I picked up another good "writing movie" at Borders yesterday, the old George Pal The Time Machine. George Pal made some fine SF in his day.

Sure, it's one of those movies that's a lot better when you're twelve. It's easy to make fun of the "well, I'm sure relieved the blond white people won" ending (novel? What novel?), but I think it has its moments. Taylor's rant while the Eloi were eating kind of reminded me of Dr. Gull's cursing the English office workers in Moore's From Hell (I think he calls them cockatoos or something, anyway, it's a pretty amazing sequence) when he spiritually went a hundred years in the future. And as for all the Troy Donahue blond hair and tan skin, well, The Time Machine was made in an age of Gidget and Where the Boys Are, after all, as the first TV generation grew up. One generation of filmakers regretting another more vacuous one?

And if the scene where the one Eloi dude learns to fight back against the Morlocks wasn't aped when George McFly hit Biff in Back To The Future, I don't know a homage when I see it. Good God, The Time Machine was like 25 years old when they made Back To The Future, and now that movie's passing the quarter century mark soon. I'm old.

Hard to believe Yvette Mimieux was never on Star Trek. She seems just the type of "innocent alien civilization girl" to be dressed up in a revealing minismock and lose her virginity to Kirk. There's a great score with more than a hint of sadness. And you're bound to walk out of it talking about which three books you would take to rebuild civilization. There are worse ways to end a movie. Nowadays you'd be lucky to get Keanu and Owen arguing over which three mp3s they'd need to party to.

Some cool supplements on the DVD with a mini-doco featuring and aged Rod Taylor, if you're that geeky. The even do a sort of epilogue with the Time Traveler and Filby (Alan "Wilbur!" Young).

Chick Tract Fun.

Ah, I remember my days of taking my oath of loyalty to Satan, with a goat skull in one hand and my 4-, 6-, 8-, 12, and 20-sided dice in the other.

Also, why do Satanists always own beanbags and ethnic pottery?

I'll be on Late Night Jenga Jam tomorrow at 10:30 PM Eastern

This Thursday science fiction author and TTL Ally Eric Knight will be on the Late Night JengaJam to discuss all things book, fun, Halo and miscellaneous nonsense.

Call in live to the show to ask questions or just sit in on the discussion by calling Talkshoe at (724) 444-7444 then entering the Talkcast ID of 6478

http://jengajam.ning.com/

http://www.talkshoe.com/blog/index.php/help/ for information on joining the chat or phone conversation.

Hope a few of you join in! By the way, the show is opened with a really cool gal named OboeCrazy, with her "This Week in Geek" newscast.

Seen on da Wife's blog and half the flist:

"Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on religion, favorite type of underwear, etc. Repost in your own journal so that we can all learn more about each other!"

I'm screening replies so you're guaranteed to be anonymous. I'm just going to post the questions if they're interesting, and not list who asked what. Fire away.