The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

30 years before Steven Spielberg made E.T., Patricia Neal originated the archetype of a single mother who discovers her son is spending too much time with an alien. “Sci-fi Mom” can be found in the retro animated Iron Giant, and also in Spielberg’s classic masterpiece Close Encounters of the Third Kind. What’s the pattern here? Are fatherless boys more likely to attract aliens because they look for a father in every stranger…? Perhaps over mothering has left the boys gullible and needy, susceptible to the influence of dominating spacemen…. Maybe it’s just because if left unsupervised, boys will get into all kinds of trouble…. Ugh, what’s a single mom to do!

Although an undisputed classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still is a product of its time. It was made in the paranoid Eisenhower-era of wise old scientists and panic-stricken mobs, when suddenly a messianic alien named Klaatu lands in Washington DC (the center of the universe in 1951) with his robot enforcer Gort. Klaatu (née Mr. Carpenter, née Jesus the Christ) delivers a message of universal peace — OR ELSE! He explains that the worlds he represents haven’t so much solved their differences as made violence illegal, enforced by a race of Gorts who will immediately destroy any aggressor. His peace message is actually a warning: Kill each other all you want here on Earth, but if your wars spread to other worlds the Gorts will get you.
…more about The Day the Earth Stood Still

We were invited to Miami to remix the fashion show launching Vogue Eyewear, hosted by super model Giselle Bundchen.

watch TVbongo
download TVbongo.mov QT 320*240 164KB

This Island Earth (1955)

Two attractive scientists are kidnapped and taken on a joyride to another planet by their alien employer. His home world is so desperately out of resources they need the inferior humans to help them improve their power supply. But time is running out and it may be too late!

This first encounter with an alien species is an acid trip in vivid 3-strip Technicolor, but dry and unemotional like an Arthur C Clark epic. The actors stand around explaining things to each other while molecule sculptures blink and rotate like a moderne chandelier run amok. A large psychedelic console unit, the Interocitor, is a videophone, autopilot, and death ray all-in-one. At one point the spaceship is attacked by triangles that hurl sparkling balls at them, but they escape. Then they are attacked by a deranged slave bug, but they escape. Etc, etc. Occasionally the aliens strike a pose like the Abraham Lincoln statue, making them seem aloof and too preoccupied to get emotionally involved.

There aren’t any surprises here and that’s the surprise. It’s oddly refreshing to watch a sci-fi drama without the cliches, no sassy mouthed princess…, no wild west gunslinger or WW1 pilot…, no druids…. What you get is pure ’50s science fiction adventure that slowly unfolds from the mundane, to the mysterious, to the monumental as our stunned Earthling tourists witness the death of an alien civilization!

Ziegfeld Follies (1946)

So…, MGM plans to make a huge sequel: a new Follies to feature the greatest stars and directors in Hollywood! Fred Astaire verses Gene Kelly! Judy Garland at her finest! Ravishing Ziegfeld Girl Lucille Ball! Fannie Bryce, Red Skelton, and Virginia O’Brien appear for comedy! An underwater Esther Williams number, and Cyd Charisse in a soap bubble ballet!

PRODUCER: We’ve signed William Powell to play Ziegfeld again!
MINION: But Sir, Florenz Ziegfeld died at the end of The Great Ziegfeld.
PRODUCER: Right! So…, we’ll open with William Powell in Heaven putting together the next Follies!
MINION: Do you think moviegoers will believe Ziegfeld went to Heaven, Sir?