Recent Viewings

Wonderfalls is another of those clever, quirky shows that the Fox network inexplicably greenlighted and produced just so that they could have the sadistic thrill of murdering it in its crib. In this case, the geniuses at Fox Central Headquarters cancelled it after showing a mere four episodes, out of order, in constantly-changing timeslots. Presumably this was so that they could devote its broadcast time to airing yet more episodes of Who Wants To Marry A Transexual Billionaire Who Has Sex With His Daughter's Pet Hermit Crab On Temptation Island While Eating Live Cockroaches, or some such quality entertainment.

Jaye, a cynically disenchanted slacker with an Ivy League degree in philosophy, works in a tacky gift shop in Niagara Falls and lives in a trailer park, much to the dismay of her high-strung, overachieving family. One day, to her great shock and dismay, she begins hearing voices. Animal figurines in the store, cartoon drawings on the television or on the sides of packing boxes, stuffed animals, start inexplicably giving her cryptic commands which inevitably prove prophetic, although maddeningly vague in their use of pronouns.

Since Jaye's a confirmed skeptic about matters of religion, this is quite unnerving. "Are you God? Are you the devil?" she asks. She doesn't get an answer. Only more cryptic, vague, prophetic commands, which inevitably alter either her life or the lives of the people around her, whether or not she obeys them. I found myself wondering whether Jaye's name was meant to be an oblique allusion tothat other young lady who heard voices, Joan of Arc, or possibly to Job, whose life was turned topsy-turvy for inexplicable Godly reasons.

Similar tropes have been used in other programs, such as Joan of Arcadia, which Fiend has discussed elsewhere. I haven't seen those shows and can't comment. But Wonderfalls is definitely worth checking out. The show's jaunty but unsettling theme song sets the tone for the characters and the plot. It's by turns satirical, romantic, dramatic, and deeply weird. And always funny.

I would have loved to see how later episodes would have developed the story further, but I am glad that at least the first year's worth of episodes were issued on DVD rather than being buried forever in the dungeons of the Evil Empire. Or would that be the Stupid Satrapy? The Dumb Domain?


Xanadu. Okay, okay. This one's definitely a guilty pleasure. The leading actor seems to be barely capable of reading his lines, let alone acting, and the dialogue among the secondary characters is so head-thumpingly awful that it makes After School Specials look like Oscar material. Most of the dance sequences and the "glamorous" costumes worn by the dancers are howlingly tacky. The plot... well, let's just say it involves an errant muse, a Sensitive Artist, and roller disco. 'Nuff said?

And yet there is a kind of pleasure to be found here. A few of the dance sequences, especially one nostalgic number involving an aging but still amazingly graceful Gene Kelly, do have a kind of surreal magic to them. Some of the visuals, like the strange, Art-Deco exterior of the abandoned theater, have a kind of otherworldly look about them. And I'll admit that there's a sentimental and self-indulgent side of me that likes the idea of a Sensitive Artist-Type Guy being inspired by a supernaturally beautiful and mysterious muse from far, far away.


Death Race 2000. This one I consciously rented as a Bad Movie. I had seen it once, years before, and remembered it as being the kind of movie that one laughs at, rather than with. The kind that you watch with friends so that you can gleefully mock its ineptitude and bad taste. After all, how much more ludicrously awful can you get than a movie about a cross-country road race in which the drivers get points for running over pedestrians? ("It's Euthanasia Day at the Geriatric Ward!")

Amazingly, it's even worse than I remembered. (And hence, in some ways, better). Nine-tenths of the movie is hilariously low-budget and cheesy, like the race-starting scene, in which the "futuristic" city in the background looks like a painted backdrop from a high school play. And just when you think the scenery can't possibly get any less convincing, a glowing-green smear that's apparently supposed to represent a monorail train goes gliding across it. The titleboard at the beginning of the movie literally looks like someone drew it with a magic marker. The only things in the movie that seem to have had any serious effort expended on them are the racecars, which are glossy, shimmering, ridiculous stereotypes sculpted in fiberglass. The Mafia-themed car has machine guns pointing out of its grille. The cowgirl-themed car has big, shiny, sharpened cow-horns mounted on the hood. The Nazi-themed car, driven by "Matilda the Hun", has a V1-style rocket engine mounted on top. And so forth.

It's also absurdly violent, even by modern standards. There were several scenes that actually made me & the other folks watching it wince, while the laughter literally died away to guilty, shocked silence. But for the most part the violence is so outlandishly cartoonish -- literally stealing a gag from Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner in one case -- that one can't help but laugh, guilty feeling or not.

David Carradine, as "Frankenstein", the nearest thing to a hero in sight, spends most of the movie wearing a squeaky black latex-and-leather outfit and squinting and sneering through an S&M-style mask. (You see, he's a repeat competitor who lost various body parts along the way. "He lost a leg in '98, an arm in '99 ... With half a face and half a chest, and all the guts in the world, he's back!" Or so the official story goes.)

Sylvester Stallone goes way, way over the top in portraying the worst of the racers, a stereotypical Tommy-gun-toting gangster. The rest of the cast suicidally follows him right over the top like so many thespian troopers maniacally charging into the qualitative equivalent of a B-52 carpet-bombing.

There are, of course, the usual 1970s Z-movie gratuitous nude-scenes and frightening amounts of blue eyeshadow.

The movie actually does have a few moments of effective satire on blustering politicians and inane television broadcasters. Watch for the fascist Mr. President's rant about the "treacherous French."

"It is no coincidence, my dear children, that the word sabotage was invented by the French...."

Prescient, no? There's also a touchingly creepy Frankenstein Fan Club, whose president is a dead-on parody of the kind of zealous fan who claims to understand her idol's "inner pain" by consulting "dreams, and letters from other fan club members". And you don't feel guilty at all when a certain annoying hipster finally gets what he has, literally, asked for.

On the whole, it's prime MST3K fodder. Enjoy. If you don't mind the sight of guys being speared through the crotch by giant knives bolted to cars, that is.


Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. A very atypical outing for both Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett. What are we, really? Do we get to choose what we want to be? Pick and choose those parts of our past that we want to acknowledge, and eliminate the rest? If we could do so, would it be wise?

A thought-provoking movie that I'd discuss further if I weren't about to fall asleep at 3:30 in the morning.

The books, I think, will have to wait until later.