Mars Attacks! • s******j@**.com 14/12/1996 00:00:000 UTC Oye! I don't recommend seeing Tim Burton's _Mars Attacks_ under the influence of mind-altering drugs. It would be redundant. For those not in the know, "Mars Attacks" started as a series of really gruesome collector's cards put out by Topps in 1962. They featured big brain-headed martians melting the Eiffel Tower, kidnapping beautiful women and zapping dogs with ray guns. The movie starts really slow. The martians don't show up for nearly a half hour. But once they arrive things get really furious and really, really funny. Burton depicts the aliens as amoral, sadistic, fun-loving creatures. They are really pricks; imagine a race of Bugs Bunnies armed with guns who've all decided that "this means WAR!" The creatures are realized through the most expert and seamless computer graphics I've seen. This one is going to be a cult classic. It's utterly mindless and shamelessly silly, with plenty of gags that will make you wish you slapped on a pair of Depends(tm) before entering the theatre. Jack Nicholson has a dual role, as the president and as a delightfully shameless Vegas hotel mogul. I did not realize that he played the latter until the credits. (Incidentally, the hotel he is shown promoting is a real place; the Landmark, on Paradise Boulevard. It was the place where Howard Hughs spent his last few years, watching _Ice Station Zebra_ and jarring his urine for posterity. I always got a kick out of the place, which until recently stood across from the LAs Vegas Convention Center. The Landmark's demolition was filmed for the movie. It was a worthy way to go.) I do wish some of the many stars they hired for this one had stuck around longer. Some are only on screen for a brief time and only utter a few unmemorable lines. --Stefan -- +-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ ***@***.com ~ s*****s@a*****.***u.edu ~ s******j@**.com http://www.ini.cmu.edu/~sjones/ CHARGES APPLIED FOR UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL EMAIL! • g*****o@k****.****t.net 16/12/1996 00:00:000 UTC : I don't recommend seeing Tim Burton's _Mars Attacks_ under the influence : of mind-altering drugs. It would be redundant. Speaking of Mind-Altering, did you miss the Bob Dobbs reference? The top Science aid to the President strikingly looked and acted like that old trickster, pipe and all! He duped all the pinks in the White House that the aliens were here for peace. Meanwhile the Martians (the Xists?) came down and started to wipe out the pinks. The Scientist and that female TV personality were taken aboard the flying saucers (Pleasure Saucers?) and were surgically altered in those strange creatures (Ober-Man and Ober-Woman?). Remember, the scriptures of the Subgenius never did say who would have the pleasure in the saucers. It did take that pink music to stop the alien invasion. I guess the pinks won this battle. Oh, Stefan, when they were showing the inside of the alien space ship where they did all those experiments on the farm animals, did you notice the clown in one of the bubbles? It was dressed in blue and had a giant red nose. -! That's a bozo no-no! --Glen • s******j@**.com 16/12/1996 00:00:000 UTC In article <592g70$***@r****.****t.net>, Glen wrote: >Speaking of Mind-Altering, did you miss the Bob Dobbs reference? The top >Science aid to the President strikingly looked and acted like that old >trickster, pipe and all! Hmmm. If that was "Bob" then he was being awfully subtle about things. He didn't try to SELL anything. More likely he was a Bobby "Bob" wannabe. >Oh, Stefan, when they were showing the inside of the alien space ship >where they did all those experiments on the farm animals, did you notice >the clown in one of the bubbles? It was dressed in blue and had a giant >red nose. -! That's a bozo no-no! Yes, that was glorious. I wish it were a live clown though, so we could see him beating against the walls of the tank and feebly honking his horn. Wow. This clown hatred is probably a sign that I need massive psycho- therapy. I mean, who could possibly hate and fear a delightful, innocent figure of fun dressed up . . . no, I take it back. Clown Fear is a sign of sanity. DIE, EMMET, DIE! --Stefan -- +-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ ***@***.com ~ s*****s@a*****.***u.edu ~ s******j@**.com http://www.ini.cmu.edu/~sjones/ CHARGES APPLIED FOR UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL EMAIL! • g*****o@l**.****t.net 16/12/1996 00:00:000 UTC : Hmmm. If that was "Bob" then he was being awfully subtle about things. He : didn't try to SELL anything. More likely he was a Bobby "Bob" wannabe. Here is a post that I snatched away from the alt.slack newsgroup. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Tractor Beams /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Pope Phred and I took Altered Boys Craig and Alex (my proto-subG cousins) to go see Mars Attacks! last night, it being the opening day, pay day for me, and also something anxiously awaited for by the four of us for about two weeks... TIM BURTON DOES IT AGAIN. Another brilliant film from the mind that brought you so many eye-candy films that you can spend an entire weekend watching the movies and just marvelling at the COLORS. Now, like Glen had posted earlier (BoB sighted in Mars Attacks!), I don't want to disappoint you by telling you HOW the silly talking monkeys destroy the horde of aggressive little men, but before you get your hopes down, keeping in mind the disappointment that was ID4, let me just say that the reason aliens are buggered off in the end is a GOOD one. A *FITTING* death. But, to forwarn: What Glen said is untrue about "Bob" actually BEING in the film: He's referring to Peirce Brosnan as the "intelligent scientist" (which should be your FIRST clue that he is not indeed portraying Dobbs), but HE DOES CONTINUOUSLY SMOKE A PIPE. SubG reference? Maybe so, maybe not. There are other things there to suggest enough to be interesting: When viewing the film, note the following: 1) Peirce's pipe. The style, the ever-present glow from the bowl. 2) The name of the donut shop where the misfit kid works: That's right, you guessed it. Bob's Donut World. (side note for all those hip to darkwave: You'll be pleasantly tickled to notice that he's also wearing an Alien Sex Fiend shirt. A nice touch.) 3) The opening scene: cattle mutilation, or BBQ for Wotan? 4) The destruction of mankind by prankster little green men. X-ists? Quite possibly! Definitely envelops the maxim "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke." 5) Jack Nicholson as the president. Tom Jones as himself. 6) Martian church air... (you'll know the scene that I'm referring to when you see it.) 7) More JFK references than you can shake a stick at. 8) The ending scene with Tom Jones... The dancing sparrow. ...quite a few more, but I can't remember as I ended up drinking quite a bit last night. BUT all in all an EXCELLENT little film. More pure beauty from Burton. And, those who have scene all those old 50's sci-fi films will notice all the references, even down to Peirce's mannerisms and stances. Finally, a movie well worth the money paid. $T.&REUX,KSC -- $T.&REUX,KSC -><- The infected "Left Tonsil" in the "Mouth" of JR "Bob" Dobbs snail-mail: Send $2 cash to OGYR NETWORK | PO BOX 53 | PLAINFIELD, IL. 60544 email: s****t@f******.**********t.org || www: http://www.prairienet.org/~saint/ 'Hate is groovy. It's fun. And, it's necessary.' - The Boyd Rice Experience /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Shutting down Tractor Beams /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Pretty cool stuff. The only problem is that I DIDN'T give away any secrets of the movie in my original posting which was mentioned above. Maybe I left a Psychic Residue on my posting that revealed the entire movie when they read the post. :) --Glen • k******d@d*****i.com 29/12/1996 00:00:000 UTC In article <58v6ip$***@p*******.**o.com>, s******j@**.com (Stefan E. Jones) writes: > Oye! > I don't recommend seeing Tim Burton's _Mars Attacks_ under the influence > of mind-altering drugs. It would be redundant. I didn't enjoy this movie as much as I thought I would. I was prepared to have a good time when I entered the theater, but it just didn't hit the spot. The Martians were cool: '50ish flying saucers, green skin, bubble helmets and ray guns. Fact is the Martians are a lot more interesting than the humans. The only characters I liked were minor ones: the two black kids and the reformed New Age girl. The acting in some parts was just so bad...despite the use of some big-name actors. Nicholson was terrible -- I guess he does an OK job considering his character is totally unlikable. He really wasn't the right actor for that part. Glen Close and Danny DeVito could've been left out of the movie entirely. Most of the human characters were forgettable, unremarkable, and worse, not funny (amusing maybe, but not funny). --Doc k******d@d*****i.com