Supermarionation Tuesdays: Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons!

Theme: The Eve of the War - Chris Brookes

It's been a while since we checked in with Supermarionation, partly because I'm still lethargically rewatching Thunderbirds in between drawing stacked chicks fighting Chinese-Incan skeletons and treating my elderly neighbours to the Kubrick stare from my window, but time and my ƃl¢gg wait for no man, so let's skip ahead to the DARKEST and EDGIEST entry in the whole puppet cycle: Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons!!!1

Holy shit, Gerry.

The year is 2068. Earth has a single government and the first manned expedition to Mars is now underway, led by Captain Black, who is on the Spectrum. The Spectrum is Earth's comically understaffed counterintelligence agency, whose elite agents are colour-coded and go by Captain [insert colour], except for Lieutenant Green and Colonel White. They also have a jet fighter squadron crewed by supermodels known as the Angels, and they all live together on a floating cloud base.

I love their see-through helmets so you can appreciate the time they put into their hair.

While this likely isn't really any sillier than the arrangements in previous series, Captain Scarlet generally has a more srs bsns tone and the puppets are more realistically proportioned, so it seems moar silly by contrast, but none of this occurred to Colonel White, because he's on the Spectrum.

You have to be a colonel to get a chair with a back to it. Lower ranking officers sit awkwardly on little bar stools.

Anyway, on Mars, Captain Black encounters a mysteeeriously glowing city populated/haunted by the disembodied(?) Mysterons, so named because they are very mysteeerious. If they have any corporeal form, it's never seen, and their presence is indicated only by two little glowing circles, like this:

"WooOOOoooOOOooo" - the Mysterons.

In a misunderstanding worthy of Tucker and Dale Vs Evil, the Mysterons turn a camera or telescope or something toward the Earthmen, which Captain Black takes for a weapon, so he fires first, blowing up their city. The Mysterons then rebuild the entire city in like five seconds with their mysteeerious powers, and declare eternal war against Earth in retaliation for our completely ineffectual attack. It's not even really clear why the Mysterons needed to use the machine Black mistook for a weapon to view the humans anyway, because throughout the show they seem to be able to see things happening as far away as Earth just fine, but the catch-all excuse is that they're so mysteeerious that trying to make sense of any of this is a waste of time, which is definitely true, but then, I'm on the Spectrum.

The Mysterons then somehow turn Captain Black into their permanent zombie agent, and briefly do likewise to Captain Scarlet, but he gets better and in the process becomes "indestructible", allowing the writers to kill him off and bring him back constantly. What, if any, limitations this regenerative ability has are about as unexplored as the extent of the Mysterons' powers. If he were cut down the middle, would both halves regenerate, leaving two Captains Scarlet? I don't know, and nor did Gerry Anderson, and I don't care, and nor did Gerry Anderson.

The Captain puts his feet up on the boss's desk. Like what are you gonna do, kill me?

Each week the Mysterons would come up with some new terrorist scheme to wreak havoc on Earth, which involved killing or destroying a person or object, often a vehicle, and then replicating it and using the fake and gay version to carry out an even more devastating attack somewhere else. Captain Scarlet and his colleagues on the Spectrum would attempt to stop the second attack, usually succeeding, although there were a few episodes where the Mysterons just won outright, and even when they failed, they still killed or destroyed the original target, so the stakes were noticeably higher than in other shows.

I hope they're alright.

Earth had very little recourse to strike back against the Mysterons, but there were a few episodes in which our heroes would learn something that would help even the odds, like Mysteron copies of people they had killed not showing up in photographs, like vampires. It was vaguely implied that the skinwalker people they created were actually inhabited/possessed by Mysterons, which presumably died when the body was destroyed, which was entirely deserved, especially since Earth arranged peace talks in one episode only for the Martians to betray them and keep waging their deranged vendetta anyway. I feel there's an important lesson here: if someone feels entitled to unlimited revenge against your civilian population, and won't be satisfied no matter what you do to try to please them, stop trying; they're just evil.

You Earthmen, A. Mysteron, pub. 2068 (colourised).

There are some pretty striking stylistic elements in Captain Scarlet, like the signature transition that quick-cuts back and forth between one scene and the next to the beat of a musical motif, sometimes interspersed with the logo of the Spectrum:

No, not that one. This one:

You can definitely appreciate the team pushing the boundaries of the format. There's a lot less intentional humour than in Fireball XL5 or Stingray, and the opening titles seem to evoke the spy thriller and even horror genres. If Scarlet is only a partially successful variation on a theme, the scope of the ambition behind it easily absolves it of its odd bum note. Just like previous shows, Scarlet ended with a fake-out dream sequence episode in which they got to blow up all their sets and a clip show, but no real resolution to the central conflict, meaning it continues to this day, so pour one out for all our brave lads on the Spectrum.

Greatest Movie of All Time of the Week: Citizen Vigilante!

Theme: The Man in Black - Johnny Cash

I think "Citizen Vigilante" is Spanish or something for a vigilant citizen; someone who looks out for others. That's what I took away from Uwe Boll's new opus about a dude that teaches people moral lessons about road safety and the importance of paying bus fares.

Sorry interior design bros, black turtlenecks are for straight people now.

Boll is often bashed for the alleged badness of his films, none of which I had ever seen, so eye dee kay, but since Citizen Vigilante is objectively 6/10, it's easily and by far the greatest and best film of the 2020s, followed by nothing, and then nothing else. Citizen Vigilante (I'm going to assume that's his name) lives in the country of EUROPE, which is a subtle reference to the erstwhile IRL continent of the same name. EUROPE is getting ruined by criminal migrants, so Citizen does what noone else will do and the authorities actively try to prevent anyone doing: he very politely offers them multiple chances not to be scumbags, then ends up killing them when they limbo dance under the very low bar he has set for them.

James Gunn thinks it's absolutely deranged to believe this.

For whatever reason, Citizen has drawn comparisons to Dirty Harry and Death Wish, but this is misleading, because those flicks are POZZED. The villain in Dirty Harry was a raaaycist white guy and the ones in Death Wish, despite their dialogue being obviously communist in nature, spraypainted a Buddhism sign on the wall of the crime scene to remind you that ackshyoowally don't forget that moustache man bad too, goy. Pathetic! Citizen makes no such egregious concession to zioshitlibry, though its producers and/or star (self-described cannibalism fetishist Armie Hammer) likely made sure it didn't take aim at their evil ethnocartel too. Nonetheless, it's certainly the closest thing to not being 100% ghey to have been made this decade, unless you count The Will Stancil Show (which I do).

We love you Emily <3 say it back.

Last decade had The Joker, which I told you back then would get a sequel denouncing its fans, and it did, apparently, although, like everybody else, I never saw it, prompting the koan: if a filmmaker throws a bitchfit in an empty cinema, are the chuds owned?, prompting the answer: no. WILL Citizen Vigilante likewise get a struggle session sequel (struggle sequel?) throwing us under the bus for liking it wrong? The thing is, Super Girl just came out and bombed because everyone already knew what it was going to be like, so this already rather desperate stratagem seems unlikely to succeed: you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube because everyone's online now and will simply read someone on twitter dot com dot world wide web telling them all what regime simping is to be found in the sequel and avoid it, perhaps going for a walk instead. Pick up some litter. Help an old lady cross the street. Be a Citizen Vigilante (2026).

Greatest Movie of All Time of the Week: Galaxy Quest!

Theme: Phasers on Kill - Screeching Weasel

These are the trips of the space vessel Project. Its half-decade task: to look for novel fauna and uncontacted societies; to confidently venture where noone has yet essayed.

Since we can all agree Star Trek the Motion Picture was barely a Star Trek movie, the best Star Trek movie is of course 2000's Galaxy Quest, which also isn't a Star Trek movie (no, there aren't really any good Star Trek movies). Tim Allen, Alan Rickman and Sigourney Allan Weaver head up the cast of has-been actors from the fictitious TV show Galaxy Quest, which we are told aired in the 1980s but in 1999 or so remains popular enough to sustain a convention circuit just like Trek, where the most unwashed of autismos go to soyface over their devoted fandom, in the presence of the burned-out, jaded cast.

Me meeting any of my many fans (not you, though. You're my favourite).

But their world is TURNED UPSIDE DOWN when one particular group of awkward NERDS turn out to be IRL ayylmaos in real life in the movie (not in the show in the movie) and have an actual ship built after the specifications from the TV show, which they believe constitutes actual historical documents of real events. You might think little details like the credits would serve to disabuse them of this notion, but go away, it's a fun premise. It doesn't actually matter that movies make sense, only that they make enough sense for the type of movie that they are. If you get hung up on the details here, you might as well put Road Runner cartoons on blast because you can't really walk off a cliff onto thin air until you look down.

I like the one that makes SOME sense.

Anyway, once in spehss, our not-actually-heroes soon run into trouble with Stan Winston Workshop's finest creation since the Predator, stock villain Sarris:

All I want in life is to be a stock villain with an evil claw hand.

Sarris wants to kill the NERDS for some reason, who cares. WILL the TV stars bluff their way to victory? WILL Alan Rickman's ayy prosthetics last the entire runtime? WILL Sigourney Weaver's costume? FIND OUT, but it's no.

There's no blooper reel on the DVD I got from the charity shop, indicating against all odds that their deadpans held out longer than either.

The movie is FUNNY, parodies entertainment clichés out of love, not faux-superiority, and still plays more like a real movie than today's tentpole blockbusters, because the requisite emotional beats were still there and the filmmakers had the confidence not to undercut them with bathetic interruptions like Jar Jar Abrams and similar Josh Sweden imitating HACKS. Take, for instance, the scene where the captured has-beens must finally reveal to the ayys who they really are:

In honour of this forgotten level of taste and restraint, I won't even spoil the moment by pasting that fat guy that cries at trailers' face over the ayy.

I'm a little bit surprised Galaxy Quest isn't more widely known and referenced by YouTube critics, for were I, say, Disparu, I'd use this clip reliably in every other video:

Me watching anything at all.

But those are just my thoughts, what are yours? Like and subscribe to Khoomei Masterclass on YouTube Dot Com, stay hydrated, look both ways before crossing the street, put your left foot in, your left foot out, do the Bartman, never give up, never surrender, and I'll see you next time, and as always, don't eat yellow snow.

Greatest Movie of All Time of the Week: The Robe!

Theme: Black Bush - 16 Horsepower

The most entertaining film about the early Christians is Cecil B. DeMille's spectacular and batshit insane Sign of the Cross, which features an hilariously graphic battle to the death between women and dwarfs:

????

But equally fascinating in an altogether different vein is 1953's The Robe. Marcellus Gallio (Richard Burton, Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds) HAS IT ALL: political connections, devoted gf Diana (Jean Simmons, who is not that juggalo with the big tongue), and a real shot at hot twins:

In ancient Rome you could just buy hot twins.

BUT THEN he overplays his hand and finds himself shipped off to Jerusalem, courtesy of the jealous machinations of flaming pervert Caligula, whom the script preposterously expects us to believe has the hots for Diana, and not some dude in chaps with a handlebar moustache.

Bro does the same flamboyant twirl twice in the same take before sitting down fr no cap.

When in Jerusalem, however, Gallio is obligated to preside over the crucifixion of three condemned men. One is of course our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, though at the time Gallio is given only a vague overview of Who He is supposed to be. The actor playing Jesus is seen only at a distance, or from angles that obscure his face, placing the viewer in the position of a rando catching a glimpse behind a crowd. Yet Gallio's Greek slave Demetrius (Victor Mature) manages to make eye contact with the Christ, compelling his immediate allegiance.

Yeah, I know this would have been a gr8 poast for Holy Week but I drop Halloween and Christmas articles at all times of the year too so just enjoy the wild ride as the wheels come off.

Only upon that fateful Friday, when the world turned dark, does Gallio begin to realise a fraction of the awesome cosmic import of his actions. As he gambles for the Christ's possessions with the soldiers, Gallio wins the titular garment, onto which he projects all the burden of his tormented conscience. The film takes on an uniquely haunting atmosphere as Gallio is beset by fever nightmares to which we suspect we are only partly party. It's the best attempt by any film to portray the presence of God, reflecting not the undepictable Itself, but the way most of us experience It: as a haunting, maddening voice urging us against our best efforts to shut It out.

While Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ emphasised the physical brutalisation meted out to God incarnate by His unworthy creations, The Robe best captures an infinitesimally small impression of the sheer ineffable alienness of God. Despite what terminal modernity patients might assert with laughable confidence, there's actually nothing unrelatable nor baffling at all about an Alien (1979) that doesn't care about you and just wants to eat and rape you; that's just a bear, a shark, or a fast-tracked asylum seeker. The essence of alienness is that which seems to us most paradoxical: that God Himself, impossible to dream of apprehending in His supercosmic magnificence, cares about our wretched souls.

They don't call it a Mystery for nothing.

The rest of the film deals with the aftermath in which Gallio attempts to track down the Robe to destroy it, and learns of the Resurrection from the Christians, FORCING him to CHOOSE where his allegiance lies. It's all compelling enough, but it's those scenes of holy horror that remain wedged in the memory, whispering to us of the judgement that awaits us all.

Greatest Movie of All Time of the Week: The Mask!

Theme: Swing Set - Jurassic 5

The first and last time CGI had sovl.

Zoomies and alphies will know Jim Carrey (if at all) for his John Wayne Gacy tier schizo ""art"" of, like, Blumpf bumming himself in prison or whatever, but before he was a dribbling mental case, our Jim Jam had a trilogy of kinographs of surpassing quality in the 1990s: Ace Ventura Pet Detective had him fighting crime and saving animals in a succession of Hawaiian shirts, headbanging with Cannibal Corpse and making transsexuals seethe, while Liar Liar cast him as the slick attorney one day cursed with the affliction that he cannot utter falsehoods, which would also make transsexuals seethe.

IT'S...NOT...MA'AM

Yet between these pillars of dopey hilarity there was another one which I watched more recently, hence the article. The Mask has Carrey start off as a hapless everyman hopelessly orbiting a 4, before his life is TURNED UPSIDE DOWN when he finds a The Mask (1994), which, when donned, makes him The Mask (1994), a guy with a bright green face and no ears (no, IDK why). This alter ego is imbued with the power of being a Tex Avery cartoon, which makes him invincible, amoral and capable of producing physical objects from some wormhole situated just behind his back. Like a less hooker-murdering Edward Hyde, he does all the whacky, crazy things that normal!Carrey was afraid to, like rob banks and romance 7s like Amy Yasbeck and Cameron Diaz.

Every man just wants a beautiful mid to call his own.

The characterisation of The Mask is wonderfully multilayered, in that he's a wish fulfilment fantasy, but for a sensitive young naïf, who therefore wears a bright yellow suit with a pimp hat and says cool guy things like "Party: P-A-R-T-WHY? Cause I GOTTA!". It's like Jon Arbuckle's idea of cool, but because he shares the fantasy with you, the viewer, the world around him must play ball. It's one of those cinématic nowhere-cities that's not quite contemporary to the movie's release, but also has art deco imagery from the great depression and film noir times.

People don't dance like this anymore and I didn't know I want them to.

While The Mask was loosely based on some comic noone's ever read, it was originally scooped up by New Line because they wanted a new horror property to pick up where the Nightmare on Elm Street series left off, and offered it to Dream Warriors director Chuck Russell, whose input largely was to make it this love letter to old-timey cartoons instead, which is a fun trajectory for a project to take. You can't go wrong by making movies fun male wish fulfilment fantasies, because they just consist of a man getting to enjoy a bit of romance and adventure, while female ones are all oddly mean-spirited and empty. Today reviews would screech that normal!Carrey's perfectly modest complaint that "nice guys finish last" proved he was really a thoughtcriminal, and "entitled" (which in newspeak means not entitled to something, much like "privileged" means shut up and know your place). Needless to say, retvrn.

"Somebody stop me!" If only they never had.