George Melies (and Smashing Pumpkins?)

So, everyone who's ever heard of The Smashing Pumpkins knows their "Tonight, Tonight" video. Well, not meaning to, I stumbled upon the original work that inspired their music video. I know, I'm a little late on this one; I'm sure most of you already know, especially if your a film student or just dig The Pumpkins that much... but here it is:  George Melies' "A Trip to the Moon" (1902). It's a pretty neat short film. Great for film buffs, Pumpkin heads, and steampunkers alike.
The cool thing is, even if you don't like The Smashing Pumpkins, watching their music vid right after Melies short, silent, film is pretty much like watching an in colour sequel. Very cool to say the least. ("Tonight, Tonight"). And if you notice, the name of the steamship is called the S.S.Melies.

Marie-George-Jean Melies was a french filmmaker back when making films was as fresh as a new born baby (yet also with a lot of the headache as well ;p ). He is credited as the "Cinemagician" and was the first to use stop motion filming, which he discovered by accident! Over his career he made 531 films, most short films that basically just showed awesome and shiny new special effects in action rather than focusing on any type of plot. But, more to the point, this guy is like the grandfather of special effects, sci-fi/fantasy movies, and yes, even horror films. These effects may not seem like much to us now, but he plowed the way for any number of special effects movies and even music videos.  Just think what else he would have created and what the world would have had today! But unfortunately the French Army melted down most of his films (they need to make boot heels for the soldiers fighting in World War I) and he took time off from film-making to make toys (a man after my own heart!).

All I can say is kudos Mr. Melies! And thanks for being the frontiersman for special effects filming today!
For more information on George Melies visit: Wiki and www.victorian-cinema.net/melies

The Shakespeare Mangler (and other distressing thoughts)

So I was doing research on the web, which sounds better than: I was surfing aimlessly through some steampunk-esque sites (my new interest of the week), and I stumbled upon this:

The Shakespeare Mangler

Seems some bloke, aka Dr. Orville Ward Owen, was so obsessed with the idea that Shakespeare was really Sir Francis Bacon that he decided there was code in the text of Sir William's works trying to tell him that in all actuality Bacon was really Shakespeare. Now we've all heard the theory that Sir Shakes didn't actually write his world renowned works but in fact another author penned the words and Will took the credit. These theories abound with many different factions, some saying Bacon was the author, some that it was the Earl of Oxford, others firmly believing that there must have been a group of writers who took up the same type of prose and got "ripped off" (or what-have-you) by Shakespeare.

Ok, that said, back to the Mangle. Now Dr. Ward Owen was so enamored with the idea of Sir Francis being the real Shakespeare and that he was sending messages from the past in code, in the aforementioned works, that he came up with an idea.
This:
Yes this mighty contraption of cylinders wrapped in oilskin... totally looks like it can decode the Bacon code! Why Sir Francis wrote all of the Shakespearean plays and prose and poems and while doing so he was thinking to himself, gleefully, "I can't wait til some crazed and obsessed chap develops a crazy machine to decode my wonderful secret!"
At what point did the good doctor stop to think "That Bacon, he's so clever, he knew eventually someone of my caliber of genius was going to create this machine! I will wind it day and night until I can successfully prove that the good Sir is really the author of that doppelganger Shakespeare's works and thus thrust even more awe inspiring fame onto Sir Francis and leave that cur of a man Willy in the shadows and humiliated like the drunken leach he was! No one will think I'm crazy after I prove centuries old history wrong!"... and then he went off to write a book about his findings: Sir Francis Bacon's Cipher Story

But here's the kicker... and thus my favorite part of the whole thing. The pure inanity of some people, or the shear raw power of overcoming belief in something? But some people bought it! They decided that the doctor's findings were rather brilliant and accurate and thank the stars for that wonder code machine he built!

What I can't fathom is how these people, Dr. Owen Ward in particular, spent a good chunk of time, days... months... years trying to prove one man better than another. It seems silly to me considering neither man alive to even take the credit; bask in the glorious findings. Honestly Shakespeare wasn't really considered that great of a play-write or author until long after his death. It's not like he's sitting around somewhere, soaking it up on some beach with pockets full of money and hot chicks fawning over him saying "Haha! I have still managed to confound the public and make them believe I am the real author of that twat Sir Francis' work!"

As far as I can see, the works of Shakespeare have not lost their quality; regardless of whether he wrote them, or someone else did (or even many someone elses). Some may not like the stories, find them tedious, hard to read, tired and ho hum, or remember them only as that boring English assignment in high school. Point is the stories in themselves have lived long enough for future generations to appreciate, expand on and draw inspiration from. Does it really matter who gets the credit?