The Tommyknockers, dir. by John Power (1993)

Searching the Internet for positive reviews of one of my childhood favorites, The Tommyknockers, turned out to be much more difficult than I'd imagined. Based on what I found, it seems I'm one of about twelve people on the planet who actually enjoyed this film.

The miniseries version of one of Stephen King's less well received novels premiered in 1993, in that period of time when miniseries based on his work were particularly popular. It (another great adaptation with a few glaring flaws and a disappointing conclusion) had come out three years before, and The Stand was right around the corner, as were The Shining and The Langoliers.

I saw the two-part Tommyknockers when I was eleven, on its original airing, and that's probably about the best age to appreciate this film. If my first viewing occurred later in life, no doubt some of its more glaring inconsistencies and shortcomings would beharder to ignore. There are certainly holes in the story, the ending is somewhat unsatisfying, and some of the subplots are left hanging without much resolution. And yet my love for this movie is almost completely undiminished eighteen years after first seeing it.

My parents tolerated, while not quite encouraging, my interest in King's books and movies. At my insistence, we rented Stanley Kubrick's The Shining and had a family screening. I'd put my age at ten and my brother's at eight, so, understandably, our parents made us leave the room during the scene in which the young woman steps out of the bathtub naked and transforms into an old, scary woman, still naked.

Our family was always somewhat technologically challenged; we had one TV in our house when I was a kid, and our VCR's programming would never allow us to watch one channel and record another. If it had been up to me, I'd have replaced the VCR for one that could effectively utilize that function, but I didn't have enough of my own disposable income to buy something like a VCR.

And our television--we had one of those big-box wooden floor models--had a very sensitive volume setting, and if you changed the volume using Remote #1 and then tried to change it with Remote #2, it completely screwed the whole TV up. I thought we'd gotten this problem fixed in time for the Tommyknockers premier. For some reason, I was unable to watch Part One the night it aired, so my parents taped it for me. The TV sounded fine, but the next day, when I put the tape in, the volume was off, very low and fuzzy, making the tape unwatchable.

Fortunately, my neighbors had recorded it as well, their whole family fans of Stephen King miniseries. So I went over to their house and watched the first part; it ended just in time for Part Two to come on. The first half was such a great setup, I couldn't wait to see what the second part offered. Unfortunately, the show takes a bit of a downturn once that second part starts up.

The story is set in Haven (a fictional town which sits next door to Derry, the setting for It and a few other King stories). In the Anderson Woods, Bobbi (Marge Helgenberger) and Gard (Jimmy Smits) have stumbled upon a large, mysterious object, buried in the ground, its topside very near the surface. As they uncover more of the object, strange things begin to occur around town; the residents of Haven are suddenly gifted with bizarre abilities, churning out odd new inventions, while at the same time losing teeth and becoming more robotic and inhuman.

Nearly three hours of build-up leads to a conclusion that, even as a kid, struck me as kind of weak. I won't give it away here, in case you're not familiar with how things turn out for the Tommyknockers and the residents of Haven, ME, though most reviews I've come across pretty much throw it right out there, and the European DVD box art shows an image of one of the Tommyknockers, which is pretty crazy. I was disappointed with the ending, as a kid, possibly only because I wanted something else, something a bit more standard as far as Stephen King stories go. Watching it on second, third, twentieth viewing, I found more to like about the ending, and can't really view the movie the same as I did that first time. The climax comes as more of a surprise than in the book, as the real goings-on in the Anderson Woods are hinted at earlier in the novel than in the movie. And despite its shortcomings, the final revelation of the Tommyknockers doesn't come off nearly as silly as the climax of It.

Also, if you haven't read the novel, it isn't nearly as bad as its reputation. It's one of everal of King's books written in the seventies and eighties that dealt with his own alcoholism, in a veiled, metaphorical manner, and in particular, there are a lot of aspects of the novel that deal with Gard's and Bobbi's separate struggles with dependence, that aren't gone into in as much detail in the film. The Tommyknockers is a pretty good book, and the miniseries is great, especially if you're younger than fifteen.

Stranger In a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein (1961)

I take in a lot more horror and fantasy than I do science fiction, but I've read a few of the classics: 1984, Farenheit 451, Foundation, Brave New World. I picked up Stranger In a Strange Land as part of my attempt to read to completion all the books I started back in elementary school or junior high and never finished. I loved reading as a kid, but didn't always have the attention span for some of these books, and as a result would read a hundred, two hundred, or in the case of this one, three hundred pages, of a novel before discarding it for something else.

I've mostly gotten around to reading all the stuff I only half-completed years ago, and was happy to give Stranger In a Strange Land another shot (these days I only quit a book partway through only if it's absolutely un-readable, and most of the stuff I passed on when I was a kid certainly didn't fall into that category).

The only other Heinlein familiar to me is a collection of short stories called Menace From Earth. Stranger In a Strange Land, by its reputation, compared to his other books and stories, is his more "serious" work. Personally, I find the adventurous stories in Menace From Earth considerably more entertaining, but Stranger is certainly a good one, and I'm sure I got more from it than when I'd first picked it up as a thirteen-year-old.

Valentine Michael Smith, the Man From Mars, is born to human parents, scientists from Earth sent on a mission to Mars. He's subsequently raised by Martians and took on their ways. He's taken back to earth a couple decades after his birth, and his ideas inevitably clash with those of the humans with whom he attempts to acclimate himself.

Smith is capable of extraordinary acts of teleportation, levitation, and a disturbing ability to make objects and people disappear. He's a peaceful guy, and only wants to love his friends, impart his wisdom to the humans, but where he's from, dying, or "discorporating," isn't that big a deal, and when you discorporate, you simply move on to the next level of existence, becoming what the Martians refer to as an "Old One." And so, though he means no harm by it, it's no big deal to him to kill people who pose a threat to him. He learns, kind of like the Terminator,

why he can't do this, why it's different than on Mars--but unlike the Terminator, he never really seems to get it.

Smith, with help from Dr. Jubal, a sort of father figure, an

d Jill, his nurse and friend, comes to prominence living among the humans, with the President of the U.S. as his personal accountant. He eventually finds his way to a bizarre church that professes a sort of Christianity tinged with New Age craziness. Their prophet, Digby, dies early in the story, and is said to join their previous, and head, prophet, Foster, in the sky. Smith takes what he's learned from the Fosterites, decides it matches in part his Martian religious views, and develops his own church, with himself as high priest.

Here's the major part of the book I can't get into. All this talk

of Old Ones, scorned by Jubal, and believed wholly by Jill and other followers of Smith's, and Foster and Digby, is quite fasincating, and good for some multiple-page theological debates between the main characters, but midway into the book, appears the first of a series of brief sections in which Foster and Digby, up in heaven, adorned with halos, discuss, in a somewhat humorous manner, the goings on below, and the facts of the Man From Mars and the Old Ones.

For my money, it'd be better to leave the Old Ones and the two god-prophets to the area of speculation. I might've bought what Michael was saying anyway, and believed the Old Ones really had sent him to Earth on a fact-finding mission, that they were indeed real, without needing it so bluntly stated in a series of three short sections that clash with the rest of the narrative.

The novel loses some of its steam after that, and it's never quite as good as its first hundred-fifty, two hundred pages, but there are some interesting debates towards the end, with the skeptical Dr. Jubal finding it harder to make excuses for the bizarre supernatural occurrences surrounding himself and the Man From Mars.

I have a feeling I'd prefer some of Heinlein's more pulpy novels, though there's a lot to like about Stranger In a Strange Land, and it offers, perhaps, more for the reader to think about and consider.

Insidious, dir. James Wan (2010)

Some critics and horror fans have complained that Insidious, recently released to theaters, isn't much more than a mash-up of various "haunting" films from the past: Poltergeist (1982), The Amityville Horror (1979), Paranormal Activity (2009), etc. But as far as I'm concerned, any movie that can pull great elements from those films and provide decent characters and a near-constant supply of suspense, is a success. It's not as though this is the first horror film (or film, in general) to borrow heavily from predecessors; and Insidious works much better than a lot of recent remakes and throwbacks.

The opening credits, which feature a quiet, creepy score over still images, sets the tone. The title card--INSIDOUS--takes up the entire screen; its font is distinctly from the 1970's. In many ways the rest of the movie takes a traditional approach to its material; director James Wan (Saw [2004], Dead Silence [2007]) utilizes long takes and a decidedly non-slick style. And there's no distracting pop music anywhere in the soundtrack. Definitely an old school sort of vibe.

But Insidious doesn't build slowly, like most films of its sub-genre. We're given a spooky and suitably vague pre-credits scene, and after the credits we meet the family, the protagonists who are already being visited by some otherworldly presence in their home. Things get pretty intense in the first twenty minutes, and really, never let up until the film's end. I checked the time about forty minutes in, thinking more time must have passed, because there was no way we had more than half a movie left, with all that had taken place.

That said, the second half isn't quite as good as the first. The setup is so good that it's hard to imagine any filmmaker could fully deliver on its promise. Wan does a decent job of it, and while I wasn't blown off my feet by the final scenes, they're certainly competent, and the ending is a respectable one.

Animal, dir. by Adeel Abbasi and Rafiqul Alam

Animal, directed by Adeel Abbasi and Rafiqul Alam, makes much use of the close-up. Indeed, most of the short film's six minutes are comprised of close- and medium-close-ups, a fitting choice for the subject matter, about a man with a split personality confessing a violent crime to himself. The film was shot in London, from a screenplay by Noel J. Rainford, and is currently viewable on youtube (link below). The filmmakers know how to work a camera; this is ceratinly a step above a lot of the content on that site. Arrival features some pretty good camerawork, and has a cool atmosphere, building to a solid payoff. If you've got six free minutes, check it out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZYkEwt2YS0

My Fantoms by Théophile Gautier (1830s - 1870s)

Richard Holmes's 1976 translation.

Mark and I talk about books.

Mark Rooster:  I have some thoughts on this book, but I'm not sure I have them in order here, so I'll just start.

I like the similarities in the titles of these stories. They're all connected thematically, and the simple titles, "The Poet," "The Priest," etc. fit with that.

The writing style is pleasant to read, very poetic but with some quite direct humor mixed in. I love the ending of "The Painter," where the narrator declares, "The reader will think, no doubt, that this is a very commonplace ending to a very unusual story. But he must take it or leave it. I would not utter a single false word. I would rather cut my throat."

There's another line that made me laugh, but I can't recall which story it was from. It's a line regarding a dog, whose sole purpose in life was to provide a shaggy black foreground over a green background.

Many (or all) of these seven stories deal with madness, insanity, and the possibility of supernatural interference of a romantic nature. I feel like with a couple of the stories, rational explanations might be acceptable, and in the others there are most certainly supernatural things going on.

"The Adolescent." There's less discussion in this one about the possibility of hallucination or madness, and it's told more directly, a woman climbs out of a painting, to come to the narrator.

"The Priest." Here the storyteller says quite plainly that he is unsure whether the events he describes happened in a dream or real life. But it seems more like he's saying that as a last-ditch sort of effort to deny what's happened. Because even his superior by the end believes he's been courting a demon.

"The Opium Smoker." I take this one as simply a drug-induced hallucination.

"The Actor." In this story, the Devil himself is involved, and there isn't much discussion about the reality of events.

"The Tourist." This one could go either way. And lastly, "The Poet"--this story threw me off a little bit. It seems less like the others. I'm only halfway through Richard Holmes' introduction (I wanted to save that for after reading the stories, as sometimes the intros in these collections give away more than I want to know prior to reading), but I saw in there that this one is nonfiction?

M. Buozis:  I agree. The thematic connections between the pieces seem to be twofold. First, each, with the possible exception of "The Poet," deals with the dark power of desire. Secondly, there is a supernatural element that is questionably created by the arousal of the protagonist. I was never sure whether Gautier meant his fantoms to be anything more than the manifestation of his desire for women.

Even the Devil in "The Actor" seems like just an extension of the narrators strange uncontrollable utterances. It's almost as if he's created the devil to explain his own devilish behavior. In "The Priest" I never thought of the demon woman as an actual spirit, but only as demonic in the eyes of a holy and celibate priest. Her retinue is described in a supernatural way, but I think the priest is just seeing Africans for the first time and thinking they are the demon's otherworldly helpers.

While Gautier has a fun, relaxed way of telling a story, I thought many of the stories lacked a compelling resolution. This must have been a great lead up to modernism, where the plot is not necessarily integral to the success of the story, but here I was expecting more of a satisfying development of each story. He brings his characters to life in such a vivid way and then lets them drop at the end like puppets who've been abandoned in mid-line.

"The Poet" is not strictly non-fiction. I think it's something like a fictionalized eulogy for his poet body Nerval. In this respect, the piece reminds me of Borges in its radical blending of reality and fiction. Its really meant to be read as truth, and reminds us that in order to enjoy any piece of literature we have to suspend our disbelief and live in the world of the story.

M.R.:  You've got a point there about the resolutions in these stories. They all kind of end in a similar manner. But I like the openness regarding the possibility of supernatural occurences.

After reading the introduction, I have a better understanding of the last story. Did you read the introduction and afterword? I found both to be pretty informative. I guess the afterword is from the original book published in the 70s and the intro was done later on?

M.B.:  Yeah. I read both the introduction and afterword. I think they shed a lot of light on Gautier's importance and the autobiographical nature of many of his stories. You also get a great sense of the romantic nature of his life, and the translators life while he was translating the stories. It helps to further bring together the collection.

I'd also like to discuss, a bit more, Gautier's writing styles. He always creates wonderfully fleshed out settings and characters without ever using showy language or lingering too long on a particular description. It's rare that you find such precise and great writing from a 19th century writer.


M.R.:  I definitely wouldn't figure this for mid-1800's if I didn't know beforehand when it was written. The writing is very fluid, poetic in some places, but also rather modern. Probably the "easiest" to read of any of the classic French authors we've looked as so far. And the humor too; I laughed a few times reading this book.

M.B.:  I'd agree. Despite the dark subject matter, this was a pretty light read, something I wouldn't mind taking to the beach, if I ever went to the beach.

Related Links:

1.  Joy's Blog Review
2.  Bookslut Review

Miscellany: The Best Post-Modernist

Barry Hannah's fiction blows away all the other mid-century American post-modernists.  He makes John Barth's narrative trickery look like utter masturbatory nonsense.  He makes Robert Coover's plays at authenticity seem like a little city boy playing a country part.  (Basically, he makes them look like the hipsters they were, and still are for the most part.)

Hannah died about a year ago, but his fiction has yet to receive its due revival.  Always under-appreciated during his lifetime, Hannah's work deserves another, closer look.

Richard Ford told the AP, “Barry could somehow make the English sentence generous and unpredictable, yet still make wonderful sense, which for readers is thrilling. You never knew the source of the next word. But he seemed to command the short story form and the novel form and make those forms up newly for himself.”

Here's an excerpt from Hannah's story "Water Liars".

My sense of the past is vivid and slow. I hear every sign and see every shadow. The movement of every limb in every passionate event occupies my mind. I have a prurience on the grand scale. It makes no sense that I should be angry about happenings before she and I ever saw each other. Yet I feel an impotent homicidal urge in the matter of her lovers. She has excused my episodes as the course of things, though she has a vivid memory too. But there is a blurred nostalgia women have that men don’t.

You could not believe how handsome and delicate my wife is naked.

I was driven wild by the bodies that had trespassed her twelve and thirteen years ago.

Related Links:

1.  Oxford American Interview
2.  Bomb Interview
3.  Vanity Fair Retrospective
4.  New York Times Obituary

Die Farbe, dir. by Huan Vu (2010)

I recently received a copy of Die Farbe, a black and white German film from filmmaker Huan Vu. The film is based on H. P. Lovecraft's "The Color Out of Space". Lovecraft stories have been adapted many times, often to great effect (Re-Animator, From Beyond, Dagon, etc.). I've read a lot of his stories, but wasn't familiar with this one, so I looked for it and read it before putting on the movie. Some people have a hard time watching a film version of a book or a story they just read, but not me; I like to line em up as close as possible, book, then movie.

"The Color Out of Space" has been adapted a few times previously, including "Colour From the Dark," a 2010 production from Italian filmmaker Ivan Zuccon. I haven't seen that one or David Keith's 1987 The Curse, but I'm familiar with the Boris Karloff-starring loose adaptation (very, very loose, really) Die, Monster, Die! from 1965. That film doesn't have a hell of a lot to do with Lovecraft's story, though it's entertaining in its own strange way.

Die Farbe tells just about all of Lovecraft's tale, and provides a new bookend, as a man hears the story of what occurred in a town his father once visited long ago. The long ago is the end of World War II, and the bookend takes place about thirty years later. The man finds that his father, an American in Germany, came upon a house and property that had been ravaged by a mysterious alien force a while back.

This is the "color" of Lovecraft's story, in which he describes the visual qualities of the alien "light" as being completely unknown, a color never seen before (on Earth anyway). After crashing to earth inside a meteorite, the mysterious presence fixes itself in every organism on the property: vegetables, animals, and eventually people.

Vu's direction is patient and focused, with lots of long, brooding shots of the house and land where the alien force takes hold. A sequence involving a psychotic woman succumbing to her neuroses, alone in an upstairs room, pacing back and forth works quite well. There are a number of eerie scenes and moments; these are accompanied by an effective, haunting score.

If there's anything I'm not quite sold on, it's the way the "lights" are presented towards the end of the film. Using color distracts somewhat from the beautiful black and white picture we've been seeing for the last seventy minutes--although I'll add that I don't have a better suggestion as to how to visualize what Lovecraft wrote.

This is a good film, whether you're a Lovecraft fan or not. The acting is decent, and as I said, some of the cinematography is very striking. Vu has an engaging style, and I look forward to seeing more from him in the future.










www.die-farbe.com