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Reviews ala carte
Jan. 16th, 2011 02:26 pmJust catching up on stuff I've recently watched/read.
H.G. Welles' The Shape of Things to Come (1979): No, not the 1930's classic, the one made in the 1970's with Barry (Space: 1999) Morse and Jack (this was a low point in my career) Palance. With Morse playing the good guy scientist, Palance as the hammy villain, and a leftover Canadian Expo center as mankind's moonbase.
You don't remember it either, eh?
It was almost sad to watch this movie, realizing it was shoved out as a cheap alternative to Star Wars. The plot had an almostDoctor Who, Blake's Seven, Starhunter: 2300-ish insistence that the audience had to suspend their disbelief and get past the cardboard sets, cardboard effects and cardboard acting to enjoy the film. Between Palance scenery chewing in a gold lame cape, actors in robot suits that were obviously actors in robot suits, and brave rebels fighting said robots hand-to-hand, the silliness factor was almost unbelievable.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: This is one of those books that almost everyone knows the plot of but precious few actually read these days. I tried reading it when I was a young teenager and gave up on it, then tried again recently when I downloaded it onto my Kindle. It proved to be more entertaining than I remember, though the plot is pretty thin compared to even the classic Disney movie, essentially consisting of "Arronax and Co, get captured, travel with Nemo around the world (killing a disturbing amount of wildlife along the way) and then escape. The bit about Nemo waging war against all warfaring nations was really glossed over (though for political reasons at the time, Verne really couldn't concentrate on it that much)
Freedom, Spiced and Drunk, and Money for Sorrow, Made Joy: Two short stories by M.C.A. Hogarth (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
haikujaguar on LJ) that I downloaded for free from Smashwords. Both stories are set in the world of the Jokku, mammalian aliens with some lizard-like characteristics, with a triple sexuality, each being almost randomly being born into either male, female, or neuter sexes, with the potential to change sexes twice in their lives. All fine and well, except both males and females run the risk of destroying their minds when overexerting themselves, something which can be avoided by males if they're cautious, and which females inevitably succumb to during the pressure of childbirth. And they have to have child, or else their entire race will die.
It sounds fairly horrible, and it is fairly horrible, with much of the tension in these stories drawing from the protagonists facing or desperately trying to avoid the fate of being female, a duty which binds them to slavery and eventual senility. Hogarth offers no easy outs, but there is a lyricism in her description of the alien world and not-quite alien minds that struggle with the terrors of being bound to their own biology that kept me reading. Recommended.
H.G. Welles' The Shape of Things to Come (1979): No, not the 1930's classic, the one made in the 1970's with Barry (Space: 1999) Morse and Jack (this was a low point in my career) Palance. With Morse playing the good guy scientist, Palance as the hammy villain, and a leftover Canadian Expo center as mankind's moonbase.
You don't remember it either, eh?
It was almost sad to watch this movie, realizing it was shoved out as a cheap alternative to Star Wars. The plot had an almost
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: This is one of those books that almost everyone knows the plot of but precious few actually read these days. I tried reading it when I was a young teenager and gave up on it, then tried again recently when I downloaded it onto my Kindle. It proved to be more entertaining than I remember, though the plot is pretty thin compared to even the classic Disney movie, essentially consisting of "Arronax and Co, get captured, travel with Nemo around the world (killing a disturbing amount of wildlife along the way) and then escape. The bit about Nemo waging war against all warfaring nations was really glossed over (though for political reasons at the time, Verne really couldn't concentrate on it that much)
Freedom, Spiced and Drunk, and Money for Sorrow, Made Joy: Two short stories by M.C.A. Hogarth (
haikujaguar on LJ) that I downloaded for free from Smashwords. Both stories are set in the world of the Jokku, mammalian aliens with some lizard-like characteristics, with a triple sexuality, each being almost randomly being born into either male, female, or neuter sexes, with the potential to change sexes twice in their lives. All fine and well, except both males and females run the risk of destroying their minds when overexerting themselves, something which can be avoided by males if they're cautious, and which females inevitably succumb to during the pressure of childbirth. And they have to have child, or else their entire race will die.It sounds fairly horrible, and it is fairly horrible, with much of the tension in these stories drawing from the protagonists facing or desperately trying to avoid the fate of being female, a duty which binds them to slavery and eventual senility. Hogarth offers no easy outs, but there is a lyricism in her description of the alien world and not-quite alien minds that struggle with the terrors of being bound to their own biology that kept me reading. Recommended.
