How do you wake up from a non-dream?

[sovay]

And last night I dreamed of a wrecked, bruised, storm-skied city, tangled in post-apocalyptic piles of rubble and scavenging reconstruction, that was also in some capacity the afterlife or the otherworld. I guess it's time to rewatch Cocteau's Orphée (1950), but jeez.

1. Courtesy of a friend who is not on Dreamwidth: Lizabeth Scott photographed by Allan Grant in 1947. That would have been the year of Desert Fury, a Technicolor noir I still need to see. It co-stars Mary Astor and is legendarily queer.

2. Courtesy of spatch: the annotated Rude Food. Not safe for work. Possibly not safe if you ever want to eat some of these foodstuffs again.

2.5. Chaser, also courtesy of Rob: that one time a columnist talked trash about Marilyn Monroe and she responded by rocking a potato sack.

3. I realize I may be falling into the same nostalgia-measuring trap described in this cogent article about Gamergate, gatekeeping, and Ernest Cline's Ready Player One (2011), but is there any reason that Cline's Armada (2015), which according to this article "takes the premise that the video game industry is actually a secret government strategy meant to train civilians to fight against an alien invasion—so when the aliens come, gamers are the human race's best hope of survival," is not considered merely a ripoff of The Last Starfighter (1984)? Without even Robert Preston?

4. I know David Niven was a real person, and I know Milt Wolff was a real person, but please understand why I say that this photo of Milt Wolff looks like a David Niven character.

5. I went back to check on that overfishing-awareness project that photographs actors and fish and found Imelda Staunton and a blonde ray and suddenly all I could hear was a line from the first production of Gypsy I ever saw:



"What will I do when big hats go out of style?"

Comments

[davidgillon]

is there any reason that Cline's Armada (2015), which according to this article "takes the premise that the video game industry is actually a secret government strategy meant to train civilians to fight against an alien invasion—so when the aliens come, gamers are the human race's best hope of survival," is not considered merely a ripoff of The Last Starfighter (1984)?

And arguably the overt strategy of Ender's Game could also apply. There's also the spy game "Spooks" in Charles Stross's Halting State (2007) which is both recruitment tool and using the candidates as sockpuppets for real missions (I got a real shiver down my spine when Ingress became big as an online spy game a couple of years ago).

understand why I say that this photo of Milt Wolff looks like a David Niven character.

Good god! He looks like he's walked straight off the set of Force 10 from Navarone.

Niven's own wartime history is so interesting, drifting back and forth between film and special forces, it's amazing no one has tried turning it into a film.

[sovay]

There's also the spy game "Spooks" in Charles Stross's Halting State (2007) which is both recruitment tool and using the candidates as sockpuppets for real missions

I don't even like Stross that much and that sounds like an infinitely more interesting mashup of Last Starfighter and Ender's Game.

Good god! He looks like he's walked straight off the set of Force 10 from Navarone.

You see what I mean!

Niven's own wartime history is so interesting, drifting back and forth between film and special forces, it's amazing no one has tried turning it into a film.

But who could play him?

[davidgillon]

But who could play him?

Very good question!

[muccamukk]

I've certainly heard Armada called an Ender's Game rip off without the prose, but I think mostly people were too busy going oh god, this again by the time it came out? He's a bit of a one trick pony, I gather (I grew up in the '80s but have 0% of that level of nostalgia for it).

[sovay]

He's a bit of a one trick pony, I gather (I grew up in the '80s but have 0% of that level of nostalgia for it).

I even like some of the movies Cline likes! I just don't believe that in and of itself makes me a superior or even interesting person.

[muccamukk]

Oh yeah, like my brother and I between us can probably line off most of Holy Grail, and Star Wars, and my wife's first fandom was Back to the Future, so I'm fond(ish) of some of that, but maybe because I didn't have the High School Experience I see in movies, I don't really attach any of that to my identity, and don't especially see the value in doing so. (Though Star Trek is a different matter, but that's largely '90s nerdery, and therefore completely different :P )

[moon_custafer]

The Last Starfighter is what I thought of when I read that plot description, And I never even watched the original (Batman Beyond did a fairly interesting variant, in which gamers are led to believe they’ve been recruited for an important mission, but the game company owner is actually sending them to rob the reclusive author whose work he plagiarized as the game’s plot.)

[sovay]

The Last Starfighter is what I thought of when I read that plot description, And I never even watched the original

I did see it as a child and I'm fond of it; the main character is unfortunately kind of a blank in my memory, but Robert Preston as an intergalactic con man is great. "Always trust Centauri!"

(Batman Beyond did a fairly interesting variant, in which gamers are led to believe they’ve been recruited for an important mission, but the game company owner is actually sending them to rob the reclusive author whose work he plagiarized as the game’s plot.)

That is clever.

[moon_custafer]

guess it's time to rewatch Cocteau's Orphée (1950)

I’ve been wondering lately if that’s where Tim Burton got the bit in Beetlejuice about how suicides all have to work as civil servants in the afterlife.

ETA: Just remembered — I found this a month or two back: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1290190

[sovay]

I’ve been wondering lately if that’s where Tim Burton got the bit in Beetlejuice about how suicides all have to work as civil servants in the afterlife.

I would believe it. Orphée is not the earliest I've seen a bureaucracy of the dead, obviously, but it's the earliest I've seen it in mainstream Western pop culture.

ETA: Just remembered — I found this a month or two back

Nice! Thank you.

[kore]

Lizbeth and Marilyn, hot damn.

[sovay]

Lizbeth and Marilyn, hot damn.

You can't not share women that awesome.

[kore]

My headcanon is Steve Rogers has a big old crush on Lizbeth Scott, altho I don't know if the timing works out. Also Norma Talmadge because how could you not?

[sovay]

My headcanon is Steve Rogers has a big old crush on Lizbeth Scott, altho I don't know if the timing works out.

I suspect not quite in his original time, since her film debut was in 1945 and her breakout was The Strange Love of Martha Ivers in 1946, but he could totally have a big old crush on her now, because again, how not?

[kore]

YES

Especially since in those great photos she looked a lot like Peggy -- at least I thought so. Hubba hubba!

Did you ever read gwyn's fic about Steve in old-time Hollywood, Celluloid Hero? I liked it a lot https://archiveofourown.org/works/9550115/chapters/21592100

[sovay]

Especially since in those great photos she looked a lot like Peggy -- at least I thought so. Hubba hubba!

I have no difficulty believing Lizabeth Scott could punch dudes in the face with staplers.

Did you ever read gwyn's fic about Steve in old-time Hollywood, Celluloid Hero?

No! I'd read a fic with a similar premise some years ago, but not this one. Thanks for the link.