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
Monday, 23 February 2009
Thursday, 5 February 2009
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.
Eventually there will be some proper updates here, but we're busy with non-sci-fi related things so it may be some time.
Friday, 2 January 2009
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!
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!
Sunday, 21 December 2008
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 thebratty 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".
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
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".
Saturday, 13 December 2008
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.
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.
Friday, 12 December 2008
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.
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.
Thursday, 11 December 2008
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
