Monsters from the Id 怪獣大悪脳

After much sleeping on everyone's part, I got the final word from Daniel about the screening of "Troll Bridge" for Terry Pratchett, well, I should let Daniel say it in his own words:

Overall reaction from him?

I think he was pleasantly surprised. I did hear him chuckle a couple of times - so that's always a good sign. He had a few suggestions here and there, and was certain to tell us about the stuff he did like. From Felix's illustrations, and the stand-in footage of the troll - he's very keen to see the completed Mica. He'll also be scripting some very short dialogue for the guards to be speaking around the lake. So I guess - all in all - it was a success. Especially considering the screening of Troll Bridge we showed him, had a lot of stuff only half done (or not even done at all).

So I think we've done good. I know I for one was a nervous wreck those last couple of days as Dana who shares a room with me at work can attest to. It was, at least in my mind, a big undertaking for me. I was providing all the sound for something that I really cared about.

I've been working in the sound industry for just shy of nine years. I know how to use the software, in fact I know it quite well. I know how to do a lot of the functional parts of editorial like converting picture to usable formats, sample rate converting sounds to get them in sync, and doing changes from change notes and worktracks. But for nine years I've been an assistant sound editor. I know that job really well. I haven't done a lot of actual cutting---a lot of sound editing. I know what I like when I hear it. I can use the sound database better than most people but that process of cutting and positioning and combining and stretching and processing, I haven't done a lot of it. So this is a big step for me.

I'm glad I'm taking it. I hope everyone is pleased with the end product.

Posted by Jon at 7:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Terry Pratchett is one of those truly gifted authors---someone who just "gets it". With a few words he can make the most cutting and incisive comment on modern life. And all of his Discworld stories are set in a fantasy realm. I don't think he's as widely known in America as he is in England and Australia. The typical response I give to the inevitable query "Who's that?" is that he Douglas Adams of fantasy novels.

Unfortunately even that leads to another question by the lesser informed of my countrymen. "Oh. Who's Douglas Adams?"

"You know, 'The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy'?"

"Oh yeah! Never read it."

"Well, it's satire of modern life and pop culture told in science fiction novels. Douglas Adams, that is. Terry Pratchett does a similar thing with fantasy. Kind of a literary Monty Python."

Thankfully most Americans are at least passingly familiar with Monty Python.

A little over a year ago, I was delighted to read about a intrepid group of Australians who decided to make a live-action version of one of Terry's short stories, "Troll Bridge". After a little investigation I found their website and starting reading about their undertaking.

As it turns out they got in touch with Terry and he agreed to allow them to make the movie. Terry's stories have been turned into plays, mostly in England, and there are even two cartoons available on DVD and VHS of "Wyrd Sisters" and "Soul Music". But there hasn't been a live action version. Until now.

My immediate reaction was "Wow! Wouldn't it be great to work on a Discworld film?!" So I sat down a wrote an email to Daniel Knight, the director, offering my services as a post-production sound guy. For some unknown reason, he was actually impressed with my resume and said "Sure."

And for the better part of a year that's been it. This is a mostly volunteer movie. People offering their services because they, like me, wanted to work on a Terry Pratchett movie. Or they just wanted to work on a movie period. But most of us have day jobs. The things that pay the bills. So it's taken time.

About 2 weeks ago, I got an email from Daniel asking if I could help him out with some sound. Terry himself was going to be sitting down to watch some scenes and he wanted to make it as cool as possible. Of course I agreed and that's what I've been working on in my spare time. This weekend has been the big editing session for me. They're meeting with Terry Pratchett on Thursday. Work for me seems to have gotten extra busy recently. And Daniel is 19 hours ahead of me in Australia so this weekend is really my last chance to get the majority of the work done.

It's been a lot of fun. I'm continually amazed at what I can accomplish on my laptop with an Mbox, Pro Tools LE, Soundminer and a good sound effects library. Of course this isn't even really a temp dub. When it comes time to really do the sound, I'll be working on my full-blown Pro Tools system because there will be a lot more sounds to carry and I'll try to work out a deal with a local dub stage for mixing.

But with that little setup, a fast internet connection, some online storage space, email and instant messaging, we've been able to make this happen. It's been an exciting time.

Posted by Jon at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I came home tonight and took a look at my "Now Playing On Tivo" to see if there was anything I felt like watching. I discovered that my intrepid little box decided to record an episode of "Simon & Simon" for me. Remember that one? From about twenty years ago, two private investigator brothers trade barbs and solve crimes? I never really watched it as a kid. Shows like "The Greatest American Hero", "CHiPs" and "The Dukes Of Hazzard" were much more my style.

Only in the 80's would this seem like a good plot:

Simon & Simon

"The Wrong Stuff" (1984) Jameson Parker, Gerald McRaney, Tim Reid.
A teacher (Dianne Kay) asks the Simons to find the source of pornographic movies taken of her, a trail which leads to an ex-astronaut.

Of course I immediately thought of the "dirty astronauts" from various skits from the "Upright Citizens Brigade". "We don't need to moon-cheese baby!" And of course I did have to sit down and watch it. Unfortunately when the astronaut connection was finally revealed, it didn't quite live up to kind of story I dreamt up in my mind after reading the synopsis. Though the "Vampire Cheerleaders" might make an interesting adult film.

Now the only question is why would Tivo suggest this to me?

Posted by Jon at 8:52 PM | Permalink

Yesterday we received news that yet another TV show is heading to the big screen. This time it's Stephen J. Cannell's 80's action-comedy "The A-Team". I pity the fool who didn't watch this show. I was 9 years old when this was first on the air and it was one of my favorites. Even to this day the theme song is the ringtone on my cellphone, I have a Mr. T t-shirt that I often wear, and I even have this little keychain that when you press a button, it gives you choices bits of Mr. T dialog like "Quit yo' jibba-jabba!"

Honestly I don't know how I feel about them making this into a movie. I have many fond memories of the show from my childhood. I am also perfectly aware that it's pretty ridiculous. Recently (within the last few years) I saw an episode where the Army finally discovered the A-Team's secret hideout. Their big plan for capturing them was that they had to take out B.A. since he's the really tough one. So they replaced the milkman who delivered B.A.'s milk every morning with one of their agents and put some drugs in his milk to knock him out. I'm dead serious. Actual storyline from the show.

Stephen is quoted as saying:

Not to denigrate the TV show, but nobody ever died. We drove cars off cliffs and people got out and walked away. We’re not going to do that (in the movie).

In this the tone is more dangerous ... you can really die. It’s very tense and exciting.

How do you reconcile "dangerous" and "tense and exciting" with poisoned milk because the tough guy wants strong bones and teeth? The thing that made the show fun was that Mr. T was over-the-top. He was the strong one but he had all those gold chains and the mohawk. He could growl at someone and they'd run away afraid, but he drank his milk every day and was deathly afraid of flying.

Dwight Schultz before he was a neurotic engineer on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was "the crazy one", Murdock, on "The A-Team". His character was the Scooby Doo of the group. He was always dressing up and pretending to be other people usually in an effort to fool the bad guys. In my mind, these kind of characters don't lend themselves to "dangerous" movies.

I think that Stephen J. Cannell should take a long look at which TV-shows-turned-movies have been successful in the last few years. The ones that have their figurative tongue firmly planted in their figurative mouth, are much more successful than the ones that take themselves seriously. Movie versions of "Charlie's Angels", "Starsky & Hutch", and "The Brady Bunch" and much more enjoyable and have much larger box offices than ones like "The Mod Squad" and "Lost In Space".

Posted by Jon at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From the AP newsire:

The folks at Comedy Central were annoyed when Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly kept referring to "The Daily Show" audience as "stoned slackers."

So they did a little research. And guess whose audience is more educated?

Viewers of Jon Stewart's show are more likely to have completed four years of college than people who watch "The O'Reilly Factor," according to Nielsen Media Research.

I'm not quite sure why Comedy Central was so concerned about what Bill O'Reilly had to say about the audience of "The Daily Show" since he is such a paragon of truth and objectivity.

I think I've mentioned before that one of my favorite things about my new Tivo is that it allows me to watch TV shows when I have time, not necessarily when they are on. And thanks to Tivo I've gotten back into watching "The Daily Show". Bill O'Reilly is actually going to be a guest on the show on October 7. That will certainly be an episode to catch.

If you have a Tivo and you've tried to record "The Daily Show" you have probably encountered the problem that you often get 4 recordings of the same show since they don't provide individual episode information to the Tivo guide. Here are some great suggestions for dealing with the problem. I use number 2 myself and I find that it works very well.

Posted by Jon at 10:55 PM | Permalink

Ok, probably everyone has already seen this but I finally caught all of the animated "Star Wars: Clone Wars" that the creator of "Samurai Jack" made in conjunction with LucasFilm. It's a series of twenty 3 to 5 minute micro-episodes. The series recently won an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Programming of One Hour or More. Cartoon Network showed them all last night.

"Outstanding" is certainly the word the describe them. The animation is vibrant. The stories are fun. The action is exciting and the sound effects are straight out of Ben Burtt's library.

I can't understand what the deal is. I recently re-watched all of the original movies. Between those, the "Clone Wars" series and the "Knights Of The Old Republic" videogame, there is a large of amount of exciting material and great stories. How come the these two newest movies suck? It's not like their aren't people who can tell awesome Star Wars universe stories. How can the "official" ones be so bad?

I watched the "Return Of Darth Vader" documentary on the fourth disc of the new Star Wars DVD boxed set. I found myself getting excited about "Star Wars" again. I thought back to that night that my parents took me to see "Star Wars" in the theater. (You won't get me calling it "Episode IV" even if it was always in the yellow text crawl. And while we're talking about name changes, it's just "Raiders Of The Lost Ark". Ok?) I was nearly 4 years old and I had to pee really bad, but I didn't want to miss anything. Finally I couldn't hold it anymore and I ran out of the theater to find the bathroom during the Mos Eisley Cantina. On my first viewing I missed the now controversial Han--Greedo scene. But I've seen the movie possibly 50 times since then, I can tell you without a doubt that Greedo shoots first.

I remembered the Sunday after church when my dad sat my brother and I down and started talking about how he was thinking it was interesting that the pastor was talking about the good angels and bad angels. And how the bad angels were cast out of heaven and the strongest among them became Satan. And wasn't that like how Darth Vader who used to be a good Jedi, turned to the dark side? And hey, who's up for going to see "Empire Strikes Back"?

I remembered sitting in my third grade class the day after the "Time" magazine exclusive on the new third movie in the series. Several of us brought copies in and the entire class was passing them around looking at the pictures of the big slug guy and all those other monsters---kind of like the Cantina but even cooler. And Han. What was going to happen to Han? Last time we saw him he was frozen in carbonite. How was he ever going to get out? My friends, Eric, Dan and I were determined to get our parents to let us skip a day of school and take us to the movies so that we could see "Return Of The Jedi" as soon as possible.

After watching Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen train for their epic battle and the prop department create the new Darth Vader helmet, I found that my heart was racing and I was breathing hard. This could be really cool, right? This is it. This is where Vader, the ultimate bad guy, is born. I really hope that "Revenge Of The Sith" will capture the adventure of the original movies---the adventure that "Clone Wars" and "KOTOR" tapped into. Unfortunately, in my heart of hearts I don't think it will and that makes me sad.

Posted by Jon at 7:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

For the last two years I have been recording a few of my favorite TV shows on an old Macintosh with EyeTV. The cool thing about this is that I didn't have to remember to switch videotapes. I could quickly copy the shows on to my laptop to watch anytime, anywhere. Plus I could burn it to a VCD for archiving, taking up much less space than a videotape.

During this time I've been very curious about Tivo but my computer-based system really did everything I needed it to do. In fact last year just before the new TV season, I almost bought a Tivo. But at the last minute I decided not to invest the money.

This year, I couldn't help myself. I think it was the $100 rebate and fact that the Tivo plus DVD-R are finally at what I would consider to be a reasonable price. I can't copy my shows to my laptop like I could before, but burning a DVD is quick and easy.

And the other benefits I get with Tivo are pretty damn amazing. Those of you who already have one already know this. I'm preaching to the choir. But those who haven't tried it, you're really missing out. My single favorite thing is that it makes TV fit my schedule instead of the other way around. It doesn't matter what time I finally get home from work, I can sit down and watch my favorite shows. It can be tough for me to regularly watch shows that come on at 8pm---I'm often not home in time. And if I'm working long hours, late night shows like "The Daily Show" or Adult Swim are now at much more reasonable times.

Wishlists are awesome. I was able to tell my Tivo to record any movie that is directed by Alfred Hitchcock or Akira Kurosawa. It just finds them and records them. I don't have to do any searching. Also, by spending a little time to rate shows with one or multiple thumbs up or down, I can teach it the kinds of shows and movies that I like. Then it suggests other things that I might like and records them for me. Very, very cool. And all I have to do is be willing to give up my right to TV viewing privacy. ;)

Posted by Jon at 11:01 PM | Permalink

I forgot that I was planning on mentioning this over the weekend until I showed up at work again today...

On Friday with only an hour or so left in the day we were doing the lazy late-afternoon hangout thing---talking about music from our youth. With the addition of my large iTunes library it was very fun. "Oh! You mean this song?" Dana was mentioning that The Cars' "Let's Go" was her perfect driving song growing up. Of course she was an LA child so her experiences driving down Sunset Blvd. as a teenager were a bit different from me driving through the wooded lanes of small-town New England. For me "Cecilia Ann" by The Pixies holds that coveted spot of the perfect teenage driving song.

Talk eventually turned, for whatever reason, to karaoke and general amazement from people when I declared that "Ballroom Blitz" was my "signature" song. Of course I used to drink too. A lot. But that's behind me now---though I haven't yet had the courage to try karaoke sober. Anyway, I started pointing out other songs I liked to do in karaoke and we eventually got to Judas Priests' "Living After Midnight".

That led to talk about how silly so much of the metal scene in the 80's. Of course at the time we thought it was dark and (at least on my part) a bit scary. It's inevitable if you talk about silly heavy metal and Judas Priest that someone eventually brings up "Heavy Metal Parking Lot". If you haven't experienced it yet, I strongly suggest you click that link and relive the the glory of 1986.

Posted by Jon at 9:02 AM | Permalink

I slept away most of the morning trying to play catch-up after all those hours at work. Yesterday was another long one---9am to 1am. The good news is that as of about 12:30am this morning, I am going back to work next Monday on a little horror movie. In fact the words "if not sooner" were used, so I might not even have a full week off.

It's been a while since I've worked on a horror film. Several years ago I worked on that supposed horror flick "Bless The Child". What a piece of crap that was! I remember reading the script before I started on it saying to myself, "Dear lord! Who greenlit this shit!" That's the funny thing about my job though. You need to work on those movies to pay the rent. Plus of course you can't say anything about the movie while you're working on it. And no matter how good the movie is, seeing it literally hundreds if not thousands of times during the process of cutting the sound will sour anyone on the most exquisite of cinema.

Several years before the midden-heap that was "Bless The Child", I worked a little movie called "Nightwatch". I don't think hardly anyone saw it. It stars Ewan McGregor who was years away from wielding a lightsaber, that woman from "Gilmore Girls" before it was a spark of creativity in the writer's mind, Josh Brolin before he started dating Diane Lane, and Patricia Arquette before... well just before. The director is Danish. He directed a film in his home country that someone in Hollywood thought was cool enough to pay him to make an American version. I remember sitting down and watching that first director's cut of the American film that was turned over to us. I almost crapped myself. It was so scary. Dark, moody, and full of evil characters. Unfortunately "Scream" swept through like a hurricane and suddenly everyone wanted teen slasher movies again. So a new opening was shot and the film was cut to hell and that version you get off the shelf in Blockbuster is rather poor.

I have a ton of email to respond to from the last several days. Please everyone bare with me a day or so. I hear my bed calling again. I think I might answer.

Posted by Jon at 3:27 PM | Permalink

What is it about horror and oldies songs? There's something about the sugary sweet melodies of late 1950's, early 1960's teen pop and romantic crooners that makes horror movies and television even scarier.

There's a horror movie in post-production right now that I recently saw part of and it has the same thing. Bubble-gum music from when my mother was a little girl and it's eerie. It got me thinking of how that kind of music really sets the tone---even though it's seemingly the exact opposite. A soft ballad from thirty-plus years ago in a dark and creepy house will make your skin crawl.

I'm reminded of the absoluate scariest episode of "The X-Files"---that one from season 4 with the weird inbred family, "Home". They play Johnny Mathis' "Wonderful! Wonderful!" a few times it makes me squirm in my chair. Or how about the William Gibson episode from season 5, "Kill Switch", with it's use of "Twilight Time" by The Platters?

Steven King understands it. He's always quoting song lyrics in his stories and his movies make use of the same thing. Of course "Christine" is probably the perfect example of this since the the demon car is from that era. But even a really bad King movie like "Sleepwalkers" makes use of Santo & Johnny's "Sleepwalk" and it's spooky.

But perhaps the scariest of all is David Lynch and the "Candy-Colored Clown" of "Blue Velvet". The psychotic Frank, played with perfection by Dennis Hopper, gets a very effeminate Dean Stockwell to lip sync to Roy Obison's "In Dreams" while holding a light to his face like a microphone---casting ghoulish shadows.

A candy-colored clown they call the sandman
Tiptoes to my room every night
Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper,
'Go to sleep. Everything is all right.'

If that doesn't want to make you keep the lights on at night, I don't know what will.

Posted by Jon at 9:49 PM | Permalink

This one can be filed under “So bad, it’s good.”

Recently I was thinking about my childhood influences. Long before there was ever a “Power Rangers”, I was watching Japanese Giant Monster TV Shows. These definitely had a hand in my love of B-movies. And well, there’s also the obvious, the name of my website.

In the late 1970s, when I was three or four, a local TV station in Detroit used to show “Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot” and “Ultra Man” back-to-back. I loved them and watched them everyday. (Though I’ll admit that the swirly colors at the beginning of “Ultra Man” scared me for some reason.)

These shows were actually made ten years earlier and were a direct response to the popularity of all the Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra movies. They featured the formula that is familiar to fans of Japanese Giant Monster TV Shows of any era. A team of good guys (often young and possibly with a kid) fight a constant battle against a team of bad guys (possibly from outer space). Both sides make use of Giant Monsters (read “guys in rubber suits stomping on models”) to battle each other for control of Earth. The good guys either have control of Giant Monsters / Robots or they turn into them, while the bad guys usually just pull the strings of their enormous minions from afar.

I decided to see if I could track these shows down. I found that NovaRose sells both series on DVD. Their prices are great and the quality is quite good for 1960s TV shows with rather low production value to begin with. (I can’t really comment on the legality of these DVDs. I don’t know and I didn’t ask. I know for a fact that neither show is actually sold on DVD or VHS in the US. But that doesn’t mean that someone doesn’t own the rights. It’s up to you. I will say though that the guys at NovaRose are very nice and very helpful.)

Since the DVDs arrived in the mail today, I decided to sit down tonight and watch the first episode of each.

They’re definitely dated, and if you thought the special effects were cheap in 1950s Godzilla movies, these are extra cheap. But they’re a hell of a lot of fun. I smiled and laughed my way through both “Johnny Sokko” and “Ultra Man”.

Johnny Sokko is a young boy who just happens to get shipwrecked with Jerry Mano, an agent of Unicorn (the good guys), on an island controlled by the Gargoyle Gang (the bad guys) and Emperor Guillotine (the evil alien from outer space) when their evil Giant Monster sinks the ship the two are on. Got it so far?

Johnny and Jerry discover that Guillotine and the Gargoyles are trying to build a Giant Robot to destroy the world. Luckily Johnny takes control of the robot and saves the day. Super cool.

“Ultra Man” on the other hand is an entirely different kind of story. Science Patrol (the good guys) flys around in cool rocket planes protecting Earth from bad guys. When an evil meteorite with an evil Giant Monster inside crashes on Earth, Hayata of the Science Patrol crashes into a good meteorite with his rocket plane and is merged with the good Giant Monster, Ultra Man. Then the two Giant Monsters fight. (Ok, maybe it’s not so different.)

I did notice that with “Ultra Man” it’s actually geared towards older viewers. Something that my four year old brain could never understand. In fact I discovered that it’s actually a show secretly meant for fetishists. If nothing else you have the swell uniforms that Science Patrol gets to run around in:

But the real proof is in the blatant use of rubber-suited monster porn that is all over this show:

I don’t know why my mother ever let me watch it. I can’t wait to watch the rest of the shows!

Posted by Jon at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I wound up in Long Beach today at my aunt and uncle's place fixing the setup on their new Panasonic 60" LCD Projection TV. It's a gorgeous set. And huge! The guys who delivered it didn't take the time to, or know how to, or whatever, do the little things like auto-program the channels. I did another nice picture calibration with my Avia DVD just like I did for Cameron.

This set has a built-in High Definition (HD) decoder. So in addition to hooking it up to their DirecTV, non-HD for now, I also hooked it up to their roof antenna. I never realized how many digital stations are broadcasting now. Or at least here in Los Angeles. There's tons! Now only a few are actually broadcasting in HD. The major networks really only do HD for Primetime and major sporting events on the weekends. KCET, a local PBS station, has a 24 hour HD channel. It looks fantastic.

The digital stations work like this: Channel 2 out here is CBS. Digital CBS comes in on channel 2.1. NBC on channel 4. Digital NBC on 4.1. But there's quite a bit of spectrum allocated for each "channel" so stations can actually have multiple digital broadcasts on one "channel". ABC has a digital channel 7.1 which mirrors the analog broadcast, but it also has channel 7.2 with a completely different program.

The aforementioned KCET is channel 28. Channel 28.1 is their HD show which is different from the analog signal. The digital version is actually on 28.2. In fact I found a few channels like 58, another PBS station, which actually have 4 digital broadcasts on one "channel". And in case you don't know, a non-HD digital broadcast is called Standard Definition (SD). Actually some of the channels like the major networks came in listed as DT (Digital Television) which I took to mean that sometimes the broadcast in SD and sometimes in HD. But I could be wrong.

In any case, it was pretty cool stuff.

Posted by Jon at 10:58 PM | Permalink

This just in from Reuters:

Homer's ancient Greek poem "The Iliad," ... has been compressed for a new generation too lazy to see the film let alone read....

Book Two is reduced to just 24 words of 'messenger speak', losing some of the lyricism of the original....

The translation, designed to publicize Microsoft's messenger product, is not written in Homer's dactylic hexameters but it does use 'emoticons' -- little faces or images -- to emphasize intense moments.

In other news:

Warner Brothers has just admitted that this "emoticon" version was the basis for its movie, "Troy".

Posted by Jon at 5:34 PM | Permalink

Dear God, Baby Jesus, or which ever higher power has executive control over Tom Cruise's movies:

Please make him stop.

I finally watched Dances With Bravehearted Ninjas "The Last Samurai" last night. I know, I'm late. I was kind of busy in December.

Anyway, we need you to make him stop. It's bad enough that he has to use the patented Tom-Cruise-Is-Really-Emotional-And-Here's-A-Close-Up-To-Prove-It shot in every other scene. Not to mention the "plucky American gets beat down again and again but keeps getting back up until everyone gains some respect for him" scene. But what's really infuriating is that somehow we are supposed to believe that the Japanese cannot possibly appreciate their own rich cultural heritage until Tom Cruise explains it to them by handing over an ancient sword.

And speaking of that, how come a thousand samurai can get blown up with cannons, and riddled with Gatlin gun fire, and only Tom Cruise is able to survive? And he just has a slight limp? What's up with that? I think you'll agree that this kind of thing can't go on.

If that's not enough for you, don't forget that he gets to kill a proud warrior from a family that has defended Japan's honor for a thousand years, and within like a month is raising that man's children as his own, and playing "hide the katana" with that man's wife.

Please for all of us. Oh, and we'll be talking later about that "strict" translation of Homer's ancient Greek in "Troy."

Posted by Jon at 11:34 AM | Permalink

Good things always come in threes, right? Today I saw an amazing documentary, and it's weird how well it fits in with the two documentaries that I had meetings about last week. I caught a matinee of "Mayor Of The Sunset Strip" appropriately enough at the Sunset 5. Wow! Just awesome.

This film is a film about Rodney Bingenheimer, a legend in the LA music scene. Rodney started out as a superfan of the bands of the mid to late 60s. (I'm going to stay away from the term "groupie" even though it is used in the film. I was a superfan of a few bands in my time, and it really takes some dedication. There's a great book about what it's like to be a superfan, "Bye Bye Baby: My Tragic Love Affair With The Bay City Rollers" by Caroline Sullivan. But I digress...) Eventually he wound up playing Davy Jones' double for the Monkees TV show.

From there he hung out and got to know every band and artist that was ever anybody--The Beatles, The Doors, Sonny & Cher, The Mamas & The Papas, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley. Everybody. Watching this documentary, seeing the photos and the films of Rodney with all of these classic bands makes you think he's some kind of real-life Zelig. He introduced David Bowie to America. He opened his own club on the Sunset Strip in the early 70s where all the rock stars would party. The Runaways. The New York Dolls. Iggy Pop. Alice Cooper.

Finally in the mid-70s he wound up with his own radio show on KROQ. He became THE guy to break all the hot bands of the day. Every band from The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, and Blondie to The Go Go's, The Smiths, and Dramarama got their start (at least in the U.S.) because Rodney played their songs on his radio show. Even more recently bands like Oasis and Coldplay got the nod from Mr. Bingenheimer and have gone on to be huge.

He is truly an amazing individual, and director George Hickenlooper has done a fantastic job of capturing Rodney's humanity and charm. A great documentary is informative, funny, passionate, and poignant, all at once, and "Mayor Of The Sunset Strip" is no exception. For me it ranks up there with other documentaries like "American Movie". Even though the subjects are quirky people, they are so endearing that you can't help falling in love with them.

Posted by Jon at 12:01 AM | Permalink

This is a test post of the TV & Movies section. This is just a test. If this had been a real post, the title would be followed by instructions on which visual entertainment you would be required to enjoy. This is only a test.

Posted by Jon at 12:54 PM | Permalink

In my last post I talked a little bit about some of my thoughts on zombie movies. It brought back a lot of memories of the year that my friends and I spent putting the few issues of Right Turn Clyde that ever saw the light of day (or the glow of a monitor). Those were fun times figuring out what would be the next snarky comment about Hollywood. I might have put together the website but MNKE was the driving force behind that effort. And without the four of us who wrote most of the articles and tracked down the photos and got the interviews, I don't think it can exist again. At least not like it did.

But it doesn't mean that I can't write my reviews of TV and movies. It's just not as easy to be satirical without hiding behind the persona of Shorty LaBrea. So I'm starting up this Movies & TV section so that I can post my thoughts and reviews. And since I first started with that post about running zombies and I resolved to watch some more recent movies, why don't a start with the movie I watched last night:

28 Days Later. Directed by Danny Boyle.

This is the zombie movie with a twist. Animal rights activists unwittingly unleash infected chimps on the population at large spreading a disease called Rage. This genetically engineered virus is transmitted by blood and saliva and is so contagious that a single drop in the mouth, eye, or an open cut will turn a person in about 30 seconds into a blood-thirsty insane maniac who will run around tearing any living thing it finds to shreds. Our protagonist, Jim, wakes up 28 days after the start of the outbreak from a coma to a nearly deserted London, and tries to figure out how to survive.

This movie was damn scary. Thankfully Danny Boyle didn't fill it with the "gotcha" surprises that you often find in cheap horror films. You know when things suddenly jump out at you complete with a huge music sting. The first time it's just the cat that was startled in the dark room but the next time it's the killer. Those moments are cheap thrills that always make me jump out of my skin but then it's over. Danny did a great job of sustaining the "what's going to happen next" tension for long periods of time and I often found myself with a stranglehold on the remote.

The difference with this movie is that these are not traditional zombies. These are not the reanimated corpses of dead single-minded bent on eating the flesh of the living. These are people driven mad by a disease. They still want to eat people but since they are not already dead, they can die of "natural" causes. The proper way to dispatch a zombie according to the mythology that has built up in films is to either burn them up, dissolve them in acid, or destroy their head. Anything less and they'll keep coming after you. Danny's Rage-zombies are still people. There's nothing supernatural about them. They are not the undead. If you fill them with enough bullets, they'll die. Since the disease seems to effect them to the point that they are unable to comprehend that they can walk into the nearest 7-11 for six pack and a bag of chips, they eventually starve to death.

Over the years zombie movies have been used as a method of social commentary. Dan O'Bannon looked at disenfranchised youth railing against the "let's just nuke the commies" attitude of the Reagen era in Return of the Living Dead. Probably most famously, George Romero used zombies wandering around in a mall in Dawn of the Dead to comment on America's mindless consumerism. Danny Boyle uses 28 Days Later to answer the question, What makes us human? When watching this movie it is important to think about who has truly lost their soul: the infected people who no longer have the free will to do anything but feast the rest of man, or the soldiers who exploit their strength with guns and a fortified base to get whatever they want.

Mr. Boyle's apocalyptic tale brought to mind a few of of other great science fiction movies: The excellent Australian film, The Quiet Earth, where a man wakes up one day to find that he is the only human alive and he must deal with the loneliness. And the Charlton Heston's 1971 classic, The Omega Man. Instead of informing the world of the contents of Soylent Green or leading the humans in an uprising against their ape masters, this time Chuck as the sole survivor of humanity has to fight off an army of plague-created vampires. (The original novel is I Am Legend, and has spawned a few movie versions including a great Italian one from 1964 starring Vincent Price called The Last Man On Earth.) And who could forget the valley girls and Commander Chakotay menaced by comet-produced zombies in Night of the Comet.

All in all, 28 Days Later is a exciting, thought-provoking movie to watch. The DVD has three alternate endings which are interesting, if only to find out, what if...

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