WAS1 Productions

Originally Written 04/24/08

I’ll admit it, I love a good zombie story. For one thing the themes of a small group of people fighting to survive the apocalypse make for some good drama and also can hold a mirror up to society. Plus, the walking dead make for some neat yarns. So I was happy to find Pseudopod had another zombie tale in a recent episode. The Sons of Carbon County is a historical-fiction period piece. It’s standard zombie fare, but well told and with some nice claustrophobic atmosphere, as well as a bit of political subtext. Good stuff.

Another recent story Heart Strung mixed a bit of visceral horror at the clever satire of the idea of literally wearing ones heart on your sleeve. It takes the absurd notion and works well giving way to mental horror, at the notion of losing emotions. The idea of the loss of childhood in a right of passage was interesting, but unfortunately the story got heavy-handed with its axe to grind about injustice towards women.

However, it was a good companion piece to an earlier piece of another barbaric coming-of-age ritual The Mill. That was more visceral, but managed to do it all without having to show or tell very much, and it was the suggestions which got me. It was also a compelling metaphor for cultural relativism, the perceived normality of something so wrong, and how society and family pressures can trap and bind people. It was very successful in psychological horror, which is another reason I like Pseudopod so much, it’s not just gross-out, there’s a lot of smart, well-written and thought-provoking work there.

And if horror isn’t your bag, check out EscapePod for a great mix of science fiction, and their newly-opened PodCastle for fantasy stories. Their feeds rock and I’ll continue to plug them.

Originally Written 04/19/08

also got to finally see one of the episodes of the new season of Dr. Who last night as well. “Voyage of the Damned” was a good one, but how can you go wrong with an idea of the Titanic in space?

I liked how they played with the disaster movie plot points; it reminded me of The Poseidon Adventure (the original film) in several places, in a good way. The melodrama might have been a bit overdone, but it was still good.

There was an added bonus of killer androids too, which was just icing on the cake. I loved the references to the classic Tom Baker episode “Robots of Death” they got in there.

Originally Written 04/19/08

I saw The Forbidden Kingdom last night. I was worried that it might suck, but was hopefully with it getting a good rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so we decided to check it out. The film was a treat, even though it wasn’t perfect.

It was good fun to see Jackie Chan and Jet Li together in a movie. Yes they’re showing their age a little bit, but better late than never. Both of them still have their chops too. There was a lot of good martial arts. Some of the editing was a bit choppy, but the fight choreography was impressive.

The movie had lots of nice visuals too. It’s a pastiche of a whole bunch of kung-fu movies and legends, but it’s obviously made by people who love the genre, and it’s good fun for fans. Unfortunately the movie is flawed.

The biggest problem with it is the choice of actors for the kid who played the chosen one. I can be down with using an American in the roll, but the kid they chose had no charisma or screen presence, so he ended up sucking energy from a lot of scenes. He did get better towards the end, but I would’ve definitely liked someone else.

I didn’t hate the film, and I had fun with it, but it could’ve been better. Still, for fans of the genre, who can overlook some faults, it’s worth checking out.

Originally Written 03/19/08

When we were hanging out this weekend, my friend Lonnie wanted to watch Starship Troopers, which was fine for me as it’s an entertaining flic. I love how the first half of it is like an Aaron Spelling show in space, which is some goofy, silly fun, then once they get to the action the effects and CGI and design of the bugs are most excellent. It was an enjoyable way to flit away a lazy Saturday afternoon, eating junk food and hanging out.

I was also struck by a bit of a surprise at watching the film post 9/11. There’s a good deal of unplanned parallels to things going on today, even if we aren’t fighting giant bugs. First there’s a group of young adults who join up with the military during peacetime to better their lives. A vicious surprise attack by an enemy propels everybody into war, which is greatly underestimated at first.

Also, while it was satire and exaggeration, the media propaganda hit home in a few spots, including predicting having embedded reporters with the troops on the missions. Of course it’s missing the left half of the news machine, but except for a couple of throw-away lines there is no dissent among the population. Everybody agrees this is an enemy that needs to be fought and wiped out, but then it’s a battle drama, so the writing calls for that.

Anyway, it’s not a serious political treatise, it’s just something I noticed, that watching this goofy film from 1997 reads a little different in the paranoid 2000s. Damn I miss the late 90s, when the money flowed freely and the biggest thing we had to worry about was who the president was getting oral sex from.

Originally Written 03/14/08

I just watched a wonderfully entertaining film, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. One of his co-workers recommended it; he works with a bunch of cool younger engineers at Mitre, who are all into movies and video games, etc. I wish I could find an office like that again.

Anyway, the film was a treat to watch. It’s a bit silly at times, but overall it was very well done. It has some great dark comedy and ends up being a funny and clever deconstruction of slasher films, with a few nice surprises.

The actor who plays the wanna-be serial killer is wonderfully disarming and joyfully banal at first. His mentor, a retired man of the business and his wife, a former last-girl who fell in love with him, were also amusing characters. And Robert Englund has a fun role in this too.

If you enjoy horror films and dark comedy, this is a must see.