Warp Section

Just when I was thinking we were about due for a remake (or “reimagining,” as the current trend has it) of this classic, along comes this. That’s right. Apparently there is a new Flash on the way from the Sci Fi Channel. (which means it could be good. . .or not.)

I already have three Flash Gordons in my collection. For some reason, this dashing space hero has always appealed to me. It’s space opera, but through the eyes of the folks next door. He may be a square-jawed icon, and Dale Arden may be beautiful and spunky, but they’re our surrogates in these space-faring adventures.

The 1930s serials starring Buster Crabbe are credited with being one the inspirations for Star Wars — and really, just about every space opera that came after it. It’s all about the rockets with fins. These are so much fun to watch, because each episode is only about ten minutes long — and each one ends on a hideous cliffhanger, so we’ll be sure to come back and pay our nickel at the theater next week to see what happens. So every ten minutes, Flash falls down a chasm, gets blasted by an exploding robot, crashes his space ship, nearly freezes to death on an ice planet. . . you get the idea. Many of these episodes are online at the Internet Archive.

I discovered the 1950s TV version starring Steve Holland in, of all places, the Target dollar bins. This version is fascinating because for one thing, it was filmed in postwar West Berlin. All the extras have German accents. Also, it’s a very 1950s version of the character, with less swashbuckle, and more science. They actually try to explain things from a scientific standpoint as they go along. It’s like the writers were devouring issues of Astounding magazine, which was busy publishing authors like Clarke, Heinlein, and Asimov at the time.

Then there’s the 1980 feature film starring Sam J. Jones as Flash. All camp, all the time. Timothy Dalton in green leather as Prince Barin. Songs by Queen. As embarrassing as it might be to say it, I love this one. It’s just so happy. Come on, you can sing it now… “Flash! Ah-aaaaahhhh! He’ll save everyone of us!”

Will Sci Fi be able to say the same? Stay tuned…

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Here’s a movie rental for you this weekend.

I remember seeing trailers for this in early 2005. It looked amazing. Urban fantasy the way it always looks in my head, and that movies and TV never get quite right. Hollywood versions always look a little too polished, the leather is unscuffed, and everyone looks so pretty.

But these clips looked gritty, depicting a world (Moscow, in reality) that might have been right on the edge of falling into a deep abyss. I couldn’t even tell the story, just images: magicians, shapeshifters (a real shapeshifter, morphing seamlessly into her tiger form thanks to CGI. None of that mutant rubber suit crap), vampires, and terror.

The film advertised a Summer 2005 release, which never happened. I gnashed my teeth.

Finally, early in 2006, the film got a limited art house release, and I made sure to see it. And it lived up to all its potential. The setting is modern urban, but the story is ancient, a battle between dark and light (though not necessarily good and evil), and about how deep the roots of fate really go.

If you like the works of Neil Gaiman (especially the Sandman comics), Night Watch is right up that same alley. It takes myth and folklore and plunks it down in a modern setting, with modern people having to deal with it, mixes in a dash of humor and a whole lot of wonder.

If I haven’t convinced you, see for yourself at the Fox Searchlight website.

There is a sequel to Night Watch: Day Watch, released in Russia last year, which continues the story of the balance between the forces of darkness and light.

The official website has word of a June 1, 2007 U.S. release date. I’m all atwitter. Another summer movie to look forward to!

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I’ve been perusing the “Rumors” category on Sci Fi Wire, and have decided it’s a catalog of wishful thinking. A remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still? A film version of Castlevania? Sam Raimi directing a Doc Savage movie? Jake Gyllenhaal playing Captain Marvel? How utterly freaking cool would that be? But how many of these rumors are ever going to pan out? My cynical guess: not many.

The reality of movie making is that thousands and thousands of films enter the planning and pre-production stages, and never make it out again. Financing falls through, production people lose interest and move on to more enticing projects. Hollywood movies involve thousands of people in a complicated process, and not every good idea makes it out alive, which is too bad.

I love movie rumors. And I hate them. They represent all the great movies we’ll never get to see. An Alien sequel written by William Gibson. Batman villains who never made it on screen. Joss Whedon directing Wonder Woman.

One movie rumor I’ve been following for years: a film version of Watchmen, based on the influential Alan Moore graphic novel that changed the way everyone looks at superheroes. It still has an IMDB listing, which even names Gerard Butler (from 300) as a potential cast member. (Ozymandias maybe?)

But this has also become the ultimate movie rumor for me. Casting rumors, changes in directors, release dates — it’s been going on for probably ten years. I won’t actually believe this movie is being made until I sit down in a darkened theater with my bucket of popcorn and the title comes on screen.

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A new season of Doctor Who is underway, with a new companion. You know what I like best? The Doctor’s ability to pick the smartest person in the room and latch on to her. It happened in the episode “Rose,” when we first meet Rose Tyler, and it happens again in “Smith and Jones,” when we first meet Martha Jones. Both of them were faced with weird, impossible situations, and instead of freaking, tried to figure out what was going on. Now that’s the kind of person you want with you in the TARDIS.

Looking forward to more new episodes. This show is so much more cheerful than Battlestar Galactica…

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That’s a quote from George Bernard Shaw, and it’s as true now as it ever was.

I’ve mentioned previously a BBC show, Life on Mars. It’s about Sam Tyler, a 2006 cop who wakes up in 1973 and feels like he’s on another planet. It’s tangentially science fiction in that there might be time travel involved. Or maybe Sam is just crazy. Or maybe he’s in a coma. Or maybe… You get the idea. At any rate, I think it’s surreal and warped enough to count. And it’s brilliant. Part weird mind game, part homage to 70s cop shows (as Sam says in a recent episode, “Starsky and Hutch have a lot to answer for.”), it’s very well acted, and I keep watching because I feel so much pity and empathy for Sam, a sensitive new age guy stuck in rough-and-tumble 1973 with a bunch of hooligan cops. I love watching him in his predicament, and I desperately want him to get back home.

So imagine my curiosity when I learned that ABC is developing an American version of Life on Mars. Part of me is very excited. It’s a great show, and an American version could be a lot of fun. After all, The Office made the transition to an American version quite well.

But then there’s Red Dwarf.

Red Dwarf was a brilliant UK sci-fi comedy about the last surviving human, who’s a complete slob. His only companions are a holographic recreation of a dead crewmate who’s a complete git, and the sentient lifeform that evolved from his pet cat. If you haven’t seen it, run don’t walk to the video store, put it in your Netflix queue, whatever. It’s Douglas Adams on crack.

In 1992, someone though it would be a good idea to make an American version. I can understand the impulse. Lots of little cultural references don’t quite make sense in the U.S. The pilot for the American Red Dwarf was filmed, and it was an unmitigated disaster. YouTube has the proof.

It’s like they stripped away everything that was truly great about Red Dwarf and dumbed down what was left. And don’t get me started on the appalling laugh track. Have you ever noticed that the actual humor of a show is inversely related to the volume of the laugh track? It’s like by laughing harder they can convince us it’s actually funny. Not. Linwood Boomer wrote this — as the creator of the witty Malcolm in the Middle, he really should have known better. Needless to say, the show never got past the pilot stage.

So this is my fear, that an American version of Life on Mars will suck all the life out of the show and reduce its subtle wit and emotional power to one-liners and pratfalls. There’s hope: the producers have delayed the pilot by a year, because they’re looking for just the right actor to play Sam. They at least recognize that whoever plays Sam is going to be carrying the weight of the entire show on his shoulders and he’d better be damn good.

Fingers crossed.

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I was recently talking with some friends about favorite canceled shows (the conclusion: if we like a show, it’s bound to be cancelled forthwith), and was reminded of this gem.

Ezekiel Stone is a cop. Rather, he was a cop, and in a rage he murdered the man who raped his wife. Shortly after, he himself is killed, and he goes to Hell for that murder. Because life’s a bitch and then…well, you know.

Then something odd happens. 113 of Hell’s worst offenders escape and are now roaming the planet as demons. The Devil needs someone to bring them back. Who better than a damned cop who has demonstrated he has the chops to hunt down bad guys and mercilessly dispatch them? So he sends Stone back to Earth to hunt down the escaped demons.

Stone is rather enjoying his second chance at life — even if it is as a supernatural bounty hunter for the Devil. He’s catching up with all the changes in the world in the decade or so since he died, and he occasionally checks up on his wife. Thankfully, Stone’s fish-out-of-water story of being sent years into his own future (our present) never overwhelms the core of the demon-hunting plot.

John Glover (who currently does an outstanding job as Lex Luthor’s father, Lionel, on Smallville) nearly steals the show as the Devil, effectively Stone’s boss. This Devil is snide, manipulative, sadistic (of course), and yet harbors a lot of pain. In one memorable scene, he angrily tells Stone, “I loved God! No one loved him more than me!” He isn’t just the Devil, he’s the Devil from Milton’s Paradise Lost, whose every action and motivation stems not from his own evil, but from his pain at being rejected by God. Heady stuff.

It occurs to me that this is the show The Dresden Files desperately wishes it could be: dark, magical, tricky, subtle, and smart. Add another one to the DVD wish list.

And because everything has a fan site: here’s Brimstone’s.

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Shameless self promotion time. This is just to announce, commemorate, and squee over the release of my third novel, Kitty Takes a Holiday.

This is part of a series about a werewolf named Kitty who hosts a talk radio show about the supernatural. As the title suggests, she’s taking a break in this one. But she should have known that going to an isolated cabin in the woods, all alone, was just asking for trouble. (Insert Psycho theme music.)

A little note about how publishing works: the lead time for getting a book into stores is about a year. That means I finished the manuscript for this one about a year ago. Which means I’ve been trying very hard to not talk about it at all, in order to keep secret a couple of rather large spoilers. I’m so happy I can finally talk about it!

But now I have to keep mum about the fourth book which is, of course, finished except for revisions, but won’t be released until next year. Grrrr.

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