...the saddest
are "It might have been."
Having encountered a tall fellow in a green jacket at 2AM or so at the
World SF Convention in Boston in -- ummm -- 1980? -- and greeted him
with "You're Mike Jittlov -- and i'm not!", I stood and talked with him
for some time about Things.
I got a crick in my neck -- he don't look it on film, but he's tall
enough that six foot tall me had to look up while talking -- and he
told me some of his plans.
First, though, i asked him how the *%*^& he made the stop-motion
animated frisbees in "Mouse Mania" spin as they cruised by (when i
point out or describe that effect [and the fact that it is not
an optical; it's in-the-camera] to people who know/have done
stop-motion, their jaws drop) and he told me.
And then he told me about the wonderful movie he had planned, spinning
off from a segment of Disney's promo show for The Black Hole.
(Which, incidentally, aside from the Barnstable twins, was the best
part of the program -- oh, no -- i tell a lie -- Frank and Caroline
Mouris [Frank Film] did a beauty of a kinestasis/cut-out
animation sequence.)
It was going to be titled The Wizard of Speed and Time, and it
was going to be the story of a man who gained the ability to use 100%
of his brain instead of the roughly 10% we allegedly use in our normal
lives.
He would be superintelligent, and superfast and generally superish, and
the normal human authorities would feel threatened, and...
It sounded great. But it didn't happen -- instead we get this sad
travesty.
Yes, it's funny. Yes, it recycles parts of some of Jittlov's previous
work -- but, none of the shorts used are complete, and none have the
proper original music cues.
Yes, he gets some revenge on a Large Hollywood Production Company which
shall remain nameless but they did a teevee special (mostly pretty
unspecial) about special effects that Jittlov worked on.
Yes, he lays some zingers on the Hollywood guild-and-union system.
Yes, there are some wonderful gags layered in here and there -- try
freeze-framing the "Japanese Jumping Wall" segment as the Wizard scoots
along the wall, and be sure to read all signs and placards and so on in
the background.
Yes, he kicks against the pricks generally.
But "the system" managed to grind down even such a wild talent as
Jittlov's, and, not only it ain't what "might have been," but i
understand Mike got such a screwing from the producers/releasing
company that, according to one report, he left film-making entirely...
Another good man done gone... |
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