Brad Nelson
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Regulus
Aug 4, 2019 17:56:13 GMT -8
Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 4, 2019 17:56:13 GMT -8
Regulus: The First Nuclear Missile SubmarinesViewed on Amazon Prime Video (included with basic subscription) • or rent SD version for $.99
Info: IMDB • (2002) • WikiGenre: documentary Runtime: 48 minutes Director: Nik Spark • Narrator: Roy Scheider Quick Rating: A fact-filled history of the first American sub-launched missile. It's interesting all the way through. Summary: A documentary history of the development and deployment of the Cold War's ultimate weapon: the nuclear missile submarine. Features interviews with Navy veterans and footage never-before-seen by the public.
 The longer synopsis as IMDB gives you a good idea of what to expect. Basically, with the Strategic Air Command having come online, the Navy didn’t want to get left out of the nuclear deterrence game. They started developing a missile, first using the technology of the Nazi V-1 “buzz bombs.” It’s interesting that the Navy also tried to do this somewhat on the cheap. Thanks to the outstanding work of Chance Vought (maker of many successful WWII aircraft, including the Corsair), they were able to do so…at least through much of the original proof-of-concept stage. I don’t recall every seeing anything on this interesting sub-launched missile system. Sure, Polaris later made it completely obsolete. But what a concept these were. They were bulky but they eventually found a way to fit several on a sub. One “pod” even was the equivalent of a two-shooter. You could shoot one of these out, the pod would then rotate, and another would be set up and ready. Some of the subs refitted for the Regulus I looked ungainly. A vastly improved Regulus II missile was soon developed. But most of this documentary concentrates on the first one, as well as the whole operational idea of mutually-assured destruction. This was really killer duty for the crews. There was no rotation of crews (a blue team and a red team, etc.). They were 60 days at sea and then when they came back, they were involved in refitting and refurbishing the sub for the next run. It took about 15 days for them to get on station and then 15 to get back. An additional 30 days was actually spent on patrol. Some of the newer subs were relatively comfortable. But they describe the hell it could be on some of the older cramped subs for such long-duration missions. Quite a bit of time is spent on the testing of the missile. Basically they were flying them by remote control from a chase aircraft. They took off from attached wheels, the retro-pods used in actual deployment were too expensive to use in casual testing. All in all, a very condensed and informative documentary. And the tech is just old-school cool.  [ Original]
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Regulus
Aug 4, 2019 19:26:49 GMT -8
Post by timothylane on Aug 4, 2019 19:26:49 GMT -8
Evidently the Navy liked star names (Regulus, Polaris). But if this was based on the Fi-103 aka V-1, then it was a jet (a pulsejet for the German bomber) rather than a rocket. I wonder what sort of range it had, since the jet required external oxygen, which gets thin beyond the troposphere. But then, in theory a "ballistic" missile is a missile that no longer has any additional impetus.
The US paid more attention to crew comfort than most navies. The Germans in particular relied on the fact that their ships were expected to spend most of their time in port, occasionally making sorties that often didn't last long anyway. (I think they spent less than a day for Jutland in 1916.)
The U-boats were another matter, and were uncomfortable in a lot of ways, some of them inevitable for any submarine ship. (Captain Nemo and his crew probably had some health problems that Professor Arronax never noticed.) Keeping clean was virtually hopeless; one first-hand book I read, by a British submarine commander (and later admiral) noted that the only crewman he ever recalled who tried to bathe regularly ended up with scabies. Food supplies could be a problem, and of course breathing was a serious issue when a submarine was under heavy, persistent attack from above. Snorkels didn't come into use until later in the war(and only by the Germans, though they got the embryonic form from Dutch submarines captured under construction), and were limited in length (i.e., how deep it could go while deploying it).
And if the ship sank, most of the crew usually went with it. That was much less likely with surface ships aside from those suffering from British battlecruiser disease (blowups happen, after all).
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Brad Nelson
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Regulus
Aug 5, 2019 10:58:37 GMT -8
Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 5, 2019 10:58:37 GMT -8
Yes, a couple nice star names. Regulus. Polaris. Not to be confused with Polaris. (You'll love the intro to this song) And then came Poseidon. Then the Trident. |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 6, 2019 7:56:46 GMT -8
This isn’t worth doing a review unto itself because it’s not that good (but it’s sorta good enough). You can find this on Amazon Prime Video. But it’s also online: The Dew Line Story (Part I)The Dew Line Story (Part II)The “Distant Early Warning Line” was quite a project of its time. This documentary has a charming old-schoolness about it. It’s sort of like one of those instructional videos they used to show us in elementary school, presumably to give teachers a bit of time off or a smoke break. They built a lot of stuff in the arctic. A good accompanying film might be John Carpenter’s The Thing, with Kurt Russell, where an Antarctic research site is de-constructed. You could also, of course, watch Ice Station Zebra (North Pole).     |
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Post by timothylane on Aug 6, 2019 9:57:06 GMT -8
I remember reading about the DEW Line when I was a boy and it had just been built Of course, there were no details. There was also, further south (I think astride the border with Canada) the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS). And of course there was NORAD, with its secure headquarters inside a Rocky Mountain near Colorado Mountain (Cheyenne Mountain, I think). It has since been closed down, which I think was a bad idea. (A Reader's Digest article on it about 50 years ago mentioned their protection against EMP -- the first time I ever read about that threat.)
The NORAD headquarters was still in use in Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, which mentions it having survived a direct nuclear hit during a previous (and obviously not total) nuclear bomb. Their use of falling rocks eventually works more effectively. |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 7, 2019 7:58:48 GMT -8
Nothing can put you in the mood for a good frosted movie in the arctic like The Dew Line. So I found a movie called Arctic on Amazon Prime Video. It stars Matts Näslund. (Sorry….Mads Middelsen…I always get the two confused.) How often do you get to do a hockey joke? Not very often. But I digress. The movie starts with Mads shown on the ground in some vast snowy wasteland, his crashed plain nearby. He has apparently been following a survival routine for many days. He fishes for fish in his ice hole (insert joke here). He climbs a small hill at a set time of day and cranks his emergency beacon device. He clears snow from his gigantic “SOS” carved in the snow. One day (and we don’t know how many days have passed), a helicopter finds him. But this is in the middle of a quickly-developing storm. The helicopter is blown out of the air and crashes. And that’s about as much tolerance as I can have for a movie like this. There wasn’t much to commend it up to this point but I thought I’d at least give it some time. At some point (now, for instance) he’s going to leave the relative safety of the wreck (which he bunks in) and head off into the wilderness in hopes of walking his way to civilization. We know he will meet polar bears. They’ve already foreshadowed that. This must be a chick story. One reviewer writes: No straight man could ever write such nonsense. I don’t want to watch a movie where the main interest is “conveying deep human emotion." I want the guy to battle the elements and win...making taking out some polar bears in hand-to-paw combat on the way. Maybe I’ll stick with it a little longer but that helicopter crash was already a bridge too far in terms of offending my movie sensibilities. So what are some good Snow Movies? Maybe Fargo, The Eiger Sanction (Eastwood). Alive (soccer players eating each other). The Grey (with Liam Neeson…I haven’t seen this one yet), The Man from Snowy River (Kirk Douglass…Does that count having “snowy” in the title?), Iceman (1984, with Timothy Hutton), Santa Claus is Coming to Town (animated), and The Call of the Wild (Charlton Heston). Don’t get me wrong. I like Matts Näslund. He was good as Tristan in King Arthur and was instrumental to the success of the Montreal Canadiens in the 1980’s, including a Stanley Cup in 1986. But I got frozen out of wanting to watch any more of this movie because of the stupid helicopter crash. |
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Post by kungfuzu on Aug 7, 2019 8:17:02 GMT -8
I liked Mads Mikkelsen in Arthur and as Le Chiffre in a couple of James Bond films. He seems to make some pretty strange movies as well. I saw him in something called "Valhalla Rising," which was one of the oddest movies I have ever seen. As I recall, he also played Hannibal Lector in some TV series.
Your line calls to mind something Kipling wrote. It was in regard to two sisters in the Raj who were competing for one man.
As the hot weather drew nearer, and Saumarez made no sign, women said that you could see their trouble in the eyes of the girls-that they were looking strained, anxious, and irritable. Men are quite blind in these matters unless they have more of the woman than man in their composition, in which case it does not matter what they say or think.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 7, 2019 8:28:50 GMT -8
Yes…I vaguely remembers Matts from one of the Bond films. Was he a villain? Just for the sheer cheekiness of it, I’m going to try a little more of Arctic. I left off just as the rescue helicopter crashes. So Matts runs to the downed helicopter, showing his full range of human emotions, but it appears the crew is dead. When search-and-rescue needs to be rescued, you know you have problems. Kipling would have been great as a consultant on this picture. But we’ll see where it goes. As long as Matts has his estrogen pills, I think he can make it out. Oh….wait. They’re not both dead. A rescue chick in the other seat (played by Maria Thelma Smáradóttir — there will be a spelling test at the end of this review) is still alive. And she’s not bad looking. Matts now has a new friend.  But she’s got some kind of gash on her stomach that will need to be taken care of. No doubt Matts will find a first aid kit and apply treatment while showing a vast range of human emotions. What is the level of consent needed in order to staple a woman? Matts finds a medical stapler in the first aid kit. The woman is unconscious. What’s the protocol on this? Does he need to go through the entire process in steps? Can I lift your shirt? Can I touch your stomach? Can I use this medical stapler to staple that nasty gash on you stomach? Can I lift your shirt higher to check for other injuries? Matt's emotions while he does the stapling are stunningly diverse. |
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Post by kungfuzu on Aug 7, 2019 8:44:56 GMT -8
Yes, he is hard to forget as he had Bond seated naked on a wicker chair with the seat removed. There was Bond sitting on the frame and Matts had a thick length of rope on the end of which he had tied a very large knot. He would swing this rope-knot up under the chair whenever Bond didn't answer his question. This scene hit home to all males who saw it.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 7, 2019 9:05:49 GMT -8
Bad, Matts. Bad bad Matts. But the way I felt about some of those newer Bond movies, I can’t blame him.
Matts has dragged the rescue chick back to his abode (the body of his crashed airplane). He does show a range of emotions as he tucks her in next to him sharing bodily warmth. I believe he’s missed a few of the mandatory “consent” steps in order to do so. But this is presumably a life-and-death situation which may — may, mind you — countermand the need for that kind of consent in the field.
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Regulus
Aug 7, 2019 11:07:33 GMT -8
Post by timothylane on Aug 7, 2019 11:07:33 GMT -8
Le Chiffre was the villain in the first Bond novel, Casino Royale. The main torture scene involved beating Bond's private areas with a carpet beater, so they evidently decided to make use of this concept for it. This has been made into two very different Bond movies. I actually saw the first, and I guess it was worth seeing once. I've only seen one of the Daniel Craig movies. I don't recall which, but I don't think it was this one. I saw all the Connery, Lazenby, Moore, and Dalton movies, and all but the last Brosnan movie. The one Craig movie I saw didn't appeal to me.
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Regulus
Aug 7, 2019 11:28:39 GMT -8
Post by kungfuzu on Aug 7, 2019 11:28:39 GMT -8
Here is that scene of Le Chiffre with rope and Bond sitting on the chair.
Not something a male viewer easily forgets.
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Brad Nelson
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Regulus
Aug 7, 2019 20:45:19 GMT -8
Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 7, 2019 20:45:19 GMT -8
You can forget about popping the popcorn and watching “Arctic” with Mat Wilander. It’s not even bad enough to be good but shows how important “suspension of disbelief” can be for a movie. His entire multi-emotional travails evoke nothing (although Mats is just fine in the role). One reviewer nails it:
He crashes initially. He is found by a rescue helicopter. But they crash. What do you do? Do you stay where there is ample food, water, and shelter — and where you can be sure they’ll be looking for their rescue helicopter which certainly would have radioed in their general location (and had some kind of transponder). Or do you go off into the wilderness dragging a heavy sled with equipment and some injured chick in the back?
None of this movie made sense. And starting the movie with him stranded could have been a dramatic way to handle the material. But the material is just so dull.
These solo type ventures are difficult to do, whether talking Enemy Mine, Robinson Crusoe (on Mars or otherwise), or Cast Away. (By the way, I thought Cast Away was way over-rated. The whole thing with Wilson just didn’t work for me. I thought Hanks was awful in this role.)
Once the movie botches the big things then the little things begin to stand out. It’s like sitting in the dentist’s office for too long. Soon you begin to notice the cracks in the paint on the wall.
For instance, this guy has a limited supply of antiseptic with which to treat the gash on the woman’s stomach. How does he apply it? He just pours it right from the bottle and lets it run all over.
This same indispensable bottle (which we, as viewers, are made to understand is very precious), Mats simply carelessly sets on the edge of a slanted table.
And whether or not this chick ever regains consciousness to talk to Mats, it’s a bad choice not to have any interaction. Through at least 40 minutes of this turkey, she says nothing. What’s the point of even having her?
It’s a real lost opportunity because Mats is one of the few European actors who isn’t a Euro-Weenie. I like the guy. And he does about all anyone could with the lousy material. But it is lousy material.
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Regulus
Aug 7, 2019 20:48:01 GMT -8
Post by kungfuzu on Aug 7, 2019 20:48:01 GMT -8
"Arctic" sounds like it is worth a pass.
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Regulus
Aug 7, 2019 20:56:01 GMT -8
Post by timothylane on Aug 7, 2019 20:56:01 GMT -8
I recall seeing Robinson Crusoe on Mars, or at least part of it, on TV decades ago. I remember only bits and pieces, including the main character hallucinating a visit from a colleague on the space trip. (I don't think I saw the beginning.) It was probably something I had on while waiting for another show.
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Brad Nelson
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Regulus
Aug 7, 2019 21:30:11 GMT -8
Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 7, 2019 21:30:11 GMT -8
I tried. I really tried. It either needed to be a little better or a little worse. (Bad movies can be fun to watch and make fun of.) This one was stuck in no man's movie land. Not good enough and not bad enough to be good. I just felt bad for the polar bear getting a snout full of flare.
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Brad Nelson
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Regulus
Aug 7, 2019 21:38:00 GMT -8
Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 7, 2019 21:38:00 GMT -8
As a kids, I thought Robinson Crusoe on Mars was the tops. It had the little monkey. It had astronauts. It had Mars. It's got aliens. It's got Batman. It's just an all-around great Saturday Matinee type of movie. This lobby card or poster is great:  I'm not sure is this image is officially part of the promotion material, but I like it as well:  |
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Post by timothylane on Aug 8, 2019 5:57:14 GMT -8
Thinking of movies bad enough to mock, have you ever seen Plan 9 From Outer Space or Ice Pirates?
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 8, 2019 7:22:26 GMT -8
I actually like Ice Pirates. It's hard to mock it because it's specifically meant to be tongue-in-cheek, winking at the audience in some of its absurdities. I think Ice Pirates is a misunderstood and under-rated gem. A lot of people didn't like Last Action Hero for the same reason. The humor used (parody, in this case) is an advanced step up from just absorbing an on-screen bullet-count like a robot. Not that Last Action Hero was necessarily a gem of the type. But I do think it exposed a threshold in American culture, leading to these horrendous one-dimensional comic book movies and other garbage. The movie-goer has many times said now "Please don't confuse us with subtlety." And that's what they're getting now. |
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Post by timothylane on Aug 8, 2019 8:41:57 GMT -8
This was the conundrum we faced after watching Ice Pirates. Was it a parody of such heroics, or merely a very bad version? Some of the over-the-top humor (the castrating device, the spaces herpes) inclines me toward the parody. But it's like the question of whether Total Recall was supposed to be the actual dream adventure they promised, or the real thing? It was grossly ridiculous scientifically, but who in Hollyweird would know or care about that? But if this were a dream, it would be a dream in which both the company and his wife come off badly. But who in Hollyweird would think of that, or care?
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