Urps prefer blondes

Today I watched Alien Trespass, an independently produced '50s style science fiction comedy directed by someone who produced The X-Files and starring a guy who used to play a poof in a prime time sitcom, the liquid metal robot from T2, Fred Savage's TV dad and a whole bunch of actors I've never seen before and probably never will again, and I've enjoyed it quite a bit, even though I'm not quite sure why it was made in the first place. The movie begins with an extremely cartoony flying saucer whizzing through our solar system until it finally crashes on the outskirts of a typical '50s small town during a meteor shower. Witnesses to the intergalactic fireworks show include some sort of scientist whose "hot" wife has recently bought him a telescope (which for some reason he keeps pointing at the sky and not, say, the neighbors' teenage daughter's room), a couple of horny teenagers in a car parked at the local makeout point, and, off course, the town's drunk, accompanied only by his trusty puppy. When the scientist comes to snoop around the crash site the owner of the flying saucer, who is a metallic space cop of some kind named Urp, takes over his body and sets out to recover his rubbery prisoner, a squid-like monster called a Ghota that renders its victims into nothing but little puddles of slime, before it can multiply and take over the entire planet. It sounds like a lot of fun and it really is, but I wouldn't exactly call it a comedy, mostly because it doesn't really have any actual jokes or anything. It's an extremely amusing film, but almost all the humour in it comes from its outlandish retro '50s style of acting, writing and general filmmaking. All the actors, especially the female ones, do a pretty great job at 'playing' their parts in a way people used to think was acceptable or even desirable over fifty years ago, and the result is something that in a way is quite convincing, even if you do kinda have to squint a little, and especially combined with the beautifully created sets and costumes. The special effects are pretty awesome for what they are, and I found the big rubber monster absolutely hilarious, wishing only that there was a little more variety of goofy rubber creatures from outer space. For some reason they've chosen to use blue screens when filming inside a driving car in place of the traditional technique of rear projection, but the obviously fake look does add an extra layer of cheese to what is essentially a delightfully cheesy piece of cinema. And it even starts with a fake news reel before the opening credits, in which Santa Claus climbs out of a friggin' UFO and makes little girls burst into tears! This movie is obviously a labor of love and it shows in every single frame. It was never made for the general movie going masses, but for true movie geeks who can fully appreciate the simple charms of a good old-fashioned sci-fi tale. Now I just need to watch the original The Blob as soon as possible, because the clips from it that were shown during the theater scenes here gave me a total geek-boner that could definitely use some well deserved relief.

Hey baby, wanna see my one-eyed tentacle monster?

Last week they aired the last ever Dollhouse episode, and I couldn't be more annoyed at how the whole second season was handled and executed. Here's how it went: they started by showing a month-worth of rather boring, filler-type episodes. Next they went on a six week break, during which Fox announced that they were canceling the show once the season was over. Only when the rest of the episodes started airing, it's like it came back as a completely different show. No more fillers, no more crap, these were eight full episodes of pure Dollhouse fun and excitement (plus the post apocalyptic final episode) that made me want to wring some Fox execs' necks in frustration. Who was the retard who decided to show those four episodes first, then go on a break? And how could they possibly cancel the show without having watched the rest of the season first?! And this is from the people who seem to allow the producers of Fringe to give us a season that is composed almost entirely of filler material. Ugh! Everybody in the TV business is a dick. They better not cancel Caprica any time soon, or I may start to get really cranky.