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Reviews
Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Quite Possibly the Best Science Fiction Series in TV History
Steeped in the paranoia about terrorism and enemies within of the post 9/11 era, this incredibly rich and soulful reimagining of the rather plodding 1970s sci fi TV series is one of the best serialized dramas TV has ever seen--full stop.
Instead of cyclopean robots, the Cylon bad guys have been reimagined as humanoid sleeper cells dedicated to wiping out the human race, but as an entirely explicable act of self preservation. As in the original show, Earth has been destroyed by a sneak attack. Under the rock-ribbed command of Admiral Edward James Olmos (representing the military/security state) and President Mary McDonnell, the last 40,000 or so members of the human race are desperately searching the cosmos for another habitable place to call home.
There is no end to the intelligent and imaginative storylines showrunner and former "Star Trek:TNG" scribe Ronald D. Moore and his crack staff of writers came up with in the excellent four year run of this series, each of them illuminating disturbing political and social questions while at the same time finding nuance in the classic sci-fi cyborg conundrum over whether consciousness rather than biology is the real essence of a human being.
Moore settled for some surprisingly spiritual answers to the big questions he raised, to some fans' dismay. But you know what? When someone tells a deep and meaningful story so well for so long. We all owe it to them to let them end it in the way that feels right to them. IMHO.
The cast on what is very much an ensemble show is superb, from top to bottom.
Vampira and Me (2012)
Tragic, Sympathetic, Unforgettable, VAMPIRA
This intimate and moving portrait of a lost goth icon brought tears to my eyes. It's rare to see a movie and know that it was made with love, but this is a film like that. Director R. H. Greene has excavated pretty much every frame of film featuring Maila Nurmi as her barrier-shattering creation Vampira, the majority of which he personally found and presented here for the first time in over 50 years. In that way, this film is quite a present to pop culture history. But the core of this documentary is the on camera interplay between Greene, the unseen questioner, and Nurmi, the regal, coquettish, gleeful, sad-eyed changeling. You can feel the love, and knowing Nurmi at least got that kind of affection from Greene and others makes the rest of her story--a real Hollywood tragedy--easier to bear. Thoughtful comments by cult comedian Dana Gould stand out, as does the amazing side story of Voluptua, a character created by men to capitalize on Vampira's popularity who proves by her bombshell sex kitten submissiveness just how radically feminist Maila Nurmi as Vampira really was. An amazing story, for horror fans and anyone who cares about the media age.
The Hired Hand (1971)
Acid Western Classic
Wow. I thought I knew this period of American cinema like the back of my hand until I saw this little masterpiece. What a beautiful, novelistic piece of work this Peter Fonda directed film is--a kind of Flannery O'Connor Western about restlessness and redemption, suffused with the experimental lens of Fonda and Hopper's "Easy Rider" era experimentations, and shot with subtle daring by master cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond in his big move away from the exploitation movies he started with.
As a director, Fonda takes real risks, using overlapping dissolves and minimal dialogue to create an Old West that seems simultaneously lived in and hallucinatory. He gets nuanced and detailed work from his distinguished cast: the great Warren Oates gives one of his sturdiest and least eccentric performances, and Verna Bloom shines as a woman past caring whose brittle outer shell melts before our eyes. As a squint-eyed man of few words at a crossroads, Fonda is like a hippie Clint Eastwood--more comfortable with his own inner confusion than he could ever be with a gun. It turns out Peter learned a thing or two by sitting though all those Western classics his dad Henry appeared in--and he knowingly rejects every lesson to make something uniquely his own.
Though they were barely on speaking terms by 1971, "The Hired Hand" would make a splendid double feature with Dennis Hopper's Godardian Western from the same year "The Last Movie," another "flop" from the period that has gotten a big second wind in recent times. Peter Fonda frequently said this was the movie he wanted to be remembered for, and while "The Hired Hand" will never have the historic profile of an "Easy Rider," he still deserves to be.
Miracle Mile (1988)
"Miracle" Indeed
Wonderful nuclear paranoia movie that isn't at all a throwback to the 1950s atomic paranoia stuff--if anything it looks like an episode of Miami Vice. Unique script was apparently a cult item in producing circles until it finally got made by a BRITISH company, because, you know, why should a good American script get made by an American company? But who cares--they shot they shot this like it was an American movie, on the locations in L. A. surrounding the Beverly Hills-adjacent Miracle Mile neighborhood of the title. In addition to being a nail biting if somewhat implausible thriller, this is also a time capsule of the way America's most photographed city looked in the mid-1980s--and L. A. plays itself.
Vampira and Me (2012)
Tragic, Sympathetic, Unforgettable, VAMPIRA
This intimate and moving portrait of a lost goth icon brought tears to my eyes. It's rare to see a movie and know that it was made with love, but this is a film like that. Director R. H. Greene has excavated pretty much every frame of film featuring Maila Nurmi as her barrier-shattering creation Vampira, the majority of which he personally found and presented here for the first time in over 50 years. In that way, this film is quite a present to pop culture history. But the core of this documentary is the on camera interplay between Greene, the unseen questioner, and Nurmi, the regal, coquettish, gleeful, sad-eyed changeling. You can feel the love, and knowing Nurmi at least got that kind of affection from Greene and others makes the rest of her story--a real Hollywood tragedy--easier to bear. Thoughtful comments by cult comedian Dana Gould stand out, as does the amazing side story of Voluptua, a character created by men to capitalize on Vampira's popularity who proves by her bombshell sex kitten submissiveness just how radically feminist Maila Nurmi as Vampira really was. An amazing story, for horror fans and anyone who cares about the media age.