Reviews

In the 1960s and 1970s, Hanna-Barbera Productions created a series of half-hour animated situation comedies that took place in all different periods of history--"The Flintstones" (prehistoric), "The Jetsons" (the future), "These are the Days" (the early 1900s), and "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home" (1970s). In essence, the plots of all these animated series were pretty much the same, but with twists determined by whatever era they took place during. Humor was on two levels--both kids and adults could sit together and enjoy the show thoroughly. "Roman Holidays" was part of this genre; taking place in ancient Rome (AD 63), this show followed the adventures of the Holiday family. The characters were standard for this genre--a working middle-class family man with a strong, devoted wife, a dictatorial money-grabbing boss, a loyal buddy, even an intelligent family pet (in this case, a lion). I remember seeing this show on Saturday mornings when I was a kid and noting the similarities between its plots and that of "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons." Nevertheless, I enjoyed it, as did my parents, and I can still remember the theme song ("When in Rome, you do as the Romans do, you play as the Romans play together..."). It is a shame that there are no longer any series on TV quite like it--it showed imagination and relied on the fact that a good family show must appeal to both children and adults, and that cartoons were not supposed to be half-hour commercials for some action figures. "Roman Holidays" would be a great show to release on video/DVD.

The premise of a massive underground nuclear explosion that would create a moving rift through a supposedly solid crust was quite believable in the days before plate tectonics was generally known to the public; the special effects create an air of reality that made the whole thing seem almost a certainty. However, with a knowledge of plate tectonics, the whole premise vanishes, especially with maps of this so-called crack passing through crustal plates. I taped this movie off of AMC cable a few years back, and I show it to my earth science classes after covering plate tectonics, asking them to tell me, "What's wrong with this picture?" The kids enjoy it and still see the mistakes. Overall, an enjoyable movie, if blatant disregard for science facts doesn't bother you.

Unfortunately, there was never any such thing, scientifically speaking, as a "good" earthquake movie. Though located smack in the middle of Earthquake Country, Hollywood has reflected the unfortunate ignorance of millions of residents. Most of the monster quakes that devastate Los Angeles in the movies are on the San Andreas Fault, 50 miles from downtown at its closest approach--again, parrotting the common myth that this is where the next "Big One" will come from. "The Big One" is a refreshing departure from this illconcieved mold. Though by no means a great movie, it zeroes in on the fact that there are faults criss-crossing the Los Angeles Basin that could cause major damage without being a "monster." In many ways, it was an unintended preview of the Northridge earthquake in 1994--the movie's quake was centered on the Elysian Park fault, which is a blind thrust fault that runs under downtown Los Angeles, while Northridge was also on a blind thrust fault under the San Fernando Valley. Though the seismology "details" were typical movie fare--foreshocks, unexplained geologic occurrences, and a doomsday prediction by a scientist that everyone else tries to silence (or at least ignore), it does demonstrate that something like this could happen in a much more believable scenario. It is not a "great" earthquake movie, but it is certainly an improvement.

When I saw "Midway" as a teenager, I thought it was a cool movie with lots action (despite the unnecessary subplot of Lt. Garth and his girl) and, as far as I could read from my history books, reasonably accurate. Years later, I saw it again and taped it--as a teacher, I saw an opportunity to catch the attention of my students in history. Carefully editing out anything that had nothing to do with the historical plot, I came up with a fairly good educational video--the TV version edited out most of the strong language, though a good lip reader could fill in the blanks. Excellent discussion opportunities concerning the Battle of the Coral Sea, the amazing repair of USS Yorktown in 72 hours, the change in command of the taskforce from Halsey to Spruance, the diversionary attacks on the Aleutians, and the mistaking of the Yorktown for two different carriers. Yes, there are a lot of mistakes, but most teenagers could care less.

Back in the mid- to late-1960s, I would anxiously await each afternoon for the next episode of Thunderbirds on Channel 11 in Los Angeles. Though barely in kindergarten, I would sit through each entire 1-hour episode, even if I had seen them before. The amazing machines, the fascinating storylines, the cool explosions--everything was enjoyable and exciting for the entire family. Even my teenaged sister would drop everything to watch it. Fast foward nearly 40 years--now on DVD (so the puppet strings are very visible), my 11-year old and 4-year old sons will sit and watch each episode (now sans commercials) beginning to end. No matter that the special effects are not like Star Wars or Star Trek--the stories still capture and hold the entire family's attention. Great entertainment for the entire family! (And yes, I still watch them with the kids!)

Thanks to computer animation, the story of the Lord of the Rings can finally be told in a way that Tolkien himself envisioned. Photography and scenes were very much like what Tolkien had put down in his paintings and notes, and the music supplemented the movie without distracting from it. The story line, however, deviated from the book in serveral important aspects, such as an Amazon-like Arwen, a less-confident Aragorn, a bigoted Elrond (who forgets that he is half human himself), immature fools for Merry and Pippin, and the assumption that Saruman knew more of what was going on than Tolkien himself revealed--not to mention the complete omission of Tom Bombadil and a grave lessening of Galadriel's true importance. These changes, however, do not detract from an enjoyable movie experience; the adaptation does not require a knowledge of the book to figure out what's happening and the action never slows down. Even die-hard Tolkien fans will find this movie very enjoyable.

This movie, which acted as a pilot for the TV Series "Emergency!" is a fascinating story about the start of the paramedic program in California--specifically, through the eyes of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The plot clearly shows the supporters and opponents of the system at the time--yes, there were people that were against the program for a variety of reasons--and how the system pulled itself together and proved its worth. It is interesting to note that today, as a resident of Los Angeles County, most people take the paramedic program for granted; we need to see this movie again so that we can see just how close the program came to never happening. It is definitely a good history lesson--even though it is a dramatisation, it is very faithful to the true story, just as most of Jack Webb's productions were.

Once more, Los Angeles is the target of a large M8+ earthquake; however, scientifically, this one was much more believable than the megaquake on the San Andreas fault in "Earthquake" (1974). However, the plot on the original 4-hour TV movie was way too complicated, and in parts, irrelevant. When a three-hour version was released later, it was clear that the cut parts--centered around the visit and assassination attempt on a foreign head of state, even after the city is in ruins afterwards--had contributed nothing to the movie as a whole. Though still weak, the plot did show the problems with earthquake prediction and dealing with the real world. The attempt to hush-up the threat of an earthquake to the Los Angeles area was real after the Long Beach earthquake of 1933 and for the same reason--money. The reaction to a prediction was quite believable as well--much panic, which then adversely affects those that keep their heads. Overall, a good movie--not great, but certainly interesting.

Though, as a geophysicist, the reality of "Earthquake" was so far off base as to be laughable, this movie does occupy a special place in my heart as I personally knew one of the people at Universal Studios that worked on the crew of the movie. He explained how the special effects were done--Matte photography, flexible mirrors, etc.--and, at the time, to a junior high school kid, it was impressive. Even now, as I watch it from time to time, I am impressed by how realistic some of the damage scenes were, especially Lorne Green and Charlton Heston engineering a rescue from a heavily damaged high rise. True, with computer technology, this feat of the mid-1970s seems primitive, but it still stands, special effects-wise, as a milestone with movies such as "The War of the Worlds," "Crack in the World," and, yes, "Star Wars." As for the premise...well, a few more seismologists as writers would have increased believability--a M8.0+ on the San Andreas fault would not wipe out Los Angeles as depicted in this movie. And as for the plots and subplots, that's not why I watched this movie. Unfortunately, in many cases, movies with spectacular special effects have weak plots, hoping for the FX to keep the thing floating.

"A Thief in the Night" is a film that was generally ignored by movie fans at large due to its low-budget (which was obvious) and its subject matter--the Rapture of true Christian church and the fate of those left behind. Nevertheless, it was a gripping story that held the viewer and definitely made him or her review their relationship with Jesus Christ. It touched everyone--showing even a pastor who preached the Word, but did not believe it, knowing exactly why he was left behind. This movie, and its sequel "Distant Thunder," are must see movies. Even with the new "Left Behind" series coming out, telling the same story with a much higher budget, the impact is still the same--"A Thief in the Night" broke the ground of this genre and will always be remembered.

In 1983, the "Dungeons and Dragons" role-playing game was extremely popular at the University of California, Riverside; as a result, "Wizards and Warriors" struck a very responsive chord among the D&D faithful, including myself. The chief feature was the impression that the writers themselves had played D&D and then wrote up their game as a script for the next episode--this, by the way, is not an insult, but seemed to explain the way each episode flowed: Three-quarters serious adventure, one-quarter comedy. Why it was cancelled after so short a run is still a mystery to me--perhaps the show did not appeal to others outside of the college roll-playing crowd--but I daresay that it would be quite popular now in rerun or even on video, thanks to the good memories it would bring back to that older D&D group.

Of all the movies based on the sinking of the Titanic, both TV as well as cinema, A Night to Remember has to be the best made. It is uncluttered by any fictional characters that divert from the true circumstances of that fateful night in 1912. Granted, the special effects are not up to 1998 standards, but one must remember that we know more now about what happened than we did 40 years ago. One can see the impact of this earlier film on Cameron's Titanic. One cannot watch this film without being moved.