Great Scenes and Sequences in Cinema - Twilight Zone: The Movie (Dante, Landis, Miller, and Spielberg 1983)

Hello everyone, and welcome to a new segment here at The Experience Cinematic, Great Scenes and Sequences in Cinema. Here, I will take selected scenes from overall films that I find are worthy of discussion and do just that. And to kick things off, the scene being discussed today is the opening of Twilight Zone: The Movie.

When I was a kid, about the age of five, one of the things I tended to do when I couldn’t sleep was to get up and try and convince my parents to let me watch what they were watching. Usually, I failed. However, one Saturday (I think it was a Saturday), I pushed my luck and won; I was going to be allowed to stay up and watch what my parents were going to watch. In this case, it was to be a late night airing of a film, one which was preceded by an interesting, if slightly creepy, advertisement. I wasn’t going to leave though, as I was curled up beside my mother and ready for anything this film called Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) could toss at me.

Four minutes later Dan Aykroyd turned into a monster, killed Albert Brooks, and I tore down the hallway to my bed as fast as possible. If it needs to be said, I didn’t sleep well that night.

However, that opening scene always stuck with me, and when the opportunity to tape the film off of “Space: The Imagination Station” came in the late 1990s, I took it and watched the film with glee several times. The film was one I eagerly anticipated on disc, and when it finally hit DVD, it was a day of release purchase, no questions asked. Sure, the film is flawed, and the production of the film is one of the most notorious in cinema history due to the horrific deaths of Vic Morrow and two children in a helicopter stunt gone wrong, but I love the film just the same.

The best element of the film though is that opening scene with Aykroyd and Brooks, a scene so strong that it almost sabotages the rest of the film. The scene is a perfectly executed jump scare, one of best ever put to film, but the scene has a much greater function than merely scaring the hell out of the audience. While Twilight Zone: The Movie is update or remake of the original show, the film is also a love letter to what Rod Serling created, examining the show’s place in American popular culture. It is a reminder about how the series examined the society it was part of, highlighting said society’s best and most negative attributes through Serling and crew’s imaginations. The opening scene of the film is a tightly constructed piece of meta fiction that directly comments on the series intent and power, while acting out itself a moral/political drama that would not have been out of place in the original series.

The scene (and the film overall) begins with the folk song “Midnight Special” performed here by Creedence Clearwater Revival, playing over shots of a highway at night in the middle of nowhere. Already the themes of the film are being set, with the song recalling America’s cultural past while the images remind us of the increasingly interconnected nature of America in the late 1970s/1980s. Said images finally give way to the image of a car wheel barrelling down the road to…somewhere, and finally to the two nameless occupants, singing along to CCR, engaged in their culture. Presumably, from the images we see, these two are friends. After all, why else would two men be driving in the middle of nowhere together, just singing along?

Soon, an all too familiar event for those who had cassette players happens: the tape is eaten, and the duo are left to talk to one another. Or not, as the case turns out to be, as the driver (Brooks) states that they already have talked to one another. The writing at this point is clever and subtle, as the nature of the relationship of the two is complicated when the passenger (Aykroyd) notes that he knows where the driver is from, but not the other way around, a point ignored by the driver. The driver instead begins to joke about by turning the lights on his vehicle off as he races down the road, much to the discomfort of the passenger who calls the practice unsafe, another point ignored by the driver as he kids about running over pedestrians.

As simple as the scene thus far is, some rather complex material is happening just below the surface. What we have is a tale of two men of seemingly similar backgrounds (a point only to be enhanced in the events to follow) but with two vastly different world views. The nameless driver is seemingly empowered in all ways - it is his car, he is driving, he decides how the conversation is going to go - and he treats this power as a joke. He could very well kill someone, but his self confidence is unshakeable as he heads into the darkness without direction. The passenger, quite possibly a hitchhiker, lives up to his position as being passive, out of control of what is going on. He is also more thoughtful and concerned about the driver’s behaviour.

The moment of dangerous driving gives way to the pair bantering back and forth about TV theme music, a topic suggested by the driver, until the conversation reaches its ultimate point, The Twilight Zone. The conversation from this point on turns into a complete geek fest, with the driver mixing up a Zone episode for an Outer Limits episode and claiming that he bought an additional pair of glasses after viewing the classic episode “Time Enough at Last.” While a seemingly innocent conversation, the driver’s unfounded conviction about which series a specific episode belongs to and the misunderstanding of “Time Enough At Last” points to a superficiality of the character, his own self-absorption. He “knows” the culture, but he does not understand it beyond how it may or may not apply directly to him. Just as his driving is solely for his own benefit. Just as he controls the conversation and games to his own benefit, not caring about the man in the seat beside him.

At this point, the passenger asks the same question of the driver that the driver asked him earlier: do you want to see something scary? The driver does, and the passenger illustrates the difference between himself and the driver by asking him to pull over before he will show him, an act of social responsibility and awareness. Once the car has stopped, the passenger indeed show the driver, and the audience, something scary, as he punishes the driver for his self absorption and lack of social consciousness, out in the middle of America.

Cue the iconic music; kick in Burgess Meredith’s narration.

As noted earlier, the scene serves a dual function. First, it is a reminder and commentary about the intent and importance of the original Twilight Zone series, with regards to its political, cultural and moral concerns, as brought to the show by creator Rod Serling. Second, while explicitly explaining the series, the scene itself plays out a type of morality play that would not have been out of place in the original series, were it to be expanded to fill a proper television spot. It is a complex scene, written and directed by John Landis, a scene which makes one wish that Landis had managed to come up with something half as clever in his full segment, which becomes lost in its grandiose attempts at political relevance.

The casting is also a vital reason that the scene works as well as it does. It is not merely that the casting of two stars primarily known at the time as comedians that adds to the creepy and unsettling tone of the scene, but just how average the pair are. Aykroyd and Brooks may have been major stars at the time, but at no point do they come across as such: they are just a couple of geeks cruising about and having the same nerdy conversations as anyone else. It is a tough quality to find in modern cinema, and one that makes me miss the style of American studio cinema of the 1980s all the more.

To be perfectly honest, I am willing to admit a nostalgic bias when it comes to Twilight Zone: The Movie, but that doesn’t change the brilliance of the film’s opening. If nothing else, I highly recommend the film for that sequence alone. And who knows? Maybe you’ll stick around for the return trip into the Twilight Zone…

Heavy Metal (Potterton 1981)

Let me be clear: I love a good, trashy adolescent film every so often. I make no secret my love of Crank and Crank 2: High Voltage, or of any other number of B schlock films. Even the just released trailer for Hobo With a Shotgun looks entertaining as all hell. While often regressive, politically incorrect and idiotic, these films still have a certain appeal and a sense of fun about them. Moreover, in their own odd way, they are able to tap into the undercurrents of society, even if it is doing so for purely exploitative reasons.

Then, there is Heavy Metal (Potterton 1981)

It is hard to describe just how much I hate Heavy Metal, the Canadian made science-fiction/fantasy animated anthology film. It is a film that sets the bar low, and then proceeds to fail to reach even that modest height. Worse, as it fails, it takes things I love, including science fiction, pulp fiction, animation and great Canadian talent down into the gutter with it. It is as if the filmmakers were going out of their way to try and insult the viewer of the film on every conceivable level.

Heavy Metal is based on an American magazine of the same name, which itself was based upon a French magazine, from which the American version of the magazine apparently reprinted translated material. While I have never read an issue of the magazine, its reputation among genre fans is well known, both for featuring the works of noted comic artists and writers as well as for is hyper-sexual and hyper-violent storylines and images. While I cannot say the degree to which the film reflects its source material, there is no question that the filmmakers were certainly in love with the concepts of sex and violence, as these two elements are what the film solely consists of.

So, just what is the story, or stories as it is, of this anthology film? This is the first major problem with Heavy Metal, in that there is nothing in the film that can be called a story, let alone multiple stories. Yes, stuff happens on screen, but none of it is actually contained in anything resembling a narrative. I could use a famous quote from Macbeth to describe the material and the way in which it is presented, but I don’t feel like insulting Shakespeare by sheer association at this point. Technically, the so-called stories are tied together by a device called the Loc-Nar, an orb of great power which terrorises a little girl with its grizzly tales of death and destruction, which include zombies, taxi cab drivers, stoner spaceship pilots and other things that might have been interesting if anyone had actually bothered to write a script.

At this point, allow me to quote a selection from the 2004 edition of the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms, written by Chris Baldick, about “plot“: “the pattern of events and situations in a narrative or dramatic work, as selected and arranged both to emphasis relationships - usually cause and effect- between incidents and to elicit a particular kind of interest in the reader or audience…” (195).

Now, lets breakdown one of the segments in the film. We have a set up that various random mutations are happening among the population of Earth, with a respected scientist showing up at the Pentagon to give his opinion on the matter. So far, so “ok.” In the process of doing so, however, he freaks out and begins to sexually assault a stenographer. Apparently, this has something to do with the Loc-Nar, though the how and why are unclear. Oh, and this assault is played for laughs, so, now we drift into the offensive. Then a tube breaks through the roof and sucks up the scientist and the stenographer into a spaceship, where we find out the scientist is a malfunctioning android created by another robot. Why the android was placed on Earth is never explained. Then they take off, with the stenographer still with them. Then the stenographer goes off an sleeps with a robot, while two space pilots get stoned, fly their ship, and ultimately crash land. Then the stenographer agrees to marry the robot, as long as it is a Jewish ceremony.

Now, you might believe that I have just described the basic, raw story with no finesse or actual attempt at describing the plotting that the actual filmmakers provide. You would be wrong, as the film provides no actual sense of relationship between the different parts of the “story” at any time. Even the basic idea of cause an effect isn’t present, let alone more complex forms of relationships between different elements of a given tale. And I would have been satisfied with basic cause and effect; it is not as if I went into this film expecting anything more than a collection of pulp tales. And this form of “storytelling” happens throughout the entire film, including the framing narrative, as the film follows the same pattern over and over again: sex, death, sex, gore, sex, murder, more sex followed by sex, a woman riding a dragon (surprisingly, that isn’t a sex scene), followed by more death. Oh, and the Loc-Nar exploding for some reason.

Part of the film’s narrative problems likely stem from the background of the screenwriters. The duo behind this film is Len Blum and Daniel Goldberg, of Stripes and Meatballs fame. Now, I dig Stripes and think the original Meatballs was fun though flawed, but how on Earth did anyone think that these two were the duo to write a sci-fi anthology film? Both Stripes and Meatballs were far from being tightly plotted films, with the scripts just setting up scenarios for Bill Murray and crew to be funny as possible in. While Heavy Metal does make attempts at comedy, most of the stories are played straight. Due to this, the limits of Blum and Goldberg’s skills as writers are revealed, as each segment comes off as little more than half baked sketches, waiting for an improve team to come in an fix them up.

The main blame doesn’t rest with the writers however: they didn’t hire themselves, and it wasn’t their decision to move forward with the script as it was. No, those responsibilities rest with producer Ivan Reitman as well as director Gerald Potterton. Why didn’t one of these two take a moment to read the script an realize what a piece of garbage it was? I don’t mean to insult the writers, but I have a hard time imagining that anyone would have thought producing the film was a good idea if the script is close to what ended up on screen. Potterton doesn’t really direct so much as he allows the film to spiral out of control, and Lord knows just what on Earth Reitman was up to during the making of the film.

Worse, these filmmakers took plenty of talented people down with them; Elmer Bernstein of Ghostbusters fame; comic greats Neal Adams, Howard Chaykin, and Bernie Wrightson, who worked on the film’s design; and the cast, which includes John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Harold Ramis, Eugene Levy and John Vernon. Everyone here deserved better material to work with than they received, and it is a great pity to see such talents wasted on this project. With any luck, I at would hope that they were at least able to make car payments with the cheques from this film.

While the film has little in the way of saving graces, it would be wrong not to give credit where credit is due when it comes to the design of the film. While the finished film is poorly animated, the design work is fascinating and beautiful in its ugliness. Most notable however is the soundtrack, which is perhaps the best remember aspect of the film, as it features music from Journey, Sammy Hagar, and Devo amongst others. The music is a nice distraction from the rest of the film, and thankfully the soundtrack is available to be listened to apart from the film itself. The same however does not seem to be the case for Bernstein’s score, which only sparingly appears but is still quite wonderful when it is allowed to shine through.

I could end this review by calling the film adolescent trash designed for 13 year old boys, but I would like to give 13 year olds a little bit more credit than the filmmakers of Heavy Metal give them. Animation fans may want to check it out for curiosity’s sake, but everyone else would be better off with a Ralph Bashki film. And I not particularly a big Bashki fan.

Ponyo (Ponyo On the Cliff) (Miyazaki 2008)

It is easy to get caught up in the surface beauty of Hayao Miyazaki’s 2008 animated film Ponyo, with its beautiful design and fluid animation. Furthermore, with its child protagonists, light hearted fantasy narrative and somewhat cutesy humour, it would be easy to dismiss the film as little more than a colourful distraction, without any weight or substance to it. Such an interpretation would miss the brilliant subversion of the film, turning children’s fantasy films on their heads, with the end resulting being a film that isn’t so much an adventure story as it is a study in human behaviour.

The story of Ponyo, inspired by Hans Christian Anderson’s classic fairytale The Little Mermaid, is that of Ponyo, a young fish whose father Fujimoto, a wizard of the sea. Ponyo wishes to become human after meeting a five year old boy named Sosuke, a young boy living with his mother on a cliff. When Ponyo’s father discovers that she is starting to become human after accidentally tasting human blood, he does his best to prevent her from changing. However, Ponyo escapes and absorbs much of her father’s magic potions, allowing her to become human, but unknowingly start altering reality in dangerous ways at the same time. Can everything be put right with the world, and if so, by whom?

Magic, a world in danger, conflict between parents and children, and someone who desires to be human: sounds like a typical children’s film, right? While the basic elements that make up the story of the film may be standard, Miyazaki utilizes the surface familiarity of the narrative to play with the expectations of the audience. Unlike similar narratives, this is not a children’s coming of age story, with our protagonists learning about the adult world and finding their place in the world: the child characters already know and understand world and their place in it. Rather, Ponyo is a film which invites the viewer to adopt the point of view of a child, and watch as the adults in the story play catch up with the children. The parents of this story spend the film being both amazed and panicked at what their children know and desire, and must confront these feelings for both their own benefit and that of their children.

The end of the world storyline isn’t the dramatic thrust of the film, but rather a metaphor for the feelings of Fujimoto. Fujimoto spends nearly the entire film in a panic, regardless of how small an issue may be, so when it comes time for the dramatic reveal of the world supposedly descending into chaos, it comes off as comical rather than serious: everything when it concerns his daughter feels like the end of the world. This panicked behaviour on the part of Fujimoto is contrasted to the behavior of the other adults in the film, who almost entirely react to events in a positive light, no matter how serious or bizarre they may be: fish becoming girls? Random tsunamis? All of these things are part of life, and it is simply best to just get on with living and not worry about them, particularly if it comes to one’s kids.

The film however is not structured around Fujimoto, but around his daughter Ponyo. The expectation would be that the film would follow her attempts to become human and learning from Sosuke. Once again however, Miyazaki avoids the obvious by not making this the focus of the narrative either. Ponyo does not need to learn to be human: she already is human, in spirit, mind and behaviour. While her reactions to even the smallest of everyday activities and items may seem odd, they are no different than the way most five year olds react to the world, with energy and excitement at the discovery of new things. She doesn’t need to learn anything, nor does Sosuke need to learn to accept her for what she is: he does so from the moment he meets her. What they lack is not moral or spiritual knowledge, but merely technical knowledge of the world, none of which fazes them as they acquire it. The film thus becomes about perception and knowledge, and the bridging of the gaps between different groups when it comes to these issues.

The end result of Miyzaki’s approach to the subject matter is a surprising mature film which avoids the simplistic good vs. evil narratives of most family films, substituted instead with careful observations about human behaviour and relationships. It is touching, sweet, and memorable film, something most often lacking in modern family films made in the west.

Ponyo as a film is virtually flawless, technically impressive and well written. However, if there is one complaint to be found, it is not with the Japanese language version of the film, but with the Disney lead dubbing of the film. Now, putting aside my own hatred for dubbing for a moment, I can accept that the target audience of the film likely cannot read yet, making subtitles a problem. However, celebrity voice casting for the hell of it is/was/always shall be a bad idea, and the English dub of Ponyo is a prime example as to why. Most of the time, celebrity voice casting is a distracting practice, taking the viewer out of the film as they try and guess who is voicing each character. Worse, a number of the adult actors are bad or simply miscast. Liam Neeson, a brilliant actor, is completely wrong for the role of Fujimoto, being too controlled and too regal for a character that was better suited to a more energetic actor, such as David Tennant. Then there is Tina Fey, who spends the entire film sounding as if she is reading off of the script. I know she literally was, but her performance here is static and sounds like a narrated story book recording. Fey is a great actress, but honestly, a selection of professional voice actors would have served the film better.

Still, such a complaint is a small one when it comes to an otherwise masterful film. Ponyo is simply a joyous film, one which is hard to come away from without feeling like taking a fresh look at the world around you, being cute and sentimental without sacrificing intelligence.

Alice in Wonderland (Burton 2010)

Let’s go back to 1992, and examine a little film known as Batman Returns from director Tim Burton. A sequel to 1989’s Batman, also by Burton, Batman Returns is a bit of a departure for fans of the first film, as it transforms Batman’s world into more of a fairytale as opposed to the fantastic noir hell of the first film: characters are resurrected by cats without any explanation; the settings or more fantastical and elaborate; the character’s more symbolic and stylized than before; etc. However, the film never goes far enough with this fairytale concept, as the film is still partly rooted in realism, with story lines involving backdoor politics and corporate maneuvering, which calls for more cohesive logic than a fairytale does. Hence, elements such as rocket launching penguins, which would work in fairytale logic, seem out of place and illogical as the two sides of the film battle it out.

Why do I bring up Batman Returns in a review for Alice in Wonderland, Burton’s newest film? In an odd way, the problem that Batman Returns suffers from also plagues Alice in Wonderland, only in reverse. Despite the source material offering Burton a chance to truly follow his imagination to its full, unfettered heart’s content, he has instead crafted a narrative that is oddly conservative, brining a level of logic and coherence to a universe that itself was designed to counter, or at least question, the logic of everyday reality.

The story of Alice in Wonderland is not that of the classic tales, but is rather something of a sequel. Alice (Mia Wasikowska), now nineteen, discovers that the party she has been dragged to by her mother is an engagement party, with Alice herself being asked to marry the son of a wealthy lord. At the moment of decision, Alice flees, following the infamous White Rabbit down a rabbit hole, leading her to Wonderland, a place she has forgotten. However, Wonderland itself is now ruled by the Red Queen (Helen Bonham Carter), having used the Jabberwocky as a means of taking control from her sister, the White Queen (Anne Hathaway). Alice is prophesized to slay the Jabberwocky, an idea which she resists, but when many of her friends, including the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) are captured, Alice begins a mission to rescue them, one which will force her to face the prophecy head on.

It’s no secret that Burton’s best characters, and the ones he always seems most interested in, are those that are outsiders to everyday society, each of these characters being visual and ideological contrasts to accepted societal norms. It is no mistake that Burton’s worst film, Planet of the Apes, forced him to work with an average, archetypal leading man and focus on the human characters: Burton is clearly far more interested in the apes and their world.

Thankfully since Planet of the Apes, Burton has avoided this issue and stuck with his outsider characters, including this version of Alice in Wonderland. Alice here is a woman conflicted by the path before her, with either the option of following tradition and society’s expectations by giving into the idea of marriage, or carving out her own path. Given to flights of fancy and distraction, Alice is a true Burton heroine, shy and awkward, but with big dreams which put her in conflict with the world around her. Alice thus becomes the film's main strength.

The problem with the film lies with Wonderland itself and the conflict Alice becomes wrapped up in upon returning to the fantastic world. By making the battle in Wonderland one over the rightful ruler of the land and having its citizens choose sides, Wonderland is politicized, thus reducing the contrast between the fantastical world that works against logic, and the world of rules from which Alice comes. It brings a level of organization to Wonderland which ultimately absorbs the supposed fringe characters into the mainstream: they are given official sanction to be crazed and peculiar by the White Queen, thus diluting their subversive edge.

This is made all the worse by the biggest casting mistaking in a Burton film since Mark Wahlberg in Planet of the Apes: Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. Try as Burton might, he is unable to make Hathaway into a Burton character. Hathaway is too much of a mainstream Disney Princess to be an outsider. The battle for her to be restored to rightful leadership hence comes off as a battle for restoring the safe Disney brand more than anything else, and her performance only adds to this concept, appearing to put up with her subjects rather than actually like them. She is open to accepting certain levels of eccentricity, but no more than that. The White Queen, to work in this narrative at all, needed to be someone more subversive and not already beloved little children. Someone a little edgier like Winona Ryder would have worked better in the role.

However, to really understand how tame Alice in Wonderland has become, one needs look no further than Depp’s Mad Hatter. Now, Depp is in fine form as usual, and his visual look is amazing. However, the Hatter here isn’t really all that mad. He is far too aware of what is going on around him, too dedicated to a cause to be mad. He is transformed into a sympathetic clown, rather than a dangerous threat to law and order, bouncing between great anger and great sorrow. The Hatter should be more along the lines of Hunter S. Thompson, but instead we are given a sanitized figure that parents can feel comfortable with.

Flaws aside, Alice in Wonderland truly shines in its visual design. This is a Tim Burton world through and through, exaggerated and bordering on creepy in at least a few areas. It is a richly layered world, filled to the brim with little details and working well outside the special effects limits of previous live action adaptations. While it is still early in the year, I would honestly be surprised if the film is passed over for production design awards at next year’s Academy Awards. Only the Jabberwocky disappoints, coming off as a rejected Godzilla monster design, but that is but a small issue in an otherwise gorgeous film.

Still, I would be lying if I didn’t say I was slightly disappointed in the Alice in Wonderland. It isn’t terrible at any rate, but after the greatness of Burton’s last few efforts, it comes off as a lesser work. With any luck, the more dangerous Burton will come out to play next time, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Film Geek Flashback: Space – The Imagination Station

The kind of film geek one is can largely be understood by the situation in which one grows up. I myself have been one of those to benefit from the era of home video, particularly VHS growing up. It was a short walk from home down to the local video rental shop, and it was a pretty good one before it was completely altered by new management early in the last decade. Packed with a large selection of titles, and before the era in which video stores had to check your age, I was able to usually rent a good number of titles to watch over the course of my youth, from classics such as Gone with the Wind, Blade Runner, Alien, and the Vincent Price version of The Fly, to selections of the James Bond series and absolute crap like the straight to video Captain America film. There was just one little problem with the place, and that was that it cost money to rent from them. Truly shocking, I know.

There were other options for watching films though. For starters, there was TVO and "Saturday Night at the Movies", back when it was hosted by Elwy Yost, which exposed me to many of the greats, such as Citizen Kane and The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. However, as great as the Yost program was, it was always seemingly in the era of Classic Hollywood, leaving me without any real access to many of the films that followed. Furthermore, it seemed to avoid airing genre films of old most of the time. How on Earth was I ever going to get to see The Day the Earth Stood Still or Invasion of the Body Snatchers? To top it off, our family didn’t have cable, so that wasn’t an option either.

Cut to 1996. My grandparents took advantage of a special deal that gave them access to some upcoming, newer channels that were about to launch on the Canadian cable system. Not having cable ourselves, these channels held no interest to me, until I noticed a little name on the list of new channels they were to receive:

Space – The Imagination Station.

For any viewers outside of Canada, you probably have no idea what the hell this channel is. Well, in an attempt to prevent American broadcasters from entering Canadian markets, many Canadian channels were launched to offer similar choices to that of American cable but keep the control in Canadian hands. Space was launched as a counter to the American Sci—Fi channel, with the intention of broadcasting science fiction, fantasy and horror programming from all over the world.

And it was glorious.

Now, like I said, we didn’t have cable at our house, but you can bet that I took full advantage of asking my grandparents to tape programming off of Space. While some might have complained about the lack of original programming at the time, I wasn’t one of them. The bizarre mish mash of quickly cancelled sci-fi series, serials, and anime imports gave Space its own quirky identity, furthered by the intermixing of brief snippets of science facts, interviews and quotes from historical and literary sources in between shows. It was truly a geek paradise.

Then, there were the films. Oh lord, were there the films.

Every night at midnight, as well as on weekends, Space would air, uncut (though not commercial free) science fiction, fantasy and horror films from every decade under the sun. Not only that though, they were almost always aired as part of theme weeks, mixing and matching the best, the worst, the middle ground and the just plain interesting together. One week, it was Martian invasion films; the next was a week dedicated to all five Fly films, allowing viewers to see the evolution from Vincent Price to Cronenberg’s tragic exploration of sex in the modern world, followed by the underrated B-movie joy that was The Fly 2.

How about outright classics of the genre? Not only could you find relatively recent genre classics such as Alien, but the original 1950s golden age of Sci-fi cinema was always well represented, with classics such as The Day the Earth Stood Still and Forbidden Planet. When you needed a break from the good stuff, there was always an airing of Santa Clause Vs. the Martians around the corner along with other great B-move oddities. This was the channel that first introduced me to these greats that even Yost was ignoring, and for that, I will always be thankful.

Every week, when the TV Guide arrived, the first thing I would turn to would be the midnight listings on Space. I didn’t think every film was worth taping, and some of what was taped was outright painful to sit through (I’m looking at you Scanners 2), but it was always worth giving it a shot, particularly when it was films and filmmakers I had no clue about at the time. A great example was the work of Ralph Bashki, which I was introduced to through the film Wizards when it aired on Space. While I am no Bashki fan on a whole, there is no arguing his work is unique and worthy of study, and I am happy to look back and know that it was Space that introduced me to the filmmaker among others.

While I love film as a whole, there is no question that I have a deep rooted love of sci-fi, fantasy and horror cinema that dominates all others, and Space was a large part of developing this love. Heck, if it weren’t for Space and their catchy style of advertising these films, there are a many films I more than likely have ignored rather than give a chance. This developed my willingness to give pretty much anything a try and the knowledge that all films have some place in film history, hence, being worthy of study.

Even into my early days of university, Space was a great place to catch films that might have slipped my attention or were worth seeing again. One night I remember distinctly was finishing a fall term with the handing in of my final paper, and being unable to sleep due to the bucket loads of caffeine in my system from the combo of Jolt Cola and coffee. Playing on Space was David Cronenberg’s Rabid, and it turned out to be the perfect way to unwind from the previous few days of steady work.

Sadly, as with all good things, it had to come to an end. Well, the Space I knew and loved had to come to an end. About two years after that viewing of Rabid, I tuned into Space on a Saturday night to unwind once again. However, I was surprised by what I found: they were airing Backdraft. Now, I’ve got nothing against the film (well, actually I do, but that is for another rant), but it certainly wasn’t a science fiction, fantasy or horror film. I was convinced it was an error, but sure enough, it was correct: Space was airing Backdraft, followed by Daylight.

Just what the hell was going on? While I am sure that there are a series of ownership changes, policy shifts and other real life answers to that question, the simple fact was that Space was going mainstream rather than playing to the fringe anymore. In early 2009, while working on assignments for my professional program, I occasionally switched to Space during my breaks and was disappointed by what I saw. Gone were the random collection of shows, the weekend serials and the mix of classic films and oddities. In its place were recent action films that had nothing to do with the original intention of the channel. The cool little interviews with writers, artists and scientists were gone. Instead, we now had (and have) camera friendly vapid youths who do little more than peddle recent films and shows in the style of Entertainment Tonight. Space was dead, and the animation centered network Teletoon was left to pick up the geek friendly audience.

Still, there are some redeeming qualities for the modern Space. After the CBC mishandled the broadcasting of the brilliant "Doctor Who" revival, Space has stepped in to make sure the series airs with proper support and with a limited waiting time between the Canadian and BBC broadcasts. But such effort does not change the fact that the channel of my youth is gone, and with it, all the opportunities it provided me to grow as a film geek.

Of course, perhaps Space is no longer needed for the little film geeks growing up now. For those truly seeking to explore genre cinema, there are endless resources and methods for seeing these films.

I still can’t help but feel sad though that such a resource as Space, for all its flaws, is reduced to a shell of its former self. So goodbye Space – The Imagination Station. You will always live on as a memory and as part of what made me, well, me.