Oakland Fails AT-AT Paternity Test

"One of the greatest Bay Area moviemaking urban legends involves the Port of Oakland container cranes and the AT-AT snow walkers that invaded the ice planet Hoth in George Lucas' 'The Empire Strikes Back.'

As a 'Star Wars' geek and Oakland resident, I've been plagued by the legend as well. So last year, during an interview for a profile that ran in The Chronicle, I asked Lucas about the similarities - making sure it was my last question, in case it got me kicked out of Skywalker Ranch.

'That's a myth,' Lucas said, politely but firmly. 'That is definitely a myth.'"

To read more of Peter Hartlaub's SFGate article, click here.

Photo by Tristan.

Thanks to io9.com for the link!

A Good Story For Your Next Camping Trip

SFGATE.COM: How creepy do you want it?
The famously eerie tale of nine dead Russian hikers, with all the bizarre details you can handle.
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist - Wednesday, February 27, 2008

I admit only to this: I can get deeply creeped out, down to my very core, now and then and hopefully not all that often because, well, I still like to sleep at night.

Personally, I try to keep the creep to a minimum, not really wishing to dive down into that low, dark vibration much and hence I avoid most horror movies like the plague and I find slasher flicks and "torture porn" revolting and ridiculous and while monster flicks can occasionally be fun and thrilling, they're mostly just a cheap roller-coaster rides supplying no real nourishment of any kind. I know, that's not really the point. But still.

Ah, but the occult. The paranormal. The deeply weird, mysterious, unsolvable, disturbing. That can get to me. That has power. A good, deep creep-out, those unknowable things that get under your skin and crawl around and tug at the shirtsleeves of your fears, well, those are the things can last for years. Lifetimes. I love that. I hate that.

The final shot in "The Blair Witch Project." An oozingly possessed Linda Blair crawling down the stairs on all fours, upside down, backwards, in a full backbend, on her toes and fingertips, in the uncut version of "The Exorcist." The ending to (and overall creepy feel of) "Don't Look Now," the famous cult horror movie from the '70s with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie and the creepy little midget in the red robe. Peter Weir's "Picnic at Hanging Rock," another classic '70s occult flick, chaste schoolgirls disappearing up a bizarrely haunted mountain — entirely fictional, but plays all too damn real.

But still, they're just movies. Fiction, mostly. No matter how good they are, they all kneel before the one true god of interminable creepiness: reality.

Here's one. It's called the Dyatlov Pass Accident. Oh my God, yes. I stumbled over this delicious tale just recently over at Metafilter and it's one of those stories that contains all the best elements of a deep, resonant creep-out. Inexplicable behavior. Bizarre factoids. Inconclusive evidence. Missing body parts. And not a single clue, almost 50 years later, as to what really happened.

The nutshell: In 1959, nine experienced Russian cross-country skiers — seven men and two women, led by a man named Igor Dyatlov — headed to the Ural Mountains, to a slope called Kholat Syakhl (Mansi language for "Mountain of the Dead," ahem) for a rugged, wintry trek. On their way up, they are apparently hit by inclement weather and veer off course and decide to set up camp and wait it out. All is calm. All is fine and good. They even take pictures of camp, the scenery, each other. The weather is not so bad. They go to sleep.

Then, something happens. In the middle of the night all nine suddenly leap out of their tents as fast as possible, ripping them open from the inside (not even enough time to untie the doors) and race out into the sub-zero temps, without coats or boots or skis, most in their underwear, some even barefoot or with a single sock or boot. It is 30 degrees below zero, Celsius. A few make it as far as a kilometer and a half down the slope. All nine, as you might expect, quickly die.

And so it begins.

Why did they rush out, unable to even grab a coat or blanket? What came at them? The three-month investigation revealed that five of the trekkers died from simple hypothermia, with no apparent trauma at all, no signs of attack, struggle, no outward injuries of any kind. However, two of the other four apparently suffered massive internal traumas to the chest, like you would if you were hit by a car. One's skull was crushed. All four of these were found far from the other five. But still, no signs of external injuries.

Not good enough? How about this: One of the women was missing her tongue.

Oh, it gets better. And weirder.

Tests of the few scraps of clothing revealed very high levels of radiation. Evidence found at the campsite indicates the trekkers might've been blinded. Eyewitnesses around the area report seeing "bright flying spheres" in the sky during the same months. And oh yes, relatives at the funeral swear the skin of their dead loved ones was tanned, tinted dark orange or brown. And their hair had all turned completely gray.

Wait, what?

The final, official explanation as to what caused such bizarre behavior from otherwise well-trained, experienced mountaineers? An "unknown compelling force." Indeed.

Here's the problem: All the convenient, logical explanations — avalanche, animal attack, secret military nuke test — fail. Russian authorities held a three-month investigation. Rescuers, experts picked through every piece of evidence. There were no signs of natural disaster. And if it was just an avalanche, why was the area closed off for three years following the event, and all related documents put in a secret Russian archive until 1990? If it was some sort of weird nuclear megablast (which I suppose may tint you orange, but won't turn your hair gray), what the hell happened to her tongue?

I love stories like this. I hate stories like this.

Sure, you want to go for the logical. Hell, who knows what hellish weaponry they were testing in the mountains in Khrushchev's Russia in the late '50s? Who knows what dark mysteries are buried in the landscape by the world's militaries as they test their dark deeds? The rule goes like this: Any weapon of horror and death man's mind can conceive, odds are gruesomely good the government or military has considered it. Or even built it.

Then again, maybe not. The "horrifying military experiments" theory, spawn of a thousand movies and conspiracy theories, has one fatal flaw: proof. What, 75 years of high-tech military advances and hundreds of billions of dollars spent and a million people working in various sinister branches of the military, and yet not one scrap of truly bizarre or outrageous military weaponry has popped up in the public sphere, been leaked or revealed or unearthed? This is the Internet/YouTube/nothing's-secret age — you'd think we'd get at least one piece of irrefutable evidence proving how the Pentagon has been testing 10-story remote-controlled radioactive spiders with lasers for eyes. Or something. Not that I trust the government, per se. They just aren't that smart.

This is both the joy and horror of stories like Dyatlov — they make your mind jump and bend and struggle. Logic fails quickly. Easy explanations don't work. Complicated ones feel incomplete. The creepiness takes hold, begins to burrow, make you squirm.

So of course, you jump further. You reach for the paranormal, metaphysical, unknowable, to things like UFOs and spirits and ghosts, dark forces and mysticism and the occult, because, well, that's where the action is. That's where we get to touch the void, dance on the edge of perception, realize how little we truly know of anything.

After all, if you really think all there is to this world is what your five senses show you, if you think there's always got to be a logical, earthbound explanation for stories like Dyatlov, well, you might as well just join a megachurch and wipe your brain and your intuition and your deep, dark curiosity clean right now.

As Dyatlov himself might say, his skin orange and hair gray and eyes wide wide wide, you think you know, but you have no idea.

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This is a great story - I suppose it could be true, or it could be an artificial rumor, like "The Blair Witch Project." It has just enough ominous gaps and unanswered questions to make it truly unsettling.

James Frawley Interview

SFGATE/THE POOP: Q&A - "The Muppet Movie" director James Frawley
Posted By: Peter Hartlaub (Email)

When we decided last month to go forward with The Poop Presents: "The Muppet Movie" (at the Cerrito Speakeasy this weekend; noon and 3 p.m. on Sat.; 2 p.m. on Sun.), I wanted to interview at least one person connected with the film.

James Frawley was at the top of my list, and not just because he directed the movie -- he gets bonus points for being behind the camera during more than half of the episodes of "The Monkees."

I got his e-mail from an old friend who works at the Director's Guild of America, and Jim wrote back the next day. He was in the middle of a directing job, but gave me some time on the phone early this week.

The Poop: Here's the most important question. How did you get Kermit the Frog to ride a bike?

James Frawley: Every time I show the film -- whether it's to film students at USC or UCLA or I'm going to a festival -- that's always the first question: How did Kermit ride the bicycle? And my stock answer is: I put him on a three-wheeler until he got his balance, and then I put him on the two-wheeler.

TP: I'm looking at your IMDB entry. You started out as an actor, and then all of a sudden you're directing "The Monkees."

JF: I was an actor in New York, and I had studied with Lee Strasberg and The Actors Studio and I did Broadway and off-Broadway, but at the same time I was very interested in photography. ... I picked up a 16mm camera and I shot two short films and edited them myself. They won a lot of awards and attracted the attention of Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson, two young producers in Hollywood at that time. Because I had been an improvisational actor and done a lot of comedy, they thought I'd be a perfect combination to direct "The Monkees."

TP: How did you get "The Muppet Movie" job?
JF: Jim Henson had seen "The Monkees" and liked my work on that, and seen some other television that I had done. He knew that I had been an actor, and thought that I was the right combination for The Muppets. He flew me to London where they made "The Muppet Show." We met, and we had an immediate connection.

TP: Why didn't they direct it themselves?

JF: Up until that time they had never shot film. They had only shot tape, and they had never shot outside the studio. So (Henson) knew that he needed somebody who was a filmmaker and knew what to do with the camera. And he felt pretty good about my sense of humor. It seemed like a good combinations of talents for his Muppets. I had a very childlike approach to my work, and the Muppets fit in well with that.

TP: You also directed the pilot episode of "Ally McBeal." It seems like you specialize in blending fantasy and reality.

JF: You're absolutely right. I'm very comfortable with things that are of another world, or are not real. I've always enjoyed things that were quirky and off the beaten path.

TP: How did you approach directing "The Muppet Movie"?

JF: I had seen the show on the air, but I had no idea how they did it. So I learned the technique of Muppet performers -- they use cameras to watch themselves perform, and sets had to be built six feet off the ground, so the floor could be taken up and they could work from underneath.

TP: How was "The Muppet Movie" different than "The Muppet Show"?

JF: They had never been shot outdoors, or in car or real locations, and we pretty much had to invent it as we went along. Every shot had never been done before, because nobody had taken Fozzie Bear and Miss Piggy and Kermit and put them in a Studebaker. It's the same thing that Peter Jackson had to do on his ("Lord of the Rings") films. None of that had ever been done before in the style that he did it.

TP: It doesn't sound like it was fun all the time.

JF: We just had to approach it like an adventure, and have the confidence and humor and good will to know that you can't make a mistake. And there was such a sense of comraderie and love and community that Jim Henson and his people brought to the work. I had no choice but to embrace it and let it carry me along.

TP: Was there one scene that was the most challenging?

JF: You have to figure that you had four grown men under the dashboard of that Studebaker. Fozzie Bear was operated by two people, Kermit was operated by somebody else and then Miss Piggy by somebody else. They had to have video imaging of what they were doing, so they could watch their own performance as it happened. And then we had a little person in the back of the car, steering and driving. We had a video camera on the nose of the car so he could see where he was going.

TP: Jesus.

JF: (Laughs) That was the most challenging. And all it looks like when you see the movie is a pig, a frog and a bear driving down the road.

TP: What was it like working with all the guest stars. You were a pretty young director, and you're on a set with Bob Hope and Milton Berle and all these other legends?

JF: They were all a pleasure to work with. We agreed to have them one day and one day only. They agreed to do it because they loved the Muppets. Some had more belief in the Muppets than others, but they were just a joy. Richard Pryor had a great deal of fun. And Jim Coburn was a friend of ours.

TP: What about Orson Welles?

JF: Orson Welles was just a joy. He had a history of magic and he knew that the Muppets were a form of magic and he knew every character's name. He even knew we had changed the color of somebody's hat.

TP: Our readers almost unanimously picked this movie as our blog's first children's film presentation. Do you get excited that people still appreciate your work.

JF: I'm so flattered and thrilled that you chose "The Muppet Movie." It's my favorite movie in my career. I wish I could be there this weekend to see the reaction.

Posted By: Peter Hartlaub (Email) | March 02 2007 at 03:30 AM

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Thanks to the PuppetVision blog for the link!