Missing pieces in Doctor Who

Every year I get excited for new episodes of Doctor Who. I look forward to new adventures, compelling characters, and intricate stories. And because the show is what it is, with so much is history and material, I'm willing to forgive minor plot holes and problems. To a point. Overall, I liked "Asylum of the Daleks," but I can't ignore the missing links in the episode.

Spoilers below for "Asylum of the Daleks" (season 7, episode 1).

That popping sound in The Sandlot

I've seen The Sandlot at least a dozen times, and it was on the third or fourth viewing that I noticed a popping sound in two scenes. The first is when the boys tell Smalls to walk over to the fence and peek through the hole. The second is when the boys are looking down at the ominous busted baseball.

To me, it sounds like bubble gum popping. We see the boys chewing gum throughout the movie. The sound could easily be one of them popping a bubble off-camera. But somehow, the sound doesn't seem like it's part of the film.

I like to think that the popping sound is supposed to be part of the world outside the film, part of the audience. Maybe it's the narrator, popping his gum during a quiet moment in the story. Or maybe we're supposed to imagine the sound coming from an audience member, someone else in the theater.

I haven't decided where this falls on the scale of Creepy to Cool.

In which Cabin Pressure predicts real life

(I wrote this four weeks ago, but I had limited internet access while I was on vacation in Greece.)

On the plane to Greece, I listened to an episode of Cabin Pressure. I thought it’d be neat—Cabinception— and since it’s a sitcom, there wouldn’t be anything to freak me out mid-flight.

Well, I was almost right.

I listened to “Boston” (series 1, episode 2) and the bit comes up with Martin asking over the intercom for any doctors on the flight.

Half an hour later on my real-life flight, the captain made a similar announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, one of our passengers requires medical assistance. If you have had any medical training, please notify a flight attendant.”

Fortunately, we had a couple doctors and a nurse on board, the man who was ill got better, and the captains didn’t have to yo-yo between diversion destinations.

(I didn't listen to any Cabin Pressure on the way home. Just in case.)

Saving John Carter

Last night, before I watched John Carter, I checked Rotten Tomatoes. I don't consider the site to be the definitive measure for a film's quality, but I tend to agree with the Tomatometer. I wanted to see what it said about John Carter.

John Carter has a 52% rating. A bit below Decent Movie status. I watched it, and even though it won't have a place on my Favorite Movies list, it's far from the worst thing I've seen. And yet, the blurbs on the movie's Rotten Tomatoes page call it "a mess" and a "a curiously dull film" with a "tiresome" story. There's some merit to those criticisms, but there's also a lot to like about John Carter.

Spoilers after the cut.

The Amazing Spider-Man: The Concept of the Mask

I didn't have any reservations about rebooting Spider-Man. He's my favorite superhero, and things weren't working out with Sam Raimi after Spider-Man 3, so by all means, have another go at Spider-Man with a new crew. After seeing Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, I'm happy we got this movie.

The first time Spider-Man is in his full suit and faces a thief in The Amazing Spider-Man, he says, "No one seems to grasp the concept of the mask."

The characters in the movie might not understand how the mask allows Peter Parker to be Spider-Man, but the people who made the movie certainly do. That's what I want to talk about.

Spoilers after the cut.

False Hope at the Movie Theater

I saw a poster for Looper at the movie theater, and it has Justin Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis on it. The first 'o' in Looper is a clock, and the tagline is "Hunted by your future. Haunted by your past."

The composition of the poster is a bit strange. Bruce Willis is upside down, sort of like a reflection, but not really. A cloud of ashy speckles is behind the title for some reason. The tagline is split between the top and bottom corners. But it's a movie with Justin Gordon-Levitt and possibly about time travel, so I'm excited. I came home and checked IMDB for more info.

The description of the movie sounds like it was inspired by La jetée, which is a French short film from 1962. I won't spoil the story for you because it's neat (both interesting and tidy), but I will say that La jetée is famous for being almost completely made from black and white still photos, strung together into a story with a voice-over narrative. It's so famous that if you've had any photography or film classes, you probably watched it. You might have heard of it in any college humanities class.*

Hollywood recycles ideas all the time.** It's fine that Looper might be inspired by La jetée. That doesn't bother me. But I wish when Hollywood reused ideas, it would look for something interesting but not well-known. I'm sure there are plenty of less popular short stories, novels, plays, legends—you name it—that have potential to be great films. Those would be great sources of inspiration.

But instead, Hollywood uses well-known ideas and my excitement for a new film sparks and immediately fades. Because I know the source material, I likely know the gist of the movie before it has a trailer. There's no fun in that.


* In college, I watched La jetée three times: First Year Seminar, Black and White Photography, and Introduction to Film Studies.

** La jetée has inspired an American film before, actually. Twelve Monkeys (1995) uses a lot of the same ideas. Bruce Willis starred in that movie. I'm sensing a pattern here.

Fringe Season 4: All of my posts in one place

As I'm waiting for the final season of Fringe, I'm reviewing the things I've written about season 4. I like making lists, so below are the links to:
- all of my season 4 reaction posts. These are my thoughts I wrote on Tumblr after watching each episode.
- season 4 posts on this blog
- an article I wrote for Hypable.com

Needless to say, each post has spoilers.

Reaction posts on Tumblr:
4.01: Neither Here Nor There
4.05: And Those We Left Behind
4.08: Back to Where You've Never Been
4.09: Enemy of My Enemy
4.12: Welcome to Westfield (and a second post)
4.13: A Better Human Being
4.14: The End of All Things
4.16: Nothing As It Seems
4.21 and 4.22: Brave New World: Parts 1 and 2 (a back and forth discussion between my friend and me)

Blog posts here:
Fringe Season 4—A Paradox? - Pre-season 4 speculation
Fixing the Future - A discussion of how time travel operates in Fringe, Back to the Future, Doctor Who, and The Terminator
An Open Letter to FOX
Are Fringe and Community Breaking the Fourth Wall? (spoilers for Brave New World: Parts 1 and 2 and the season 3 finale of Community)

On Hypable:
Fixing Fringe's Universe(s) - season 4 speculation (winter hiatus, between episodes 7 and 8)