I’m having a hard time deciding on whether to write about these two subjects. So, I’m going to forge ahead and actually write something about them. However, since neither really is involving enough to qualify for their own post I’ll just slap ‘em together and combine them.

—

I discovered Gnome Do a few weeks ago. Or was it maybe longer? I really can’t remember. Gnome Do is a neat application that takes a lot of inspiration from Quicksilver. Mac users will most likely be familiar with Quicksilver since it’s a very popular application. I wouldn’t say it’s genius, but it’s pretty damn smart none the less.

Gnome Do is very similar. I’ve been using the Gnome Deskbar for a year, and it has a lot of similarities as well with Quicksilver. Gnome Do however is much more similar and even though it’s less powerful than the Deskbar in some ways, it’s also more powerful than the Deskbar in other ways.

Do is in very early stages of development right now, but it’s fully usable. It installs easily for us Ubuntu-users, which is nice. The only real drawback in my opinion is that it’s written in Mono, the free implementation of Microsofts proprietary .Net-language. I have some minor philosophical grievances with that, but Do runs fine and is very fast.

—

I earlier today noticed that a TV-series based in the Terminator-franchise had been launched. It’s called “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” and is a complete and utter turd in every department. I will never understand why everyone is so desperate to keep raping what was once a great franchise. I absolutely love the first two James Cameron-helmed movies, and consider the third one to be a turkey of galactic proportions. After that I became really disgusted by how various producers seem intent on keeping on ruining this excellent concept with cheezy crap.

This TV-series strongly underscores that disgust. I watched the pilot, and it’s absolutely awful. Wooden acting, boring scripting, silly “effects” and overall just horrible abuse of excellent subject matter. I don’t understand why people couldn’t leave it be after the second movie, when even James Cameron himself stated that he was finished with the concept.

No, the “Sarah Connor Chronicles” is a mediocre production at best, and at it’s worst it’s an insult to us fans. It’s completely trite, derisive and clichéd. Avoid at all costs.

If you would say that I’m border-line obsessed with Blade Runner then you would be right on the money. I’ve had an ongoing love-affair with this movie for at least fourteen years.

I think it all started when I read the book by Philip K. Dick, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” in my early teens. I had no idea that Blade Runner was based on this book, even less had I even seen said film. I’d seen some screenshots in magazines and was mildly intrigued by the visual aspect of the movie, but it pretty much stopped at that. I was too young as well to be able to fully comprehend the complex themes of the book, and at the time I felt most of Dick’s writing was rather weird and bizarre.

Hindsight being 20/20 I now know that I really wasn’t the target of the book. At thirteen you’re just too young to be interested in weighty philosophical subjects about humanity wrapped in amphetamine-fueled writing.

My first contact with Blade Runner was ironically it’s soundtrack. Written, produced and performed by the greek master Vangelis it hooked me immediately with it’s deep atmosphere. Intertwined was soundbites from the movie, and at this point I just knew I had to see the movie. I was now around sixteen or so, and I greedily devoured everything I could find on Blade Runner. Finally, I managed to see the original european theatrical cut. I’m a bit fuzzy as to how I saw it, but I think one of the TV-channels ran it. Yes, while that may sound cheezy this particular channel shows a lot of good movies, without commercials and in proper widescreen. They even did this back in the early nineties as well.

After that, my obsession snowballed rapidly and since then I’ve become something of a walking encyclopedia on Blade Runner. I wouldn’t say that I’m fanatical, and I don’t know every stupid bit of fact there is. But I do know a lot, and it’s easily one of my favorite films of all time. I’ve read the behind-the-scenes book by Paul M. Sammon (called Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner) and I’ve even bought the book - twice! I lost my original copy when I moved back from USA to Sweden, and a year ago I re-purchased it. It’s a bible of information regarding the production of Blade Runner. I recommend it to any fan of the movie.

To say that I was excited when I heard about the Final Cut of Blade Runner being produced would be a mild understatement. I’ve eagerly waited for it’s release for at least a year, and today I got it. Me being crazy I of course bought the Collectors Edition, with five (!) DVD’s including every other version of Blade Runner (especially the elusive Workprint) as well as documentaries and other tidbits. I was never a fan of the Directors Cut from 1992, it didn’t have quite the punch of the theatrical cut and even though I agree that a lot of the monologue is superfluous I really did like it included. Another thing I didn’t like with the Directors Cut was it’s DVD-transfer. It was one of the first DVD’s and as such is sub-par compared to… well, pretty much anything. The visuals are muddy and the audio is a horrible 2.0-mix. In fact, most every release of Blade Runner on video, DVD or even Laserdisc has been mistreated in one way or the other.

But the Final Cut promised to remedy all this, and I look forward to popping it in the DVD-player and firing up the receiver later tonight. Not only will it be an audio-visual experience for me, but I look forward to seeing if or what is different in the Final Cut. I think Blade Runner finally has come full-circle in a format that makes it’s qualities justice. When I get HD-gear I’ll probably repurchase the Final Cut in HD-version, but so far I’m not HD-ready yet.

None the less, I’m very excited right now!

A shot of the Collectors Edition:

I Am Legend

Action/Horror/Drama from 2007 featuring Will Smith.

—

Robert Neville (Smith) is the last survivor of a man-made plague causing horrible mutations. The plague started off as a well-intended genetic cure for cancer, but for unknown reasons instead started causing mutations and killing 90% of the human race. The survivors of the plague was rewarded with extreme mutations, and turned into violent creatures needing to feed on the minority of humans who were immune to the plague. Robert Neville is the last survivor of these naturally immune humans, and he’s desperately working on finding a cure for the infected before it’s too late…

—

Man, I was so badly looking forward to this movie.

I’ve read the original novel by Richard Matheson a few times, and it quickly developed into one of my many favourite books. Essentially it was about how Robert Neville was the last survivor of a plague which turned everyone else into creatures essentially resembling vampires - they needed blood for sustenance and were vulnerable to sunlight. The two major things that fascinated me with the novel was partly the main protagonist (Neville) and his struggle to survive and remain sane in a world gone mad, but also the concept of scientifically explaining the symptoms of vampirism as a disease instead of something supernatural.

I’ve seen both the previous attempts at turning this book into a movie, and neither of them really caught me. I’ve never been much of a Charlton Heston-fan even though I accepted him in Planet of the Apes and thus felt a large ambivalence to The Omega Man, but the older adaptation (The Last Man On Earth) is, in my opinion, pure crap.

So when the teasers started to appear last year I felt that, yeah, this seemed like a much more worthy adaptation. With a proper budget, proper special effects and that nice post-apocalyptic feel that was sorely missed in the previous incarnations. Sure, I felt a little iffy at Will Smith as Robert Neville, but the fresh prince has actually developed into a fairly capable actor.

The teasers and trailers also gave the impression that they were sticking to the story and world established in the novel. Most obviously I felt that this was indicated by not altering the title from “I Am Legend” into something other like the previous adaptations.

But, unfortunately, I was wrong.

Before I continue, let me make clear that I don’t think this is a bad movie. Quite the opposite, it’s probably an enjoyable zombie-style flick to anyone who isn’t a fan of the book. I do think however that fans of the novel will be disappointed - just like I was.

The movie starts off quite promising. Visually it’s very impressive, and the mood is effectively set for the viewer. Smith is quite capable as Neville, trying to maintain his sanity and survive all the while trying to figure out the virus. He isn’t the usual Smith-character, he’s not fast-talking or cool, and there’s definitely a few cogs missing in the brain department. I was impressed by it.

Leave it to Hollywood to mess this up though, and they sure did. See, I really, really liked the novel. What really rubs my rhubarb with this movie is that after a while it descends into the usual Hollywood-happy ending. Also, most annoyingly, it cuts out large parts of the story of the novel, and messes up the reason why Neville is a legend, and to whom he is a legend.

In the novel, the infected were for all intents and purposes, vampires. They slept at day and awoke at night needing blood. During the day, Neville would go from house to house and kill the sleeping infected. However, what Neville doesn’t know until later is that there exist infected who have managed to keep most of the disease at bay. They still have the symptoms (vulnerability to sunlight, garlic, etc) but haven’t quite become the horribly disfigured and violent creatures that other have become. They have in fact established communities, and try to live normal lives. Neville doesn’t know this, and indiscriminately kills every sleeping person who’s been infected. This is what makes him a legend to these half-infected people, since he can walk in daylight and kill them while they sleep.

This is completely absent in the movie, and it seems that Neville instead spends his days working on finding a cure for the virus, as well as searching for other survivors and food. Any encounter with the infected is purely accident, apart from one which he captures to try his proposed cure on. The infected are instead violent zombie-style creatures who stay out of sunlight and only come out at night trying to find something to feed off of. Neville boards his house shut during the night, and stays out of trouble by not showing any activity then.

The movie descends even further into Hollywood-happy endings. After a while a girl and a young boy show up, claiming to be survivors of the disease, and that there is a community of survivors in Vermont. They want to go there, and bring Neville with them. Long story short, he dies and they take the cure (which all of a sudden miraculously worked) with them, tying up the movie in a nice Hollywood happy ending rather than the bleak and dark ending of the novel.

This really disturbed me. The ending was just too positive for me, and the girl and young boy serve as nothing except fodder to that stereotyped ending.

So, if you haven’t read the book then this will probably be a pretty decent action/horror-movie, with liberal doses of drama and good acting from Will Smith. But for me, I felt slightly cheated.

Gone In 60 Seconds

Cult-classic from 1974.

—

Maindrian Pace leads a double life. By day he is an insurance claims investigator, and by night he runs an illegal chop-shop and makes big money stealing cars. One day he takes it upon himself to deliver 48 different luxury vehicles to a South American druglord. Almost all of the cars are delivered without a hitch except one - a yellow 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1 which proves difficult to acquire…

—

This is one of those cult-movies from the 70’s that everyone who’s into car-movies talks a lot about. It’s usually mentioned together with two other legendary movies; Vanishing Point from 1971 and Bullitt from 1968. I’ve seen both of those, and personally I think Bullitt is a long boring winding road towards a chase-scene that ends way too quickly, while Vanishing Point is a white-line masterpiece virtually defining this now dead era of movie-making.

Gone in 60 Seconds is the ultimate low-budget car-chase movie. It’s got a story wrapped around it somewhere, but it’s paper-thin. The acting is awful and the editing up to the final chase is lackluster and mostly serves to confuse the viewer. You can find some shred of story, but it’s mostly just foreplay to the grande finale - the spectacular car-chase the movie is known for.

As far as a movie is considered this is a pretty crappy one. But as car-porn it’s absolutely spectacular. Totally recommended to people who like me is into cars from the 60’s and 70’s.

Tideland

Surreal/Fantasy/Drama from 2005 with among others Jeff Bridges and Jennifer Tilly. Directed by Terry Gilliam.

—

Jeliza-Rose travels with her father to an abandoned farmhouse in Texas after her mother dies from a drug overdose. At the farm she befriends the locals and experiences deeply surreal adventures…

—

The summary above is the best I can manage. That’s really the only resemblance of a story present in this movie, since most of it seems to consist of really weird scenes in… well… somewhere.

Is it good?

Kinda. But not really.

Is it bad?

Kinda. But not really.

I don’t know whether to like it or to hate it. Watching this movie was a bit like how I would imagine it would feel if someone scooped your brains out while eating vanilla ice-cream and LSD. It feels really awesome at the same time that you find yourself wondering what the hell you’re doing and how it can contribute to anything positive at all.

This is easily the weirdest movie I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some really strange and messed up films in my day.

Recommended? Umm… I’ll have to get back to you on that one.

There are several really cool cars in the world of movies. I decided to list the top ten in my opinion coolest cars that ever thundered across the screen. The criteria set was that it had to be a car (no motorcycles, boats or such) and that it had to be contained within the world of the big-screen - no TV-series cars! This quickly turned out to require quite a lot of thinking and consulting my movie-collection in order to find the top ten cars of movies - but I succeded and here they’re presented in reverse order.

Buckle your seatbelts, here we go!

10. 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 (Essentially every Sam Raimi-movie ever produced.)

Unfortunately I couldn’t locate a decent picture of this car, but it’s well-known to fans of Sam Raimis movies. As most people know, Sam started off directing somewhat weird horror-comedies (Evil Dead) and gradually upgraded himself to hollywood-blockbusters such as the Spider-man-movies.

Back to the car though. We who have loved Sams stranger works are well acquainted with the beige Olds for many years. It’s first appearance was as the car that brought Ash and his girlfriend to that evil little cabin in the woods. The car itself belonged to Sam Raimi himself, and rumor has it that the same exact car (or at the very least the same model) makes appearances in every movie Sam has directed since then. Personally I haven’t been able to confirm this, but I know for a fact that it has cameos in many of his movies - among them Spider-Man from 2002.

Trivia: The third and so far last part of the Evil Dead-series of movies (Army of Darkness) told the story of how the powers of the Necronomicon transports Ash to the dark ages. He didn’t go there alone, however - the beige Olds was also sucked into the vortex. There’s a very memorable scene in which Ash opens the trunk of the Olds, and it is briefly shown to contain everything from chemistry-books to bottles of Coca-Cola. What makes this extra hilarious is that word around the campfire has this to be the actual contents of what was in the trunk at the time of the filming.

9. Lotus Esprit (The Spy Who Loved Me)

I know that this skirts the definitions (no boats, etc) I laid out in the beginning, but this is such a cool car I had to include it. The Esprit is in my opinion one of the truly classic sportscars from the ’70’s, but Bonds version is of course not just a car - it’s also a submarine! My personal opinion is that this car is the only reason to watch an otherwise rather forgettable Bond-movie. Keep in mind though that it’s just my personal opinion, so all you James Bond-fans don’t have to flame me all at once!

Lotus is these days one of the few car-makers who have managed to avoid being swallowed by one of the multinational conglomerates and thereby stay independent. Even Jaguar and Aston-Martin got swallowed by the corporations. Jaguar is as far as I know still owned by Ford, Bentley is owned by VW and Rolls-Royce by BMW!

According to what I’ve managed to find there were three vehicles used to film the famous going-into-the-water-scene. The first one was an Esprit that had been modified to allow it to drive into the water without damaging the driver or the car. This vehicle was used for the scenes showing the car going into our out of the water. The second was built to show the transformation from car to submarine and served no other purpose than as a special-effect. The third was a small submarine by the name of Margie Dixon who had undergone surgery to look like the Esprit in submarine-version. The car was nicknamed “Wet Nellie” by the filmmakers, in a reference to the autogyro that Bond received from Q in “You Only Live Twice“.

There was also a completely normal Esprit used for road-scenes, which Roger Moore would drive between takes.

8. Ford Crown Victoria (Men In Black)

I found the first movie about the Men In Black very enjoyable. Contrasting to many other I found the sequel equally and even more enjoyable, I felt that it kept what “worked” and discarded everything else. Tommy Lee Jones is wonderful as the terse and laconic agent working for a organization monitoring and policing legal aliens on planet earth.

At one part in the film Jay (Will Smith) makes wise-cracks about how MiB has access to all the advanced technology from around the galaxy yet insists on cruising around in a “Ford P.O.S” (P.O.S. of course being in reference to the slang-term “piece of shit”). These jokes take an abrupt end when Jay is instructed to press the little red button, and the otherwise ordinary and mundane Ford transforms into a rocket-powered monster surging through the city at the speed of sound while Kay listens to old Elvis-songs.

Memorable quote:

Jay: You do know that Elvis is dead?
Kay: No, he’s not. He just went home.

(Apologies for the quality of the image)

7. Eleanor (Gone in 60 Seconds)

“Eleanor” is the nickname of the heavily modified 1967 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 who is one of the cars in the remake of Gone In 60 Seconds from 2000. In the original movie from 1974 she was a Ford Mustang Mach1 Coupe, but I always like the remake-version much better.

The movie was a fairly big success among the fans, even though it proved to be a disappointment financially. Eleanor managed to become both a cult-car as well as a big celebrity. The demand for Eleanor-mustangs after the film was released was enormous, and this was made even worse that the car only existed on the movie-screen. Several Shelby GT500’s were custom-built for the movie, and all of them were destroyed when filming ended to prevent unauthorized sales of the cars.

Unique Performance realized the potential and developed a system where they bought old Mustangs and converted them to Eleanor-replicas. You can call them up and order one, provided you’re loaded with cash and have a lot of patience - each replica is hand-built to order. The price of a replica is unknown, but as the saying goes - if you have to ask what it costs you probably can’t afford it.

6. Bluesmobile (Blues Brothers)

It should be pointed out that the movie establishes that this car isn’t really the actual bluesmobile. Elwood traded it away for a microphone before the timeline of the movie, and according to the movie it apparently was a black Cadillac of unknown year or model.

But for every other fan of this movie this is the real deal, and the only Bluesmobile to ever exist.

According to what I’ve managed to dig up a grand total of 14 (!) black-and-white Dodge Monaco ’74s were used. This was needed since the movie had several spectacular stunts and each vehicle had to be built for a certain purpose. Vehicles that went fast, vehicles that could jump high - all were needed. In fact, one of the cars was built only to literally fall to pieces when so required!

Blues Brothers held the record for number of cars smashed in one movie for several years. It wasn’t until it’s own (somewhat less excellent) sequel was released that this record was broken. The main reason behind the over-the-top car-chases was partly based on the attempt to create really outrages chases, but also in order to lampoon earlier movies such as Bullitt or The French Connection.

Apart from the stunts this the movie is extremely entertaining thanks to the numerous musical numbers and cameos from famous musicians.

5. ECTO-1 (Ghostbusters)

ECTO-1 is the car that Ghostbusters cruised around in. It served as the company car for their business providing service of the same name. Occasionally referred to as the “Ectomobile”, although I’ve always felt that the correct name is ECTO-1, just as the license-plate says. The name is a derivative of the substance left behind by supernatural beings - ectoplasm.

The actual vehicle is a Cadillac Miller-Meteor with a loading dock in the rear. It’s a 1959 year, and this type of car mostly serviced as either ambulances or hearses. In the movie it’s bought by Ray Stanz for the ludicrous amount of US$4800 - completely absurd considering this would be about US$10.000 for a car that barely runs under it’s own power.

But after some heavy modification it became an 80’s icon. Almost anyone who lived during that decade remembers the Ghost Busters and their white car with the funky equipment.

Currently there’s a Ecto-1 replica for sale, asking price is around US$150.000. This is not the original car, but a replica built by renown car-customizer George Barris. Barris is among others the man who built the original Batmobile, used in the campy series from the 60’s, and he’s also well-known for falsely claiming to be involved in building and designing the original Ecto-1.

Trivia: Ecto-1 was originally supposed to be jet-black, but since a majority of scenes take place at night this meant the car would be almost invisible. The crew instead chose to go with the white paintjob and the red wings.

4. Batmobile (Batman, 1989)

The first time I saw Tim Burtons take on Batman I was 11 years old and watched it in the local grindhouse. Almost immediately it became one of my most loved movies ever, and the Batmobile presented in the movie was a major contributor to this fact. Previously I had only seen the Batmobile in the cheezy 60’s series, and even though that vehicle had a certain charm it couldn’t compare to the roaring beast in Tim Burtons interpretation.

No, this was a radically different kind of car. It was long, dark and voice-controlled. The looks combined the sleek elegance of sportscars from the 30’s with a jet-black exterior and extreme performance. Just like the Gotham City presented in the film it was dark, powerful and dangerous.
Various rumours insist that every single gadget on the car was fully functional - this included the extremely powerful gas turbine powering the vehicle. According to this rumour the gas turbine consumed fuel at such a rate that the car could only be driven for about 15 seconds. Personally I’m very skeptical to the validity of these rumours, but it would’ve been neat if it was true.

A few years ago I read an article about some guy in Stockholm who was building his own exact replica of this Batmobile. He constructed it on a custom chassis with a Chrysler V8 for power and some kind of rocket-engine for looks. This vehicle was of course completely road-illegal but apparently it never stopped this guy from occasional night-time cruises around the city preventing crime.

When watching the movies it seems as if the Batmobile is more like driving a boat than a car since it has a gas-throttle instead of a shifter. The car also makes an appearance in the sequel from 1991, where it’s nefariously sabotaged by The Penguin.

Unfortunately the Batmobile descended into a swamp of silliness when Joel Schumacher took over the helm. At least until…

3. The Tumbler (Batman Begins)

Yup, that’s right! Until Chris Nolan took over and re-invented the franchise. The Batmobile is the only car to nab two spots on this list, and this is solely thanks to it existing in so many different incarnations.

The vehicle presented to us in Batman Begins is more inspired by the vehicle driven by Batman in the “Dark Knight Returns” comics by Frank Miller. In that comic the “Batmobile” is more of an ironic and darkly humorous description for a huge tank. Rather than wheels it’s equipped with gigantic caterpillar tracks and easily crushes everything in it’s path.

So, it was obvious to most Batman-fans that was the catalyst for the re-invented Batmobile. In this movie the Batmobile is the result of a secret project conducted by Wayne Enterprises prior to Bruce Wayne becoming Batman. It was designed as a bridging vehicle, to jump across rivers and quickly erect bridges. They never got the bridge-part to work, but the Tumbler worked just fine. Bruce Wayne acquires the vehicle and presto! The new Batmobile is ready - even though it’s never referred to as such in the movie.

Chris Nolan was very specific about how he wanted to shoot the vehicle. He wouldn’t accept any CGI since he felt it wouldn’t look authentic, and thus a total of six cars was built for the various stunts. Two of them were full-scale and completely drivable, these were used for the road-scenes. The other four were built in smaller scales to shoot the jumps and roof-top chases.

Memorable dialogue:

Radio dispatcher: “What street is he taking?”
Cop in cruiser: “He’s not on a street, he’s flying on rooftops!”

Confused cop in patrol-car to dispatcher: “Could you just tell me what it looks like?”
(Tumbler roars past)
Cop: “Uh, never mind!”

2. Pursuit Special (Mad Max)

In 1979 a young Mel Gibson made his debut on movie-screens across the globe in what would become a cult-movie. That movie was Mad Max and painted a dystopian vision of an Australia in a not-too-distant future where the bad guys outnumbered the heroic cops. Mel Gibson portrayed Max, the terse and somewhat bitter cop who makes himself an enemy of a motorcycle gang, and loses not only his family but also most of his soul and purpose in life as a result.

Mad Max and especially it’s two sequels are well-known for two things - amazing car-chases and outrageous stunts. Even if the first sequel (The Road Warrior) introduced a slightly deeper western-derived story the car-chases were always the main attraction for viewers. Right in the middle was Max and his legendary vehicle: the black Pursuit Special.

The Pursuit Special (or as it’s sometimes called: “the last of the V8 Interceptors”) started it’s life as a fairly ordinary australian musclecar from the early 70’s. It’s a Ford Falcon XB GT Coupe, but it wasn’t until it got transformed into the Pursuit Special that it began it’s life in fame. Several modifications were made to the car, and during filming of The Road Warrior it was extensively modified as well, with among other things huge gas-tanks to fit into the fuel-starved australian desert where the movie takes place. Several of the modifications were however completely estetic and served no other purpose than looking badass. The huge supercharger sticking out of the hood is the most visual example of this, since it was completely non-functional.

The Mad Max-trilogy set most of the standard for many movies taking place in a post-apocalyptic future. Practically every movie in this genre since then has emulated some aspect of Mad Max or it’s sequels. The most obvious is Kevin Costers watery epic “Waterworld” which by many (including me) is essentially The Road Warrior but on water rather than in the desert. Unfortunately it also lacks everything that made the Mad Max-trilogy so awesome.

Pursuit Special served in two movies. Originally sold after the first movie wrapped it was re-acquired and showed up in the first sequel. The second sequel has no Pursuit Special in it, unfortunately. After that the car survived various tours among private collectors and then ended up in the Cars of the Stars-museum in the UK, where it can be seen together with among others the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard.

****DRUMROLL****

1. DeLorean DMC-12 (Back to the Future-trilogy)

That’s right! Doc Browns car from the Back To The Future-movies is without a doubt the coolest movie-car ever! This is not the first time that car receives that accolade, various other polls and such around the net concurs with my opinion. Personally I cannot think of a car that beats this one - not only does it look amazing but it also travels through time as well!

In the movies the time-machine is based on a DeLorean DMC-12 from 1981. When BTTF was in pre-production the original plan was that Doc Brown built his time-machine into a refrigerator! This was scrapped when the producers got worried that kids might try to mimic this, climb into their fridges and then get locked inside. The obvious replacement was a car of some kind.

Like Doc Brown himself also points out:

“The way I see it if you’re gonna build a time-machine, why not do it with some style!?”

Also, again according to Doc Brown, the cars stainless steel-body was advantageous for the flux dispersal. That’s always nice.

The choice of the Delorean was also influenced by the movies plot combined with how the Delorean looked. The producers felt that if a Delorean went back to the ’50s the futuristic styling of the car would make it look like a spaceship, and this added to the anachronistic tone of the film. The numbers for how many cars were used varies depending on source, but according to the comments track on the DVD’s a total of four were used. Three of them were built and used during filming, of which one got smashed in front of the freight-train. A fourth got chopped open to allow filming inside of the vehicle.

In the three films the time-machine goes through several changes. At the end of the first film it’s undergone hover-conversion and equipped with a fusion-reactor since providing plutonium for each trip proved to be a giant headache. In the second film it got stolen and used to alter the timeline, and in the beginning of the third film it was discovered in an abandoned mine after having rested there for more than 70 years. It also got struck by lightning several times, as well as being chased by both indians as well as the cavalry.

The sad fate of the time-machine was however to be smashed by a freight-train, but before that happened it gave us three wonderful movies filled with paradoxes, time-travelling, comedy and plenty of insanity.

Despite it’s own coolness the DMC-12 was never very successful as an automobile. It was heavily plagued by several engineering errors and planning mistakes. In the movie Marty bumps his head repeatedly on the gullwing doors, something that also was common for real-life owners. Add to this that the car was equipped with a badly under-performing engine which in the US version didn’t exceed more than 130 BHP. It was a common problem as well that the heavy doors (filled with stereo-components, electronics and airconditing equipment) would lock it’s owner out of the car due to the pistons holding up the doors being under-engineered. Another common occurrence was the draining of the cars battery if said doors were left open too long; this was due to the decision to use halogen-lights for doorlighting, and the thirsty bulbs would quickly drain the battery giving the driver a nasty surprise.

Trivia: The original script used a test-demolition of a nuclear bomb as the means by which Marty manages to get the 1.21 gigawatt required to activate the flux-capacitor. The Delorean would drive into the explosion, and this would charge the circuits and send Marty back to 1985. Steven Spielberg and the other producers felt however it would be unreasonably expensive to film, as well as difficult to produce convincingly as a special effect. Instead the producers opted for the lighting-strike.

—

Contender that just didn’t make the cut: the APC from Aliens. That was also a really nifty car - the neatest feature probably was that it was bigger inside than outside!

—

There, that summarizes my top-ten list of the most amazing movie-cars ever. The overwhelming deduction one can make from this list is that most of the really cool movie-cars appear in films from the 80’s.

Disclaimer: This list is almost exclusively based on my own personal opinions. I’ve tried to research the facts presented here to the best of my ability, but any errors or omissions is my own fault. Most of the facts come from my own personal trivia-center inside my head, and I’ve tried to confirm them as best as possible. Others come from around the net, but apart from chasing down the producers of each film and asking obscure questions this is most likely as good as it’ll get.

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(This is a translation and slight update/rewrite of my earlier Swedish-language posting from back in May ‘07. I feel that there’s a lot of writings in my previous three years that might be enjoyable to people who don’t understand the language. Postings that I’m a little extra proud of, and thus I’ve started translating a few of them for your questionable enjoyment.)

So, last night me and the girlfriend finally got around to watching Death Proof, Quentin Tarantinos half of the Grindhouse-project he shared with Robert Rodriguez.

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A psychotic man calling himself Stuntman Mike stalks two different groups of women, using his heavily modified car to perform murderous deeds on them.

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Now, I really like Pulp Fiction, and while I tolerate watching Reservoir Dogs I was left with a deep feeling of dissatisfaction with his later works. Jackie Brown was watchable but Kill Bill really didn’t do it for me. In fact, Kill Bill didn’t do it enough for me to watch the other half of.

This meant that I wasn’t frothing at the mouth when I heard about Death Proof the first time.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I disapproved of its existence - I’m a movie-geek just like mr Tarantino and I know what it’s like to want to make your dreamproject. The difference between us is that he’s got the resources to do it.

No, rather I was a little worried that this might turn out to be too nerdy and too pretentious. That’s what I felt Kill Bill was like; a neat idea that might’ve sounded great as a fanboy-fantasy but should’ve stayed that way since it in my opinion took itself way too seriously.

Last night however we were starved for movies and decided to give Death Proof a go.

It turned out to be an excellent decision, and in my opinion this is Tarantino at his best. Not only does it give tribute to a whole genre of exploitation-movies but it’s also incredibly fun. It’s quite clear that Quentin knows his shlock-movies and he manages to copy it without making it into a cliché.

Sure, this movie isn’t exactly the most intellectual out there - but it’s not meant to be either. The plot is essentially non-existent and the real gem of the movie is (like most Tarantino-flicks) the dialogue. There’s sexy babes, there’s hot cars, and there’s some truly spectacular car-chases. There’s also tons of references to various other more or less obscure movies (the least obscure being Vanishing Point) and all the variations of the F-word is sprinkled liberally throughout the conversations between the characters.

All in all this is a gorgeous, crazy and sometimes hilarious tribute to a dead genre. Definitely recommended.

(On a sidenote, me being a fan of musclecars from the late ’60s and early ’70s found it great seeing so many excellent representations of the same in this movie.)

One of my minor enjoyments is b-grade scifi-movies from the 80’s and 90’s. Not the really cheesy ones, but the ones who are at the lower-end spectrum of budget and ambition. They’re still major enough to have gone the rounds in the cinemas, but lack a lot of things in pretty much every other department.

They have a tendency to take themselves way too seriously, to have silly and overblown special effects and vehicles and to generally play loose and wild with various concepts as well as laws of physics. These movies have a very cheap cartoony style, even though that style usually is the result of inexperienced directors using the same techniques that they’ve copied from other low-budget inexperienced directors.

Also, it’s surprisingly common that these movies involve at least one or two actors who either are quite respected even at the time of release, or who will become respected and famous a few years later. In other cases, it’s actors who used to be respected or famous but who has for one reason or another has fallen from grace.

These movies are usually located in the bargain-bin at various supermarkets, electronics outlets and gas-stations. You know the kind, three movies for five bucks, that kind of deal.

Two excellent examples of this type of movie is Virus from 1999 and Tank Girl from 1995. Both have this very typical cardboard-style of filmmaking, being extremely corny and usually quite enjoyable mostly due to being very cardboardy and corny. Other excellent representations of this sub-genre is The Running Man from 1987 featuring the current gubernator of california as well as Repo Man from 1984.

Late last night I encountered another movie fitting this genre of mediocrity. It was named Freejack, a scifi/action-movie from 1992 featuring Emilio Estevez and among other people Mick Jagger (!) of Rolling Stones-fame.

The premise is a deliciously silly farce about time-travelling bounty-hunters who take people just before they die and then in the future sell their bodies as hosts for dying peoples minds.

The story itself serves as a great example of how overblown these movies usually are. They almost always have outrageously campy visions of future dystopias and Freejack is no exception to this rule. Most of the movie is set in 2009, two years from now, but features hovercraft limos with bubbletop canopys for the drivers as well as various other really silly “predictions” about the future such as a mega-corporation named McCandless Corporation who owns and operates pretty much everything in the world. But, 2009 is two years away so who knows what might happen?

This is a beautiful hangover-movie. Mick Jagger is wonderfully ridiculous in his various “badass” outfits sprouting cartoony lines, and Emilio Estevez is as gloriously one-dimensional as always.

If you manage to catch this on late night cable and have a penchant for silly scifi-movies then you won’t be disappointed. It’s also excellent stocking-stuffing for people who love this stuff, a useful tip since christmas is rolling around in less than two months time.

My lovely girlfriend Ann-Sofie remarked the other day that I had become very grumpy and negative in my latest posts. As always she was quite right with this remark, and I decided to not write anything more until I felt more cheery and positive.

This proved a bit tougher than I initially thought. You see, she’s not here with me right now. She’s down in the south of Sweden visiting her parents and siblings, and I always get a little extra cranky when I’m without her. She balances my moods, bla bla bla, all that romantic crap. If you want a Hallmark card, go to the store.

Well, anyways. I thought long and hard and at last I found a subject that actually made me happy to write about. Ironically enough it’s something as shallow as a TV-series.

The last few years I’ve noticed and enjoyed the increasing trend of networks around the world actually producing TV-series worth watching. Sweden has a fairly long history of producing fairly high-quality shows, but now even the American networks realized that people were getting fed up with silly sitcoms or low-budget cop shows. I mean, how many times can you redo Ally McBeal and Law & Order? After a while it gets kinda old.

This all started with 24, a series I immensely enjoyed but haven’t watched the last season or two of. I probably will though, it’s just a matter of priority. Another show that captured my imagination was Lost. Unfortunately though, I’m rather ambivalent as to whether I will watch the fourth season or not since it seems the only lost people on that show are the freakin’ writers. A show that started off so brilliantly then got solidly shafted with nonsense plotlines and cheap gimmicks to make people keep on watching it.

But, I digress.

I like my TV-series like I like my coffee. Dark and broody, no sugar or milk. Or that would be how I’d like my coffee if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m a sissy who likes lots of cream and sugar in my coffee. Never mind, I’m trying to prove a point here!

The first thing that these new shows had and which the old-skool ones were missing was production value. Lots of it. No cheap sets, no cheap effects. Just a lot of high-octane production value. This is evident on both 24 and Lost, but also on shows like CSI.

The second thing that started getting me hooked on the boob-tube once again was that shows started branching out in rather weird and unfamiliar territory. Plots were getting a lot more freaky, and creators started mixing genres like some demented bartender. Plots were crossing over between genres, mixing everything from western to scifi to thriller-mystery.

(Sure, there were a few shows before this “new wave” that also had that, but they lacked the production value and instead became quirky cult-favorites)

Which brings me to why I’m writing this post. I’m going to give praise to a show that was cancelled but thanks to dedicated fans have been renewed for additional episodes.

That show is Jericho.

I’d read about it a few months back, and read about it’s cancellation and the efforts of fans to bring it back. I’d never heard about it before, but the basis of it made me very intrigued.

I mean, a post-apocalyptic drama set in a small Kansas town (named Jericho) revolving around how it’s citizens cope with life after seeing a nuclear blast in close-by Denver, Colorado and later learning that several nukes went off all around the country. It sure made me perk up my ears, and I decided that I would do my usual test to see if it whets my appetite for more. I would watch the first four episodes and decide after that if it was worth my time.

I did the same thing with Heroes this spring, and both me and Ann-Sofie got completely hooked on that one. I promised that we would watch this together, and make it a “thing” we do.

Unfortunately, Sunday or Monday I got really bored, and since there were no movies or anything worth watching on I decided to be sneaky and watch the first episode of Jericho. After that it was all down-hill, and yesterday evening I watched the 22nd (and so far last) episode of that show. I had gotten completely addicted, almost worse than with Heroes, and definitely much worse than how I got hooked on 24 or Lost. Much, much worse. I had a hard time NOT watching it nonstop, the only thing truly stopping me from watching all 22 episodes in one go being that a binge-watching was probably not a good thing to force upon my already weak grip on reality.

So, I spaced it out over a few days.

At the risk of sounding like a complete fanboy, but Jericho is AWESOME. The only thing I didn’t really like was the reason behind the nukes, I would’ve preferred something… more chaotic. Not so “conventional”. I’m not going to spoil it for anyone, especially not since I want to watch this again when Ann-Sofie gets home. That’s the only thing I didn’t completely like about Jericho. Other than that it’s an excellent time-sink for anyone with the inclination to spend 22 hours watching it.

Just make sure to drink your fluids and eat at least something every now and then. Other than that, go NUTS! (har har, that’s an inside joke!)

There’s a movie coming out in December called “The Golden Compass” starring among others Nicole Kidman. It’s apparently based on the first book in a trilogy by a british writer named Philip Pullman. So far I haven’t paid much attention to it, other than dismissing it as a Narnia-ripoff by some movie-studio, cynically designed to separate viewers from their money.

This was until about ten minutes ago, when I learned that Philip Pullman is a convinced atheist, and that the trilogy of books (called His Dark Materials) is the anti-narnia. Mr Pullman even went so far as to say that his books are about killing the image of God inside childrens minds.

I like him already!

Of course, this has got all the biblenuts panties in very large twists, and of course they’re outraged that someone has the temerity to dare to question their “thruth”, and are warning good bible-waving christians all over the world that OMG THIS MOVIE WILL CORRUPT OUR CHILDREN AND MAKE THEM REJECT OUR DEPRECATED RELIGION OMG.

I read the Narnia-books when I was a kid. I’ve read them at least once when I was an adult. Regardless of my age I always got annoyed that Narnia essentially was hidden propaganda for christianity and God. Thus, I like this Philip Pullman-guy a lot now, and I’m contemplating reading these books just to give support for him. I’ll probably watch the movie as well.