Star Trek: Spectre of the Gun

Episode: "Spectre of the Gun"
Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 3, Episode 6
Original Air Date: October 25, 1968

via Memory Alpha

Most of the American television audience wasn't quite ready for Star Trek in the late 1960s.   Westerns, on the other hand, were huge.  Two of the great small screen leviathans of that or any era were Bonanza, weighing in at 14 seasons, and Gunsmoke at 20 plus 9 on radio.  Only The Simpsons has been on prime-time television longer than Gunsmoke.  Therefore, it is no surprise that Trek - never shy about cheesy costume dramas - devoted one of its third season episodes to the Old West.

The Enterprise and her crew are sent to make contact with the Melkotians.  When their prospective friends shoo them away, Kirk orders our heroes to push onward.  Miffed, the Melkotians grab the landing party and punish them by placing them in an O.K. Corral dreamscape as the ill-fated Clantons.  Toss in the Earps and Doc Holliday and the outlook is not great for our favorite galactic travelers.

While several of the Trek's principal actors had western appearances on their resumes, none had better credentials than Deforest Kelley (Dr. McCoy).  He had, in fact, already appeared in two other versions of the O.K. Corral story.  In 1955, he played Ike Clanton in an episode of You Are There.  He was Morgan Earp in the 1957 film, Gunfight at the OK Corral.

The Western set has a surrealist feel, using only the facades of buildings.  The choice, however, was driven by an effort to keep costs down rather than by artistic inspiration.  The vermilion red sky however, must have been a deliberate choice and I found it delightfully unsettling.

*****

via Memory Alpha

Charles Maxwell (Virgil Earp) was a veteran of television westerns.  He was born December 28, 1913 in Long Island, New York.  He made ten total appearances on Bonanza, four on Gunsmoke and four on Rawhide among many others.  His was also the (uncredited) radio announcer voice on Gilligan's Island.  Maxwell died in 1993.

Family Movie Night: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Title: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Director: Ang Lee
Original Release: 2000
Choice: My Wife's
My Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5

via Wikipedia

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, produced on a $17 million dollar budget, grossed $213 million worldwide in its theatrical release.  It was nominated for ten Academy Awards, won four and probably should have been Best Picture (Gladiator won instead).  The film inspired a wave of interest in Chinese film in the western world.  IMDb's synopsis: "Two warriors in pursuit of a stolen sword and a notorious fugitive are led to an impetuous, physically skilled, adolescent nobleman's daughter, who is at a crossroads in her life."

The story is based on the fourth of a series of five novels known in China as the Crane Iron Pentalogy by Wang Dulu.  The books have never been translated to English but apparently the first book, Crane Frightens Kunlun, is currently in progress.  The narrative is strong but the magic of the film is in the visual presentation.  The film's scenery is stunning.  Peter Pau won an Oscar for Cinematography as did Timmy Yip for Art Direction.  Every fight scene is mesmerizing, often greatly enhanced by special effects.

It's a great Girl Power movie.  All of the women hold their own in both martial arts and fencing, especially Jen Yu, portrayed by Ziyi Zhang.  In one scene, she lays an entire restaurant to waste.  Her duel with Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-fat) atop a bamboo forest is particularly memorable.

Composer Tan Dun won an Oscar, a Grammy and a BAFTA for the film's score.  Cellist Yo-Yo Ma features prominently as a soloist.  More recently, Dun composed music for the medal ceremonies at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

*****

My Rating System:

5 = The best of the best.  These are the films by which I judge other films.
4 = High quality films which I feel could hold up well in repeated viewings.
3 = The vast majority of films.  They're fine.  Once was enough.
2 = I wasn't even sure I wanted to finish it.  It's not a 1 because I'm not prepared to say it's a terrible film - just not my cup of tea.
1 = A terrible film.  An insult to the art form.

Mock Squid Soup: November Blog List

MOCK! and The Armchair Squid are proud to present Mock Squid Soup: A Film Society.  Each month, on the second Friday, we shall host a bloghop devoted to a particular movie.  We invite others to watch the same film and post their own reviews.

Our society shall convene next on November 14th with Space Battleship Yamato.

via Wikipedia

To clarify, we're watching the 2010 live action movie, not the animated one.  Having trouble finding it?  Well, aren't you in luck?  The full movie (Japanese with English subtitles) is on YouTube: http://youtu.be/pWbm75wl_vw.  (Not really for 18+.  This one's PG-13 at worst.)  The movie is based on Star Blazers, the anime TV series from the 1970s.  The film is Drama Guy's choice and he has promised a screening of Star Blazers episodes on the same evening.

We hope that you, too, will watch the movie and join in our discussion.  Please sign on to the list below:

Mock Squid Soup: Unbreakable

MOCK! and The Armchair Squid are proud to welcome you to Mock Squid Soup: A Film Society.  Each month, on the second Friday, we shall host a bloghop devoted to a particular movie.  We invite others to watch the same film and post their own reviews.  This month's movie is...

Title: Unbreakable
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Original Release: 2000
My Overall Rating: 3 stars out of 5

via Wikipedia

Before this month, Mock and I had watched our Society movies separately, silly in light of the fact that we are good friends and see each other often.   This month, we decided to find an evening to watch together along with (as Mock calls him) our third musketeer: Drama Guy.  I was the only one of the three of us who hadn't seen Unbreakable before.  I admire The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan's breakthrough effort, tremendously - 5 stars, easy.  However, I'd never seen any of his other films, knowing all have been far less critically successful, a few considered downright terrible.  Nonetheless, I was curious.

David Dunn (Bruce Willis) believes himself to be an ordinary Philadelphia security guard with a troubled marriage.  He has failed to realize a strange pattern in his life: he has never been ill and he has never been injured.  But Elijah (Samuel L. Jackson), a comic book art collector and exhibitor, has been keeping an eye out for a man like David.  Elijah has a brittle bones condition and is therefore obsessed with the idea of an invincible man.  When David is the only survivor of a train accident, Elijah sets out to convince him of his superhuman powers.

I enjoyed the atmosphere of this movie: dark and, for the most part, surprisingly quiet.  As with Sixth Sense, there is a creepy, tingling around the edges but no ghosts.  The writing wasn't quite as good as in the earlier film but it does keep the story moving.  Just as with the earlier movie, I didn't see the twist at the end coming.  The twist is fun but I think the story would also have been fine without it.

I do have one gripe.  The movie ends with screen captions revealing the fallout from the big shocker ending.   I feel that works for a movie about real-life events - All the President's Men, for instance - but it's a strange choice for fiction.  If the end you filmed isn't really the end of the story, why did you film it that way?  Just seems sloppy.  In the final analysis, Unbreakable is a good movie but it's not as good as The Sixth Sense.

We hope that you, too, will watch Unbreakable and join in our discussion.  I'll post November's sign-up list tomorrow.  Our feature on Friday, November 14th shall be... something a little different: Space Battleship Yamato.

via Wikipedia

In the meantime, for the Unbreakable discussion, please sign on to the list below:

Star Trek: Is There in Truth No Beauty?

Episode: "Is There in Truth No Beauty?"
Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 3, Episode 5
Original Air Date: October 18, 1968

via Memory Beta

There's something about a story in which Spock smiles.  The Enterprise's half-Vulcan First Officer so rarely breaks his stoic demeanor that the episodes in which he does tend to be memorable, even if it is just because he's being possessed by an alien ambassador.

In this week's tale, our heroes are providing transport to Kollos, an intellectually superior being of the Medusan race.  Medusans are apparently so ugly as to drive a humanoid insane at sight.  There's no mention of serpentine hair but the allusion to Greek mythology is plain enough.  Most people cannot view Kollos at all so he is kept inside a box.  The Vulcan mental discipline protects Spock but even he must wear a protective visor.

In Kollos's entourage are Larry Mavrick (David Frankham), one of the designers of the Enterprise, and Dr. Miranda Jones (Diana Muldaur), Kollos's telepathic and, we eventually learn, blind assistant.  A love triangle quickly becomes apparent.  Mavrick is in love with Miranda but can't compete with the latter's devotion to Kollos.  Mavrick's jealousy drives him to murder Kollos but he is thwarted in the attempt when the Medusan senses him and emerges from the box, driving Mavrick mad.  Mavrick dies, but not before gaining control of the ship and sending it disastrously off course.

Kollos and Spock form a mind link in order to get the ship back to familiar space.  This is the magic moment when we get to see Spock smile as Kollos delights in the novelty of humanoid form.  A story that inspires more than its fair share of eye rolling saves itself as Spock/Kollos waxes poetic: "This thing you call language though, most remarkable.  You depend on it for so very much. But is any one of you really its master?"

*****

via Memory Alpha

David Frankham was born February 16, 1926 in Gillingham, Kent, England.  After serving in India and Malaya during World War II, he worked at the BBC in various capacities.  He moved to Hollywood in 1955 to pursue an acting career.

Much of Frankham's work was in television.  In addition to Trek, he had apprearances on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., The Beverly Hillbillies and The Waltons.  Big screen gigs included Return of the Fly, Ten Who Dared and Master of the World.  His most famous role is the voice of the cat in One Hundred and One Dalmations.

Family Movie Night: King Kong

Title: King Kong
Directors: Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack
Original Release: 1933
Choice: Mine
My Overall Rating: 3 stars out of 5

via Wikipedia

Obviously, the original King Kong feels awfully dated 81 years after it was released.  The special effects have been outmoded several times over.  To say the portrayal of women and Africans is problematic is putting it mildly.  Even so, it's a must-see for any fan of science fiction.  King Kong is cinema's Frankenstein, the film that spawned entire genres in both story and presentation.  The movie has been remade twice - in 1976 and 2005 - and that doesn't include the Godzilla, Jurassic Park and numerous other monster franchises that were created in imitation.

Filmmaker Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) has hired a ship to take his crew to the tropics for yet another exotic adventure film.  All he lacks is a leading lady.  He hits the streets, confident of finding a down-on-her-luck beauty for his picture.  Thankfully, he finds Ann Darrow (Fay Wray: best movie star name ever).  Ann jumps at the chance.  Life was so much simpler in the 1930s...

On Skull Island, they meet King Kong, an enormous, terrifying gorilla who takes an immediate shine to Ann.  He steals her away to his cave, fending off numerous hungry dinosaurs by essentially wrenching their heads open at the jaw - yick!   Eventually, the giant ape is subdued and dragged onto the ship, to be a centerpiece of a live show in New York.

I had seen this movie before, yet somehow I'd forgotten all about the dinosaurs.  The iconic image of the story is Kong atop the Empire State Building swatting at biplanes but the final New York portion of the movie only lasts about 20 minutes.  Most of the action takes place on the island and the lizards are just as spectacular as the ape.  My pal Maurice Mitchell recently featured the movie's beautiful concept art on his blog, Film Sketcher.

In addition to the stunning visuals, Kong is also famous for its classic musical score, composed by Max Steiner, previously featured here for his work on Gone with the Wind.  Kong put Steiner on the Hollywood map.  He would eventually compose over 300 film scores, garnering 3 Oscars and 24 nominations.  Actor/musician Oscar Levant went so far as to call Kong "a symphony accompanied by a movie."  Originally, RKO didn't even want to pay for a new score, simply wanting Steiner to cobble together music from other films.  But Cooper paid Steiner for an original work out of his own pocket (later reimbursed).

*****

My Rating System:

5 = The best of the best.  These are the films by which I judge other films.
4 = High quality films which I feel could hold up well in repeated viewings.
3 = The vast majority of films.  They're fine.  Once was enough.
2 = I wasn't even sure I wanted to finish it.  It's not a 1 because I'm not prepared to say it's a terrible film - just not my cup of tea.
1 = A terrible film.  An insult to the art form.

Star Trek: And the Children Shall Lead

Episode: "And the Children Shall Lead"
Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 3, Episode 4
Original Air Date: October 11, 1968

via Memory Alpha

As I have written previously, I feel one of Star Trek's greatest weaknesses is stories about children.  In this week's episode, "And the Children Shall Lead," our heroes respond to a distress call on planet Triacus.  All of the adult members of the scientific expedition there are either dead or nearly so.  The surviving children, however, are downright giddy, playing merrily, completely indifferent to their lost parents.  When the kids come aboard the Enterprise, we learn of their mysterious powers.  They are under the control of an apparition called Gorgan.  In time, it is revealed that Gorgan manipulated them first into destroying their own parents and now into hijacking the ship to a larger settlement.

From the beginning, the relationship between the crew and the children is awkward.  To a point, this is appropriate to the story but the acting suffers, too.  The episode has other narrative flaws.  Gorgan advises the children to win the ship by exerting their influence over the crew whereas to me, it would have made a lot more sense to get to the captain first, before he realized what was happening.  Faulty strategic thinking often stifles the bad guys in these stories.

*****

via Memory Alpha

Melvin Belli (Gorgan) had easily the most unusual career path of any actor I've featured in my Star Trek series.  Born July 29, 1907 in Sonora, California, Belli was not a professional actor at all.  He was a trial lawyer and an extremely successful one at that.  Early in his career, he built his reputation as a personal injury and consumer rights attorney.  But fame and fortune came from representing celebrities such as Erroll Flynn, Chuck Berry, Muhammed Ali and the Rolling Stones among many others.  In his highest profile case of all, he served as Jack Ruby's defense attorney for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Belli was quite a colorful character in his own right.  When he'd win a court case, he'd raise a Jolly Roger flag and fire a cannon atop his office building in San Francisco.  Married six times in total, his fifth divorce was especially bizarre.  He accused his ex-wife of having an affair with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and of throwing one of Belli's dogs off the Golden Gate Bridge.  Belli died in 1996 of pancreatic cancer.