Do Not Adjust Your Bureau

0. Kochk Introduces

Before The Adjustment Bureau, Sky Movies showed a brief "Matt Damon introduces" piece in which Matt Damon came up with something to say about the film. Apart from saying it was fun to make, he suggests we watch Emily Blunt, as her performance is the most important thing in the film. Eventually I will circle back and review his introduction, but since I am the only person[1] in the world who is interested in it first I'll talk about the film. Will there be spoilers? Not if someone adjusts this piece first.

1. Your Destiny Is In The Script

Matt Damon's character, David Norris, is introduced in a montage of his political career, culminating in him losing a race to be Senator for the state of New York due to him playing a prank on his old college buddies. He meets a mysterious woman in the men's toilets which inspires him to go out and give the kind of concession speech (about paying consultants to advise on his wardrobe, focusing on his tie[2] and on the $7300 to advise on the amount of scuffing on his shoes) we all wish politicians would make. No, forget that, he gives the kind of speech they should make before they have to concede.

We skip to Norris' first day at work, and the sinister hat-wearing men of the titular adjustment bureau plan to make him spill his coffee on his shirt[3]. The agent assigned to do it falls asleep, so Norris catches the bus, meets the mysterious woman, gets her name (Elise) and number, then arrives early at work to discover the sinister hat-wearing men have frozen everyone and are busy changing the mind of his boss[4] with a mysterious device. There's some running and chasing[5], with people appearing where they shouldn't and the top floor office door leading into an underground garage where there's a bit of discussion why they can't just wipe his memory or something, and then they explain the premise of the film to him.

The premise is this: that everyone has a destiny and the job of the adjustment bureau is to make sure that chance doesn't take them away from that destiny. Norris and Elise[6] are not destined to be together. They take away and burn the number and threaten him with making him mad if he tries to tell anyone anything.

Because this film is squarely in the mainstream tradition of American cinema, Norris will Not Submit To Authority, especially because he is in True Love. So one man sets out to oppose a mind-and-space-twisting conspiracy of unknown size that can determine the results of your decisions before you make them.

2. True Love Conquers All

As I said, we're right in the middle of Hollywood filmmaking. So the question is not can Norris defeat this conspiracy and be reunited with his love, but instead how will he do it and, more importantly what will it cost him and who will he have to become?

Since he appears to have no life outside work, running for office and chasing the woman of his dreams who he met twice for about ten minutes in total, it seems that all he has to sacrifice is his dull, uninteresting life. Here's where Damon's assertion that the film is all about Blunt comes in. When she appears the film is transformed. Partly that's the filmmaking techniques, partly it's that she's easy on the eye and a good actress, but in part it's the way Damon's performance changes when he's with her. To say that he's dull without her exaggerates the situation, but his character becomes animated, interested, fascinated, and eventually driven. We believe that he will be the man to ride the same bus for three years on the off-chance that he will spot the same woman, and having found her will fight fate to be with her. Blunt's performance is vital to the film, but she's only on screen for half the running time, while Damon is in nearly every scene. We need Blunt's luminous presence, but without Damon's reflection it would be without context. So much for "Matt Damon Introduces".

3. My Destiny is My Own

The destinies of mankind, as it turns out, are set by the Chairman. Who the Chairman is remains a mystery[7]. The reason for the longlived adjustment bureau members taking control of history is eventually explained; twice before they've let human determine their own destiny; once during the Roman Empire, then again in 1910[8]. We humans promptly made a big mess of things.

The exact plan is never made explicit. We assume it is generally good (dark ages bad; WW1 and 2 bad; they change Norris' boss mind from being vaguely against funding the solar energy proposal to vaguely in favour), but most of what we're told is about things we don't see, future things that haven't happened yet and may not happen and from the adjustment bureau itself, an organisation with mysterious powers. Taking them at face value though, it seems that the plan is to make Norris president, and Elise a great dancer and choreographer. This, though, will only happen if they are apart.

A chance meeting between Norris and Elise spirals out of control, with the bureau trying to fix things. Firstly it seems that they will be confirmed off plan if they have a kiss "a proper kiss". An interruption transforms the kiss from a "proper" one into a "goodbye" kiss. Norris is then kept from her dance practice by accidents, traffic lights, a fake policeman[9]. Nevertheless he gets there and goes off plan after seeing her dance.

Thompson, the troubleshooter played by Terrance Stamp, then turns up and tells Norris exactly what the relationship between him and Elise will cost; her dance career. To make the point, she then slips and sprains her ankle. Norris leaves her.

Meanwhile we discover that the reason they are so drawn to each other is that in earlier versions of the plan they were meant to be together. So the reason Norris wants, and is able, to be with her is that they're destined to be with each other. The adjustment bureau is fighting it's own plans. Norris is rejecting one destiny determined by the adjustment bureau in favour of another destiny determined by the bureau.

4. Fight Fate with Fate

For no very good reason bureau member Harry Mitchell (Anthony Mackie) decides to help Norris, explaining the hats (allowing the bureau to use doors as shortcuts) and giving him a chance to interrupt Elise's wedding[10]. On the run, Elise and Norris get into the adjustment bureau headquarters and try to see the Chairman. Then Mitchell reappears and tells them that the Chairman has seen what they've done, they've passed their test, they can make their own destiny now etc. etc.

I found the ending a little weak. Norris and Elise are willing to give up everything for their love, so the Chairman sends someone to say "Fair enough, good luck with that kids." Deus Ex Machina. Roll credits!

5. I Knew You Were Going To Write That

Like the film, I don't really have a conclusion. It's about free will and fate. There are doors that go where they shouldn't. There's a secret behind everyday life. The film has a lot of The Matrix in it's DNA, and that's not a bad thing. The bureau can't tell what's going on when water is about, which may be a metaphor for the way our lives flow and change, but can also be channelled, or it may just have been an excuse to film some gorgeous New York waterfronts and gloomy rainfilled streets. There's some great shots, especially when Norris, on the run, keeps heading through shortcut doors into more and more iconic and outrageous New York situations. Blunt and Damon do a great job of the love-at-first-sight scene, and then carry this through. It's a good film. It raises interesting questions and leaves some of them unanswered. The ending is a bit abrupt. That is all.



[1] Person in this case including the set of fictional internet enabled movie reviewing firearms.
[2] It looks like the kind of tie you'd end up with if you paid a consultant to pick out your wardrobe. It's almost as if there was a professional wardrobe person picking out the clothes in the film.
[3] Forget Galactus or Blofeld, this is the kind of villain I take personally.
[4] Who was his campaign manager and is also the closest thing to a friend Norris seems to have. It looks like it's some kind of investment bank.
[5] There's a lot of that in the film, almost as though they're trying to show that he's trying to outrun his fate.
[6] We don't find out Elise's surname for quite a while.
[7] This being based on a PKD story, then it's aliens, or God, or possibly aliens that are God.
[8] Here's an amusing game; pick two historical dates that spring to mind at random, then assume the adjustment bureau stopped controlling either just before or just after those events. Generally this is nearly as convincing as the dates given. Also, for a depressing game, play it several times.
[9] In a hat.
[10] I'm a sucker for a good interrupted wedding scene. This is not an interrupted wedding scene. Disappointing.

Mannequin: A Film From The 80s.

On Saturday we watched Mannequin. Kim Catrall is an ancient egyptian woman who doesn't want to marry a camel dung dealer so the gods hear her prayers and reincarnate her as a shop dummy 4500 years later. Andrew McCarthy, who made her, saves the life of a store owner who gives him a job. He finds the mannequin, which he considers his finest work of art, and she comes to life. She helps him make brilliant window displays that turn the fortunes of the store around. However she turns back into a mannequin whenever anyone else sees her. The film is quite consistent on this.

The store's rival, the security guard, the corrupt vice president and McCarthy's ex-girlfriend are the antagonists. The climax comes when, furious with jealousy, the ex- steals and tries to destroy the mannequin.

The film features jokes about impotence, veterans with PTSD, animal cruelty and sex with mannequins. It also co-stars a flamboyant homosexual with no visible boyfriend who explicitly states that he sleeps alone in order to prevent him being too transgressive. There is comic violence, women in their underwear and one excellent car stunt. I quite enjoyed it. Suitable for V_.

This music video is associated with the film, and also avoids the necessity of actually seeing it.

Heckler had this to say: "I noticed that the mannequin could speak modern day American as opposed to ancient Egyptian which is questionable. Also I doubt there were redheaded princesses in ancient Egypt but I'll let that go," and also "Also I was so tired I didn't see the end and went to bed."

I note of course that red hair was associated with the ancient Egyptian god Set; although not common red hair was not unknown to the ancient Egyptians.

Superheroes Or Van Full Of Guys?

Previously on Heckler and Kochk we have rated things for our friend V_ who doesn't like gruesomeness, or people being embarrassed or a handful of other things, but those are the main ones. This has spun off into the V_ film classification board which cannot be made public as it would blow your tiny mind, and some of the people on it want more control over their personal information than two fictional sci-fi reviewing firearms can provide.

I reviewed the series premiere of Alphas for it, which I will now reproduce, slightly redacted:

[Recently] I saw the Feature Length Series Premiere of Alphas, a superhero TV show based on the X-Men template, a bit like Heroes. It opens with the team existing, thus avoiding a long boring origin story sequence and allowing us to get straight in with an impossible assassination. The team consists of Bill, an FBI agent who gets very sweaty, and also strong, when under stress; Gary who is Aspergers and can see electromagnetic signals, except Nokia; shy Rachel who can concentrate on one sense at a time allowing the camera to zoom in, or show a special effect to highlight a CLUE; and confident good-looking Maddy who has an actually useful superpower of getting people to do what she says solely through the use of her Hollywood Actress Good Looks. They're led by a hippy psychologist, who likes herbs and vinyl records, but his "hey, can't we all get along" exterior hides a spine of steel; after all we're set in New York, the Super Hero Mecca, rather than California.

The episode involves chasing an assassin, de-brainwashing him, recruiting him to the team (he has super gymnastics, but has a mental block which ruined his baseball career), chasing the brainwasher and discovering that when you chase a brainwasher people who come in contact with him get brainwashed. The team is kind of amateur, which Bill the FBI agent complains about, and their powers are low key enough that they can't just solve problems and be back to the donut shop by the first ad break. There's plenty of inter-team conflict, conflict between the professor and the FBI agent who sponsors the team and can't bring himself to say anything clearly ("Talking with you is like a Beckett play" "I don't know what that is"), and some kind of opposition called "Red Flag". If I can be bothered to care about the characters, and they don't degenerate into soap opera, then it could be quite good.

It contains a couple of shootings, a stabbing and a man falling to his death, none of which are gory, but also some creepy scenes where people have been mind controlled and one of them kills themselves in a nasty way. Other than that one scene I would declare this Suitable for V_ (SfV).

This lead me to thinking which of these characters and their superpowers could be replaced by a van full of specialists and equipment? In the commentary I went on to say:

We could replace Bill's super-strength-when-under-​stress with five ex-army guys and a a van with winch, bolt cutters, battering ram, riot gear etc. We could replace Gary's EM stuff with a 8 guys and a van filled with $1M of ex-soviet electronic warfare equipment[Ed: In Joke]. We can replace Rachel with a CSI van and lab, so a 5 person team. So far 3 of our superpowered guys could each be replaced with a small team and a van of equipment, which would also give the team more depth and numbers.

and

Hicks superkinethesisiesies [sic] is more problematic. In theory everything he does could be done by, say, the team that replaces Bill, but since he is the equivalent of an Olympic athlete in several disciplines, they would have to be really, really good ex-army guys.

and

Finally Maddy would need to be replaced by Derren Brown backed by a multi-million dollar ad-agency and even that wouldn't be as reliable and swift. I salute you, one superpower whose effects can't be reproduced by a team of guys in a van! It's also the superpower most likely to break the plot.

This is now my benchmark for low-powered superheroes. If their effects can be reproduced by a bunch of guys (by which I mean highly trained specialists; let's assume we have the hiring power and resources of a multi-million pound company) in a van, then you are officially low-powered on the Kochk Superpower scale. I should note that I consider this a good thing for storytelling purposes.

The most obvious one would be Batman; if we had a van with a world-class detective, a martial artist of the Martin Riggs or Chan Ka-Kui schools, an engineer to build, maintain and operate the equipment and a billionaire mastermind to fund and direct the team, we could recreate Batman on a gross level. On the other end of the scale, Superman would be impossible to recreate, no matter how many vans we had (although this wouldn't stop Lex Luthor pushing ahead with his Vanpocolypse).

Life Imitates Art

Action-adventure heist series Leverage has been introduced to movie nights (which seem to be running at about 5 a year at the moment). On Maundy Thursday we watched the episode The Snow Job, in which at one point the bad guys move money from one account to another. This goes all wrong for them and their accounts end up frozen. So sad.

However, earlier that day Heckler had tried to move some money from one account to another. This didn't go to plan, and it ended up with him being unable to withdraw any money the next day (which, like the following Monday was a bank holiday, leaving him having to borrow money from Beretta for the weekend).

Clearly, if this continues it would become a problem. As such I will be checking if any of the following activity/episode pairings are likely to arise:

Air travel - The Mile High Job

Court appearances (Heckler's speciality) - The Juror #6 Job

Church attendance - The Miracle Job

Heckler visits the bank to try and get his money back - The Bank Shot Job

Conversation of the Movie Night

Heckler: He fired 7 shots.

Kochk: He might have non-standard revolver, such as a LeMat.

Heckler: Ah, the LeMat.

Kochk: If I recall correctly it has a 9 round cylinder and an extra barrel which you can load with a round of your choice.

Heckler: Mine would be cheese.

Kochk: Usually it's a shotgun round... Would that be an actual cheese bullet...

Heckler: Of course it would.

Kochk: ...because if you were just storing it there, you'd need a long spoon...

Heckler: I'd shoot him and he'd go "Ah! What's this on my chest? It's cheese!"

Kochk: That would definitely need to be hand loaded. Oh wait, you don't like cheese.

Heckler: No.

[Kochk wonders whether to mention the three big handfuls of cheese in the fish pie they'd been scoffing down, but decides to leave it and instead stick it on the internet]

LeMat: [Says nothing]

Barbarella Blogging

I would have thought that I'd have noticed the video to the 1994 Kylie song Put Yourself In My Place as it recreates the famous opening scene of Barbarella. Apparently I missed it at the time as it was considered "too raunchy"[1]. Well blimey. We can't show that kind of thing here, can we?

(Link as embedding lowers quality)

You know, I would have thought that one of the advantages of travelling in deep space would be that you could strip off without having men in spacesuits perving at you through the window.

[1] Source, musicman278 who put the video up on youtube.

Family-Surgery-Revenge-Tragedy-Drug-Rock Opera

If I were thinking of exploring themes such as elective and non-elective surgery, rampant capitalism, the relationship of media to both, drugs, grave-robbing, and scantily clad females I might well come up with the idea of a near-ish future SF story. It would likely involve organ failure diseases which can only be cured with genetically engineered organs. These could be bought from the company which created them, but if you fail to keep up on the payments, they can be legally, bloodily and fatally repossessed. It's quite likely I'd come up with some sort family story, with many secrets from the previous generation winding around the main story. Having got this far, I'd quite likely go down the Revenge Tragedy route[1], as there's already lots of cutting and a family with conflicts. And I might even decide to make it a musical. Of course after all that I'd sober up and realise that the idea is silly for many reasons, the most important one being that to get anywhere near pulling it off I'd have to be unspeakably talented.

The people behind Repo! The Genetic Opera are unspeakably talented.

I'm not going to talk about the story (if you want more than I've hinted at above you could try here) but about the spectacle and the songs and a little about the cast. It looks fantastic. Apparently it was done on a small budget of both money and time, so maybe the slightly shabby dark-grunge-goth look isn't just about creating a Bladerunneresque atmosphere for the film, but is because shadows hide flaws in the set. Still, if it works both ways, that's a bonus.

The back story is framed with cartoon interludes, drawn by co-writer, co-composer and actor Terence Zdunich[2], which painlessly fill us in on needed information while adding to the atmosphere. On the other hand, I think they draw us out of the fiction. This isn't as much of a problem as it might be in another film as we also have some of the slightly unfamiliar conventions of opera doing the same - so for example, every character about to die gets a song about their regrets.

My usual problem with musicals is that if a song contains an important story or plot point, I don't always get it as I miss the lyrics the first time around. One way around this is to repeat the important bits in the song half a dozen times, in which case I tend to hear it the first time and then sit around waiting for the song to finish so that something will happen rather than them keep singing about whatever it is they're doing. Repo! is mostly successful in avoiding these problems by 1. stating clearly the important points in songs; 2. repeating then extending each point; and 3. making sure the action on screen is as interesting as the plot points in the song. As an example, here is the aforementioned Zdunich as the dual narrator/character Graverobber explaining the use of the drug Zydrate to Shilo (Alexa Vega) followed by the arrival of Amber Sweet (Paris Hilton previously appearing in a Heckler and Kochk review here) to re-iterate the use of the drug and tell us something about Blind Mag (Sarah Brightman) in the song Zydrate Anatomy.


And I tell you this now; if you liked that clip, you'll like the film. If it's too much; too loud, too blatant, too bloody, too sexualised, too grungy, too much going on; then you probably won't like it as there's more than that in some scenes. In addition, as with most musicals it stands or falls on it's songs so if you're on the fence check the soundtrack on youtube or favourite music provider.

There's one final pleasure in the film, and it's Anthony Stewart Head. His dual role is revealed fairly early on, but look away now and come back for the next paragraph if you don't want it spoiled. Okay? Anyway, he's brilliant as the Repo-man, the surgeon/butcher/serial-killer who repossesses organs from those who fail to keep up payments and he can sing well enough to keep up with Sarah Brightman (who, so far as I can tell, isn't holding back).

Anyway my final verdict: it's a little rough around the edges, and the default choice is excess (more blood, more volume, more goth, more sex, more grotesquery) when a little moderation might have done better. But it adds up to a satisfying whole (even if we can see the stitches). I intend to try and introduce this to movie night as soon as possible.

The V_ classification board rates the film as gruesome.

[1] I'd probably write it in blank verse at the rate of about 4 lines a day, so would take me about 5 years to write the first draft. Fortunately this is all a hypothetical.
[2] Have I used the phrase "unspeakably talented" yet in this review?

Attending A Showing Of The Moving Picture Watchmen

So in brief, Watchmen is fine as a film, but probably unnecessary. Let me unpack that a bit for anyone who wants to know more than a one sentence summary.

The film takes as many scenes and sequences as it rationally could from the comic[1], but, more impressively, puts forward many of the messages and themes explored in it. So we have the essential impotence of superheroes[2]; that to fight evil, we must commit evil; that those with power must be held responsible. But while we get these, most of the plot, action and soundtrack is turned up to 11 distracting us from it's message. I will demonstrate my thesis in as vivid a way as possible, by using as my example Doctor Manhattan's penis.

Once you have an 18 certificate and a naked man wandering around, it makes sense that it appears on screen. Once we got over it's more unusual attributes (it's blue! it glows!) Heckler pointed out that it's larger than in the comic. We checked when we got back and, by golly, it is.

Now the penis is CGI[3] so it's size is at the whim of the director. We might consider the scenario in which Crudup asks Snyder to endow him more generously and Snyder says "Alter a single part of the Greatest Comic Book Film adaption ever made, my Magnum Opus based on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's Magna Magnum Opus that I wish to alter for the screen as little as possible, because you feel inadequate? Well okay". We might consider the change just crept in from one or other sketch or storyboard picture. But more likely this decision was deliberately made by the creative team. So why?

Doc Manhattan is a force of nature as much as a character, with no limitations other than his own conscience and authorial fiat. Yet ultimately he is as ruled by fate, destiny and the impersonal forces of history as the rest of us, if not more so as he can see through the illusion of free will. Yes it's potence and impotence again; Doc Manhattan doesn't need a big penis as he has all the power in the universe; his small penis represents his powerlessness[4].

In the film, we get the lack of power, but it's overwhelmed by the sheer kinetic action of the characters; we get the time and period cues, but the music plays at full volume even when a song in the background would make the point better; and in Zack Snyder's book, there's no action sequence that can't be improved by slow motion. And that, in my opinion is why the penis is bigger; because bigger, louder, more violent, more in-your-face is the default choice.

As I said, it's good. But you don't need to see it if you've read the book, or if you've watched The Dark Knight which covers much of the same ground. If you want to see it, with everything turned up to 11, you'll probably enjoy it. So there you have it. Thanks to my talking about penises a lot I've managed to review the film without resorting to any stupid lines like "Who watched the Watchmen? We did!"

Oh, toss.

[1] Which is not to say that they haven't been altered to make them properly cinematic. Snyder and his team don't seem to have lost sight of the most important thing; making what appears on the screen work as a film.
[2] A colleague felt the sex scene was completely gratuitous; well yes. But, as it turns out, that's what the gaudily costumed masked adventurers are; gratuitous, unneeded, mere decoration. Their potence turns out to be completely powerless before the forces of history.
[3] No, it's not motion capture. Although Billy Crudup's performance was indeed motion capture, he wasn't walking around in a skin-tight-around-the-parts suit, but a crazy futuristic blue LED covered suit with a standard crutch (assuming that docu-ad I caught the last 15 minutes of wasn't lying to me). The performance is motion capture; the penis isn't.
[4] Or maybe it's easier and less embarrassing to draw, I don't know.

What I Learnt From Battlestar Galactica

Everyone else in the BSG-watching blogosphere has had their say; now it's time to find out what I learnt from watching the remake of the classic 70s space opera TV show.

- The new Battlestar Galactica is a long, high quality drama exploring themes of interest to both the general public and to science fiction fans. It combines soap opera style storylines with spaceships shooting at each other, while contemplating the meaning of being human, and the nature of god. No, seriously.

- Building artificially intelligent robots is a bad idea, especially if you treat them like slaves. They will inevitably rise up and try to destroy you.

- God is not keen on the whole destruction thing.

- Or maybe God is okay with the creation, destruction re-creation cycle. I'm not sure. The theology was left a bit fuzzy.

- Which is the way I like it.

- Frak is used as an exact synonym for a common but vulgar English obscenity, but for some reason is more acceptable on TV.

- You should never get drunk and nearly be seduced by your brother's girlfriend.

- It all happened a long time ago[1] in a galaxy far far away[2].

- On third thoughts, God isn't into the creation/destruction cycle, but only does the bare minimum to hint what need to do to stop it, as it's our decision at the end of the day.

- The bare minimum including prophetic visions and dreams, bringing people back from the dead and encoding clues in a child's DNA.

- Bob Dylan is God.

I know for sure that Heckler learnt at least one more thing, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for him to reveal it here.

[1] 150,000 years
[2] 1,000,000 light years

A Heckler and Kochk Shopping List

After attending a early evening showing of Watchmen last Saturday, Heckler and I called in at a local supermarket to purchase essential supplies for continuing a movie watching evening. The full list was:

12 x Lagers
3 x Real Ales
1 x DVD of Snakes on a Plane
1 x Bottle of Margarita mix
8 x Fab Ice Lollies

Our watchlist for the rest of the evening was Beowulf and Zombie Strippers; all three films deserve reviews for differing reasons. I will endeavour to provide such in the near future.

We Join The Battlestar Galactica Debate By Asking The Only Important Question

So, is the new Battlestar Galactica simply a very long science-fictional exploration and analysis of the themes in the Bob Dylan classic All Along The Watchtower?

I don't have a problem with that actually. Firstly that lets me figure out what happened in the 70% or so of the episodes I've not seen. And secondly, that should give us a nicely ambiguous ending; nice for me because I like ambiguity* and nice for the studio because it leaves room for inferior and exploitative spin-off movies.

But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.

Tomorrow I'll recycle most of this post by looking at the musical themes explored in Watchmen.

All Along The Watchtower links: Hendrix; Dave Matthews Band; Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young; Paul Weller; Bryan Ferry; U2 (sorry Heckler); Dylan himself; and, of course, Bear McCready's BSG version.

* Or do I?

Steampunk Detective Comics

Warren Ellis released another one-off tale from his Apparat comic line[1] last year, a steampunk detective tale called Aetheric Mechanics. in 1907 Doctor Watcham returns to London from the Ruritanian war to join his friend Sax Raker, London's Greatest Amateur Detective solve the most puzzling mystery of his career - the Case of the Man Who Wasn't There. Some of this may sound familiar and there's a reason for it. As the climax reveals, this is a mainstream science fiction story as much as a steampunk tale and all the better for it.

Highly recommended. This is a 48 page self-contained story - again part of Ellis' attempts to create and test alternative formats to the 22/24 page monthly title that is standard in comics.

This year there is a Hugo award for Graphic Story; if you're eligible to nominate I suggest you get down to your local comicbook store and read this as it is the strongest example of science fiction sequential art published in 2008 that I am aware of.

[1] Previously mentioned here - briefly, comics as they might have been if they weren't completely taken over by the superhero subgenre at some point in the past

Hiat? Us?

Um.. nothing's going on here at the moment. If you're looking for some bad sci-fi, you could do worse than to, ahem, pop over here where a close associate of mine has assembled 10 Science Fiction Music Videos.

Eventually there will be some proper updates here, but we're busy with non-sci-fi related things so it may be some time.

Heckler And Kochk 2009 AD

Some of the Heckler and Kochk irregulars were together at New Year, although at least we managed to get out to the pub rather than sit around watching movies. Thanks to this we have our New Year messages for this site already and it's only the 2nd of January! That's what I call "organisation".

Firstly LeMatt says "May the New Year hold many sh*tty movies for us," a sentiment we can all agree with.

Beretta says "No Patrick Swayze night, no Kevin Bacon night." Noooooo! I guess we'll just have to watch them when she's not there. Nothing more manly than a group of guys getting together to watch Dirty Dancing and Ghost.

Heckler has welcomed in the New Year with a drawing which I'm hesitating to post. It is captioned however "Indiana Jones and the Backpack of Booze".

I don't have a New year message, except to say that I'm going to try to be more regular, more frequent and better, or at least more interesting, at reviewing things, and I'm going to fail, probably at all of them, although hopefully not all at the same time. This has been Heckler and Kochk reporting from 2008; Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!

The Father Of All Christmas Movie Nights

On Friday we had our Special Christmas Movie Night and I've finally got the will power together to write about it. Three children's films about Santa Claus: Miracle on 34th Street, Santa Claus the Movie and The Santa Clause.

Miracle On 34th Street (1994, Dir: Les Mayfield) is a remake of a 1947 film of the same name, and stars Richard Attenborough as Kris Kringle, a white haired man who replaces a drunk Santa Claus and goes on to be the best Cole's store Santa ever. There's a little girl who is the daughter of the marketing manager of the sore who doesn't believe in Santa, so they try the experimental method: she asks Kringle for a father, a house and a brother. Meanwhile the evil store across the road uses every means, both fair and foul... actually, they just use foul means, which is probably why they're the evil store. Frankly, the boss of the evil store ("Shopper's Express") doesn't seem to have a very good handle on marketing, or even on how capitalism works. He seems more interested in destroying his competitors than, say, making money. Meanwhile, after Kringle advises a customer that they can get a certain toy cheaper elsewhere and they swear undying loyalty to Cole's, Cole's come up with a compromise: If they don't have it, they'll track it down for you. It's a great bit of PR, and the best part is, they didn't have it, so they wouldn't have sold it anyway.

Still, enough economics. Let's get to the heart of this film: the court case. Heckler, who has some experience of being in court, was surprised by the events in the courtroom, and most importantly by the fact the court was sitting a all on Christmas Eve; in this country judges are too work-shy to hold court on Christmas Eve (exception: to my knowledge magistrates will hold hearings to determine bail). There's much amusing evidence (a reindeer as a witness; the prosecutor's son identifies Kringle as Santa Claus etc.) Eventually the little girl bribes the judge with a $1 bill, which happens to have "In God We Trust" circled on it, and he makes this the slightly incoherent precedent for ruling that Santa Claus exists, and also exists in the person of Kringle.

Anyway, kid's film based on a 1947 film. I've not seen either film before, but after about 10 minutes I started describing the changes each character would go through until Beretta told me to stop. But the predictability is part of it's charm, and despite everyone getting their Christmas wishes at the end, and a court ruling to that effect, the question over whether Santa Claus exists or if he just exists as the Spirit of Christmas in all of us is left open-ish. 8/10 Humbugs (That's good by the way).

No such ambiguity in Santa Claus The Movie (1985, Dir: Jeannot Szwarc); we begin with the Santa Claus origin story. A big jolly bearded guy called Claus who likes giving gifts to kids on Christmas Eve finds that he's been prophesied to become a big jolly bearded guy who gives gifts to all the kids on Christmas Eve, only some elves will make the toys and look after the reindeer and stuff[1]. All goes well until the 20th century when an elf called Patch (Dudley Moore) tries to automate the toymaking. All the toys fall apart and the bratty kids unfortunate children all burst into tears. Patch leaves and decides to make a toy so good that Santa Claus will have faith in him again. He falls in with an evil toymaker[2], who, by coincidence, is the uncle of our female child lead, the only friend of our male child lead, a streetkid who has been befriended by Santa Claus.

Of course the evil toymaker makes Patch's toys explosive, but eventually good triumphs and evil is punished and Christmas is safeguarded forever hooray! Anyway, pleasant enough, but I saw it back when I was 12? 13? something like that and felt it was for younger kids. 4/10 Humbugs (disappointing)

Finally The Santa Clause (note final "e") (1994 Dir:John Pasquin). I'll note that I voted for some Muppet Christmas nonsense before every film, but no, Heckler had to keep on with the theme. Tim Allen is giving his son a rubbish Christmas, when he scares Santa Claus, who falls of his roof and dies. Allen fails to read the smallprint, gets into the sleigh, dresses in the clothes travels to the North Pole, delivers all the gifts etc. etc. His son loves this. His ex-wife thinks he's going crazy and has Allen's visitation rights terminated[3]. Allen grows a beard and gets fat. Eventually he convinces even his ex-wife and her new partner, a psychiatrist, he is Santa Claus by giving them the gifts they didn't get when they were children the Christmas they stopped believing (The Dating Game board game and an Oscar Meyer wiener-whistle). Frankly, why is this the film that spawned two sequels? Heckler suggested we watch the sequel (it was what, 1 in the morning by then?). I said if we do, we have to watch Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause immediately afterward. He folded. 3/10 Humbugs (Bah!)

Anyway, we've fulfilled our contractual requirement to have a Christmas special, and that's the important thing. Best part: Mulled Cider (If I say so myself). Luckiest viewer: Beretta who saw half of Miracle and about a quarter each of Claus and Clause as she fell asleep, poor thing; I suspect that that was a much more interesting film, albeit a less coherent one, than any of the films we saw. She was unamused to wake up with the Santa Claus beard and hat on.

Have we learned anything from these films? Firstly, you can have too many Santa Claus/Spirit of Christmas films in one evening. Secondly, you shoudn't call elves elves, instead "the little people" is the correct term[4]. And finally, that the ony place Christmas occurs is New York City and it's surroundings, the North Pole and cold and snowy historical Scandogermany.

[1] As opposed to the actual origin story, which is slightly more interesting.
[2] We see before the senate subcommittee on toy standards, a toy panda stuffed with sawdust, nails and broken glass.
[3] "What sort of Mickey Mouse court is this?" asked Heckler. It's a Disney movie.
[4] I disagree; I understand the preference is for "The Fair Folk"; "The Little People" is to avoid confusion that arises using the term "Fairies".

Review From The Past: The Secret Service

(Parts of this borrowed from a very close friend of mine who remains pseudonymous)

In the 1969 series The Secret Service, Father Stanley Unwin is a middle-aged Model-T driving priest who moonlights as a spy, or more specifically a counter-spy stopping various foreigners and criminals from doing bad stuff to British commercial interests. This Gerry Anderson series mixed puppets and live action.

So the usual things to happen are; Father Stanley Unwin's first response is to shrink Matthew, he uses Stanley Unwinese (a made up language demonstrated in this scene from a Carry On film) to get out of difficult situations, his Model T Ford, Gabriel drives across Westminster bridge and B.I.S.H.O.P (British Intelligence Service Headquarters Operation Priest) gives them an unlikely task.

As an example, I've put together some sort of review for my notes for the episode School For Spies. In this episode, foreigners have created a school which trains spies to blend into English society by pretending to be priests, but rather than answering to BISHOP, they're lead by the evil Archdeacon. One of them gives themselves away by preferring pop music to hymns. As is often the case, Father Unwin smuggles Matthew into the bad guys headquarters in his briefcase, but they fail to check his luggage. Trailer

For some reason this wasn't picked up for a second series, which left Gerry Anderson free for his next project UFO.

Reviews From The Past: Star Maidens

I note in this post Heckler promises that reviews will follow. But they haven't. Clearly it's time to deal with that.

He says "Star Maidens - a 1970s social commentary on sexism "

Well I suppose so. It's a 1976 Anglo-German sci-fi series in which two men from the planet Medusa, which is ruled by women in glitter, mini-skirts, sequins and outfits with holes cut in them, escape to Earth. During one of the efforts to recapture them, an Earthman and Earthwoman from the Institute of Radio Astronomy[1] end up on Medusa.


Essentially neither side can believe that the society of the other works; partly this is because Medusa is completely crazy, and partly because it's Earth in the 70s. Frankly most of the episodes were overlong, incoherent and full of predictable cliches and table-turning "You didn't act like a man at all - you showed courage and... I almost felt like an equal down there." "Thank you Octavia." "Get that man back to some useful work."

We watched this so you don't have to. If you like camp, dated, silly shows from the 70s, go ahead - the episode where some radical feminists on Earth get hold of Medusan gun and attempt to stage some sort of revolution, while 2 Medusans are trying out Earth lifestyles is especially recommended. Otherwise you can probably get by perusing this site which gets bonus points for daring to ask this question about the show "Wasn't it a bit... well, pervy?"[2]

[1] With the unfortunate acronym IRA. I can imagine their call to the Ministry when they detect the approaching spacecraft. "Hello? This is the IRA. We have an urgent warning for you..."
[2] Damn it, forgot to mention the "Perving scene" in Alien Apocalypse.

The Secret Origin Of Heckler And Kochk

Like all superheroes movie review bloggers, Heckler and Kochk have an origin story. Sadly it isn't that local news outlets, hearing of our wit, charm, and encyclopedic knowledge of the last 100 years of film, drove a truck full of money up to the entrance to our movie-lair[1] and begged us to send them the least of our thoughts on sci-fi and whatever else came to mind in receipt of which they would toss bundles of banknotes in our direction. Until now the true story has remained a mystery but now I can reveal it.

It was, unless I'm very much mistaken, Thursday 10 April this year. According to my notes we dined on Chinese take-away and pink fizzy wine. We watched two episodes of Star Maidens, the film Slither, three episodes of the Secret Service and one of Buck Rogers (the 30s version).

Frankly, looking at that list, I'm surprised we came out alive, let alone formed a blogging partnership. We may have been celebrating as we had finally finished both the Secret Service and Star Maidens that night, and decided to recount our experiences for others so they wouldn't have to sit through them. Hence: We Watch Bad Sci-Fi So You Don't Have To.

As for Heckler and Kochk, we took those names in honour of the Wheelsey Police Department, who, when confronted with the fact that Grant Grant has turned into an invincible squid beast who mutilates cattle, open up their gun locker to reveal a whole set of mismatched guns rather than the rack of identical weapons we're taught to expect. Our attempts to identify them included the "other" H&K and someone blurted out "Heckler and Kochk - We Watch Bad Sci-Fi So You Don't Have To."

We spell Kochk differently to avoid search engine results for people looking for gun who can spell, and also because it amuses Heckler. He likes knob jokes.

Heckler tells the story differently, but he's wrong, or at least wronger than me.

[1] Heckler's flat. I note that it is a basement flat, or secret bunker as Heckler prefers to call it.

Review From The Dawn Of Time: Slither

For a variety of reasons I was looking at my notes and discovered the reviews of the things we watched the very night we decided to name ourselves Heckler and Kochk! As might be expected they're almost incomprehensible, firstly because it was dark when I made them, but also because we'd been drinking pink fizzy wine[1]. Nevertheless, let's take a look at our work from the very dawn of H&K.

Our main feature was Slither [2](2006, Dir: James Gunn) starring Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Desperate Housewives, Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog), a comedy/horror/sci-fi monster movie. Here are my notes, as I can best make them out

Asteroid or Meteor?
I've been to karaoke nights like that.
I honestly don't believe V__ was wearing a skirt that short[3]

At this point the picture appears in my notes.

"I'm surprised you're able to lift a mug, you've been carrying that torch for so long."[4]
Nice Bra - She's a bit ropy looking.
She's getting a horrible thing in her belly-button
Huh huh breasts huh
If only D__ would stop running his life like a 30s serial villain.[5]
Heckler and Kochk gun
Subtly knob-shaped mountain[6]
The Curling Tongs! Yes! That's the last thing it's be expecting!
It's like watching a film with a small child or possibly a giant penis on legs[7]
"Well that is some fucked up shit."
She's hidden those scissors in her pants!
He's merely full of alien semen.

Anyway, the plot. An alien arrives in some rural American town and takes over Grant Grant. Grant then impregnates a local woman with his tentacles, and she gives birth to lots of alien slugs who take over the townsfolk turning them into zombies. There's also a love triangle as Bill Pardy (Fillion) is in love with Starla Grant, Grant's wife, and despite being an alien, Grant is still in love with Starla.

But is it really the plot we're looking for in this type of film? And is it comedy-horror or horror-comedy? The trailer can't seem to decide either.

All this is beside the point of how and why we named ourselves Heckler and Kochk, although I've subtly hinted at the exact moment, but I'll answer that question another time.


Anyway the important things: The V__ film classification board has rated this film as "Gruesome". enjoyed it a lot; in general I'm bored by horror films about 45 minutes in, but this one entertained me. However Heckler disagreed, and, as in my notes, here he gets the last word: "I'm not impressed by that film for this reason: it seemed neither a horror nor a comedy film."


[1] It's the manly thing to do!
[2] Not to be confused with Slither (1973 Dir: Howard Zieff) a comedy-crime-thriller starring James Caan, or for that matter Sliver (1993 Dir: Phillip Noyce) a silly thriller about voyeurism and surveillance starring Sharon Stone and William Baldwin.
[3] This was some byplay involving Star Trek figures recreating a scene from a night out.
[4] Corrected to conform with the IMDb quotes page.
[5] I'm not sure if this was byplay or our occasional "joke" in which we identify a character in the film with a friend.
[6] This is a reference to a Tank Girl script in the back of the Tank Girl Novel Armadillo.
[7] Why we chose "We watch bad sci-fi so you don't have to" as our subtitle over "It's like watching a film with a small child or possibly a giant penis on legs" I don't know.

The Day The Earth Stood Still: One More Time

Remakes are generally bad. Worse still, from the Point of View of Heckler and Kochk, are remakes that are bland; versions of films that are not only less interesting than earlier versions, but give us nothing to stick the stilettos of our wit into.

The Day The Earth Stood Still is released on 12 December 2008. For some reason we have not been invited to any previews. Regardless, we endorse the Crotchety Old Fan's The Day The Earth Stood Still To Watch The Original Movie on 10th December. How can you compare remake and original if you haven't seen them both?

(I note that there is some good stuff in the trailer, but it being an explicit remake means that 1. it must be compared to the original and 2. it must explain why Gort, a robot, is wearing underpants. These are the rules; I don't make them, I just enforce them.)