Unmutual!

I couldn't stay away, but I won't be here long.  Too much personal stuff in my life, my slipping emotional sanity and the mind-numbing quest for an actual life mean that not only have I not written for this blog in a long time but that I won't be writing for it again ever come the near future; I am near done and we are approaching the end of line.  I truly mean it this time.  Cross my heart.

I didn't start up this blog again for the death of Leonard Nimoy, I didn't do it to commemorate Christopher Lee.  No, I am doing it today because today is American Patriotastic As Fuck Day, and as a Patriotastic American I feel like saying on this day celebrating the birth of "The Greatest Nation In The World":  It's a Sham.  Freedom is a myth.  You see, I have finished re-watching what is probably the Greatest Television Show Ever Made, and I had to come onto the internet, on this day, after a prolonged silence, to talk about it.  And it's British.  Ha.

1967-1968

Director: Basically Patrick McGoohan

This is a classic show.  If you haven't seen it, go watch it now.  Don't expect me to do a review in the classical sense and use it to decide whether you want to watch it, I'll just tell you right now.  Watch it now.  Now.

Now.

(17 hours later)

Okay, back?  Good.  Awesome, wasn't it?  And really fucking confusing too, I'll bet.  There's a lot of stuff in this show that makes you think, and makes you think about stuff that's not that pleasant.  Individuality vs the Community is only one facet.  I believe the overall conflict of the show is Freedom vs Control, or alternatively, Order vs Chaos... which ties into the Individual vs Society.  Of course Society stands for Order and Control... without control there would be no order, there would be chaos... and human beings cannot stand pure anarchy.  This is all Sociology 101, but the way The Prisoner star and creative force Patrick McGoohan handles it all is brilliant and nuanced.  From the tone and plot of the show you would expect The Prisoner (I refuse to refer to him as Number 6, after all HE IS NOT A NUMBER) to be the unabashed hero and the controllers of The Village to be absolute, unadulterated evil, but this is not always the case.  The Prisoner can sometimes be just as rigid and uncompromising in the name of the individual as the Village can be in enforcing Control -only near the end of the show does he stop flailing about in self-righteous rage and start to beat the Villagers at their own game. And while the antagonists do some pretty evil stuff in the course of the show it is made plain on a number of occasions that many of them are just as much prisoners as the main character.  You can actually sympathize with some of the Numbers Two (most notably Leo McKern's).

And in the end of course (literally) The Prisoner shows that you will never be free; if society is not trying to control and limit you then you yourself are.  The struggle is never over; we are doomed to conflict with ourselves and each other until the end of time... .. wait a minute, is this show British or German?

And that's why I say what McGoohan once said: freedom, or at least absolute freedom as imagined by most Americans, is a myth.  It has to be.  Or society would just fall apart.  In America you are only as free as you can afford to be.  Or as free as the powers-that-be will let you be.  Or as free as your family, friends, neighborhood or community lets you be.  The United States is no different.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I love living in the US.  As a (barely) middle-class American I enjoy a roof over my head and food whenever I need it (good, affordable medical care on the other hand....).  I am "free" to express my opinions about my government and not be jailed in a gulag somewhere but make no mistake... true political dissenters and undesirables are monitored covertly and often, and those deemed dangerous to the state (whether they are dangerous or not) are dealt with.  Scratch the surface of America's "free" exterior actually, and you'll find a surveillance and enforcement system that resembles a certain Village control room....

The United States (and other western countries) have done some very nefarious things to protect the community and its "freedom", many of them done during the decade The Prisoner was originally made.  Things that were just as nefarious as the "evil" Communist Soviet Union or third world brutal dictatorships (some of which we helped set up and/or maintain).  The East and West were not that different during the Cold War (something the show touches on).

So given the show's message and the state of the world it's all pretty depressing, right?  There is no hope.  Well, no.  The trick, and this is the beauty of McGoohan's message, is to despite all this never let them make you think of yourself as a number (which is difficult today, isn't it, with your Social Security Number, Driver's Licence Number, etc.).  Also, you have to *fight* for the rights you most want and cherish.  Don't let them take everything.  You should learn to compromise, but never just roll over and play dead.

All this coming from a Brit, no less.  Wait, actually, Patrick McGoohan was born and died in... America.


Go America!  Woo!

Happy Fourth.

I Like To Play With Things Awhile Before Annihilation

Today for the 4th Of July I want to review one of the most patriotic, pro-American films I have ever seen... a film that makes me proud to be an American... a film produced by Italians and directed by and starring a bunch of Brits (and a Swede).

1980

Director: Mike Hodges

I am not joking.

Flash Gordon is not only a cinematic masterpiece, it is one of the most pro-American foreign movies I have ever seen.  Seriously.

This film is not "so-bad-it's-good" - it is unabashedly good.  It accomplishes all it sets out to do, and more.  It is a big-screen comic-come-to-life, a theatrical space opera that provides close to two hours of solid entertainment.  And it has music by Queen!

And freaking Max von "I was in The Seventh Seal" Sydow as the villain.
Oh, along with Las Vegas Doctor Doom on the right there.

But what makes it so patriotically American in addition to so awesome, you ask?  Well, the answer is the character of Flash Gordon himself.


Now, as acted by Sam Jones (who is coincidentally the only American actor in the main cast), Flash is not that great of a character on the surface... a blond football quarterback who's wooden and not the sharpest knife in the drawer (although he does have his moments of cleverness - see the tree ritual scene), he is the sort of character that most viewers would assume is a foreign film's spoof of the All-American Boy.

"Durrr..."  Actually, Dale is kind of blank, too.

He doesn't defeat Ming the Merciless in a sword battle, doesn't personally lead an army in a climatic battle or come up with a scientific solution to save the Earth - in fact, in the end the Earth is saved randomly and for almost no reason at all ("You have saved your Earth.  Have a nice day.")... so what makes Flash Gordon a great character and a great American hero?

Simple.  Morals.

Okay, he *does* sort of impale Ming with a rocket ship too....

Flash Gordon and his friends Dale Arden and Dr. Zarkov come to Mongo to save the Earth and find that the planet is completely degenerate morally.  There is a brutal fascistic dictatorship run by a madman - the reason that no one overthrows Ming is that they are too busy squabbling and fighting amongst themselves... a policy that Ming actively encourages in his subjects.  If all of the racial groups of Mongo would just somehow unite, they could overthrow the Emperor.  However, they are as morally degenerate as Ming himself, and lack any real human virtues - indeed, Ming tells his daughter Aura that tears are a "sign of weakness."  There is no real feeling or joy on Mongo, only decadence and violence.

And this.  Yes, this is the type of movie that this is.

But the arrival of Flash (aaaaa-AHHHHHH!) changes that.  He is the first to stand up to Ming and show that he can be defied, if only for a few minutes at least (he is quickly subdued and executed although he does get better).  His defiance is a breath of fresh air, and inspires the people of Mongo to set aside their differences, defy the emperor Ming and rule the planet with truth and justice and the American way.  But they have to get morals first.  And Flash Gordon is the moral enabler.

It's fascinating that the three people that Flash influence are princes (and a princess - cannot forget the princess).

Princess Aura revives Flash after his execution because of her lust for him and is later punished for it, being brutally tortured at the hands of her father's lackeys (and with the approval of daddy himself!).  This makes Aura realize what others have suffered at the hands of her father and gives her a new-found feeling of empathy.  She has to learn this before she becomes queen at the end of the movie.

This also has the side effect of giving the
S&M minded in the audience a major boner.

Prince Barin is jealous and cold towards any that not of his race.  He is taught true compassion when Flash spares him after their fight in the Hawkmen's city.  Barin has to learn that true compassion is not felt just towards your friends but your enemies.  This makes it possible for him to become the rightful ruler at the end.

This *also* has the side effect of giving the S&M...
wait, come to think of it this movie definitely has a very kinky vibe to it.

Prince Vultan for all his blustering and shouting is actually a coward.  He hates Ming but is too frightened to rise against him.  Flash's tenacity ("Gordon's ALIVE?") and courage spur Vultan into finally taking the plunge ("diiiiiiive!") and uniting with Flash and the others to overthrow the tyrant of Mongo.  He is rewarded at the end by being named General of the Armies.

"DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!"

Flash is an unwavering moral force (Ming outright tells him that he has never seen his like before... right before offering to rule together with Flash.  Flash naturally refuses).  His effect on the moral characters of others is what really drives the film thematically - their redemption and the ultimate redemption of their world is what Flash Gordon is really all about.  See, the song during the titles isn't just hyperbole:  Flash IS the savior of the universe, he IS a miracle, he IS king of the impossible and he WILL save every one of us.  Queen laid it all out right at the start of the movie.  Wasn't that nice of them?

So to sum up: A blond "All-American" football player, travels to a foreign place in the throes of a brutal fascist dictatorship and inspires the people through his moral leadership and defiance of the ruling regime to unite and rise up against that regime and in the process saves his own home.  Sounds like American propaganda to me!  Also sounds like the British and Italians deep down really, really like us.

Also, they like phallic rockets - GOD, this movie is really kinky, innit?

Yes, I just overanalyzed Flash Gordon.

You're welcome.

Happy Fourth.

The Winter Of My Dis-comment?

Last time on Shakespearetember I commented how Kenneth Branagh is the “foremost cinematic Shakespeare interpreter since Laurence Olivier.” Well, this week we have…

Film, 1955 

Director: Figure it out. 

Story 

The eeeeeeevil Richard, Duke of Gloucester, plots and schemes to take the throne of England. This involves killing his brother, his nephews and a lot of other ignorant dolts-er, I mean poor defenseless victims. Yep, that’s basically it. Oh, and some minor theme about complacency and collaboration being the means through which the people allow dictatorships to exist at all, but that’s not important.

What is important is that the crown of England is very *big*.
How do they wear that?

Review 

The sets are cool, the cinematography is cool, Olivier is an acting god, etc. etc. etc. Richard III just might the greatest Shakespeare movie ever, and so on and so on and so on.

What I really want to talk about today is DVD commentaries.

Yes, DVD commentaries. In a post about Olivier’s Richard III, in the middle of a month on this site dedicated to William Shakespeare.


What are DVD commentaries for anyway? Or should I say, movie commentaries, because Criterion (who made the DVD that I have of Olivier’s Richard III and whose commentary track for which I will talk about in a bit, incidentally enough) actually started the trend with their old Laserdisc releases in the 80s and 90s. Do they exist to let the director or actors inform the viewer how the film was made and what went on while they made it? Any behind-the-scenes documentary can do that – and it seems that these “making-of” programs are being shot at the same time as the movies all the time nowadays… it is like the filmmakers are anticipating the DVD releases while making their films.

Ralph Richardson does not approve.

The worst thing is, as I have said, that all modern movies will basically have a commentary track on their DVD or Blu-Ray… even if they don’t deserve one. I remember going into a video rental place (remember those?) a few years ago and watching a bit of what they had playing on the store TVs while I browsed. They were playing the completely unmemorable, throwaway Christmas comedy movie Fred Claus… with the director’s commentary on. So I got to learn all about how the movie was made, and about all of the important directorial decisions that had to be made to ensure the success of the mighty cinematic effort that was… Fred Claus. I stopped browsing after a while and focused on the screens – I became more and more engrossed with the banality of it the more it went on. The breaking point for me was the moment where the director said during a quiet scene, “when I was reading the original script, this is the scene that made me decide to make this movie.” You didn’t decide to make *anything*, moron. You took this movie because you’re a low-level hack director, and the choice from your studio overlords was either this, or Saw XXXVII: Naked Co-Ed Tubeslide Deathtrap Terror, and you took this. Do not try to puff yourself up as a real director. If you are lucky you will eventually amass enough talent and/or sleep enough with the right people to move up the Hollywood ladder enough to make a film that audiences will remember for more than ten minutes after they leave the theatre, but right now you make movies like Fred Claus… WHICH DOES NOT NEED A DIRECTOR’S COMMENTARY!!

Anyways, the point of this diatribe is that most movie commentary tracks are useless and usually highly egocentric for the people making them. The only commentaries I have genuinely loved have been the those for Ghostbusters (the original DVD release had MST3K-style silhouettes ad the bottom of the screen pointing out specific things that the makers were talking about), Evil Dead II (Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Robert Tapert riff their own movie and it is hilarious) and… Richard III.

Speaking of Evil Dead II:  Richard about to swallow a soul.

Criterion’s commentary track for their DVD of Richard III is not like most other commentaries, even ones by Criterion. Since the movie is an adaptation of Shakespeare, the commentators are stage director Russell Lees and Dr. John Wilders, who not only taught Shakespeare at a University level but was a member of the board for the Royal Shakespeare Company. As a consequence this has to be the most informative DVD commentary I have ever experienced. Not only in the making of the film (which isn’t gone into that much, actually) or the editorial decisions by Olivier in regards to the play (Olivier massively edited Richard III, moving around whole scenes and lines of dialogue and even cutting out a few characters all in order to make for a better cinematic experience)

Translation: this whole movie, historically, is bullshit.

but in Shakespeare and Shakespearean acting in general. For example, the question I asked in my review for Antony and Cleopatra about how the original play could handle the large load of rapid scene changes was answered on the commentary for this by Mr. Lees (the original Shakespearean stage was very sparse and didn’t have any real scenery to begin with). My greatest lesson though was in verse acting and how it can actually help actors remember their dialogue and how Shakespeare employs it in his plays. In short (because I’m getting too long) this commentary is what a commentary should be, a true learning experience and not just mindless chatter or directorial bloviating and self-aggrandizing. Watch Richard III and then watch it with this commentary track and you will learn something.

 Like how to woo ill-humored women.

Well, that was a lengthy, almost off-topic rant.  Sorry about that, but I just wanted to share a new experience that I had.  You see, this was the third time I watched Olivier's Richard III and I decided to watch it with the commentary this time and I enjoyed it and learned from it so much that I decided to write about that instead of doing a straight-up review.  I will talk about an actual Shakespeare movie next time though, I promise.




Next Week: Fairies!

Wow, I Spent Way Too Much Time Writing About This Movie

I know that I said last time that I would be doing some high adventure in the desert next, but I’m taking a quick detour this week for two reasons: a) I’m actually expanding my intended desert adventure post into something beyond a simple review and that’s going to take time and b) Ken Russell died at the beginning of this week and I thought I’d review one of his movies. Now you might think that I’m doing this as a special tribute; that I revere Russell and want to exalt his praises now that he’s dead. Actually, that thought couldn’t be further from the truth: I think that Ken Russell was a talentless hack and loathe and despise his movies. Okay, I take that back: I should not and will not just use this post to slag on the dead.  Besides I was being rather unreasonable with that last statement because prior to today I had only seen one of his films: the execrable Tommy (although to be fair to him all of that blame for that cinematic abortion cannot be assigned to Russell seeing as The Who themselves participated in its creation and could have stopped the project at any time). Tommy is one of my most hated movies of all time, ranking up (down?) there with Armageddon and Die Another Day – it is one of the few films that inspires actual rage and revulsion in me. Anywho, I thought on the occasion of Ken Russell’s death that I would be fair to the dude and watch another one of his films and see if Tommy was just an aberration in his film catalogue, to see if I can actually enjoy a Ken Russell movie. So I looked around for one of his movies that might be interesting to me and finally settled on

Film, 1980

Director: Ken Russell

Story

Psychologist, professor and all-around nutcase Doctor Edward Jessup is experimenting with different states of consciousness and their effect on the physical self. After a trip to Mexico where he picks up some potent Native Ritual Drugs he starts ingesting the strange substance and spending time in a sensory deprivation tank where he starts to exhibit startling signs of physical transformation….

Review

Altered States is better than Tommy but that’s kind of like saying that being punched in the gut is better than being kicked in the nuts. Alright, that’s not true, I’m being unnecessarily nasty. This isn’t a bad movie but it’s not good, either. Altered States is…

…watchable?

Yeah, that’s it. It’s an interesting enough experience and not a *hideous* way to spend an hour and forty minutes but it is by no means a classic film or even a good one. It’s not a spectacular shit storm like Tommy was though so it’s not a total loss. I actually enjoyed parts of it and saw some potential in it, potential that could have been drawn out by another, more talented director – someone like John Boorman or David Cronenberg. The good points here are the intriguing (if flawed and completely non-believable) premise of mind over matter and the character study of the main character, played here by William Hurt (even though the acting by Hurt himself is not quite up to the task – more on that below). The main character arc of Jessup finding out what’s really important to him and why is probably the best part of the movie (well, besides seeing Blair Brown naked at a few points).

Or William Hurt, for those of you so inclined.

The special effects are pretty good and compared to Tommy (again, the only other Russell movie I have seen although I am informed that other Russell movies suffer from the very problem I am about to mention) Altered States is positively subdued in its gratuitous over-the-top “shocking” imagery.

What this means though (and where the negatives begin) is that the aforementioned gratuitous imagery of Altered States is here in large abundance compared to just about every other movie on the planet. Also in abundance is the usual Ken Russell overly pretentious bullshit. I actually had some hopes for the movie after a rather subdued opening sequence and few quiet scenes but my optimism was quickly dashed and splattered to the ground after the scene where Jessup and his newly acquainted (no, really, it only takes about two minutes of screen time) paramour Emily have sex and afterwards he says that during it he was thinking about Jesus and the Crucifixion the whole time. At that point I laughed involuntarily; I think my brains came out my nose. Then a few minutes later this came on the screen

and I stated to suspect that Blair Brown was going to start rolling around in baked beans at some point. And this brings me to my biggest beef with Ken Russell making movies, and that is that he was not any good at it. Just throwing bizarre imagery up on the screen (even in a movie about psychedelic drugs) is not good filmmaking. Doing things just to be “shocking” is not good filmmaking. Ken Russell had all of the visual subtlety of a sledgehammer, and he didn’t even know how to wield that hammer. Later on in the film (SPOILER ALERT) Jessup partially regresses into a subhuman ape-creature and I found myself watching a completely different movie. I mean, a wild primitive ape-man escaping a lab and running around a modern city would make for an entertaining movie but here the sequence is silly and just plain unnecessary.
(END SPOILER)

Cue Toots and the Maytals.

That’s why I said before that Cronenberg or Boorman would have made a better director for this project: both have portrayed disturbing, outlandish stuff on screen but in a more understated and intelligent way. Videodrome, like Altered States deals with differing perceptions of reality brought on by external stimuli but Cronenberg is much more subtle with it.

Pictured: subtlety.

He also makes us question throughout the movie just how much of what we’re seeing is real and how much is in the main character’s head. And there is a sense of growing dread and horror that Russell’s movie doesn’t have at all. John Boorman would have also been a good choice to direct this: he comes from the same cinematic tradition as Ken Russell but has much more talent than Russell ever had. Yes, he has made some bad movies, but at least Zardoz was so supremely bad that it was entertaining. Russell’s bad movies are just painful.

Instead of something painful I thought I'd insert a picture of this. 

Much nicer, no?

Painful is also a word I can use to describe some of the acting here. Too much of the dialogue is screamed by the actors, in particular the actor playing the medical doctor opposed to Jessup’s self-experiments. This role could have been a good, intelligent foil to the protagonist and raised legitimate questions about his intentions and whether what he was doing was right. Instead the character just comes off as shrill and unlikable, and the audience is crudely manipulated into disliking him and rooting unconditionally for the hero. See what I said earlier about Russell’s lack of subtlety? Also, the acting by William Hurt (told you I’d get to it) is… not that great. And it’s weird because it could have been. When I was watching this with the sound turned off to capture screenshots, I noticed how animated and excited Hurt’s face was in certain scenes, but with the sound turned on his delivery seemed dull and wooden. This is because Hurt constantly speaks with the same level monotone, even when raising his voice (strangely enough). He’s done this in other roles too – I remember him being this dull and monotonous in the TV miniseries version of Dune. All of this just goes to show how important voice and inflection is in acting – I think William Hurt could do with some acting lessons from William Shatner.

Now, you stay in there and recite the "Risk is our business" speech 

a hundred times, young man, and maybe we'll let you out. 

Well, that’s Altered States. Does it change my opinion of (the now deceased) Ken Russell? Not really, but at least it wasn’t a complete waste of my time and a piece of putrid, pestilent pus like Tommy was. It is actually worth checking out if you like old and/or esoteric science fiction movies even if it’s not in the same league as 2001 (or even Logan’s Run). So, um… good job, Mr. Russell?  Rest in peace.

Hopefully there's a big party waiting for you on the other side.

Why Can't All Movies Be This Awesome At Thirty?

It was thirty years ago this month (on the 12th to be precise) that Raiders of the Lost Ark was first released to theatres.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of my favorite movies ever. In fact, if you stuck a gun to my head and made me name my absolute favorite movie of all time, I would waffle between this and Ghostbusters until you blew my brains out. But what is it about this globetrotting adventure film that makes me love it so? What makes it superior to every other action/adventure movie ever made? Well, today I’m going to try and answer those questions while imparting just how much I love this freaking movie.

I’m going to go about this glowing tribute (hey, no one said that this would be an impartial analytical essay) to the Greatest Adventure Movie Ever Made by comparing Raiders to For Your Eyes Only, the twelfth James Bond movie and the fifth starring Roger Moore in the role of the famous secret agent (wait, shouldn’t that be an oxymoron?) 007. Why For Your Eyes Only (FYEO)? Well, to start out it is in the same genre as Raiders (Globetrotting Action/Adventure… a rather specialized category, really). Secondly, it was released at roughly the same time as the first Indiana Jones adventure (roughly two weeks later on June 24th, meaning it also turned 30 this month) making it a good example of a contemporary competing movie. Third, FYEO is a good example of a movie of its type as the Bond movies had been setting the standard for nineteen years prior in the action/adventure genre. And last but most importantly, the James Bond franchise was a major influence on the Indiana Jones franchise (along with all those old adventure serials of the 30s and 40s). In fact, James Bond has been called “the father of Indiana Jones” by Steven Spielberg no less (and in a side note, Sean Connery would of course play Indy’s dad in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). So it is interesting to compare the movies of both the “parent” and “child” franchises back to back and show how Raiders basically blew away the competition back in 1981… and all of the years after, actually.

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Before I begin I want to stress that I am not going to mindlessly bash For Your Eyes Only in order to lionize Raiders and I don’t hate the film. In fact, it’s one of my favorite Bond movies and a vast improvement to the franchise after the horribly goofy, over-the-top MST3K fodder that was Moonraker. Director John Glen really brought the series back to earth (haha) and toned down about 90% of the silliness of the previous Moore outings (it’s still Roger Moore though you are still going to get some stupid moments). FYEO is my favorite Roger Moore Bond movie and one of the best in the Bond series. The fact that Raiders of the Lost Ark is a superior film does not reflect badly on For Your Eyes Only; on the contrary it just goes to show how extraordinary and sublime Spielberg’s magnum opus is.

Oh, and I’m not even going to worry about spoilers with either of these movies. If you haven’t seen For Your Eyes Only, go out and rent it – it’s a good Bond flick. And if you haven’t seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, crawl out from whatever rock you’ve – ah, you know what? If you’re reading this then you are both a member of a sufficiently advanced modern society and above the age of six, in which case you have seen Raiders of the Lost Ark.

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Let’s begin our movie comparison by starting with our main characters: James Bond and Indiana Jones. First up: Roger Moore as James Bond in For Your Eyes Only. Moore really is too old to play Bond even by this point but it *almost* works in this film (it would become ridiculous with the succeeding Octopussy and his last outing A View to a Kill in which he looks positively *mummified*) as he plays 007 as someone who is about one year away from retirement. This reflects in his performance: Moore comes off as an experienced agent with a reservoir of knowledge and wisdom as well as an almost avuncular demeanor. Watch the scene where he persuades Melina Havelock to postpone her vengeance on the killers of her parents so he can find out what’s behind the whole plot and help them both. It just might be Moore’s best bit of acting ever; he comes across not as some playboy secret agent trying to talk his way into a young woman’s bed (like he normally does) but as a concerned man trying to prevent another human being from being hurt.

A lot of people like to hold up Sean Connery as being the greatest Bond ever but I don’t think his 007 could have pulled this scene off; he was too cold, ruthless, and horny (and keep in mind that doesn’t mean that Moore is my favorite Bond, in fact far from it). But, you say, what about badassery? Being nice to grieving girls is nice and all, but James Bond has to kick major ass or he’s just a government employee who gets to travel a lot and eat nice food. Well, Moore gets his biggest badass moment in his entire run as 007 when he kicks a car off a cliff – with a despicable criminal hitman inside.

Badassssss!

So there’s that. Overall a very good movie for Roger Moore, even if he is too old to be playing a British super-spy.

In contrast Harrison Ford in Raiders comes off as having just the right mix of youth and experience as archaeology professor cum globetrotting adventurer Indiana Jones. Even though not a spry young man (Ford was in his late thirties when he made this) he doesn’t seem to be ready for retirement either – remember, “it’s not the years, it’s the mileage.” Ford convincingly displays Indy as a perfect mix of the physical, tenacious, intelligent and academic, as a man who can teach a college class one minute and jump off into the deserts of Egypt to battle Nazis the second (actually, how the hell has he not been fired from his teaching job by now?). He can be both tender and hard, sometimes towards the same person: notice how he’s barely apologetic towards a woman he is implied to have deflowered while she was still underage.

Even after she hits him.

Even though one of the “good guys” his whole career revolves around robbing the sacred treasures of multiple groups of people for the intellectual profit of the Western World (although this admittedly is what archaeology basically was back in the 1930s). He kicks major ass like Bond but messes up too. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Indiana Jones is portrayed as a fleshed out, flawed human being in contrast to the nearly perfect invincible superhuman James Bond (who really has no foibles except indulging in too much casual sex, which is not portrayed as negative by the movies and actually shown as a positive thing). In addition, Harrison Ford has a screen presence that Roger Moore doesn’t have. Now, it’s nowhere near the level of Toshiro Mifune or Klaus Kinski (oh god, no) but it is there. You can see why he went on to stardom.

"Trust me."  Wouldn't you trust him?

Howsabout the leading ladies? Well, FYEO's Carole Bouquet is certainly lovely as Melina Havelock, and has a great combination of intensity and lethal determination to kill the murderers of her parents: just look at the look on her face right after their assassination scene. Electric! However, she can be a little stilted at times and she doesn’t have much of a personality outside of the whole “rampaging revenge” thing. She only smiles genuinely twice in the entire movie. She has some chemistry with Roger Moore, although with his age and more avuncular personality in this installment it comes off as more (haha) of a platonic friendship, which is nice… until the very end where they’re kissing each other and skinny dipping with it being suggested that sex is going to happen later. Argh! They had a chance to do something different with a Bond movie and they fell back on “Bond has sex with the lead Bond Girl at the end” crap. Was it that imperative to keep up tradition (TRADITION! Uh, sorry, although Topol *is* in this movie, people. Had to be done!)? It really does make the woman a reward for Bond saving the day, which is just outdated and sexist and… screw it. If I start to talk about sexism in James Bond movies I’m gonna be here forever. Speaking of which Bond of course beds more than just Carole Bouquet in this movie, although it is only one and someone is closer to his age. Oh, and I can’t talk about For Your Eyes Only without pointing out that James Bond is sexually assaulted by a fifteen year old girl. Which is freakin’ hilarious.

I love the look on his face too.

Awww.

Raiders of the Lost Ark, of course has Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood who sizzles in her scenes with Harrison Ford. Allen does a better acting job than Bouquet (although it could help that she’s a native English speaker) even if she does get whiny at a few points (although nowhere near as bad as Kate Capshaw in the next Indy movie, Temple of Doom… uuuugh I’m getting shivers just thinking about it right now). Although Marion doesn’t have the driving motivation that Melina does, she makes up for it with more personality. And she’s cute too! Karen Allen is my favorite Indy woman (and a lot of other people’s too, which is why she returned for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in which she is still cute).

A hero is only as good as the villains he faces, and – ah, you know what? Screw it. No analysis is needed. Raiders wins hands down. It’s the Nazis. It’s the fuckin’ Nazis. You can’t do any better when it comes to movie villains than the Nazis. Greek smugglers/Soviet agents don’t even compare to the Nazis. You could make the protagonist of a movie a baby-raping, cross-burning, puppy-decapitating cannibal lawyer and the audience would still root for them if they were beating the crap out of Nazis. On an interesting side note, Julian Glover who is the main baddie in FYEO went on to play the main baddie (who like Kristatos in FYEO starts out seeming like a good guy oddly enough) in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, who collaborates with...

Nazis!

Visual effects, too, is a no-brainer. You have Richard Edlund melting the heads off of, you guessed it,

Nazis!

Music… screw it, I don’t want to write about this either. John Williams’ score for Raiders is one of the greatest ever written, a timeless rousing piece of music you want to listen to over and over again. Bill Conti’s “score” for FYEO is a piece of dated disco dreck.

Which leads me to the biggest reason that Raiders of the Lost Ark is a superior film to For Your Eyes Only, and every other adventure movie for that matter… it’s timeless. When you watch FYEO you can tell when it’s been made – it is obviously a product of the early eighties. In fact it practically screams this at you from the get-go, with Sheena Easton wailing the title song over the by now standard credits (I think Maurice Binder gave up on actual creativity after the sixties – “Okay… naked babes, and guns, more naked babes, more guns… shimmery things, more babes… aaaand done.”). This is actually a fallacy of nearly all Bond movies, actually. Using popular singers of the day will inevitably date your movie (except of course for Thunderball, Live and Let Die and Goooooldfingaaaaaaaah!). The opening to Raiders by contrast is, well, timeless… simple and effective. It doesn’t stop the movie for three minutes to force you to read credits (and look at naked chicks)… it plays the credits while already getting you into the story. And that leads me into the next biggest thing that makes Raiders superior… it’s not forced. It feels very organic, very natural… it flows well, from one situation to the next.

FYEO feels like a series of set pieces strung together with plot, each talky story portion serving to link each stunt and action sequence to the next. Not that this is a horrible thing, after all the stunts and action scenes in Bond movies are usually very, very awesome (and there is no exception here). And admittedly FYEO’s plot is a very good one, involving intertwining themes of vengeance, betrayal and deception. But the execution just seems to be a little… choppy compared to Raiders.

Although it does have a really cool Citroen car chase.

And maybe this is what also what helps make Raiders timeless… there’s no dated style of filmmaking here. Yes, it followed from the blockbuster style of the seventies (which Spielberg helped to invent) and itself influenced the action movies of the eighties… but the final product is one that is hard to pin down to one time period, at least for me. And this isn’t just nostalgia talking, because I can look to some of my other favorite movies from the time period and point out how dated they are. Ghostbusters (which I mentioned earlier) was obviously made in the eighties. Ben-Hur is very obviously a fifties film. Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of a handful of movies (a couple of other examples being The Empire Strikes Back and Alien) that are truly non-dated and timeless.

So, with all of the trumpeting of how superior Raiders of the Lost Ark is over For Your Eyes Only, does the Cold War adventure of Agent 007 manage to do anything better than the classic tale of the search for the lost Ark of the Covenant? Well, yes. I have to admit that the stunts in Raiders, while very, very good aren't quite as good as the ones in FYEO. Look, the stunts in Raiders are awesome – the shots of Indy crawling under the truck and being dragged behind the truck are classic and makes me say, “Woo! This is awesome! I’m having so much fun watching this!” But the first time I watched the part of FYEO when Bond is climbing up the side of Kristatos’ mountain fortress the palms of my hands literally sweated and I had a death grip on my chair. When Bond is kicked off the cliff by a henchman and falls about two hundred feet on his rope, I think I forgot to breathe.

I also winced in pain during the “keelhauling” sequence where Bond and Melina are dragged on a rope by the villain’s boat through shark infested waters (this sequence is actually from the book Live and Let Die). Every time Bond broke off a piece of razor-sharp coral with his body – ouch.

Well, anyways, happy birthday, Raiders of the Lost Ark (and you too, For Your Eyes Only!)… you are truly one of the greatest films ever made and one of my absolute favorites. I will always thrill to your spectacular action scenes, boo your despicable Nazi villains, marvel at your awesome special effects and laugh whenever Indy shoots that Arab swordsman guy.

Hahahahaha!

Next Week: Something different.

Obligatory Halloween Movie Post

Holiday movies normally suck, and the reason for this is that holiday movies often have to have a genre of films made up just for them:  the Christmas movie, the Thanksgiving movie and so on.  Also, you can only really watch them one time of the year.  Who wants to watch a Christmas movie in July?

But Halloween is different.  Halloween has a genre of movies that can be watched year-round and is not necessarily slaved to the holiday:  the horror movie.  Unfortunately, despite this Halloween can also suck movie-wise because all of the TV channels and video stores hawk the same shit year after year.  Some horror movies watched every year by the masses on Halloween are true classics; others are pure drivel.  But I get tired of watching even the good ones over and over again so this year for Halloween I thought I would share three good horror movies that aren’t replayed to death.  In fact, some of these are pretty out-of-the-way and, dare I say, cult.

Here they are.  Enjoy.

Matango (1963) – A rich business man, a movie star, a professor and his student along with the ship’s captain and first mate are sailing a yacht on a pleasure cruise when they are swept in a colossal storm that leaves them stranded on a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific.  Sound familiar?  Except that instead of being a crappy sitcom this is a psychological horror movie where the castaways start going for each other’s throats as their mini-society devolves and they find mysterious mushrooms that are both mind and body altering.  This is Godzilla director Ishiro Honda’s favorite of his movies, and it’s one of mine, too. 

Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter (1974) – Not all vampires attack the same.  In a nineteenth century European village young girls are being found dead as wrinkled old crones, having been aged to death by something unknown.  The wandering titular vampire hunter is summoned by his doctor friend to find and slay the undead threat.  This is one of Hammer Horror’s last movies, and one of their most fun.  Where else can you see a katana-swinging Napoleonic vampire hunter with a hunchback professor sidekick slay evil beasts and bed Caroline Munro? 

The Fog (1980) – A small Pacific seaside town is celebrating its anniversary when a mysterious fog rolls in.  One by one people start dying and the local priest has a suspicion of why:  the town harbors a shameful secret, a secret that may spell death and disaster for many innocent people.  This is one of John Carpenter’s most underrated works.  It isn’t one of his best, but it is a good, spooky little film that manages to genuinely creep you out a few times.  It also actually makes ghost pirates seem like a scary idea and not a joke.

So there you go... three non-standard good horror movies for your Halloween viewing pleasure.  Now if you'll excuse me I'm gonna go eat candy and drink cider until I throw up.

A Not-So-Mini Who Review

Today I do a shorter review for one of my favorite TV shows, Doctor Who. A “Mini-Who-Review,” if you will.  This time I’m watching a story from the early days of the show in the sixties, when adventures with Time Lords where broadcast in black-and-white!  So come with me back into an age when the girls where groovy, the monsters where made of aluminum foil and racism was perfectly acceptable on television as I review

Television Serial, 1967

Director: Morris Barry

The Story

The Doctor (Patrick Troughton), Jamie, and new companion Victoria land on the planet Telos, home of the feared Cybermen who are believed to have been extinct for hundreds of years.  An Earth expedition has also landed on the planet in search of the Cybermen’s lost city.  When the Doctor and the Earth expedition join forces and enter the city they find (after a lot of work) the titular Tombs of the Cybermen.  Will the Doctor be able to keep this threat from rising again?  Or will a traitor (or traitors) in the group’s midst conspire to bring the Cybermen back to life for their own nefarious purposes?  Is the sky blue?  Do Time Lords regenerate twelve times?  Do Doctor Who Girl Companions^™ scream WAY too much?

Review

What I love about Doctor Who is that you can jump into any story and not have to know much about the show as a whole to enjoy it.  For those of you who have not seen the show, here’s the basic premise:  An alien travels around the universe and has adventures with his human friends.  That’s it.  The whole setup is so basic it’s brilliant.  Unfortunately, the writers of this show wasted this format as often as they took advantage of it.  Episode quality on Doctor Who varies wildly, from pure genius to televised garbage.  So where does “The Tomb of the Cybermen” fit?

Well, I’m sort of torn.  I will say that this serial is definitely not bad, in fact, it’s pretty darn good.  I just don’t know if I would put it near the top of the list of best Doctor Who episodes ever made.  There are too many flaws keeping this from being an all-time absolute classic, even if it is a very entertaining story.  I’m just gonna go through and say what I like and don’t like about “Tomb”.

First, I like the direction.  At a few points in the story I felt that the camerawork was almost cinematic, which is refreshing to see on television and British television in the sixties in particular.  Kudos to Morris Barry on this.  I also like the electronic music (thanks Radiophonics Workshop!)  The sets are impressive, and the Cybermen themselves are suitably creepy with a real hint of menace.  One thing that the producers of Doctor Who have always known how to do is bring out a sense of danger from a man in a rubber suit.

The story is a mixed bag.  On one hand it is genuinely suspenseful in some spots with a real feeling of peril from the titular cyborgs, and it is fun to see the Doctor and the other scientists try to work out the mysteries of the Cybermen’s control room before making their way to the tombs below.  On the other hand, too many of the characters do way too many stupid things, like leaving guns lying around when they shouldn’t have thus allowing the villains to pick them up.  Now characters in a drama are allowed to be dumb and make mistakes sometimes (God knows I do), but I don’t like it when the stupidity of the characters drives the drama itself.  The acting is also mixed.  Patrick Troughton puts in a good performance here, and most of the other actors are adequate as well.  The best scene is the exchange between the Doctor and Victoria about their families.  This is a nice quiet and touching scene, and the series could have used more like it.  However, some of the other acting is not so good.  Deborah Watling as Victoria screams a lot and stumbles over some of her lines (not to mention goes to sleep in the most unrealistic manner I have ever seen).  And the “American” space captain sounds like he practiced his accent by watching Plan 9 From Outer Space.

The worst part of “Tomb of the Cybermen” for me though is the racism and sexism.  You would think that the sixties being the Age of the Civil Rights Movement there would be more positive portrayals of non-whites and women on television, but I guess Britain was even further behind in this regard than America.  Hell, they even continued with the unabashed racism and sexism into the seventies – just look at the Doctor Who serial “The Talons of Weng Chiang” (a serial I absolutely loathe, detest and despise by the way, and will never review on this blog because I never want to see it again as long as I live).  The sexism in the Doctor Who of this time period is pretty self-evident: if a female character isn't a villain then she's completely useless and screams a lot... and remember, even hundreds of years in the future men will insist that women stay out of danger, being, you know, frail little girls and all.  The racism from this period is pretty apparent as well.  All of the heroes in “Tomb” are not only white but WASPS (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) except Jamie (Scottish, but it almost counts as he’s still British) and technically the Doctor (Gallifreyan, but acts awfully English).  All of the good-guy scientists are English while the rocket ship crew are all White Americans (with really, really bad “American” accents) of English descent.  The villains are: a middle easterner, a German (I think?  Klieg sounds like a German name but hell if I know what accent he’s speaking with), and a big & strong, dumb black dude.  Yes, you heard me.  A Big Scary Black Man who hardly speaks, has limited intelligence when he does and is slavishly loyal to his “mistress.”  Progress! 

One last thing that bugs me, then I’m done.  Whenever anyone dies in this story (and people die, this is Doctor Who after all) everyone else just leaves them laying there.  This is especially noticeable at the end of the last episode – I mean, I know it works for a dramatic shot, but come on.  No funeral?  No burial?  Nothing?  Wow... y’all are a great bunch of “friends.”

Okay, wow, I guess I lied when I said this would be a “mini-review.”  I wrote too much, why does this always happen?  Well, to sum up (then I’m done, promise): “Tomb of the Cybermen” is a good Doctor Who episode and worthy of your time but a few serious flaws (mostly stemming from the time in which it was made) keep it from being one of the all-time best Who stories.  Still recommended.


Screenshots

"I think Victoria might find that dress impracticable if she's going to join us in our adventures.  

Jamie, go find her a micro mini-skirt and some high-heeled go-go boots, would you?"

"And the bold British explorers brave the treacherous gravel quarry...."

The Cybermen... really big on impressive looking logic controls, not so big on actual art.

"I'm sorry, I'm mistaken.  You're right, Sgt.Pepper's is TOTALLY the greatest album EVER."

"All...your...base...are...belong...to us."

"Shut up, knucklehead!  I'll moidah yah!"

"Heeeeere's Johnny!"