Off To Re-See The Wizard
First of all, I want to say that I love this feature as well as the site. Like virtually everyone else, I have a question about something arcane I saw in my childhood. I read somewhere that Michel Gondry is making a movie called Master Of Space And Time. It sounds great and all, but it immediately brought back memories of an '80s creation of the same title (or possibly Master Of Time And Space). I remember it being somewhat cheesy and extremely mind-blowing, and seemed to involve a home-based inventor and videotapes. Lots of videotapes. Looking at the description of the book on which the new movie is based, it seems to (kind of) fit. I remember excitedly telling a girl I liked in grade 5 all about it, trying to entertain her, and her looking at me with the kind of naked disdain that only a 10-year-old girl can muster.
I can find no evidence that an earlier adaptation was ever made. I'm Canadian, I'm not sure if this helps narrow it down. Keep up the good work,
Paul Beer
Tasha Robinson attempts to keep up the good work:
After all the crap I gave Jazzy a couple of weeks ago about prefacing his "identify this memory" question by saying he doesn't like such questions, suspicious readers may suspect Paul here of trying to curry a little favor by heading in the other direction. Just to clarify, Paul's question came in before Jazzy's, I just got to them in the opposite order. With that out of the way…
Your Canadianness didn't actually affect the issue one way or another, Paul, since the film you're looking for is American, and I personally saw it on video in college right here in the U.S.A. You're thinking of The Wizard Of Speed And Time, a clunky but charming little indie directed by, written by, and starring special-effects guru and animator Mike Jittlov. In the late '70s, he made several short films, handling his own special effects and doing a lot of creative things with stop-motion animation. (You can see his showreel here.) Among those shorts was the original "The Wizard Of Speed And Time," a giddy little video about a wizard zipping around doing wondrous things.
In the late '80s, Jittlov directed a feature-length roman à clef about his experiences in Hollywood—and specifically, about a special-effects guru and animator trying to make a film in spite of Hollywood's restrictive unions and rules. Just as you recall, a lot of the film is about how Jittlov's character is an inventor who's developed innovative, cheap, simple ways of producing interesting special effects at home in his garage, which still doesn't help him navigate the oppressive studio system. The whole film is a little sullen, a little joyful, and a lot wacky, and it incorporates bits of other Jittlov films, including a revamped and expanded version of the original "Wizard" short, the end results of all his filmmaking work throughout the movie. (In the process of "making" the short within the film, he shows the audience how a lot of the neater effects—for instance, him running across that wall—were done.)
Oddly enough, Richard Kaye—who plays the feature film's villainous producer and Jittlov's antagonist—was actually Wizard's real-life producer, and just as he does in the film, he reportedly screwed Jittlov over in real life, too. Jittlov has said that Kaye sold the film without consulting him, compensating him, or permitting him to complete it. To this day, it isn't available on DVD, though it's still possible to find relatively cheap VHS copies drifting about.
None of this actually has anything to do with Michel Gondry or Master Of Space And Time so far as I know—the Gondry film is based on a Rudy Rucker novel, which predates Jittlov's 1989 feature (though not his 1979 short), and isn't connected to it as far as I know. It seems to just be a title coincidence. But at the same time, it isn't surprising that you'd associate the two. Gondry made heavy use of some very Jittlov-esque stop-motion in his recent The Science Of Sleep, and some fans have connected the two stylistically, wondering if for instance Gondry's video for Kanye West's "Heard 'Em Say" was inspired by Jittlov's short "Swing Shift." (Gondry reportedly denies it.)
Oh, and by the way? That 10-year-old girl who snubbed you was totally missing out. To prove it, here's the expanded version of "Wizard Of Speed And Time," the movie-within-a-movie version from the 1989 feature-length film:
Saxomatic
Where did that saxophone hook come from? The five-note one used in Jay-Z's "Show Me What You Got," but before that in Wreckx N Effect's "Rumpshaker" and N2Deep's "Back To the Hotel." The latter two songs are both credited by AMG as being released in 1992. So where was it sampled from, and how did two ostensible "hit" songs from the same year manage to use the same unmistakable sax figure?
Dennis
Donna Bowman has a pretty saxy figure herself:
Hip-hop is so not my area, but requests to track down bits of music—whatever their genre—tend to land in my inbox. I can only do my best for you, Dennis; please excuse my inevitable display of rap and soul ignorance in this answer. The sax riff that kicks off "Show Me What You Got" is indeed the same sample that the sexy bikini gal pretends to play in "Rump Shaker." And for a while, it was popping up everywhere: Tuff Crew's "Nut," the N2Deep cut you mentioned, and even earlier, Public Enemy's "Show 'Em Whatcha Got" (the direct inspiration for the Jay-Z tune). Its source is the Lafayette Afro Rock Band, a '70s funk outfit that '90s DJs virtually strip-mined for samples. The tune is "Darkest Light," from the 1972 album Malik; its brassy sax intro feels pensive yet urgent, a combination that hip-hop's leading lights found impossible to resist. You can hear a clip from the tune on the All Music Guide website (Windows Media Player only). If you like that sense of sample-vu, check out the group's "Hihache," another popular source for beats and breaks. Unfortunately, the Lafayette Afro Rock Band has a skimpy catalog in print. For fans of snazzy '70s grooves, it's well worth haunting eBay for a hits collection or an import.
Bring Back The Noose
I was watching a movie a few years ago on either IFC or Sundance that I can't remember the title of. It was set in the '50s in Great Britain. I seem to recall it revolving around teen boys who committed some sort of crime—I think a robbery. At some point, there's a rooftop scene, and someone gets shot. All of this occurs at night, I believe. And I think there may be a hanging at the end.
Letia Hance
The issue-minded Noel Murray replies:
This is Let Him Have It, Peter Medak's dramatization of the infamous Derek Bentley/Chris Craig case. In 1952, a 19-year-old Bentley participated in a break-in with 16-year-old Craig, who brought a gun. When the cops stopped them, Bentley told Craig, "Let him have it, Chris," and Craig fired his revolver, wounding a policeman. Then more officers arrived, and Craig emptied the gun, killing one of his pursuers. Because Craig was underage, he was arrested but given a relatively light sentence. Bentley, however, was hanged, in spite of evidence that he was borderline mentally retarded, and a question over whether his famous quote was meant to convey "Shoot him" or "Give him the gun." This event sparked a debate in the UK over the proper application of capital punishment. In 1998, Bentley's family had him posthumously pardoned, after decades of petitioning.
The movie is pretty good, but as the title implies, it puts too much stock in the ambiguity of Bentley's comment to Craig. In the movie, Bentley is clearly telling Craig to surrender his weapon, making him not just innocent, but super-innocent, and thus the story's message is too facile. (It's easy to argue that capital punishment is wrong when the good guys are getting executed.) For a more compelling treatment of the case, check out the Elvis Costello song "Let 'Em Dangle," which weaves the Bentley/Craig case through a meditation on the bloodthirstiness of mobs.
Here's a homemade video that combines footage from the film with Costello's song.
STILL KINDA STUMPED!
Maybe it was the holiday weekend, maybe we just went a bit too obscure this time around, but our Stumped! answers were way down last week, and once again, some of the questions that escaped us, escaped you, too. But first, here are some answers to reader questions that didn't leave you stumped:
Sarah was looking for a short film about "the life of a man who was followed around by a barbershop quartet. No one else could see them, and he was being tortured by them singing about his everyday life." Comment-board user "Four Part Harmony" positively identified this as "My Chorus," directed by Richard E. Doherty. A quick glance at the Internet not only confirmed the title, it turned up the film's own website. Alas, you can't see it there, but you can see a nifty trailer, which makes it look like a very polished, slick production, especially for a student film. You can also read a lot of interesting stuff about how it was made, why it isn't available online, what it cost to make, and how Doherty feels about the fact that his college owns the copyright on the finished film. (You can also buy the soundtrack.)
Mitch was "trying to prove the existence of a book" about a boy who hatches a shark egg case, which produces a flying, air-breathing shark. Commentator "Enrique Palazzo" was the first to ID this as The Shark In Charlie's Window, though as "SoylentGreenTea" added, it was also released as The Shark In The Window. Either way, it was written by someone with the unlikely name of Keo Felker Lazarus, and it's pretty seriously out of print. Some of us will probably never know whether those scheming hippies ate that flying shark.
Grant wanted us to track down some anime involving "two children who go on adventures, possibly traveling in time, and a male antagonist with long, dark hair who gets transformed into a robot by a happiness machine." Commentators were divided on whether this was The Flying House or its sister series, Superbook. Digging around into the two series doesn't help much, since both feature robots and children traveling through time—specifically to witness Biblical events, since both series are Christian-themed. Both are available on DVD, so get crackin', Grant, and figure out whether either of those series rings a bell.
We get into muddier territory with Will, who was trying to remember a movie he saw around 1990 in which a young boy is imprisoned by "these unusual greenish-brown slimy blob things" that apparently can't actually see him. "Brock Samson" suggested Jacob Two-Two Meets The Hooded Fang: "There were blob guards in the kid's jail." Whereas "Ollsen" suggested it was Tobe Hooper's 1986 remake of Invaders From Mars: "The space monsters look like mudballs with teeth, and capture the young hero." "El Santo" thinks it was a TV import called "Under The Mountain", which involved twins involved in a war between extraterrestrials: "Although the invaders usually assumed a human guise (calling themselves the Wilburforce brothers, and tooling around in an antique hearse), their true forms were nearly shapeless heaps of viscous, green-brown muck." Unfortunately, no one seems to be familiar with the part of the story where the blobs can't see the kid and he hides under his cell bench from them, so until Will can dig all these obscurities up and watch them, we really won't be sure.
Finally, Josh was looking for a black-and-white comic centering on "three or four teenagers involved in an incident during class. The teacher was in league with the main bad guy, and seemed genuinely terrified that he had been found. The bad guy zapped each student, and most were transformed into some sort of freak, though some students died immediately. So our main three (or four) superpowered teens were left to find out what happened to them. I remember one guy was missing his midsection and could fly. Another guy was really crazy, he heard voices and liked to kill people." Whatever that comic is, apparently no one else has heard of it, because this question got no responses at all. Better luck next time, Josh.
Next week: A little boat heads down to the sea and our video-game-historian heads into the sunset, leaving behind a last batch of identifications. Send your questions to [email protected].