The Futile Podcast

Deconstructing 80's & 90's action movies. Relating them to comics, TV, and cartoons from then and now.

Month: May 2007

Hopper’s Excursion Into Philosophy

Posted on by Ian

I was reading an article on early 20th Centurty artist Edward Hopper (1882-1967) in the Winter 2006 issue of American Artist Drawing. Hopper’s paintings make up some of the most iconic American images. The article talked about this painting saying: “In this image there appears to be no joy in either physical bliss or intellectual pursuits.” (Parks, 71)

“I believe that great painters, with their intellect as master, have attempted to force this unwilling medium of paint and canvas into a record of their emotions. I find any digression from this large aim leads me to boredom.” -Hopper

It struck me that this sort of intellectualization on emotions is also what fuels me creatively. And trying to craft the perfect scene depicting a gunfight in a church. I abide.

p.s. I just had angel food cake for the first time in my life and it’s Heavenly.

Return of the list

Posted on by Ian

I read about this on FilmJunk, apparently Entertainment Weekly made this list of the best sci-fi movies made in the last 25 years. It has a few good ones and a few bad ones.

Frankly comparing a television show with a movie doesn’t work for me; as one develops over a longer period of time. A quick look at this list shows the variety of overriding genres that have sci-fi elements. Futurama is a comedy, Quantum Leap was a drama (very little sci-fi). Clone Wars (which is awesome!) is an action cartoon. I don’t know about The Matrix being the best sci-fi in the last 25 years (I’ve added my opinions in parentheses). I myself am partial to Bladerunner which deals with much of the same issues with AI, etc. but does so with a fantastic neo–noir complexity that trumps the freshmen level philosophy and visual effects of The Matrix. It should be noted that Edward James Olmos plays a critical role in both the number 2 and number 3 picks on the list, once again proving that EJO is freakin‘ awesome!

25. V: The Mini-series (in the 80’s there were great shows like V but then there was also crap like V, staring the Beastmaster himself Mark Singer)
24. Galaxy Quest (meh)
23. Doctor Who
22. Quantum Leap
21. Futurama
20. Star Wars: Clone Wars
19. Starship Troopers (whaaaa? the book was alright)
18. Heroes (we’ll see)
17. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
16. Total Recall
15. Firefly/Serenity
14. Children of Men (very good)
13. The Terminator/Terminator 2 (meh)
12. Back To The Future
11. Lost
10. The Thing
9. Aliens (game over man but I think Alien is a better movie)
8. Star Trek: TNG (Christ this show was boring DS9 had a freakin‘ war that’s drama and action, this show was all rehash of the first series and boring diplomatic intrigue)
7. E.T.
6. Brazil (gotta love the natural blending of Kafkaesque and Pythonesque)
5. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (James Horner’s score rules)
4. The X-Files (it was great until it went on too long and got lame around season 7)
3. Blade Runner
2. Battlestar Galactica (this show is the only good thing Sci-fi Channel has done since they aired Akira and Robot Carnival in the early 90’s this list also lacks anime like Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell)
1. The Matrix

"Jack Ryan Republican"

Posted on by Ian

What with all this talk about Fred Thompson as a possible candidate for president in 2008 I remembered that he was in The Hunt For Red October. This was Tom Clancy’s first book, the only one I read and it was pretty good; though I was only in 5th grade so I might have missed some of the finer points. Anywho Clancy’s main character Jack Ryan is the stalwart rugged individualist (the ideal of a Neo Con or so Neo Cons would imagine) who does the right thing, or something like that and so I figured I’d coin another term. And now I own it. So that means between there being “South Park Republicans” and “Log Cabin Republicans” and let’s face it, Libertarians the Right is actually pretty delineated (or maybe these are just terms to describe the same Hydra) Anyway I dub Fred a Jack Ryan Republican and if he gets serious about the race we’ll see what the hell that is.