Fantastic Planet

I am never going to say I have a rich knowledge of music, I just know what I like. When I was a kid in middle school I used to listen to whatever was popular. Back then it was like Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch and MC Hammer. It is weird to say but my life changed one day when I heard the song Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm by the Crash Test Dummies. I would always listen to the rap stations on the radio but I heard that song playing on my brothers radio and kept it on that station, which I believe was KOME 105.3, an alternative rock station. After that I always into alternative rock. Ok, so enough about the history but yes I like punk, alternative, and music like that.

I probably heard Failure on KOME back 1997, they had a somewhat hit single in Stuck On You. The band never really had another hit after that, but somehow I went out and bought that album. I have traded in tons of CD's since then but I always held onto Fantastic Planet, currently I have been listening to the album more and more and realizing that it is becoming one of my favorites. The sound is nothing revolutionary but I just dig the hell out of the album. Check out the single from the album here:



I have been looking up Failure recently, they bad disbanded in 1997, a year after Fantastic Planet was released. I remember buying an older albums of theirs a while ago, but it just didn't stick to me like Fantastic Planet did. After Faliure's break up they went on to form other bands. The man singer Ken Andrews went on to form the band's Year of the Rabbit and On. Other band members went into bands like A Perfect Circle, Vercua Salt, Lusk, and Queens of the Stone Age to name a few.

I also found out that a lot of other people enjoyed Failure's album as much as me. Fantastic Planet has a small yet loyal following. The album is being released on vinyl today. The aforementioned song Stuck on You was covered by Paramore.

The album has a perfect 5 out of 5 star review on amazon's page (out of 106 reviews). Its nice to know that other people appreciate this band and this great album. I will leave you with one more cut from the amazing album, the song is called The Nurse Who Loved Me. This song is also covered by A Perfect Circle on their album Thirteenth Step.

ZARDOZ (1974) - Sean Connery in a post-apocalyptic parable

ZARDOZ
(1974, UK)

Ye gods! I wouldn't be surprised if Will Ferrell did a shot-for-shot remake...

This might have been better if they'd tried for serious sci-fi, instead of opting for a preachy parable, free of logic or science. It's certainly entertaining, but often unintentionally amusing. The overload of pretentiousness is offset by Sean Connery trying to keep it believable. This also shows just how much he wanted give up the role of James Bond, turning down Live and Let Die with its offer of $5.5 million dollars, compared to the $200,000 he got for Zardoz.

At times, it's like watching the death of the British film industry. I would have loved to see the faces of the 20th Century Fox marketing team as they watched, (how the hell are we going to sell this?). Indeed, that would be high on my list of things to do with a time machine.
Halfway through watching Zardoz in widescreen for the first time, I thought it was about to end, a buried memory of where I'd given up watching it so many times before. I was too young to see this in the cinema, but remember many impressive publicity photos during the release, and reading the novel (based on the script). I recently heard that director John Boorman (Deliverance, Point Blank, Excalibur) considered that after filming it, Zardoz would perhaps have been better as a book. Certainly the novel didn't have the daft acting or unforgivable fashion statements.

As Zardoz crept onto late night TV in the 80s, I remember watching it with flatmates, struggling to take it all seriously and attempting to understand what the hell the director was thinking. Now, I think it's fun to unravel as a philosophical puzzle on your own, or to enjoy it as a comedy with a blitzed gang of friends. A film that could happily co-exist with the world of The Mighty Boosh.


A huge stone head floats over desolate grasslands, landing to receive sacks of grain from armed horsemen, spewing out a reward of guns and ammo from its open mouth. They savages worship Zardoz, literally a god-head. When it flies back home, one of the raiders is hiding inside. Zed (Sean Connery) is an Exterminator, the first 'Brutal' to enter 'the Vortex'.

There the inhabitants are civilised, seemingly from a higher evolutionary stage than the Brutals. While they're fascinated with him and enjoy reading his mind to see what life is like outside their city, Zed is curious to know why exactly his world is divided from theirs.


I really enjoy the vision of a post-apocalyptic world, with the Exterminators roaming the Outlands. These gritty scenes, with Earth's survivors riding around on horseback, is more realistic than the many car-driven post-nuclear movies that Mad Max sparked off. Covered in war-woad and wearing two-faced Zardoz masks, the brutals look suitably threatening, despite their bright red diapers and gunbelts. Added to this, thigh-length boots and a pigtail make Connery look less like Bond than he could ever have hoped.

The floating head has a fearsome, booming voice reminiscent of The Wiz (made four years later). The floating effect is elegantly and smoothly filmed.


But once the narrative enters the Vortex, the blunt allegories begin being hammered home. Zed is in the stronghold of the ruling class, who control the workers with violence and a fake religion, while they concentrate on preserving science, art, history and themselves. The story dissipates into a dissection of what is wrong with the ruling class. I was reminded of the 'film' that the circus master shows the townspeople in The 7 Faces of Dr Lao - not a historical story, but a reflection of their own lives.

Zardoz still serves as a warning about our modern society, rather than an attempt at predictive science-fiction, which it resembles at first glance. Many interesting sci-fi concepts are thrown out like random ideas, rather than explored and integrated into the story. It makes me wish that directors new to the genre of sci-fi (and horror) be required to take an exam first. The director even attempted to alter audience's expectations by "tacking on" (Boorman's own words) a prologue that flags Zardoz as an entertainment, an artifice, because the audiences "weren't getting it".


Having said that, the sci-fi elements, like the Immortals and their hardware, are impressively presented. The Eternals can talk to an interactive databank via a crystal ring, which can project associated images (a well-mounted and convincing stage effect), eradicating the need for TVs and computer screens in all but the largest meeting places. The Eternals can also use psychic violence to impose their will, easily outmatching Zed's pistol (though this ability is forgotten later on).


Indeed, I even saw a parallel with the Cylons of the new Battlestar Galactica, as the Eternals show Zed the 'Eternal Tabernacle', a greenhouse for regenerating Immortals who are killed, or commit suicide out of boredom. The image of Zardoz's stone head also reminded me of a Viper pilot helmet.

For all it's ideals, Zardoz looks more like Logan's Run, certainly in terms of bad fashion, which also relied on brightly coloured, uniform designs. Unflattering scraps of cotton for the women and macrame waistcoats for the men. This was also a regular style of cursed fashion in TV's Space 1999, also made shortly after Zardoz. The idea of sun-shy, gangly British actors suddenly being asked to wear tight-fitting, chest-baring outfits convinced no-one at the time, especially with futuristic silver, permed wigs for both sexes. Actually, the first season Space 1999 episode Mission of the Darians echoed many of Zardoz's plot points (like a functionally split society) with a far tighter narrative, loaded with atmosphere (and Joan Collins).

The acting ranges from intensely convincing (especially Charlotte Rampling and Sara Kestelman), down to (possibly intentional) pantomime. The embarrassing prologue cues the audience that not even the director is taking this all seriously, so why should we? Even Sean Connery is made to look silly as he tip-toes around a maze of mirrors, waiting for something to happen. John Alderton is good but miscast, unable to draw on his extensive comedic talents. Niall Buggy is not quite convincing as the trickster Arthur Frayn, though I'd like to check out his later appearance in an episode of Father Ted.

Director John Boorman (left), Charlotte Rampling and Sean Connery

I watched a good transfer on the 2003 region 2 UK DVD, my first chance to see the film in 2.35 widescreen. Besides some radio ads, narrated by Rod Serling, it also has a fairly self-effacing, recent commentary track by the director. While I'm tired by film-makers complaining 'we didn't have CGI back then', at least Boorman is pleased with what he achieved on a relatively low-budget, talking about how most of the convincing visual effects were done 'in camera'. The floating head and the crystal ring projections look very good, as does the 'touch teach' sequence, where the sum of human knowledge can be gained by osmosis, realised with multiple front projections.

Boorman wisely comments that some (but not enough) scenes look silly or too long, and appears to recognise the fairly bad reputation of the film. I'd liked to have heard more about where his more bonkers ideas came from.


The current DVD cover art is lousy though, not nearly as compelling as the original poster, missing out both the stone head and Charlotte Rampling. Even Sean Connery's face is hard to recognise.

Taking it all less seriously, the funniest review I've seen of Zardoz is here, on Movie Mistreatments...

An original trailer for Zardoz is here on YouTube - "Kill the tabernacle!"...

BARBARELLA (1968) the Ultimate Guide - Part 5: set design

One of the unique aspects of Barbarella, is that it was completely shot on soundstages, requiring either sets or miniatures to be built for every shot in the film.

This is a look at the sets, visualised for the far future, but obviously influenced by the latest fashions and materials of the late 1960s. Production Design is credited to Mario Garbuglia, though comic strip creator Jean-Claude Forest oversaw the look, adding touches from his imagined world of the Barbarella comic strips. Like the costumes, the Italian handmade props and sets are unique, imaginatively designed and beautifully made.

I'm attempting to show every set that appears in the film, in the order they appear, with a mix of publicity stills, screengrabs and lobby cards...

Alpha 7

Barbarella's spaceship is first seen as she loses her spacesuit. But initially we're seeing a section of the cockpit set which was rebuilt on its side, so that the camera could look down at Jane Fonda rolling around on a huge sheet of glass, to fake her weightlessness in space.

The 'floor' of the set behind/below her includes the ship's computer, with its flipping tiles, at right.

The walls of the cockpit are famously covered in what looks like shag pile carpet.

The statue/communicator and the plexi-domed weapons-teleporter are among the only moving props.





The Icy Wasteland of Planet 16

Barbarella crashlands in the middle of an ice sheet. A large flat set covered with dry ice and fake snow. Around the edge of the set are forced perspective, transparent mountains. Scattered across the set are crashed spaceships including Alpha 1, Durand Durand's ship.

Inside the wreck of Alpha 1 are the outcast children and their killer dolls.


Mark Hand's sailship is a full scale prop. The transparent fan at the back rises up to fill long, conical sails.

Full-size mock-up of the exterior of Barbarella's spaceship, Alpha 7

Back inside, Barbarella has to get rid of her tail, by using the walk-in wardrobe off the main cockpit.



The Labyrinth

Alpha 7 crashes (again) into the Labyrinth. A full scale section of Alpha 7 is again seen as she falls down a rockslide at Pygar's feet.

The Labyrinth set is a maze of rock corridors, many with actors built into the walls. The set leads up to a model of the city of Sogo, linked by gradually forced-perspective. Sogo appears to be a multi-levelled city on stilts, with transparent walls. Not quite sure where the Mathmos is supposed to live!




Pygar's Nest

The nest is a huge bowl of sticks (big enough for two) sat on top of one of the Labyrinth walls, filled with feathers and dried grass.




Sogo - City of Night

Pygar sets down in Sogo in this asymmetrical glass corridor.

The corridor leads onto this multi-level street, with various living quarters (or are they shops?) off to one side.

The streets of Sogo are fairly dangerous for the blind, considering the total lack of railings. Note also the dead body bottom left.

Two randy ruffians emerge through a tilting window and drag Barbarella into a basement filled with large transparent pillows, where she meets the One-Eyed Wench.


We've already seen blue rabbits inside Alpha 1, but this detail from the Sogo street offers us purple goats and a huge anteater, which I haven't yet spotted in the finished film.


This platform at the end of the street is where the mob corners Pygar. Note the transparent travel tube at right.

The back wall of this set appears in many publicity photos.




Chamber of Ultimate Solution

Pygar and Barbarella escape into a room which offers them only three exits (the entrance seals behind them with a sliding door). The floor is also transparent, with the bubbling Mathmos underneath. At top left is the raised writing which Pygar reads like braille - like the local language, the writing isn't familiar to someone from Earth.

The Concierge then escorts Barbarella to a travel tube (below) - note his black segmented cummerbund and the leather guards' 'whip hands'.

Throne Room of the Black Queen

Down a travel tube, Barbarella meets the evil twins again, in a casino.

The segmented backdrop to this set is re-used in several scenes around the palace. It first appears here, as the Queen appears from within a gigantic bursting balloon.


It's here that Pygar has been crucified, hung from the ceiling on an abstract cross, back in the casino room. The brown segments, in the central cluster on the wall, look similar to the bedding in Dildano's couch, and the styling of Durand-Durand's positronic chair.

"Take her to the birds"

Barbarella is taken to a huge bird-headed birdcage, to be fed to the carniverous occupants.

Dildano's Secret Headquarters

This set looks very different in the two versions that were filmed - compare the light-up maps of Sogo at the back. This indicates that the set was rethought and rebuilt for the David Hemmings' reshoot.


Dildano's hideout is a mess of travel tubes and malfunctioning equipment. Under the segments of his bed/couch is a secret transmitter.




The Nightclub

Barbarella hits a nightclub. Note the rooms at the back are full of inflatable pillows and half-naked women. Also, the woman hanging from the ceiling at left, with a group on the floor lighting a fire under her!


These backrooms provided many opportunities for publicity photos of nudity, which barely appears in the film.


Barbarella tries 'essence of man', through a pipe hooked up to a large glass hookah with a man swimming in it (below right).




The Excess Machine

The Concierge tortures Barbarella in his Excess Machine. Note the throne room background again and the discarded bodies lying around.





The Chamber of Dreams

The approach to the Queen's Chamber of Dreams is a largely black set with shiny polished floors, weird spiky sculptures and huge swinging lenses hung from the ceiling.

Inside, huge psychedelic patterns on the walls either help the Queen sleep, or represent her dreams. The back wall is a front-projection screen.

The Queen's bed is a sculpture of a giant open-armed female figure, the pillow is inside its hollow head.

The control levers to the Mathmos are near the bed.




The Positronic Ray

The positronic ray is controlled from this cool chair!

On The Rocks

The final set is this rock ledge - the black backing is the front-projection screen.

Some recurring elements in the design include the extensive use of transparent plastics (also used in costumes), segmented assembly (the Guards' costumes, the Concierge's 'Sydney Opera House' cummerbund and the throne room set), objects (lights, lenses) and people swinging slowly from the ceiling, horns (the Queen's hairstyle, the sailboat sails) and tubing. Almost all the designs use non-symmetrical patterns and structure.

Some incidental pieces of furniture are copies of body parts, particularly the Queen's bed. Phallic and breast-like motifs are of course abundant, extending even to the vehicles - like the three pulsing knobs of Alpha 7's engines. The breastlike double-cockpits of the guards' airships echo the see-through breast windows in several costumes.

Lastly, there are a few animals around - like goats and rabbits dyed bright colours. I think there's also an owl and an anteater in there somewhere!

Don't miss out on the previous chapters of The Ultimate Guide to Barbarella:

Part 1: Review and overview

Part 2: The movie's Cast and Characters

Part 3: Barbarella's many costumes

Part 4: Missing scenes from the movie