The Drink Tank 021 (2005).pdf

The Drink Tank

The Legal Issue

Hitchhiker's Guide Reviewed

What can I say, but I never read Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's series. I've tried, but perhaps

it was the intelligence required to get the English comedy he wrote that slowed me and forced

me to give up. On other hand, there is nothing I've loved so much as the BBC TV series. So,

when I heard about the movie, I was interested…VERY INTERESTED. My darling girlfriend

Gen and I joined up with a few friends of ours to see the opening night 7:10 showing.

As I had expected, at least a dozen folks had showed up with towels draped around their

shoulders. More than a few had copies of the book with them and at least one person was

fully decked out as Arthur Dent. The crowd was chatty, more so than a regular prime time

screening. Lot's of folks talking about Star Wars and already complaining about the lack of

authenticity of the film they had yet to see. Still, as the trailers ended (oh yeah, I totally want

to see A Scanner Darkly) the film started in earnest with a bunch of dolphins.

There's where the fun begins.

The opening segment, featuring a singing pod of dolphins, is pure fun. It also is then that we

are introduced to the voice of the Guide, played by Stephen Fry. His voice is voice is audio

equivalent of 'Large Friendly Letters'. His voice is soothing and at the same time nuturing.

Well played, humorous gay English man. Well played.

From that silliness, we're led to the set-up, Arthur trying to keep the construction crew from

knocking his house down. The funny thing is that by clipping this and the scene in the pub

into the more compact version they also managed to give us a far more American introduction.

This leads to some fun interaction and a number of things which were jokes in the TV series,

but were far wordier. The obviously conscious choice to make this less film with less

vocabularity worked for me at times.

The cast. I liked them. I loved Arthur, played by the guy from The (British) Office. He is on-

target with his presentation of an everyman Brit as would be pictured by an American. The TV

Arthur is funny and realistic, but Richards is hilariously on with every stereotype that the US

audience would have. His relationship with Ford is odd, though really, aren't we supposed to

think that from the beginning?

Mos Def as Ford Prefect is far different than any of the

other Fords that have taken on the role, but I like him.

His interaction with Sam Rockwell as Zaphod

Beeblebrox is great. I laughed at the way the two of

them would play off each other with strange energy. It

was almost as though the two of them knew they were

the emotional heart of the film (and they are the

emotional heart of the TV series) and they decided that

it's a uproarious comedy and I thought it worked. When

the two of them do the drinking of the Pan-Galactic

Gargleblaster, they sell its effects so magnificently.

There were times when I think that Mos Def was

auditioning for the role of Cat in Red Dwarf, as he would

get the excited dancey energy up.

Sam Rockwell. Wow. I mean, just wow. As Zaphod he

was doing the best imitation possible of W in the middle

of a cocaine binge. Seriously, he was the SF version of

George the Lesser, right down to the accent that was

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borrowed from Will Farrell's imitation that made SNL so great in 2000. He was explosive and

hilarious. He has always been the go to guy if you need a strange and funny actor in a movie (he

was my favourite part of Galaxy Quest, for example) and with Hitchhiker's he's likely to get more

roles as the manic nut. If there was one reason I was so entertained it was Rockwell's

performance.

Zooey Dechanel wasn't perfect as Tricia McMillan, aka Trillion, but she was OK. Her natural

state is the enchanted dreamer, though she plays the foul-mouthed hotty better than almost

anyone else out there. She has a sort of radiance that works on the romance portion of the film,

which I understand some complained felt tacked on. I liked it as the chemistry between the two of

them was most honest.

The voice acting also seemed just about perfect. Along with Stephen Fry as the Guide, we have

Helen Miren as the massive computer Deep Thought. She doesn't do much, but she sounds right

for the computer that gives us the answer to life, the universe and everything. Thomas Lennon, a

favourite of mine since his days in The State, played Eddie the Ship Computer. He's so up-beat

and charming. Perhaps the best piece of voice casting was Alan Rickman as Marvin, the manic

depressed robot. He was so glum sounding and at the same time, he seemed so natural. Add to

the great voice the character design that goes to make Marvin into a cute little bobblehead. It's

brilliant work.

There are more than a few issues with the script. It lags a bit in the middle, with some

questionable choices relating to the relationship plotline between Arthur and Tricia. Of course

they had to cut a number of lines, including my personal favourite exchange between Arthur and

Ford ('It's a bit like being drunk', 'what's so wrong with being drunk?', 'ask a glass of water'), but

all in all, the script was pretty good. There's no way they could have used all the jokes, but the

ones they kept were the ones that had a chance with an American audience.

Now's the time when I gush over the effects. The Vogons are great pieces of design, very much

influenced by The Wall, as I see it. The Vogon ships are great, as are everyone of the planet

designs. The effects, like a guy with a dozen spindly robot legs, are great. There is a section

where Arthur is flying over Earth with Slartibartfast, played by Bill Nihy, is absolutely

breathtaking. Serious work went into that section and I thought it paid off. With the fun of the

rest of the movie, a little magic was nice. I think it worked better than the flying part of the third

Harry Potter flick.

All in all, see it. I thought it was a funny film. I thought it was a fun film. I thought it was a

cute little love story. It worked, and even with my preconceptions from the TV series, I still really

liked it. I heard folks talking afterwards and most said that it was at least good. You can't argue

that the performances were funny, though some did dump on Mos Def. Still, I dug it a lot.

The View from Higher Up

David Gerrold- April 27th, 2004

After half a century of intense research, dedicated

engineering, a couple hundred billions of dollars, and

countless hours of time and energy, computers have

finally achieved the intelligence of a virus. That's not

bad for a mere half-century. It took nature millions of

years. At this rate, who knows what computers will

become in the next fifty?

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Spirit of Gravity Reviewed

On my Hugo Ballot (which I couldn't

submit since I'm not a WorldCon Member)

was Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with

Steve Zizou. It's a funny, though dry, film

with a cast of geniuses. Very well-acted,

nicely shot and with humour in all sorts of

areas, The Life Aquatic is one of those

movies that some will get and others will

despise. There is no question in my mind

what the highlight is: there's a scene

where Bill Murray's Steve Zizous is being

interviewed by Cate Blanchet's character.

While this is going on, an Orca is mugging

for the camera though a porthole. I was

on the floor while that was happening. If

that wasn't enough, Capt. Zizou also has

an open hostility towards dolphins. I'm so

amused by that concept. The Zizou ship

is also stocked with old computers. DO I

need to say that it's obvious this movie

was made for me specifically?

If there's one thing the words of Nietsche say to

me, it's a whacky musical number. Maybe I'm the

only one feels that way, but if you think about it,

nihilism is just another way of saying 'I'm gonna

try and mess around until I die'. Still, he had a

way with words, and a couple of guys noted this.

Spirit of Gravity is an animated short directed by

Victor Bellomo and David Pace, guys who met in

elementary school and who still live in my former

hometown of Sunnyvale, CA. David is a very

respected photographer. I actually got to help him

out with a shoot at my old museum building back

in 2000 or so. I first saw it at Cinema Epicuria,

the Sonoma Valley Film Festival, in 2004 and

recruited it for Cinequest this year.

David and Victor, along with a great Trad Jazz

band, play a jaunty tune with Nietsche's words

being sung by Victor. It's a bouncy tune with

photo manipulation animation that is

exceptionally joyous. Victor plays Neitsche in his

long johns and with heavy-duty fake Soup

Strainer on his upper lip. The background is an

Italian-inspired space city, it seems, where

Harlequins and all manner of toy figures live. It's

a bizarre world, but at teh same time, it's

beautiful.

There aren't a lot of screenings of this one left.

It's been on the circuit for more than two years.

You can still find info at

http://www.batnet.com/vbellomo/index.html.

Great, and strange, film.

The Drink Tank is written, edited and produced

by Christopher J. Garcia and put up on

eFanzines.com by Bill Burns: The Mythical

Kicker of Elves. All of Chris' words are

reprintable in any medium with or without

permission. The art and photos don't carry that

same provision. Tough world, I know. For

those kind folks who wrote asking about my

Pops, he's doin' OK, slightly glowing, he claims.

If you'd like to send in comments, drop a line to

garcia@computerhistory.org or to 1401 N.

Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, California

94043. Claims Department 3 is taking

reservations. Other than that, keep an eye out

for next week with all will be revealed.

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