An impressively faithful silent remake, even if it does feature “a micro-encephalic Darth Vader and a 10-year-old Han Solo,” and is missing pretty much the entire our-heroes-on-the-death-star middle portion.
Star Wars as described by a three-year-old. This is surprisingly good.
Alas, they left out a couple of my own personal favorites: The ASCII-animated version, and, of course, Godzilla Vs. Disco Lando (technically more of an Empire Strikes Back remake, so I guess I can’t really complain about the omission).
Add commentJuly 21st, 2008 at 10:49pmPosted by Eli
Okay, I know Battlestar Galactica and Heroes and Lost, and maybe even Dr. Who & Torchwood (if they’re not, they should be) are all the rage these days, but I wanted to call attention to some science-fiction series which I really enjoyed back in the day which were maybe not so well-known. Well, not well-known outside the geek community, anyway.
The first half of the intro is the anthem/theme song/battlecry of the Brunnen-G, a race that was wiped out by the evil empire. Said empire also turned Kai, the last surviving Brunnen-G (that dark-haired goth-looking guy) into an undead indestructible assassin, and stole their insect-based technology to create the giant superpowerful bug-ship called The Lexx.
In addition to Kai and The Lexx, the cast includes Zev/Xev, who was partially programmed as a pleasure slave and now lusts after everyone except… Stanley Tweedle, a cowardly loser mechanic, and 790, a robot head who accidentally got some of the same pleasure slave treatment as Zev/Xev and is now obsessively devoted to her. They stole The Lexx from the evil empire, and travel around having Bizarre Adventures.
The first four installments were movie-length, under the name Tales From A Parallel Universe, and featured special guest stars such as Barry Bostwick(!), Tim Curry, Rutger Hauer, and Malcolm MacDowell. After that, the show was renamed Lexx, Zev became Xev (actress change), and it went to an hour-long format with no special guest stars. After a couple of good seasons, the series bogged down interminably on a pair of planets called Fire and Water whose novelty wore off after about five minutes, but eventually rallied sometime after I gave up on it.
Red Dwarf was structurally similar to Lexx (small group of misfits roaming the galaxy in an enormous/buglike talking ship having Bizarre Adventures), but much more of a pure comedy - in fact, it was one of the funniest shows ever, in any genre.
The basic premise was that the entire crew of the giant ship Red Dwarf died from a radiation leak, except for easygoing charismatic slob Lister, who was in stasis as punishment for hiding a cat on board. However, his priggish roommate Rimmer, who caused the radiation leak, is still around as a hologram.
Also, because the ship’s computer (Holly, a character in his own right) kept Lister in stasis for millenia until the radiation subsided, it turns out that the descendants of Lister’s pregnant cat (safe in the shielded cargo hold) evolved into almost-human (and extremely vain and lazy) sentient beings, the last of whom, Cat, joins the crew. What happened to the other cat-people is a bit vague, although they apparently managed to escape somehow. They pick up a fussy, timid servant robot named Kryten somewhere along the way as well. Fun times.
The Bablyon project was our last best hope for peace. It failed.
Babylon 5 was probably the most truly epic TV series I have ever seen, with a five-year story arc putting the giant Babylon 5 space station at the center of the galaxy’s struggle against The Shadows, an ancient, evil race that has recently reawakened. Lots of aliens, political maneuverings, and pretty decent CGI space battles.
There’s much more to it than that, of course, but I don’t want to give too much away. Also, an eclectic cast that includes Bruce Boxleitner (Tron!), Claudia Christian (Hexed, The Hidden), Mira Furlan (Rousseau from Lost), Stephen Furst (Animal House), and Jeff Conaway (Taxi), with occasional guest appearances from Walter Koenig (Chekhov you know who Walter Koenig is) as a creepy psychic bad guy.
I recommend all three series in the strongest possible terms, so if they ever show up on TV again, or if you have a chance to buy or borrow them, be sure to check them out. There’s a lot of clips out there on YouTube if you want to get a feel for the shows first.
This is just brilliant, and if I don’t post it tonight, I’ll forget about it. The Datastorm is the only high-speed data transfer device you will ever need. It runs on “electricity”.
Other than the sound levels, this is absolutely brilliant.
(I kinda preferred this version, but the sound gets out of synch towards the end. At least, I think it does - the routine’s so meta that I can’t be sure.)
I don’t know if any of you young ‘uns have heard of Tom Lehrer, whose birthday was earlier this month, but he’s a right treat. The hard part is settling on just which songs to choose from…
Yes, it’s The Tall Man singing a whimsical song of his own composition, which appears to be about sexually molesting prairie dogs. Be sure to watch the whole thing - you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Angus Scrimm get all kissy-kissy.
And as long as we’re looking at actors branching into other forms of media:
It’s not so much that it’s a video of a scandalous ex-porn-star wriggling around aerobically, it’s the stupendously silly rhyming motivational narration that goes along with it.
Move your hips from side to side
‘Til there’s no fat to hide
Keep your tummy firm and tight
If it hurts you’ve got to FIGHT!
And so on.
Add commentApril 21st, 2008 at 11:29amPosted by Eli
I’ve never been entirely sure if it’s just the one guy who can pull his bottom lip over his nose, or a whole bunch of them. So this is either The Guy, or one of them.
Holy weight loss, Batman! The Caped Crusader has picked the rural roads of Ellington for his effort to get in shape.
There have been multiple sightings of the man in the costume jogging through town for some time now.
Batman, as always, is keeping his true identity under wraps. But this version says he’s a 41-year-old consumer advocate helping homeowners facing foreclosure.
He says the jogging started as a bet with his three sons: If they bought him a Batman suit, he would start running in it.
He tells the Journal Inquirer of Manchester that he’s lost 56 pounds so far. The first people who saw him stopped their car and took pictures.
Batman says he’s keeping the town’s residents and cows safe.
I can’t decide whether this is totally awesome or kind of sad…
Surprisingly poignant after all those years of seeing the space invaders as the implacable, evil enemy. But they have families just like everyone else.
Hey, did you ever wonder what it would look like if the guy who did the opening title sequences for It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World and Anatomy Of A Murder did the credits for Star Wars too? I mean, who hasn’t?
According to polling sources, Norm Coleman is in a tight race to keep his US Senate seat. But if he’s losing any sleep, you probably won’t be able to tell. His most recent FEC report shows a $73-dollar disbursement to Nordstrom Direct for makeup. Was he searching for the best moisturizer to smooth away those worry lines from campaign stress? Or some concealer to hide dark circles following sleepless nights?
This isn’t the first time Sen. Coleman has put his best face forward: in 2005 he made the Washington Post when emails were flying regarding 1999 dental work worth $6,000. Before and after pictures were posted on the dentist’s website, but were soon removed at the request of the senator’s office.
I’m sure this will get exactly the same kind of condescending media coverage as John Edwards’ gazillion-dollar haircuts did…
Add commentMarch 11th, 2008 at 07:45pmPosted by Eli
One of my friends in college had this old VHS tape that he or a friend had compiled, primarily of old SCTV episodes from the show’s final season. One of my favorite sketches on the tape was a gameshow called Half Wits, which was a bit like SNL’s Celebrity Jeopardy, in that the contestants were all blithering morons who could not answer the simplest of questions.
I searched YouTube in vain, unable to find this piece of comedic treasure… until now:
Unfortunately, the clips were not cut with specific sketches in mind; they’re basically full episodes cut up at random intervals. Still, it’s totally worth it.
