The Who: Tommy and Quadrophenia Live

This new 3-DVD set consists of two shows by The Who.
Disc One is a performance of Tommy from a charity show in LA, one of two complete Tommy performances from the 1989 tour. The Who were in what I call their "Las Vegas" phase: a 15-piece band, including a horn section. Special guests for this show included Patti LaBelle, Phil Collins, Steve Winwood, Billy Idol and Elton John. This certainly isn’t the "classic" Who of yore. Townshend plays acoustic guitar throughout and the horns certainly add a new twist to the music. But there’s no question whatever their configuration that this is a group of excellent musicians clearly enjoying themselves. The musical highlight is John Enwhistle’s bass solo during Sparks.
Disc Two is a performance of Quadrophenia from a 1996 tour. Again another large band, this time augmented by a visual presentation and guests P.J. Proby as The Godfather and Billy Idol as Ace the Face. Again Townshend sticks mostly to the acoustic guitar and the band is in fine form. This time the musical highlight is John Entwistle’s bass solo on 5:15. (Okay, yes, you caught me. I’m a bass player.)
The third disc consists of the LA show’s second set and encore, an extended encore from the Quadrophenia show, and three songs from Giants Stadium from 1989. No big musical surprises here, except the Quadrophenia encore opens with an acoustic version of Won’t Get Fooled Again, and features a slightly reworked version of Who Are You.
Both the Tommy and Quadrophenia shows have a "visual commentary" track by Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend, both of which are excellent. Controlled by the "angle" button, you can turn the commentary on and Pete or Roger appear on the screen, commenting on the concert, the music, the story, or whatever strikes their fancy. A must-watch for Who fans.
The viewer is alerted to the start of these segments by a pinball flashing superimposed on the screen in the case of Tommy, or a mod target symbol in the case of Quadrophenia. The downside is that the commentary segments start and stop all the time during the performances, and the viewer is constantly distracted by large flashing round objects in the middle of the screen distracting from the concert. Why didn’t the DVD producers put a less distracting and smaller symbol in the corner of the screen that doesn’t interfere with the enjoyment of the concert to signal the beginning of a commentary segment? Beats me, I guess that’s why they make the big bucks. Note to Rhino Records: Never do that again.

Babylon 5 - The Lost Tales

Babylon 5 - The Lost Tales: Voices in the Dark

Babylon 5 is back in the first of what is hoped to be a series made-for-DVD adventures under the moniker The Lost Tales. The first disc, entitled Voices in the Dark, contains two short tales both written and directed by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski.
Set ten years after the original series, the first story involves B5 commander Colonel Lochley (Tracy Scoggins) who has summoned a priest to B5. She is convinced that a crewman on the station has been possessed by a demon and only an exorcism can save the unfortunate victim presumably destroy the demon. However, the demon insists on being exorcised, and this presents the priest with an ethical dilemma.
In story two, President Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) is on his way to B5 for a ceremonial function when Galen the technomage (Peter Woodward) visits him and presents him with his own ethical dilemma: a teen-aged Centauri Prince that is traveling on the same ship as Sheridan will grow up to lead a devastating Centauri attack on Earth. Galen wants Sheridan to kill the teenager before he grows up to be the Centauri's leader and bring havoc and chaos to the galaxy. Essentially the question Sheridan faces is the Babylon 5 version of would you go back in time and kill Hitler as a boy?
These are short tales, each clocking in at only about 35 minutes. Straczynski has said he wished to approach this new project as an anthology show, telling small stories in the corners of the B5 universe. Perhaps he has succeeded too well in this. The stories, especially the first one, are very talky. There's only six speaking parts across both stories, and barely an extra in sight. But where they lack in action, they make up for in philosophical meanderings.
The stories are also perhaps too similar. In both cases, Lochley and Sheridan solve their puzzles by playing back something that was previously said, Lochley by listening to a tape playback while staring out alone into space, and Sheridan by running back a conversation in his mind while flying alone in a spacecraft. (Maybe that's way this set is called Voices in the Dark.) This isn't to say that the stories are not entertaining -- they are -- but there seems little to tie them to the overarching Babylon 5 canvas, and that's a pity. Mind you, enough plot threads are left dangling from the Sheridan sequence that it could be easily picked up in further installments.
The special effects are very good and Straczynski's direction is good, too. He effectively uses some interesting camera work in the Lochley segment, and he keeps a sure hand on the proceedings. The actors seem to be pleased to be reprising their roles, particularly Boxleitner and Woodward who seem to having immense fun in their scenes together.
The DVD contains many behind the scenes features, in total as long as the feature itself. What is sorely missing is a commentary track, but on the other hand the reenactment of a major scene from the show using sock puppets almost makes up for that gaffe.
So while it is not as effective as it could have been, this first volume of The Lost Tales marks a successful return of Babylon 5 to our screens, and here's hoping that there is a second helping soon.

The Simpsons Movie

It’s ironic but the future of hand-drawn animation may have just been saved by the ugliest cartoon family in history. Consider that The Simpsons’ Movie opening gross of $74,000,000 is the largest opening of any hand-drawn animated film in history, and is a larger opening than any digitally animated film by Pixar (Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, Ratatouille etc.). Only two of the digitally animated Shrek films have grossed more than Homer and his family.
On the other hand, The Simpsons has been a cultural touchstone for a generation and, as the tv-show enters its 19th season this fall, it’s hard to imagine that a big-screen version wouldn’t be a huge hit. As such, the movie plays it safe and doesn’t stray much from the formula that makes it work so well on television. Maybe a few of the joke are a little cruder, but they’re still tame compared to what passes as humour in the theatres these days.
And sticking to the formula ain’t necessarily a bad thing. It was the winning formula of balancing family sentimentality and dead-on self-aware satire that has made The Simpsons quite possibly the best tv-comedy show ever. While the later seasons of the show have often veered away from this formula, The Movie returns to the tried and true Simpsons story style of its glory years of the early and mid-1990s.
The first half of The Movie is classic Simpsons’ craziness, and is pitch perfect as it assails the audience with laugh after laugh. Itchy skewers Scratchy, Homer complains that The Bible has no answers, Lisa fruitlessly tries to encourage Springfield’s citizens to save the a lake, and Bart skateboards through town naked (which leads to the film’s biggest laugh as Bart is briefly glimpsed in all his glory). Eventually a plot develops and the laughs become a little less frequent. Homer falls in love with a pig which leads to an environmental disaster for Springfield. The town is quarantined but Homer and family escape and move to Alaska. The family want to return to help their former town folks, but Homer has settled in to the Arctic lifestyle and wants to remain. (There a bar in Alaska called Eski-Moe’s.) They leave Homer to return to Springfield, and Homer must not only save his town, but he must also rescue the relationship with his wife and children.
This has always been the key to the success of The Simpsons, a balance between zany physical comedy, smart satire, and not being afraid to be sentimental and allow the family moments to play without undercutting them with a zinger. The oft-expressed belief the The Simpsons is “anti-family” is belied by the fact that no matter how dysfunctional this family is, it’s clear that they love each other and their relationship with each other is the driving force in their lives. Even “under-achiever” Bart has demonstrated again and again his deep ties to his family. (And how can conservatives complain about a tv family that is seen going to church regularly? Heck, the whole damn town goes to church every Sunday! And the first scene of The Movie is set in a church at Sunday Service! But I digress.)
This is by no means a ground-breaking film, but it is a witty reminder of why we’ve loved The Simpsons all these years. It delivers big laughs in abundance.
Plus we get to see Bart’s doodle.

Ark II - The Complete Series

On the scorched and polluted Earth of the 25th century, three young scientists and their hyper-intelligent talking chimpanzee roam the land in Ark II, a sophisticated mobile lab and research centre, to help rebuild and restore civilization. Led by Jonah (played by the late Terry Lester), every week he and his crew -- Ruth (Jean Marie Hon), Samuel (Jose Flores) and Adam (Moochie the chimp) – would help villagers and farmers fend off environmental scourges, scavengers, crazy computers or immortal demagogues in a non-violent manner.
It was Saturday mornings, after all.
In fact Ark II was the most expensive live-action Saturday morning kids’ show of its time. Produced by Filmation, it premiered in September 1976, and although only 15 episodes were produced, remained on the air until 1979. It featured some great guest stars – Jonathan Harris, Malachi Throne, Del Munroe, a very young Helen Hunt, Jim Backus and Robbie the Robot (uncredited, alas) – as well as some very cool vehicles.
The premise of each episode was often similar: the Ark crew would be assigned (by a never-seen headquarters) to investigate some strange happening in a village. The villagers would be often fearful of the Ark and its crew, Ruth or Samuel would get into trouble, but then the villagers would realize the error of their ways and everything would turn out okay. But not before Jonah would have to fly around in his jet-pack. (And no wires here, kids – it was a real flying jetpack. Is that cool or what?))
It wasn’t as cheesy as it sounds, although the production values are sometimes lacking (each episode was shot in only three days). Each episode contained a “message,” but viewers were never slammed over the head with it and the show never sank to the level of cliché. They even went out of their way to avoid the obvious cliché – Adam the chimp is never played for comedy relief; he was an equal member of the crew. Even if he was wearing a diaper under his costume.
The show was shot on 16mm film, so it’s never going to look great. That said, the newly remastered DVD release makes the series look pretty good. And for a 30 year-old series that only filmed 15 episodes, there’s a wealth of behind-the-scenes material: two episode commentaries, a new “making of” documentary, plus assorted photo and art galleries. But wait – there’s more! Also included is DVD-Rom material, including all the shooting scripts, plus the series bible.
Many of the Filmation live-action Saturday morning shows are due to be released on DVD in 2007.
Can a review of Jason of Star Command be far behind?

originally published in Neo-Opsis magazine, 2007.

Crisis on Infinite Earths

Crisis on Infinite Earths
by Marv Wolfman

Novelizations generally come out at the same time as the movie/tv show/event that they are tied in to. There seems little point for a novel plugging a 20 year-old comic series to come out now (unless its publication was coinciding with the publication of the sequel to the original comic series. Maybe there is a method to this marketing madness after all).
To begin, originally there were the original DC heroes of the 1930s and 1940s Golden Age: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern et al. But after the war, many comics were cancelled and some heroes disappeared for a while. Batman and Superman continued, but The Flash, Green Lantern and others dropped by the wayside.
But in the 1950s and 1960s, DC began introducing updated versions of these forgotten heroes. The “old” Green Lantern, Alan Scott, was a railroad engineer who came upon a lantern forged from a mysterious metal that gave him super-powers, while the “new” Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, was chosen to join an intergalactic police force and given a ring that allowed him to give form to whatever he willed. The original Flash, Jay Garrick, was a college student who inhaled “hard water vapours” and gained super-speed, while the modern Flash was Barry Allen, a police scientist who suffered an accident with chemicals and was imbued with super-speed.
As the new so-called Silver Age heroes grew in popularity, the natural idea occurred – what if the new Flash met the old Flash? To accomplish this, the writers at DC used the old parallel worlds idea: the current Flash, and his contemporaries, lived on Earth-1, while the previous Flash and his contemporaries lived on Earth-2.
The Flash crossover proved so popular that soon the Green Lanterns crossed over, followed by whole leagues of heroes in annual crossover events. DC began adding more parallel worlds to their canon. There was Earth-3 where the heroes were the bad guys and the super-villains were the heroes. There was Earth-S where Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family lived. There was even Earth-Prime where the DC Comics writers lived and wrote the stories that played out across what was now referred to as the DC Multiverse.
By the mid-1980s, the powers-that-be decided that the DC Multiverse had grown so huge and unwieldy that new readers would be lost learning the previous continuity, and decided to do what is now called a re-boot of the DC Multiverse and collapse it into a single universe that would be easy for writers, editors and new readers to keep track of.
Enter Marv Wolfman and George Pérez who respectively wrote and drew Crisis on Infinite Earths, an award-winning 12-issue mini-series that tore the DC Multiverse asunder and rearranged it into a single, cohesive universe. Sort of. And in 2006, as DC prepared another massive crossover event, Infinite Crisis, to repair the continuity ruptures of the previous 20 years, iBooks published Wolfman’s novelization of the original series.
Wolfman wastes no time getting into the story, told through the eyes of The Flash, Barry Allen. It’s an interesting choice to use Allen as the narrator – the Silver Age Flash was considered by many readers to be a dull and boring character, and it’s for this reason that he was [Spoiler Alert] killed off at the end of the original Crisis mini-series. [He continues to be unappealing to modern fans as the beautiful Alex Ross-painted cover of the novel shows Supergirl’s death, not The Flash’s. And don’t ask me about Supergirl’s screwed up continuity. Oy vey. End of Spoiler Alert.]
Barry has become “unstuck” in time and his incorporeal form bears witness to multiple plot threads, presented in a non-linear manner. As a plot device, it’s a smart way for Wolfman to juggle his numerous stories as the various universes are destroyed by a being known as the Anti-Monitor, who, like most super-villains, can only come up with schemes that require the destruction of All Existence in order to succeed. (Whatever happened to knocking off the corner liquor store? But I digress.) It does make for confusing reading at first, as Barry is just as lost as the reader is, but soon Barry is up to speed with the story and so are we.
There’s no point trying to explain the particulars of the story, and it flies by so fast that who really cares anyway? And the legion of super-heroes (pun intended) that are briefly mentioned must be in the hundreds. Most rate merely a line or two. That said, Wolfman does manage to capture the essence of many of these one-line characters, and he finely draws the personalities of the main players of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. He does an especially fine job with Barry, our narrator, and captures the heroism and the tragedy in this doomed character.
If you really want to read this story, find the original comic. It’s readily available in graphic novel form. But if you’re looking for a few hours to kill with some light reading about the end of everything, this will do the trick, too.

originally published in Neo-Opsis magazine, 2007.