Blog update will follow soon.
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
Bad Science Film Night 15 - Deep Impact
Tonight featured Deep Impact as Bad Science film, together with some of the special features!
(Images courtesy of Wikipedia).
Blog update will follow soon.
Blog update will follow soon.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
BSFN 14 – JULES VERNE’S JOURNEY INTO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH
(Images courtesy of Wikipedia).
THIS Bad Science Film Night featured 2 versions of Jules Verne’s Journey into the Centre of the Earth, one from 1959 and one from 2008, with as venue Britain’s best living room J. The old version was watched in great detail with a lot of comments by the landlord, the second was skipped through in 5 minutes as it was actually not interesting at all and will only be mentioned shortly hereafter. Clearly the 1959 version won!
The start of the film is set in Edinburgh, which happens to be the place where our landlord studied and has some opinions about! Professor Oliver Lindenbrook (James Mason) is given an interesting rock by one of his students (Alec McEwan or Pat Boon) which according to him must have come from Iceland, but more interestingly, has a plumb bob inside with an inscription. It appears to originate from Arne Saknussem, an Icelandic adventurer who had the goal to travel into the centre of the Earth, only 300 years ago. Together, they make the plan to travel the same journey and set off to Iceland. The first difficulties start with a Swedish professor, but they are safed by Hans and Gertrude, the actual hero of this story, even though she is a duck!
They descend into the volcano then, accompanied by Gertrude, Hans and Carla, a professors widow who will amaze everyone by wearing a corset to the centre of the Earth! A brilliant first quote: “We’re not having Pat Boon with an accordion going down the mountain!” and “An Indiana Jones moment; this is where they got it all from in those films!” together with “Let us rest to have a cup of tea”. After all, they are British. They descend into one of Iceland’s volcano’s and travel down, walking all the way (more than 6000 km!). They travel through open cracks with huge crystals, where water flows and trees grow and can still swim at 129 km depth down. There they are in THE LIMESTONE formation, after only 21 days of walking. How they manage to carry all their food for the whole journey remains a miracle! In the meantime, they get sabotaged, people get lost and separated, which makes them use the echo of a bullet to determine the direction where they can find Alec, yeah right. Following this, they travel through luminescent algae and very strong winds. On the 256th day (how do they get their drinking water?!) they walk through a magic mushroom forest which they use for cooking and eat on porcelain bowls they brought with them!
After a while, they reach a huge ocean, which originates according to them from the fact that a huge earthquake ruptured the surface of the Earth, making fissures through which water flew down to the centre of the Earth. Here they are welcomed by giant reptiles “What the hell has that been eating?!” and they quickly float away on some kind of wooden built thing. They float up to the junction of the south and north pole where metallic objects are levitating and they get into a vortex going down which spits them out on a sunny coastline. Here, they appear to find the hidden city of Atlantis, at the centre of the Earth! After the poor Gertrude is killed by the bad saboteur who they had taken prisoner, they are attacked by more gigantic reptiles and they have to find a way out. There is a vent with a lot of wind, and they use the altar stone made out of asbestos to travel on a rising column of molten magma through the vent to the surface of the Earth as in a flying saucer. Apparently, this conduit leads to Italy as they fly out a volcano and they are in the end welcomed back in Edinburgh as heroes while everyone, including the landlord sing some kind of geology song.
In the 5 minutes we saw of the new version, we could already determine that here Gertrude was replaced by a blue bird, the reptiles by an enormous T-rex, the flying saucer by a T-rex skull but we still have the magic mushrooms. They new film makers have learned from the 1959 film where they said at the end: A scientist that cannot prove what he has discovered has discovered nothing. I'll not embarrass this great university by asking them to take my word for my accomplishments”. Therefore, in the new film, they bring back diamonds of their visit and they seem to be very proud in the new film to get their story published in the excellent earth sciences journal ‘Scientific American’…
- Favourite quote: Hans [in Icelandic, to his duck] My Gotrun, have you been lonely?
- Hero: Gertrude, the duck, which saves the Professor and Alec in the first place and sadly dies at the end, but for a good cause…
- Best save: Gertrude who finds the vent in Atlantis which they use to get back to the surface.
- Best piece of science: Proof for hot spots rising from at least the CMB as the conduit actually goes through to the centre of the Earth!
- Overall review: A great film (the old one) where new filmmakers can learn something from. Good actors, a very realistic story and as best character our duck. Invaluable, mostly in combination with the comments of our landlord!
- Total number of BSFN-ites: 9. Still plenty of room available at this large venue!
Thursday, 7 April 2011
BSFN 13 - Sharktopus
Possibly the first bad science film with is own theme song (on iTunes no less!), BSFN 13 was devoted to SHARKTOPUS.
Yep. You read that right.
The movie opens with a girl in a bikini swimming off Santa Monica (excitement for people recently returned from visiting prestigious Southern California institutions at the inclusion of a place they had been in a movie - we had similar problems with Volcano). As her friend watches (also scantily clad - obviously), a fin appears in the water - oh no! But *relief* a mysterious half shark, half octopus creature saves the girl by killing the puny shark! Hooray for Sharktopus, which is sensibly made from the front bitey half of a shark and the bottom tentacley half of an octopus! Cut to a lab populated by two scientists (signposted by the fact they are wearing lab coats, despite their position behind a computer and lack of test tubes in the vicinity), Eric Roberts and a military man (uniform)...the military man is happy because Sharktopus is proven to be a successful weapon! Unfortunately, like all military experiments in B-movies, the experiment is pushed too far...and Sharktopus ends up having his control collar knocked off in an unfortunate collision with a boat.
Now that Sharktopus is free he rampages down the California coast - eating scantily clad women as he goes! Including a girl who is credited as "Bikini Girl with Bum", which is presumably the girl who got eaten whilst a pervy, slightly homeless looking guy was watching. Sharktopus then settles in a particularly beautiful town in Mexico, where he demonstrates his totally ridiculous ability to walk on his tentacles. Because that is a standard octopus skill. I suppose it is not that far from using coconuts for defence. In Sharktopus's rampage many people die, mostly girls with very little clothing. I think it is clear from this summary that Sharktopus as a movie is a perfect example of a Bad Science Film - it has even inspired other craftier fans of bad science films to create sharktopus plushies!
- Favourite Tagline: 50% Shark, 50% Octopus, 100% DEADLY!
- Premise: Reckless scientists (are there any other kind?) make a SHARKTOPUS, which is controlled by a collar. Unfortunately the collar is not boat proof (design oversight, clear indication that too few engineers were employed by project SHARKTOPUS - Oompa Loompas of science are not to be overlooked) and therefore SHARKTOPUS runs amok in beautiful Mexico. The running bit is surprisingly literal for a cross between 2 aquatic creatures.
- Best death: Bungee girl! Serves her right for overcoming her fear of heights so completely.
- Worst piece of science: Cross a shark (lives in the sea, swims) with an octopus (lives in the sea, swims via tentacular propulsion) and create a swimming, WALKING, ocean AND river bound creature. With the ability to stab people with its spiky tentacles whilst walking around. Naturally.
- Overall review: Well, terrible obviously. But it is called SHARKTOPUS, and is therefore the greatest film of 2011 so far. I don't care that the King's Speech is an Oscar winner - where is the walking, stabbing, biting sea creature?!?!
- Total number of BSFN-ites: 7? Confined space compatible.
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
BSFN12 - Earthquake
The 1974 film with the unique title ‘Earthquake’ was the topic of Bad Science Film night number 12! With high expectations, we started watching this classic and many saw were disappointed as the film was merely an ‘event’ instead of a story. However, as the film managed to win an Oscar, directed by Mark Robson, and is featuring Charles Heston and Ava Garner, something must be right in this film (although the Oscar was for best sound..)! In addition, in 1975 it was awarded a Golden Globe and a BAFTA film award, ok, again for best sound track and best original score. The IMDB users have voted for it with a 5.6/10, giving it a better score than most BSF.
(Image courtesy of Wikipedia).
So what was the film about then? We start with images of a water dam, which is situated just in the hills above Los Angeles. From this moment, all the viewers just knew that dam would get destroyed at some point in this film! The main character, a construction engineer, who is having an affair with a younger woman, with possible even a son, is followed in the film. He is struggling with his wife who tries to convince her dad to use his influence to stop her husband from seeing his mistress. At the same time, there is a stunt man who is going after the sister of his friend, and a grocery shopkeeper who goes mental in the film when he has to join the reserve army. And meanwhile, while this is all going on, basically a major, unimaginable large earthquake strikes Los Angeles. One little PhD student saw it coming and tried to get the mayor to evacuate the city, but without success as his supervisor is jealous and doesn’t believe him.
The remainder of the film sees devastation, people hurt, houses falling, sometimes twice (!), others dropping out of buildings and a great scene in which people are lowered two floors down tied to a desk chair using a fire hose – next to a completely open building as the earthquake has torn off the side wall and part of the staircase. Not the best time to have a heart attack! One of the silliest things in the film was the fact that the emergency hospital was established in the basement of a 20 stories high shopping mall, with 3 floors of parking garage. Of course, an aftershock occurs, which buries all the wounded and doctors in this building, leaving us with Charles Heston to be the hero. Getting underground, he manages to find his loved ones, both his wife and his mistress and he has to choose who to save. But he knows what he is supposed to do for which he pays with his life…
The history of this film is actually quite interesting, and specially its impact on the cinema viewers as well. The film was inspired by the San Fernando Earthquake, which shook Los Angeles in the early morning hours of February 9, 1971, which led the director to create a disaster film that would not be confined to just one area. Special effects were developed especially for the film, including a revolutionary “Shaker Mount” camera system, where the entire camera was moved around. The film set the Hollywood record for the most stunt artists involved in any film production up until then: 141. In some scenes, 6 tons of reinforced concrete was dropped to flatten cars, with stunt men just a few feet away.
Most interestingly, Universal Studios wanted Earthquake to be an “Event film” – which would keep drawing in the public. They came up with a process called Sensurround – a series of large speakers and a 1500 Watt amplifier, that would pump up the infra bass sound waves at 120 dB, (equivalent to a jet airplane at takeoff) giving the viewer the sensation of an earthquake. Upon testing, the system already managed to crack the plaster in the ceiling for which nets where placed to catch any falling debris. However, when the film was released, the system caused quite a few nosebleeds, safety issues in numerous buildings and loss of inventory in nearby shops as the shelves were thrown down during the quake scenes.
- Favourite quote: What’s the point about learning how to predict earthquakes if you don’t do anything once you know how to predict them?! (poor PhD student).
- Hero: The PhD student that tries to convince all the big grown-ups that he can predict an earthquake, but no one listens…
- Best save: Climbing up a fire hose 20 floors above the streets to save the father of your wife who you’re cheating on and who is having a heart attack anyway.
- Best piece of science: They had three component seismographs! On the other hand though, they think they can predict earthquakes…
- Overall review: The opinions differed greatly. Personally, I thought it was a nice film, but most BSFN-ites disagreed and didn’t like the fact that nothing more than 1 earthquake happened. Definitely not worse than SharktopuS!
- Total number of BSFN-ites: 9? Still confined space compatible. (Written by Vulkaantje).
Sunday, 20 February 2011
BSFN 11 - Mega Fault
Bad Science Film Night 11 is the straight-to-DVD / TV movie classic - MEGAFAULT. Made by the studio that brought us the legendary bad science film, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, and starring Brittany Murphy, Benton from ER and the nasty man from X2, it had all the making of a classic bad science film....
The story starts with Benton from ER doing some detonating related to mining, but for some reason the explosions start a terrible chain reaction and there is a lot of terrible shaking. Benton from ER, who is called Boomer (ha! because he makes things go BOOM!) has enough time to jump into his car and drive away along a road - but the crack chases him! And keeps chasing him! Oh no!
We then cut to an important meeting of scientists in Washington DC, where seismologist, Dr. Amy Lane (Brittany Murphy) is receiving an award, apparently for being the only seismologist in the whole of the US. She, her husband and five year old daughter were certainly the only people at the meeting of important science people who knew to shelter under a sturdy table in the event of an earthquake. As Dr. Amy is the only scientist who might possibly be able to study this earthquake, she gets helicoptered off to the site of the earthquake, where she rescues Boomer from a hole in the ground and just escapes more earthquake related damage.
More catastrophic disaster stuff happens, including all the planes in the air being unable to safely fly (and guess who is on a plane when this happens - Dr. Amy's family!!). The earthquake continues to travel across America, like a propagating crack (which is not really how earthquakes are likely to work), and many people are injured. Boomer has to blow up a portaloo, so Dr. Amy can steal a helicopter to save her family, blah blah blah. But fortunately Dr. Amy then ends up in some underground military base, with control over a secret piece of military hardware.....
Look, look! It's a tectonic weapon!!! (images taken from the Asylum's MegaFault mini site)
This tectonic weapon was a "phase beam" that made the lithosphere very cold, at which point it reacted with the molten mantle (ARG!!!!!!) and caused an earthquake.... We were excited by the use of proper words like lithosphere but that was really overwhelmed by anger relating to the "molten mantle".
Fortunately the tectonic weapon should allow the military people to stop the earthquake, or at least divert it, because if the earthquake reaches the west coast it will be an extinction event! Naturally these things don't go to plan, and this means Yellowstone is going to be a super volcano. People around Yellowstone then burst into flames because the ground is so hot, but they don't notice it's warm until they spontaneously combust....
But it's OK - if Boomer blows some things up, or more specifically blows the same thing up on a loop for nearly ten minutes, then Wyoming will be like the Grand Canyon, a place with magical earthquake/crack stopping powers. By this point we just had to bow to the majesty of the relentless bad science.
Bad Science Film Night 11 - MEGAFAULT
- Favourite Tagline: A crack in the world has started... we have 24 hours to stop it.
- Premise: Irresponsible miners trigger a crack/earthquake, which propagates across the US, causing havoc and threatening the whole world!
- Worst piece of science: The molten mantle!!!! Dude!!!! As a deep Earth seismologist with a particular interest in the mantle this majorly irritates me! The mantle as a whole is not molten, it's is just melty in a few places, and it melts at ridges due to decompression melting!!!!!!!! ARG!!!!!! I suppose the "phase beam" is really bad science too, and the inexplicable barrier nature of the Grand Canyon, but nobody will actually believe those bits of science. Remember, the mantle is a solid, that is why S-waves can travel through it.
- Best DVD extra: The making of documentary that told us two exciting things; that to get a shot of the helicopter flying the film crew had to hang around a medical rescue heli-pad, and that this whole movie was filmed in 14 days.
- Unresolved questions: Was it Boomer blowing stuff up at the beginning that triggered the MASSIVE earthquake? Or were the bad military testing their tectonic weapon?
- Overall review: So much repeated footage! So few seismologists in the whole world! But the director clearly enjoyed making his film, and we enjoyed yelling at it every 5 minutes. Terrible movie in many ways, but a good bad science film.
- Total number of BSFNight-ites: 8, excellent turnout!
Monday, 24 January 2011
Elevator to the Centre of the Earth
Thanks to an eagle eyed BSFN attendee we can start planning our Bad Science Film Night field trips for 2012 already! Ice Age 4 is out 13th July 2012, so assuming that end of the world panic hasn't left us with a need to make our last 5 months on Earth filled with meaning and not Bad Science Films (see here for why it's all going to be OK), then we had better put it in our diaries. July isn't term time so it can replace the Friday teatime seminar!
Unfortunately we may have to have an Ice Age film marathon so we're all up to speed with the series so far. My understanding of the storyline is that it deviates quite a bit from real Earth history, so all the geology degrees in the world won't help us to understand what is going on. The physicists amongst us probably won't notice the terrible geological anachronisms though...
Saturday, 18 September 2010
BSFN 10 - Event Horizon
It's just over a year since the first Bad Science Film Night and we've made it to the dizzy heights of ten proper BSFN events, including one triumphant field trip on the day of the great lab power cut (not counting Piranha 3D as a field trip due to its woeful attendance). That is only about three quarters of a film per month! Despite our infrequent showings Amazon has still learnt enough about my shopping habits since the start of BSFN to have sent me an email this week about the upcoming release of Mega Shark Of The Malibu - TERROR HAS NEW TEETH! I especially like the fact the Amazon's film title does not match the title on the cover, the more sensible sounding "Mega Shark in Malibu".
This was already in my DVD collection following a late night encounter with Event Horizon on ITV 4 (or another channel a long way down the freeview list). I had started watching it only to fall asleep and then suddenly wake up whenever there was a loud noise - this normally was accompanied by bad things happening on the television screen, like people with no eyes. This freaked me out enough to make me give up totally on the late night screening of Event Horizon and decide to watch through the film in a non-scary environment, with lights, a pause button and other people, so I ordered the DVD. I think my plan was to face my fears head on - it worked with Alien! Fortunately other BSFNight-ites had had similar scarring experiences with Event Horizon so there were more volunteers for this BSFN than our last foray into 18 certificate films (Piranha 3D *cough*).
"Their mission: find and salvage the state-of-the-art spacecraft. What they find is state-of-the-art terror."
Sam Neill has gone off into Neptune space (as in right by Neptune, that led to a bit of nerdiness in the room, discussing former planet Pluto's elliptical orbit) to look for a spaceship he designed, the "Event Horizon", which has reappeared after a decade of being LOST IN SPACE. Fortunately he has Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus) and lots of other recognisable faces to assist him in recovering the reappearing ship and any crew still left aboard. Unfortunately, there is no crew left on the "Event Horizon" which is now super creepy and menacing.
This film was made in 1997 and directed by the man who went on to helm to Resident Evil franchise (incidentally, what is going on with the inexplicable sledgehammer/axe zombie in Resident Evil 4? Why is it so big? Why does it have a MASSIVE sledgehammer?!?). A lot of the effects in Event Horizon looked a little dated, but I imagine they were cool in 1997 (not being 18 in 1997 limits my ability to comment on 1997's point of view about the graphics). I especially liked the way that they showed a lot of liquid in zero-g stuff, which I guess was state-of-the-art then and which quickly got referred to as the "Alex Mack" effect, I think that's what we were watching in 1997 instead of Event Horizon - Nickelodeon.
I'm not going to go into any more detail on what actually happens to the crew in the course of the film, just in case any BSFNight-ites who didn't catch it change their minds. Suffice to say all the bad stuff which made us want to watch it with other people is still there, and still horrific (especially if you have a thing about eyes, or mutilation in general, and seriously, who doesn't? I'd also like to point out that Intestines is one of the IMDB keywords). However, with other people, especially people in a mood to criticise any thing (e.g., "there's no sound in space, why can we hear that explosion?","would you really put the failsafe circuit a long way down narrow bright green tunnels made of circuit boards, not right by the service panel?", "The ship's log is in a CD ROM drive in 2047!?! Surely in 1997 people could imagine a future without CDs!?!" etc. etc.), Event Horizon is just not as scary as it is in the middle of the night, in the dark, on your own - and the BSFNight-ites were very glad about that.
Bad Science Film Night 10 - Event Horizon
- Favourite Tagline: Infinite Space - Infinite Terror
- Premise: Reckless use of particle physics leads to a ship which is kind of possessed by evil. Nasty stuff happens.
- Worst piece of science: The reckless particle physics bit. Also the impressive jet-packing through space was so impressive as to be a bit unlikely.
- Best quote: You break all the laws of physics and you seriously think there wouldn't be a price?
- Overall review: Freaky film, but OK with people. Not a typical Bad Science choice, but still many things to pull apart.
- Total number of BSFNight-ites: 5, not bad considering the number of point blank refusals.
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