The other night, CBS (aka “The Tiffany Network”) aired its new made-for-TV movie, Spring Break Shark Attack, which may take the crown for Most Self-Explanatory Film Title. I didn’t watch it–because, honestly, do you really need to watch Spring Break Shark Attack to understand Spring Break Shark Attack–but I did enjoy the commercial in which frolicking beach teens see hundreds of shark fins in military formation.

As much as I love the title Spring Break Shark Attack, it doesn’t compare to the moniker of last week’s “Sci-Fi Channel Original,” Mansquito. Again, I didn’t see it, because I feel strongly that the joy of being aware of the existence of a movie called Mansquito would be undercut by having to sit through it. Though I’m told that someone actually says, “Hey! Mansquito!” That might almost make the experience worthwhile. On the other hand, if I can find the appropriate clip, I can save myself 90 minutes.

But neither of these unseats my favorite TV-movie title ever, Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? This 1996 flick stars Tori Spelling, as it should. I don’t know what it’s about, and I feel secure in my ignorance. What I love about Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? is that no matter how you parse it, it makes no sense. Would anyone ask their mom’s permission to sleep with danger? Mom would almost certainly say “no.” And even if someone sought parental approval, wouldn’t one simply ask “Mother, may I sleep with Joe?” That’s assuming that the boyfriend’s name was Joe. Unless he’s Joe Danger. That would make sense. And it would be kinda cool to date Joe Danger. But, still, I don’t think anyone, even Tori Spelling, would ever ask her folks if she could sleep with danger. Which is what makes Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? the best movie title ever.

From now on, I would appreciate it if you would refer to me by my new, official nickname, Mansquito.

Update: When I searched the web for the name Mansquito, Google asked “Did you mean to search for: mosquito?” No, damn it! When I say that I want Mansquito, I want Mansquito!

Dave TV Mansquito, Mother May I Sleep with Danger?, Spring Break Shark Attack

Today sees the official opening of Monty Python’s Spamalot, a Broadway musical based, more or less, on the classic comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Almost from Day One (possibly Day Two, or the early morning of Day Three), the buzz has it that Spamalot is destined to be the next Producers. Having seen the show during its recent Chicago tryout, I’d have to agree. (Not that I’ve seen The Producers, because I foolishly missed its tryout run. When I heard about Spamalot, I was determined not to repeat that mistake.)

That’s not to say that Spamalot is any great piece of musical theatre. It is, after all, meant to be nothing more than a gloriously silly piece of fluff. Those who are expecting something more meaningful presumably walked into the wrong show by mistake.

My reading of Spamalot is that it’s less the Broadway musical version of Holy Grail than it is a piss take on the excesses of modern Broadway musicals. Not only are there the obvious swipes at Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables, but the entire second act revolves around King Arthur’s secondary quest to stage his own musical, despite the tuneful, politically incorrect warning, “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway” (If You Don’t Have Any Jews).

While big-name talent such as writer Eric Idle, director Mike Nichols, and actors Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce and Hank Azaria get most of the press, for me the real star of the show is Sara Ramirez, who plays the Lady of the Lake and most of the other female parts. She belts out several of the best numbers, and in the Chicago version, she even played the Cow!

I found the early incarnation of Spamalot to be massively entertaining, though a bit long in the second act. (I’ve heard that they’ve made some trims, including the Cow’s mournful Marlene Dietrich impression.) I suspect that it will grace Broadway for a very long time.

Dave General cows, Monty Python, reviews, Sara Ramirez, Spamalot, theatre

Last night saw the television premiere of the full trailer for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. It certainly looks incredible, though I’ve been fooled before.

I approach this “final” chapter with a mixture of anticipation, dread and ennui. (Is that even possible?) Star Wars has been a significant part of my life for so long that a part of me can’t help but be excited by the opportunity to visit that universe one last time, yet, like many others, I’ve found myself generally disappointed with these prequel films.

The original Star Wars premiered at a time when I really needed it. It was 1977, and I was twelve years old and miserable. It’s a familiar story–awkward and ostracized child falls in love with a fantasy world–so I’ll spare you the details. The important thing is that Star Wars gave me something to daydream about and fueled my creativity. I spent my junior high and high school years rattling on with my geeky friends about such burning issues as whether Boba Fett was “the Other.”

When Return of the Jedi debuted in 1983, with it came the word from George Lucas that he was taking some time off from the Saga. This was a matter of great concern: would he ever complete all nine films? Would I live long enough to see them?

Years passed. I saw Lucas in person at the 10th anniversary Star Wars convention, when he promised that he would return one day to the galaxy far, far away. Though, he joked, not before he completed one more Indiana Jones film and eight more Howard the Ducks. It was funny at the time.

Still more years passed. Hasbro began making new action figures to swell the ranks of my collection. Post-Jedi continuations began to roll off a literary assembly line, but no movies were in sight.

Finally, there came the Announcement. The rumors were over, and production of Episode I was underway! Again came the anticipation and the geek chatter, but with it a certain fear. I recall a disturbing dream in which I went to the premiere only to realize that the film was terrible. Little did I know…

Meanwhile, the luster began to wear off what had been my unconditional love for Lucas and his world. First, there were the “special editions” of the old trilogy. Digitally pissing over my childhood wouldn’t have been so bad if Lucas, the film preservation activist, hadn’t attempted to ensure that his own movies would never again be seen in their original form. Then came the word that the nine films had been cut to six. Actually, there’d never been any plan for nine films, Lucas told us. Just ignore the dozens of interviews he did in 1977. Historical revisionism became one of the prime exports from Skywalker Ranch.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace came out in May, 1999. I drove out with my friend Doug to the Lorraine Theatre, an old movie house in the middle of nowhere which just happened to have the best sound system in Illinois. At last, I would have a chance to relive the excitement of seeing a new Star Wars film for the first time!

You can guess what happened next. About 15 minutes in, nagging questions began to invade my thoughts. “What’s with these Yellow Peril aliens?” “What the hell is Jar Jar saying?” “Why is it that no one seems to be having any fun?” “What the hell is Jar Jar SAYING?”

It was a shock. I had fully expected to stay for the second show, but found myself driving back to Champaign, wondering what had happened. Emperor Palpatine had no clothes.

My wife likes to say that George Lucas is a hack and a ne’er-do-well. I always respond, “He’s not a ne’er-do-well. American Graffiti was good.” But I find that I have to admit the part about the hack.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Lucas’ film successes have been happy accidents, owing to a combination of outside help, budget constraints and blind luck. It’s telling that as he’s gained the technical freedom to tell exactly the story he wants, the story itself has become less satisfying.

Don’t get me wrong. I still give Lucas his due; he changed the ways in which movies are made and marketed, and he’s done a great deal to further their technical advancement. And I still love Star Wars, despite his best efforts. Whatever disappointments the prequels have presented, there are moments and creations within them that are as wonderful as anything from the old films.

I believe that there are two primary reasons that the prequels haven’t engaged me as much as the classic trilogy. (Three, if you count the fact that I’m now 40 years old instead of twelve.) First, it’s difficult to relate to these new characters. A collection of nobles and royals, their interactions are formal and stilted. There’s no haughty Princess Leia or wisecracking Han Solo to prick their pomposity.

Second, and perhaps most damaging, is that the story revolves around Anakin Skywalker, a highly unlikable person whose “hero’s journey” has taken him from dull child to sullen teen and now to psychopathic Jedi-killer. When I was a kid, I wanted to be Luke Skywalker, and later Han Solo (once I realized that Han had the cooler ship, the cooler companion, and the girl). I can’t imagine wanting to be Anakin. “Mommy, when I grow up I want to slaughter my friends and rule the Empire with an iron fist!” I’m uncertain how I feel about his adventures. Should I root for young Anakin in the Podrace? Or would it be more appropriate to hope that he suffers a fatal crash? Can I be invested in his romance with Padme, even though I know that the path inevitably leads to bitter tragedy?

Maybe that sense of tragedy is the real problem with the prequels. The first Star Wars was a ray of hope in the aftermath of the turbulent Vietnam War. These films, however, seem to verify the unpleasant truths around us: that politicians are inevitably corrupt and manipulative, that “freedom” is an illusion crafted to meet their ends. Institutions crumble and good people die. Things might work out in the end, but in this case, the end was more than twenty years ago.

Dave Star Wars George Lucas is a hack and a ne'er-do-well, historical revisionism, Jar Jar Binks, reviews, Star Wars

This week saw the unofficial release of the first episode of the new Doctor Who television series. By “unofficial,” I mean that someone leaked a copy onto the ‘net two full weeks before it was set to premiere in the U.K. While I can’t officially condone that action, I can certainly understand the impatience to see it now.

Reading some of the British press reviews, I was struck by the phrase, “first new episode in 16 years.” I went straight to my guide book, and sure enough, the last original episode, “Survival,” aired in 1989. It made me feel very old.

From most accounts, this continuation is something old and something new. (The TARDIS is, of course, both borrowed and blue.) It goes back to its roots as a show designed to scare the kids into hiding behind the sofa. There are nods to the past, including the resurrection of the Autons, animated department store dummies introduced during the ’70s. However, it does away with the wobbly, cardboard sets and introduces a lightning-fast pace. Most noticeably, it does away with the old format of four half-hour episodes per story, in favor of 45-minute, stand-alone installments.

It sounds good to me. While I’m certainly enough of a traditionalist to think fondly of the serialized, cliffhanging classic Doctor Who, I acknowledge that the third episode of a four-parter was usually just a bunch of pointless running around.

The show was created in the early ’60s, when audiences were accustomed to a slow build. But times change, and nostalgia for its own sake can be self-defeating. Furthermore, half-hour dramas are hard to sell in syndication, and serialized half-hours nearly impossible. Television is still a business.

I suspect that some old-time fans will hate the new show. That’s not especially surprising. It’s been my experience that a sci-fi series’ diehard followers are also its harshest critics when it inevitably fails to hold true to the idealized version they hold in their heads.

I think they’ll dislike it precisely because it sticks to its kids’ show origins. For the past 15 years, many of the spin-off novels and audio plays have built on a darker theme introduced during the original TV series’ last few years. They’ve tried to reposition Doctor Who as science-fiction for adults.

My feeling is that fans realize that they’ve grown up since they fell in love with the Doctor, and they demand that the show grow with them. After all, it’s bad enough to be branded a sci-fi geek, even worse to be seen as an adult obsessed with a kids’ show. And so, in the long hiatus between televised adventures, Doctor Who became a franchise weighed down by adult themes.

The funny thing is that despite this desire for maturity, Who fandom has traditionally rejected the introduction of a sexual interest on the part of the title character. Instead, they’ve created a vast backstory to make it painfully clear that Time Lords do not, not, not ever have sex, despite plenty of contrary evidence. The Doctor’s original companion was his granddaughter Susan, yet many fans choose to ignore this repeatedly stated familial relationship, because it assumes that at some point the Doctor got it on.

Ironically, this attitude can be directly attributed to Doctor Who‘s kids’ show origins. The Doctor had a tendency to take pretty, young women as his travelling companions, and therefore the producers had to insist to concerned parents that there was “no hanky-panky in the TARDIS.” Somehow, this got mistranslated into the notion that the entire Time Lord race was asexual. (I assumed that they simply didn’t go in for humans and/or that the Doctor preferred to keep things on a professional level.)

For my part, I look forward to the opportunity for new adventures with the good ol’ Doctor, sex or no sex. After all, even a Time Lord shouldn’t have much time for hanky-panky when he’s busy saving the universe. As he famously said, “Somewhere there’s danger, somewhere there’s injustice, and somewhere else the tea is getting cold.” Save us, Doctor!

Dave Doctor Who Autons, Doctor Who, fanboy entitlement, reviews

Here’s the view outside the front window of my house this morning.

It’s frickin’ March 10, we’re still getting snow; and I’m sick, sick, sick of it.

I hate winter. I hate slick roads and icy sidewalks, I hate gray skies, I hate when it gets dark at 4:45 pm, and most of all, I hate being cold. If I never had another winter, I wouldn’t miss it. Sure, give me a white Christmas; drop a few inches of snow on Christmas Eve. But let it melt by December 26.

Even though this has been by no means a terrible winter–I never did have to shovel the drive–I’ve been ready for it to be over for weeks. And yet it persists.

Last Sunday, it was absoutely gorgeous out, with sunshine and temperatures in the high ’60s. Vic and I took our first neighborhood walk of the year, and after a few blocks, we were so warm that we had to take off our sweatshirts.

The next day, it started spitting snow again.

Go away, winter. Don’t come back.

Dave Rant enough already, miserable weather

Last night, I finally completed a project which has been dogging my heels since the Clinton Administration: painting my Sisters of Battle army for the Warhammer 40K miniatures game. To be honest with myself, they’ll probably never be absolutely finished. I still want to texture their bases, and I’m sure I’ll keep finding little details that I’ll want to retouch. But as I glued the backpack onto the final Sister after midnight, I felt a sense of completion, and a desperate need for sleep.

Here, at long last, is a photo gallery of my work:

Above is my HQ squad, led by the Canoness. On the right are my Retributor heavy weapons gals. While Games Workshop tends to paint their armies to follow a single color scheme, I wanted to have a bit more diversity, especially given the relatively few different Sisters of Battle miniatures available.

On the left are my Priests. The one in the center is a custom model, using an old figure of Lady Galadrial, and a banner pole recycled from an action figure accessory. The plastic peg behind her head is empty for right now, but I mean to craft a sort of hovering “halo.” On the right are the dreaded Seraphim, the flying nuns that first caught my eye when choosing a Warhammer army. One of them is not an official GW miniature, but rather an appropriate figure from a defunct competitor called Void. The animal skull on the base of the lead Seraphim was made from Sculpey.

Standard Battle Sisters on the left. Note that one is actually a crudely modified Seraphim Sister Superior which I mounted directly to a built-up base. On the right is the back of that same figure. I somehow ran out of backpacks, so I substituted another action figure accessory of approximately the proper shape and size. Again, it provides a bit more variety, plus it makes a certain sense that the squad leaders would be further differentiated. I painted a couple of SoB insignia on the back.

Custom terrain pieces. First is some engine wreckage culled from an old Space: 1999 model kit, then a toxic waste spill.

Finally, here’s a photo of my entire army. Click on the photo for a very large version.

I plan to take a break from painting and modeling for a bit, but I have a number of other projects I’d like to work on eventually, including a squad of Space Marines.

By the way, I had a difficult time deciding upon a title for this post. Other candidates included “Nun Better,” “Only The Good Die Nun” and “Nun Is The Loneliest Number.”

Dave Games nuns, Warhammer

Haven’t had much time to post lately, as last week was fairly hectic. First, there was the Meeting from Hell: a two-and-a-half day Strategic Planning Session for the WILL stations. As meetings go, it was actually productive and worthwhile, but two-and-a-half days of anything is too much.

Thankfully, I got out of the final day because it was time for Vicky’s annual heart check-up. Even more thankfully, everything looked good under the hood and the clock has been reset for another year!

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been spending about every waking moment not at work painting nuns. No, it’s not what you’re thinking, though come to think of it, I don’t know what you’re thinking. Rather, I’ve been painting my Sisters of Battle miniatures for the Warhammer 40K game. I’ve had these flying nuns for about five years now, and they’ve been half(-assed) painted for an embarrassingly long time. I finally decided that enough was enough, and that by my next Warhammer gaming weekend, I would field a fully-painted army of armor-plated, ass-kicking nuns.

My efforts have been hampered by two things: 1) I suck at painting (impatience and shaky hands), and 2) my ability to be diverted by side projects. For instance, I took entirely too much time converting a non-Games Workshop miniature of Lady Galadriel from Lord of the Rings into an Imperial Priestess. However, I’ve been making great progress, and all I have left to complete are about 15 backpacks.

Here are photos of my Canoness, complete with customized backpack made from an robot action figure’s foot and a flame made of Sculpey.

More photos once I’m done! May it be soon!

Still testing out the new digital camera, which naturally means more cat photos. Here are some images (suitable for the desktop) of Hobbes.

And here’s one of Vicky with Cupid and Hobbes.

WILL-TV’s spring pledge drive started last Friday, and as of this morning we were at $29,675. Wish us luck!

Dave General kitties, Warhammer