie. We thought it was a television series, since it was listed on Netflix as SE1:EP1 when we were browsing, but it turns out the film has just been packaged to be shown as either one two-hour movie (on DVD) or a two-part three-hour version (what Netflix has). On any case, after sitting through the first half, we thought we'd watch the second half to see if it got any better (as it couldn't get any worse).

Starring Not-Greg Kinnear, Not-Summer Glau, and Not-Patrick Warburton.

Forget Star Trek technobabble; this movie operates on Flash Gordon levels of scientific accuracy to send its small crew of civilian astronauts (including the First Lady) on the inaugural trip of a space clipper: a nine-hour trip the moon and back. (It's a really fast ship.) While we thought we were going to watch the exploits of this small group of survivors when disaster (naturally) strikes, they are summarily killed to get the plot moving. What we thought was too little time spent on them turns out to be too much time, since their identities never factor into the plot or character development of those left behind in any meaningful way, but only as links to the various scenarios that comprise the film.

The movie seems to have been shot by several units who never worked together or even corresponded via email. Besides the main scientists-vs-sun action featuring our heroic trio above, we have White House situation room shenanigans, a small town coping with disaster, the callous arbitrager stuck in his high-rise, and the plucky medicos of the refugee camp in Afghanistan fighting warlorlds as well as solar flares.

 

And this really is Julia Ormand stuck in this turkey. 

(I think she filmed all her scenes in two or three days while on vacation in Morocco 

and nobody told her the plot of the actual movie.)

The disaster movie recipe isn't a difficult one to follow, and somehow this movie managed to hit all the beats without creating emotional resonance with any of the characters or any narrative coherence in the plot. It almost seems like a first draft, with seeds of some interesting character development or conflict (an over-zealous White House Chief-of-Staff, a potential polygamous relationship among the three leads, an It Can't Happen Here vibe in the small town) but without more than the slightest realization of those notions. The guy in the high rise seems to have no narrative purpose whatsoever.

But Wonder Wife and I stuck it out to the end, I guess optimistic that something would rise from the morass. It didn't, but at least we saved you the mistake of watching Exploding Sun.

Spoiler alert: the sun doesn't explode.

40, 41, maybe...

So,  in my pursuit of summer reading, I picked up And Another Thing, the post-mortem continuation of Douglas Adams's great Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series by one Eoin Colfer. The book isn't going to get the 5x5 review treatment because I doubt that I will finish it. (I am off on a five-day work trip right now and I didn't even bother to bring it.)

I am a big fan of Adams's writing. It was not just in Hitchhiker's Guide and the Dirk Gently stories that his drollery and wit shone, but even in his more peripheral work, such as the video games he wrote way back when and his non-fiction book about endangered species, Last Chance to See. He had a voice as distinctive as that of P.G. Wodehouse; Colfer had quite a task before him, following Adams and using his same characters and milieu.

It turned out to be an impossible charge to fill. All the moves are there, but none of the magic shines through. I imagine it was like this when Bud Abbott teamed with Candy Candido late in his career: while they got some decent reviews, it's hard to imagine Who's On First? being done by anyone other than Abbott & Costello. Not to say that Colfer doesn't give it a good try; I am not familiar with his other work, but he clearly has made a yeoman's effort to recreate Adams's deft touch. His faux-Adams is not nearly as bad as David Soul playing Rick Blaine in the TV series based on Casablanca or Josh Mostel's valiant effort as Blotto Blutarsky in Delta House. It's more like you tuned in to see Larry, Moe, and Curly and got Larry, Moe and Joe DeRita: close, but no cigar.

It's not like this this sort of thing can't be done: Spider Robinson did a creditable job of channeling Robert Heinlein on Variable Star, for example. It's just that Colfer didn't do it here. No shame in the effort, but not enough results to get me to finish.

5x5 Graphic Novel(s): The Parker adaptations by Darwyn Cooke

1. A few years back (2009), Darwyn Cooke made a big splash with his graphic novel adaptation of famed crime writer Donald Westlake's The Hunter (written under the pen name Richard Stark), and I gobbled it up eagerly. When I was a young man, I read all the Stark books - the Parker series and the (much smaller) Grofield collection - and I had anticipated that Cooke's sensibility would be a perfect match for the series: that sort of Mad Men meets Goodfellas feeling. I was right.

2. The first book ended with a tease that there would be more Parker adaptations coming. Apparently I missed a memo or two - because there have been three more books already! I only tipped to the series after I ran across Books Two and Three at the library. The library copies still have the dust jackets (cellophaned, of course), but I removed the one on my copy of Book One because I like the retro flavor the binding so much.

3. Packaging aside, the quality of the books hold up across the series (or at least the 75% of it I have seen so far), and it's not just a matter of matching the art style to the subject matter. Cooke is not just a great cartoonist; he's also a good writer, who knows how to make an adaptation work. The pacing of the stories and the unfolding of the plots (including complex action) is flawless; Cooke knows when to use text and when to let the images alone carry the narrative.

4. A note from a formalist perspective, since this is me: Book Two diverges from its focus on Parker to show the activities of some of his criminal cronies as they rob syndicate operations. Each account is in a different style: an illustrated magazine article (with a lot of prose); fifties PSA cartooning; New Yorker-style cartoons; and what I can only call illustration sketchwork. The flavor these choices create move us out of the reality of the main story in the same way italics or margins or typeface might set off a secondary narrative within a prose book, but with many more layers of meaning added thanks to the art. Well-played, Mr. Cooke.

5. All that being said, after reading through a bunch of these in a row, I come up feeling a little bit empty. It isn't for want of content or execution, either in the original story or in the graphic adaptation. It's just that Parker is such a relentlessly amoral, brutal character that it is hard for me to sustain any sympathy for him, and without that identification, the books become nothing more than a series of beautifully rendered, grisly encounters. I read somewhere that Westlake wrote the anti-hero Parker stories on rainy days and the relatively light-hearted Grofield stories (and I'd guess the comic Dortmunder capers) on sunny days. I guess I would like to see a Darwyn Cooke take on a sunny day story.

Bonus: when I was describing Cooke's ability to visually capture early sixties motifs, a friend said "You mean like those big clocks with the spines and balls!" Precisely. And while there isn't actually one of those in any of the Parker books, we do get this

 and that's pretty close.

That's a very low DC on a Craft: Felt skill check

So, whenever I have gone to the Value Village, I have kept my eye out for a wooden box that meets certain specifications. I needed it to be small, but not too small; to be hinged, with a lid that opened 180 degrees (or close to that); and not to look dorky, with puppies or rainbows or some other silly stuff on it. The other day, I finally found it:

 

It's about four inches across and an inch-and-a-half high. I'm not sure if that critter is a turtle looking up and to the left or a rabbit looking over its shoulder to the right, but it was good enough. 

To make this completely serviceable, I needed some felt, easily obtained from pal JK (who is a real Maker and has all sorts of crafty goods). She kindly left a nice chocolate brown swatch in my mailbox at work, and I got to crafting.

To wit: I cut out liners for the bottom of the box and top of the lid and glued them in. Woo-hoo!

Why this fussing? For this:

A nice dice-tossing box. Looks cool, holds the dice for transport, control the rolls, and keeps me from throwing the dice across the table. The addition of the felt lining tones down the clack-clack noises just enough.

Here's an action shot:

Well, it's not like I am ready for Urban Craft Uprising or anything, but it is a step in the lo-fi direction I seem to be taking these days.

And I have a cool box.

5 x 5 miscellania: My sister sent me Gumby & Pokey

1. As I have mentioned before on this blog, my sisters will often send me gifts of a geekish nature for any reason or no reason at all. A week or so ago, I received a package from Older Older Sister. The note inside read Found these in a closet - think they were for you. Along with the note were new Gumby & Pokey Action figures. I was a big fan of these clay-animation characters and it brought back a lot of good memories to see them again. So, thanks, Sis!

2. I was lucky enough to be around for the original (1953-1968) Art Clokey series, when it was at its anarchic and surrealistic finest.  I was always a bigger fan of Pokey than Gumby, actually; Gumby was a little too enthusiastically intrepid and opportunistic, and I liked Pokey's grumbling, hoof-dragging compliance. (This preference may be a function of the same set of values that puts me in that small minority who think Ferris Bueller was a jerk, not a hero.) When I learned on Gumbyworld that Gumby and Pokey are pals only because Gumby saved Pokey's life, well, let's say that put a lot about that relationship into clearer perspective.

3. I actually had a Pokey figure back when I was a kid, but not a Gumby.  Pokey was obviously my preferred choice, but it was the Gumby figure that had accessories like space helmets and cowboy hats, which Pokey couldn't use, since Gumby's head is flat laterally and Pokey's head is flat end-on. Such are the vicissitudes of childhood predilections.

4. In November 1984, Omni magazine ran an article about dreams and sleep in which it was suggested that leaving Gumby cartoons on while falling asleep might encourage lucid dreaming (dreams that the dreamer can control) because of its modeling of a moldable, controllable reality to your unconscious mind. I tried it a few times back then; I never exerienced lucid dreaming but I did have some wild trips.

5. Apparently, an unofficial motto of the United States Marine Corps is Semper Gumby, which they translate as Always Flexible, a somewhat light-hearted nod to the value placed on responsiveness and resourcefulness expressed in other more martial mantras such as Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome. The use of the phrase dates back to 1984, which sorta makes sense, in the scheme of things.

Anyway, thanks gain, Sis. Here's a closing shot of Gumby and Pokey doing what comes naturally - interacting with weird little aspects of the real world in weird way.

5 x 5 Movie review: Avengers: Age of Ultron

1. Wonder Wife and I made sure to watch this latest Avengers movie between episode 2.19 and episode 2.20 of the television show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  The integration was seamless. Seam. Less. Is this the future? To get the whole story, I will need to participate in several simultaneous narrative streams?

2. Why does Marvel Studios get that the Avengers, and Captain American especially, would care about civilians becoming collateral damage, while DC Entertainment has Superman engaging in battle in the middle of a town or city with hardly a concern for the locals? Has anyone at DCE ever even read a comic?


3. Nice to see lots of faces from the supporting casts of all the different movies; the two missing Women were lampshaded amusingly.

4.  I know that I have said this in other review, but why does every battle have to be so big and so loud and so chaotic ALL THE TIME?! The rise of CGI has taken the constraints off some aspects of filmmaking, and constraints generate creativity. Now, all the action is quick cuts and confusing perspectives, incomprehensible and unengaging, particularly when held in contrast to the quieter, character-directed bits, which were actually quite good.

5. I do not 'ship Natasha and Bruce, not one little bit.

The way we were

So, my buddy Karmin had a dream about spiders, and since she shared on it social media, I don't feel bad reproducing it here (edited for clarity).

Last night in my dreams a were-spider hunted me down for vengeance after I killed a spider. I  prevailed in the resulting fight. 

But brain? Let's not do this again. I had not previously considered the horror that is were-spiders. In my dream, I was in shock that such was even possible! 

It had clearly violated my territory. I was just protecting my home from an invasion! I killed her with a 10-ft long metal pole with a wide blade that she had created by tearing apart the wall at a construction site; it was silver-colored, but of unknown composition. She was in a half-form and swinging the blade at me. At some point she tried to stab me with it; I barely dodged, and it hit the solid wall right behind me. She'd over-extended and was momentarily stunned, and I was able to quickly shove the pole back towards her, impaling her in the abdomen with her own weapon.

The dream came up as we were playing Pandemic and naming the diseases that we had to cure to save the world and win the game. Buddy Chris named one of them "spider lyncanthropy" in honor of Karmin's sacktime skirmish, and this led to a discussion of appropriate terminology. After all, lycanthropy is the formal term for the condition of being a werewolf, and it comes from the Greek roots for wolf and man. With this in mind, spider lycanthropy makes no sense, since it means spider-wolf-man disease. 

Were-spider is fine, since were in this sense in from the Old English for man, so a werewolf a wolfman and a were-spider is a spiderman (but not Spider-Man). But spider lycanthropy? No way.

Chris held that since D&D Monster Manuals use lycanthropy in a general sense, to indicate the template for any sort of were-creature, that is is a proper construction and usage. I think this is silly. And so, for D&D and anyone else, here are some other correctly-formed -anthropes besides the classic lycanthrope.

And Karmin, if this last one is anything like the were-spider you fought - that wasn't a dream, it was officially a full-fledged nightmare.