It may have been a new, somewhat disorienting format, but our conversation about “The Man Who Fell to Earth” (1976) was up to the usual Roy & Ross standard.
Last night was my first experience with StreamYard, with all the bells and whistles, including scrolling ticker, text banners, and a panoramic view of my CD library. (One viewer compared the effect to VistaVision.) But the content is only as strong as the talking points and the viewer comments that propel the dialogue.
There were a number of very perceptive, and often hilarious insights. My pick for the week goes to Randy Piazza, who defined the film as an example of “the rarely-explored post-Watergate government distrust arthouse avant-garde sex sci-fi genre.” That, folks, is the movie in a nutshell. We could have closed-up shop and got on with our lives at the 22-minute mark.
But if you’re curious to see the whole thing, it’s archived on the “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner” Facebook page.
For any of you who are fans of the television series “Space: 1999,” you will be interested to know that there is a virtual convention being held this weekend, “Destination: Moonbase Alpha,” and Roy will be among the interviewers. The schedule is chock-full of talent associated with the show (including series stars Barbara Bain and Nick Tate and award-winning special effects artist Brian Johnson). It’s a two-day event, beginning this afternoon at 1:00 EDT. You’ll find details at the link.
Roy and I will reunite for a discussion about the spy-fi parody “Our Man Flint” (1966), with flinty James Coburn in the title role. The Bond will be strong, when you join us in the comments section for another Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, next Friday evening at 7:30 EDT!
“The Man Who Fell to Earth” (1976) may have traveled without luggage, but there certainly is a lot to unpack.
Nicholas Roeg’s determinedly experimental adaptation of Walter Tevis’ novel (he also wrote the books that formed the bases for Paul Newman’s “The Hustler” and the recent Netflix sensation “The Queen’s Gambit”), “The Man Who Fell to Earth” is kind of like E.T.’s lost weekend.
David Bowie, in his big screen debut, is the ethereal visitor from a dying planet who plans to return home with the necessary resources to save his people. However, he becomes increasingly mired in earthly distractions: media saturation, addiction (both chemical and interpersonal), human foibles, and institutional interference. Also, everyone he meets seems to spend so much of their time naked. And I’m talking really ‘70s naked.
Disorienting at times to the point of semi-coherence, “The Man Who Fell to Earth” is the perfect metaphor for a Roy and Ross conversation. You’ll need something stronger than water when ranking your favorite Rip Torn nude scenes in the comments section, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Interplanetary travel has seldom been so trippy as when we livestream on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:30 EDT!
Due to unforeseen circumstances, our chummy discussion of Dino De Laurentiis’ “Orca” (1977), which was to have taken place this evening on @[100063986017424:2048:Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner], has been postponed. Keep a glittering eye on Roy’s Facebook page for further developments.
Someone left Richard Harris’ fish cake out in the rain.
On the evening of July 22, 1977, as I stood in line in the lobby of the Boyd Theatre in Bethlehem, PA, the doors to the auditorium swung open, and the audience for the previous showing began to file out. Someone in line asked, “How was it?” He received the flat, noncommittal response, “It was a big fish.”
Even at the age of 11, I knew “Orca” was going to suck. Heavily promoted on the back of every Marvel comic for weeks, the poster art featured an improbably large, breaching killer whale, looking all the world like a mottled Moby-Dick, splintering the hull of a ship, against the backdrop of an entire seaside village in flames, and a miniscule seaman (presumably Richard Harris) defying this vengeance-fueled juggernaut with a harpoon the size of a toothpick. The entire enterprise bore the unmistakable aroma of desperate hyperbole.
This week on “Roy’s Tie Dye Sci Fi Corner,” we finally honor a long-term request from viewer Lesley Siedt to sink our teeth into “Orca.”
Clearly intended to inspire awe, the Marvel ad couldn’t disguise the fact that “Orca” was a transparent “Jaws” cash-grab, with perhaps a little “King Kong” and maybe some “Death Wish” tossed into the mix. Executive producer Dino De Laurentiis’ “Kong” remake had only just been in theaters in December, and “Death Wish” made him a mint in 1973.
Either way, the audience is clearly meant to sympathize with the aquatic avenger. And why not? Harris’ character is a jerk. And supposedly the actor wasn’t much better on set. He insisted on performing his own stunts, nearly getting himself killed, spent most of the shoot inebriated, contemplated murdering his wife and her suspected lover, and punched out producer Luciano Vincenzoni. If only the actual film had conveyed as much drama. On Rotten Tomatoes, its current approval rating is 9 percent.
You can’t argue with the cast, which includes, beside Harris, Charlotte Rampling, Will Sampson, Bo Derek, and Keenan Wynn. But nobody behaves in a way that makes sense, and at the end of the day, there’s little to do but get picked off one by one.
Composer Ennio Morricone clearly perceived it as a western, providing an underscore of melancholy guitar, an air of heartbreak in the strings, and none other than Edda dell’Orso lending her wordless soprano, so indelibly associated with “Once Upon a Time in the West.”
I’ve got to hand it to my parents. We were a moviegoing family, and we saw everything, the good, the bad and the ugly. As my stepfather, bearing equally low expectations, observed, “If it’s produced by De Laurentiis, it’s got to stink.” A gross generalization, admittedly, but he was kind of right: approached in the correct frame of mind, a De Laurentiis film seldom disappointed.
We’ll blubber over this tragic tale of lost love and the destructive consequences of reckless greed on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Bring your seals (of approval) to the comments section, when we livestream on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:30 EDT!
The Boyd Theatre was my favorite venue in the Lehigh Valley at which to view movies. It was the only theater that did the big movies justice, an old-fashioned movie palace that somehow still offered decent projection and stirring sound. Opened in 1921, it was demolished only this year. What rises in its place? A 14-story “luxury apartment” building. Nice job, Bethlehem. It breaks my heart a little every time I think that the Boyd’s gone.
Last night proved to be a lovefeast for Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek’s Lieutenant (later Lieutenant Commander, then Commander) Uhura. Thank you so much to those of you who dropped by to share your anecdotes and observations.
Nichols was a pioneer in more ways than one, who leveraged her celebrity to create a better world. Also, she had the ability to connect with people and to make them feel special, as attested to in every one of last night’s viewer comments and video testimonials. Two qualities that were noted repeatedly were Nichols’ kindness and her graciousness. May she rest in peace.
Other highlights included an impromptu crossover, when we patched into Captain Phil Merkel’s radio show on WUSB, and Warren Friedrich’s startling revelation that I wasn’t wearing pants!
We’ll be taking the night off next Friday, so that Roy can head north to Ticonderoga, NY for this year’s Trekonderoga, presented by the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour. Roy will be giving a couple of presentations there, so consult the website and keep an eye on the Facebook page.
I’ll be sitting this one out, but we’ll soon reunite for another Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, on Friday, August 27, at 7:30 pm, and another nostalgic conversation with a few laughs, when we livestream on Facebook – the topic to be announced.
