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bartist
Posted: Tue May 27, 2014 8:32 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Finally saw "Once Upon a Time," the time traveler TZ episode with Buster Keaton who is pretty spry doing some of the pratfalls and generally hurling himself around, at age 66. The format is clever, and no doubt influential on many later films and tv shows, as we see the 1890's setting as a silent movie, with dialog boards, speeded-up movement and all, and then the present shot in standard TZ style. And, no surprise, the screenplay is by Richard Matheson.

Also caught "5 Characters in Search of an Exit," the surreal existential nightmare that Gromit recommended a year or two back. One of the best TZ eps.

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carrobin
Posted: Tue May 27, 2014 9:39 am Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC
I don't remember that Buster Keaton episode at all, unfortunately--but I haven't seen a Twilight Zone in years.

Funny that the "speeded-up movement" won't be understood by anyone born after, say, 1990. As our film professor occasionally explained, the speed was dictated by the camera, and the cameras of the 1920s didn't match up technically with later movie projectors. So everything was speeded up, and thus became something we expected of silent films. Now computers adjust for that, and silent films look the way they did originally.

Just a thought about silent films, while I'm on the subject. Watching them on TCM sometimes, I ponder on the fact that one can't look away from them--you have to watch every minute, because otherwise you don't know what's happening, apart from the music clues. I don't think our modern multitasking environment does us much good--we'd benefit from having to watch more silent films.
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Syd
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2014 2:28 am Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
I just got home from an sf convention. One of my friends, Larry Nemecek, is the author of the Star Trek concordance and the Star Trek the Next Generation Companion and he is a consultant for Star Trek Continues a web series that continues with the fourth and fifth years of the original five-year mission. The episode we watched was "Fairest of Them All," which tells what happened on the alternate Enterprise after the events of "Mirror Mirror" (the episode with the bearded Spock). It was surprisingly good, although I'm not that fond of Vic Mignogna as evil Kirk--but since he also directed and edited the episode, I cut him some slack. Besides, the star of the episode is Todd Haberkorn as alternate Mr. Spock, and I thought he was just about perfect. Not a Nimoy imitation, but a fine Spock.

After the episode, he and Larry discussed the production, and that was so fascinating that I didn't realize two hours had passed and was wondering why both the five o'clock panels had been cancelled. Answer: they hadn't. It was after six.

This is worth checking out.

http://www.startrekcontinues.com/

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Syd
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2014 2:54 am Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
This episode is the third in the series, and took months to produce, so they may complete the series some time around 2028. Seriously, they were fastidious about getting the fabric and color right on the uniforms, getting the Imperial logos right, and, most interestingly, finding an an actress who looked exactly like BarBara Luna. They did a casting search, getting guys, blonds, women six inches too tall, etc., and eventually found her in a shop where they were looking for props. (Are you perchance an actress--yes--thank God.) She's good, and since Marlena should also be aboard the regular Enterprise, she can hang around.

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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament
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mitty
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2014 6:28 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 1359 Location: Way Down Yonder.......
Hadn't heard of this before, great site Syd! Thanks for posting. Very Happy
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Syd
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2014 9:12 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
I hadn't heard of it, either, which is odd because Larry's a good friend and we communicate regularly. He's also handling publicity for a crowd-funded reusable rocket to carry school projects into space, which looks like it will get off the ground both literally and figuratively. The spacecraft will be named Enterprise.

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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament
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mitty
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2014 9:31 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 1359 Location: Way Down Yonder.......
Syd wrote:
The spacecraft will be named Enterprise.


Naturally. Cool
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Syd
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2014 12:21 am Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
mitty wrote:
Syd wrote:
The spacecraft will be named Enterprise.


Naturally. Cool


If you want Larry involved, you'd better name it Enterprise.Cool

Larry does promote himself (he even has a website, larrynemecek.com), but he's good people, and always interesting. I tend to razz him for not bringing his wife along, because Janet Kelley Nemecek is delightful and a minor name in her own right. (She was a script consultant on Star Trek Voyager for five seasons, and she and Larry cowrote at least one episode.) I've known her a bit longer than I've known Larry.

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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament
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bartist
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2014 10:17 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
I would love to see what happened in the badass universe, after "Mirror, Mirror" - hope Spock continues to be "a man of integrity in both universes." That agony machine indicated a need for clearer lines of communication down the chain of command.

Thanks for the link, Syd.

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mitty
Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 9:34 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 1359 Location: Way Down Yonder.......
bartist wrote:
I would love to see what happened in the badass universe, after "Mirror, Mirror" - hope Spock continues to be "a man of integrity in both universes." That agony machine indicated a need for clearer lines of communication down the chain of command.

Thanks for the link, Syd.


IIRC, there is at least one book that follows up on that item.

Added in Edit: Holy Moly! Google really is your friend. Seems there are a whole slew of books on that universe. This link lists the novels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_Universe_(Star_Trek)#Novels
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Syd
Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 10:58 am Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
I've been catching up on Da Vinci's Demon's, which purports to be the story of Leonardo Da Vinci's youthful exploits in the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent, boss man of Florence. Many of the characters are historical figures and it's clearly building up to the Pazzi plot, in which Pope Sixtus IV had a finger and Count Girolamo Riario a whole hand. This Sixtus is pretty homicidal, and unusually buff for a Pope. He has a tendency to give extreme baptisms in the Papal bath to those who displease them. In his spare time, he plans the Chapel that is named for him. [Another papal connection: Lorenzo's nephew, who should be born in the second season, eventually became Clement VII. One of the Pope Leos was also a Medici.]

The series revels in anachronisms, particularly in alchemy. Leonardo refers to silver nitrate (and also takes a photograph, with a nod to Albertus Magnus), and sends people out to buy phosphorus (discovered in 1669) and magnesium (isolated in 1808), and there is a mysterious map showing South America although the show takes place in the 1470s. This gives the show a certain timeless feel. The map has something to do with a secret and ancient society that is somehow unstuck in time and whose members tend to reappear through history in a search for ancient knowledge. This can verge onto Da Vinci Code territory, especially when we learn that the Pope is looking for the same secret book the society is looking for.

You also have beautiful and homicidal spies, fine art, giant crossbows, shrapnel bombs, sky projectors, conspiracies of all sorts, a sodomy trial, and Vlad the Impaler (the last, unfortunately, in a badly conceived performance).

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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament
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bartist
Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2014 7:08 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Quote:
Castle's thrown into an alternate universe during a murder investigation, and Beckett, Esposito and Ryan view him as a stranger in this world, so he must persuade them to let him assist them. Afterward, Castle finds the experience very inspiring.


You see why I choose this thread. Haven't seen a Castle this season, but tonight sounds hard to resist if one has a taste for the Kafkaesque.

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knox
Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 10:26 am Reply with quote
Joined: 18 Mar 2010 Posts: 1245 Location: St. Louis
More Capra-esque than Kafkaesque.
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carrobin
Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 10:32 am Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC
It was a good show, though I expected some connection to the two months of amnesia that hasn't been explained. But the ending satisfied me--they confronted that uncertainty with some promise that it will soon be clarified, and the wedding was perfect. (Just like the nuptials of Booth and Bones--and it's fun to see two "Buffy" alumni in two delayed weddings.)
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bartist
Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 2:35 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
I read synops of the season openers....quite the mystery. Just my luck the one ep I watch, they get married. Like Bones, it now raises the realist question: can people who work together also live togethr in a marriage? It probably helps that Castle is wealthy, at least in this universe.

Knox, you no doubt caught the overt Capra reference. I like that the series often works classic films into its storylines.

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