Tuesday A/V (Friday Edition): Mars Attacks!

With my energy level back up to soaring levels, I'm finding myself multi-tasking all the way through incredibly long and busy days this week. So much so that I'm juggling tons of meetings, teleconferences, deadlines and communications with a series of daily house-related responsibilities (workmen are coming and going daily) and my intense gym schedule.

One of the best results is that now I get to even multi-task my fun, too. And there is the random 5-10 minute breaks spent on YouTube, where I stumbled over this gem of an opening sequence from the 1996 Tim Burton film adaptation of Mars Attacks! In fact, for anyone who dreamed of being a filmmaker as a child, this opening sequence is about as close to a wet dream as there is. The visuals are both super-high-budget and hilariously corny; the Danny Elfman score is so thrilling that I still get goose bumps every time I hear it. And then there is the cast to beat the band, more star-studded than ten 1970's disaster movies combined.

And the film itself is, to me, up there with Showgirls as one of the least appreciated big-budget satires of American culture of the 1990s. It's an absolutely brilliant film, particularly from the point of view of foreigners looking adoringly at the United States, how its childish naivety always gets it into horrendous trouble and its mere gumption manages to let it land on its feet in the end. With huge explosions and destruction as a backdrop. No wonder it was such a giant hit in Europe, and not so well understood in the U.S. itself.

Also, it takes me back to one of the great moments of my life at Solo Piazza in Logan Circle. I'd just gotten TiVo and a home theater sound system for my 42-inch TV on the same day in 2003, and the first movie I recorded was Mars Attacks! When Sean came over to meet me that evening to go to dinner, I dragged him inside, cranked up the volume, and had him enjoy the spendour of this opening sequence in its full glory before we left. I was like a little kid, and the greatest phase of my life in D.C. was just beginning.