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Author: William I. Lengeman III

Star Trek Movie Rewatch: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Star Trek Movie Rewatch: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

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Star Trek 4 The Probe-small

I’m not always the most attentive or detail oriented movie watcher. So, as I came to the end of The Voyage Home, the fourth of the original cast Star Trek movies, I realized that I still didn’t know exactly what was going on with those whales.

After movie three — The Search For Spock — the crew of the late starship Enterprise (watch the aforementioned for more details on that) are laying over on Vulcan, getting their commandeered Klingon ship up to speed when Earth finds itself menaced by a Big Dumb Object of some sort. It demands that it be paid a tribute of whales – or something like that — or it will wipe out the Earth in dramatic fashion. Our heroes enact that time honored SF convention of slingshotting around the sun to go several centuries back in time (with keen precision, I must note) and pick up a few whales, which they spirit off in a hastily built whale tank in the Klingon ship.

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A Helluva Detour: The Mysterious Island

A Helluva Detour: The Mysterious Island

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Mysterious Island poster-small

The Mysterious Island (1961)
Based on a novel by Jules Verne
Directed by Cy Endfield

It wasn’t my intention to watch a bunch of adventure movies lately that all dated from the early Sixties. It just worked out that way. As coincidence would have it, the three I watched shared a similar theme — that of being stranded. The Lost World (1960) found a group of adventurers stranded on a high plateau in South America. In Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964), well, you can figure that one out. In The Mysterious Island (1961), a group of Union soldiers and a Confederate find their balloon swept way off course, all the way from Virginia to a point located somewhere in the South Sea Islands of the Pacific Ocean. Which is a helluva detour, by my reckoning.

Like The Lost World, which was based on a story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Mysterious Island is an adaption of a work by a well-known author of yesteryear. Jules Verne’s first novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon, was published in 1863 and in the next decade or so he turned out a number of books, including Journey to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in Eighty Days. He returned to balloon adventures in The Mysterious Island, which was published in 1874. But it was hardly the end of the line for the prolific Verne, who had written his best known novels by this time, but who turned out many more novels before his death in 1905.

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That Movie About the Guy Who’s Stranded on Mars

That Movie About the Guy Who’s Stranded on Mars

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Robinson Crusoe on Mars
Paramount Pictures, 1964
Directed by Byron Haskin

(There will be spoilers.)

So there’s this movie about a guy who finds himself in the rather grim position of being stranded on Mars — all by his lonesome (more or less – but we’ll get to that).

I think you probably thought you knew the one, but it’s actually not that one. Robinson Crusoe on Mars debuted about a half century before that other, more popular, “guy stranded on Mars” movie. I haven’t seen The Martian or read the book, so I can’t compare the two. I’ll confine myself to commenting on the earlier movie.

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Old Dark House Double Feature II: Secret of the Chateau (1934) and The Headless Ghost (1959)

Old Dark House Double Feature II: Secret of the Chateau (1934) and The Headless Ghost (1959)

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Secret of the Chateau poster

Secret of the Chateau
Universal Studios, 1934
Directed by Richard Thorpe

Books — as in rare collectible ones — are the theme in this particular incarnation of the old dark house movie. Whose old dark house properties are a good bit more understated than some other movies in this genre (sub-genre?). It takes a while for all parties concerned to even get to the old dark house and when they do things play out more like a fairly standard murder mystery. But its close enough for government work, as the saying goes.

The book that’s causing all of the fuss is a Gutenberg Bible, the first book ever to be printed on a printing press. Needless to say, it’s somewhat valuable and high on the want list of a certain book thief.

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Star Trek Movie Rewatch: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

Star Trek Movie Rewatch: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

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Star Trek 3 cast-small

Where’s Spock? Why, he’s right there in the director’s chair, of course. For the third cinematic voyage of the Starship Enterprise, Leonard Nimoy took on a dual role as actor and director, though the former role was somewhat minimal. Which set a pattern for numerous other Star Trek cast members. According to Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki, 15 cast members eventually sat in the big chair, although only Nimoy, Shatner and Jonathan Frakes directed movies.

I don’t recall if I watched The Search for Spock prior to this rewatch project. But I actually watched it twice within a month or two to make up for it. Why? Well, because it didn’t really stick the first time around. Which is to say that about the best I can do to critique this movie is to damn it with faint praise. It’s like one of the many Star Trek TV episodes that’s not bad but that doesn’t have anything special to recommend it. I think the word serviceable sums it up best.

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An Old Dark House Double Feature: The Ghost and the Guest (1943) and The Monster Walks (1932)

An Old Dark House Double Feature: The Ghost and the Guest (1943) and The Monster Walks (1932)

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The Ghost and the Guest Lobby Card-small

The Ghost and the Guest
PRC Pictures, 1943
Directed by William Nigh

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A decrepit old mansion that appears to be haunted. A pair of newlyweds move in and by the time it’s all said and done, we find out that the mansion is actually a hub for some nefarious criminal type dudes.

This was not a particularly fresh concept, even in 1943, and the execution leaves more than a bit to be desired. To call it a B-movie is probably elevating it to a much higher status than it deserves. I’m not sure if there’s such a thing a Z movie but this one’s no better than a V, at best.

The most notable factoid about this uninspired piece of work is that it was written by none other than Morey Amsterdam, best known for his role as one of the sidekicks on The Dick Van Dyke Show. His comic stylings, even at that time, were probably kind of old school, but he made it work with superior timing and delivery. None of which is on display from any of the alleged thespians in this particular cinematic exercise, where the comedy — and pretty much everything else — leaves a lot to be desired.

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The Lost World: A Classic Sixties SF Blockbuster

The Lost World: A Classic Sixties SF Blockbuster

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Lost World 4

The Lost World (1960)
Directed by Irwin Allen

The shorthand version of this review is that The Lost World was directed, co-written and co-produced by Irwin Allen. If you know anything about Allen, who had something of a lock on science fiction TV in the Sixties, you’d probably have a pretty good idea of what to expect. It’s not outstanding production values, award-winning scripts and stellar acting.

To give some perspective, The Lost World was released a year before Allen’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea came to the big screen and a few years before the latter as made into a TV show. A show that was followed by in quick succession by other Allen productions, such as Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants. While I didn’t find The Lost World to be a very “good” movie, I thought it was an entertaining example of a blockbuster SF/adventure movie from this era.

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Star Trek Movie Rewatch: Star Trek Into Darkness

Star Trek Movie Rewatch: Star Trek Into Darkness

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Star Trek Into Darkness crash-small

I don’t remember if I groaned aloud when I realized that the second Star Trek “reboot” was going to be a Khan movie. It’s entirely possible. One might reasonably wonder why the production team chose to do a reboot of a reboot, if you’ll pardon the expression, when they could have taken so many directions with the story. I suspect that sheer commerce ruled the day and the notion, common in moviemaking and publishing, that whatever worked before must surely work again.

So did Star Trek Into Darkness work? Not so much for me. I’ll admit that I wasn’t disposed to be too charitable to either of the reboots in the first place. But I made a valiant attempt to be open-minded.

But, anyway. In my review of The Wrath of Khan I noted that it was something of a war of the overactors, with William Shatner going toe to toe with Ricardo Montalban. While Shatner’s character won the day in the movie, I awarded Montalban an honorary retro-Oscar for Best Overacting Performance in a Star Trek Movie.

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Mutants, Burger Creatures, and Genetically Engineered Sharks: Orbit 12, edited by Damon Knight

Mutants, Burger Creatures, and Genetically Engineered Sharks: Orbit 12, edited by Damon Knight

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Orbit 12-smallOrbit 12
Edited by Damon Knight
Berkley Medallion (240 pages, $0.95, March 1974)
Cover by Paul Lehr

If I’ve got my story straight, there were 21 volumes of Damon Knight’s Orbit anthology series in all — and The Best of Orbit. The first of these saw the light of day in 1966.

Obviously, that puts this volume somewhere in the middle of the pack as far as the chronology goes. Reviewing is a subjective thing and we all like what like, but I’ve got to say that I wasn’t very impressed. I’ll start with a look at the two stories I liked, and move on to the many more that I liked less.

PICKS

“What’s the Matter with Herbie?,” by Mel Gilden

Nine stories into this volume and this is the first story that appealed to me. It’s a tale of two very alien aliens in a universe where strange aliens seem to be the norm. There’s not much to the plot but Gilden’s imaginative take and whimsical touch made it worth reading.

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Star Trek Movie Rewatch: Star Trek (2009)

Star Trek Movie Rewatch: Star Trek (2009)

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star-trek-2009-enterprise-warp

Fans of Eighties new wave music might remember a song by Timbuk 3 called “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades.” Which should have been the theme song for the J.J. Abrams “reboot” of Star Trek. I’d heard about the much maligned lens flares favored by Abrams but until I actually watched the movie I truly had no idea. It’s such an extreme exercise in cinematic brightness that I found myself fighting off a headache at a few points.

But enough of that. Let’s have a few words about reboots. I don’t care much for them. Nor do I care much for the concept, in general. Which can only come about when lawyers and accountants make decisions that should be made by “creative” types. Yes, I understand that the making of TV shows and movies is not a charitable endeavor but when a pretense of creativity isn’t present then what’s the point?

Which is the whiner’s way of saying that even though I was a fairly avid fan of the original Star Trek series I had no interest in watching the reboots. I might have never watched them if it hadn’t been for this movie rewatch project. But after tackling the first two “real” Star Trek movies I found myself getting curious about how the reboots had played out. So I skipped ahead in the chronology.

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