Chernobyl 1.2: The Horror Movie

If I hadn't seen last week's first episode of Chernobyl, and had fallen asleep before the beginning of the second episode on HBO last night, and had woken up a few minutes into the episode, I'd have thought that I was watching a horror movie, or maybe a new apocalyptic series on AMC.

The second episode had all of the trimmings.  Almost all the powers-that-be misunderstanding and downplaying the grave threat.  A scientist or two, here and there, getting what was happening, urgently trying to alert everyone around them to the danger, being largely ignored.  And when they're finally listened to, at least some of the vulnerable populace is evacuated, but not everyone, including a dog running in vain after a departing bus.   And with a far worse, more monstrous catastrophe about to happen, three brave souls stepping up.

Except all of this really happened.  And it could happen again, since understanding one accident can never preclude another happening, for slightly different reasons.  I'm usually a champion of technology.  But I turned against nuclear power after Three Mile Island in 1979 near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  That was a partial meltdown.  And I wasn't surprised when the far worse accident happened at Chernobyl in 1986.

This mini-series is a stark reminder that we have take nature and our technologies which seek to harness it very seriously.  Because the truth is there is no complete harnessing of the natural world - not of atoms, not of genes, not of bacteria, not of you name it.  The best we can be is, yes, bold with technology in trying to improve out lot, but always wary of its unforeseen consequences.

See also: Chernobyl 1.1: The Errors of Arrogance

 

The Cloverfield Paradox: Fringe Meets Star Trek

Well, there really wasn't any paradox in it (things going very wrong does not equate to paradox), and the story was at least much horror as science fiction, but The Cloverfield Paradox on Netflix was pretty good science fiction of the alternate-reality variety anyway.

Earth in the future is in the throws of a grievous energy crisis.  Hope is placed in a new particle accelerator, to be tested in the Cloverfield space station.  A slightly nutty scientist or sooth-sayer warns that the energies that will be released in this test could rip reality apart and unleash untold monsters.  Of course, no one pays him any heed.

But indeed the tests do rip reality apart, or at least bring it into interactive smashing contact with another reality.  This is manifested by a woman who shows up in the metalwork of the station - literally - and a guy who loses his arm to the other reality (the arm comes back and writes our crew vital information), and you get the picture.  This is what I meant by Fringe (the Star Trek part comes from the crew in space).  The Cloverfield Paradox somehow mixes horror and humor in a way that only J. J. Abrams, one of the producers, can do it (hey, maybe that's the paradox).

There are good surprises, double-crosses, and breathtaking scenes throughout.  The protagonist, Ava (well played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, pictured above) is given the choice of reuniting with the family she lost in her/our reality - she can do this by going to the alternate reality - or saving our reality.   I won't tell what she does.

I will say that the changes unleashed by the particle accelerator usher in all kinds of horrors not only in space, but Earth as well.  Enjoy.

more alternate reality - "flat-out fantastic" - Scifi and Scary

Bones 9.8: The Bug in the Neck

Bones 9.8 gives us one of the most significant Hodgins episodes in quite some time - at once instructive, repellant, and endearing - as we discover that he has elected to offer his neck for the propagation of one of those bugs he so loves.

What makes this even more interesting is that the bug - a special kind of bot fly from South America that uses its human host to propagate - has nothing to do with the case at hand, or "the dude in the dam".   So this Hodgins story is a standalone tale, in which Bones the series serves as host to the little Hodgins narrative, much Hodgins' neck serves as host for the bot fly larvae.

Now the sight of the larvae metamorphosing out of Hodgins' neck is suitably revolting to us and Angela, who of course still loves him.   It's a minor seminal story of how a man has to do what he has to do on behalf of his science and the bugs he loves, and how his woman stands by him.  In a different milieu, it could easily have turned into a major horror story, perhaps a new prequel to The Fly, either the Vincent Price or the Jeff Goldblum version.   Only Bones would be so audacious and off-the-wall as to house it.

Meanwhile, we also get a good second act in the story we saw last week concerning Bones aka Temperance the best-selling author of the Kathy Reich as character novels.   Bones has a run-in with rival author Tess Brown - well played by SNL alumna Nora Dunn - who, as Bones is quick to mention, only has half the best-sellers that Bones has.   But Tess gracefully acknowledges that while Bones bases her novels on real experience, Tess just makes it up, and Booth is so inspired by all of this that he says he'd like to see his and Bones' characters in the Reich novels go on to a rip-roaring science fiction adventure in outer space.

That would work for me - though, given Booth's denunciation of bloggers at the beginning of this episode, I'd be unlikely to write about it--   Nah, only kidding.   Bones and Booth in outer space like a James Bond movie could be just the thing.

See also Bones 9.1: The Sweet Misery of Love ... Bones 9.2: Bobcat, Identity Theft, and Sweets ... Bones 9.3 and NCIS 11.2: Sweets and Ziva ... Bones 9.4: Metaphysics of Death in a Television Series ... Bones 9.5: Val and Deep Blue ... Bones 9.6: The Wedding ... Bones 9.7: Watch Out, Buenos Aires

And see also Bones 8.1: Walk Like an Egyptian ... Bones 8.2 of Contention ... Bones 8.3: Not Rotting Behind a Desk  ... Bones 8.4: Slashing Tiger and Donald Trump ... Bones 8.5: Applesauce on Election Eve ... Bones 8.6: Election Day ... Bones 8.7: Dollops in the Sky with Diamonds ...Bones 8.8: The Talking Remains ... Bones 8.9: I Am A Camera ... Bones 8.10-11: Double Bones ...Bones 8.12: Face of Enigmatic Evil ... Bones 8.13: Two for the Price of One ... Bones 8.14: Real Life ... Bones 8.15: The Magic Bullet and the Be-Spontaneous Paradox ... Bones 8.16: Bitter-Sweet Sweets and Honest Finn ... Bones 8.17: "Not Time Share, Time Travel" ... Bones 8.18: Couples ... Bones 8.19: The Head in the Toilet ... Bones 8.20: On Camera ... Bones 8.21: Christine, Hot Sauce, and the Judge ... Bones 8.22: Musical-Chair Parents ... Bones 8.23: The Bluff ... Bones Season 8 Finale: Can't Buy the Last Few Minutes

And see also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ...Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle ... Bones 7.6: The Reassembler ... Bones 7.7: Baby! ... Bones 7.8: Parents ...Bones 7.9: Tabitha's Salon ... Bones 7.10: Mobile ... Bones 7.11: Truffles and Max ... Bones 7.12: The Corpse is Hanson ... Bones Season 7 Finale: Suspect Bones

And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ...Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ...Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ...Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ...Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution

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Rob Zombie's Halloween

I admit that my favorite horror movies go back to when I was a teenager - 14, 15, 16. If I could get a girl to go with me to the Allerton Theater in the Bronx, and it was to a horror movie, there was a pretty good chance she would cuddle close during the scary scenes ... Hey, I was a kid ...

Among my favorites back then were The Blob - a science fiction horror movie about a big amoeba - and Vincent Price in The Tingler. That one featured a skeleton that rolled out of the screen right at the audience on a rope ... Like I said, I was just a kid ...

More recent horror movies play with your mind as well as your adrenalin, and Halloween is at the top of the list. That tinkling piano music alone is enough to make you run for cover, which you can never find.

John Carpenter's Halloween was a masterpiece in 1978. What can Rob Zombie's remake bring to it?

I would look for the special effects. They've progressed a lot since 1978. Indeed, I would say that horror movies are the best genres for remakes. Bela Lugosi's Dracula was a 1931 masterpiece - but so was the Christopher Lee in 1958 (I saw that one in the Allerton Theater, too...) Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1956 was a great movie - but the special effects in the 1978 version were unbelievable (that shot of the dog with a man's head)...

So I'm looking forward to powerful sequences in Rob Zombie's Halloween the movie, driven by the explosive magic of today's special effects. Here's a taste in this trailer ...



Oh yeah, Rob Zombie kept in that tingling piano in his Halloween the movie. It opens August 31. Just what I needed to hear at eleven o'clock tonight, on a sultry summer evening...