Showbits

The Return of Super Megafest

kgagne — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 04:16:26 +0000

The weekend before Thanksgiving has become a tradition of celebrities of sci-fi, wrestling, and nostalgia. A half-hour west of Boston, a Sheraton hotel again became the home of the annual Super Megafest, a convention for comic book dealers, cosplayers, and all manner of geeks and fans.

[Show as slideshow]

Having attended last year's Megafest, I knew what to expect: a small but full hall of merchandise, with a few smaller aisles of celebrity signings. I'm not a collector and, as appealing as the vintage toys, comics, and posters were, I wouldn't need to budget much time to peruse the various vendors' wares. I'd be there for the stars, who offered not only their autographs but also their time. A fee for their signatures meant the lines to meet these guests would be short, which equated to more time they could spend with each fan. There were actors, wrestlers, artists, and other big names to appeal to everyone, but I narrowed down my must-meet list just three.

Meeting them occurred more quickly than I predicted. Aside from the show floor, there was a too-small conference room in which each celebrity was granted a half-hour moderated Q&A session. No schedule was posted to the show's Web site, so I took a gamble and showed up as late as 2:30 PM on Saturday. At exactly that moment, the first star on my list was taking the stage, followed immediately afterward by the next. I could not have planned my first hour at the Megafest more precisely.

Dawn Wells, famous for her innocent portrayal of Mary Ann on Gilligan's Island, was happy to entertain questions from the fans. Though Ms. Wells now runs a film school in Idaho, most of the discussion was about the role and show she is best known for. Ms. Wells said that in the Sixties, Gilligan's Island was how the rest of the world saw America, though she made no allusion to another group that thought the show was real. More recently, she considered the 2004 reality show based on the series a travesty — "Why would you take anything so wholesome and have Mary Ann and Ginger mud wrestle?" Yet even the original series has its dark rumors, such as that the seven castaways were modeled after the seven deadly sins, with Mary Ann representing envy. "Preposterous," claimed Ms. Wells. During this short session, I did not get the opportunity to ask either of my burning questions: how did she and the Professor feel about the theme song reducing them to "the rest"; and why could the Professor build a radio out of coconuts, but he couldn't repair a hole in a boat?

I bumped into Ms. Wells again later when she was signing autographs, but she seemed preoccupied. I briefly mentioned the book Gilligan's Wake to her, but she'd never heard of it. We then both moved on.

After her Q&A, I kept my seat for Jonathan Frakes, prolific sci-fi actor and director best known for the role of Commander William T. Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He paraded down the room to the theme of TNG, courtesy his own vocal talents — remarkable, since the theme has no words. "Sorry, but I love that song," he grinned. That introduction set the tone for the rest of the session, as Mr. Frakes seemed genuinely amused by absolutely everything: his history, his fans, their questions. I did not expect someone attending his umpteenth convention in 20 years to be so gracious, but there he was. He asked our opinion of the new Star Trek movie. I offered "cautiously optimistic", to which he replied, "I feel the same, except for the 'cautiously' part." He added, "I got to visit the bridge, and it is spec-TAC-ular" (emphasis his). "And the studios are serious about it. For the money they're pumping into it, we could've made three or four more Trek films — NOT THAT I'M BITTER!" Mr. Frakes also had a full portfolio of other roles he was happy to discuss: everything from having recently auditioned for a part on Reaper to his work as host for Alien Autopsy. "I was the spokesperson for the paranormal for several years," he reflected. "'We can't get Stewart, but call Frakes! He'll do anything!' I was the Mikey of sci-fi." This time, I got my turn to ask a question: "I loved Gargoyles. Could you talk about your work as a voice actor?" (two sentences which he interrupted with, "You have excellent taste.") "It's a dream job. You get to go to work in your pajamas." Also: "I don't understand why Gargoyles didn't last longer." That makes two of us.

I later caught up with Mr. Frakes at his autograph table. Just ahead of me was a young girl of six or seven to whom Mr. Frakes was enthusiastically recommending Seussical the Musical. As she left, he commented to me, "She had no idea what I was saying." I disagreed: "You'd be surprised what sticks at that age. I was only eight when my dad sat me down to watch the sequel to a show he'd grown up with." "And he made you watch every episode after that?" "Are you kidding? After that first episode, he didn't have to make me do anything!" "… You were born in 1979?" he asked. I expected this question to lead into an unoriginal crack about how old I made him feel. Instead he nodded sagely and commented, "That's a good age to get into Star Trek." I'd brought along my copy of First Contact for Mr. Frakes, the film's director, to sign, telling him, "This really was the best movie. You really understood what Star Trek was about." Another director might've taken that as an opportunity to denigrate Stuart Baird, who capsized the TNG film franchise with his direction of Nemesis. Mr. Frakes simply added, "We had a great script to work with." Before then, I'd already respected him as an actor; I did not expect him to exhibit such humility and grace as to leave me also respecting him as a person.

The final highlight of the day was meeting Carroll Spinney, the man inside the Big Bird costume since 1969. (Mr. Spinney also brings to life Oscar the Grouch.) Like my three older brothers, I grew up on Sesame Street and was moved to meet someone who had been such a good friend to me; part of me regrets not taking the opportunity to give him a big hug. When I told him I still remembered the day everyone met Mr. Snuffleupagus, he replied, "That was a Thursday." What a gentle and amusing sense of humor!

I got far more out of my two hours at this year's Megafest than one would think. Whereas Adam West and Burt Ward charged $50 per signature in 2007, this year was more reasonable, almost disproportionately so: $30 for Dawn Wells, $25 for Jonathan Frakes, and $20 for Carroll Spinney. But though I went home with fewer autographs this year, I took with me more memories. Sure, Ray Park and Helen Slater have an undeniable "cool" factor, but their performances didn't have nearly the impact on my upbringing as Mr. Spinney's and Mr. Frakes'. This weekend, they gave me more than their autographs: they gave me the chance to say "Thank you."

NASA and Pixar: Life Imitates Science

kgagne — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:01:18 +0000

This may seem a tangential topic to Showbits, but bear with me as I share this fascinating interview with Veronica McGregor of JPL. Ms. McGregor had a very important responsibility in the recent Mars Phoenix mission: she maintained the lander's Twitter feed, writing several daily updates to appear on the microblogging site.

Ms. McGregor took this media venue as an opportunity not just to disseminate factual information, but to engage her readers by presenting the Lander's discoveries from a first-person perspective. She describes how Twitter's 140-character limit motivated her to shorten prefixes such as "The Phoenix Lander" or "Data is not coming in suggesting" to simply "I am doing this" or "I found that".

Moreover, over the course of these many reports, the tweets took on a distinct voice, furthering the anthropomorphizing of the Phoenix Lander. It even wrote back to its followers, establishing an interplanetary dialogue. In response to public reaction to the discovery of water ice was the tweet, "Thanks for the congrats! &amp yes, I've seen water ice before but this is big news because it's 1st time EVER H20 has been collected/measured." And as the project neared the end of its life, it pondered, "Many questions about next Martian summer and will I wake up? It is beyond expectations. But if it happens you'll be among the 1st to know." Ms. McGregor explained the thought that went into these exchanges:

It's funny, when I sit down to write something for Phoenix I feel like I have to get into my "Phoenix character." I've been writing some other things for Phoenix, in first person, and I had to explain to somebody that it takes me a little while because I have to actually start thinking, well, "how would Phoenix look at this?"

The Phoenix and Wall-E — not all that unlike.
Image courtesy Gizmodo.

In this way, the Lander became not unlike WALL•E, the mechanical hero of Pixar's summer hit. Though the Lander's virgin tweet on May 7 predates the movie release on June 27, it's likely not a coincidence that two optimistic robots captured the public's imagination simultaneously. Movies like WALL•E and Star Trek prompt humanity to look to the future and the stars, and NASA is helping us get there. Even the slightest glimmer of hope, no matter how whimsical or fictional, is something we're hungry for.

Phoenix's success on Twitter has led other projects have followed suit. The Mars Rovers, which turn five years old in January, joined Twitter in August, while the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan started tweeting in July. NASA's next expedition, the Mars Science Laboratory, which won't launch until September 15, 2009, at the earliest, already has a over 3,000 followers — despite having not yet published a single tweet! And if these aren't enough for you, NASA has indexed its many other Twitterers.

Someday, we'll be looking not up to the stars, but back to the Earth. Until then, we can count on entities like NASA and Pixar to bring the universe to us.

Star Trek Trailer: Past, Present, and Future

kgagne — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:00:12 +0000

With still six months to go, Star Trek XI has already traveled a long road. The intention to develop the property was announced in April 2006, with the first poster coming out in June of that year. JJ Abrams (Lost, Alias, Mission Impossible III) signed on to direct in February 2007, and filming began in November 2007, with a wrap date of March 2008. The film-footage-free teaser trailer was released before Cloverfield in January 2008, back when we thought we'd be revisiting Roddenberry's future as early as this Christmas.

Now, with less than half a year until the May 8th release, the veil of secrecy under which the Star Trek reboot has until recently been conducted provides us with our first significant glimpse of what awaits in the form of this full-length trailer:

I was sorely tempted to not indulge in this trailer at all; if its purpose is to sell me on the film, then its very existence is superfluous. Why not leave that many more surprises until its silver screen debut?

But I'm glad I watched it, and gladder still that it is completely spoiler-free. Almost nothing of the plot or obstacles are revealed, leaving us instead with a more general look of the actors and their environment. I confess that even that little is not what I expected. The Enterprise has always faced the final frontier with a sense of wonderment, though here we find it in not the seasoned and mature crew of TOS, but a younger and less experienced crew. As a prequel, that only makes sense, but I worry that too much rebellious angst will fill the film, as suggested by the conflict between Kirk and Spock. Also, seeing Kirk on two classic means of locomotion lends an even lower-tech feeling than its temporal predecessor, Enterprise.

Other than these minor points, I have a surprisingly nondescript reaction. The fast-paced nature of the trailer left little opportunity to assess the characters in their roles, or even to get a good look at their ship, within or without. I find myself neither more eager nor more anxious about the fate of the franchise; only the final film will allow me that judgment.

Memento — The Freshmaker

kgagne — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:30:28 +0000

With Chris Nolan in the news for having directed the summer blockbuster The Dark Knight, I thought it time to finally see the film for which he was previously best known: Memento.

Given that I've been hearing about this movie since its 2000 release, I imagine its plot and devices are fairly well known by now. I knew about two of them: a man (Guy Pearce of L.A. Confidental; The Count of Monte Cristo; The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) is trying to find whoever killed his wife; and the film plays backward. What I didn't know is that the incident that saw his wife murdered also caused him brain damage, resulting in anterograde amnesia — a rare disorder that prevents a person from transcribing short-term memories into long-term (as seen in Clean Slate). Our hero can't remember beyond the last few minutes, which he works around by taking notes and photographs and learning to trust his own handwriting.

"Have you seen my car?"

Some critics call the film's chronology a hackneyed device, but even eight years after its release, I'd never seen it anything like it. The movie starts at the end and plays in chronological order the last five minutes of a day in the life of Leonard Shelby. We then see the five minutes that preceded that sequence, and the five before that, until we get to the beginning. Each chunk of time is about how long Leonard's memory lasts, though interspersed in these sequences is a forward-progressing, black-and-white, narrative flashback. It reminds me of how Billy Crystal's character in When Harry Met Sally would always skip to last page of a book to see how it ends, then read the rest to solve the mystery of how the characters get there. We the audience think we know what's going on because we're introduced to the characters and their fates before Leonard is — but it's the genesis of these situations that prove to have more impact than their consequences.

It's an engaging film made more so by great casting. Guy Pearce is remarkably calm (and occasionally didactic) for someone in his situation, yet his performance has been called "the most accurate portrayal of the different memory systems in the popular media." Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix; Fido) and Joey Pantoliano (The Matrix; The Sopranos; Daredevil) are fantastic as supporting cast members who leave both Leonard and viewers wondering if they are truly friend or foe. It was a sufficiently intense film so as to distract from the RiffTrax version.

Memento reminded me of a lot of my favorite media: Quantum Leap and Sam's swiss-cheese memory; the comic strip For Better or Worse's recent decision to retreat from the present to the past; the danger of amnesia in Déjà Vu. We need more media like Memento and Braid that's willing to be unconstrained by the dimension of time — not just because of the challenge it presents its audience, but because of the fresh experiences it allows filmmakers to offer.

Rock the Galactic Vote

kgagne — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:05:29 +0000

Today, the United States will elect its next president. For months, if not years, we've been subjected to the back-and-forth attacks between two opposing parties. If you haven't yet cast your vote and are still feeling indecisive, Showbits, in a bipartisan fashion, offers this last-minute roundup of campaign pleas:

And to anyone who tells you not to vote today… it's a trap!

(Hat tip to TheForce.net)

Fanboys' Rebellion

kgagne — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 03:35:47 +0000

Star Wars has inspired some fantastic fan films, from Chad Vader to Ryan vs. Dorkman. As artistic and engaging as these creations are, they are usually limited in their budget and scope; few are more than a few minutes in length. Meanwhile, more ambitious projects, such as Heart of an Empire or 5/25/77, never see the light of day.

Finally, a feature-length film inspired by Star Wars will get a nationwide theatrical release — thanks in no small part to a cast that includes Kevin Smith, William Shatner, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Kristen Bell, Seth Rogen, Ray Park, and Superman Returns' Jimmy Olsen, with Kevin Spacey producing. The first trailer for Fanboys brings to life every geek's hopes and dreams:

Although I'm not always a fan of either Seth Rogen or Kristen Bell, this star-studded film looks like a ton of fun for anyone who knows Star Wars and Star Trek as well as the typical Showbits reader. A healthy dork is one who can laugh at himself, and I suspect I won't be alone in counting myself among that crowd come Fanboys' opening night of February 6, 2009.

(Hat tip to ComingSoon.net)

Last-Minute Costume Ideas

kgagne — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:54:55 +0000

We can always count on MST3K to help us celebrate the holidays. Just as they always have a special Christmas message, today they help us dress up for Halloween:

It's hard for me to top the costume I wore to work four years ago… but every Halloween is a new opportunity. Perhaps this year I'll carve a Death Star jack-o'-lantern! (Hat tip to meancritter)

The Transporter's First Package

kgagne — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:44:55 +0000

When the first Transporter film was released in 2002, it didn't even register on my radar. The first I'd heard of it was the 2005 release of Transporter 2, which I assumed was the first domestic sequel in some foreign series. (Hey, it happens.) It didn't seem very high-brow, so I dismissed it as a flash in the pan. But a recent Transporter 3 trailer revealed the franchise to have a longer tail than I expected. More important, it actually looked like a fun film I'd want to see. Time at last to go back to the beginning and watch the original Transporter

Frank Martin (played by Jason Statham) is a retired soldier living in southern France, where he makes an underground living as a transporter — a courier with no questions asked. When his curiosity leads him to break Rule #3 — "Never open the package" — he finds himself running from the mob while trying to do what's right… as long as it doesn't get him killed.

"What have you gotten me into now?"

It's that sense of morality that let me get behind The Transporter as a fun action flick. The main character finds bliss in ignorance, but like Firefly's Mal, when he knows something wicked is going down, he does his best to minimize it. We never see Martin kill anyone, which is a surprise to even his opponents, who often expect a fatal blow only to find themselves still breathing. We can presume some of his victims die off-screen, but it's never explicitly shown. I didn't need to check the MPAA rating to deduce it was PG-13.

The rating doesn't slow down some great action sequences. There are several hand-to-hand combat sequences that occur in diverse settings such as a passenger bus, an oil slick, and among cargo containers. Where Jackie Chan uses props as comical effects, Martin uses them for deadly ones. There's some great choreography present that doesn't resort to the annoying trend toward quick and dizzying cuts and angles. There's more green screen than there is CGI, and what little CGI is noticeable is more for aesthetics than function.

The Transporter is nothing new; like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in The Rundown, Martin is a merc who gets too close to his target. But despite being written by Luc Besson of The Fifth Element, it's mindless fun with plenty of action and a solid performance by Jason Statham that has me looking forward to the sequels.

A Very Brady Biography

kgagne — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:40:31 +0000

We all remember the shows and stars of our youth. Though The Brady Bunch was already in reruns by the time I came along, I still felt like I grew up Brady. And thanks to regular reunions, movies, and spoofs, in a way, it feels like I'm still growing up Brady.

Apparently, I'm not the only one, as currently in the news is the show's Marcia Brady. Maureen McCormick's autobiography, Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice, has some surprising relevations about the less-than-ideal life and lessons she contended with offstage, which included drug addiction, depression, and family estrangement. We've seen this happen to numerous Hollywood celebrities; it's not uncommon for fame and fortune to go hand-in-hand with struggle and strife. But it's especially sad to see it strike younger actors, whose lives are so full of potential but are not fully in their own control.

Yet what keeps The Brady Bunch timeless is not these new divulgements, but the constant image its alumni maintain. Now in their fifties, the show's teenage actors have weathered and matured yet always remained warm and upbeat to their fans and to each other. Barry Williams (Greg Brady) writes on his blog, The Greg Brady Project, how Ms. McCormick had to contend with "a wholly unrealistic image as America’s perfect teenager" — and though I'm sure that's true, it seems that, given enough time, the entire bunch has grown into well-adjusted adults. It's a heartwarming contrast to other teen stars of then and now, from Dana Plato to Lindsay Lohan.

Though many actors would've been frustrated by failing to break away from their iconic roles, especially ones that caused them such personal grief, the Brady Bunch has rarely shied from opportunities to reunite, whether it's to host a television game show, to shoot a promotional video for Hawaii's board of tourism, or mentoring the actors who have taken on the Brady roles for a new generation. By remaining so open and visible, they do their fans a service.

Both of these internal and external connections come across in this recent CNN interview with Mr. Williams:

An autobiography is often an opportunity to air dirty laundry and sordid scandals — indeed, even CNN labeled their video interview as "Greg Brady Tells All!" — but it's apparent that Ms. McCormick used her book as a catharsis, not as payback, and that whatever secrets did surface, Mr. Williams continues to hold his stage sister in high personal regard. I would expect nothing less from a Brady.

An Election Too Close to Call

kgagne — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:54:27 +0000

The 2000 presidential election was the first I was eligible to participate in. I remember being surprised and disappointed at how slowly that election resolved itself, but I confess I didn't pay it much attention — I was still in college and felt I had more immediate concerns, like exams and concerts. The election also seemed a dull matter of lawsuits and recounts; I cared more about the resolution than the methodology.

Fast forward eight years, and I hope I'm a bit more civic minded. Still, I'm more a film buff than a politician, so it wasn't until I heard Kevin Spacey was the lead that I found myself wanting to see HBO's recent dramatization of that convoluted election.

Recount, which aired in May and came to DVD in August, begins on November 7, 2000, and ends on December 13. What begins as a clear loss for Vice President Gore quickly snowballs as confused voters step forward and political affiliations persuade officials into partisan decisions. A series of lawsuits, hearings, and legal interpretations showcases this affair that was more drawn out than I recalled.

The title suggests a staid documentary about recounting ballots, but it's a tenser political drama than that. I live in a so-called blue state and so was challenged to find anyone who wanted to watch with me a movie "about Bush stealing the election", as they called it. I wanted to watch it not so that it would infuriate me, but for it to serve as a case study of the process in which this country will be engaging in two weeks. Recount is a look at the American election system and its flaws and loopholes — at how it should work and how it actually works.

This election is brought to life by an award-winning cast. Kevin Spacey and Tom Wilkinson play Ron Klein and James Baker, recount overseers for the Gore and Bush camps, respectively. The supporting cast includes Denis Leary (born in the city I now live in), John Hurt (Watership Down, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones 4), Bob Balaban (Waiting for Guffman, City Slickers II), and Ed Begley Jr. (Arrested Development, Star Trek: Voyager). DVD extras include interviews between the actors and the real-life characters they portray.

Attorney David Boies (Begley) invites Ron Klain (Spacey)
to eat "the red ones" for breakfast.

We never see the faces of the actors portraying Al Gore and George W. Bush, and after the film's first few minutes, we don't see even that, being limited to their voices on speakerphone (or historical footage on TV). Although this conscious effort is a bit awkward, it underscores that the leading roles are their campaign leaders. In one particularly tense scene in the Supreme Court, we can see Kevin Spacey hold his breath as Ed Begley Jr. is asked difficult questions. There's a pause as pregnant as a chad that gives the audience time to consider how trapped and speechless we would be in that same situation, and Spacey doesn't let his breath out until Begley somehow spins an honest and helpful answer beyond the eloquence of your average American. Even though we know how Recount ends as much as we did with Titanic, it's the behind-the-scenes twists, turns, and surprises that make this film more than a historical recounting.

The cast and crew also has a pair of surprising geek connections. First is that the script was written by Danny Strong, a minor actor from Joss Whedon's Buffy and Firefly series. Second is a ten-second cameo by William Schallert, prolific actor from the Patty Duke and Dobie Gillis era. Though insignificant in this film, Mr. Schallert always brings a smile to my face, which those depressed by the remainder of this film could likely use.

Whoever the stars are on either side, it Kevin Spacey's camp that is the lead. Democrats in the audience will be happy to see their party portrayed as the scrappy underdogs working out of a strip mall while the evil and finely-tailored Republicans play hardball to get their way. I do not necessarily interpret this angle as a liberal bias; every movie needs a protagonist, and given that we all know how the movie ends, there is little cinematic alternative but to cast the two parties in these roles. Besides, I came not for the people, but for the process — and ultimately, regardless of the fairness of the process, I must believe in this closing statement for the hope of future elections:

"The system worked. There were no tanks on the street. This peaceful transfer of power in the most emotional and trying of times is a testament to the strength of the Constitution and to our faith in the rule of law."