Movie Review: Project Moonbase on DVD (MST3K Experiment #109)

Where does the time go? Consider: as I finish out my 37th year on this wacky globe, it seems all too brief a span, yet 37 years was long enough to turn a cutting edge science fiction film of 1953 into the Mystery Science Theater 3000 mockery fodder of 1990. I'm speaking, of course, of Project Moonbase.

I watched several DVDs this weekend while my wife was on holiday before starting her new job. This was one of them! Yes, dear followers, in the distant future year of 1970, women have jobs too! Yet as America's brave men reach out for the moon, so do they also reach out to spank any gals who might imagine themselves beyond their station! Space station, that is!

Outer Space is treacherous, unknown territory, so everyone should don Head Condoms and summer shorts for protection. Please, no walking on the walls. In case of Foreign Spies, be advised that they may be spotted by their ignorance of rudimentary baseball trivia and feeble combat skills.

And when it comes to ladies, they may be colonels in the space force, pilot risky and expensive vehicles, and even be addressed as 'Madame President'- but woe betide us all if they should carry higher rank, engage in sex without marriage, or dare to bravely dream beyond their limits.

The screenplay is partly credited to Robert A. Heinlein, so I partly know who to blame for the lecturing and condescension. And the sense of adventure! This is hilariously outdated but it's still fun on a bun. Not least from the quips of Joel & the Bots.

It was a mildly interesting confluence of events in that I am reading all of Heinlein's novels (3 and a half to go!) and watching DVDs hoping to reduce my collection in my regularly scheduled bookstore trading event with my pal Bookmonkey. Perhaps a form of recycling... in that you can have my copy of this movie if Wee Book Inn chooses to take it off my hands.

Even if they don't, it's good news for everyone- America hasn't got a woman president or a base on the moon but we've all learned so much about... uh... I forget where I was going with this. Gender Equality? Science? Anyway, good news for me- my wife has a job again.

Things I Pretend To Notice: I'm A Grown Up

It's not like I watch 'The Mentalist' or anything, but for better or worse, mostly for worse (?), I'm an adult now.

I hold down two low-paying jobs, I'm married (that's the sweetest part, actually), and last weekend I read a dull Soviet SF book by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky. No, I don't want to talk about it, I want to talk about being a grown-up. Damn it.

Because, in dog years, I'm a rapidly aging human man. With a human man-sized mortgage. And my own sets of keys to things.

My BFF's daughter turns 19 tomorrow (yay!) and that just can't be, since I'M still nineteen!

I think I'm in a state of shock that apparently retroactively turned my temples grey over the previous couple of years. (And gave me one pernicious white ear-hair.)

Long ago, I genuinely believed that, (one future day) I would wake up and KNOW I was a responsible adult. Everything (well, maybe not EVERYTHING) would make sense and I'd have a clear idea of how to run all my affairs alone. I'm thankful beyond the telling for my amazing spouse, who usually makes that unnecessary.

But, with my lovely Trish away for a time, I noticed that I am still a relatively functional guy.

Granted, I've let my body go. (I'm a nice guy, I let it go where it wants!) Plus, I was weak and scrawny before I was weak and porky. (I only need this meat sack to carry my brain in, anyway.)

I do my dishes and laundry (well, machines do them). I got myself to the dentist (well, Trish made the appointments and paid the nice people to give us a going over with the cleaning pick). I even get groceries and haircuts and stuff.

And when I have no inspiration or interest I force myself to write drivel at you because that's what I do. It's the kind of guy I am.

So here's to looking after myself.

Keep looking after yourselves, too.

Now to make some dinner.