Frolix-8

Next!

I was hoping for a 'straight-to-video' fate for this but I won't have to wait long, I suppose. The film having been 'released' (or perhaps 'exhumed'), let us sharpen up the knives one more time in the company of the following reviews...

"The film is so vastly different (and inferior) to the short story I wonder a bit why they even felt the need to option the story." [ Total Dick-Head tells it like it is ]

"Next can not compete with comparable movies with Nicolas Cage like National treasure and surely not with The rock." [ I assume Geoffrey means 'the Rock' the film, not the ex-wrestler, but perhaps not ]

"I wasn't sure if everything was real...like the color of Cage's hair." [ T.J., not as keen as her husband ]

"There were just too many holes to make it really entertaining..." [ A 'christ-follower' cannot suspend his disbelief, at least where this film is concerned ]

"I gave the movie a 79.95. You can round it up to a B-, because Jessica Biel walks around in a towel, but if you’re a hard grader it’s a C+." [ Now that's a rating system ]

"Instead of the standard English villains, Next features French ones. It was kind of weird, but the movie never explains why they were French." [ Perhaps explanation of that sort of thing is unnecessary for the American market? ]

"As they exchange meaningful looks beside a towering waterfall, with cute little kids scampering amid the sunbeams, we can feel the movie begin to sag irreversibly." [ More damnation from VH1.com - but the reviewer also says Minority Report was 'very good'. Oh well... ]

However, it's not all bad -

"...the cheesiness is what makes the movie fun and let me tell you… it's a wild ride!"

The thing about cheese is that it's supposed to give you nightmares, isn't it?

Which PKD Story Are We In Today ?

The Zap Gun - "PEP fires a single pulse, whereas PASS uses a double pulse which Stellar claim is far more efficient at creating a shockwave."

The Minority Report - "...a civil rights advocate said the teacher's reaction to an essay shouldn't make it a crime."

The Man Who Japed - "I was planning on going to Cisco with the vulnerability this summer."

Mr. Spaceship - "Imposing such structures and getting the simulation to do useful work might be a much more difficult task than simply setting up the plumbing."

VALIS - "...those students who had visualised themselves voting from a third-person perspective displayed a stronger pro-voting mindset."

The Mold of Yancy - "The NHS as a whole is in balance."

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer - "What are hallucinogenic plants? How do they affect mind and body? Who uses them - and why?"

Philip K Dick Project Updated - In Milton Lumky Territory

Quotes are now up for In Milton Lumky Territory over @ palmereldritch.co.uk. sample;

"I never trust anybody in a cowboy hat. I always think they're a nut."

Which PKD Story Are We In Today ?

We Can Build You - "A Japanese professor of robotics has created an android that has real hair and even breathes like a human being." [video]

Sales Pitch - "The interactive billboards each sport a larger-than-usual flip phone, which allows curious onlookers to mash an enlarged walkie talkie button and get on the horn with a faraway stranger."

Ubik - "The decision to engage with the target will be left to the operator."

The Zap Gun - "The focus of the organization will be in engineering Ionatron’s unique laser technologies for military customers, developing new applications for these laser technologies, and in executing other defense and aerospace laser program opportunities."

The Crystal Crypt - "A mechanical problem caused a delay, and the Revolutionary Guards were starting to turn their attention to foreign passengers."

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ? - "...the scam was only spotted after a leading Japanese actress said her 'poodle' didn't bark and refused to eat dog food."

A Life of Their Own

With Henri over at the ever-excellent Philip K Dick Bookshelf putting up a page about the symbol of the chair / scanning device in films based on PKD's work at around the same time I hacked together my own, I was reminded of Dick's theory about ideas. He said that people don't 'have' ideas - that is, they don't create them - rather, ideas exist almost of their own accord, in the right place at the right time. It's an extension of the 'great minds think alike' proverb, but without the pomposity. Trouble is, it's a short hop from that to 'there's nothing new under the sun', which could be a bit of a downer - not a good idea.

Which PKD Story Are We In Today ?

The Man Who Japed - "This photograph is a gift from the Governor and is for the personal use and enjoyment of the recipient only. It may not be used for any other purpose. It may not be sold, duplicated, altered in any way, or used for any political or promotional purpose without the advance express written consent of Governor Schwarzenegger."

Counter-Clock World - "I later discovered that I, in my dark skin, am sometimes not even a person to the people who look at me. " AND "The search is on for the mystery owner of a coffin which was abandoned in a road in Norwich."

Clans of the Alphane Moon - "A 20-foot-tall fungus doesn’t make any sense. Neither does a 20-foot-tall algae make any sense, but here’s the fossil."

War Veteran - "Failure to prepare may mean mankind will have to dig in and fight with improvised weapons and hit-and-run tactics..."

The Man In The High Castle - "No wonder his grandson acts like Hitler - his Yale college fund (where Bush Jnr. joined Skull and Crossbones like daddy) was paid for by the Nazis."

The World Jones Made - "The preamble to the declaration mentions anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and anti-Romany campaigns."

Ubik - "A beta trial will get underway in May with launch expected in September for about $4 a month. Sweet!"

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - "The handbag helps managing feelings of frustration – of communication, misunderstanding or alienation. Can you give us some examples of moments when those feelings arise? How does the bag help in coping with them? What's the technology hidden inside the bag?" AND "It also alluded to the fact that he had used hallucinogenics as a "path" to understanding self and that in certain cases, he reflected, it could "be preferable to psychiatry." "

Survey Team - “It’s 20 light-years. We can go there.”

The Tyranny of Choice

As reported in the New York Post and elsewhere, we have the following to 'look forward to' with regard to PKD works feeding Hollywood;

Adjustment Team

Time Out of Joint

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

VALIS

Radio Free Albemuth

As the article says, "a wealth of material for Ben Affleck to ruin". With its 'plot pitch' summaries of the books, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Adjustment Team is The Truman Show, Time Out of Joint is The Truman Show in space and Flow My Tears... is The Net. VALIS and ...Albemuth just come across as pitches for some Hollywood-hacked manga. That said, they're probably exactly the sort of pitches used by film-makers in Hollywood, which explains a lot.

And what the hell is "fungible" ?

Which PKD Story Are We In Today ?

The Electric Ant - "If you see a small, disgruntled army of 60 or so miniature bots wandering around your corner of England in the next few months, we suggest you run."

The Zap Gun - "Laser-induced plasma channel (LIPC) weapons work like “man-made lightning” to disable people or vehicles that threaten our security."

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ? - "Robot falcons will be in their campaign's vanguard."

Deus Irae - "Overall, the students who read the bible passage that included God sanctioning violence displayed the most aggression..."

The World Jones Made - "If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship." AND "Available Emblems of Belief for Placement on Government Headstones and Markers"

The Divine Invasion - "He is, after all, God himself."

Now Wait For Last Year (with overtones of A Present For Pat) - "This is the shit JFK was getting jacked in his ass during the Cuban missile crisis. I shouldn't even be calling this shit 'shit,' because it's disrespectful."

...Timothy Archer, Read Aloud

The final part of the so-called 'VALIS trilogy', The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, read (as with the previous parts) by James DeLotel. I found myself becoming steadily annoyed whilst listening to the opening chapters of this audiobook. It gradually became apparent, however, that this wasn't due to DeLotel's reading, as I'd first thought - as with VALIS and The Divine Invasion, DeLotel turns in a flawless reading here. No mean feat, when you consider the novel's narrator is a young woman. I was expecting at least momentary lapses of tone as he moved from male to female but there were none. At least, none that I could detect. Once again, DeLotel's calm tones belie the tangle of emotional and spiritual spaghetti Dick spins out.

Rather, it is that the characters themselves, for the most part, are a tedious bunch of self-regarding tools. Dick really makes you work at sympathising with this merry band, major and minor. From lifestyle guru Edgar Barefoot and his sandwich obsession, through schizo- / hebe- phrenic Bill Lundborg and his extensive knowledge of cars, to the bishop Timothy Archer himself (who is only happy when he's quoting something, it would seem), Dick's portrayal really shows how painful truth can be and how far people are prepared to run to avoid it. He also delivers the most hilarious undercutting of Christianity outside of a pissed Richard Dawkins - one which makes me, for one, wonder about all the other religions...

My one criticism would be that DeLotel's voicing does not, in this case, draw the listener into the relationships as it does with the other novels. This may be as much Dick's fault as DeLotel's, of course - but scenes such as that between Angel and Kirsten in the hospital did not elicit sympathy from me, rather the opposite - confirming characters' innate nihilism and despair, the leech-like behaviour the truly clinically depressed can have on those close to them. As with many of PKD's novels, ...Timothy Archer is an emotional and spiritual roller-coaster, one for which the voice of DeLotel acts as a simple 'push' - calmly rumbling on, while the listener holds their hands over their eyes and silently screams.

Gibby of the Week #14 - Les Paul Classic Antique

How do you feel about Les Pauls with soapbars? I'm ambivalent, myself - the P90's home is the LP Junior, as far as I'm concerned. But I'm open to persuasion - and Gibson have come up with a very nice piece of persuasion this week. Guitar of the Week #14, the Les Paul Classic Antique. Just like week #2, only not so nasty. 'Iced tea burst' looks much less messy than it sounds and the aforementioned pickups (now titled 'H90s') seem to sit like ancient prize-fighters who can still KO when necessary. It looks like another guitar that could take pretty much whatever you might care to wring out of it, similar to week #8's Gold Top. I think the Explorer Pro benchmark has been breached - this one gets 7.5 out of 10. More please!