Disney's forthcoming Mars-based epic John Carter has been well received by test audiences according to the film's director, Andrew Stanton. In a recent interview with The New Yorker, Stanton (who directed Pixar hits Finding Nemo and Wall-E) said that a two-hour cut of John Carter was screened in July for an audience in Portland, Oregon, with 75% of attendees scoring the movie either "excellent" or "very good", despite it being largely unfinished and distinctly lacking in post-production polish.
It has not all been plain sailing for Stanton, however. When the director screened a nearly-three-hour rough cut of John Carter for his Pixar colleagues last December the reception was far from enthusiastic. The opening scenes in particular were said to be "rather drab" and the movie as a whole lacked the "personal touch" seen in Stanton's previous movies. As a result, back in April, Disney agreed to fund 18 days of reshoots. The director didn't take it personally, though. “Reshoots should be mandatory," he said, "some of the Pixarness we’re trying to spread at Disney is ‘It’s O.K. to not know, to be wrong, to screw up and rely on each other.’ Art is messy, art is chaos—so you need a system.”
Stanton says the movie's new opening will "launch viewers immediately into a battle [on Mars] between Zodangans and Therns, before cutting to Earth where we first meet John Carter."
John Carter is due for release in March, 2012, and, with a budget approaching $300 million, it will need to do some serious business at the box-office if it is to become the franchise that Disney hopes for.
In the eighth instalment of the the Silver Screen Saucers guest blogger series, well known Fortean bloggerRed Pill Junkie (a.k.a. Miguel Romero) draws our attention to a little-known Spanish UFO movie...
Platillos Volantes is notable for a number of UFOlogical reasons - not least among which is its bold exploration of what RPJ refers to as "UFOlogy's ugly bastard son - the Contactist (or “contactee”) movement." Even more intriguing is that the movie is based on a true story - one with a bizarre and tragic ending. Read on...
Terrassa, Spain, 1972: On the railroad tracks near this industrial Catalonian city, agents of the Civilian Guard make a ghastly discovery – two male bodies, neatly dressed in black suits and white shirts, their heads cleanly severed by the locomotive that rolled over their necks. With no apparent signs of struggle or foul play, the guards suspect some sort of suicide pact, which is later confirmed after they find a handwritten letter in one of the men’s jackets. The note reads:
The Extraterrestrials call us. We belong to the Infinite.
Thus begins the movie Platillos Volantes (Flying Saucers), written and directed in 2003 by Oscar Aibar, starring Jordi Vilches & Angel de Andrés, which tells the story of Juan Turu Vallés & José Félix Rodríguez Montero, two blue-collar workers living in the last years of Franco's regime, joined together in an odd friendship by their passion for – or rather obsession with – interplanetary craft and their yearning to call their benevolent occupants. The men’s friendship ultimately leads them to attempt the ultimate test: discarding their mortal vessels – their bodies – in order to make the trip to Jupiter.
The film is both social commentary on the oppressive atmosphere suffered in Spain after 40 years of the Generalisimo's rule, as well as the dramatization of a true event which signalled a loss of innocence in the public’s enthusiasm for UFOs and the chance they offered us to look up to the stars and dream of a better world. But more than this, Platillos Volantes stands out in the history of cinema because of its rare portrayal of Ufology's ugly bastard son – the Contactist (or “contactee”) movement.
Indeed, the Space Brothers – and the folks who claim to be in contact with them – have never sat well with most UFO researchers, so eager to bring to the field the respectability that will finally grant them the prodigal-son-like welcome into the halls of Academia of which they've always dreamed. They want to focus on the physical traces, the burn marks, the radar signals and the official reports; but messages of universal love sent by Venusians? Nothing but tabloid fodder and New Age freak shows, they complain.
And yet long before the world became amazed by flying saucers and the possibility of interstellar travellers, there were individuals attempting to channel the wisdom of superior intelligences beyond our earthly realm. At the core of every religion is the idea that such communication is not only possible, but worth pursuing. The Contactist movement reminds us that this phenomenon, whatever its true origin and intentions, chooses to appeal to the strong irrational undercurrents of the human psyche. Some people will never care about irrefutable evidence or peer-reviews; they long for something more basic and ancestral: Salvation.
Platillos Volantes could not be further from the typical Hollywood treatment of UFOs. Not only does it not rely on flashy special effects or CGI to carry its story, but, unlike many movies that claim to be based on real cases, the historical events which inspired it are very well documented and its script is largely faithful to the facts. The Ufological accuracy of movie is due at least in part to Iker Jiménez – one of the most prominent Spanish Ufologists today, who was hired by the producers as an on-set consultant. This arrangement, of course, brings to mind Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), which benefited from the advice of the late Dr. Hynek, who also made a brief cameo in Spielberg’s movie. Like Hynek, Jiménez also had his chance in front of the camera.
But there are other reasons why the serious Fortean researcher should consider adding Platillos Volantes to their must-see list:
· The Apocalyptic overtones which have always been predominant in the Contactist discourse, along with the belief that only a few 'chosen ones' will be saved from the final holocaust to become modern Elijahs and be transported to the heavens.
· It shows how governments might have a tendency to investigate UFO groups, not necessarily because they fear that the UFO buffs will discover some dark secret protected by alphabet soup organizations, but because often times the political and moral beliefs of the people who are attracted to the mystery of life on other planets would be perceived as 'radical', 'subversive' or down-right 'communist' – especially with the paranoia of the Cold War when an innocent plea for nuclear disarmament would inscribe your name in the black list (not to mention the student protests and union strikes in Spain heralding the winds of change, which were being fiercely repressed by the old guard).
· It details some particular aspects of the Contactist belief system, such as the use of 'automatic writing' as one of the most favored methods to channel the messages of the Space Brothers; as well as the strict ascetic regime which was considered necessary in order not only to keep open the 'channel' with the UFOnauts, but also to induce an actual physical mutation on the Contactees themselves – indulging in simple pleasures like a good salami was strictly forbidden. Such ideas are just the new iteration of the ancient hermetic tradition which seeks enlightenment through abstinence.
· Finally, with the bizarre demise of the two protagonists, it underscores why we should all have heeded Jacques Vallee's warnings detailed in his book Messengers of Deception, which have might averted tragedies such as Heaven's Gate mass suicide – tragedies that are very likely to be repeated during the final countdown to 2012.
If what you seek in a UFO flick is a constant bombardment of CGI effects, humongous explosions à la Michael Bay, and scantly-dressed sexy girls working out their vocal chords during each close-up shot, then you should probably steer clear of this film. However, for the smart movie-goer who is also intrigued by the history of Contactism – and who's not challenged by screen subtitles, as are 99% of the American movie audience – then Platillos Volantes is a film you might want to add to your Amazon Xmas wish list... maybe as a gift to that annoying New Agey cousin of yours who never stops yapping about the Pleiadians and the Brotherhood of Light.
Red Pill Junkie —a.k.a. Miguel Romero— is a 38 year-old interior designer by trade, and student of paranormal phenomena by calling. He's been interested in weird mysteries for as long as he can remember. When he's not searching the web looking for his daily fix of Forteana, he can be found blogging, fooling around, & offering his services as news administrator at The Daily Grail.
His residence in Mexico City will grant him front seats to the return of Quetzalcoatl in 2012 — scalpers willing.
Been a while since I posted anything, so here's a dose of awesome to kick off your Tuesday. First up, the 100% official trailer for next May's THE AVENGERS has hit the web and it looks amazing! Robert Downey Jr. looks like he'll be bringing his A-game as Tony Stark, and will provide a good foil for fellow Avenger Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America. Check out this trailer and get excited:
Now for something more holiday oriented. Those magnificent folks over at Fright-Rags have released SIX new horror-themed tees that are cool as hell, plus they are briefly re-releasing their much-loved "We Belong Alive" shirt design. All sales of that shirt will be donated to the ongoing war against breast cancer. (Forget saving the whales; save the boobies!) Check out the designs below then pony up some dough before they are gone!
Buy this for a very good cause.
"I'm gonna sleep in your bloody carcasses tonight!"
Laid to Rest 2: Electric Boogaloo
Is there someTHING in my teeth?!
Your bones will stay crunchy in milk!
The chocolatey goodness will drive you MAD!
Snap, Crackle, BRAIIIIINS!
All shirts are $19.95 (plus shipping and handline), except for the extremely limited (200 shirts only) Rue Morgue THING tee and the limited edition "We Belong Alive" design. Both of those bad boys are $24.95 apiece, and well worth it!
Well that's it for today b-movie fans. I'm going to try and get off my lazy arse and get some new content up on the site soon (this is after all, my month to shine). I'm thinking a few new reviews and maybe a podcast on the main site, along with some fresh new content here at the main Vault blog and over at Genre Watch, The Casual Gaming Blog, and The Riff Brothers should sate you as October rolls onward. Check back soon for new stuff and if you haven't started watching Horror flicks daily, you best start because there's only "twenty more days 'til Hall-o-ween! SIL-VER SHAM-ROCK!"
An early pioneer in the research of anomalous phenomena - from ghosts to UFOs and everything in between - Charles Fort is to get his very own eponymously titled Hollywood movie.
Charles Fort is to be produced by Robert Zemeckis for Universal Pictures and adapted from the 2002 Dark Horse Comics series Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained, which portrayed Fort as an adventurous investigator pursuing aliens and murderers in turn-of-the-19th-century New York City.
"Fort, which is being described by some who know the material as a "period Ghostbusters," is the first project set up under Zemeckis and his Imagemovers' newly minted first-look deal with the studio [Universal].
Charles Fort was an early-twentieth-century American researcher and writer whose focus was "anomalous phenomena" and the unexplained. Books Fort wrote such as The Book of the Damned (1919) and New Lands (1923) were some of the first to explore everything from levitation and teleportation to alien abduction and other paranormal pursuits. Fort was essentially a curious skeptic who enjoyed collecting data to support explanations for things that he felt were no less possible than the scientifically accepted ones.
In addition to Zemeckis, Dark Horse's Mike Richardson is producing the film, as are Imagemovers partners Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey."
Will Charles Fort be embraced by Forteans and UFOlogists? Or will it be seen as an unforgivably sensationalised distortion of the life and achievements of a true trailblazer in the world of the weird? We'll find out for sure when the movie hits cinemas sometime in 2013.
As Hollywood’s first Area 51 movie – creatively entitled Area 51 – edges nearer to the big screen (no official US release date has yet been set, though it is expected sometime in Spring, 2012), over at The Presidents UFO Website, tireless researcher Grant Cameron has a new, in-depth paper about Area 51 and the Bob Lazar S-4 story.
It’s a must-read for any student of UFOlogy – especially those who are interested in the government’s covert efforts to manipulate media representations of UFOs. In this context, Grant revisits two cases involving filmmaker Robert Emenegger: the bizarre 1988 TV broadcast of UFO Cover-up Live, and the 1974 government-backed documentary UFOs: Past Present and Future. And there’s a whole lot more besides in Grant’s epic article, so check it out.
