Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post: Invaders From Mars

In anticipation of the return of Doctor Who Is NEW to the blog next week, this Sunday edition of Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post will look back at a sci-fi cult classic that was released 72 years ago on April 9, 1953, Invaders From Mars. 

Warning: I will disclose (and bitch about) the ending.

Late one night, a young boy named David MacLean is awakened by a loud thunderstorm. From his bedroom window, he sees a flying saucer descend and disappear into the sandpit behind his house. 

He tells his scientist father George, who goes to investigate but disappears.  David's mother Mary is worried and calls the police.  The police officers go to check out the sand pit.

But then George suddenly appears back at home but he's acting all squirelly, cold, hostile, talking in a monotone and really obsessd with telling David not to tell anyone about what he saw last night.  

David notices an unusual puncture on the back of his father's neck. Well now THAT can't be good at all!

The policemen return from the sandpit and they're acting like George.   

Away from the house, David witnesses others behaving in a similarly odd fashion. 

Holy crap!  David's father and others are being controlled by aliens from outside space! 

David does try to tell somebody but he is disregarded because he's just a kid or the adults in question are also under alien control.  

David finally finds an advocate in Dr. Pat Blake. She figures at first he's under some delusion or fantasy that has gotten out of hand but she has eyes and can see that people are acting weird!

Holy crap!  David's right and people are being controlled by aliens from outside space!  

David and Dr. Blake consult local astronomer Dr. Stuart Kelston, who theorizes that the flying saucer is likely the vanguard of an invasion from the planet Mars. Their target is a nearby government reseach facility (where David's scientist dad George works)to stop work on a prototype atomic rocket, which could reach Mars. 

Which is a really good theory because that's EXACTLY what the Matians are up to. It's like local astronomer Dr. Stuart Kelston has a copy of the script in front of him or something.  

Holy crap!  People are being controlled by aliens from outside space!  

Kelston contacts the U.S. Army and convinces them to investigate. 

It doesn't take a lot. The Army is always looking for an excuse to blow stuff up real good. 

Alien invaders? 

Holy crap!  People are being controlled by aliens from outside space?  Let's blow some shit up! 

Tanks and troops show up lickety split and surround the sand pit and the research place! "Surround everything with everything we got, men!" 

Plot stuff happens that conspires to place Dr. Blake and David underground by tall, slit-eyed green humanoids and taken via tunnels to the flying saucer. 

It is here where David will have the life changing experience of meeting life forms from another world! 

And seeing a woman's bra! 

Dr. Blake is knocked unconscious and is laid out on a slab. (Bring out the alien probes!) The top button of her blouse has come undone and her shoulder is exposed, showing us a bra strap! (And nothing more, damn you Hays office! Poor little David might die here without seeing a woman's bra!) 

The army and the Martians start to throw down and Dr. Blake and David need to get the hell out of the alien space ship.

SPOILER! 

I am going to tell you how this ends.

Amidst explosions and falling rubble, little David McLean is running and running as he minds replays the events of the movie so far...  including scenes he wasn't actually present for.

And then...

And then...

He wakes up! 

NO! Reallly?

David is back in his bed on the night of the storm. He runs into his parents' bedroom, confused and frightened; they reassure him that he was just having a dream. 

This ending sucks... so hard! 

David returns to bed just as he sees a flying saucer descend into the sandpit.

What the fuck is this? 

Up pops the film's "The End" title card and as ethereal music plays over thge end credits, we are left to ponder these possibilites:

• Is young David still asleep, trapped in a recurring nightmare?
• Is his bad dream a premonition of a real and terrible future?
• Or the writers had no fucking clue how to end this and I wasted 90 minutes of my time on Earth for this?

Misbegotten ending aside, Invaders From Mars is a tight little sci-fi excursion steeped in Cold War paranoia.  Kids in movies can be percocious and annoying but Jimmy Hunt is pretty good as young David. And Helena Carter as Dr. Pat Blake is a bit ahead of her time, her role is determined by her professional standing as a medical doctor without being hampered with some kind of romantic love interest.  

Invaders From Mars is perhaps not a bad movie. Except for that ending.

It's all a dream? Damn!

_______________________

Next weekend...

Saturday is the return of Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post as I write about another Alfred Hitchcock movie.

And Sunday marks the return of of Doctor Who Is NEW!

Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post: Lifeboat

Well, April is upon us which begins with the letter "A"

Also beginning with "A" is Alfred as in Alfred Hitchcock.

As I did last April, it's a month long look at Alfred Hitchcock movies that I have seen.

This week we begin with a cinematic experiment from 1944 called Lifeboat.  

In the aftermath of their ship being sunk by a German U-oat, a handful of service member and civilians are adrift in a lifeboat.

In the attack, the German U-boat sustained damage and also sank, with one survivor, a man named Willi. He perports to only speak German and was only a mere crewman on the vessel. 

There is some debate as to whether to throw the German overboard to drown. Voices of mercy carry the day and Willi is allowed to stay. 

SPOILER: Willi is no mere crewman, he was the captain of the damn U-boat and he damn well does know English. And he's up to sneaky shit. 

Meanwhile, there are other problems.

Among the survivors from the ship is a young woman and her infant child. Or more to the tragic point, a young woman and her deceased infant child. She refuses to releases the child's body and when she can't cope with the reality of her child's death, she slips over the side of the boat to drown.

And there's the matter of poor old Gus with his badly injured leg. It will need to be amputated or the infection will kill him. 

In the cramped confines of the lifeboat with few and dwindling supplies, the disparate group of men and women try to make the best of what little they have as they set a course for Bermuda.  It is a dreary journey punctated by outbursts of temper and descents into depression.  

Willi seems to be coping well but he has is own personal flask of water and a secret compass and the son of a bitch may not be guiding the lifeboat to Bermuda but towards a German war ship.

It's tough telling a story in a visual medium with only one location but Alfred Hitchcock pulls it off.  

In case you're wondering, in a movie with only 1 location and a restricted cast, how did Hitchcock work in his cameo? There's a newspaper on board the lifeboat and our dear Alfie is pictured in an ad.

Today Lifeboat is seen as a storytelling triumph, a veritable caudron of human drama. What else would one expect putting a group of people from different walks of life in the pressure cooker of very finite space with their very lives on the line.

With World War II still raging when it was released, there was some push back that the film portrayed the German character in a positive light. On one hand, yeah, Willi was an avuncular gentleman who seemed to know what he was doing compared to the squabbling American and Brits. But on the other hand, it is quickly obvious that Willi is up to shit and not to be trusted.

Hitchcock defended his portrayal of the German captain.  "I always respect my villain, building him into a redoubtable character that will make my hero or thesis more admirable in defeating him or it." 

Lifeboat is a powerful character study and a worthy test of Alfred Hitchcock's skills as a director.

Next Saturday, I will post about another Alfred Hitchcock movie. 

Your Friday Video Link: Spider-Pig!

Your Friday Video Link for this week is a scene from The Simpsons Movie where Homer introduces us to Spider-Pig with a catchy little ditty.  

Composer Hans Zimmer translated that catchy little ditty into a choral arrangement that plays over the closing credits of the movie.   

Here is a performance of that choral arrangement by the Dordt College Senior Talent Show - Concert Choir.

I want this performed at my funeral.  

This is not negotiable.  

Dave-El's Book Report: Houses of the Unholy

As is my frequent want here in these posts of Dave-El's Book Report, I will extoll the talents of writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips with their series of graphic novels.  

Brubaker and Phillips have carved a successful niche noir crime novels that are engaging and challenging.

I am almost a broken record about how much I enjoy their output.

But today's post....?

Well...

Houses of the Unholy may well be a rare misstep in the Brubaker/Phillips bibliography.   

Natalie Burns is a young woman leading an aimless life, putting some cash in her pocket as a bounty hunter.  

She encounters FBI Agent West who seeks to draw her into his investigation into a sinister conspiracy involving a satanic cult. He's following a trail of dead bodies which are connected to Natalie. 

They were all people from her childhood and they were all caught up in a twist web of allegations involving satanic activities in their home town. 

Via flashbacks, we explore Natalie's childhood where she and some other kids attending a summer camp got caught up in the hysteria of grown ups who just knew the counselors were into some kind of devil worshipping shit. 

Brubaker is tapping into the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980's where God fearing Americans just knew the Devil himself was literally lurking around every corner waiting to pounce.

There are charges, investigations, arrests and trials to root out the truth of this evil lurking ever so close to their precious children. 

The children are told to tell only the truth of what happened at the camp. 

The children also understand what salicious "truth" their parents want to hear. 

The whole thing blows up when under the cold light of day, there's clearing nothing there.

But not before the head counselor, her reputation destroyed, kills herself.

The guilt and grief over her role in this debacle as a child wrecked Natalie, akways on the move, avoiding connections with people, moving as far away as she can from those terrible days.

But now this FBI agent wants to pull her back in. 

Some of the kids from that time convinced themselves there really was a dark and terrible power in the haunted woods outside their summer camp. 

And as adults, they are determined to gain that power for themselves.

Well, it sounds like we got ourselves a real firecracker of a plot, don't we?

But do we have a story?

 People flit in and out of both the present and past narratives to service the plot but leave little impression. 

Agent West is little more than a plot device to get Natalie Burns into the plot.

About a quarter of the way near the end, we're informed Natalie has a brother who we did not know about before and is needed to help Natalie with the next step of her journey. 

His fatal fate at the hands of the satanic conspirators should've landed harder but hey, we just met the guy.  

I think that perhaps Houses of the Unholy may have been better served by a longer structure of being serialized as a comic book series, allowing more time to invest in the characters. Instead everything is compressed into a single graphic novel. 

The book still has flashes of the brilliance we expect from a Brubaker/Phillips production but I think Houses of the Unholy is not the best representation of their work. 

The next time I do a Book Report post, we will delve into the life and time of one Sir Patrick Stewart.

Val Kilmer

 The wrong people keep dying.

God damn it, now Val Kilmer's dead?

Really?

Dead of pneumonia at age 65.  

Geez! 

Val Kilmer had a long and varied film career, ranging from comedy (Real Genius) to drama (he played Jim Morrison in The Doors).  

Of course I saw him in Batman Forever where he took on the role of the Caped Crusader.  He lacked the sly wit and unhinged intensity of Michael Keaton but I thought he did really well as Bruce Wayne/Batman. 

A very funny and off beat movie Kilmer was in was Top Secret!, a film from the fine folks who gave us Airplane!  Val played Nick Rivers who is a rock star/super spy fighting Nazis. It's basically every Elvis Presley movie distilled to it's most absurdist form. 

Here is a clip where Val gets his Elvis on.

In 2014, Val Kilmer had throat cancer and while he recovered from that, it still left a major impact on his health. 

Kilmer was able to pull it together for a cameo as Iceman in Top Gun Maverick.  

One of Val Kilmer's strangest roles ever was perhaps in this SNL Digital Short with Andy Samberg and Katy Perry in a perky little number about friendship. Kilmer is a mad scientist who wants to be friends too!

The homeless drug addict was Matt Damon.

Anyway, Val Kilmer is dead now and life is just unfair. 

Rest in peace, Val.  

Greenland Is Just Not That Into Us

So last week J D Vance and his wife Usha visited Greenland.

Ostensibly Usha was there to go see a dog sled race. 

J D decided that sounded like fun and decided to go.  

Greenland's government reminded the Vances that no one invited them. 

After some staffers went from door to door to find someone, anyone who wanted a photo op with the Vances and were uninfomly told to fuck off, the couple wound up cooling their heels at the United States Air Force base.  

Where J D Vance decided to engage some charm with a 3 point presentation.

• Greenland sucks!
• It sucks because Denmark who owns Greenland sucks!
• Greenland would not suck if it were part of the United States!

There were some objections to these cogent arguments from Greenland and Denmark. 

• Greenland does NOT suck!
• Denmark does NOT suck! 
• You know who sucks? The United States sucks SO hard!!!

Gee, I wonder why Greenland does not want to be a part of the United States?

And miss being part of all this?

Chaos? Cruelty? What's not to love about the USA right now?

Why wouldn't Greenland want to be a part of this great nation?

Could it be they don't want to lose their 37 hour work week or the nearly 3 dozen days a year of paid time off every one gets or the year long maternity leave or the universal health care or the safety from mass shootings? 

C'mon, Greenland! Join the United States of America and not have any of that! Free from socialism! YAY!!

Why can't Greenland respond to our charm offensive and just give us what we want? 

Why would Greenland have a problem with that? 

Tuesday TV Touchbase: The Joe Schmo Show

Today is April 1st which is April Fool's Day, a day known for pranks and deceptions. So appropriately enough, today's Tuesday TV Touchbase is about a television show centered around an elaborate prank.

One genre of TV that you will not typically find on the Touchbase is so called "reality TV" or "reality competition shows". 

But during that time in the evening when Andrea and I seek to kill our last remaining brain cell with ubiquitous reruns of Big Bang Theory on TBS, it was impossible to avoid promos for a show called The Joe Schmo Show. 

The premise of this series is that a person is selected to compete in a reality TV show, completely unaware that all the other contestants are actors playing archetypes of reality show stars and the show is scripted to center around that person who is not an actor. 

In this case of this season of The Joe Schmo Show, that person was Ben Frisone from Baltimore, Maryland.

This is NOT the first go 'round for The Joe Schmo Show; the series ran for 2 seasons on what was then the Spike TV channel and returned for 1 more season in 2013.  

For this 4th iteration of  The Joe Schmo Show, Ben has been selected to compete in a reality competition series called "The Goat USA", an American version of a show that is very popular in South Korea.  😏

(No, it's not. The whole thing is made up!) 

Ben has to compete in a series of stunts and challenges to win the grand prize of $100,000. 

Ben has no idea he is the only person on the show who is NOT an actor.

The only person other than Ben who is using their real name is the host of "The Goat USA", British TV presenter Cat Deeley. 

In addition to the actors pretending to be competitors, there is also a back room of directors and writers watching everything and making changes on the fly in case Ben doesn't do what they expect him to do.  

Now I will be honest, I did not watch this show but I was intrigued enough by what I knew through my powers as "Media Man"* to want to see how this plays out.

*"Media Man" has the power to described the plots and premises of movies and TV shows he has not seen before. 

So I watched the season finale of a TV show I had not previously watched.  

I was able to pick up the basics of what had gone before pretty quickly.  

"The Goat USA" has an actual goat and Ben is "the goatkeeper" who has formed a bond with the goat.

Speaking of forming bonds, Ben is really close to Maya, the "gamer girl" archetype. In the B-roll  confessional, actor Natasha Mercado who plays Maya seems a bit worried about how Ben is going to react when the scam is revealed. She kind of likes the big lug and it seems he's quite fond of her as well. 

Well, this is gonna be quite awkward, ain't it? 

Of course, the end of competition on "The Goat USA" ends with Ben and Maya as the two finalists.  The other competitors will vote for which of the two will be the final winner by "the festooning of the baubles" on the horns of a giant goat head.

Of course "the festooning of the baubles" ends in a tie which is not allowed. According to the rules, in the case of a tie, the final arbiter of who wins is...  the goatkeeper. 

To quote Ben, "That's some messed up shit!" 

In a big dramatic moment, Ben select Maya as the winner of "The Goat USA"!

Then slowly and carefully, host Cat Deeley begins to raise the curtain for Ben to finally see the truth. 

• There is not a show called "The Goat USA". 
• Ben is actually on a show called The Joe Schmo Show.
• And everyone around him is an actor.
• Yes, even Maya. 

And Ben's reaction is well.... kind of anti-climatic.

Yes, he's gobsmacked by the revelation that this whole thing was a big fake out but he seems to roll with it with a large degree of equanamity.  And perhaps the reveal that "The Goat USA" is a fake is the first thing about "The Goat USA" that really made sense. 

It is a profoundly absurd show and there was a point earlier where Ben wondered if this was some sort of prank on him. The writers had to really scramble to get him away from that line of thinking. 

Ben is a really nice guy and these actors have come to genuinely like him.  So the roll out of the reveals is incremental as the actors tell Ben how much they really like him so please don't kill us.  

It also helps to ease the blow that Ben is going to get $200,000 instead of $100,000.  Yeah, that's more money but still seems anti-climatic. If the producers had found $50,000 more in the budget, then Ben's prize could've been described as a quarter of a million which would've been more dramatic.  

The show ends with a montage that shows Ben and the cast hanging out afterwards.  So yay, they're still friends.

At least for that photo shoot.  

That is that for this week's Touchbase 

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.