I just saw this over at AICN: Mystery Science Theatre 3000—i.e. one of the most important shows ever—turns 20 this year, and to celebrate, a special collector’s edition will be released on October 28. The set includes:

• 4 new episodes: “First Spaceship on Venus”, “Laserblast”, “Werewolf”, and “Future War”
• Interviews with Joel Hodgson, Mike Nelson, Trace Beaulieu, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett, J. Elvis Weinstein and Jim Mallon
• Footage from a 20th anniversary reunion panel
• Collectible lobby cards
• A Crow T. Robot figurine

AICN has the full press release or pre-order your copy at Amazon.

There will come a time when you’ll need to determine if your baby has allergic contact dermatitis, herpes simplex virus, or just plain old eczema, and as a result, you’ll find yourself hitting up Google Images and looking at a bunch of really disgusting pictures around 11:00pm.

Renae and I finished up Dr. Horrible Saturday night, and all we could really say at the end was, “Joss Whedon, you sadistic @#$%&?!” Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We just should’ve known that Joss would find some way to twist the knife a little and come with the darkness—even in a seemingly dorky little musical comedy. And yet, he does it in a way that spells “genius” with a capital “brilliant” and has us coming back for more.

Suffice to say, we will be picking up whatever super-duper ultra-deluxe DVD edition happens to come down the line in the future.

Mr. Elastic—whose sporting a swank new design, BTW—linked to this video over on Jed Sundwall’s blog. It’s essentially Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” slathered in layers of distortion, and set to accompany footage from NASA’s archives.

I’ll admit, that on a purely surface-y level, there is something quite haunting and beguiling about the video—tons of reverb and distortion will do that to you, I guess. However, while watching the video, and reading Mr. Sundwall’s thoughts, several questions came to mind:

• Does all of the distortion and reverb in the world really cover up the fact that you’re listening to a manufactured pop song by a manufactured pop idol?
• Does the fact that this sounds an awful lot like My Bloody Valentine (due to some fairly easily reproducible studio trickery) diminish or devalue My Bloody Valentine’s music, and the methods they used to produce it?
• Does the fact that the music is paired with NASA footage elevate the song above its roots? Or does it somehow devalue or cheapen the footage?
• Should the intentions of the video’s creator mean anything to you or influence your perceptions of the video as you watch it?
• If the video’s creator claims that there’s no rhyme or reason to it, does that matter? Can it still have any value?
• If postmodernism is, according to the Wikipedia entry that Sundwall references, a cultural, intellectual, or artistic state lacking a clear central hierarchy or organizing principle and embodying extreme complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, diversity, interconnectedness or interreferentiality, in a way that is often indistinguishable from a parody of itself. then can there be any room for criticism or evaluation of the piece in question? Or is artistic criticism and evaluation, which often references or appeals to some manner of objective standard, however incompletely, ultimately a pointless and foolish endeavor?
• And finally—and I ask this with all due respect and no snarkiness intended whatsover—if Mr. Sundwall thinks postmodernism is great, which I assume means that he approves of Wikipedia’s definition, than why does he bother asking the reader their opinion of his opinion? What does it matter if he’s right or not, or if we think he’s right or not? If the hallmarks of postmodernism are “extreme… contradiction, ambiguity, [and] diversity,” than whose to say what’s what?

These questions, and others like them, are certainly nothing new, and they’ve been debated and discussed for ages by folks who are far smarter than I.

I hesitate to say, when it comes to art, that this way or this definition or this method of interpretation is right, much less the only way. Art is a mysterious thing not bound by rational and logical rules. We can’t even come up with a good definition of what, exactly, art is, much less a truly objective way of evaluating it. Hence, at some point, any sort of evaluative system striving for pure objectivity will break down.

But at the same time, I most definitely hesitate to rejoice at the loss of any and all standards and objectivity, to say that “extreme… contradiction, ambiguity, [and] diversity” are the highest and best goals, or that the inability to make a distinction between a thing and a parody of that thing is good.

I’m reminded of a poetry class I took in college, where one of the students argued that it was perfectly fine to read any meaning you wanted into a poem because it’s art—and that’s what art lets you do.

Now, is that right? Or is asking whether that’s right or not, an exercise in futility?

I’ve been a fan of Michael Moorcock’s Elric saga for quite some time, ever since high school when I came across those exotically covered paperbacks in the library.

The Elric books are incredibly imaginative, full of ancient civilizations, wicked sorcerors, mighty magics, and the eternal struggle between Order and Chaos. And above all else, they feature arguably one of the most tragic heroes in all of fantasy literature, the albino warrior Elric of Melniboné, who is fated to destroy everything close to him and is inextricably tied to his soul-eating sword Stormbringer. And who doesn’t love a tragic hero?

However, when I’ve picked up the novels lately, I’ve found the unrelenting gloom and despair rather tedious, regardless of how skillfully and fantastically Moorcock writes.

For example, there’s this passage from the end of The Sailor On The Seas Of Fate:

Outside in the middle of the square, at noon, still lay the lonely body of the last Vilmirian crewman. Nobody had known his name. Nobody felt grief for him or tried to compose an epitaph for him. The dead Vilmirian had died for no high purpose, followed no fabulous dream. Even in death his body would fulfill no function. On this island there was no carrion to feed. In the dust of the city there was no earth to fertilize.

Elric came back into the square and saw the body. For a moment, to Elric it symbolized everything that had transpired here and would transpire later.

“There is no purpose,” he murmured.

Perhaps his remote ancestors had, after all, realized that, but had not cared. It had taken the Jade Man to make them care and then go mad in their anguish. The knowledge had caused them to close their minds to much.

Or this passage from the end of Stormbringer, which brings Elric’s adventures to a close:

“But what is the meaning of it all?” Elric said. “That I have never fully understood.”

“Who can? Who can know why the Cosmic Balance exists, why Fate exists and the Lords of the Higher Worlds? There seems to be an infinity of space and time and possibilities. There may be an infinite number of beings, one above the other, who see the final purpose, though, in infinity, there can be no final purpose. Perhaps all is cyclic and this same event will occur again and again until the universe is run down and fades away as the world we knew has faded. Meaning, Elric? Do not seek that, for madness lies in such a course.”

“No meaning, no patten. Then why have I suffered all this?”

“Perhaps even the gods seek meaning and pattern and this is merely one attempt. Look—” he waved his hands to indicate the newly-formed earth. “All this is fresh and moulded by logic. Perhaps the logic will control the newcomers, perhaps a factor will occur to destroy that logic. The gods experiment, the Cosmic Balance guides the destiny of the earth, men struggle and credit the gods with knowing why they struggle—but do the gods know?”

“You disturb me further when I had hoped to be comforted,” he sighed. “I have lost wife and world—and do not know why.”

Both of these passages typify the existential gloom that permeates the novels. On the one hand, such gloom lends the novels a hard, sometimes cynical edge that is refreshing when compared to much of fantasy literature, which seems devoted to repeating the same Tolkien derivations again and again. Indeed, Moorcock wrote the series partly as a rejoinder to the works of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. However, that same gloom and despair makes it difficult for me to find much ultimate value in the novels.

While I certainly appreciate and enjoy elements of Moorcock’s style, and the world in the novels is certainly creative and has few peers, there’s something rather soul-crushing about them, the cynicism and existential doom ultimately draining one, much as if they’d been stabbed by Stormbringer itself.

Although it surfaced earlier via nefarious means on YouTube, the trailer for the upcoming adaptation of The Watchmen is now officially online over at Apple.

I’m still a little dubious that the film will be able to effectively capture the original graphic novel’s complex narrative structure and characterizations, there’s no doubt that Zack Snyder has nailed the look of things right down to the smallest detail (indeed, Rope Of Silicon has already done a trailer to comic comparison). The trailer looks amazing, and is chock full of iconic images, including Jon Osterman’s disintegration and first appearances as Dr. Manhattan; The Comedian wreaking havoc in Vietnam; and Rorshach looking, well, creepy like only Rorshach can (love the morphing nature of his mask).

BTW, if you watch the trailer and don’t quite understand what all the hoopla is about, Cinematical has put together a guide to the trailer that explains what’s going on, as well as some background information on the graphic novel’s plot.

The Watchmen will come out in theatres March 6, 2009. Click here to visit the movie’s official website.

The first act of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog—the three-part web-based super-villain musical by Joss Whedon—is now online (or available for purchase from iTunes). It’s classic Whedon, which means that it’s pretty much required viewing.

Read Whedon’s master plan here. Act Two will be online July 17, and Act Three will be online July 19.

On a related note, Jeffrey Overstreet wonders—and rightfully so—why someone as talented as Whedon can’t seem to catch a break.

While I may have had some misgivings about WALL•E, I have nothing of the sort for Presto, the short that preceded WALL•E. As with all of the Pixar shorts, it’s incredibly fun and inventive, and easily ranks up there with Lifted and Jack-Jack Attack as a favorite.