I am getting ahead of myself. My son, Halford, can barely hold his head up and I’m already plotting his reading habits. These things must be planned, I tell myself. Fantagraphics might let some of those Carl Barks Donald Duck books go out of print. So, I compile a wish list on Amazon of Tin Tin, Astroboy and Asterix – all the fine cartoon art a growing boy needs. (more…)
Quentin Tarantino opens Pulp Fiction with two definitions of pulp: the first as a “shapeless mass of matter,” and the second as a publication, often featuring fantastic or highly stylized content, printed on cheap paper. While most film critics point to the second definition in providing frame, structure and exploit to the film itself, few give attention to that soft, shapeless mass of matter or what it’s really made of. Traditionally, the pulping manufacture process treats wood through various means to break cellulose down, resulting in a gloopy mess that eventually (some would say miraculously) becomes paper. Having lived in a college town not too far from a pulping facility, I can attest to the inherent inapproachability of the idea of pulp, both metaphorically and literally (the stuff stinks like crazy).
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Last night the season premier of the PBS retrospective series Pioneers of Television focused on science fiction, highlighting the works of Irwin Allen, Gene Roddenberry and Rod Serling. From camp to catharsis, these innovators of televised science fiction have walked a fence between formula and function. Should small-screen science fiction simply entertain or are these future visions the perfect vehicle for (veiled) social commentary? Such questions permeated a premier that was much more than a superficial retrospective of Lost in Space, Star Trek and The Twilight Zone. Despite the constraints of its own time slot, the hour-long program did an adequate job of presenting this conceptual fissure with a surprisingly dialectical veneer (if only accidentally).
It almost worked. (more…)
Unwinnable is sad to learn of the death of science fiction screen legend Anne Francis, who died yesterday at home due to complications from pancreatic cancer. She was 80.
Perhaps best known for her role as Alta Morbius in the 1956 sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet (alongside Leslie Nielsen) and as the sultry private eye Honey West in the 1965 series of the same name, Anne and her iconic mole enjoyed a dedicated cult following throughout a career lasting over 50 years.
Although appearing in such films as Bad Day at Black Rock and The Satan Bug, Anne later preferred to work on the small screen. The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. were but a few of the programs that were graced by her presence.
With hats off and heads bowed, Team Unwinnable bids adieu to the inimitable Anne Francis, cult film’s leading lady.
