Category: Movies and TV

On Transformers

I picked up the new Transformers: The Movie DVD, and there are some interesting bonus features and commentaries that shed a lot of light on the toy business. Everyone involved in the production seems to make some mention of the fact that what they did was just a job, a gig, and for some reason this surprised me. Maybe I always assumed there was a team of creative people somewhere at Hasbro or Takara that put all these characters together and gave them personalities and life. As it turns out, the Japanese developed the toys, while the gang at Hasbro decided to call them “Transformers” and left the naming and character development to essentially one guy, a comic book writer. Sunbow produced the cartoons, and took the character development from there, adding in the voice talent to bring life to each character.

Upon discovering this, I began to realize that what made Transformers great was a combination of ingenious toys, plus the commercial art of the voice talent and a comic book writer. Everyone involved essentially viewed the project as just another job with no real passionate attachment to it, which is a real credit to the pop art of it all. The fans cared about the whole universe, and never stopped caring. We developed emotional attachments to a product line, and this was never more apparent than in the reaction to the death of Optimus Prime in the film. I’m still fascinated by the interaction of emotions to commerce that this DVD has presented.

I’m reminded of the time, in 4th or 5th grade I think it was, that I designed my own line of Transformers called the Aquabots. There never were a lot of boats in the Transformers universe, so I drew up a team of five combiners that made one larger robot. My mom attempted to get the attention of Hasbro, but they replied that they did not take on outside creative projects. Now I know why. They didn’t even have an in-house creative team! They’d get the robots from Japan, send them to Bob Budiansky for a name and a personality, and send them on to Marvel and Sunbow to add to the cartoon. Just cranking out the units. And yet somewhere in the mix there was a spark that got kids excited enough to make an emotional connection.

Travolta, Shatner, Borgnine

No, it’s not the name of a new Mr. Bungle CD, it’s 1975’s The Devil’s Rain starring John Travolta, William Shatner and Ernest Borgnine. Plus Tom Skerritt, Eddie Albert, Ida Lupino, and technical advisor Anton LaVey. I’ll leave you with The Onion A.V. Club’s article, but before I do, know that it contains the phrases “Borgnine’s ring of satanic evil” and “Satan is real and really has it in for William Shatner.”

King Kong as Elaborate Metaphor for Black America

I was listening to a live version of Frank Zappa’s “King Kong” this morning and Frank introduced the tune by saying this:

The name of this song is “King Kong.” It’s a story of a very large gorilla who lived in the jungle, and he was doing OK until some Americans came by and thought that they would take him home with them. They took him to the United States and they made some money by using the gorilla. Then they killed him.”

Often have I heard that the Godzilla movies were a subconscious metaphor for World War II and Pearl Harbor’s awakening of a “sleeping giant” in the minds of the Japanese. So I wonder if King Kong isn’t subconsciously a parable about Black America: we went into the jungle and brought people back to make money off of them and we mistreated and often killed them. Certainly we killed their sense of cultural and religious identity.

It may be a stretch, but it would be a better explanation for the incredibly iconic status of King Kong in American film history than just the film’s special effects. Why else would a story of a giant primate on the rampage, who runs off with a (white) girl be so fascinating to so many? Would the film have worked if Kong were any other animal but a lower primate, so close to us evolutionarily, and to many minds in the early/mid 20th century, a closer relative to blacks than whites? I’ve always been at a loss to explain the appeal of King Kong. I never saw the recent remake, because I knew the story and wasn’t very excited by it the first time. This larger allegory makes sense to me, at least.

The 80’s Movie Quiz

Josh and his apparently insane co-workers at the Harrison Daily Times put together this mammoth 80’s Movie Quiz. Download it if you dare. It’s painful[1]. Be forewarned that I only got about half of them right. This thing goes deep, and most of the ones I got wrong were from films I’ve never seen or only seen in parts. Post a comment if you want the answer key and I’ll email it to you.

1.) “What do we love?? PAIN!!”

The Great DVD Avalanche of ’06

It started when Suncoast Motion Picture Company had its Going Out of Business Sale, then Barnes & Noble sent me a 40% Oscar Winners discount, then I had a birthday, and then Circuit City heavily discounted Quantum Leap and Northern Exposure this week only. So here’s what I’ve accrued over the last two months:

Quantum Leap – Seasons 1-3
Northern Exposure – Season 1
Mean Streets
What’s New, Pussycat?
Bodies, Rest and Motion
Joe Versus the Volcano
Do Not Adjust Your Set
At Last the 1948 Show
Tori Amos Video Collection
D.A.R.Y.L.
The French Connection
The Lost Weekend
The Shop Around the Corner
Grand Hotel
The Awful Truth
Space Ghost Coast to Coast – Volume 3
Best of SNL: The First Five Years
The Kennel Murder Case
La Bamba
The Very Best of the Ed Sullivan Show
Flirting with Disaster
Broken Flowers
The Philadelphia Story
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
The Pianist
Reefer Madness
Annie Hall
After Hours
Manhattan
You Can’t Take It With You
Jules and Jim
Shoot the Piano Player
Mr and Mrs Smith
Eric Johnson – Live from Austin City Limits

I was prepared to cut myself off from all DVD purchases until next year, but then the Circuit City thing came to my attention. I really should get myself to a meeting…

Another One Bites the Dust

Suncoast, the DVD store in Park Plaza Mall, is closing its doors. This means I will have no other compelling reason to go to the mall beyond Chick-fil-A. This seems to be a pattern in entertainment media – they can’t seem to survive in malls anymore. Retail music stores have all but disappeared from malls, at least in Arkansas. Camelot Music, Musicland, Sam Goody…I’ve seen them all close between here and Missouri. There’s still a Sam Goody in McCain Mall, but I would wager that it will close within the next few years.

Of course the culprits are Amazon.com and Best Buy. I guess it’s just the natural evolution of the business, but I’ll miss the concept of a specialty DVD store. The only other place I can go to get obscure movies is Barnes & Noble, the place that never sells below retail.

Anyway. Going out of business sale at Suncoast. So far, it’s 20% off anything in the store, which in most cases puts the prices close to the Amazon.com rates (but still mostly higher than, say, DeepDiscountDVD.com).

Death of a Character Actor

I’ve always wondered what the opposite of a “character actor” is. If you’re not a character actor, what are you playing? Scenery?

Anyway, we lost one of the most identifiable ones recently, Vincent Schiavelli. You may remember him as the creepy teacher in Better Off Dead and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, or as John O’Connor in Buckaroo Banzai or the crazy subway ghost that teaches Patrick Swayze how to move things in Ghost.


Vincent Schiavelli 1948-2005
(The guy on the left)

To Claire Danes and Keira Knightley

Having seen Pride and Prejudice tonight and Shopgirl last night, my faith in Hollywood beauties has been restored by these two exceptionally skilled actresses, who also happen to be excruciatingly beautiful women. Each of them has more explosive, maddening sensuality in the backs of their necks than in the bosoms of a thousand Pamela Andersons. And they are completely perfect in their imperfections – Claire’s wide nose, Keira’s distinctively British teeth. I could write volumes of terrible poetry about both of them.

Noah Baumbach Update

Periodically I check in on Noah to see what the writer/director of one of my alltime favorite movies is up to. Lately it looks like like his website is down, but I did find this amusing piece he wrote for The New Yorker. I’m not sure of the context, but I’m assuming he’s comparing Tom Cruise to an overeager (and yet statistically knowledgeable) canine. Funny stuff. Rewire the pronouns and add lots of scratching and it probably sounds a lot like Zoe‘s inner monlogue.