Director Jon Porty’s resume is less then reassuring, having manned the helm of four non-horror/sci fi films (one of which being a made for TV video-film about the Unabomber). STAR PORTAL is his only real directorial foray into sci-fi. In his defense, he did write the script for THE GUYVER. (And with that being said, the defense rests.)

STAR PORTAL tells the story of Quad-rena, an alien who crash lands on earth, possesses the body of a sexy earthling, and can shoot lasers from her eyes. (Presumably this isn’t a talent the sexy earthling had pre-alien possession.) Quad-rena must satisfy an insatiable lust for blood, call her fellow space aliens to rescue her (and then kill them so they won’t blow up the earth?!), and in the middle of it all discover the value of human emotions and the warmth of true love. Sounds awesome, huh?

The first big problem with the movie is that Quad-rena is an idiot. She talks like she’s been hit in the head a couple times. But it’s not that she just dumb. Compounding the problem is that she’s sexy. And sexual. But not in an intelligent, empowering way. She just sorta dumb-fucks her way through the movie. Her doctor eventually emerges as the romantic hero. But the jarring thing about this is that anybody who knows she’s not an alien would believe that she’s in need of some serious psychiatric help. Instead of  having the poor space creature submit to a psychological evaluation, the good doctor, in an act of incredible medical integrity, dumb-fucks her.

The second big problem is that there’s no real reason to like her. Unless you consider the fact that she’s stupid and sexy a good reason. She’s killing people and drinking their blood. I guess you’re not supposed to feel sorry for her victims. You’re supposed to feel sorry for her for not knowing that if you lock a human up in the basement and let it eat spiders and drink its own urine it will continue to give you blood for at least another couple weeks. Despite her blood crazed murder of innocents, you get the feeling the creative minds behind this story really want you to have compassion for this murderous ingénue. Ya know, because she’s stupid and sexy.

Throughout the movie there are various flashbacks to her host’s life, but they never develop into anything plot related. In the end they just seem like filler. By a stretch of the imagination they could help to explain why she can speak English and understand the subtleties of such human cultural institutions as psychic consultations. But the knowledge she inherits from her host can only be considered spotty at best, since from beginning to end Quad-rena is a frustratingly moronic dimwit. You have even less reason to like her when you realize that she’s basically consigned the psyche of her host to the cosmic dump heap.

But the absolute worst part of the whole movie is that when she calls the mother ship she speaks in rhymed couplets. It’s like having the phone operator read you the lyric sheet from a Flock of Seagulls record.

“The stones of time make up the galaxies

Mass and gravity are mere fallacies

What draws starlight from there to here

Is love’s desire to be near.”

I really don’t know why it was called STAR PORTAL. The star portal itself doesn’t play much of a part in the movie. I’m not really even sure there is a star portal. Maybe they wanted to cash in on the popularity of STAR GATE which had come out a few years earlier. Anyway, this movie was better when it was called LIFEFORCE. At least in that movie the sexy naked chick is tough as shit and turns into Patrick Stewart.

1. Dracula vs Frankenstein Shoes

Ok, so these are a little cutesy. A lot cutesy. But guys! Dracula! On your shoes! With his pal Frankenstein! Kind of sweet, no? And yet, somehow all I can think of is that bit from Ed Wood, “Karloff…? Sidekick…? FUCK YOU.” Perhaps it’s best that Bela didn’t live to see these shoes.

2. Zombie Rabbits Limited Edition Print

Bunnies + zombies. Everyone wins.

3. First Born Creeps Candlesticks

I love these little guys. Can you imagine a small army of them marching, slithering, or stuttering their way across your Thanksgiving table? Me too.

4. Cthulhu Necklace

Beautiful. There’s nothing that makes it more Cthulhu than octopus, but beautiful nonetheless. (And anyway, we all know that octopi are scarily smart and eerily prescient, right? So, still horror-related?)

5. Ted Box Art Print

I’ve had this artist’s robot box art prints bookmarked in my “wishlist” folder for over a year now. They’re two parts retro-futurism and one part affectionate nostalgia. A perfect mix.

Vin Diesel’s been an inexplicable movie mega-star for enough years that I don’t think The Chronicles of Riddick needs any introduction, but if you’re not a late night TV aficionado you may have missed the commercials for the Riddex pest control product line.  Allow me to fill you in.

I'm sorry, Dave. I can't do that. I tried it before and I was sore for weeks.

As explained on the company’s web site, Riddex Pro is a pest killer like no other.  Why is that?  Because you plug it in your wall.  No, for real.  The product sends “digital pulses” through your house’s wiring that somehow repel everything from rats to cockroaches, yet supposedly cause no harm to humans and pets.  Well, except pet rats.  Those would probably die.  Hedgehogs too.  Choose your pets carefully.

I’ve been doing some crappy research (cresearch?) on this product for a few hours now, and I still have no idea how the hell it’s supposed to work.  It’s something about ultrasonic vibrations or electromagnetic fields or energon cubes or something.  Whatever it is, it’s calibrated just right so as not to scramble your brain.  Or it’s bullshit.  Or it’s not bullshit but it does scramble your brain, and rats and cockroaches are the only ones smart enough to get the hell out of your house before their heads explode.

Given the facts that the Federal Trade Commission has repeatedly fined Riddex for making completely unsubstantiated claims and that used Riddex units sell for like four bucks on eBay, there’s a good chance that it’s bullshit after all.  I still don’t like the idea of spending money on things that might kill me (except for, you know, booze), so I’d prefer to steer clear regardless.  Either way, Riddex loses some serious points against Riddick in our hypothetical little match-up.

Hey, what up?

Chronicles of Riddick is pretty fucking terrible, though.  In case you didn’t already know, it’s a sequel to Pitch Black, a super-rad sci-fi action movie that was essentially Aliens with a few cool gimmicks and some tasty B-movie grade pulp.  That was made way back in 2000, a slower, less furious time when star Vin Diesel was just some random dude with muscles.  Times changed, however, and Diesel became famous for some reason or another, requiring at least one of his previous movies to have a sequel.  I would have preferred Saving Private Ryan 2, but Hollywood decided to revisit Pitch Black instead.

Oh, and they fucked it up.  Since Pitch Black was such a simple, tight, one-shot premise movie that in no way demanded a sequel whatsoever, the filmmakers of Chronicles decided to use a bloated, LARPer-friendly storyline about space religions and magic mind powers to prop their movie up.  They tried to make this movie high fantasy so hard.  Shit, they even got one of the guys from LOTR to star in it.

But the real offense of Chronicles of Riddick, the thing that makes it such a strong competitor in awfulness to the Riddex pest mindfuck system, is what it did to Pitch Black. All new copies of Pitch Black are now sold as “The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black.” I know it’s just a few words and a colon, but it’s goddamn inhuman to rename an awesome movie after a crappy one.  That aggression will not stand.

So which should you choose?  Which is least terrible?  It pains me to say it, but I’m going with Chronicles of Riddick. I can tolerate a boring series of speeches debating the merits of one imaginary space religion over another, but I can’t tolerate having my head explode when all I wanted to do was get rid of some silverfish.

ADVANTAGE: The Chronicles of Riddick

Netflix is great, but it does have its problems.  There’s the sometimes sheepish recommendations and the murky process known as throttling.  The worst, however, is searching for a movie that’s unavailable.

I’ve racked up a considerable “saved” queue since I began my membership last summer.  The following list is a mere sample of those unavailable titles that I’m itching to see.  Some of these might just be missing from my local distribution center, while I’m sure others are either out of print or never were in print.  Here’s hoping they make the jump to “very long wait” soon.

Cronos

im in ur mooveez. direktin ur hobits.

I want to write an article called “Guillermo del Toro: Hack or Genius?” but I figure I need to see this (Del Toro’s first feature length film) first.  I never know what to expect with this guy, and Cronos is no exception.  It’s about alchemy and vampires and stuff, so it might be in the vein of Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, but it also has Ron Perlman and… well, vampires and stuff, so it might be closer to Hellboy and Blade II. At any rate, I’d like to see this before The Hobbit comes out.

Sleuth

It’s a mystery movie that pits Laurence Olivier against Michael Caine.  It’s also recommended by my dad.  Now, other people’s dads might just tell them to see Animal House or Stripes, but my dad’s previous picks have included A Boy and His Dog, Omega Man, and other 70s gems he saw working at a movie theatre in high school, so I can safely assume that this movie’s awesome.  Yes, I know there was a remake with Michael Caine in Olivier’s role and Jude Law in Caine’s, but I have about as much enthusiasm for that as I did for the Alfie remake.  I want the real thing.

Blue Gender: Disc Two

Gah, seriously?  So they have Blue Gender, but they’re missing the second disc?  I saw this anime series when Adult Swim ran the dubbed version a few years back, which is why I’m so pissed that the second disc is missing.  See, in the series’ first half (discs one to three), this was a show about survival, courage, and tremendous gore that could best be described as a cross between Aliens and 28 Days Later. However, in its second half (discs four to six) Blue Gender devolved into yet another bland Neon Genesis Evangelion clone about giant robots and teenage melodrama.  Netflix is never gonna replace just one disc, so it looks like I’ll have to buy the whole set, terrible discs included.

PRO TIP: If you do a Google Images search for "no escape" you're gonna find a whole lot of bondage pics.

No Escape

This delightful piece of mid-90s sci-fi action schlock used to make the rounds on cable TV but has since fallen into obscurity.  That’s a shame too, since it’s got Ray Liotta, Lance Henriksen, and the bad guy from Blank Check. (If you’re wondering, the plot concerns an island prison colony divided into good and evil camps, kind of like Lord of the Flies with grownups.)  Also, as a friend points out, it’s one of the few non-gay porno movies out there to feature an all-male cast.  I guess I can’t complain too much about Netflix not having a movie that I only plan on enjoying semi-ironically, but I still hope a copy comes their way.

This week’s AVQ&A is “What movie/TV show/album/whatever would you like to be able to see/hear again for the first time?” There’s the usual smattering of the slightly pretentious and the heart-warmingly sweet, but no one gave my answer. So I’m going to rectify that.

The X-Files. Stay with me now.

It’s the mid-90s and I’m 14 or 15 years old. I’ve got really long, scraggly hair, big ‘ol round glasses, and the requisite acne. I’m also one of the good kids, who reads a lot, avoids all mentions of sex and sin, is really into science, and implicitly trusts all authority figures. My sister and I are two years apart (she’s the younger one) and we’ve never really gotten along. Until.

Until one weekend my sister stayed with our grandparents because our folks were out of town (I think I was with them, and thus missed out on this experience) and came home talking about this new show she’d seen. We didn’t have cable growing up – my dad still doesn’t. Hi, Dad! – but our grandparents did. So she saw the episode “Excelsis Dei” of some FOX show called The X-Files and was hooked. And she hooked me. She hooked me good.

Our grandmother would tape the episodes for us as they aired and we’d be chomping at the bit to go visit grandma and pick up our tapes every few weeks. But in the meantime, there was the internet to keep us entertained. This was back in the heady days of the 90s personal website extravaganza, when everyone had a Geocities or Anglefire page, joke sites were abundant, and I got caught by my English teacher with a printed copy of that “Pooh Goes Apeshit” story. And so we made a website. It’s still there. Well, bits of it are. [Ok, here --- check out the “Signs You’re In X-Files Withdrawal” list that we made. “Three words: Eat. More. Chicken.” Ha ha! Remember that one, guys? Guys?]

No? Ok, moving on.

So it isn’t just the experience of being new to the show that I would love to go through all over again, but also the sensory overload that came with being new to the internet. I didn’t just stumble onto a new and fascinating television show, I was suddenly a member of a community that wasn’t based on geographical location but instead on a shared experience. There were lots of people watching this show! Men, women, teenagers, and grown-ups. And we could communicate with them! It’s a sense of camaraderie that is taken for granted now – this kinship with people you’ve never met over an issue, event, or subject that is (in your group’s opinion) outside of the mainstream. It’s so Web 2.0. We weren’t weirdos for squealing when Mulder and Scully danced at the end of “Post-Modern Prometheus” – lots of other people did the same thing! And then some of them wrote hair-curlingly bad fan fiction about it.

That isn’t to say that the internet community experience trumps the value of the show in my mind. I most definitely do not want to write terrible PG-rated fan fiction again; but I would like to go back to the show and encounter it with an open, adolescent mind that is wholeheartedly in love with everything it sees. These days, I am — as most of us are — a tough audience to please. I expect not only good writing, but good acting, camera movement that isn’t disorienting, and sets and clothing that aren’t totally distracting. The X-Files only gets these right some of the time. The writing? Sometimes not so good, especially in the last few seasons. The whole thing with baby (super-soldier-hybrid-alien-love-child) William was pretty ridiculous. I wasn’t overly fond of Agent Reyes as a character. Mulder really was kind of a dick, wasn’t he? The Lone Gunmen spin-off was superfluous and just not very good. Scully had some really unfortunate pants suits and hair in the early seasons (tapered legs look good on no one). And the mythology is so convoluted that there’s really nothing left to do but laugh at it.

Hi, I’m Samantha Mulder! You may remember me from such storylines as “Help! I’m an Alien-Human Hybrid Clone!" And "Daddy Smokes Morleys."

That said, there is still a lot to love. I find the Gunmen to still be likable and admirable characters even after that spin-off nonsense. Mulder’s porn habit was somehow endearing and not creepy. Baby William was pretty adorable as far as babies go. Skinner was the best boss anyone could hope for (except when he wasn’t). That basement office was pretty damn cool. The storyline with Scully’s cancer was heartbreaking and felt very real. The weekly bit-parts were consistently well-acted and well-cast. “Small Potatoes,” “Bad Blood,” and “Triangle” all had excellent writing. And the relationship between Moose and Squirrel? Someday I will stop hoping for a relationship like that one, but that day has yet to come.

It's not that I don't love you, honey. It's just that you've never flown to Antarctica to rescue me from a secret government laboratory/spaceship. You understand, right?

This show helped me through high school in the way that D&D, Jesus, and alcohol helped other kids. The X-Files gave me a smart and independent female scientist to idolize – one of the first female television characters I can think of who was intelligent, opinionated, and methodical without being cold and bitchy (although that was the rumor ’round the FBI). It was built on science, pseudo-science, and the things we have yet to learn about our world, which I find to be endearingly optimistic. It questioned, teased, commiserated with, and respected its viewers – at least, until the last season or so. It injected teenage me with a healthy dose of cynicism, for which I will always be grateful. And to top it off, it was really fucking weird. I could write so many reviews for so many episodes just because they are really, very odd. Remember the humanoid tapeworm who lived in sewage? Or the inbred, incestuous family with the dismembered, toothless mother? Good times, all of them.

So here’s to oddity, cynicism, and paranoia. Trust no one. Deny everything. Deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate. The truth is out there, guys.

(Fight the Future screen cap from http://www.inadream-moviecaps.com/)

That’s a goddamn EAGLE ON THE MOON.

Nothing captures the late Cold War experience like the Susan B. Anthony dollar.  Even when doing something extremely boring, like stamping some forgotten women’s rights figure on a coin no one will ever use, America sent an eagle to the moon, photographed it, then put that shit on the back of said coin just to show those godless Soviets that we mean business.  Eagles need air.  There is no air on the moon.  We killed that eagle.

What was this article about again?  Oh, right.  Watchmen.

Mars sucks. Not enough eagles.

I used those Susan Bees to buy a ticket to see Watchmen (finally) at my local cheap-o theater.  I liked it okay, but the way the film version played up the book’s Cold War commentary came off as pretty dated.  (The Susan B. Anthony dollar, on the other hand, is timeless.)  Also, I’ve always felt somewhat ambivalent towards the original book, so the slavish loyalty to the original (except, of course, its ending) didn’t impress me much.

Why am I ambivalent?  The way Watchmen turns from detailed character studies and smart genre satire into a campy whodunit with a diabolical super villain just doesn’t sit well with me.  I know that by writing the book this way, author Alan Moore is expressing his own ambivalence towards the question “would having superheroes actually be a good idea?” but turning his work into the very thing he’s criticizing is a little too meta for me.

See this film.

Or maybe my ambivalence extends from knowing that there’s another, way awesomer movie about heroes and hero worship already out there.  I’m speaking of course about Zebraman. Directed by Takashi Miike (Audition, Happiness of the Katakuris, etc.), Zebraman teaches you that anyone can have super powers, if only they believe in themselves.  That’s right, with the right attitude you can shoot laser beams out of your eyes and command the loyalty of sea creatures.  Now that’s a message I can relate to.

Logic would suggest an easy win for eXistenZ.  It’s by David Cronenberg.   He made A History of Violence.  A History of Violence was awesome.  Penis pills, on the other hand, are literally full of shit.  What could go wrong?

He's looking as tough as possible, under the circumstances.

Plenty.  See, for every awesome head exploding movie (Scanners, for instance), Cronenberg makes an equally un-awesome movie about sex with televisions and vagina dentata (like, say… Videodrome).  eXistenZ is definitely on the vagina side of things.  Sure, the concept that the human body is the ultimate source of terror works pretty well in The Fly, but seeing Jude Law spit out his teeth for bone-gun ammo just doesn’t cut it.

In Cronenberg’s defense, some of the film’s problems can’t be blamed on the cast and crew.  Take the title. eXistenZ.  Look at it.  Doesn’t it make you want to punch Cronenberg in the face?  See, at the time, the idea that corporatization would one day focus-group our existence down to a mere trademark was captivating, but the world has changed since 1999.  In 2009, cute capitalizations and shortened spellings are more reminiscent of leetspeak and text messaging than social commentary.  Now it just looks like the movie was named by a twelve-year-old girl.

The other beef with eXistenZ is that its premise is so similar to The Matrix that viewers invariably wish they were watching that instead.  Maybe if the studio heads waited more than three weeks after The Matrix opened to release eXistenZ, the cries of “Matrix rip-off” would have been softer.   Or maybe the market could only ever accept one computer-simulation-replaces-reality movie.  But it’s probably that The Matrix’s evil-machines-enslave-humanity computer simulation was just plain cooler than eXistenZ’s LARPing-is-kind-of-lame one.

Some LOTR fans reenact the famous "Raccoon Scene" from The Return of the King.

What are the pros for this movie?  It’s certainly imaginative (if not original), and the art direction is pretty good.  That, combined with the unintentionally laughable acting and writing make it passable.  Just pretend it’s a live action bonus chapter on your Animatrix DVD and things will be fine.

Satisfied customers.

So what about ExtenZe?  I’ll let the product’s infomercial speak for itself.  As you can see, this product will turn you into a stammering foreigner.  Side effects include having a busted girlfriend and loss of ability to say “penis”.   Now, I love being able to say “penis”.  Penis, penis, penis, penis, penis.  I can’t even imagine living in a world where I can’t say it, so ExtenZe the product loses to eXistenZ.  But what about ExtenZe the infomercial?  Is that better than eXistenZ?

I’ll say yes.  Watching reject porno actors stumble through half-improvised innuendo is far more charming than hearing Jude Law listlessly intone “Death to the demonness Allegra Geller!”  And at least ExtenZe actually comes out and says what it’s about (insofar as you can say “this will make your dick bigger” without actually saying “this will make your dick bigger”).   Heck, I’d like eXistenZ way better if Jennifer Jason Leigh awkwardly darted her eyes back and forth from the camera while she explained why you should keep watching the movie.

Advantage: ExtenZe.

UPDATE #1: Much has changed in the worlds of body horror gurus and poop-covered penis pills since this article first ran over the summer.

ExtenZe has a new commercial featuring a good-naturedly smirking gentleman who explains that he’s not interested in making his member larger (though it “could be fun”); he’s taking the pill to improve his performance so he can better please his loving, loving wife.  This turn is miles away from where the commercials started, with a pitch by Super Hornio Bros. star Ron Jeremy and a warning from the sluts on the couch that your girlfriend will dump you if your dick isn’t big enough.

Dietary supplements are awesome.

There also seems to be a new focus on increasing size “regardless of age”.  Is there a competing male enhancement product for children?   (ExtenZe Jr.? Pfizer’s Children’s Chewable Dick Pills?)  If so, I suggest it uses the following slogan: “It’ll make you spring chickens sprung for chicks, hon’!” (It’s a work in progress.)  At any rate, kudos to ExtenZe for trying to move into the mainstream supplement market.  I look forward to seeing their product at my local Co-op, next to the colloidal silver and slippery elm bark.

Meanwhile, David Cronenberg, fresh off the non-success that was his The Fly opera (yeah, the arm wrestling scene’s still in there), has begun writing a novel.  Now David, Viggo Mortensen is bored.  He needs you to get back to making movies so he can occupy his time with naked shower knife fights and stairwell hate-fucking sessions.  Right now he’s just sitting at home on his couch, watching ExtenZe commercials.

Oh, and eXistenZ still sucks.

UPDATE #2: It seems I spoke too soon.  David Cronenberg’s back to making movies.  In an interview with MTV News, Cronenberg revealed that he’s currently developing a sequel to Eastern Promises that will have star Viggo Mortensen reprise his role as Russian gangster Nikolai.  Cronenberg, still kicking himself from passing on Scanners II, says he’s “excited” to make this sequel, but I’m still not sure this isn’t an April Fool’s joke.