Liquid Sky Equals Pure Absurity (In a Bad Way)

After Liquid Sky ended, I laughed hysterically.

More accurately, I laughed like a madman as I was walking out of the theater. I had to get some sweet abbreviation soda (Dr. Pepper as it is called in most circles) and a bag of baked Dorito's chips just to make sure I was not losing my marbles. I came to see Liquid Sky with an open mind and no expectations. I had no idea what I was expecting.

Well, this lack of expectation really, really screwed with my head.

And no, I actually did laugh out loud (Explaining it to some people was no easy task), get a soda and some chips after seeing this movie, because not only was this movie bad, it was BAD. It was bad because of its acting, it was bad because of its writing, it was bad because of its special effects, it was bad because of its nonsensical plot. I love art house films and films with unconventional thoughts but Liquid Sky was just, well BAD!

Yes, this movie is a cult favorite, but to me, it was BAD to the point where I felt I was in a drug-induced nightclub. It is an experience I do not want to take again. Liquid Sky was a softcore porno, art house flick gone awry, low budget alien movie, low budget movie overall, and an exercise of how not to make an art film. I find the ideas of punk culture, free love and drug abuse on film facinating but I would easily appreciate the ideas the movie was playing around with had it not been for its aimless execution.

Still, I need to concentrate on the themes of the movie is addressing. The aliens in the movie are addicted to people addicted to heroine. Thanks to Margaret, the aliens become addicted to orgasms and heroine altogether. This results in the funniest lines, intentionally or otherwise, ever to be uttered ("I kill with my c*$t.). You also have the lonely woman and the German scientist looking out the window with the telescope. Both are voyeurs, with the scientist explaining what is really going on. The focus is no longer on the aliens anymore, it is on Margaret screwing anyone she finds and vaporizes them upon orgasm! So if Liquid Sky is not really a science fiction movie, then it is a skin flick masquerading as a science-fiction flick and an art film.

Then you have Margaret constantly painting and dressing herself, especially after she has lethal sex. Could her actions represent the danger of sex with sexually trasmitted diseases? Margaret vaporizing people with sex alone can represent someone infecting other people with AIDS or any other condition imaginable. If you take out the aliens, you could have Margaret as the "alien" and she would vaporize people with her libido alone!

Still, Liquid Sky deserves the "High Caffeine Award."

- Kristopher

Akira!

Akira is the most epic anime that I have ever seen with my two eyes. Period.

The above sentence is not enough to summarize how awesome this anime is, and not enough to summarize why mention of it is being made on Aboard the Starship. Akira is based on a series of graphic novels by Katsuhiro Otomo, the same creator who wrote and directed the film. This anime is given high praise because it is a landmark title. Before Akira, anime was infamous for having stilted animation and lip synching that was off with the words. Akira got rid of the medium's annoyances by recording the actors' voices before making the lip synching animations, cranked up the cel animations, inserted a memorable soundtrack, and using a story that blends cyberpunk fiction and a story of political corruption and resistance against an oppressive government wanting to use power-both governmental and psychic-to their own ends. To top it off, the movie is chock full of cool motorcyle sequences.

The back story is that in 1988, a large explosion destroys most of old Tokyo. Fast forwarding to 2019, the story focuses on a biker gang who through a series of events get involved with a group of terrorists trying to take down Neo-Tokyo's dystopian, third-world government. One of the bikers, Tetsuo Shima, is horribly injured after almost running over a child psychic who makes his bike explode. Tetsuo is taken in by the military government to be a test subject in enhancing his psychic capabilities. Kaneda, Tetsuo's best friend, is determined to save him, but can he face against his friend whose powers are growing at a frightening rate?

Akira goes with the old wisdom of science fiction; science fiction is not used to tell the future, but to prevent the future from happening. The military in Akira rounded up children in Japan and performed experiments to enhance their psychic potential. Not to spoil the story, but one of the children, the title character in the story who does not fully appear until the end, is responsible for blowing up Neo Tokyo. Given Japan's history of being bombed by two atomic weapons, there is a message of using and exploiting technology. Moreso, there is a message of exploiting and abusing people with that technology. There is only concern for power, and power is used by the corrupt and turns people like Tetsuo, who is in a rivalry with his friend Kaneda, into power-hungry maniacs.

The movie is also a critique on the old fashioned Japanese type of honor. The Colonel, the figure responsible for the program that performed experiments on the children, is a figure who believes the miiltary should be the sole authority of a city that is ridden in gangs and corruption. He can be compared to an anachronistic shogun who believes the samurai code should continue to thrive in the light of new developments in civil rights and technology.

Below is a parody by Harry Partridge of the American production of Akira that will be coming in 2011. Yes, that's right. An American production of Akira. In 2011. Wonder how that will turn out...I sorely apologize that the screen is rather squished on the blog.



- Kristopher

The Brother - More Human than Human?

The Brother from Another Planet, an indie film classic we watched in Science Fiction Literature and Film class, shows us that we might not be as human as we think. The Brother (Portrayed by Joe Morton), is not native to planet Earth. He would have no bias about how corrupt, insane, or how beautiful and interesting our world can truly be.

I would believe it is fairly ironic that even though the Brother is an alien from another world, he ends up being the most sympathetic and most human character in the movie. He acts like a good scientist (Or a good alien scientist) would; the Brother observes human behavior, interacts with humans in an indirect way and experiences the pains that humans have to deal with. Yes, he has strange feet that would stand out from the rest of the public in Harlem but the Brother is a lot like us.

It would be easy to assume that The Brother from Another Planet would be a blaxploitation flick, but that's not the case at all. The problems associated with problem are explored with the black populace but other people are looked at closer. You have the Southern woman trying to adjust to life in New York, the kid in the subway who enjoys telling stories and playing card tricks at the same time, the Hispanic repairman who warms up to the Brother and other characters the Brother meets along the way.

The Brother has antagonists; he has to evade a pair of white alien bounty hunters who screech like cats and have synchronized actions with one another. They are funny but they are also omnimous of why they are after the Brother. My best guess is that the white aliens represent the oppressive part of society dominated by people who are Caucasian. Even their mannerisms are bureaucratic in nature, as they ask the man in the arcade about his Green Card.

The Brother from Another Planet was funny, intriguing, and truly introspective. The main character, despite being from another world, was easy to relate to and fun to watch as he tries to find his place in a new world.

- Kristopher

Dr. Strangelove - Strange and In Love with Destruction, Influences Included

Dr. Strangelove, being the title character of Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Stopped Worrying and Loved the Bomb, is charismatic, ruthless, possibly a Nazi and just downright bizarre. Would you be comfortable with your dentist having a mechanical arm, wearing dark sunglasses, and shouting "SEIG HEIL!" at the wrong moment at the wrong time? I would be yanking myself out of the dentist's chair and checking out with the receptionist knowing none the wiser. Dr. Strangelove is a nuclear physicist whose creation background and character portrayal is inspired by several key historical figures.

According to this site, the German version of Strangelove is "merkwuerdigichliebe," which translates to "cherished fate." The name is significant because given to Dr. Strangelove's demented character, the idea of the whole world going up in nuclear flames would sound immensely appealing. The site also analyzed that director Stanley Kubrick would have chosen historical figures involved in nuclear weaponry and nuclear deterrence to help influence Dr. Strangelove's creation.

The first would be Henry Kissinger; he was born in Germany, his accent is in synth with Strangelove's and Kissenger's psychology appears to be linked up with a serial killer. Kissenger wrote about nuclear war in terms of nuclear deterrance and a limited nuclear war. It is an irony that a man who won the Nobel Peace Prize would be convicted of war crimes against humanity.

The second person to possibly influence Strangelove's creation is Werner Von Braun, a rocket scientist who worked for the Nazi Party in Germany until the end of World War II. Although Von Braun, according to the same site, was not too concerned with human morals and ethics, he was taken in by the U.S. government to help develop rockets despite the crimes against humanity he may have partaken in while in the Nazi Party. Can a man be easily pardoned becauses he pioneered rocketry for space exploration? Maybe he escaped the death penalty by engineering the surrender of himself other rocket scienitsts.

The third person up Dr. Strangelove's creation alley would have to be Edward Teller. This Hungarian scientist is infamous to helping to revoke J. Robert Oppenheimer's security clearance to Los Alamos base, the same base where the first atomic bomb was developed. Teller was a pro-nuclear weapons enthusiast and helped develop the more powerful hydrogen bomb.

The last person to be analyzed would be Herman Kahn. His development for nuclear weapons were more linguistic than most. An example of his linguistic skills would be saying that "only" two million were killed by nuclear weapons. Kahn worked with the RAND corporation, a corporation that was the creation of the Air Force. Kahn's corporate

background is similiar to Dr. Strangelove's partnership with the BLAND corporation.

Looking at these four men related to nuclear warfare and nuclear weapons production, I would have to say these men would be the "Four Scientists of the Apocalypse." You have the strategist, the technologist, the manipulator, and the double-speaker. They were lauded for achievements such as space exploration and diplomacy but they are loathed for supporting genocidal regimes and engineering weapons of mass destruction.

So, what about Dr. Strangelove's mechanical arm? The character's arm may be inspired by Dr. C. A. Rotwang, the mad scientist featured in Fritz Lang's Metropolis who wrecked havoc for everyone in sight. Many critics have made comparisons between Rotwang and Dr. Strangelove, but Kubrick has denied any similiarities. Both are mad scientists, though Rotwang is the guy responsible for the "mad scientist character." Dr. Strangelove can be called a "mad scientist" but he appears to be more of a crook skilled in manipulation, nuclear theory and weirdness.

Dr. Strangelove is a highly memorable character from Kubrick's excellent dark comedy. He is cold, calculating, and is bad news to anyone's war room.

- Kristopher

Invaders from Cards

The movie we saw last week, Mars Attacks, was based on a series of trading cards that beared some resemblances to the movie. The cards themselves are less satirical than the movie's story but they are twice as violent and packing more sexual innuedoes than the movie ever dared to venture to.

So yes, I could not help but make comparisons to the movie and the original trading card source. Yet there are so many simliarities and differences when you consider the Martians vaporizing hapless humans into multicolored skeletons, shrinking soldiers into pint-sized victims and Maritians in giant robots running amok! There is also another gruesome weapon the Martians employ in the cards; giant bugs that are enlarged thanks to their gruesome experiments. And yes, there is a ton of nasty stuff like that...

You can find more information about the cards here.

- Kristopher

Cowboy Bebop - Anime Space Opera or "Space Jazz?"

It just occurred to me lately that as I delve into the space opera realm, I think of my favorite Japanese anime that takes place in the space opera realm. Enter Cowboy Bebop, an anime set in the 2070s after Earth became bombarded from an "interstellar disaster." The anime features three main bounty hunters-ex-Mafioso Spike Spiegel, ex-cop Jet Black and gambler Faye Valentine-and the self-proclaimed Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV, A.K.A. Edward who is usually accompanied with Ein, a dog with unusually high intelligence who travel in the ship, the Bebop.

The bounty hunters embark on adventures--or misadventures--across the solar system looking for criminals whom the police cannot capture on their own. There's action, comedy, philosophy, tragedy and animation that's better than most of the current anime lineup coming out. For those unfamiliar with anime, Cowboy Bebop is a great place to start because the series is chock full of Western pop culture references from movies to music.

How is this anime related to space opera? Aside from taking place mostly in space, the crew of the Bebop travel to the ruins of Earth, cities on Mars, and other far off places. Cowboy Bebop can be accurately classified as a "space western." The primary weapon shown in most of the episodes is the handgun, a type of firearm featured heavily in Westerns. The theme of bounty hunters catching their bounty heads in space can also be applied for bounty hunters stalking their quarry across the desert in a Western. Space, according to "The Cold Equations," is a dangerous frontier and this theme is highly apparent in the Cowboy Bebop series.

Below is the trailer for Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, a full length motion picture that features a story set within the main Cowboy Bebop storyline. The movie was the reason I got into the series in the first place. I read a few reviews of people who have never seen the twenty-six episode series but loved the movie with a passion.



- Kristopher

Dark Star Equals "Dork Star?"

When do you get when you have a pre-Thing and Escape from New York John Carpenter, intentionally(?) low production values, a bunch of hippies in space suits, a beach ball that's actually an alien and a bomb that can get philisophical? Ladies and gentlemen, you get Dark Star. This movie is so ridiculously corny that even the name of the movie is painted on the hull of the ship!

Part of me could not decide whether this movie was mildly funny or completely stupid but when the movie ended, I could not end up shaking my head in disbelief of well, the crazy things that happened in a movie where the crew is distressed because their entire supply of toilet paper went with a bomb they used to blow up a planet with.

The whole "blowing up planets" concept baffled me at first; why would a ship blow up random worlds? The movie could be a satire of how countries can casually bomb each other, and the people responsible for the bombs aren't highly trained professionals. They are clueless followers of the Beatles, or clueless impersonaters of the Beatles, whatever the viewer wanted to make out. Dark Star is, clearly enough, a spoof of the space opera because its crew is not valiant; all they want to do is sit around, read romance magazines, play target practice with laser guns and not have to deal with the "beach ball" alien who loves to bash the crew with a broom back and strand them in an elevator shaft (One of the crew members, Pinback, is one of the more disgruntled of the crewmembers that has to contend with a diary system that edits "obscene" words and gestures.).

Possibly the most interesting and funniest scenes involves one of the crew members, Doolittle, trying to talk to a bomb about not exploding. Doolittle tries to talk to the bomb about not exploding using existential philosophy; why should the bomb explode? Why should it not explode? The bomb is "spaced out" as it contemplates why it should exist and why it should not detonate. Could the same philosophy be applied to today's nuclear weaponry? I know we are a long way's off from the "apocalyptic scenario" discussed earlier in class but the space bomb may be a satire of the nuclear bomb. Humans do not usually "talk" to bombs but rather take them for granted and used them to blow up for pleasure and practicality.

The same philosophy used on the bomb could be used on the people responsible for pressing the red button for a nuclear weapon, a set of cluster bombs or a "bunker buster." Why do we explode? Why do we blow stuff up? The movie implies we just do to see something burst into a watercolor painting of napalm and charred chunks flying (or floating) all over the place.

Coming to think of it, people usually say violence in real life is not a good idea but then we enjoy movies like The Terminator, anime and manga like Hellsing that glorifies itself in dark humor and bloodshed and video games like Devil May Cry that congratulates the player on killing monsters in a fantastic fashion. Is Dark Star a satire of destruction, or does it just poke fun as "space opera" elements without regarding to deeper meanings?

Considering how "spaced out" the movie is (According to the poster at the beginning of this post), I would say we should not care what the movie is trying to tell us. Beach ball aliens and talking bombs just do not make any sense. Till then, surf's up!

- Kristopher