So, one wonders, might there be another director out there who, upon looking at the events surrounding 9/11 and the second Iraqi war, might not also look at the myriad tragedies involved, from the thousands upon thousands dead, the loss of national treasure, the inept leadership, the media manipulation, and the very questionable motivations for engaging in the conflict in the first place…and decide that this too might be good material in the creation of a black comedy?

Thing is, someone already did, and they did it a whopping 20 years before the events of 9/11 and the subsequent Iraqi War.

I’m talking about 1982′s Wrong Is Right.  As directed by Richard Brooks, the movie features Sean Connery in the role of Patrick Hale, an intrepid, world famous reporter who, in the process of criss-crossing the globe, comes to realize he’s landed himself smack dab in the middle of machinations involving the CIA, an Arabian leader whose land is filled with oil, a weapons dealer, a terrorist intent on getting his hands on two mysterious suitcases, and a U.S. presidential election.

The various parties involved actively try to manipulate the story Hale perceives and tells, and ultimately what may appear “true” becomes a matter of convenience.  To go into too much detail about the story’s plot would be a disservice.

Having said that, this now 30 year old film is incredibly prescient.  With some minor modifications, this could easily be a black comedy “take” on the buildup to the Iraqi War.  The most eerie element of the whole thing is that the movie’s climax takes place on the roof of the World Trade Center.

Yes, the World Trade Center.

As wild a coincidence -or prognostication- as all this is, Wrong is Right is simply not as good a film as one would have hoped.

Sean Connery, usually a very reliable actor, is strangely ineffective in his performance.  Likewise, most of the actors involved in the movie turn in either bland or forgettable performances.  Robert Conrad is given one of the better small roles as General Wombat, the President’s military advisor.  He’s presented as a wild-eyed yet clear speaking lunatic whose chief advice to the President is to push the button and end the nonsense once and for all.  Alas, we don’t see nearly enough of him -or characters like him- throughout the film and, ultimately, Wrong is Right winds up being a black comedy that simply isn’t as funny as one would hope.

Yet, despite its flaws, I can’t entirely dismiss it.

In the end, I would cautiously recommend Wrong is Right to viewers who are intrigued with the idea of seeing a film that manages to be as prescient as this one is.  Just don’t expect the movie to be anywhere near as good as Dr. Strangelove.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/11/world/british-wwii-plane/index.html

What is so remarkable is the practically pristine shape the plane is in considering it crashed in the desert in 1942.  But the story is also chilling.  There is evidence that Sgt. Dennis Copping, the 24 year old pilot of the craft, survived the crash landing.  He no doubt perished some time later, a victim of the extreme desert heat.

The video presented below can be found on Huffington Post’s article regarding this same story (which itself can be found here):

As I said before, absolutely fascinating stuff!

I’ve been a fan of Mr. Abrams’ work since stumbling into the delightful Alias a while ago. Lost followed soon after and since then I’ve kept my eyes open for his TV and movie works.  However, with the passage of time and the volume of new releases, disappointments were bound to come.

Alias, for example, reached an incredible peak, story wise, with the second season episode Phase One.  Unfortunately, the episode proved to be a double edged sword.  As good as it was, the episode effectively completed almost every one of the myriad story lines developed in the show.  What followed, for three more seasons, was, to me, a series without a focus, trying desperately to find some new ground to break but, for the most part, not succeeding.  The same may well be said of Lost, but at least that show held my interest to the very end, even if it admittedly didn’t come close to answering all the many intriguing mysteries it presented.

Getting back to Alcatraz, the show in some ways reminded me of Fringe, yet another J. J. Abrams produced show.  With both series I had the impression early on the show was begun hastily, with an initial concept but no clear direction to pursue it.  But while Fringe had good characters and, let’s face it, the framework of The X-Files to fall back on and sustain itself during that early rough going, Alcatraz had little to fall back on other than a “capturing the suspect of the week” concept of found in too many police procedurals.

That would have been fine if Alcatraz were a police procedural, but the show’s initial premise was grounded in science fiction.  The initial premise was actually quite good:  Just before the island prison Alcatraz was officially closed down in the early 1960′s, the staff and prisoners mysteriously disappeared.  Now, in the present, staff and prisoners are reappearing.  The prisoners return to the present as young.  They continue their criminal ways, but there seems to be a method to their madness.  Thus, the viewer is presented with some intriguing questions.  What happened to the prisoners and staff of Alcatraz?  What happened to them when they disappeared?  And now, as they are reappearing, why do they show no signs of aging?  Finally, and most intriguing:  What were they up to?

As good as all those questions were, they weren’t good enough, and the show started presenting us one criminal after the other for our heroine, Detective Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones) to hunt down.  Unfortunately, Sarah Jones’ role proved woefully underwritten and the actress, at least to me, had difficulty both projecting the charisma necessary to draw me in to her plight or the toughness to make me believe she was a tough cop worthy of taking on the hardened criminals of the past.

Even worse, unfortunately, was Jorge Garcia as Dr. Diego Soto, Alcatraz expert and her “unorthodox” partner.  As written, his character seemed nothing more than mild variant of his character Hurley from Lost.  But the biggest problem was that the only reason for his continued involvement in these stories was because he was an “expert” regarding all things Alcatraz.  In this day and age, however, with computers and instant access to just about every bit of information you could possibly need, keeping an overweight partner around on action forays was dubious, at best.

Luckily for the show’s protagonists, the missing Alcatraz crooks were polite enough to appear one at a time, allow their story to play out, and get themselves captured before the next missing crook made his appearance.  In between, we got hints of a bigger story, but it just wasn’t enough, at least for me.

After ignoring the series for a few weeks, I gave it one more try and caught the series’ final episode.  I was treated to an episode that showed little life, even in its almost scene for scene recreation of the famous Bullitt car chase.

So, goodbye Alcatraz.  You certainly had potential and could have been a good show.  I just wish that a little more thought, and time, we’re devoted to creating a more focused story line.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1170925-the-50-worst-seasons-in-sports-history

Many of them are familiar to me, but there were some very amusing ones I wasn’t familiar with.

Particularly amusing were some of the baseball teams of old mentioned, like the 1935 Boston Braves, who went on to a pathetic 38-115 record.  This team featured a nearly retired Babe Ruth.  Or the 1899 (yes, that 1899) Cleveland Spiders who managed a pathetic 20-134 record and 101 road loses (something that will never be equaled with today’s schedule).

Interesting, and at times hilarious, stuff.

http://247wallst.com/2012/05/03/the-cars-americans-will-not-buy/

Fascinating article, which uses a new car’s average length of time in a showroom to determine which ones are among those that sit the longest and, ergo, are probably the ones consumers least want to purchase.

What is even more interesting is some of the comments following the article, especially with regard to General Motor’s electronic Volt (which, by the way, DID NOT make this list).  Of late, Fox news and right wing pundits have made the car a punching bag of sorts, though the only reason I can see for it to be in their cross hairs is because President Obama a) helped the auto industry and b) actually had the temerity to talk positively about the vehicle.

I’m all in favor of electric cars, and hope that the Volt is only a prelude to what’s to come.

However…

It appears not everyone is falling for the movie.  Two reviews, in particular, point to something I worry may be occurring with the whole superhero genre in movies:  Superhero fatigue.

First, a review posted on Slate Magazine by Dana Stevens:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2012/05/the_avengers_directed_by_joss_whedon_reviewed_.html

Next, Andrew O’Hehir of Salon.com offers a review that, thematically, runs very similar:

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/02/the_avengers_will_superhero_movies_never_end/

A few days back (you can read it here) I noted which summer movies most intrigued me.  Among the ones I was curious about, but figured would most likely see when they were released on video, was The Avengers.  While I’m a fan of director/writer Joss Whedon, quite honestly, the above two reviews are part of the reason why the movie isn’t on my “must watch” list.  That list remains, at least for now, at two films: Prometheus and The Dark Knight Rises.

The fact is that even though I have the latest Batman film on my “must watch” list, I’m growing very, very tired of superhero films.  It’s a very tough admission to make, given my general love of the genre -and comic books as well!-, but in the last few years there have been so many comic book films that its getting tiresome.

The Dark Knight Rises is on my list only because I enjoyed the first two Batman films and the works of director Christopher Nolan and I’m curious to see where he’s taking this film, which has been characterized as the last of his Batman “trilogy”.  As with the Spider-Man films, I suspect there will be a “new” version of Batman coming soon afterwards, sans Christopher Nolan’s input, and I’m just as weary of that as I am of the new Spider-Man release.

Like many things, I appear to be in a minority.  It looks like The Avengers is set to break box office records and become a huge hit for the studios and the talent involved.

But I have to admit, the more I hear about it, the more weary I become.

http://www.yolohub.com/facts/weird-fact-1

Fascinating stuff…though I admit being most curious about the saddest bits of information, such as:

Fact #2, #4, and #9.  66% of Americans are overweight?!  Supermarkets on average waste 3000 pounds of food each year?!  And we drink on average more than 600 sodas a year?!  All three facts seem to point out that we have an overabundance of food available to us.

Then you get to the equally sad fact numbers #5, #24, and #30.  The notion that 48% of people in the United States are considered living on low income or in poverty is very chilling.  Equally chilling are the later two facts, that 52% of children in Cleveland, Ohio also live in poverty and that of the roughly 313 million people in the United States, 46 million of them are on food stamps (or 15%).

Not all the information presented is depressing, and I could go on, but I’ll conclude on #14:  Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president born in a hospital!

…wait for it…

Time Travel.

Further, he points out a photograph taken at Gettysburg wherein he is supposedly present.

Curious?  The full article is here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/28/andrew-basiago-seattle-attorney-time-travels_n_1438216.html

There is an included video, which I have embedded below:

I find the whole concept of time travel absolutely fascinating, even as I find the above very, very hard to believe.

I’ve heard it said more than once that young authors, especially those interested in writing science fiction, should not bother with time travel stories.  Why?  Because there are so many of them out there and written by so many well respected authors, that you simply couldn’t possibly do any better.  Alas, I didn’t follow this advice and have written a few time travel stories, my favorite of which is Dreams Do Come True, available in my Shadows at Dawn collection of short stories. (Shameless plug ends in 3…2…1…)

In terms of the possibility of time travel, when one looks away from the actual science and physics of the matter, which so far point to time travel being impossible, and toward the philosophical, there are those who argue that time travel doesn’t exist because if it did, we would have some evidence of it already.

They’re talking about things like accidentally discarded material from the future that is found in ancient sites (ie, a Coca Cola bottle found in Athenian ruins, etc.).  Also, if people could travel back in time, why not alter things?  There is the idea that one can’t do so, that history is somehow written in stone, but I have a hard time accepting this.  If one could go back in time, why couldn’t one alter things?  The fact is that I could choose to do any number of things today that could change history, though perhaps in only small ways.  But if I could go back in time to 1899, and somehow make my way to Austria and find the infant Adolph Hitler, what is to stop me from stopping him?  (The film The Terminator is duly noted)

Which brings us to the biggest philosophical questions about time travel:  The so-called Grandfather Paradox.  I’ll quote the concept from the link to the left, which is from Wikipedia:

Suppose a man traveled back in time and killed his biological grandfather before the latter met the traveler’s grandmother. As a result, one of the traveler’s parents (and by extension the traveler himself) would never have been conceived. This would imply that he could not have traveled back in time after all, which means the grandfather would still be alive, and the traveler would have been conceived allowing him to travel back in time and kill his grandfather. Thus each possibility seems to imply its own negation, a type of logical paradox.

Makes your head spin, don’t it?

In some ways, (shameless plug begins in 3…2…1…) I worked around on the fringes of this type of logic trap with my Dreams Do Come True story, creating the “perfect” murder, with what I felt was an interesting twist.

In the end, I suspect that the philosophers and scientists who don’t believe in the possibility of time travel are probably right.  Doesn’t mean I don’t wish it were possible.  I think it would be beyond exciting to be able to witness first hand all those magnificent historical events or recover lost objects of art or literature or film.  It would also be amazing to have the chance to save a Jimi Hendrix or Jim Morrison or John Lennon and, subsequently, live in a world where more of their music exists.

It’s a lovely dream, but a dream nonetheless.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/5981311/The-10-mysteries-of-human-behaviour-that-science-cant-explain.html

Interesting, albeit a few years old article that lists things that we, as human beings, do without any clear scientifically recognized reason.

Most bizarre was item #6, picking your nose.  In that example, the article states: “ingesting ‘nasal detritus’ offers almost no nutritional benefit, so why do a quarter of teenagers do it, on average four times a day?”

Ugh.  Four times a day?!

I think back to my adolescence and can’t recall ever doing that.  And most certainly not that many times a day!

One of the more fascinating is #8, Altruism.  I tend to agree with the article when it says that giving away things is odd when considered in “evolutionary terms”, and it most certainly makes you consider how different humans are to many animals, although I suppose one can argue that there are examples of altruism in the animal kingdom as well.

Birds, for example, find/hunt for food which they then give to their young offspring.  Perhaps that could be considered a form of “altruism” that is framed in evolutionary terms.  The adult bird, after all, could take the food they track down and keep it for themselves.  However, if the bird doesn’t feed its offspring, the offspring die and, as a result, the bird’s species will die as well.

Anyway, fascinating stuff, if you’re interested.

Over time I developed a list of films I read/heard about yet hadn’t seen that I was intent on catching whenever I could.  Thanks to the proliferation of cable/movie channels and DVDs, this list of unseen -by me- films grows smaller ever day.  As of yesterday, that list is minus another film, one I heard about years ago and was curious to see.  A comedy that evoked memories of 1980′s Airplane!, yet was made a full four years before that classic.

Would it delight, or would it disappoint?  See for yourselves…

The Big Bus rolled (ugh) into theaters in 1976.  Like Airplane!, the makers of this film apparently looked over the landscape of then popular “disaster” films and decided to parody them.  In the case of Airplane!, the Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrahams took the very serious 1957 film Zero Hour! and essentially remade it as a parody, with nods toward the other Airport films that were, up to the previous year, pretty popular.

In the case of The Big Bus, the producers were far more ambitious.  They decided to parody almost the entire “disaster” film genre while having the “all star” cast face danger while aboard the most absurd moving vehicle they could think of: A giant, nuclear powered bus.

That’s right, a bus.

Even now I’m giggling at the absurdity of that concept.  Too bad the film, in the end, simply wasn’t all that good.  While Airplane! is a comedy classic and could well be my personal all time favorite comedy film, The Big Bus unfortunately disappoints because it just wasn’t as funny as I was hoping it would be.  Airplane! presented wall to wall jokes, from Three Stooges-type physicality to verbal jokes to outrageous sight gags.  There was simply no let up, and the most amazing thing is that it worked.

Airplane!’s secret ingredient, and one of the keys to its success, was that it took a bunch of “serious” veteran actors and stuck them in decidedly idiotic roles.  Despite the absurdities, the “serious” actors delivered their lines seriously.  Thus, you laugh out loud when Leslie Nielsen responds to the “Surely you can’t be serious?” line, or when Robert Stack and Lloyd Bridges mentally crack up while bringing the wayward airplane in for a landing, or when Peter Graves makes decidedly inappropriate comments to a young passenger.

The Big Bus, on the other hand, presents us with a large and fairly familiar cast that simply isn’t charismatic or zany enough to pull off the idiotic elements presented.  Perhaps the film’s best joke is presented early on, when we find out the man who will be driving the big bus on its maiden trip was involved in a previous bus trip that ended in disaster (and cannibalism!).  For those curious, the sequence is presented below.

I wish the rest of the film could have been that (dare I say it?) biting.

Sadly, the movie lumbers along, not unlike a real bus, with little momentum before reaching its climax.  Incredibly, it is there that the film seems to finally find some spark as the bus balances precariously on a cliff’s edge.  That sequence proved both surprising and visually exciting.

The bottom line: If you’re in the mood for a disaster movie parody, stick with Airplane!