Plus What?

More anime, more anime!  My god, I went more than a month without reviewing something Japanese and animated… I started getting the shakes.  Even watching Memories didn’t slake my thirst, I need more!  And not just any anime but something with !GIANT ROBOTS!  Today I review an anime OVA with !GIANT ROBOTS! that the fandom considers one of the best of all time.  I found it to be… only slightly overrated.  Today I review

OVA, 1994

Director: Shōji Kawamori

The Story

It is 30 years after the conclusion of the first Space War between the Humans and Zentradi.  On the colony world of Eden, two variable fighters (jetfighters that can turn into !GIANT ROBOTS!) are being tested against each other to see which one will be selected by the UN Space Navy for service.  Unfortunately the two opposing test pilots – the reckless Isamu Dyson and the taciturn Guld Bowman – hate each other with a passion, having ended their friendship years ago over the love of a mutual friend.  Also unfortunately, this very person, Myung Fang Lone, has come to Eden to test the new AI “Sharon Apple” – a virtual pop idol singer that she is the “producer” for.  This only serves to intensify the rivalry between the two men, leading to dangerous and even deadly consequences.  Meanwhile, all may not be as it seems with the artificial being Sharon, who has the power to entrance whole audiences with her songs….

Review

Macross Plus has been called “The Top Gun of Anime.”  Personally I couldn’t say.  I have never been able to sit through Top Gun all the way through – in fact I have never been able to take more than 10 minutes of that film at a time considering I can’t stand Tom Cruise (The only movie I have been able to watch that has him in it all the way through is Legend, which was directed by Ridley Scott who coincidentally is the brother of Tony Scott who directed Top Gun.   So there’s your Useless Bit Of Trivia Of The Day).  But I can see where people get that.  The protagonist of Macross Plus is a lot like Cruise’s character of Maverick from that film and the antagonist looks a bit like Val Kilmer’s Iceman.  So I guess you can call it that, if you also threw in 2001: A Space Odyssey and, of course, the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross.
Anyway, Macross Plus has also been called the greatest Macross series ever, and even the pinnacle of the franchise.  I wouldn’t go that far.  Personally, I enjoy the original Macross more – which you don't have to see to enjoy this, by the way, even though you should – even if it is rough (*ahem* very rough) in a few spots.  Nevertheless, Macross Plus is an excellent piece of entertainment, even if is predictable and reuses the same tropes from the original show.

Yes, this anime is pretty predictable.  The characters act pretty much as you expect them to, and the situations develop likewise.  This being a Macross show, you’re also going to get lots of singing, a love triangle and missiles out the wazoo.  The show basically has two plots, and in both it’s pretty easy to figure out what’s going to happen.  I knew that Sharon Apple was going to go berserk and – what?!  Don’t look at me like that!  You know it’s going to happen the moment you see the computer!  Come on, it looks like THIS–

“What are you doing, Dave?”

 – what the Hell did you THINK was going to happen?  Anyways, the main love triangle was easy to figure out too.  What, you mean the reckless but lovable (?) hero will get the girl instead of the barely-repressed rage filled, stony-faced rival?  But that never happens!  Okay, sarcasm aside, I will say that I did like the fact that Kawamori switched the genders for the love triangle in this show but I found the one for the original Macross better as it was better done and not as predictable.

I know that my review so far makes it sound like I don’t like this OVA, and I have slapped it with some major criticisms.  But I really do like it – it has some great action, *awesome* animation (especially the opening fight scene.  WOW!), great music by Yoko Kanno and a complex relationship between three characters that resolves itself beautifully if (again) a little predictably.  I also like that fact that Kawamori, while reusing some of the tropes from the original Macross managed to twist them and make them interesting to watch again (and I have always liked the Macross Missile Swarms so I didn’t mind seeing them again here, in fact I relished it).  Sharon Apple is interesting as she is a pop idol that is completely artificial in nature (something that Japanese pop producers have to salivate over.  I mean, they’ve been striving towards this for years – a pop idol that is completely controllable – no drug scandals or the idol getting a *gasp* boyfriend or anything!).  She also ultimately becomes a negative force through her music unlike Minmei from the original show.  Speaking of Sharon, Kawamori takes time to discuss the nature of sentience and the dangers of giving computers emotions – emotions not their own but the emotions of others, others with serious mental issues they need to work out – which has been done before but was well done here so I can’t complain.  Where else can you comment on both emerging sentient artificial intelligence and make digs at the highly artificial pop music industry at the same time?  Brilliant!

Overall this is a very good OVA, and I recommend it highly.  I would in fact put it near the top tier of animated science fiction.  I don’t think however that it is the nigh-religious experience that others think it is – I think it's a little too flawed for that – and I don’t even think it’s the best Macross anime out there (which to me just might be the movie Do You Remember Love – which won't ever be released outside of Japan because of all the legal bullshit, ARGH) even though it might be the most mature.   Now all I have to do is check out the Movie Edition….

Screenshots

The most obvious way to begin an action-filled anime full of !GIANT ROBOTS!... Windmills!

It wouldn't be a Macross show without buttloads of missiles.

....Or the Macross itself.

Okay, what is it with the Japanese fetish for giant chickens?

Speaking of fetishes, for those of you with one for Japanese rope bondage, Macross Plus DELIVERS!

Quick note on the DVD:  Beware!  Some of the discs of Volume 1 of this OVA have “Movie Edition” printed on the disc, when it in fact has the first two episodes of the OVA (as it should be).  Manga Video strikes again!  So if you pick this up and see "Movie Edition" printed on one of your discs don't take it back for a refund right away (unless you really can't stand having a misprint).  Put it in your player and test it first.


Before I end this post, here's... another (gratuitous) shot of an ass-swarm of missiles!

Why?  Because I can!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Short Films, Short Reviews

This is going to be a short review (Promise!) because I’m tired out from work and other stuff.  Today’s movie is an anthology film, made up of three separate short stories.

Theatrical Film, 1995

Directors:  Kōji Morimoto, Tensai Okamura, Katsuhiro Otomo

The Story

Magnetic Rose:  A deep space salvage crew runs across a distress call coming from a ship in the middle of a dangerous magnetic field.  After investigating, they find that the ship is one big shrine to the life of an opera singer of the last century.  Both delights and dangers await them as they explore the memories and psyches of both the diva and ultimately themselves.

Stink Bomb:  A bumbling Japanese lab worker accidently swallows some secret pills thinking they are flu medication.  Hilarity ensues as he starts emitting a poisonous gas killing all around him with him completely unaware of what’s going on.  Determined to get to Tokyo to deliver the pills to his company’s headquarters, he finds himself mysteriously under attack from the military.  Will the Japanese SDF be able to stop this human biological weapon from reaching the capitol and killing untold millions of people?

Cannon Fodder:  In a town where all the buildings are topped by enormous cannons the citizens are always at war.  The people exist only to load the guns, fire the guns and strive to win a war against a foe they never see.

Review

This is a very good movie.  It’s movies like this that show the true potential of anime and of animation in general to tell stories and elevate the medium to true art.

Magnetic Rose:  This is the longest of the shorts, and could have easily have been its own movie.  It kind of struck me as being a Japanese Twilight Zone meets The Shining.  I don’t think it’s quite the absolute masterpiece that everyone else who’s seen this movie says it is, but it is very good.  It's very atmospheric, and the music (courtesy of Yoko Kanno) is very good as well as very fitting.  The characters are well fleshed out and easy to relate to, which is quite a feat considering this is short film with only 45 minutes to have character development in.

Stink Bomb:  This is a hilarious satire of human stupidity.  Not only does it ridicule the standard subjects of satire – the government and military – it also takes on the Japanese corporate mentality and human obliviousness in general.  Nobuo is not only so stupid that he can’t put one and one together to realize that he’s causing all of the death around him, he’s a complete unthinking corporate drone to boot.  The Japanese are known for being fiercely loyal to whatever company they work for, and this is riffed on stupendously in “Stink Bomb.”  Nobuo will not let anything, not soldiers, not tanks, not helicopters, nor even his own grandmother stop him from reaching Tokyo.  And the government is just as bad, trying to kill him as a first option instead of just dropping a note to explain the situation to him.  Truly a tales to warm the cockles of your heart.

Cannon Fodder:  This is always painted by others reviewing this movie as solely a portrayal and satire of fascism, but I think it’s a metaphor for life itself.  I think that it is more specifically a metaphor for the life of drudgery that a majority of the world’s population endures – the poor souls who get up everyday, trudge into their job and do monotonous work all day before going home to repeat the cycle all over again.   Anyone who has worked in the fields, in a factory or even in retail or at a restaurant… anyone who works as a tiny cog in a soulless machine – especially in a soulless machine spouting bullshit propaganda (whether government or corporate) – anyone who doesn’t get to utilize any sort of creativity or true intelligence or passion in their work… anyone who endures that will be able to relate to this film.

This film is highly recommended.  Not one of the absolute best movies ever made, but very entertaining and unlike 99% of the movies out there will actually make you think.

Screenshots

 (Sorry, no funny captions for the movie this week.  Not enough energy)

Next Week:  I have no clue.  I haven’t planned that far in advance yet.  I’m livin’ for the moment, baby!    

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!"

Hollywood Historical Hooey

Wow, I hope that this isn’t inauspicious.  For my first mainstream Hollywood film to review for this blog I had to go and choose El Cid, which ended up being a disappointment, to say the least.  This limp 1960s historical epic isn’t hideous by any means, it just did not live up to my expectations.  Well anyway, here’s my first Hollywood review, and since I felt neither strong love nor burning hate for this movie it’s not gonna be a long one.

Theatrical Film, 1961

Director: Anthony Mann

The Story

Hollywood Historical Revisionism strikes again!  It’s the Eleventh Century.  Spain is torn in a war between the Christian Spaniards and the Moslem Moors.  After being charged with treason for sparing the lives of some Moorish Emirs, Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar (Charlton Heston) kills his fiancée’s father in a duel over his father’s honor.  Awk-ward!  For some reason she now suddenly wants to kill him.  Huh.  For some reason he still loves her, even after she admits to hiring a rival suitor to ambush and kill him.  Pft.  The games those lovers play, eh?  Anyway, after “proving” his innocence – ahh, I love medieval “justice” – in a jousting match (TO THE DEATH!  Cue Star Trek music!)  Don Rodrigo, or “El Cid” as he is now known marries the fiancée that still hates him – double AWK-WARD! – and becomes embroiled in petty sibling bickering after the King of Castile dies and wills his kingdom to his three children (when will monarchs learn that dividing their kingdom amongst their children will never work, especially when there’s three of them?  You’d think they’d remember King Lear).  To make a long (very long) story short, El Cid is exiled after a royal hissy fit, is reunited with his wife who suddenly decides that she loves him after all (haha, those silly women and their mood swings!) and fights to keep Spain from being invaded by a tyrannical North African despot.  There are lots of battles, lots of blood, lots of tears and I really didn’t care that much because it was all very, very dull.

The Review

For once I think I agree on something with Charlton Heston – this movie is pretty lousy.  Heston reportedly once said that El Cid would have been a better movie if William Wyler (the man who directed Heston in Ben-Hur) had made it instead of Anthony Mann.  And you know, I think he’s right.  This film is just mediocre.  The acting is mediocre, the music is mediocre, the cinematography is mediocre, and the direction is just, well, mediocre.  And this is a shame because the talent that went into this film should have made it much better than it was. 
Charlton Heston, while not being the greatest actor ever, was a pretty good one (when he wanted to be).  Here he is wooden and has zero chemistry with the female lead, Sophia Loren, who is even more wooden and looks like one of the living dead throughout the whole movie (on a side note,  I know I’m about to commit Hollywood Blasphemy here, but I’ve never considered Loren to be that good looking.  She’s always been trumpeted as one of the greatest beauties to grace the silver screen.  I think she’s always looked rather… creepy).  In fact, you know what I think Heston’s problem was?  I think he honestly wasn’t good at the romantic stuff.  I think he acted better opposite other men (an exception is The Three Musketeers but there the woman he interacts with is his employee and not his love interest).  It’s not just this movie, either.  In Ben-Hur the chemistry between him and Stephen Boyd is electric whether they are proclaiming their friendship or trying to kill each other, while the scenes between him and his love interest fall flat.  In El Cid the most sparks come in the title character’s relations with one of the Emirs he saves earlier in the film.  At a few points I honestly thought that Heston and Douglas Wilmer were going to start making out right there on film.  Ah, the friendship between MEN!   The other actors (it’s a cast of thousands!) are good character and bit actors but just go through the motions here.
Miklós Rózsa wrote one of the greatest film scores ever for Ben-Hur, and wrote many fantastic scores for many other great movies besides.  Here he’s basically ripping off his Ben-Hur soundtrack but making it less memorable and more limp.  In fact, I would call the film score for this movie Ben-Hur Lite.  You know what I think happened?  I think Rózsa blew his wad with the score for that 1959 classic and it took about a decade for him to get his creative juices flowing again, because just about every score of his from this period is Ben-Hur Lite (King of Kings along with this movie are the worst offenders).
The landscapes of Spain are gorgeous but aren’t really captured that well on camera most of the time.  You can photograph the most beautiful thing in the world, but the picture won’t be good if the photographer sucks.
And last but not least, the direction for this clunker is some of the most flaccid I’ve ever seen.  I don’t know that much about the director, Anthony Mann but I see by looking at his filmography that at the time he made this he was a respected director of Westerns.  The man was supposed to have some talent, so whether he just couldn’t handle this type of movie, or was having a bad day (month?  Year?), or just ended up being a middling director after all, it was disappointing to see such a movie with great potential but lifeless execution. El Cid is definitely less than the sum of its parts.

Actually, you know what?  I spent more time writing on this than I said I would.  Damn!

Well, if you actually read the monster paragraphs above then you basically know what my recommendation would be on this movie, but for the lazy amongst you – or those that want it beaten into your skulls – here is my advice:  don’t waste your time on this movie.  It’s not a good movie, but it’s also not bad enough to have fun with.  It’s just a middling effort from Hollywood in an era that had exhausted the Historical Epic format (thank God David Lean would revive it just a few short years later with Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago).

Screenshots

Even though this film is three hours long I’m not going to take up much space with pictures from it.

Charlton Heston as El Cid.  Note the wooden beaver-like expression.

"I'll swallow your soul!"

"Yeah, that's the stuff!"

Come on, just go ahead and kiss, already!

 

Obligatory Charlton Heston NRA joke:

"You can have my sword when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers!"

Snark free caption:  Just a nice shot of the city of Valencia.

"oh EEE oh, ee OOH oh..."

"Follow the jeep!  Follow the jeep to VICTORY!"

 Next Week: Memories

Site Change

Before I get to my next movie review, I wanted to post a change for the Pharonic Fantasy Theatre.  Actually, two changes.  First, starting with my next post, I will begin posting the title screen of the film/TV show/etc. being reviewed first off instead of a picture from  movie/TV show/etc. itself.  Second, I'm not including a DVD review anymore as a) I don't have the time to go through all the content on the discs I watch as I just got a new job (yay!) and that's sucking up a lot of time now and b)other, dedicated  DVD review sites as well as Amazon do the job so much better.  If there is a glaring flaw in a disc or something that I feel I need to warn people about, sure, I'll include a little blurb on it but I figure Amazon.com is a better place to review products.  This is a blog on the content of the products.

Anyways, as I have said this applies to the next posting.

So please sit back, relax, and enjoy the new, more streamlined Pharonic Fantasy Theater!

The End Of The Line

Well, it finally had to happen.  After more than a month I have to part ways with Herrs Herzog and Kinski and return to a world of sanity.  This is the last movie, the last piece in the Kinski-Herzog Exhibition, the summation of all that has come before.  This is

My Best Fiend

Theatrical Film, 1999

Director: Werner “The Very Example of Sanity” Herzog

The Story

Werner Herzog reminisces about his old friend and sworn enemy, five-time collaborator Klaus Kinski.  Joining him in his trips down memory lane are former cast and crewmates, the current owners of the flat where both Herzog and Kinski used to live, and the Indian chiefs who once offered to kill Kinski for the director.  No, really.

The Review

It is fascinating sometimes to watch documentaries and see what they reveal about various subjects.  And what they *don’t* reveal about them.  And what they sometimes inadvertently reveal about them while loudly proclaiming something else.  I say this because Werner Herzog’s documentary/nostalgic ode My Best Fiend, while purporting to reveal the true nature and demented genius of Klaus Kinski also reveals the true nature and insane brilliance of Herzog himself, even though he loudly stresses the opposite.  It is also worth noting what you will not find in this film:  you will not get a detailed biography of Kinski or a straight chronological tale of his time working with Herzog.  What you get is basically a one hour and forty minute twisted love letter to the relationship between the two men.  And it is very, very twisted.  Watching this movie you will see the two fight and slander the other over and over again but you will also see them share tender interludes that seem more like the moments typically shared between lovers than between actors and directors.  In fact, I got the sense watching My Best Fiend that had Herzog and Kinski been of different sexes that they probably would have been bonking each other in addition to working and fighting together.

As I have said this doc attempts to reveal to the world the “true” nature of Klaus Kinski, and for the most part I think that it succeeds, although I don’t know if I trust Herzog’s memory that much.  Herzog portrays Kinski here as both a raving madman and a dedicated professional, idiotically cowardly and unexpectedly courageous, ruthlessly unfeeling and affectionately warm.  Wow, you mean people are multifaceted and the world isn’t black or white?  I never knew!  Anyways, for all the alternating tales of terror (one of the most amusing moments in the entire movie:  Kinski having a tantrum doing Fitzcarraldo and Herzog saying, “oh, that was one of his mild ones.”) and fuzziness (Eva Mattes seems to be especially fond of Klaus) that Herzog presents, the two defining and revealing moments for me are the very beginning and end of the movie itself.  The end has the iconic imagery of Kinski playing with a butterfly who is completely unafraid of him.  The other is the beginning where Kinski is doing one of his Jesus Monologues during the early seventies:  “I am not the Jesus of the official Church… who the police, bankers, judges, hangmen, officers, church bosses, politicians, and other powerful people tolerate.  I am not your Superstar!”  Here I think though that Kinski is not delivering a monologue as Jesus but is actually describing himself through the metaphor of Jesus.  True to Kinski’s statement I think that most people in power and even most Christians today would not appreciate Jesus if they truly got to know him.  Jesus was an iconoclast, a challenger of social norms and did not endear himself to the populace at the time in which he lived.  Similarly I think Kinski was making a statement about himself, that he would be the iconoclastic savior of the acting world, but that he would not bend over or play nice with those in power in the entertainment industry.  He wouldn’t be their moldable “superstar” and be one of those highly paid, pleasant little actors with little talent selling out their craft to the suits and shelling out crap.  In a way he’s very refreshing, I think.  Too many film actors throughout the history of the medium (and especially today) have been bland cookie-cutter copies who just slum it to get massive amounts of bucks.  Kinski with all of his tantrums and typhoon-level rages attempted to take filmmakers, kick them in the ass and challenge them to make good movies.  And if the filmmakers were worth a shit they did the same thing to Kinski to draw out his talent and challenge him to give his best performances.  Like Werner Herzog.

And the secret of Werner Herzog, boys and girls - one that I had suspected since watching Aguirre way back and was confirmed by watching this film – is this:  Werner Herzog is crazier than Klaus Kinski ever was.  He’s just a quieter kind of crazy.  Don’t believe me?  Watch his movies!  Only Herzog would take a group of actors down to the Amazon and film them on the river in simple rafts using only one camera.  Only Herzog would dump 50,000 rats on a Dutch town while filming there.  Only Herzog would allow all the animal tossing and abuse in all of his movies.  And only Herzog would take a boat and really drag it up a mountain.  Still don’t believe me?  Watch this movie.  It will hit you like a sack of bricks attached to a screaming nuclear rocket.  Herzog denies that he’s insane, insisting strenuously that he’s the very definition of sanity.  Then the next words out of his mouth are “Oh, yeah, and then there was that time I tried to firebomb Klaus’ house.”  I rolled on the floor laughing when he said that, then ran and hid under the bed for a couple of hours quaking.  Werner Herzog is the craziest, scariest, most awesome film director who ever lived.  There are directors that had more talent and made better movies, but Herzog eclipses them all with sheer badassery.  Want another example?  He was on an American news show once in LA when he was shot ON CAMERA.  He simply said, “Oh it is only a small bullet,” dug the projectile out of his body and continued like nothing ever happened.  The interviewer kept going on and on about how he had been shot and Herzog seemed to want to say “Yes, yes, you stupid little man, I have been shot, but it is not that big a deal, it is nothing to me, I AM WERNER HERZOG.”  If I ever get the chance to meet the man I don’t know whether I’d be honored or scared shitless.  Or start kowtowing before The Master.

Okay, I’ve been too long-winded.  In a nutshell:  if you have watched all of Herzog and Kinski’s works together then you should watch this film.  It gives insight into both men and why they are two of the greatest to ever practice their craft.

Screenshots

"I am not your Superstar!"

The very face of sanity.  In an insane asylum.

Kinski bandages a wounded crewmember's hand.  Aww.

 This is one of the few places where you'll see the footage of Jason Robards and ...Mick ...Jagger...  in the original version of Fitzcarraldo.  And, wow am I glad that it turned out differently.  Seriously, what is this shit?  These two aren't acting, they're goofing off in front of a camera.  It's hard to believe that Herzog was actually going to make this.

Ahh, that's better.

  I think these two pictures sum up the Herzog/Kinski relationship perfectly.

The DVD

Okay, I want to know who Anchor Bay gets to do their translating and subtitling, because they suck.  When I'm hearing "300 kilometers" in the German dialogue and am reading "300 miles" on the subtitle track it's time for someone to get fired.  If you can't even be bothered to convert metric to imperial measurements properly we have a problem.  In fact, why even bother converting?  This isn't 1965, I have learned metric in school, thank you.  Anyway, crappy subtitles aside this is a decent disc.  No commentary track from Herzog this time but that's because this whole movie is basically a commentary track.

Next Week:  I don't know.  Something in English I think, because I've been watching foreign stuff for so long now I'm starting to hear Japanese and German in my sleep. 
 

Fun Times On The Slave Coast

This week on Kinski-Herzog Theatre, we see their last film together.  Watch Klaus as he impregnates a lot of women, enslaves a shitload of Africans and does other generally not nice stuff in

Cobra Verde

Theatrical Film, 1987

Director: Do I really have to keep repeating this?

The Story

Klaus Kinski plays Francisco Manoel de Silva aka Cobra Verde, a notorious Brazilian bandit.  After being hired as an overseer on a sugar plantation, our hero(?) takes it upon himself to impregnate all three of the owner’s daughters.  This doesn’t sit too well with daddy, so he cooks up a scheme to send Cobra Verde to West Africa to reopen the slave trade thus inviting certain death (what with the malaria and mad African kings and whatnought).  Even though he knows what the situation is, our bandit cum slaver sets off for Dahomey anyway, ‘cause, hey why not, right?  Will everything go to plan?  Or will Cobra Verde prove tenacious enough to defy expectations?  Is the sky blue?  Is Wener Herzog a complete loon?  (the answer to three of those questions:  yes).

Review

Ah, here it is.  The last Kinski/Herzog collaboration.  And it is not their greatest.  Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed this movie on a certain level – but this doesn’t stand up to their greatest works together.  I still enjoyed this more than Woyzeck though.

Klaus Kinski is barely contained in this film.  Reportedly he was almost completely insane and impossible to work with by this time.  I wonder why Herzog agreed to work with him again on this at all (Oh, wait.  No I don’t.  I don’t wonder at all.  It’s because he’s frickin’ nuts.  And a complete masochist).  His performance though is once again completely captivating.  Dull and laconic one moment then raging and animated the next, Kinski goes all out.  This movie could have been called Kinski Unchained.  Even though I don’t think it’s his best performance, Kinski does a pretty good job here, almost making me root for a bandit and a slaver (almost).  The other actors in Cobra Verde are pretty good as well.

As is typical for a Herzog movie, the scenery and imagery are gorgeous and unforgettable.  This being Werner Herzog we actually get shots of Brazil and Western Africa instead of substitute locations, and my eyes and sense of disbelief thank him for it.  Herzog is also great at setting up iconic and very memorable scenes.  My favorite part of the movie: Klaus Kinski training and leading a horde of bare-breasted African Amazon warriors into battle!  If that sentence doesn’t want to make you watch this movie then I don’t know what will.

However, the story itself is a mixed bag for me.  It’s very disjointed.  Events just sort of happen one after another in the early part of the film and don’t flow together that well.  It does get better in the second part of the film though, once Cobra Verde gets to Africa.  But the end feels tacked on, especially with the main character declaring slavery a “crime” right out of the blue.  Wait, what the hell?  This is a man who has had no problem selling other human beings into servitude but when the slave trade is abolished he suddenly flips his position?  It’s possible that Herzog might be making a statement on slavery as a whole – people who have enslaved others declaring slavery immoral only after it has been abolished – but it all just feels arbitrary to me.  Especially since the institution of slavery itself was treated very dispassionately throughout the rest of the movie;  you can see the pain and suffering inherent to the system but there is no moral statement from the filmmaker – it's almost like a documentary. You see it yourself and can judge it for yourself.  Herzog just supplies the images – right up until the end.  Oh well.

Cobra Verde isn’t a bad movie by any means, though.  In fact it’s a very entertaining one, albeit one with some major flaws.  I would still recommend it though to anyone who enjoys historical adventure movies or anyone who wants to see Klaus Kinski act up a storm (you will not be disappointed).  Or anyone who wants to SEE! a horde of bare-BREASTED African Amazon WARRIORS overthrow an INSANE monarch in a kingdom of DEATH!

Screenshots

"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day in the neighborhood...."

No wisecracks for this shot, I just liked it.

AHH!  This has to be the scariest dude in the entire movie.  

Look into his eyes and despair!

D'AH!  Stop It!  You're haunting my nightmares!  Mommy!

"Well, this is another fine mess you've gotten us into!"

 

A Horde of BARE BREASTED AFRICAN AMAZON WARRIORS

waiting for the signal to attack.  Either that or a horde of African nerds

waiting outside the convention center for AfriCon '87.

 Okay, what the hell is Cobra Verde doing with a Lee-Enfield bolt-action rifle?

It's fifty years too early!  If Africans were able to get their hands on weapons like

this they would have been able to make mincemeat out of the Europeans when 

they came to colonize Africa later in the century.

It's an animal.  In a Herzog movie.  One guess as to what happens to it.

The DVD

Once again the Anchor Bay DVD is a mixed bag.  The picture quality is pretty good with a few screw ups here and there.  The subtitles were okay though they didn’t match what was being said on the screen a few times (which is pretty egregious considering I only know a few words in German).  The only extras of note on the disc are the original trailers and a commentary by Herzog, which I’ll have to listen to one of these days.  You know, I actually kind of wish the Criterion Collection would release these on DVD, I think they would do a better job.

Next Week: My Best Fiend