Remembering Roger Ebert (1942 - 2013)

I’ve been very sick for the last week, so I’m way behind on a few things I want to cover on this blog. Yet it would be remiss for me not to put in a few words about the recent passing of legendary movie critic Roger Ebert. While this blog is not exclusively devoted to movie reviews, I see Ebert’s influence in my writing and my approach to horror and sci-fi pop culture, much of which is driven by cinema.

It’s been said that through his books, TV shows, and other efforts, Ebert brought the practice of movie criticism into a more personal, less formalized perspective. It is likewise impressive that he did this at a time when the production and distribution of movies have changed so drastically, from something that could only be experienced in the movie theater to something that can be accessed almost anywhere at any time and on demand. I discovered Ebert the same way many people did: during the mid-80s on his syndicated TV show At the Movies with fellow film critic Gene Siskel. The VHS rental industry was coming into its own at that time, and I noticed how even that show soon made some changes to make room for new releases on VHS. (It should also be said that last week saw the passing of Eurotrash master Jesus “Jess” Franco. Even though there are many more popular and accomplished film directors in Europe, Franco developed an American fan base through distribution into VHS rental shops across America. Click here for more thoughts about that.)

If Ebert did anything, he showed how the critical analysis of movies has the potential to enhance one’s enjoyment of movies--that actually thinking about what you watch makes you appreciate it more than if you did not. I’m certain that many people still don’t understand this concept, since many (including quite a few professional film critics) appear to equate criticism with open hostility and snide insults. Yet because of his approach to criticism, Ebert didn’t just review films; he championed them. He provided commentary tracks for DVD and Blu-ray releases of movies (including a track for one of my personal favorites, Dark City) and would draw attention to limited-released movies that would otherwise be forgotten.

While I’m not even close to the kind of film buff that Ebert was, I’d like to think that my blog adheres to the standard of film criticism that Ebert himself endorsed. If anything I’ve written here has encouraged readers to think a little more about the films they are watching or choose to see an obscure movie instead of a hyper-promoted blockbuster, then I think Ebert would be proud.

Public Education: Keeping Fantasy, Horror and Sci-Fi Alive and Well for Our Emotionally Fragile Youth

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week (May 7 through 11) so, like last year, I thought I'd devote a post to the devoted educators who keep our public schools running for the benefit of our youth--and in particular, the benefit of up-and-coming fantasy, horror and sci-fi devotees.

For this post, I decided to turn my attention to a news story that made headlines last March about the New York City Department of Education's decision to ban certain words and topics from standardized tests. The Department has since rescinded this decision but it still stuck with me because the words that were proposed for banning were common, mundane words such as "birthday" and "celebrities". From what I've read, the motive behind the word ban was to improve student test scores by removing any subject matter that could upset the students and thus hinder their testing performance. Yet after found the complete list of words that the NYC Department of Education, it occurred to me that had this ban been enforced, it would not bode well for teachers, students, and the genres of fantasy, horror and sci-fi. Read on ....

I could devote an entire blog to the problems with censorship in public education, but I'm only going to spend time discussing NYC's banned word list with specific attention to certain words that made the list. Here are some of the banned topics and words that surprised me the most:

• Disasters (tsunamis and hurricanes)
• Children dealing with serious issues
• Creatures from outer space
• Evolution
• Halloween
• Nuclear weapons
• Occult topics (i.e. fortune-telling)
• Parapsychology
• Running away
• Television and video games (excessive use)
• Vermin (rats and roaches)
• Witchcraft, sorcery, etc.

If these words had remained banned in standardized tests and that the ban then extended to the curriculum (which can happen--just as any teacher what the phrase "teaching to the test" means), then everything that could possibly be related to horror and sci-fi--assigned readings, school library books, creative writing assignments, art projects and class discussions--would be gone. (Come to think of it, reading about this list gave me a brief flashback to the Congressional hearings in the early 50s that led up to the creation of the Comics Code Authority.)

The NYC Department of Education, reacting to the word "evolution".

Want to do a term paper about Willis O'Brien or Ray Harryhausen? Nope, because they spent their careers bringing controversial creatures such as dinosaurs on to the silver screen. How about an art project based on Alice in Wonderland or Wizard of Oz? Forget about it, because those books feature children who run away from home while under great stress and encounter the occult and witchcraft during their journies. While we're on the subject, don't even think about doing book reports about Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allen Poe, or even that notorious anti-educational miscreant himself, William Shakespeare.

To quote the document that accompanied the list of banned words, a topic might be unacceptable if it "could evoke unpleasant emotions in the students that might hamper their ability to take the remainder of the test in the optimal frame of mind." By that rationale, I could never have scored highly on a standardized test because my preferred forms of arts and entertainment would've left me an emotionally vegetative state. Everything that I mentioned in last year's teacher appreciation post would've been banned from school grounds had this standard of student-level emotional distress been applied to my districts.

An example of what the NYC Department of Education believes

would ruin a student's "optimal fame of mind".

This recent fiasco with the NYC Department of Education provides yet another reason why fantasy, horror and sci-fi fans should be thankful for their teachers and public education. Even when the curriculum educators teach doesn’t directly address the genres that geeks like me love, it does cover topics such as art, astronomy, biology, history and literature that help fans further appreciate what they hear, read and see when they are not in the classroom. In contrast, sanitized and standardized tests made by private, for-profit companies are created to yield test scores, not stimulate the intellect or the imagination. To let this model of education run the schools is bad news for everyone, no matter what genres you prefer.

Check out the Popehat blog and the Visual Thesaurus site for more commentary about the banned words story.

I prefer that my standardized tests to come from KCRA TV.

The Why of The Fly

If you're a fan of The Fly movies, check this out: The cover story of the latest Rue Morgue issue is a retrospective devoted to the five Fly films. The retrospective's features include an interview with David Cronenberg, where he briefly mentions the "oblique" sequel script he has written to his 1986 version of The Fly, as well as a look back at the original Fly trilogy and its respective man-fly monstrosities. A noteworthy highlight in this issue is the interview with Chris Walas and Eric Stolz about The Fly II, which provides some fascinating insight into the production of this troubled sequel. Judging from Walas' comments about the original story that he had in mind, The Fly II could have been a much more worthy continuation of Cronenberg's movie had the studio heads just let him do what he wanted instead of forcing him to restructure his story to target a particularly desirable-yet-misunderstood audience demographic.

Not to be left out of this Fly fan fun, I figured that now would be a good time to post an article I wrote about Hollywood’s most infamous insect hybrid. Before I started blogging about all things monster movie related, I got my first movie monster article published in issue #116 of Filmfax magazine back in the fall of 2007. Having no idea how to get my fan appreciation-oriented writing published, I figured that I’d write about one of my favorite movie monsters in a way that would coincide with Fox Home Entertainment’s release of The Fly Collection, a four-disc DVD box set of the original Fly trilogy: The Fly (1958), The Return of the Fly (1959), and The Curse of the Fly (1965). The article was titled “The Multifaceted Fly”, and it examined one of the more unique horror/sci-fi trilogies in Hollywood history to understand why it continues to bug film fans to this day. Read on…

When I say that The Fly is one of my favorite movie monsters, what I really mean to say is that it was one of the few monsters that really terrified me when I was a kid. When I first began reading about classic movie monsters during the early 80s, The Fly was the only monster that I could truly call hideous, more grotesque and bizarre than any of the other classic monsters. Then there was the plot of The Fly movie, which made my kid-level brain reel. It was a nightmare like none of the other movies: to become an instant abomination as the result of an unexpected switch in body parts with an insect, and then to be stuck in a tiny web screaming “Help me!!!” over and over just moments before you are fed upon by a normal-sized spider that you would otherwise squash beneath your foot.

A resin garage model kit of the human-headed insect from The Fly.

The Fly was not about being stalked and killed by a monster; it was about disfigurement, degradation, insanity and helplessness all rolled up into one single film. Given these themes, The Fly's most logical companion film from the same decade would be The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). There have been other teleportation-related monstrosities lurking in the halls of classic horror, such as the title abominations such as The 4-D Man (1959) and The Projected Man (1966), but even with those pale in comparison to the tragic freak show that is The Fly.

“The Multifaceted Fly” examines the themes in each of the original Fly movies and why I think they hold together well as a complete trilogy. It also looks into the background of George Langelaan, the author of the short story upon which the first Fly film is based, to understand how he could have come up with such a wild concept as an insect-headed man. Click below to see JPG files of the article, or you can order the original issue at the Filmfax site.

Baphomet Says, "Happy Halloween!"

Now that I have your attention, I just thought that I'd let you know that the fine folks over at the Fierce and Nerdy site have asked me to contribute a few thoughts about the best holiday of the year, Halloween. In my post, I write about how much I enjoy Halloween and why, how horror film fans can best celebrate the holiday, and suggestions of what you can do if you're stuck in a community that treats Halloween like Satan's annual membership drive. You can read the post here.

Fiercely Nerding Out Over Disney 3D Blu-Rays, Comic Book Movies, and Schwarzenegger's Future Film Career

I'm back on the Fierce and Nerdy site today, where I ponder Disney's conversion of two animated classics from 2D to 3D for re-release on Blu-ray, complain about what's missing in most movie adaptations of comic books, and make recommendations about how Arnold Schwarzenegger can successfully relaunch his dormant movie career. Click here to read my post.

Fiercely Nerding Out Over Ridley Scott, Legos, and Fossil Fuel PR Campaigns

This week, the folks over at the Fierce and Nerdy site invited me to share some of my thoughts on Ridley Scott's next movie Prometheus, the appeal of Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, and how annoying public relations campaigns for the fossil fuel industry can be. Click here to read my whole post. Enjoy!

Titans, Terrors and Toys Greatest Hits, Volume 1: 2010 - 2011

This week marks the first anniversary of Titans, Terrors and Toys, something that I didn't think would ever happen. I was reluctant to start this blog in the first place last February but now that a year has passed and I have gotten my feet wet in the blogosphere, I'm glad to say that I did it. Writing this blog has been a blast, the feedback has been positive, and I got to reach out to some pretty cool folks along the way. Expect to see more full frontal nerdity of the horror/sci-fi variety on this blog in the year to come, and please feel free to post comments to let me know how I'm doing--constructive criticism is always welcome here.

In honor of this anniversary, I've decided to post a list of the ten posts that received the most hits during this blog's freshman year. Continue reading after the break to see the topics that have brought the most readers to Titans, Terrors and Toys.

Here's the list of highest rated Titans, Terrors and Toys posts according to Blogger, from the highest number of hits to the lowest:

1. Jaws: The Revenge Production Analysis, Part 1: When The Shark Jumps The Shark
2. Tron and Tron Legacy: The Secret, Scandalous Lives of Computer Programs Exposed!
3. An Exclusive Look at Comic-Con 2010 Exclusives
4. Jaws: The Revenge Production Analysis, Part 2: This Time, It's Marital
5. Great Moments in Movie Spoiler History: The Empire Strikes Back
6. Zoids, Robo Strux and Starriors--Oh My!
7. Collectible Christmas Ornaments Fit for Halloween Display
8. Jaws: The Interactive Experience
9. NECA Alien vs. Predator 2011 Exclusive
10. Judging a VHS Tape by Its Cover

Of all of these posts, the ones that surprised me the most are those regarding Tron Legacy and Jaws: The Revenge. My movie reviews usually don't place on my blog's top ten list, so to see the one that covered both Tron and Tron Legacy rocket to the top (almost) was completely unexpected. While it was fun to research and write about what went wrong with the production of Jaws: The Revenge, I had no idea that it would generate so many hits--and by quite a significant margin no less. Who knew that one of the worst sequels ever made has so much drawing power? (Curiously, part 3 of my Jaws: The Revenge analysis, Sequel Envy, never placed on the top ten. I guess the appeal of cinematic schlockiness only goes so far.)

Two other posts that should receive honorable mention include The Crestwood House . . . of Horrors! and Fake Monster Shark Sighting in Cardiff, CA. These two posts consistently placed on the cumulative top ten list for quite a while before they were knocked off by the posts about Tron Legacy and NECA's Alien vs. Predator action figure set.

It's been a great year folks, and I look forward to seeing what happens next. Hope to see you there!

Write of the Living Dead

It's official: I'm now a published author. Centipede Press has published a large book of essays about Night of the Living Dead as part of their "Studies in the Horror Film" series of books and my essay, "Cannibalizing Consumers", is in it. You can read more about the book here.

"Cannibalizing Consumers" was originally part of a series of essays that was included in a 40th anniversary retrospective of Night of the Living Dead on the PopMatters site back in 2008, and it was picked up to be part of the book. If you are so inclined, you can read my original essay here. I'm giddy that my first shot at recognition in an academic publication happens to revolve around the genre-defining film that introduced the world to unstoppable, epidemic, undead cannibalism. Then again, this is isn't just an article publication for me: 1) It's an article published in a series of books about studying horror films, 2) it's an article largely devoted to Night of the Living Dead, and 3) it's an article where I was also able to spend some time discussing Invasion of the Body Snatchers. That's triple nerd score for me!

In case you're interested in reading more of my written works, which are nerd-devotion-thinly-disguised-as-academic-thinking, check out these articles:

• A Look at Iconic Versus: The Post-9/11 Significance of the Freddy vs. Jason and Alien vs. Predator Movies
• Pictures of Insect Men: A Retrospective Analysis of the “Mimic” Trilogy
• Man, Machine, Memory and Movies: A Critical Look at “Dark City”