Capricorn One

I say major spoilers in the same way as saying "It sinks in the end" is a spoiler for Titanic. You should know, and if you don't know, where the hell have you been for the last 30 years?

My all time favourite 70s sci-fi thriller starring Elliot Gould. Top marks to the first person to name the other 70s sci-fi thriller starring Elliot Gould.

This was made during a time when space was big. In films, I mean. Space has always been physically big. It's far superior to that Gene Hackman one with the Ironman spacecraft stuck in orbit, where the film makers guessed about a craft that was eventually known as the space shuttle. Their version was a two man thing, not much bigger than a Mercury capsule and red. Red for heaven's sake! Still, the "little burst of flame" for the thrusters always made me laugh. And the detante in space! Cracks me up every time. Can't remember the name though.

Anyway, returning to Earth: Back to Capricorn One.

I must admit, I only really "got" the ending for this last night.

For everyone who doesn't know, the plot is based on the myth about the faked moon landings, except this time, it's with Mars. The reason for the fake is that, as all parts of the vehicle were farmed out to contractors, the life support system is sub-standard and will kill the crew less than four weeks after launch. To avoid a public relations disaster (and more importantly to avoid getting their budget cut), Nasa decides to go ahead with the launch, just without the astronauts and fake the whole landing part.

After his Nasa friend disappears¹, Gould (a journalist) gets involved and sniffs a rat. Then he drives his car into the river.

What I didn't get until last night was: Nasa's plan was to return the men safely. They didn't plan on killing them.

The actual spacecraft does go to Mars. Just without the crew. When re-entering, Nasa deliberately bumps it off course, so they have an hour and a half to fly the men out to the pod, put them in and disappear sharpish before search and rescue finds them.

However, an actual disaster strikes the re-entry vehicle when it's heat shield detaches and the craft breaks up. Nasa then has a problem that it can't afford for the men to ever be seen again, which leads to a great scene with them in a locked room.

Walker: Where are we?
Brubaker: We....are dead.
Willis: Oh hell, and I was such a great guy too.

Add a cameo from Mr Kojak himself, Terry Salavas, a chase scene with a bi-plane and two helicopters, the musical score, and the final scene at the funeral service for the men, and it's a cracking little gem of a film.

Interestingly, this film appeared before the "fake moon landings" story really took off, and some people believe this inspired (or fuelled) it.

Score: B-

OQ:
Meep-meep-meep-meep-meep
Boooooooooooooooooooooooo
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
(from the disastrous re-entry)

Lt. Col Peter Willis: Hey, Dr. Kelloway. Funny thing happened on the way to Mars.

Robert Caulfield: Look, when a reporter tells his assignment editor that he thinks he may be on to something that could be really big, the assignment editor is supposed to say: "You've got forty eight hours, kids, and you better come up with something good or it's going to be your neck!" That's what he's supposed to say, I saw it in a movie.
Walter Loughlin: You're not crazy, I'm crazy. I'm crazy for listening and I'm crazy for saying what I'm about to say. I'll give you twenty four hours to come up with something. Not forty eight. I saw that movie too, it was twenty four.

¹Literally. They're playing pool in a bar. Gould gets a mysterious phone-call at the bar, and when he comes back his friend is gone. His phone is disconnected. And there's a strange woman living in his apartment.

An Inconvenient Truth

'Probably the scariest movie you'll see this year.'

They're not wrong.
I was so absorbed, I forgot to eat the M&Ms I'd bought.

This documentary is basically a slideshow presentation (quite an engaging one) that Al Gore has been giving over the last 20 years or so, interspersed with a few excerpts from his life, anecdotes and quotes from television appearances.

And yet.....it's one of the most compelling things I've ever seen. I used my new unlimited card, on which I am doing a very good impression of Dr Zoidberg. I mention this because Al Gore uses a scene from Futurama to explain global warming. He doesn't spend long on it, he doesn't pander to his audience. What he does do is show that humans are having an effect on their climate, that this effect is progressive and that politicians (particularly American ones) don't seem to be in any rush to solve the problem.

There is so much that he covers, in an engaging manner, that it's hard to summarise this film in a short review, and I don't want to tell you the whole story, because he does it so much better than I ever could. Really, you should go and see this yourselves. Hell, everyone should see this film.

But there are three key points that really stood out for me.

One was him on the cherry picker, having to manually extend a graph of CO2 and temperature, because it wouldn't fit on the huge projection screen.

Another was him showing the graph of car efficiency over time, starting in the 1960s. European cars all get much more efficient over time. I'm not kidding when I say that the US car line barely rises. Then he shows that the line politicians have that "Chinese cars could flood our market if we made our cars more efficient (and therefore more expensive)" is wrong, since US cars can't be sold in China (or that many places outside the US) because they don't meet the emission standards.

And the third was him showing how much the sea level will change if even half of the Greenland ice shelf collapsed.

This film probably won't tell you much that you didn't already know. But it's presented in such an energetic and engaging manner, that it really is very watchable. As I said I completely forgot my M&Ms and didn't even realise I was hungry until I left the cinema.

Score: A. I've already asked Play.com to notify me when this becomes available on DVD and I've already placed an order for the book.

OQ: We have everything we need [to solve the climate crisis] except the political will.

The Sentinel

I know that preambles before getting to the review are frowned upon, so I will forgo the disaster that was my attempt to buy an unlimited card at Cineworld entitled "Proof of bank details? What are you on?", with the caveat that I've now got something that not only serves as proof of bank details but also acts as a handy slapping device if they give me any more bother.

So, The Sentinel. Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Kim Basinger. It's a modern thriller with a twist. That twist is that it's actually thrilling, and kept my attention all the way through. After I saw the trailer, I had a good idea what the twist was, but I was way off. And although the basic plot is a very old and cliched horse, here it has been given a new lease of life, possibly through performance enhancing steroids.

Important bit. Did I like it?: Yes. Particularly impressive given how annoyed I was as I entered the cinema (see preamble at the top).

I'm not going to write a long review, it's not necessary. The Sentinel is an enjoyable film, that kept me engaged all through. My mate's wife would not like it, but then she does make Columbo look like an amateur. She can spot plot twists, endings and bad guys at a hundred yards. I enjoyed it, and I'm glad I saw it.

OQ: Crystal!

Score: B- Not sure it would end up in my DVD collection, but enjoyable none the less.

There are a couple of annoyances in the film. For one, the 'bad guys' motives are never really explained. The traitor in the organisation should have been exposed long ago and his betrayal/bargain is never explained properly. However these are minor annoyances. Eva Longoria has a very obvious wardrobe continuity error. You may say I'm nit picking there, but the reason I noticed it was that Kiefer mentions her attire, then seconds later as she leaves a crime scene, her top has changed for no apparent reason. I was also distraught to discover that www.continuitycorner.com appears to have closed down. I used to contribute fairly regularly to the site, but now all that's there is an advert saying the domain name is up for sale.