I’ve never seen Ivan Tors and Herbert L. Strock‘s Gog (’54) but that title is perfect. There’s just something about that sound, that vibe….gog! The story is about fears of technology taking over everything — a sci-fi variant of The Desk Set. In this sense it’s almost a forebear of John Badham‘s WarGames.

It contains standard ’50 sci-fi characters — a handsome, thoughtful alpha male (Richard Egan) who’s new to an unusual scientific situation, an older, somewhat eccentric scientific authority figure (Herbert Marshall), an attractive, sexually seducable blonde or brunette (Constance Dowling) who either works for the scientist or is his willful daugfhter, a brilliant but posslbly malevolent lone wolf scientific figure (John Wengraf), etc.

You can’t tell from snippets, but I’d say the dialogue is reasonably intellligent sounding. It feels almost but not quite as well-written as Them! At one point a guy visiting a woman lying in a hospital bed says, “The doctor says it isn’t serious, just too much radiation. ” At a later point somebody says, “Can you hold off the robots until we get there?”

The trailer makes the story look fairly comical, of course, and the bargain-basement effects and cardboard-fortified sets seem to be almost Plane Nine From Outer Space-level, but I’m thinking of getting the DVD just so I can say I saw it.

From the Wiki page: “Gog was shot on two sets at Hal Roach Studios, with exteriors done at George AFB, a former Air Force base near Victorville, California. It took just 15 days to shoot all of the footage needed, and the film’s final cost was estimated at a quarter of a million dollars.

“Shortly after filming of Gog was completed, Constance Dowling married Ivan Tors and retired from acting.

“Although shot in 3-D, Gog was released at the tail end of the 3-D fad of 1953-54 and was therefore shown ‘flat’ in most venues, despite being available in its stereoscopic format. Gog was also filmed in flat widescreen at an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, which had become standard among US studios the year before.

“Critical response was generally positive, with many critics noting the story’s basis in science fact, rather than science fantasy. The film was previewed for the press at United Artists’ screening room in 3-D.”

“It’s tempting to blame the peculiar leadenness of Snow White and The Huntsman on its casting,” writes Slate‘s Dana Stevens. “Charlize Theron isn’t a terrible choice to play the evil queen, though the poignancy of the queen’s obsession with youth might register more deeply if she were played by an actress who showed any visible signs of aging. But Twilight‘s Kristen Stewart as Snow White — especially this particular version of Snow White, a Joan of Arc-like medieval action heroine? Not gonna happen.

“Stewart’s whole manner, her slouchy bearing and general aura of sulky passivity, make her ill-suited to play a deposed princess whose irresistible charisma enables her to lead a peasant revolt. Stewart may have a limited range, but I don’t mind her in contemporary roles — she’s just right as the moony Bella in the Twilight movies or Jesse Eisenberg‘s object of desire in Adventureland, and she even made a passable Joan Jett. Still, the image of her leading a castle siege in full battle armor is so incongruous it might come from one of those parody trailers that opened Ben Stiller‘s Tropic Thunder.”

In a 12.5.11 piece called “Stewart Needs To Dump CG Flicks,” I wrote that “I’ve admired Stewart’s work in The Runaways, Welcome to the Rileys and Adventureland. And I’m looking forward to her reportedly upfront Marylou performance in Walter Salles‘ On the Road. I used to think KStew might be evolving into Sean Penn. Now I’m not so sure.”

If LexG wasn’t banned I’m not sure he’d have a whole lot to say beyond the usual erotic fixation stuff. It’s probably just as well.

It seems obvious that Richard Shenkman‘s Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies (out now) is a cheesy Asylum attempt to cash in on the awareness levels for Timur Bekmambetov‘s Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (20th Century Fox, 6.22). But it’s not as if the Fox version, produced by Tim Burton, is a David Lean film. I’m presuming they’re both crap — the Bekmambetov is just costlier. I have an idea that the Shenkman will be funnier. I’ll be catching it this weekend.

Some IMDB Asylum crony from Denmark named Paul Haakonsen wrote on 5.28 that in the making of Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, “I can honestly say that [Asylum] went all in this time, guns blazing and digging deep into their pockets. This movie is such a major step up the ladder, production-wise, for Asylum, and just looking at the movie on the screen is a testament to them suiting up and stepping up to join the major league of movie production. The cinematography was great, the effects were great, and the people they had cast did great jobs. So it was really a refreshing touch to Asylum’s production value.” Sure thing!

I didn’t arrive in time for the Prague all-media press screening for Snow White and the Huntsman, so I guess I’ll be humping it over to the Cinestar Andel (site of yesterday’s Prometheus screening) to catch it later today or tonight. An English language-with-subtitles version is showing only once at 8:15 pm.

If big news happens, it’s safe bet that the Huffington Post will have it bannered on the front page within five minutes or less. News of the sentencing of former Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak to life imprisonment broke sometime between 10:30 and 10:40 am Prague time (1:30 to 1:40 am in LA, 4:30 to 4:40 am in New York), and there was no Post headline 10 minutes later, and none 20 minutes later. It’s now 11:25 am in Prague and the Huffsters still don’t have the story headlined. [Note time on screen capture — 2:18 am.] 50 minutes of front-page silence on the biggest story of the day? Somebody needs to get whacked.

Update: Three minutes ago (11:34 am Prague time) the Huffington Post posted an AP link: “Mubarak to be transferred to Cairo prison.”

Mubarak was sentenced to life this morning for his role in the killing of protesters during last year’s Egyptian revolution that led to his ouster.

“The harsh sentence against the 84-year-old former leader appeared aimed at defusing tensions ahead of a divisive runoff presidential race that pits Mubarak’s last prime minister against the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate,” an AP story said.

Egypt’s former interior minister Habib el-Adly was also sentenced to life in prison for the protester killings. But the acquittal of other senior interior ministry figures plus Mubarak’s sons suggests that Mubarak the Elder is being put forth as a sacrificial lamb in order to save those still living high off the corruption and repression that are still in place within the Egyptian government.

This is a day or two old, but it’s revealing, I think, when Bill Clinton tells Harvey Weinstein (who was guest-hosting for Piers Morgan) that he’s never given any thought about who might play him in a film. Not Brad Pitt (“too good looking”), he said. George Clooney “is at least more my size. He’s good-looking but, you know, you could put bulbous things on his nose and you could do makeup with him.”

The best Clinton so far has been John Travolta‘s in Primary Colors — he had that laid-back folksy charm. Dennis Quaid‘s Clinton was better than decent, I thought, in HBO’s The Special Relationship.

Clinton singled out High Noon as his all-time favorite film, having seen it “25 or 30 times.” Dwight D. Eisenhower was also a seious fan; I read somewhere that George Bush also swears by it. Clinton talks a bit more about High Noon on the two-disc special edition DVD that came out in ’08.

About five years ago I wrote that High Noon “is not about the Old West, obviously — it’s a metaphor movie about the Hollywood climate in the early ’50s — but it walks and talks like a western, and is angry, blunt, honed and unequivocal to that end. It’s about the very worst in people, and the best in a single, anxious, far-from-perfect man. I’m speaking of screenwriter-producer Carl Foreman, who was being eyeballed by the Hollywood right for alleged Communist ties when he wrote it, and receiving a very tough lesson in human nature in the process.

“Foreman wound up writing a crap-free movie that talks tough, cuts no slack and speaks with a single voice.

“You know from the get-go that High Noon is going to say something hard and fundamental about who and what we are. It’s not going to poke along some dusty trail and go yippie-ki-yay and twirl a six-gun. It’s going to look you in the eye and say what’s what, and not just about the political and moral climate in some small western town that Gary Cooper’s Willl Kane is the sheriff of.

“High Noon may seem a bit stodgy or conventional to some and perhaps not as excitingly cinematic to the elites, but it’s a far greater film than Rio Bravo.

“Both are about a lawman (Cooper in High Noon, John Wayne in Rio Bravo) facing up to bad guys who will kill him if he doesn’t arrest or kill them first. The similarities pretty much end there.

“High Noon is about facing very tough odds alone, and how you can’t finally trust anyone but yourself because most of your ‘friends’ and neighbors will equivocate or desert you when the going gets tough. Rio Bravo is about standing up to evil with your flawed but loyal pallies and nourishing their souls in the bargain — about doing what you can to help them become better men. This basically translates into everyone pitching in to help an alcoholic (Dean Martin) get straight and reclaim his self-respect. High Noon doesn’t need help. It’s about solitude, values…four o’clock in the morning courage.

“We’d all like to have loyal supportive friends by our side, but honestly, which represents the more realistic view of human nature? The more admirable?”

I consider myself a ‘populist’ movie critic/reviewer,” a critic friend wrote a couple of hours ago. “I can enjoy a smart, well-done studio comedy (21 Jump Street) as much as I can savor a superb, foreign-language movie (A Separation). My top 10 list of 2011 included a mix of big Hollywood movies (Moneyball) and imports (Melancholia) and crowd-pleasers (War Horse) and indie-style fringe pictures (Drive).

“But this year’s crop of summer movies is draining the life out of me, and seriously making me consider hanging it up and switching beats or quitting journalism and changing professions altogether. Factory-line swill such as Men in Black 3 or What to Expect When You’re Expecting or Battleship is one thing. But when filmmakers I admire and respect — Ridley Scott, Joss Whedon, Sacha Baron Cohen — crank out bottom-feeder, soul-sucking swill, I start questioning myself. Is it me? Have the movies left me behind? I’m 45. Am I too old for this game?

“I keep thinking about what Janet Maslin wrote when she hung up her movie critic hat at the New York Times, specifically when she said she had run out of ways to say something was ‘hilarious.’ I keep seeing movies I was anticipating, made by people I admire, and keep coming away disappointed and agitated. And I’m starting to doubt my judgment — starting to wonder if it isn’t the movies that are the problem. Because how else can you explain the avalanche of shit that we’ve been getting this summer?

“In other words: Is it just me, or are mainstream American movies worse than they’ve ever been?”

Wells to critic friend: I was generally pleased by SBC’s The Dictator (particularly the political speech at the end about how Americans can’t understand what it’s like to live under a dictatorship) but otherwise I hear you. Yes, the despair over dreadful summer fare has become routine and yes, it seems to be getting worse each year. It’s corporatism, the plague of the ComicCon mentality and a general refusal to respond to subtlety or depth or delicacy among the under-30s. But being 45 shouldn’t be any kind of impediment to grappling with this. One way to cope is to adopt an absurdist “merrily we go to hell” attitude. Works for me, at least.

…but I don’t know about this trailer. The opening repeats three times, which is nervy but a little…what, spazzy? And not much personality. Maybe I’m wrong. Verdict?

I truly enjoy listening to N.Y. Times sophistos A.O. Sott and David Carr kick it around for their “Sweet Spot” series, but those awful Times tech guys refuse to make embed codes available. Not on YouTube (which features Scott’s “Critics Picks” videos) and not on Hulu, which the Times recently cut an output deal with. So just click on the link and watch. It’s about Carr trying to get Scott for being snooty and cruel.

Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus (20th Century Fox, 6.8) is impressively composed and colder than a witch’s boob in Siberia. It’s visually striking, spiritually frigid, emotionally unengaging, at times intriguing but never fascinating. It’s technically impressive, of course — what else would you expect from an expensive Scott sci-fier? And the scary stuff takes hold in the final third. But it delivers an unsatisfying story that leaves you…uhm, cold.

It’s a watchable, well made, at times better-than-decent ride, but it really doesn’t hang together. I’m sorry but anyone who says “wow, this is really great!” is just full of it. But there’s no way to kick this around without dropping all kinds of spoilers so I’m going to keep things vague.

For what it’s worth Scott shoots the hell out of Prometheus, but the script isn’t integrated. It’s half-assed and lacks a clear hard line. The fault, I hear, is mainly with Damon Lindelof‘s rewrite of Jon Spaihts‘ straightforward Alien prequel script. Roughly 40% delivers some absorbing futuristic technological razmatazz and exposition on a long voyage to a distant planet, 30% to 35% is proficient scary-icky stuff (slimy alien snakes) and 20% is some kind of half-hearted spiritual quest film on the part of Noomi Rapace‘s Shaw character, a scientist who wears a crucifix.

The spiritual-religious angle is what disappoints the most because it’s only flirted with. The script starts off in a semi-solemn, semi-thoughtful vein, asking questions about the origin or spawning of humanity and the possibility of alien creators or “engineers”, but none of this develops or pays off, and things eventually devolve into standard shocks and creep-outs.

Most ticket-buyers will go looking for a standard alien flick and come away going “hmm, I dunno but this isn’t quite it.”

It was Scott, of course, who decided to push things in a less generic or predictable vein so the failure is more on his head than Lindehof’s. The ending is obviously a set-up for a sequel (I’m told there’s actually a trilogy in mind) so maybe the second and third will be the charm.

The best performance is given by Michael Fassbender as David, a somewhat distant but gentle mannered android who’s taught himself to interact with humans by studying Peter O’Toole‘s performance in Lawrence of Arabia. I wish the movie had been more about him, but I also wish his arc had ended in a way less similar to that of Ian Holm‘s Ash in Scott’s original Alien (’79) and Lance Henricksen‘s Bishop in James Cameron‘s Aliens.

Who’s the hero of this thing? Rapace’s Shaw is the most emphatic and impassioned, for sure — the feistiest survivor. But I felt little kinship with her. She wasn’t me and I’m not her. She’s no Sigourney Weaver, that’s for sure.

I didn’t identify with any of the human characters. Charlize Theron plays a tough, brittle mission master — another frosty bitch on top of her psycho-demon queen in Snow White and the Huntsman. Idris Elba acts like he’s an actor who’s been paid to act cool and and confident. I took an instant dislike to Rapace’s scientist boyfriend, played by Logan Marshall-Green, in part because of his dipshit tennis-ball haircut. Guy Pearce wears about eight pounds of old-guy makeup, and that’s all you can focus on when he’s on-screen.

I felt settled only with Fassbender-the-android, the only guy with any real empathy.

Aliens is still tops, followed closely by Alien. I think the other three are also-rans — David Fincher‘s Alien 3, Jean-Paul Jeunet‘s Alien Resurrection and now Prometheus. I don’t think Prometheus is third best, but I’m not going to fight with anyone who claims it is. Fine, whatever.

Maybe there was a problem with the projection in Prague, but the whole thing seemed awfully dark and grim to me. Shadowy, murky.

Prometheus is a 2.35 to 1 Scope film but the Prague projectionist showed it with a 1.85 aspect ratio, slightly chopping off the sides. Some of the credits (or letters in credits) were missing on either side. Amazing.

This is a cold, gray film about howling winds and chilly people. Rapace’s scientist is hoping for some kind of spiritual fulfillment or answer, but what she gets in the end is a lesson about the universe being a concealer of horrors. She’s really, really sorry she went on this voyage at the end. But that’s been guessed already.

Methinks Mr. Scott is saying something to the audience about the cold, horrid, pitiless nature of creation and survival. But why bring up notions about God and alien ancestry if you’re just going to…? I’d better not go there.

What kind of philosophical or theological dwarf would imagine that “God” or a remnant of a community of celestial “engineers” would reside on a horrid lifeless planet that has nothing on it but dust and howling sand storms and craggy rock formations and gloppy oil puddles?

And what kind of space-voyage movie has on-board officers walking around in flip-flops and sandals? All space travellers in all the space-travel movies going back to George Melies‘ A Trip to the Moon have worn boots or lace-ups or anti-gravitational grip shoes or whatever. Sandals! My heart sank when Fassbender made his entrance with his milky Irish man-toes…don’t get me started.

The story is happening before Alien and Aliens, and yet the technology is way beyond what Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerrit and John Hurt had to work with. So technology reverted? A friend says the Prometheus ship is an elite cruiser whereas the Alien ship was a primitive cargo ship. Okay, I’ll buy that for a dollar.

Much of the third act payoff is about providing a backstory/explanation for the giant dead space jockey with the elephant trunk that we first encountered in Alien. But who cares? H.R. Giger‘s production design for that 1979 film was fine unto itself itself. It doesn’t need explaining, and it never will.

Right now Prometheus has an 85% Rotten Tomatoes rating so I’m in the minority so far.

Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus screens at 10 am this morning (100 minutes from now) at the Village Cinemas Andel at Radlicka 3179/1E, which is a few blocks south and across the river. A nice 30 or 40 minute stroll. Maybe hit a cafe on my way back and write something. “Get Alien out of your head first,” says Harry Knowles. “This is something different.”