Who Ya Gonna Call? That Ship Has Probably Sailed Already...

As a huge cross-section of the movie-going population is already aware, audiences are soon to be subjected to yet another remake of a beloved cult/classic film, with Ghostbusters slated for release next summer. Except it’s not a remake, it’s a re-imagining, which is the current trend du jour in Hollywood for an increasing number of individuals and entities for whom the only goal is reaping boatloads of cold hard cash. In order to keep the conversation moving, it's important to make the distinction between three interrelated terms: remake, reboot, and re-imagining.

Legacy of the Twelve Colonies Volume II: Battlestar Galactica... Cross-Species Pollination and Burdens Laid Down

I like my television shows how I like my women: coherent, engaging, relatively free from plot holes, and benefiting from a strong narrative arc. Also, a healthy budget doesn't hurt either. Also, after diving into Battlestar Galactica, a love of cigars and fine liquors is also a plus. Also, strong doses of Katee Sackhoff are also basically a must. Being Katee Sackhoff is even better. Or maybe just a show about Katee Sackhoff taking names and kicking ass, or just kicking ass, or just doing whatever the fuck she wants to do because Starbuck is a fucking god.

After a strong start, I think it's safe to say that I did not find it too hard difficult to become completely immersed in Katee Sackhoff the world of the reborn Battlestar Galactica television series. As far as television sci-fi goes, it's hard to think of a real contender in recent years. It's as exciting as it is insightful, effectively dealing with moral, social, and political issues in a fairly nuanced way without any really definitive black or white answers, but more of a murky grey maybe flecked with, I don't know, whatever colour explosions are. Red and orange maybe. (I don't know, I've been watching a lot of Archer recently, and I totally can't help but read that last sentence in Archer's voice. I know, right?)

Simon Pegg's Last Stand: Paying the Celluloid Price

Oh, you thought you could make a POINT BREAK remake
with no consequences? Lock and load, bitches...

Recently, the one and only Simon Pegg caused a bit of a stir in certain social circles due to some comments he made in an interview with the Radio Times and, subsequently, his follow-up comments on his website, which I discovered exists. Specifically, he made several comments in regards to the state of cinema today, especially the realm of science fiction and fantasy, which seemed to cause a great deal of butt hurt to residents of them thar parts. Before I even clicked on the click-baity article (I'm only mortal, after all), I was ready to chalk up all of the indignation and hurt butts to the current social default setting of Taking Offence To Everything. Then I read the brief snipits of the interview posted online and, as a huge fan of sci-fi and fantasy myself, couldn't help but begin to ruminate on his insights into these genres:

"Before Star Wars, the films that were box-office hits were The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Bonnie And Clyde and The French Connection--gritty, amoral art movies. Then suddenly the onus switched over to spectacle and everything changed... I don’t know if that is a good thing.

Atomic Supermen and Geriatric Soldiers: Captain America, We Need a Hero

In recent years, the concept of security has become an increasingly popular topic in our collective consciousness, what with political and military unrest abroad, the seeming rise in terrorist activity both international and domestic, and a whole host of other atrocities like school shootings and the various unnecessary death of non-white citizens at the hands of their much paler police brethren that seem to be plaguing the United States like some kind of..., well, plague.

Though on the forefront of our consciousness, there has been very little actual rumination from the common folk, or really anyone in the upper echelons of our governments and world leaders, and the Band-Aid solutions they usually slap on the most recent wound inflicted at worst are completely ineffective and at best mostly ineffective.  Perhaps highlighted best by the Patriot Act, the discourse surrounding security seems to have drifted more and more towards some strange social economy where capital in the form of freedom must be exchanged in greater and greater amounts to achieve higher and higher levels of safety. The problem with this particular paradigm is that, taken to its ultimate conclusion, the only way we can achieve Total Safety (the abandoned and admittedly less action-packed sequel to TOTAL RECALL) is by bankrupting the Bank of Civil Liberties, which may be the only bank in the Western world that may never be deemed too big to fail. While it is true that you can keep your dick free of sexually transmitted infections by keeping it in a hermetically sealed, temperature-controlled, fragrance-enhanced plastic enclosure with a tube up your urethra for proper drainage, it wouldn't be all that conducive to fucking, which is a fairly self-defeating system.

The Search for Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Nimoy is gone, and there's almost nothing we can do about it.

I remember lying in bed one night as a child, my parents tucking me in as was their way, with no shortage of whiskey and depraved tales of suburban invasions by crazed rural folk who had stuck it rich with "black gold," clutching a toy I had scammed off of some kid from school in one of the few standout moments of my elementary school career.  It wasn't until later I would learn the social significance of the toy I had grifted; it was a die-cast model of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D.  Shortly thereafter, my mother began schooling me in the geeky arts of science fiction, not the least of which included the increasingly expanding Star Trek universe.  Star Trek would eventually become not only a viable source of entertainment but also open the door to an entire sub-culture of which I am still proud to count myself a member of, if only in the slightest sense these days.  It would come to serve as a source of inspiration to a budding imagination, provide a place of solace in the turbulent social storm of adolescence, and have a subtle yet profound impact on my sexual awakening (Counselor Troi, oh yeah).

Over the Lips and Down the Cape: Indie Film Making and a Regime of Counterfeit Communists

Whoops, I think this might
be the wrong cape...

I don't believe in fate; I believe in the Internet.  So when some random dude messaged me on Twitter asking me to review some micro-budget indie film, I felt a strange compulsion to follow that path no matter where it might lead.  I was slightly relieved that the whole thing didn't turn out to be some kind of clandestine campaign to proliferate some variety of softcore amateur porn in a bid to "make it big" as they say in the industry.  While the democratization of information enabled by the digital age is (mostly) a marvel to behold, I think the world has more than its fair share of pasty white middle-aged meatbags from the basement of some old farmhouse in Iowa sharing their particular brand of love with webcam quality images etched forever onto the retinas and brains of a (mostly) unsuspecting audience.

So, of course, my first instinct--as is the case with most people--was to completely abandon my beliefs at the first sign of even the slightest inconvenience. I replied with an enthusiastically noncommittal answer of course, the Twitter equivalent of a one-night stand, a linguistic "quickie" like the ones we give to homeless people begging for change or the apologies celebrities give the rest of us. I wouldn't qualify myself as an asshole of epic proportions, but it definitely did occur to me to agree to watch this budding young director's work and then fucking ignore him for the rest of my natural life. I guess I would say I'm more of an asshole of modest aspirations.

Interview With the Devil: Exit Wounds In the Torso of Democracy

Ever since 9/11, the common fallback cultural hyperbole in the Western world has been the facilitation of the victory of terrorism.

"If you don't fuck that hot blonde and her sister, you are literally letting the terrorists win."

"Every time you refer to a Freedom Fry as a French Fry, then the terrorists have already won."

"Sweetheart, if you don't brush your teeth before you go to bed, then you're basically a terrorist and you're supporting their bloody reign of terror against everything that is good and pure about Democracy.  Now, go say goodnight to your mother before I ship you off to Guantanamo Bay."

It seems absurd to think that anybody outside of a small group of key players in the military-industrial complex (or, of course, any person or group wishing to perpetrate bloody acts of carnage against other human beings) could have any discernible impact on terrorism one way or the other.

Bullseye: Walking Dead in the Wake of Retail Failure

The tramp stamp of the retail world.

It was with a perverted sort of curiosity that I wandered into the nearest Target this past Thursday.  After just two agonizing years attempting to expand its financial reach into the Great White North, the retail giant is heading back to the good ol' US of A with its tail tucked firmly between its legs and short one overpaid CEO.  It was all eerily familiar, what with Canadian retail staple Zellers closing its doors just before Target moved into the neighbourhood.  In fact, Target bought up many of Zellers' previous locations when they advanced their troops northwards, so for many outposts, this would mark the second time that their regiment had abandoned them in the face of an insurmountable enemy.  Historically speaking, this is what you would call "the old one-two."

All of the vultures had been circling for sometime by the time word finally came down the ranks this week: Store closing. Liquidation.  Everything must go.  Dutifully, I took my place among the flock, and swooped in as much for the potential deals as for my own morbid fascination with the death of this retail god and the fate of all of his acolytes.  I typically try to avoid making eye contact with sales associates in any store, as I prefer to shop freestyle, but this time was different.  I tried to drink in as much as I could, tried to read what was going on behind the dead eyes of these walking damned roaming the store, answering questions from all the squawkers about price reductions while facing the liquidation of their own future.

We're the Guardians of the Galaxy, Bitch: Hearts and Legs Stolen, Ancient Ruins Plundered

It turns out that the largest obstacle that GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY had to overcome also turned out to be its saving grace.  What GUARDIANS had going both for and against it was a thick veil of obscurity (outside of a very tight, very virginal cabal of hardcore comic book adherents).  On the one hand, obscurity--anonymity's step-brother--is a barrier to achieving glory.  It's a pit you have to kind of claw your way out of, inch by inch, until you reach the top and start shouting your name at the top of your lungs until people begin to recognize or you get locked up in an insane asylum with an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of electric shock therapy and the drooling faces of doomed souls.  On the other hand, obscurity can act as a shield against preconceived notions, giving you the freedom to create yourself in whatever or whoever's image you are so inclined, even if it's a cybernetic, anthropomorphic raccoon.

If you had told me a year ago that I would be trying to reconcile the fact that not only might GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY be my favourite Marvel movie so far but also one of my favourite movies from 2014, I probably would have punched you in the face, gouged out your eyes and used them as dice, and fucked your sister without so much as a phone call the next morning.  Luckily for those in proximity to me, GUARDIANS turned out to be great.  Which worked out well, because I already have boxes full of eye-dice in my basement I'm still trying to figure out how to store effectively.

Legacy of the Twelve Colonies Volume I: Battlestar Galactica... Sex, Guns, and the Apocalypse

I was raised on a steady diet of sci-fi (and Whoop-Ass, a can of which a day is conducive to keeping away all manner of punk-ass bitches), though for a short while I underwent a definite nutritional deficiency. I never bottomed out completely, but for a time, I was most certainly not getting my daily recommended dose of science fiction, and all of the health benefits that such a regime typically provides. It was really kick-started again a few years ago with the double-shot of Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, the second and third installments in the beloved (except for the ending, apparently) video game franchise sensation. Besides being catapulted to one of my top ten trilogies of anything in any medium, the Mass Effect series also ushered in my own personal Sci-Fi Renaissance (think RENAISSANCE MAN but with less military training and more sitting on my ass on the couch watching movies and playing video games, slightly less Danny DeVito, and basically a lack of anything that even vaguely resembling the archetypal ‘90s comedy except the name).

My reborn, ravenous appetite had some pleasant side-effects, such as a willingness to expand my horizons, the most notable case of which involved overcoming my irrational hatred of Joss Whedon and discovering Firefly, which turned out to be incredibly awesome. Another sci-fi narrative/phenomenon that has been on my radar for some time is the remade/rebooted/reimagined Battlestar Galactica series that ran from 2004 to 2009. (Incidentally, Tricia Helfer, who featured heavily in the Mass Effect series as EDI is also one of the leads in Battlestar Galactica, which was another reason to throw myself into the fray.) The show was developed in large part by one Ronald D. Moore, whose Star Trek pedigree gives him all kinds of street cred on the proper street, which just happened to be one I had frequented all too often in my youth and then basically took up permanent residence on.