Via Andrew P Mayer’s blog, there’s an announcement that almost everybody who ever appeared on Mystery Science Theater are going to be speaking at a panel at the San Diego Comic-Con:

We now have full confirmation of the upcoming panel at Comic-Con in San Diego, Friday, July 25, 7:15 p.m.

On the panel will be: Trace Beaulieu, Paul Chaplin, Frank Conniff, Bill Corbett, Joel Hodgson, Jim Mallon, Kevin Murphy, Bridget Nelson, Mike Nelson, Mary Jo Pehl and J. Elvis Weinstein. Wow.

Holy monkey! Could that get any cooler at all?

The moderator will be Patton Oswalt.

In unrelated news, I’m going back to the San Diego Comic-Con this year.

After last time, I swore I never would, but right as I was wondering if maybe it wouldn’t be so bad this year, I got asked if I wanted to go for work. (I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’ve got a cool job.) Now I’ve got another reason to look forward to it.

It’s an old cliche that Hollywood takes the hard work of creative people and squeezes all of the originality and innovation and intelligence out of it, to dumb it down for the mass market. I never really believed it, though: instead of this big, faceless, creativity-sucking entity, isn’t it easier just to assume that some people just aren’t as talented as others? If a movie like National Treasure is all Hollywood’s fault, then how do movies like The Life Aquatic and Adaptation and Miller’s Crossing get made?

But I’m starting to think that cliche might have something to it, the more movies I see from Guillermo del Toro. This weekend I watched The Devil’s Backbone. Like Pan’s Labyrinth, it was made in Spain. And unlike Mimic, Blade II, and Hellboy, it was very good. Original, innovative, intelligent, and above all, uncompromising. So either del Toro’s talent has been wasted by Hollywood, or he only knows how to make movies set around the Spanish Civil War.

The movie’s weird, not even so much for what it shows but for how it kept turning into something other than what I’d expected. Before it started, I’d thought it was going to be like The Orphanage, another Spanish movie set in a haunted orphanage. But it’s much more interesting than The Orphanage, and it’s a period piece, and it’s not really a ghost story. Except it kind of is, except for when it veers off into melodrama, or character study, or coming-of-age tale. Plus, there’s an explosion.

You can tell that del Toro’s a fan of Mike Mignola, or at least why he’s a fan if he weren’t already before making this movie, because there’s that same feeling of simple stories interwoven with the gothic and gruesome and just plain strange. If I were to describe just the plot, it wouldn’t sound all that compelling, but then you watch the movie and there’s something interesting going on in just about every scene.

The new kid at the orphanage meets the principal — who’s got a half-wooden, half-metal prosthetic leg. He finds a father figure in the kindly old science teacher — who keeps fetuses in glass jars and drinks the liquid when no one’s looking. And he runs into the orphanage’s spooky ghost — who’s called “the one who sighs” by the other kids, and who has a constantly-bleeding wound from the crack in his skull, and is always surrounded by particulate matter as if he were still underwater.

The Devil’s Backbone turned me into a bona fide fan of Guillermo del Toro, and I wish I’d seen it sooner, and now I’m really, really looking forward to Hellboy II this summer. The best I can say about the first Hellboy movie is that it was clear del Toro was a big fan, and while the movie didn’t add much to the character or even really capture the spirit of the comics, it had some good ideas and didn’t do anything awful. But the trailers for the sequel seem to have a better feel for what it is that makes Hellboy cool.

Plus, del Toro’s riding on the success of Pan’s Labyrinth, so I’m thinking he’s got enough clout that he can stand up to the nefarious Hollywood talent-suppression field, and make an American Big Summer Blockbuster that’s as cool as the ones he’s made in Spanish.

Speaking of TV shows: did anybody else understand what the hell was going on with this week’s “Battlestar Galactica?” (Called “Sine Qua Non.”) It felt to me like what would happen if you took all the components of a BSG episode, fed them into a computer:

• Stand-off at gun-point
• Apollo makes speech about making tough choices to survive
• People see things that aren’t there
• Character thrown in brig
• Fist fight
• Idyllic near-death experience
• Character in brig paces
• Political discussions
• Spaceship does faster-than-light jump
• Mention Raptors and Vipers
• Return of bit character from past episode
• Include Starbuck: yes/no

and then hit the “Randomize” button. Okay, we’re good to go! — wait, we didn’t click the “Lucid” checkbox? Damn, too late. Maybe no one will notice.

I was glad to see (spoiler?) Adama admit he totally loves Roslyn 4-ever, but they could’ve done that in a future episode, just by having the Basestar return and find him there in a raptor, reading her book. That’s all they needed. Apart from that and the little revelation that Cylons can indeed get other Cylons pregnant, this seems like a filler episode that could (and should) be easily forgotten.

But Lucy Lawless is back next week, so that’s promising.

Okay, the “Lost” people are totally making this stuff up as they go along.

At least, I hope they are, because if the season finale of season 4 really is what they’ve had planned since the end of season 3, then they’ve been yanking our chains for a year.

It’s not that it was bad; it’s just that the story started off so strong, and it hinted at all kinds of fantastic twists and turns that were going to be coming. And then it ended with pretty much the most obvious resolution to every new plot point that was introduced. It felt so predictable that I don’t want to believe that was what they predicted; I want to believe that they had more in mind, and then fell back on plan B.

What I like best about episodic television is those moments when it seems like the writers have painted themselves into a corner. And then right as you’re about to give up on them, you turn around and see that not only have they painted the entire room, they’re pointing at the elephant in the center of the room and saying, “What, you didn’t notice that before? It’s been there the whole time.” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was best at this; there were several times I’d thought the series was in a nosedive, and not only did they manage to pull up in time, they started doing loop-de-loops. (If that’s too many metaphors for one paragraph, I’m talking about the bit where they turned the awful “Initiative” storyline into a Frankenstein’s monster story with one really awesome and unexpected scene).

Season 4 of “Lost” started out so well, it was promising even more than the beginning of season 2. And the season’s been solid overall. It’s just that all they did was gracefully close up most of the loose ends and set up the next batch of episodes. They didn’t do all that and drop a bombshell on us.

(And the rest is spoilers for the season finale and the season in general).

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Memorial Day weekend seemed like as good a time as any to make some progress on the Netflix queue, in the form of a style-over-substance double feature.

In one of the special features for The Orphanage, executive producer Guillermo del Toro describes a couple of scenes as “pure cinema.” He’s talking about the scenes without dialogue that work just on the basis of some really creepy visuals, but he could just as well be describing the whole movie.

Because The Orphanage could only work as a movie, and it does so surprisingly well. It relies on suspense instead of cheap scares — except for one shot involving an ambulance, which works because it’s timed perfectly — but any of the suspenseful scenes, taken out of context, would just seem silly. Its plot is an almost insultingly simple and straightforward ghost story, but the movie knows exactly how much emphasis to give to the plot and how much to give to the psychological drama. And the drama would turn into overwrought or cloying melodrama without the performance of the lead actress, and the careful way scenes are staged and filmed.

You’ll frequently see it compared to The Others and Pan’s Labyrinth, but that’s not just a case of lazy movie reviewing, comparing it to the only other Spanish-made horror-like movies that Americans have heard of. It exists squarely between those two: it’s a better movie than The Others, with more depth and without the need for a twist ending, but with a very similar look, a similar premise (a mother trapped in a cavernous, haunted house), and an “old-school” ghost story mentality.

And it’s not as good as Pan’s Labyrinth, but thematically it’s extremely similar. I wish that they were more similar: there are scenes where the mother is playing with her son that are just wonderful, but they’re quickly relegated to being plot points, instead of reminders of what it’s like to think like a child. And they tacked on two completely unnecessary short scenes at the end of the movie (and flashbacks during the climax) to explain everything; I wish they’d stuck with the ambiguously happy ending of Pan’s Labyrinth.

People who get paid to review movies frequently toss around the term “dream-like,” and I’d use that here, but in a different context: it’s like the kind of dream that feels so vivid and meaningful right as you wake up, but the second you try to explain it or even remember the details, it seems trite and meaningless. I really enjoyed The Orphanage an awful lot, and everything it tried to do — from horror to drama to joyful “childlike wonder” moments — totally worked for me up until the end. But I’m wary of thinking about it too much, because I’m afraid it’ll evaporate.

Snatch, on the other hand, is just plain bullshit. I don’t even like calling it style over substance, since it’s been less than eight years and already there’s no style left. It’s an hour and a half being assaulted by a jackass who believes he’s a hell of a lot cooler and smarter than he is. I can’t remember the last time I’ve wanted so much to physically smack the smug dumb-ass expression off of a movie.

And I’m really tired of seeing movies that prove Quentin Tarantino knows what he’s doing, and how awful it is when some tone-deaf person tries to do the same thing. Hey, why don’t you spin the camera around one more time, cool guy? That is what we in the movie business call style, man, that shit never gets old.

Watching the new Indiana Jones movie gave me severe diarrhea. Actually, the two events are most likely unrelated, but I wanted to take a cue from the pharmaceutical business and warn of any potential side effects: a small but not insignificant group of viewers reported spending the 15 hours following the movie being frequently and painfully reminded that man lives entirely at the mercy of his gastrointestinal tract.

As for the movie itself: I liked it a lot. I thought it was very much in the spirit of Raiders of the Lost Ark, with the goofiness of Temple of Doom and the self-awareness of The Last Crusade.

I went in almost completely unspoiled, knowing nothing except the basic cast and roughly when it was set. I didn’t have high expectations, and I wasn’t going in looking for flaws, either. I’d recommend everybody do the same.

So don’t bother reading the rest of this until you’ve seen it (and you know you will).

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I don’t have much of interest to say about this week’s episode of “Lost” (”There’s No Place Like Home, Part 1″), but that’s never stopped me before…

I’ve been really impressed with this season, and how well they’ve turned the series around. It’s gone from something that I watch just to see where it goes, back to must-see “I can’t believe how cool this show is” programming. Still, a lot of the episodes feel like characters being moved around on a giant island-shaped chessboard. People meet up, separate, and travel from place to place not so much out of a genuine motivation, but because the story just needs them to be in a certain place at a certain time.

Still, it’s good stuff. A while ago, I recommended that they just dispense with the new mysteries and spend the rest of the series just wrapping up the old ones. I’m glad to see they haven’t done that. Instead, they introduced the Ben/Widmore rivalry and put that on a low boil, while they work backwards from the end of season 3 and attempt to get it to hook up with the events of season 4. And they’re calling back to the old favorites (like the numbers), as well as giving some closure to stories developed in flashbacks.

Speaking of that, this is one of the few episodes where the flashbacks (or flash-forwards) are more interesting than the island-based story. Not a whole lot happened here, but Sun’s moment of retribution just kicked all kinds of ass, making me think they’re actually going to have a somewhat satisfying conclusion to the whole Sun & Jin story.

Also, I’m glad to see I was wrong when I accused them of just perfunctorily ending the Sayid & Nadia story. Instead of devoting an entire episode to it, they just let us piece together what happened from snatches of dialogue, and from seeing them together in the other characters’ flash-forwards. That turns out to be a lot more effective than any number of love scenes set to swelling music.

Watching the episode on the website doesn’t give a teaser trailer, so I’m going into next week’s episode completely oblivious. (Is it the season finale, or is that the week after?) Since we’re getting into The Orchid station and finally meeting the other Others, not to mention a ship loaded with explosives, I’m expecting no small amount of awesomeness. And most likely the deaths of a few more characters.

Frustrating things:

• Since I was wrong about Nadia & Sayid, I could be wrong to assume that they’re done with Danielle’s story. It’s only been a couple weeks, but the longer they go without mentioning it, the more anxious I get that they’re going to drop that whole storyline and never give a resolution to the Black Rock/Numbers/Sickness business.
• Michelle Forbes is usually the anti-Ted McGinley; when she shows up in a series, it’s a sign that things are about to get more interesting. I hope there’s more to her character than just being an Oceanic Airlines PR person.
• They’ve been spending a lot of time on the Claire/Jack/Aaron/Jack’s Dad business, without actually saying anything we didn’t already know.
• Things don’t look good for Jin. Seeing Future Sun administer a smackdown to her father helped make this a little easier to swallow, but I’m still holding out hope for a happy ending there. I hope that the Oceanic Six believe they’re covering up the truth, but that there’s more going on than even they are aware of.

Plus I wonder if next week is when we find out who was in the coffin.

The satellite feed for channel 7 went out this Thursday, leaving me “Lost”-less until I can summon the patience to watch the episode on ABC’s website.

Luckily, Turner Classic Movies was available to keep me from doing something productive or sleeping, and I got to catch the last 30 minutes of the 1978 classic The Boys From Brazil. This is the one about Josef Mengele (played by Gregory Peck) hiding out in South America after WWII, creating dozens of clones of Adolf Hitler, and the Nazi hunter (played by Oscar-nominated Laurence Olivier) who puts a stop to his evil scheme.

It’s also the one that’s finally convinced me I just don’t get the 70s. For some reason, this movie is described as a “suspense/thriller” instead of a “comedy.” Did people just not get how silly this movie is? Were laughably absurd things genuinely scary back then? This is the same era that brought us the ridiculous The Omen and the yawn-worthy Halloween. Does it have something to do with all the cocaine I keep hearing about?

Going through the list of Culturally Relevant Movies I’ve Never Seen has been like walking through a minefield. For every genuinely bad-ass movie like The Killers, or goofily surreal masterpiece like Night of the Hunter, there’s at least two more that leave me convinced I should just avoid seeing them, so I can just trust Common Knowledge and go on believing that they’re better than they really are.

At least I can check off another Mystery Science Theater reference that I finally get: during a scene in Hercules Unchained, Joel has a lion scream “You killed my dad, you freaked out maniac!” That’s from the “climax” of The Boys from Brazil.