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Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Kong?

It was inevitable that I would go catch an opening weekend screening of an underdog documentary set around the world of competitive classic arcade gaming. I speak, of course, of the recent release "King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" After all, I attend the HAAG Expo every year, used to own a few classic arcade machines myself, and still fire up MAME to enjoy the feeling of simplistic gaming at it's finest. Of course, when I saw that the Alamo Drafthouse that was about a mile and a half from my apartment would have the only ticket in town, and would be hosting a Donkey Kong tournament with first prize being an actual Donkey Kong machine, I was in like Flynn.

Of course, before describing my DK exploits on the big screen, let's examine the movie. Set around this one poor schlub's multiple attempts to break the record at Donkey Kong, set 20+ years prior by the "villain" of the film, Billy Mitchell. Of course, you have to realize that this film wouldn't be nearly as interesting if one of the characters wasn't classified as a villain, and his footage framed to make him look like one, but Billy himself doesn't do much to dispel the image of him being a complete douchebag. He compares his statements on classic arcade gaming and hot sauce to statements on abortion, acts like a complete ass to our underdog hero Steve, and is 'the inside man' to Twin Galaxies, the official sanctioning body of arcade high scores.

Enter Steve Weibe, the underdog extraordinaire, who hasn't succeeded at much (except getting a rather cute wife), and who sees the decades-old Donkey Kong score as his path to greatness. Of course this story can't be cut and dry, served up with a training montage and a knockout of Clubber Lang at the end, as we have to have some backroom insider deals and shenanigans going on. In the end, what we're left with is a tale reminiscent of Frank Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington", with underdog Steve being thwarted at every turn by the political machine of Twin Galaxies and Billy Mitchell. The climax of the film doesn't come with Steve breaking the record at a major event, but rather gaining the acceptance and respect of the classic gaming community. Of course, we couldn't leave it at that, and in what feels like a postscript to the film, Steve Weibe's record-breaking game is described just before the credits. The film ends without seeing the moment of triumph, as the record-breaking game took place after principle photography for this documentary ended.

Now flash-forward to July 2007. Steve Weibe's record falls after only 4 months, as Billy Mitchell breaks the record with a score of 1,050,200 points. Now you have to realize that Donkey Kong is a hard as hell machine, and to have any hope of reaching this type of score you have to actually reach what is called the "kill screen", where the machine runs out of memory and levels and the player just dies. But not only do you have to reach the kill screen, you have to rack up as many bonus points (be it destroyed barrels or timer bonuses) as possible. Well, not only has Billy offered up classic gaming glory, but he's also offering $10,000 to anyone who beats that score. So get hopping, nerds. Maybe one day you can be in the record books and have a wife who looks like she just fell off a display platform at the boat show like Billy...

You all are probably wondering how I did in the Donkey Kong tournament. Well, I didn't even qualify for the final round. Never my best game, it took a game of 5 minutes to qualify for the round in which you compete for the machine. Which is fine, I don't have room for an arcade machine in my apartment anyway (and no longer have a truck to transport it...and don't want to carry it up to the third floor). Perhaps if they ever have a Dig Dug contest, I will have a better shot. And if there's ever a Robotron or Track & Field contest, you know I'm sponsoring Ulysses for entry there....

The Invasion

What to do with the old anti-commie classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Why, remake it with Nicole Kidman and 70% more flash and quick cut editing. But what about the metaphorical narrative? Recast it, while retaining liberal (in the classic sense) values, with a naturalist tone. I am on board with everything but the editing.

It's certainly not necessary for the casual viewer to have seen both predecessors to this version of a story about people being "replaced" by duplicate, but zombified, versions of themselves. Unlike the usual gorefests that are straight-ahead zombie movies, the sentient and purposeful actions of the pod people begs us to consider the effects of their forcibly pacified nature. Half a century ago, we were called to ponder the life of utter conformity in the mold of Communism. This time the issue is broader, as there is still a remnant part of the thinking world that sees the perfectability of man as possible - that continues to see him as a blank slate, needing only to be educated correctly (read: castrated and lobotomized) in order to be fully realized.

Am I reading too much politically and philosophically into this sci-fi adventure? Of course I am!! That's precisely what science fiction - indeed, perhaps all of fiction - is for. Forget the science here, as one usually must with stories that aren't really about the literal source of the problem, but its implications and solutions. Everything here is metaphorical, so the movie jumps right in and gets at it from the beginning. So much so that I almost felt like I walked during the middle. Granted, the movie starts with flash cut scenes that you surmise come from later in the film, but I'm actually referring to the starting point of the chronological narrative.

Let's point a few things out right here *spoilers*: This mixed chronology happens throughout the film, albeit in very tiny doses. Director Oliver Hirschbiegel periodically launches you 10-15 minutes ahead of where you are in the movie, most often where there is about to be some action, but I don't think this technique is as effective as he thinks. Frankly, it serves no purpose here but ostensibly to keep the film moving quickly, but that is totally unecessary since he has already committed to throwing you in head first with very little exposition. In fact, this movie could have used a bit more brake. He's not helped by the fact that Nicole Kidman, an enigmatic screen presence in most of her movies, is not up to the task in her 10-15 minutes of early implied biography of convincing you she's had a life to this point. Her backstory is unspoken and foggy, but, thankfully, irrelevant. The part of the plot that alludes to her previous marriage and son's relationship with his father beckons us, but never materializes. It, and therefore she, feels very insubstantial. She's actually kind of a gaping black hole at the center of the movie.

(Obligatory note to Thrillhouse: there is plenty of NK running around in very tight sweaters and skirts. To that end, you MUST go see this movie. Of course, your fellow moviegoers will be disturbed by your slack-jawed drooling during scenes of a woman in distress, but since when has that ever stopped you before?)

Another problem I had with the movie, but which slightly clears itself up later on, is the mixed dimensions of perspective. During the very first part of the movie, developments are presented cinematically with the TV screen crawl of the kind familiar to anyone who's flipped on the news networks during any sort of crisis, real or hyperbolized. Unfortunately, the proliferation of the latter kind have conditioned us to dismiss crawls as increasingly hysterical and unwarranted (do I really need a news crawl to tell me that Britney Spears has appeared yet again at a club with a bad weave and bra-less? No, Fox News, I do not.) This feature is supposed to have the effect of immersing the viewer in a first-hand sense of the experience. Yet the director chucks this angle very shortly into the movie and I found myself wondering why he went there at all. Quick exposition, I suppose?

But let's get down to brass tacks. There's a scene somewhat early on where Kidman's character debates a Russian diplomat at a party about mankind's true nature. Maybe the fact that this character is a Russian is simply an honorific nod to the original, or maybe it alludes to one of the many historical attempts at the cleansing of man's selfish primal urges to the betterment of civilization. In any event, his characterization of the life of man is similar to Hobbes' (and, as any reader of my review of The Village will recognize, my own): nasty, brutish and short. His discourse here all but flashes in neon as a "think of this throughout the movie" sign, coming as it does out of the blue and in a totally irrelevant plot line. Dr. Bennell (Kidman) defends men based on the ethical, philosophical and political advances of the last few thousands years - crucially neglecting (IMHO) to mention at what cost they were gained and from what urge they were spawned.

What I did find intriguing about the movie is that the thesis Kidman's character clings to with such conviction is actually the one that is subverted in almost all of her actions. I was a bit perturbed that, in the final scene, we hear the Russian's argument voiced over again, as I hate being beaten over the head with a movie's message. But it was for good measure that the viewer remember that all of Bennell's high-minded assumptions about humanity are tenuous.

And the plot doesn't bear out only the pessimistic aspect of the Russian's argument. That Kidman's character goes to such heroic lengths on behalf of her child is a testament to the primal maternal instinct. That isn't really the kind of thing that is taught. She is a formidable fighter precisely because there are some things that are dearly worth fighting for and almost invariably, those things don't have to be explicated. We walk around with them in our subconscious back pockets every day.

So what is worth fighting for? Well, in the background throughout the film, we hear occasional references to world events that we surmise are the result of this cosmically fortuitous pacification pervading heads of state, while in the personal milieu, we see nothing but devastation and violence. What a perfect encapsulation of the tyrannical regimes around the globe that hide their dirty oppressive secrets, torturing and imprisoning political dissidents while dazzling their ill-informed, moon-eyed admirers (Oliver Stone, Cindy Sheehan). In fact, one scene is explicitly comical in that it shows on a television in the background George Bush and Hugo Chavez physically embracing each other in the spirit of their new agreement. But this classic liberal found himself thinking, "On whose terms does that happen?" Conciliation and agreement for its own sakes is utterly meaningless. Free will stands throughout this movie as the most laudable of human qualities, and the free will of man, personally or politically, to decide his priorities necessarily includes the possibility of conflict. In short, the larger philosophical answer to Rodney Kings question is no, we can't all just get along - at least until we can all agree on the same political and philosophical premises. Nobody even knows what that looks like yet.

I'm open to different interpretations of this film, but I think it shines as a statement that man, while having risen to some degree from the ashes of his Neanderthal savagery, has his primal desire to thank for guiding him along the way. Our instincts are not what we escaped when we assembled civilization: they are what we utilized and channeled to create it, and what we continue to draw from to defend it today. Liberty and free will are the powerful pincers in our arsenal and this movie well defends the idea of keeping those intellectual weapons sharp.

Eagle vs Shark

On my way to see this flick later today ...

I was sold once I read the comparison that this was sorta like a "Napoleon Dynamite 2." Even more sold when I realized it had one of the guys from Flight of the Conchords.

Waitress

Having a spare late night available this past weekend, I headed over to the Angelika to catch what I'd heard was a pleasant little pseudo-arthouse flick, Waitress. And while it's billed as another "food-as-metaphor-for-life" movie, it also dances dangerously close to the "men-are-so-totally-unnecessary" genre. The former description tempts one with sumptuous images of rich foods representing the delicious buffet of life. The latter description is a big fat warning sign that liberties could be taken in order to help you get your man-hate on. While the film ultimately did not convey such an absolute indictment, it also has nothing to offer in terms of legitimate feminine empowerment, and the men who do escape unscathed come off as unnecessary at best, ridiculous at worst.

As always, I find it a struggle to delineate the plot myself, so I leave it to IMDB (methinks there really is a skill to condensing a film to a sentence or two): Jenna is a pregnant, unhappily married waitress in the deep south. She meets a newcomer to her town and falls into an unlikely relationship as a last attempt at happiness.

Keri Russell plays the role that Ashley Judd would have locked up a decade ago, and handles it well enough, though her face belies a mind that strikes me as a bit too ponderous and intellectual to be entirely believable here. Cheryl Hines plays the obligatory sassy and country-fried soul sister Becky, and Adrienne Shelly plays the awkward and sweet Dawn. (But please: can we have a moratorium on writers who insist on handling the neurotic/goofy duties themselves, in that egotistical "look how much cool I can afford to stifle" manner? *cough*TinaFey*cough*). Unfortunately, Shelly has a tin ear for Southern dialogue (just as I suspected: I check her IMDB page and see that she is a Russian Jew born in Queens) and so there are a number of clunker lines that just drop to the floor - though Hines at least pours out enough attitude to save a couple of her moments. They say you should write what you know (and given the current trend of TV shows made into movies, I have an untapped career in Hollywood) but so many of these coastal industry types are just certain that all you have to do is leave the g off any participle, lift a few regional epithets, and ta-da! Instant yokel. Suggestion: leave the Southern characterizations to people who've actually lived there (e.g. Mike Judge).

Shelly also jots back and forth between varying levels of realism in her direction. Jenna's romantic scenes with her secret love are played to almost slapstick proportions for the bulk of the film: Shelly uses a swirling camera perspective around the couple for their embraces, infusing them with comic melodrama. But it conflicts with the downhome style with which she started the film - especially since she switches to a gauzy, Bridges-of-Madison-County style toward the end. Same goes for Jenna's run-ins at various points with harried mothers and their brats (feeding her fear of her own impending motherhood). These scenes are played so over-the -top and out-of-place that you have no idea what kind of movie you are supposed to be watching. If you want to make a "quirky" comedy, go ahead... but then don't imply we're getting "slice of life". You can have your cake but you can't eat it too.

It seemed for a while that, despite this juvenile one-dimensionalism of the South and the scatterbrained direction, there might just be hope for this movie. Jenna's husband was given a few legitimate moments of near-sincerity, and it's clear he would be hopeless without her. Kerri Russell's expressions were cryptic enough to almost keep you guessing as to what her final decisions would be. And she conveys enough genuine apathy about her future child that you wonder whether you might be seeing something unique in the genre. But there are so many inherent weaknesses written into the movie that it ultimately dives headlong into failure.

The most significant flaw in this effort hit me not quite halfway through: all the characters and situations are being written into dead-ends, and if you give even a split-second's thought to it, you can figure out EXACTLY where this movie is going. Even if the acting performances were superb, there was no hiding this fact. And while that in and of itself might not be a problem, the ending is so much pseudo-feminist posturing, leavened with fairy tale saccarine bullshit, that you almost want to puke that you've given the movie so much credit to that point. To that extent, I'm not sure whether describing the ending qualifies as a spoiler, but I guess I'll hold back. Just... understand that if you decide to go see this movie, there is nothing that will ultimately surprise you, and in that sense, this doesn't qualify as art house fare in any way. This is utterly predictable Hollywood pap, and Adrienne Shelly better not entertain any flattery to the contrary. Don't let the movie's exhibition at Angelika fool you; it has about as much "indy" credibility as Where the Heart Is, Sweet Home Alabama, or Fried Green Tomatoes.

Well... at least this didn't have Kathy Bates in it. Little victories.

Darktown Strutters: In Case Visuals Help

Consider this a minor sampling of the insanity herein.

1. "Any Resemblence"
Darktown Strutters: Intro

2. "Pie Fight"
Darktown Strutters: Pie Fight

3. "Jailbreak" (with apologies to Phil Lynott)
Darktown Strutters: The Escape

4. "Pot-sicles"
Darktown Strutters: Pot-sicles

5. "The Keys"
Darktown Strutters: "The Keys"

The Black Apple

So I'm spending a too-large portion of my Memorial Day weekend taking in some of the $1 blaxploitation DVDs on sale at the local Fiesta. I'm not sure why there's a rack full of these, but I'm going to tag the folks at EastWest DVD as patron saints of the clown crew. If there's a movie from the 70s that was so craptacular it was never heard of (think "beneath the category of Fish that Saved Pittsburgh"), these guys found the wherewithal to turn it into a crappy DVD. For a buck, it's hard to argue that I didn't get more than my money's worth after watching Amazing Grace. This one was actually much better than I anticipated and stars Slappy White and Moms Mabley. If that last name doesn't ring a bell, by all means Google it up. She's got quite a rich history and this was her final film. Yes, there's actually a sappiness factor in this movie ... as well as countless laughs that will be evident from a few clips I'll post tomorrow.

As I type, I'm in the early minutes of a doozy called Darktown Strutters. I'm going to refer to this as the "Black Apple" and force it on the next ClownFest ... whenever or however that happens. Of course, when I check IMDB to dig a little deeper into Darktown Strutters, I've got a question for Ralphie ...

Explain your whereabouts in 1974/1975! Check the credits for "Art Direction" and you'll see why.

Year of the Dog

Mike White has quite the resume and I can't profess to being deeply knowledgable about all of it. I can tell you that I saw Chuck and Buck on a lark at the Greenway several years ago and thought it was VERY well excecuted. White has a knack for exploring the frayed edges of standard social behavior. What you get from him are darker shades of the humor found in The Office and other shows that trade on making you squirm. It's exquisitely uncomfortable.

I guess (as always) I ought to warn you that some of what follows by way of description can be considered *SPOILERS* ... so you've been warned. Year of the Dog is about a woman's descent into obsessive animal rights activism after the death of her dog, the only companion upon whom she can reliably depend. This much is clear witin the first 20 minutes of the film wherein Peggy (played by Molly Shannon) is shown having conversations - check that - listening to all the various people in her life talk at her, more than to her. When her dog dies, she is recruited to adopt one of the soon-to-be-terminated SPCA cases handled by Newt (Peter Sarsgaard). Just as she believes she's finally found someone to believe in, she is very lightly rebuffed and her own social distortion is ratched up quickly.

This movie is similar in tone to White's Chuck and Buck, and while the pace differs greatly between the two, White is equally adept here as director Miguel Arteta was in C&B at taking a simple but nuanced idea and putting it under a microscope for well over an hour without you ever feeling rushed or bored with it. He is a patient director. The only complaint I have in comparison to that earlier film is that in Chuck and Buck, his misfit's difficulties are so tied to his interaction with only one other character that you always know where the center of the film sits. In Year of the Dog, I think White moves off the dynamic between Peggy and Newt too quickly, leaving us alone with Peggy and, having no one specific for her to play off of, I think the movie becomes a shade less tense.

While Molly Shannon was not particularly brilliant in this movie, I do think she's about the best female equivalent of Mike White as an actor and protagonist as you might find: able to convey sincerity and empathy, but also skilled at mining the subtle comic moments necessary to make White's film the awkward delight that never quite puts you off entirely. Peter Sarsgaard played Newt note-perfect by capturing that sexually disinterested and somewhat self-absorbed and self-righteous eco-lefty mentality.

Both White's movies have at their core the idea that certain episodes in life that can seem simple and/or just slightly more than ordinary can explode with sub-psychic reverberations that might throw lives off the rails. And yet both of White's films have somewhat upbeat endings, where we are encouraged to believe that his lost souls gain just enough clarity to begin a reclamation of their sanity. I enjoy that he merely points you in that direction and doesn't offer any guarantees, and his delicate touch keeps from totally illuminating the dark corners we've just been through.

A Houston Yankee in King Vidiot's Court

As longtime readers know, the members of this entourage are quite fond of the Weird Wednesday shows often orchestrated at the Alamo Drafthouse in Houston. Well, your intrepid reporter has recently taken the plunge and moved to the home base of the Drafthouse: Austin, TX. As my first post back on the site, I could think of no better topic than my first trip to the mothership connection: The Alamo Drafthouse Downtown, for a showing of that 1983 classic: Joysticks. Of course, with this being the original Alamo, a regular showing just wouldn't do. Instead, on this night the legendary (???) character actor Jon Gries was on hand to describe his motivation in playing the antagonist, King Vidiot. Wild times ensue for all...

I must admit, this was my first trip to the original Alamo location. Sure, I had been to the S. Lamar theater once, but was never in town at the right time to catch a movie at the original 'Mo. Let me try to describe for you the theater setup: it looks like the type of place where snuff films and sexual favors would be traded. The theater has the now-classic table/theater chair setup known to Houstonians, but with a single-screen in an upstairs theater. The lobby contains a few classic video games, including one of my old favorites: Kung-Fu Master. As I entered the theater, Jon Gries was just finishing up his Q&A session after a showing of Napoleon Dynamite. It was during this Q&A that I experienced a moment that would have made Jim's head explode: Gries described in great detail just how the director and Jon Heder came together to make Napoleon's "dumb stare" facial expression. It was at this point that I had to step out and get a beer...

After a brief cleaning, the theater was reopened for the showing of Joysticks. The theater crew had hooked up a computer to the theater screen, and patrons were encouraged to come play a game of Satan's Hollow (as seen in the movie). Of course yours truly had to get up and try, and wound up with the second best score of the night. Alas, a guy covered in potato chips and Dr. Pepper stains beat me down like a rented mule. Gries did a bit of an introduction, and the crapfest ran.

Oh, I'm sorry, did I say crapfest? I meant extraordinary shit-stained crapfest. Picture "Porky's", set in a 1980s arcade, as directed by the genius behind "Satan's Cheerleaders". And every scene has a "Pac-Wipe", where Pac-Man wakka-wakka's across the screen to transition from one location to another. Every stereotype was in this film, from the cool protagonist to the weird King Vidiot, from the fat gamer to the old man in town who wants to shut down the arcade (played Joe Don Baker...not one of his shining moments). The man who made the film was, of course, Jon Gries's character of King Vidiot. An odd mix of Pee-Wee Herman and Jeff Lebowski, King Vidiot was certainly something to laugh at. I almost felt sorry for sitting two rows behind this poor guy who was just trying to make a paycheck back in the early 80s and laughing at the movie he was in. Almost, but not quite. I heard quite a few groans coming from his seat, as he relived some of the worse moments on celluloid. Ah well, we all have our ups and downs in life. It was just quite fun to experience another person's valley on the big screen.

After the film came, of course, the requisite Q&A. There were only two main threads asked by the audience: "Were you a video game player" (no), and "What was your motivation for doing this movie?" (to get paid!). Very simple, straightforward answers, and I'm quite glad that he didn't attempt to bullshit us with stories of why this was the most important role of the 20th century. To him, it was a paycheck, and he's quite glad that people are still watching this movie 20+ years later. And to be honest, if anyone were to read this 20 years down the line, I'd be quite impressed as well...

Stranger Than Fiction

Given a quick perusal of my past and current reading list, it can hardly be disputed that I stand by the elided aphorism above, referring also to the film written by Zach Helm, directed by Marc Forster, and starring Will Farrell and Emma Thompson. It may not even be a coincidence that, having just finished Religion Explained last month and a NYT article on “Darwin’s God” earlier in the evening, a movie I believe is dealing with religion, meaning, and man’s relationship to God should find it’s way to the DVD player. In fact, if it is a coincidence, it is multiplied by the fact that the film itself deals significantly with the place happenstance occupies at the table of life. Is Ulysses once again reading something way too deep into this, imputing heavy philosophical and psychological meaning to a simple little film? Perhaps, but it seems that is my place at the Clown Car table, so here we go!

I will start by telling you that there are **spoilers** here, so if you haven’t seen this movie yet, you may be better off waiting to read this until you have.

You probably remember the plot of the movie if you remember the commercials: A quiet and dull man begins to hear narration of the events of his life, narration that affects how he goes about living it from that point forward. To be more specific, Harold Crick (Farrell) is the living subject of author Karen Eiffel’s (Thompson) work in progress. In order to discover exactly what sort of book he’s in and what that means, Harold goes to Dr. Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), professor of literary theory. The task takes on greater urgency when the narration alludes to Harold’s imminent death. When Hilbert is unable at first to discern what kind of book Harold is living, he urges him to abandon the search and just go about living the life he’s always wanted before he dies.

To this point in the movie, I saw it developing a variant message to what was summed up succinctly in The Shawshank Redemption: get busy living or get busy dying. It also reinforced the theme of Groundhog Day in that every day will be the same until you make something different out of it yourself. But death plays a much stronger role here than there, and that’s what pushed me to a somewhat more theological/philosophical interpretation.

There’s no mistaking that the author in this film represents God, the creator of man and the “omniscient third-person” who provides the narration. Harold obviously represents that creation and Hilbert is the intermediary. As the prospective go-between who endeavors to help man understand his creator, Hilbert represents religion, the formalized theory by which we come to understand God’s plan. There is a complex discipline to what he does, but it’s unintelligible to those who go about life mostly ignoring the search for personal meaning. To Hilbert, the story should be discernable, it should have structure, and most of all, it must have meaning.

The author Eiffel is hemmed in by the requirement from her publisher (representative of an orderly universe within which even God must operate?) to kill off her creation, an event that means the end of Harold in real life as well. The movie is the story of her struggle to give that death meaning, to make the very event itself significant through its irony. When she finally settles upon an answer and it is revealed to Hilbert, he proclaims the work a masterpiece and implores Harold to go about fulfilling it.

As frightening as this is to Harold, it makes sense that Hilbert finds this answer appealing. What is important to religion is that the plot be advanced in a way that glorifies the creator even at (or possibly because of) the expense of the creation. Paramount to religion is what lives on, something fulfilling to all souls that can be passed from generation to generation and overcomes death – death which reinforces the persistence of that truth

Harold decides that Hilbert is right, and goes about stepping in front of a bus that is meant to be his certain death. But (Deus Ex Machina) Eiffel decides instead to rescue Harold, and a miraculous shard of his wristwatch lodges in a main artery and prevents Harold from bleeding to death. This obviously disappoints Hilbert, who judges the book good, but not as excellent as the first draft. Eiffel defends her decision by saying that a man who knowingly and willingly goes to his death is a man worth having around. (Who does this remind me of?)

Somehow this ending felt a little unsatisfactory, and maybe it requires some unpacking. Assuming the shard of glass is meant to symbolize the simple randomness incorporated into the universe, I can see where one might conclude that, though not everything happens to us for a reason, great meaning nevertheless can derived after the fact. My first instinct was to rearrange the film so that Eiffel writes Harold into death, but the real Harold actually survives. This version has the whiff of atheism, though, in that it immediately and decisively relegates God to the backseat of the universe, an impotent force at the mercy of chaos. Upon further consideration, that would have been a very dark film indeed! Now I’m on the fence as to whether that would have felt more authentic, but I also wrestle with whether my desire to have the film adhere to a specific viewpoint is coloring my judgement. And frankly, it’s not really my place to tell the moviemakers which side to come down on in this debate. .They seem already to have settled on God’s power over all things, including the occasional randomness of the universe.

What is intriguing to me about this is the attempt to syncretize the two sides of a great debate, the evolutionists and the creationists. The creationists see nothing random in the universe, as it all progresses according to a grand design. The evolutionists see a universe that implies design, but is actually the result of persistent randomness. The movie wants to place randomness under the rule of design, and that feels satisfying, but I can’t be sure how well that holds up upon further inspection. A course on religion in America at UH provided me my introduction to deism (i.e. the watchmaker theory), and it seemed to make a tremendous mount of sense to me. But people’s desire for order seems to lead to all sorts of confusing conclusions. When a good thing happens to a good guy, it makes sense to us that God is just and this event reinforces it. But when a bad thing happens to a good guy, those same people can’t be bothered to try and understand God’s complex plan. A "just" God is an easily understood being with motivations that dovetail nicely with our own, but when something inexplicably bad happens, all of a sudden God is a murky haze of divine inclinations that are beyond rapproach but obediently accepted. That’s a benefit of the doubt I think we’d all love to have.

There’s enough going on in this movie and the surrounding debate to merit a real bull session for those inclined to discuss these kinds of topics. And with all these ideas about, I think it’s unreasonable to expect satisfactory answers from a simple movie, but I am impressed that someone thought to address the ideas in an accessible, if not entirely enjoyable way. Whether you find the conclusion adequate probably depends on the conclusions you brought with you into the viewing.

Addendum:
As for the cinematic virtues of the film, I didn’t find many. Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson gave unsure performances, perhaps a reflection of the ideas herein, but they weren’t particularly bad. Will Farrell was mostly wasted: not funny and not particularly empathetic in his turn at the “lost but endearing protagonist, usually played now by Jim Carrey” role. Maggie Gyllenhaal was capable as the free-spirited anarchist baker. Queen Latifah was obviously given the wrong directions by casting for another film and wanders through, leaving nothing indelible. I think maybe this movie was too “book-y” and therefore needed primary actors of greater subtlety and sophistication. Hoffman can only do so much in a supporting role.

And ANOTHER bone to chew on...

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, Groundhog Day scores

An NRO article on a movie that I seem to remember holds a place in Ralphie's pantheon. I think I have the dead-tree edition of this entire article and could probably dig it up for him if he's interested.

(This is not a solicitation for discourse on this movie necessarily. I don't think so highly of it as to have mentioned it as often as Ralphie, and arguments to give it greater weight will be lost on me. I've seen it. It's an okay movie. My opinion has hardened.)

Rocky Balboa

The opening credit sequence to this 6th installment of the Rocky franchise is aurally and lyrically portentious. I recognized instantly the melody and "do do do do" of Take You Back (by, you guessed it: Frank Stallone) from the first film and it seemed to me a clear signal that Sylvester Stallone intended in this movie to find those elements that made that first film so emotionally resonant and superior to all the sequels.

I've never been ashamed to admit that I think quite highly of the original 1976 Rocky, and nor should I be. It did win Best Picture and Best Director at the 1977 Oscars, after all, and the screenplay, as well as four(!) of its actors were nominated: Stallone, Burgess Meredith, Talia Shire, and Burt Young. (In verifying the Best Picture award, I also noticed that Stallone was only the 3rd person to be nominated for acting and writing the same year, following Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles. Impressive!) That original film is not an action movie - what one would expect of a movie about boxing - but a drama about personal courage and dreams. If you understand this movie, you get that the decision of the judges after Rocky has gone the distance with the champ is irrelevant. That's something that the sequels were just unable to incorporate because the messages in those films became too ridiculously simple in their metaphorical attempts (Hey, look! Rocky is beating the hell out of that Russian! U-S-A! U-S-A!). This film gets the closest to returning to more human themes.

Rocky Balboa is about the lead character "cleaning out his basment." He has lingering sentiments about his career and gets back in the ring once more so he can ostensibly put them to bed. What the film doesn't explain is why he should feel that way, and so Rocky comes off a bit more egoistic than before. This movie might have made more sense if the 3rd, 4th and 5th films hadn't been made and his legacy not so explicit: kicked the crap out of Mr. T, kicked the crap out of He-Man, kicked the crap Mullet Man. It would have been more fascinating to imagine from scratch his career after winning the title. Of course, I'd have been content with only the first movie having been made, but if your going to make the second, then you can make this one, or the one I am suggesting they might have made, without the intervening pollution.

Anyway, in order to settle things for himself, he gets back in the ring to fight Mason "The Line" Dixon, a virtually unchallenged champ who has been suffering self-doubt, especially after a computer-generated fight between the two has Rocky winning. The movie is very short on story about Mason and I'm not sure that's entirely problematic. Nothing much was said about Apollo Creed's backstory in the first film, but Carl Weathers' perfomance gives you all the detail you need about who Apollo is and what he's about. Antonio Tarver is not so capable as that, but his character was meant to represent something more subtle, and one can only expect so much out of an actual fighter, not an actor.

A returning character with a bit part in the first movie - Marie, a streetwise teen - returns and helps connect this movie to its past much more than all the efforts in Rocky V combined. it's not the same actress, but she was convincing enough that, watching it, I wasn't sure at the time. Also returning is Pedro Lovell as Spider Rico, whom I will be honest enough to admit I didn't recognize. Meh. Unimportant, really.

There are wonderful moments of symbolism that amplify the message of this film, such as Rocky replacing the burnt out bulb in Marie's porchlight. It means something for the both of them that a light long-thought extinguished can be brought back brighter than ever. And Rocky's ascent of the steps takes place in this movie during full snowfall, an apt visual parallel to Rocky's age: the winter of his life. These things are what made me believe I was in the hands of someone who understood the key elements of this story.

What did NOT help was the too-long excursion at the beginning of the movie where Rocky visits all the meaningful places of his relationship with his now-deceased wife (oh...uh, *spoiler alert*.. but then, if you've seen the cast list, you know Talia Shire isn't in this), and the ineptly executed story of Rocky's relationship with his son - though, in defense of the latter, it yielded probably Rocky's best speech in the film. It feels like these side stories are there mostly to fill in the spaces until we get to the meat of Rocky's moment, but they aren't entirely insignificant. They just don't seem relevant to why Rocky wants to embark on this journey.

The ending - if you can guess it - is as satisfying to this movie as the ending to the first film was to it. Which is to say, this is a lesser version of that film, and the ending is less satisfying than that one for only that reason. I didn't leave with any answer as to why Rocky felt the need to go toe-to-toe once more, but his future can now be entertained in the imagination with the same degree of satisfaction as his past might have been had we not seen episodes three, four and five. And that's at least saying something.

Little Children

Wasn't sure whether I was going to review this movie after I'd seen it, as I couldn't decide whether the writing process would help me unfold some of the ideas or just muddy them up. So here, presented with a hearty disclaimer that I don't have the entire thing figured out as such, are at least a few ideas.

I seem to be comparing movies I've seen recently to syntheses of movies past. I feel like that gives people some idea of what to expect (though I've been told about a recent film that not only am I off the mark, but once again that I "misunderstand Napoleon Dynamite more than any other movie ever" [and no, it was not Greg who said that.] Gee, thanks a lot. Guess I'm just an idiot.)

Little Children, starring Kate Winslet (gee, why'd I see this?), seems to me at once to be a more mature and subtle, yet occasionally more humorous and eccentric, retelling of the quiet desperation in middle America that was portrayed in American Beauty. I shared the reservations of Joe Vitus regarding that earlier movie - mostly, the reaction the public had to it: cheering the quite obviously immature acting out of Spacey's character. In this movie, it's murkier as to whom one should cheer for, except in the sense of hoping that they all acquire some meaning to their lives. That is, other than the meaning born of the emotional pain that has the odd effect of making us feel alive by making us feel something.

Sarah (Winslet) and Brad, aka "the prom king" (Patrick Wilson) find each other amid the malaise of suburbia (both are married) and begin spending time together as an outlet from their respective frustrations. She's been suffocating among the local chattering flock of Stepford Wives and her porn-obsessed husband, while Brad has been suffering under the constraints of his micro-managed role as primary care giver to his son. Their relationship is at first relatively wholesome, and one of the best moments of narration in the film is the description of her ambivalence about whether to take their relationship to the next step.

The concurrent plotline involves sex offender Ronald James McGorvey (played by Jackie Earle Haley of Bad News Bears fame) who moves back into the neighborhood, causing no little commotion and aggressive bullying by ex-cop Larry Hedges, ersatz friend to Brad.

In between voluntary self-patrols and late night harassment of McGorvey, Larry brings Brad to his nighttime football games and Brad, a college quarterback not so long ago, finds yet another means to derive some meaning out of life. It's later in the film we realize that, like watching the neighborhood skateboarders Brad wistfully admires, this is just one more thrill-seeking adventure that reveals Brad for what he really is: a shallow and self-obsessed ex-jock whose too-beautiful wife isn't enough to make him feel alive.

A key scene between Brad and Sarah is her mid and post-coital daring inquisition as to the particulars of Brad's wife. His confession that she's a "knock-out" but that "looks aren't everything" feels like a punch to Sarah's gut. As the narrator puts it, Sarah realizes that "only someone who takes his own appearance for granted could make such a comment." Of course, she begins to spy on him and once she gets an eyeful of his wife (played by Jennifer Connelly), her sense of confidence about this whole affair begins to crumble.

The tension and ambivalence about the two's relationship builds up toward the moment *SPOILER ALERT* after Brad has scored the winning touchdown for his team and looks up to find that Sarah has snuck into the game and cheered him wildly. It's then that Brad feels like Sarah "gets him" and he asks her to run away with him. She struggles with the idea that it can't possibly work, but finally agrees. It's a strange moment for the viewer to want this to succeed knowing full well the overwhelming likelihood of its failure. They agree to meet in the park in the middle of the night, but on Brad's way to their rendevous, he is sidetracked by the skateboarder's invitation for him to finally join them. This puzzling jumble of his priorities is what finally reveals the precise depth, or lack thererof, of his character. And while he's off with them, Sarah is having a striking and revelatory encounter with McGorvey - one which sends her back to the comfort of her own home. In the end, it seems like a dream between the two of them, and this viewer was left wondering exactly what I was supposed to be rooting for.

Sarah's moment in the park involves finding her wandering daughter in the middle of the street looking up to a streetlamp surrounded by fireflies, and it's an apt visual metaphor. Sarah, Brad, and even McGorvey each struggle with making any stable sense of their lives (granted, with wide disparities in their respective cases) and seem to be drawn to those dangerous things that thrill them to the point of exhilaration and disaster. And in all cases, the behavior is negligent toward the those around them to whom that kind of behavior is most inherent - little children.

I can't honestly suggest to anyone what to make of the film's examination of discontent except that I found it much more realistic and evocative than American Beauty. There were so many moments in this movie that felt familiar in a way that American Beauty never managed to capture, probably due to AB's one-dimensional take on the issue. The most significant complaint I can make about this movie boils down to the one scene where Brad contemplates Sarah as "short", "boyish", and "with thick eyebrows." Surely it's me, but I found it straining credibility to accept that Jennifer Connelly (admittedly attractive, though moreso when she wasn't thin as a reed) is the pretty one and Kate Winslet is the dog. That kind of totally misguided apprehension of facts could almost upend an entire movie. That I managed to get past it is a testament to the film's strengths.

registration of agreement with previous posting

expressed in this fashion due to CGI limitations...

Hmm... more room to react... yeah... that's the ticket... since the PERL versions (Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister) may not even YET be synchronized, here's this, here and not as a "comment" ----------

A great day indeed. The deadpan was the genius of Nielsen's approach. Later directors may have interfered with this. It's a rare actor that's able to successfully suggest anything to the boss (like Robin Williams or Peter O'Toole).

And the whole concept of setting the action in the tv/movie context of earlier decades [IN COLOR!] just yanks ya back to the Quinn Martin productions of yore...

How To Deliberately Tank A Movie

This entry is brought to you by our good folks over at News Corporation.

Nearly a year and a half ago, I caught wind of a movie, written and directed by Mike Judge, slated for release in Sept. 2005. You remember Mike Judge, the creator of Beavis and Butthead, co-creator of King of the Hill and the man behind the hilarious Office Space. This latest project was to be another live-action film, one which was to show a possible future in which society has been numbed and dumbed by the pop culture it has become enamored with. Well, the summer of 2005 rolled on, and this film eventually disappeared from the radar much like 1994's "Fantastic Four" movie. Then in the spring of 2006, the film reappeared much like the phoenix of legend. It was slated for release in September of this year, now with the title "Idiocracy". The IMDB page was populated with the cast and crew, and the fans of Office Space laid in wait for the first glimpse of a trailer. Sadly, these fans had a longer wait ahead of them than they imagined. Summer flew by, and there was no mention of this film. No trailer, no posters, nothing. Well to my surprise, while browsing the listings this weekend, what did I see playing in Houston? That's right, Idiocracy.

Although my reviewing skills might pale in comparison to the good folks over at Variety, allow me to wax on about this movie. First of all, it's a good movie. It's not great, and certainly not the best I've seen all year (I'm looking at Little Miss Sunshine right now for that), but it was certainly worthy of something a little better than the burial it received courtesy of Fox. The concept isn't that hard to understand: two people were to be frozen for a year in a military experiment, the experiment went awry, they awake 500 years in the future to find people have become a true reflection of everything wrong with the Jerry Springer Show. There's even an interjection in the film that explains why this is, complete with expanding family trees. Our protagonists awake to find themselves the smartest people in the future, and the only hope of saving mankind. Is this concept what offended Rupert Murdoch so much as to have the movie tanked? Some might say the concept is too simple. Others might say that it just was a bad movie.

Well, I pose a different theory to you here. Perhaps it's the distorted reflection of today's reality that shines from Judge's 500 year dystopia that gave our friends over at Fox a moment of pause. The future where people wear clothing comprised completely of advertising, where top television shows include "Ow, My Balls!" and "Monday Night Rehabilitation", and where everything has been trademarked, copyrighted and stamped down to the point of a major corporation purchasing the FDA and FCC outright. A future where people no longer have the ability to think for themselves, to merely accept their situations because it is the way things have always been. A future where you can win free health care at a slot machine, and a position in the President's cabinet can be procured merely by winning a contest. A Fox News anchor desk manned by a oily, rippled shirtless man and a blonde large breasted woman. Is this future starting to sound a little more possible now? Perhaps that's why the movie was tanked. It can be taken as a reflection of modern society, and a condemnation of how the average man on the street can name the cast of Survivor with more ease than they can a single Supreme Court Justice.

You may read this and think that the movie is just too preachy. No, that's not it at all. The movie does have one preachy moment, brought to you by the average joe protagonist, but you can take it as you wish. The movie deserved better than it got. It deserved a trailer, a poster of some kind, and maybe even a single ad on TV. In the end, it was released in 6 markets (not in San Francisco or New York), was given no promotion, and thrown to the wolves solely to survive via word of mouth. I'm telling my friends to see it, especially if they're a fan of Judge's previous work. The movie presents you with this image, and you will laugh. In the end, though, you will have to ask yourself this question: Are you laughing at the man getting kicked in the balls, or are you laughing at the man from the future whose entertainment is watching a man getting kicked in the balls?

Idiocracy is currently playing in Houston, but who knows for how long. Do yourself a favor and either catch it in theaters or on DVD, which will probably be released with the same amount of fanfare. I'm sure Mike Judge is just looking over at the guys at News Corp (specifically Fox) and saying "Thanks guys, you've really done me a solid!"

Little Miss Sunshine

Right smack dab in the middle of the summer movie season comes a sweet and intimate film that will brighten the work week spent waiting for the next Friday special-effects blockbuster. Apparently there was a bit of a hassle finding a distirbutor for Little Miss Sunshine, but we should be grateful Fox Searchlight saw fit to pick it up. I'm not sure how the marketing roll-out for this film will go, as it could be considered either a small art house flick or a widely distributed public feature. It has the tone and sensibility of the former and the broad-based appeal of the latter. That is to say, this movie is for everyone.

As I usually find it pointless to outdo the quick summaries provided by other online sources, I'll let IMDB do the talking: "A family determined to get their young daughter into the finals of a beauty pageant take a cross-country trip in their VW bus."

This movie is equal parts Napoleon Dynamite and The Royal Tenenbaums, which ought to bode poorly since I found the first to be vapid, shallow, brainless, and worst of all, unfunny, and the second to be unexeptional (I blame this partly on the fact that I came late to this particular Wes Anderson film and might have already become too accustomed to his style). The genre of "outcasts who bond together against the world" is nothing new (I just last month rewatched Harold and Maude, 1971) and it's been mined rather a lot lately, as in the cases of the two films I cited. But whereas I found no particularly likeable characters in either of those films - though I grant GG that Anjelica Huston was good, and I thought Gwyneth Paltrow was okay - this movie has at its center a truly sympathetic character in Olive, played by Abigail Breslin.

The titular and emotional star of this movie, Abigail accomplishes in a very unassuming way what Jon Heder never even got close to, and that which Luke Wilson was able only to approach: delivering a character who is sweet, charming, entirely believable, and strong enough to stitch together the seams of some mighty famous actors already: Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, Toni Collete, and Steve Carrell! There's not a moment in this film where she's overwhelmed by any of them, and there are scenes where she shines right in the middle of the entire group. It's truly an intrepid performance. I can count four scenes off the top of my head where she just stole my heart. I think the difference between her and other characters of this ilk is that she shamelessly wears her heart on her sleeve, is filled with an unjustified but ingratiating optimism (hence the play on the title), which is striking given the obvious and inevitable implied discomfort of her coming teen years. She's not so broadly drawn that you feel comfortable dismissing her because of hamfisted directorial manipulation and her surface awkwardness is not meant to be embraced in-and-of itself at the expense of her truly innate eccenticity. She has no jingoistic catchphrase and her distinct sartorial style, if there is one, is no more affectatious than that of any other impecunious child. The result is you have to conclude she is at least what the world ought to be, if it isn't, and it's the haughty disdain of others that gets in the way.

Greg Kinnear plays "the jerk you hate" who becomes "the guy you root for" and does so with a bit more skill than most. I think it's because he's played pompous before, and he knows well how to unfold it. Toni Collette takes a mostly nothing role and, while not dazzling, she does manage to keep it from devolving into zaniness, neuroses, or irritating nagging - something common in your more average studio comedy. Steve Carrell gives a very understated performance and I think I'm grateful that he did. Had he tried to do more with it, his character could have become obnoxious and ruined the tone of the movie. He is deft. Alan Arkin is given room to play with the salty old man bit, and he makes it entertaining without you losing respect for him. He also plays his scenes with Abigail with a sweetness that usually you refuse to accept from a vulgarian such as this.

Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris appear to have an extensive background in music videos and I think it serves them well here. They understand the strength of letting the action speak for itself. Point the camera and shoot. When you have a cast of this caliber, it's important to let the actors feel their way around and not try to apply too much formula to them. The synthesis here is poetic.

The only reason I won't go into specifics about scenes I liked is that the movie has yet to have a general release and I don't want to set expectations too high, nor do I want to take out the surprises this film delivers in the way of sidestepping cliches. Yes, there are a few cliches... but then again.. too few to mention. I also don't believe in morally intimidating people into accepting a film about outcasts on MY terms. **ahem** I think that kind of posturing strips a movie of its own worth (if it in fact has any) and becomes simply a means to browbeat people into accepting an assertion about its superiority without providing a legitimate reason to do so. **cough*cough** I am simply here to state my affection for this movie, and its distinction in the genre. If you don't like it, the only judgement I will render unto you is very poor taste, but I won't go so far as to paint your heart black, even in jest. I don't take my nerd flicks that seriously.

Why The Omen doesn't work... and probably can't anymore.

Is that too strong a title for this post? Perhaps. But a quick glance at the more recent spate of horror movies might give you a clue as to my thinking: The Ring, The Grudge... and then: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Saw, The Hills Have Eyes, etc. There's sort of this divide where on the one hand you have movies based on the "eerie" factor (a technique perfected by the Japanese through the simple art of filming everything in a blue wash, as pointed out by Something Awful) usually involving some sort of ghost, and on the other hand, movies based on Jessica Beil or Paris Hilton being chased by a non-ghostly but usually disfigured monsterman. Neither is a new concept and there's plenty of room for reiterations of both these themes. The problem happens when you take a film concept that has absolutely nothing to do with either of those genres and refilm and remarket it so as to bring teens to the theater - they, the most coveted of the cinema-going demographic. The remake of The Omen is just such a mistake, and the question becomes whether the central concept behind this story can make any sense to a modern audience anymore.

The first release of The Omen had a thoughtful premise: the struggle of Robert Thorn to accept the pre-modern idea that “evil�? still exists. That the personification of that evil is his (essentially adopted) son brings other somewhat lesser important but still intriguing elements into play, such as the farming out of children to childcare professionals and newly-recognized reproductive rights. (Leave it to me to see this through a political/philosophical/theological prism. But I’ll get to that later) Sadly, this version doesn't even come close to addressing that central issue. It's just a Boo!-fest trading on the franchise credibility of the first go-round.

This remake isn't interested, I think, in ideas about good and evil, about the seen and unseen. Start from how the part of Damien is played here. This young boy has that annoyingly precocious sense of just-behind-the-eyes maturity. In every scene, this kid looks like he is fully aware of who and what he is, as well as fully prepared to get on with the business of anti-Christing. That's a real mistake. It gives him too much ownership of the evil, whereas the original emphasized more that this kid is the tool by which true evil will be brought about - through the maturity, and corruption of the eventual adult in modern society. The new version has the kid seeming otherwordly and, as such, it takes the horror out of humanity. It's as if the kid has a sign over his head blinking "Devil Boy Here!" What this does is cripple two important elements of the story.

It makes his mother's rejection of him all too palatable for the audience and destroys the tension that ought to exist over her failed maternal instinct to love and protect him. That idea ought to disturb us more than it does here. There is a slight subtext in the original that being upper-class dignitaries meant having little hands-on contact with the children and that that might be cause for some apprehension among upwardly mobile people. In today's feminist world, there's no need to excuse the lack of intimacy with one's child even though Katherine Thorn doesn't appear consumed by any careerism, or even employed at all. They almost deal with this in the remake when Robert tells Katherine perhaps they don't need a nanny, but somehow Katherine makes him look Neanderthal for even suggesting such a thing. It also bears mentioning that the idea of Katherine having an abortion of her natural child was a more controversial piece of the original than here. In a world where even partial-birth abortion bans are serially vetoed or overturned, why should anyone feel anything but empathy with Katherine’s desire to have an abortion? An audience that is unconcerned about a woman who is unconcerned with the personal upbringing of her child, and wouldn’t even bat an eye at her exercising her “right to choose�? on another, tells us something about where we are today versus 1976.

The boy’s performance also ruins the tension within Robert Thorn between his rational materialist self and his emerging spiritual self (or possibly mentally disordered self). That's something the original captures quite well that this movie misses. Since the kid in this one is played so overtly demonic-with-a-capital-D, there's no room for sincere conflict on Robert's part. In the original, there's just enough wrong with this kid to get the father off the sane-materialist block, but room for doubt as to whether Robert should believe that the kid is evil, or conclude that he himself may be nuts to even ponder such a pre-modern argument. But THIS kid leaves so little room for doubt that the opportunity for that subtext is gone. It’s evil alright, but transparent goofy ghost-like evil.

Obviously, this story is about Robert Thorn more than anyone else. It is (or at least should be) the story of his spiritual journey from believing in nothing to believing in something. Accepting that the kid is the anti-Christ means accepting that Damien will stand for nothing and that's what will bring society down. He will come to epitomize hedonism and materialism, not a new theism. That's why the kid should NOT be played with horns and a little red cape as he is in the remake. The opposite of believing in something is not to believing in something else; it's believing in nothing. Robert's personal awakening is what spurs him to save the world from that nihilism personified by Damien.

In fact, that's what makes this a modern take on Abraham's tale in the Bible. This man's spiritual devotion to the idea of good and evil (a belief in God, really) is being tested. Robert must bring his only son to the temple and offer him as a sacrifice - except that in this version, the deus ex machina is not Yahweh himself, but a S.W.A.T. team and it isn't the innocent who is saved from death, but the guilty.

Once more, this is why the kid's performance is so ruinous. You get the sense that the kid in the original was told his character was just a brat, to play it that way, and was given no further motivation or explanation. As such, the key scenes are all the more wicked because the kid seemed so disturbed but comprehensible and recognizable to a parent. But in the remake, you feel like the kid was told from day one that he was the STAR of a horror film about the Son of Satan, and the little bastard called Dakota Fanning, talked it over, and went all "method" on us.

One example is the fit Damian throws at being driven to the church. It reeks of "Thou shalt not take me to the temple of my immortal enemy, the Nazarean, and for such a transgression I shall assail thee!" Contrast with the original, where the kid wailed in a way that made him seem indeed berserk, but in a random petulant childlike way. We all understand why kids probably don't enjoy church very much, so we get that. It's this kid's vehemence that makes the scene effective, not his motivation. All Damien knows is that he does NOT want to go to that church, but it's for us to figure out why that is, not for him to telegraph it from a mile away. I prefer the idea that his aversion to God or symbols of spirituality is subconcious, and that that's how materialism overcomes sprituality: not by going toe-to-toe with it, but by subverting it via one's base subconcious urges.

Another example is when Damien knocks his mother over the railing. The original movie I think plays the scene such that Damien is a self-absorbed brat who rides his tricycle wherever he wants, with a level of disregard for others that is abhorrent. When he knocks his mother over, his indifference to her plight reads as a simple “Well, you shouldn’t have been in my way.�? THAT’S horrifying. In the remake, it’s a cut-and-dried murder plot hatched with ham-fisted obviousness. This exemplifies the remake’s overall misunderstanding of Satanism. It isn’t the worship of a devil-figure and the carrying out of his evil plan; it is worship of the self at the expense of everyone who gets in the way of one’s own carnal pleasure. That metaphoric idea is personified perfectly in the form of a spoiled little brat, not some cartoonish mini-demon.

How can you tell this remake is failing at getting across any of the ideas I’ve discussed? Well, you can’t get any better argument than all the spook moments tossed in to wake you up. Contemplating the ideas of good, evil and nihilism ought to be frightening enough, but no… we need the fantastic imagery of a cow-skulled beast in the mirror or Damien in a ghoulish mask terrorizing Katherine in her sleep. Rather than exhibit Damien as a human symbol for our own conflict with morality, they make Damien personify a Halloweenish and simplistic version of evil, and when you aren’t scared enough by that, they have to throw a mask on him to boot. Talk about working overtime in the wrong direction.

What I am suggesting is the possiblity that this movie fails because we don’t even have the capacity to debate good and evil anymore. Could we already be so relativistic in our thinking that it’s now medieval to talk about quaint ideas like morality or ethics? The lack of that frame of reference for this movie ought to serve notice as to our powerful modern urge to slay all gods. At least The DaVince Code was upfront and confrontational about its essential atheistic argument over religiousity. The Omen doesn’t even think it’s a conversation worth having anymore.

Sophie Scholl: The Movie

Seriously, Ralphie, why haven't you dragged us all to see this movie yet?

Updated Movie List for next Uberthon Military Maneuversz

Zardoz (Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling 1974)
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-up Zombies (Ray Dennis Steckler 1964)
When Worlds Collide (Peter Hansen, Barbara Rush 1951) and - they're remaking this one!?
Head (The Monkees, Frank Zappa, Jack Nicholson 1968)

Summer Movie Preview 2006

I just haven't had a darn thing to say lately. That's all about to change, what with the summer movie season starting up. This summer looks to be a hot one as far as the weather is concerned, and the movie theaters have got to be loving that. The appeal of a cold theater and a crappy movie has to beat the thought of your skin melting. And they said that nobody benefits from global warming. Jack Valenti may have retired from the MPAA, but I'm betting that when he figures out that hot summers = profit in the theater, he'll be out shooting cases of Aqua Net with a shotgun in a heartbeat. But enough politics, let's set our brains to "numb" and look at some of this year's prize pigs in the summer movie season

It used to be that summer movie season started on Memorial Day and lasted until Labor Day, but just like everything else in America it has gotten bigger. This year, I'm marking the summer movie season open on May 5th with the release of "Mission Impossible 3". It seems that in the last 5 years, everyone and their cousin has been attached to either direct or star in this film, with the only known quantities being Ving Rhames returning and Tom Cruise doing a side-profile picture for the movie poster. Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays the baddie in this one, and I can't figure that out. Sure, he can be menacing in that "sitting outside the playground every day even though he doesn't have kids" way, but as a super terrorist evil man? I just don't see it.

Also due out on May 5th is "Bandidas". This collaboration between Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz (remember when Tom Cruise was dating her? Man, did she disappear or what?) is an old west action/comedy movie involving bank robbery and a lack of clothing. Is it worth seeing? Who cares? It gives you something to see other than the older half of TomKat. My advice: stay home that weekend.

May 12th brings yet more action your way with "Poseidon". Sure, this remake won't have Shelley Winters' panties on screen, and the cast has about a tenth of the talent of the original, and yes it will be just a big CGI lovefest.....wait, why am I trying to sell this movie? Stay home, rent the original and take a drink every time Red Buttons is on screen. You'll have more fun.

Sequels, remakes and adaptations, oh my! Here comes some of the latter on May 19th with "The DaVinci Code". Opie and Forrest team up for a third time to bring this super ultra mega bestseller to the big screen. They got special permission to film in the Louvre. They even hired some people who speak fluent French! How can it go wrong? Easy: the secret that's hidden in the code is the Colonel's 11 herbs and spices.

May 26th is your Memorial Day weekend, and it brings to the big screen one movie: X-Men 3. Officially titled "X-Men: The Last Stand", this movie will have all you've come to love about the X-Men series. Mutants galore, things going boom, Shakespearean actors playing super villains and tight costumes, all the usual suspects plus a few new faces. The only question here might be if new director Brett Ratner can make a movie without Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. Regardless, they have Kelsey Grammer playing The Beast, so I'm in.

Is it real or is it fiction. Vince Vaughan and Jennifer Aniston star in June 2nd's "The Break Up". And I could care less. Bring on the snooze button, I'm cruising until that next weekend when I get my animation on.

Current animation powerhouse and recent Disney acquisition Pixar brings another summer blockbuster to the screen in "Cars". Somehow they're going to try and de-hickify auto racing through computer animation. I say good luck to that. Also due out that weekend is director Robert Altman's "A Prarie Home Companion". Might be worth a double feature, if only because of the cast list. This thing's got more names in it than a Christopher Guest movie. I might be able to handle The Lohan for the duration of this movie, but only if Lily Tomlin promises to make with the funny.

Do yourself a favor and drink heavily if you're going to the movies on June 16th. Out then are two sequels that didn't need to be made in "The Fast and The Furious 3" and "Garfield 2, plus one movie that makes me think it'll set the immigration debate even further back than it already is: Nacho Libre. Jack Black just isn't my cup of tea, and seeing his hairy, hobbit-like physique stretching the limits of spandex would make me poke my eyes out. Go rent the only tolerable Jack Black starring vehicle in "School of Rock" and love the scene where Joan Cusack sings Edge of Seventeen.

What the hell? How many times can we remake the story of the magic remote control? Apparently one more, this time with it in the hands of a retarded man. Adam Sandler can control time. That's the premise of June 23rd's release, "Click". Now if only his remote had Tivo so we could watch the game while crap like his movie is recording in the background for a drunken viewing later on.

I could have sworn the Strangers with Candy movie was relegated to the same phantom zone of Roger Corman's Fantastic Four movie, but I guess I was wrong. The movie with a million release dates and half a million distributors is supposedly coming out on Wednesday, June 28th. Great timing, folks. You have absolutely no competition that following weekend...

Except the MAN OF FREAKIN STEEL!!! Superman is back, and he's going to try and make you forget Richard Prior and that awful nuclear man. Sure, everyone from the original cast has moved on (some have moved further than others), but Christopher Reeves wasn't the first Superman, either. Director Bryan Singer (of The Usual Suspects and the first two X-Men movies) made a smart move by bringing in newcomer Brandon Routh to play the last son of Krypton, and surrounding him with a few name performers. His old pal, Kevin Spacey, takes a turn as the bald genius Lex Luthor, and he looks sufficiently sinister and brilliant in the skullcap. Top it with a healthy dose of dragging Marlon Brando out of the grave to play Jor-El, and you've got yourself a movie I'll pay to see.

July 7th. Still recovering from the hangover? Well then, get yourself a flask of rum and head on down to the local megaplex. You've got a choice of "Pirates of the Caribbean 2", which has the original cast returning and an abundance of swashbuckling, or Austin's own Richard Linklater's "A Scanner Darkly". The latter film basically looks like A-ha's "Take On Me" put in a blender with "The Matrix". I'm waiting until I hear more about it, but it got raves from the secret screening at South by Southwest.

Let's skip on down to July 21st. Perhaps one of the more controversial movies reviewed here on CCB has been "The Village". Well, M. Night Shyamalan is back at it again with "Lady in the Water". As always, expect an unexpected twist somewhere in the movie. But hey, it's got everyone's favorite loveable loser, Paul Giamatti in it. How bad can it be? Remember "Duets"? Well, neither does anybody else.

August is usually a crap month for movies. The big studios have already blown their wad on June & July, so you never know what they'll pull out for August. First up is Will Ferrel, who hasn't had a #1 comedy in a while. Well, this time he's playing a Nascar driver in "Talladega Nights". Come on, Will, play that sarcastic character we know you do so well. This movie looks beneath you.

Who's ready for another 9/11 movie? Anybody? Well, you're getting one anyway, this one on August 11th. Oliver Stone tries to breathe more conspiracy into the events of that day with Nicholas Cage running around in the ruins of the WTC. I'm not really keen on 9/11 movies yet, so I'll give this one a pass.

August 18th, you will find me at the movie theater. There's no two ways about it. First, I'll be watching that one trick pony Kevin Smith cart out the 6th installment of the Jersey Trilogy in "Clerks 2". But the masterpiece of that weekend has to be the Samuel L. Jackson vehicle "Snakes on a Plane". How simple a movie is this? It's snakes...on a plane. You don't need more than that. Except, of course, for Sam to say "I'm tired of all these motherfuckin snakes on this motherfuckin plane!" Word is, that line of dialogue was added into the movie when someone made a mock internet trailer and somehow pieced that line together.

The last weekend in August has something to do with a beer drinking competition. Looks like a drunken version of "Dodgeball" to me. Whatever.

Are there more movies than this coming out? Of course. I'm just picking a few that you might be interested in hearing about. Love it or leave it, this is my summer movie preview.

Review: Hammer Horror Series 2-DVD Set

Our friends at Universal Studios have done quite well by classic horror fans. Their "Franchise Collection" entry titled The Hammer Horror Series contains eight films on two discs that, while not on Hammer's A-list (like "Horror Of Dracula" or the still unreleased-on-DVD "So Long At The Fair"), are significant entrants in the Hammer saga. In order of appearance, they are

Brides Of Dracula (Peter Cushing, Freda Jackson 1960)
The Curse Of The Werewolf (Clifford Evans, Oliver Reed 1961)
Phantom Of The Opera (Herbert Lom, Michael Gough 1962)
Paranoiac (Janette Scott, Oliver Reed 1963)
The Kiss Of The Vampire (Clifford Evans, Edward DeSouza 1963)
Nightmare (David Knight, Moira Redmond 1964)
Night Creatures (Peter Cushing, Patrick Allen 1962)
The Evil Of Frankenstein (Peter Cushing, Duncan Lamont 1964)

The Kennedy Administration high point of Hammer Studios, much like Hitchcock's TV series begun a few years earlier in the States, was not only a house of enviable regular talent (such as Cushing) but an incubator for future careers (note the early work of Oliver Reed). Most selections give a good taste of the famous Hammer atmosphere ("Frankenstein" and "Nightmare" are the main entries for this) but others show the diversity of the catalog:

Night Creatures (alternate title: "Captain Clegg") - although ghost story elements are present, this is actually an action-adventure story set in the late 1700's (in the manner of Disney's "Dr. Syn alias The Scarecrow"). Cushing is a village pastor trying to shepherd his flock during complicated times, with the coastal fishermen caught in between operations of piratical smugglers and the rough King's brigades opposing them with land-based and flintlock-toting foot patrols.

Brides Of Dracula - the often confusing entrant in the Hammer Dracula series, it involves the Van Helsing character (Cushing) after the death of Dracula in the 1958 first film but before his reanimation in the 1966 second appearance of Christopher Lee as the Count. This 'further adventures of Van Helsing' is helped by the strong foil of Martita Hunt as the current Countess in charge of the castle.

Phantom of the Opera ('62) - An all-around acceptable budget retelling of a story that's been done at least 20 times. Above average music, acting and effective use of soundstage sets in spite of limitations. The phantom's character is properly motivated and the romantic-school pursuit of the main characters of answers and resolution is unbroken in the build toward the climax.

Kiss Of The Vampire - One of the earliest and best Hammer films to deal with period vampirism without specific reference to the Stoker character. The particular Count in the case of this village is more of a cult leader than predatory loner, and the undead have a limited ability to move in low indirect daylight. This more gregarious vampire brood is less obtrusive than usual, covering its tracks well and provoking confusion in their victims.

At around 29$ at Sun Coast video (at Baybrook), it's a bargain, and a must-have for those pursuing old-school character development and plotting, not to mention high-quality melodramatic atmospherics.

The Hills Have Eyes

You remember this guy, right?

Well, I mostly remember Michael Berryman as one of the marauding bikers in Weird Science - a perfectly fun turn on his evocative visage in service of Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes back in the 70s. I didn't watch the film back then (and I hereby nominate it for the next Uber-sponsored festivities) but the cover of the videotape has surely haunted Blockbuster customers for many many years. And though I'll say a bit more shortly, I'll start by saying that the recent remake of Hills would have been better served with him in it.

Let me start by saying I'm not going to provide an intricate plot synopsis as I've known for many years what the general idea was and I assume most everyone who's found their way here has also. Short version: mutant rejects holed up in a town left over from New Mexico nuke test sites terrorize passersby. Done. Let me also state that while I've given nothing away in that sentence, I surely will in the following ones, so **MAJOR SPOILERS** follow.

I think the director is very sharp in setting a tone from the opening credit: a montage of old nuclear test film clips interspersed with quick flash cuts of pictures of actual deformed fallout victims - all accompanied by a retro-sounding western piece that's almost comical. It has a touch of Dr. Strangelove to it, albeit with a much more haunting and foreboding sensibility. That said, it ironically set an apolitical tone to the movie. Films like this always seem to be interpreted simply as some sort of anti-nuke screed. The sequence here hints that while that lingering idea can't be avoided, it can be undercut by assuring the viewer that what follows will not be proselytizing or heavy-handed. And that is the case for 99% of the film. In fact, the only scene that dealt with the topic directly was a complete intrusion and the film would be better were it not there. We don't need "Big Brain" to explain what's going on. Frankly, the minute you assign a motive to the gang's behavior, you're on the road to - if not legitimizing - at least creating pre-text for their actions. It shouldn't be there and isn't needed.

This film gives a real sense of balance to the battle between clans - as does the original, as I understand it - and keeps it from being a run-of-the-mill terror flick. It's more Hatfields-McCoys (albeit some really strange McCoys) than Jason or Freddy. But who exactly are the two groups, and must they represent something? Again, I could read plenty of political themes to this: the strangeness of the gang's appearance as metaphor for the non-European likeness of the many objects of America's ruthless military savagery. (Point to consider: would Americans of the last century have been able to rationalize as easily the dropping of the bomb on our Germanic cousins as they did the monstrous 'Japs'? Just a thought.) Does the gang's vicious and surprise first attack - its Pearl Harbor - 'wake the sleeping tiger' and justify the family's almost maniacal bloodlust for revenge? I don't have answers, but I'm quite thankful that the film doesn't either. As I said, though these themes are somewhat inescapable, they don't seem to have really have any bearing on the events that follow per se. At least not in any partisan sense.

About the opening attack: I have to say that this is the most brutal thing I think I've ever seen in a movie of this kind. Not because the gore was more explicit, but because the nature of the violence was so overbearing and overwhelming. I've read in some places that quite a few people were disturbed by that scene enough to walk out. I can't say I blame them. Granted, I still felt somehow removed from the action. I found myself wondering if I really am so desensitized that a scene like this generates no palpable reaction from me. It certainly has an intellectual one - in the sense that I am aware of very few, if any, films that have taken on this level of explosive and graphic violence all at once (off the top of my head, the only one I can think of is Irreversible). It's almost too much to take and I can understand why some people have walked out.

But here's what that scene accomplishes: it upsets the entire formula for the average terror flick. Usually, the action comes on slowly, monsters aren't really revealed explicitly, and as time goes on, characters get picked off one-by-one in a linear, usually telegraphed, manner. In this movie *spoiler* so many people get whacked at once that there becomes plenty of time to sow doubt about who, after this attack, will make it to the end.

The filmmakers in this scene are working on several different levels of violence all at once: sexual brutality (the youngest daughter), sadism/torture (the father), psychological terror (the older daughter and her infant) and sudden explosive violence (the mother). By combining all these forms of attack, the film makes it nearly impossible for you not to be disturbed in some way. And frankly, most people will (or should) be disturbed on ALL those levels.

One note about character: the son, Bobby, evinces more credibility than movies like this usually allot. Victims usually fall into either the "screaming, helpless, witless" category, or the "kick everyone's ass mercilessly" category (see "Ash" aka Bruce Campbell). The kid was shown to have inherited a (mostly) responsible respect for firearms and a fairly strong sense of danger but not paranoia. Well done.

The failure of the movie - alluded to in my opening remark - is that all of the wonderful advancements made over the years in special effects and makeup are put to substandard use here. Now, I certainly applaud the film for not relying on CGI for its monsters. Crossing the uncanny valley is hard enough for any genre that employs digital effects, but moreso in a movie whose theme should most effectively creep you out with gruesome realism. In a movie like this, what probably frightens more than extremely bizarre-looking monsters are the slightly bizarre-looking monsters. There should be something there that's just not right. Something you can't put your finger on. And Michael Berryman is the living, walking example of that. The monsters in this movie ought to be offputting, but it shouldn't be telegraphed. Give them slightly-askew faces and we'll fill in the rest. Making them as obviously grotesque as in this movie immediately creates a sense of intent, a sense that they have been fabricated specifically to creep you out. It breaks a wall and carries the movie into schock territory. The more I saw these mutants, the less afraid I was of them. Except for Big Brain: what's needed is more of that and less of the Troma knock-offs.

Anyway, I've spilled far more cyber-ink than I'd intended on this movie and that almost always means the gears are in motion, ideas have been generated - in short, a good thing. But I can't tell you if the payoff is worth sitting through that scene. I think it's up to the viewer at the time. I'm just saying I won't blame you if you head for the exits once it starts. And the "slightly odd and real rather than intensely grotesque" comment reminds me that I need to procure a copy of Tod Browning's Freaks for viewing with some friends soon. A film with actual circus freaks: now THAT'S scary!

MOVIE DEMAND

I insist that Uber buy a copy of ZARDOZ for us all to watch. I really can't justify the cost at this time.

Don't Bother

Review: JAIL BAIT (Lyle Talbot, Dolores Fuller 1954)...

Don't bother, that is, unless you have a morbid curiousity about Ed Wood obscurities. This one's not noteworthy for script or performances, but informative for personalities and places.

Theodora Thurman - apparently no relation to Uma, this little-known actress did Vogue magazine and lots of ads in the early fifties. Not forceful with lines but looks good even by modern standards.

Steve Reeves - odd to see him in a Dragnet homage/ripoff, but he aquits himself with a respectable performance.

Dolores Fuller - bad actress but looks good. She later (as you may have heard) did better in film than Ed, having written songs for at least 4 of Elvis's movies.

Lyle Talbot - acting in hundreds of movies, he was a pretty decent character player in Film Noir cheapies for decades.

Scenes and locations - any fan of GLEN OR GLENDA would recognize various places, in that Wood was notorious for using his own one-bedroom house as a set. Wood's living room (in Dolores' fictional pad) was the same as in GLENDA and some furniture was moved around to allow the place to become the crooks' hideout.

Packaging: I got this thing as a DVD double feature with THE GREAT ST. LOUIS BANK ROBBERY with Steve McQueen brand new for $1.99. Buy with caution.

American History X

American History X charges headlong into the aspect of racism (historical Nazism or neo) that almost every other movie is at pains to avoid: the startling primal attraction it contains. If Aryanism/racism/white nationalism didn’t present something attractive for its potential members, who would ever join? But, of course, the fear in presenting this puts a filmmaker (or artist in any medium, but especially a medium of popular entertainment) in a worse predicament than a director who illustrates a story of violence with violence or a story about sex with sexual content. It’s a far more volatile topic. I’m glad the director Tony Kaye and screenwriter David McKenna had the courage to confront the issue anyway, because it goes a long way towards explaining why such simpleminded, self-destructive attitudes continue to hypnotize people. And not just the simpletons, as we might like to believe. You don’t build the power base or even the technical facilities of the Third Reich by only attracting the ignorant, and you don’t entice people to follow by putting forward an unattractive image.

American History X is centered on the savagely sexual performance of Edward Norton. Taunt, muscled, posed, and powerful, he’s a poster boy all right. Remove the Nazi tattoos and he’s what most young men want to be: assertive, in control, sexually satisfied. He’s a take-charge guy. He’s resourceful. He’s Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry, but articulate, and pulled out of that simpleminded, jingoistic world (though he’s ruled internally by a similar simpleminded, jingoistic credo) and put into our own. Actually, he’s smarter than Dirty Harry. When Norton proposes a blacks-against-whites basketball match as a turf war, his ingenuity is uncomfortably impressive. It’s a non-violent solution, for which as an audience we are both grateful and at the same time disturbed because it’s still a choice propelled by hate. (And it isn’t like Norton’s character has no thirst for violence.) It confuses our responses, as it’s meant to, as it confuses his brother and others who gravitate towards him as a leader. His strength, flexibility, his championship spirit is intoxicating. You have to remind yourself you aren’t supposed to cheer his victory.

Of course, we are seeing this through the adoring eyes of his younger brother, Edward Furlong, who idolizes his brother as a father figure, a role model, and a rebel combined. Norton exists for Furlong as both a patriarchal and an anarchic figure, the way self-chosen role models often do for young teens (because half the time they want to overthrow the world, and the other half of the time they just want to be shown the ropes to survive in it). The disturbing nature of Norton’s character is twofold. We note how we respond to it, even as informed adults, and worse we can see how he has warped his brother’s unformed mind. And it’s chilling that even after all the changes that occur in Norton’s character, Norton can still walk through a room filled with Nazi propaganda and react so casually to it, as if it’s no big deal, the way in another era he might have looked at a sister’s Bobby Sherman posters. Just something you outgrow. This is how thoroughly the hate imagery has been imbedded in their lives.

The world they live in gives ample testament why Norton went the route he did and his brother does. A world of poverty in which people feel they have no control, and so have to take it by whatever means necessary. A world in which a man feels exactly what men are told they shouldn’t: impotent, no more than pawns in a bigger game beyond their control. And the only way to feel one has regained strength, one has subdued that environment, is in a gang, and the mixture of loyalty and dominance it provides. And it is in no way restricted to whites. But the difference between what the blacks and the whites feel, and that hits a white viewer so strongly, is of course the difference in history. American history for blacks has always been about oppression. But I think most whites, even the most liberal, enjoy a subconscious satisfaction that they have been spared this, that while there are injustices in the world, luckily they themselves aren’t the victims.

Not any longer. The characters live in Venice Beach, which many moviegoers are familiar with from 1960’s teen movies, but we don’t see Annette Funicello or Frankie Avalon here. We see thugs and drug dealers and poverty, and we can share their despair and sense of impotency. It’s probably an accident, but the high school used for exteriors is the same used in Grease, and seeing the more or less squeaky clean Rydell High (even if we did see it from the point of view of dirty-minded greasers) turned into the location of turf wars has a primitive, almost subconscious effect. What has happened to our neighborhood? (We should ask ourselves why we are so sure it’s “ours.”) In a neighborhood going down the tubes, economically, there is already a hit to that. And as minorities come to be the majority (the idea expressed to Norton later in prison, “you’re the nigger here” in fact has been true all along), an even more defensive edge creeps in. And when affirmative action is introduced, another fear is unleashed. All this is unreasonable, intellectually indefensible. But fears don’t work through rationality. It’s through the unknown, that irrational, that so many of our fears are governed. It’s the new turn in American history for whites, and gives the movie’s title a haunting resonance.

But the movie, of course, isn’t a propaganda poster for white supremacy, and what keys us in that the material has been handled so effectively, so responsibly, is that when Norton commits the brutal act that will land him in jail, we are not remotely on his side, even though the people he assaults are hardly innocent. I could watch every atrocity performed in Schindler’s List clear-eyed and undisturbed because Spielberg’s characters were so unreal, I didn’t believe humans were being sacrificed. The boorish, cartoon Nazi and the innocent-lamb victims and the fatuously wise Ben Kingsley were just the typical ingredients of melodrama, empty of personality and so without impact. But I had to hide my face during Norton’s rampage because I was watching real people, a frighteningly determined man programmed with hate and gang members who were certainly not innocents but obviously not deserving of the brutality inflicted on them. The whole nightmarish spectacle was just too much to deal with, and I couldn’t look. I had a similar response in the painful rampage on the Korean owned supermarket. (Both sequences show us Norton performing the actions we usually associate with an assured, galvanic hero: he’s not only the strong man white supremacists might want to emulate but the hero of every American action film.)

I stress the unspoken power of the visuals, because it is largely through these means that the story makes its point. The movie’s release was damaged by a hardly behind-the-scenes wrestling match for control of the final cut. The version we see is, presumably, not that of director Tony Kaye. It’s hard to endorse a version you know doesn’t have the director’s approval. The DVD contains additional scenes as an extra features item, but that only further clouds the issue, since Norton claims that Kaye actually wanted to the movie shorter than the eventual running time of the released version. Adding the extra scenes could arguably be farther from the director’s vision than what we have now. And the basic difficulties wouldn’t be helped anyway, as they lie in a script that often can’t deal effectively with the compelling issues it raises, and an often ineffective supporting cast. The movie captures lightning in a bottle in terms of confronting its subject matter head on emotionally, but intellectually it lags far behind.

Stacy Keach’s snarling villain with the dramatic scar is too easy a target, as is Ethan Suplee’s overweight goon (though you have to give it to Suplee, so likable and harmless on cheesy sitcoms like Boy Meets World, for his willingness to be thoroughly disgusting here). Their mechanical function, of course, is to take the heat of Norton, and allow us to direct our hate elsewhere. Norton isn’t “really” bad; he’s just had his mind screwed with by the “real” bad guy, Keach. Likewise, Suplee is supposed to show us (or audience members who might miss the message) that most Nazi punks aren’t chiseled tough guys like Norton, but bloated losers. Of course, that’s quite true, and it’s equally true that men like Keech’s character are manipulating a lot of the Aryan movement (though probably without the scar), but the movie would be better off without them. We should confront what Norton is about singularly, and if that means we hate him all the more as the worst thing we see on the screen (redemption or no) so be it. And if we’re disturbed by seeing how appealing he can be, so be that, as well. We should be disturbed, that’s the whole point. Scapegoats don’t help anything, and that’s just what Keach and Suplee’s characters are providing. The movie is on slightly better ground with William Russ as Norton’s dad, but he’s only got one scene and, again, it’s frustratingly schematic. A son doesn’t become a racist as a result of one dinner conversation. And since when do teens dutifully imitate their parents’ political beliefs, anyway? (There’s a frustrating 1950’s quality to all this. The wise figure from the world of education rectifying the shortcomings of a weak home, and the fear of “outside” influences taking the place with both. This is the cant that marred Rebel Without a Cause.)

I did like Edward Furlong as Norton’s younger brother. Ostensibly, this should be his movie. His assignment is the spine of the story, and the struggle for his salvation is the key, but Furlong doesn’t have the same charisma as Norton, and he’s closed off as an actor. In a sense this is provocative, as is his squeaky, always ironically modulated voice. We don’t know how to take his interaction with the white supremacists. Is he really influenced by them, or does he just get a kick out of subversion in writing a paper on Mein Kampf, and letting loose at a beer blast (at an age where the link between playing at ideas and reality of imbibing them are not as easy to gauge)? But this is diffused by the voice over narration, one of the issues Kaye and Norton argued over (Kaye didn’t want it). Personally, I think it would be a stronger picture without it, because it would force us to do more of the work ourselves, instead of being handed our evaluation pre-packaged. But I find the narration inoffensive, and there are spots the narrative itself, as it now stands, doesn’t clarify.

At least screenwriter McKenna knew what he was doing in not giving any of the liberals a speech comparable with the various racist monologues. What those speeches show is us how empty cant is, how easy it is to manipulate with words. Putting similarly charged words into a liberal spokesman would only make him or her seem equally manipulative. It’s better the way the message pervades the movie by tone and by the simple example that the people we side with (in particular, of course, Avery Brooks as the high school teacher) are the only ones doing anything positive.

Another big problem is that the movie simply has too much material. Considering how empty most movies are, if feels ungrateful to complain, but there are storylines here for several three-hour-plus movies. The influence of Norton’s teacher (Avery Brooks, one of the best thing the movie has going with it, and the rare liberal spokesman onscreen in any movie who doesn’t come across as a fuddy-duddy) on him. Norton’s relationship with Guy Torry in the pen. The Aryan gang movement. Norton’s relationship with his family itself has so much going on between his weak, and ailing, mother (and her Jewish boyfriend, a terribly misused Eliot Gould improbably also a teacher at the high school), his cheerful, supportive, racist dad, his liberal sister, and his lost brother. The result is that every storyline is, to a greater or lesser extent reduced to its most shallow possibilities and all we have to go on is the visceral emotion of the movie.

Still, I can’t put the movie down when it happens to be better than just about any movie I’ve ever seen at explaining why someone could choose to embrace a life of hate. This movie addresses, largely non-verbally, important ideas about how hate is made compelling, how people make frightening choices, and how much we are wrestling with these concepts today. Up until this movie, the mix of American propaganda with Nazi propaganda always rang so false, I didn’t see how anyone could fall for it. But the images make the jingoism in our own patriotism, the crack in our myths of rugged individualism, startlingly obvious. I happen to think American History X is the best movie on the evils of racism ever made.

Review - SCARS OF DRACULA (Christopher Lee 1970)

This is the fifth of the seven Lee/Hammer Studios Dracula collaborations done from 1958 to 1973 and is my candidate for "Best Of The Rest". The two must-see features of the series would be the first two (from 1958 and 1966) but aspiring completists would do well to hit "Scars" next.

First, the problems: much has been made on comment boards about the budget and script problems that led to things like the lack of Peter Cushing's character (Van Helsing from the novel) and the reliance on an unconvincing mechanical bat at important plot junctures. Lee and director Roy Ward Baker note the bat problems on the DVD commentary track, while mentioning that modern techniques would probably minimize similar glitches today. But to get any film made at all is a victory of sorts and my determination is that no problem here was of sufficient seriousness to sink the film as a film. Even denied period balance reports on what the allowed proceeds from the studio for spending even were, Baker pulled through and delivered a film with many positives.

Now, some of those positives: Count Dracula has measurably more lines than that character had in the previous few films, and those lines are pretty much in accord with Stoker's figure, although not from his book directly. And the 'Tania' character (Drac's main female sidekick) was the strongest such part in the whole Lee Dracula series, played by the later fashion designer Anouska Hempel. The external castle set was innovative in layout, and probably different since the Bray Studios facility was not used in this case. I'd have to check the book for accuracy of the layout, but for the first and only time we see a doorway-fitted Italianate portcullis which leads into a courtyard that faces the walled cliff precipice, with the manor/keep to the left and apparently a gatehouse and stable to the right. The sets also for the first and only time visualize where Drac hides in the daylight hours, so as not to be vulnerable when asleep.

Other positives can be found in the interior set design, which offered a smaller central hall area, in which Drac holds court. The "Scars" interiors are properly somewhat cramped, with massive archwork, walls and stone stair balustrades, fashioned apparently in material from the local hillsides and quarries. The rooms are furnished with whatever period furniture the studio happened to stock, but it was arranged properly and with an eye to 19th century context. The French Louis XVI stuff is grouped in one area, while other rooms are Jacobean or utilitarian in composition, as needed. No other Drac movie was decorated this logically or usefully. Even maroon-red upholstery and draperies contribute to the film's mood and contrast with the faux stone walls of the sets.

The edition offered (the "limited edition" from Anchor Bay) contains two DVDs, the one for the film and a second with a documentary about Lee's career called "The Many Sides Of Christopher Lee", which is worth the extra price. It's a bit long on interview and short on film clips but what's there is largely clip material I hadn't seen. Plus, there are curiosities like a few of the music videos to which Lee's contributed over the years. Be aware that he here does a competent "It's Now Or Never" ("O Solo Mio"), mostly in Italian (he is of Italian descent and is fluent in that language). That was a surprise for me.

So if you can justify 3 Lee Dracula pics for your collection, the production of "Scars" itself plus the packaging of this edition argue that you should make this the third and final of an essential trilogy, consisting also of "Horror Of Dracula" and "Dracula: Prince Of Darkness".

Christmas Bounty

Won via a silent auction for the grand sum of $10:

• A Yamaha CDV-1100 Laserdisc Player
• A smattering of laserdisc movies:
  • Star Wars ... circa 1989 release
  • The Mask ... the primary reason I bought the lot
  • Superman
  • Batman
  • Batman Forever
  • Aliens
  • Jurassic Park
  • Close Encounters
  • Stargate
  • To Wong Fu
  • Terminator 2
  • Bugs Bunny Classics ... WTH???
  • Twister
  • The Color Purple
  • Three of Hearts ... they can't all be winners
  • The Prince of Tides ... as if there were any doubt?

A Place Where Nobody Dared To Go

Mrs. Lovejoy: Heh heh, Ned Flanders is on the phone.

Rev. Lovejoy: [groans] Mmm...hello, Ned.

Ned: [breathless] Reverend...emergency! I -- it's the Simpson kids -- eedily -- I, uh, baptism -- oodily -- uh -- doodily doodily!

Xanadu playing January 14th ... Midnight movie ... Museum of Fine Arts.

Seriously! FINE Arts. Are they truly ready for a Clown Car Invasion? We'll find out, won't we?

GOOD IDEAS FOR FILMS THAT SUFFERED FROM POOR EXECUTION

See, I'm attempting to goad you others into either parodying these posts or competing with them. Since only UZ has shown activity anywhere near this methodology, I'll just keep on with this angle awhile...

OUTPOST IN MOROCCO - 1940's desert adventure generally done straight with Kubrick veteran Marie Windsor opposite George Raft, who is cast against type as an easygoing French Legionnaire. Raft is quite effective in the part and Windsor is, for once, properly used as the Hedy-Lamarr-level babe she was at that time. The film appears hastily made; they should have taken more time with this one.

RED DAWN - I'll attempt to get past the obvious geopolitical questions about how an invasion of America by Warsaw Pact forces could have happened (books by Tom Clancy have more effectively handled similar questions) and bring up the more serious issue regarding film production: why did director Milius (normally pretty shrewd) try to make two movies at once? It's a predictive version of IS PARIS BURNING? grafted onto SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT. Nobody said it was illegal to try to do either of those things (a war movie and a redneck buddy picture), but there's a reason, you know, why JUDGMENT AT NUREMBURG was not done as a musical comedy: if it's serious, keep it serious. If it's light, keep it light. Mix the two and you only compound the problems you'll have anyway in bringing up divisive political speculations.

LORD OF THE RINGS (1978) - Think that last one was an argument-starter? You haven't seen conflict until you mention this one at a comic convention. The thirtysomething animation bigots will be up on their hind legs in a jiffy. I'm as complimentary as anybody of Peter Jackson's accomplishments and I realize Bakshi ran out of time and money. But with more resources in those two areas, the screenplay and score (both absolutely fantastic) would have been better assisted. Pistols at dawn, fanboyz?

RAISE THE TITANIC - For an allegedly terrible movie, it sported the only performance by Jason Robards with which I can in any way sympathize, as well as a wonderful John Barry score (available in reperformance by the City of Prague Philharmonic). Clive Cussler's adventure yarn posits (as was the popular witness-report-based theory in 1980) that the liner had survived intact and could be salvaged; the model shots for the raising were done with a "small" replica about 60 feet long in Maltese waters and were as good as pre-CGI methods had made possible. The idea perhaps could be (in an alternate history plot) reworked around known intact wrecks such as the West German submarine Wilhelm Bauer or maybe using the never-lost SS United States, now being refitted near Philly. Hopefully, someone returns to the general approach of Cussler, which was to cast a spy yarn around the core sentiments present in the resurrection of a vessel that represented the peace and "elegance" of "a more civilized age" (after Obi-wan Kenobi's light sabre soliloquy).

THE FOUNTAINHEAD - From the novel of, of all things, battling architects (based on that point in aesthetic history at which late-19th-century historicism began losing out to the Prarie School and the International Style), this one's the result of a pretty obvious programmatic problem: suppose you had a production team of Mel Gibson, Charlton Heston and Bruce Willis trying to make THE GRAPES OF WRATH? They might get it done, but their hearts wouldn't be in it. Same thing here. Director King Vidor unsympathetically works against the script by using cartoonish scene overlays in character exchanges, and another problem operates in that the freshman actress Patricia Neal didn't get convincing until about halfway through. A shame, since the seasoned Raymond Massey was better than ever as the newspaper magnate on whom the story turns, a self-made but self destructive man whose soul is pitted against itself.

MOST JAMES BOND FILMS - Read the books. There's less Roger-Moore-period lime green shag carpeting and more leather soles on rainy streets, the way it's spozed to be. It's been awhile since I saw it, but DR. NO offends me the least in this regard, and the Timothy Dalton portrayal was pretty fair as to the grittiness of spydom's daily grind, provided one lives through it.

FATHERLAND - This cable movie with Rutger Hauer was based on a book with a few flaws, but with better matte paintings and other optics tricks (where was the money for John Dykstra or somebody??) the planned 1930's expansion of Berlin seen in realization would have been overwhelming. On the other hand, general knowledge of Albert Speer's work is pretty low; I'm afraid to ask the average teen who won that war. So the market for a remake would seem limited.

THE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN - What a waste! I'm considering doing my OWN script for this situation, which not only involved the first incursion of Allied troops onto Nazi soil, but the attempted defense of said real estate with jet planes (Germany had several in the last 18 mo. or so of the war, two models of which, a fighter and a medium bomber, were scrambled to the Battle of Ludendorff Bridge). That's what I said: jet planes in WW2. The braindead buttfucks who run Hollywood have never mined this incredible development. The mentioned film also managed to misuse the superb talent of Ben Gazzara in a part that ponders the morality of robbing bodies in wartime while the Fall Of History's Wackiest Dictatorship To Date looms as potential material. Actual eyewitness books tell incredible tales of the Ludendorff Bridge defense that would make great movies with NO changes.

Guess that list'll do for now.

But He Told Us ... Where We Stand

There is a plot afoot to keep me from getting a decent night's sleep this week and it involves putting some of my favorite movies on television late in the evening. What today's kids don't understand is the old feeling of joy one used to get when a favorite movie was broadcast. These days everyone buys every DVD ever made for a dollar and therefore any movie is within reach and remote control. I sometimes think this detracts from the excitement of catching a favorite on the tube and being held to one's seat by the unfolding events WITHOUT the capacity to fast forward to the "good parts".

Sorry, what was I saying before I became an old crank? Ah, yes... one of my favorite movies on AMC. What follows doesn't qualify as a review, but merely a few kind words about a movie for which I have deep affection.

Two nights ago, it was Close Encounters of the Third Kind, followed by The Day the Earth Stood Still. CE3K happens to jockey regularly within my top 3 favorite films of all time. Yes, I was certainly a part of the Star Wars generation and owned as many of those toys as I could get my hands on. BUT... at age 7, I was fully aware of how superior and meaningful a film Close Encounters is. After all, I had only one Star Wars t-shirt, but I had two CE3K shirts... and a plastic bendable figure of the alien! How many of you can say THAT?!!

But this isn't about that movie. It's about the one that followed it, though there are some thoughtful comparisons to be made between the two.

The Day the Earth Stood Still remains one of the most atmospheric films of that glorious era when science fiction was at its peak. Then, it was all about outer space, whereas today's sci-fi deals more with inner space. Robert Wise made a very understated film, helped by a score that is a perfectly eerie backdrop to this quiet movie - one more deeply disturbing than anything about triffids or tarantulas.

I think what makes this movie so successful is a sort of inversion on the usual formula. It starts simply enough with the alien Klaatu (played by Michael Rennie, a man who STUNNINGLY resembles my father) being shot upon offering a gift to mankind that is misinterpreted as a threat.

The inversion is that the actual appearance of the aliens in this type of film is usually at least somewhat delayed. The audience is on edge in anticipation of the alien coming to disrupt the normal course of events, and the alien is usually some grotesque mess whose visage on screen is invariably accompanied by a blaring trumpet and a scream from the nearest female. But this movie gets started with the alien from the very beginning and, while it is the point where Klaatu is shot and thereafter that the film becomes menacing, there is again an inversion: it's not any initial wrath from the alien that upsets us, but the fear of bac