Movie Review: "Planet of the Apes" (1968) by David Pretty

Contrary to popular belief, Star Wars certainly wasn't the first sci-fi cultural phenomenon. Seven years after Planet of the Apes grossed nearly six times its original budget in theaters back in 1968 it was shown on network television for the first time and people literally went...um, what's the word I'm looking for? Nuts? Crazy? Batshit bonkers? Sorry, I got nuthin'.

Back then merchandisers were slow to capitalize on the film's success but eventually they started cranking out toys, games, bubblegum cards, comic books, magazines, a soundtrack album, lunchboxes, masks, posters, iron-on transfer t-shirts, flashlights (?) and a bunch of other potential landfill. Hell, if you dig around enough you can probably find Planet of the Apes spice racks, shower curtains and little league batting practice helmets.        

Back then product tie-ins weren't even an afterthought but nowadays the merchandising tail has a tendency to wag the creative dog. Major artistic decisions are made in film production based on how "toyetic" a property is, as Kevin Smith famously testified at the 16:36 mark in this clip.

But long before He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was cynically cobbled together to sell a bunch of crappy barely-articulate toys, Planet of the Apes became a genuine grassroots national craze. Given the memorable cast, excellent production values, directorial flair and cheeky social commentary thanks to a clever script by Michael Wilson and Rod "Twilight Zone" Serling, Apes actually deserved to go viral.

Aboard a gloriously retro-looking Sixties-era spacecraft, astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston) completes a log entry in which he ponders the mind-bending scientific principal of time dilation, the flawed earth they've left behind and what might be found at the end of their journey. Unfortunately, something goes horribly wrong during their hyper-sleep and, in a genuinely discombobulating and unnerving sequence, their ship crash-lands in the middle of a lake on a desolate planet.

Taylor, along with his fellow G.I. Joe Adventure Team members Landon (Robert Gunner) and Dodge (Jeff Burton) abandon ship and strike out to explore this strange new world. By shooting on location at Lake Powell, the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon, director Schaffner and his cinematographer Leon Shamroy serve up some pretty breathtaking panoramas. Extreme wide angle shots are used to great effect to dwarf the characters and make them seem insignificant amidst these bizarre alien landscapes.

Throughout the film, Heston is positively hypnotic, providing plenty of future grist for Phil Hartman's Simpson's character Troy McClure. Just like that other great sci-fi thespian Bill Shatner, Heston's hammy delivery keeps you engaged even during gouts of dry expository dialogue. The scene in which he mercilessly torments Landon about how much time has elapsed is gleefully asshole-ish. Rarely do the main characters in a sci-fi flick experience any discernible growth but Heston nurtures Taylor's arc from self-absorbed acerbic jackass to future guardian quite nicely.

Assisted by Jerry Goldsmith's weird, dissonant soundtrack which conjures up shades of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, these early scenes are a textbook example of restraint. To keep the viewer off-balance, Schaffner uses an arsenal of creative crane shots, funky angles, hand-held takes and dollies. It results in some tremendous build-up and loads of slow-burn tension, culminating in the discovery of some ultra-creepy Blair Witch-style scarecrows.

We then get a charmingly-innocent scene which, if nothing else, shows just how prudish and Puritanical movies have become over the past forty-odd years. When our H2O-deprived heroes discover a waterfall and a swimming hole, they immediately strip off their clothes and go skinny dipping. Can you imagine a modern film featuring a similar scene and getting a "G" rating? It just wouldn't happen.

It's kinda sad to ponder this but our attitudes towards on-screen nudity were far more progressive and European back in the 60's, 70's and 80's. Movies like Barbarella, Clash of the Titans, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, Sheena, Logan's Run and Beastmaster all featured fleeting glimpses of flesh but didn't make big deal out of it. Nowadays the repressed Victorian assholes who run the MPAA automatically frown on such things, all the while rubber-stamping the most appalling scenes of cruelty and violence. Honestly, this makes absolutely no sense to me.

Anyway, back to the action. The titular apes don't make an appearance until the thirty minute mark but their big reveal is a doozy. When Taylor, Landon and Dodge have their clothing and supplies nicked, they track down the thieves who turn out to be a pack of primitive humans dressed in animal skins. Just as our heroes are about to intervene the natives react to the approach of their simian overlords like a pack of skittish deer and try to make a break for it through a cornfield. The resulting round-up and massacre is the stuff of cinema legend.

It's downright unnerving to see humans trussed up like rabbits or piled up in a heap. When some gorilla goons Instagram their successful hunting trip by brandishing their rifles and resting their paws on a mound of dead humans, the social commentary is pretty obvious. Through it all, the ape costumes, carts, weapons and particularly the masks all look pretty durned convincing.

This fine attention to detail carries over to the ape village. Looking like an upscale version of Bedrock from The Flintstones, the courtroom, marketplace, prison, "human museum" and the office of Dr. Zaius all look perfectly authentic. Add in a population of intellectual orangutans, middle-class chimps, grunt gorillas and human slaves and the film's world-building truly comes alive. When you think about the sub-text inherent in this fictional class structure paradigm the mind positively reels.  

We're soon introduced to the main ape characters, including Zira played to perfection by Kim Hunter. Wide-eyed, naive and slightly skittish her pet name for Taylor ("Bright Eyes") immediately reveals just how incredibly sweet and thoroughly nerdy she is. Looking like a cross between Paul Williams and Clyde from Every Which Way But Loose, Maurice Evans is wonderful as the stubborn, bellicose and curmudgeonly Dr. Zaius. Finally, the late, great Roddy McDowell is tremendous as the earnest but apprehensive Cornelius.

The actors really seem to relish the many lines of memorable dialogue. Wilson and Serling's script serves up plenty of great *wink, wink*, *nudge, nudge* moments, but never at the expense of drama:

Minister (during eulogy): He was a model for us all; a gorilla to remember.

***

Minister (later during eulogy): The dear departed once said to me: 'I never met an ape I didn't like'.

***

Julius: You know the saying, "Human see, human do."

***

Taylor: Doctor, I'd like to kiss you goodbye.
Zira: All right...but you're so damned ugly!     
  

 
Corny? Perhaps, but it also injects some much-needed levity into an otherwise dark story.

Naturally, since this was the late Sixties, we also get some memorable lines involving Lucius (Lou Wagner), Zira's young, idealistic hippy chimp nephew:

Lucius: You can't trust the older generation.

***

[after watching Taylor shave]
Lucius: Why did you do that? Scrape off your hair?
Taylor: In my world, when I left it, only kids your age wore beards.
           

***

Taylor: [to Lucius] Remember, never trust anybody over thirty!

But it's Heston who serves up the most memorable deliveries. Taylor tries to escape and after a thrilling, breakneck chase sequence he's captured and seized by the the gorilla guards, leading to one of the most indelible moments in cinema history:

Then, when Taylor is thrown into solitary confinement and given a sound PowerWash™ by one of the guards we get this immortal chestnut:

 

With plenty of gloriously loopy moments like this how could you not like this flick?

But just when you think that the movie is all about cheesy one-liners and copious scenery-chewing, the script surprises. During the hearing scene we're privy to the sort of heavy-issue debate that all good sci-fi concepts should have. Taylor's mere existence as a talking, reasoning human is anathema to the entire social structure of the apes. So poisonous is his testimony, Zaius, Honorius and the President try to bulwark their blind faith by unconsciously miming the old adage of "Hear no evil, See no evil, Speak no evil".

Things get even more interesting when an archeological dig reveals irrefutable proof that a human civilization pre-dates the apes. Even in the face of these hard facts, Zaius remain stubbornly resolute. Indeed, in his character we have the best possible modern argument for the separation of church and state:

Taylor: There's your Minister of Science; honor-bound to expand the frontiers of knowledge...
Zira: Taylor, please!
Taylor: ...except that he's also chief Defender of the Faith! 
 
But what I love most about the film is that it's ethos isn't wrapped up in a perfectly neat and tidy little bow. In fact, in light of the film's two-by-four-to-the-head ending, the lore contained in the "twenty-ninth scroll, sixth verse" actually justifies Zaius's hardline stance somewhat:

'Beware the beast man, for he is the devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport, or lust or greed. Yes, he will murder his brother to posses his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him. Drive him back into his jungle lair: For he is the harbinger of death'.

Like the best Greek and Shakespearean tragedies, Taylor keeps digging for the truth even when the audience knows to leave well enough alone. This leads to one of the most powerful twist endings in movie history. The overarching message is clear: what we don't know won't hurt us, but sometimes we need to be hurt. Given all of the recent revelations about the NSA lately, are we ahead of the game knowing that the government is illegally spying on were we better off blissfully ignorant?

The film does have a few flaws. As amazing as the makeup effects are the actors clearly struggle with their limitations. The mouths on the masks are barely articulated and the "kiss" between Cornelius and Zira / Taylor and Zira (whatta trollop!) comes off as unintentionally funny. Of all the actors, Kim Hunter seems to be the most adept at selling the illusion. It's also fun to watch Roddy McDowell inject a few subtle simian traits in his performance. Regardless, all of the ape actors deserve major plaudits for remaining selflessly anonymous for the sake of this great story.      

Along with the analog space capsule readouts and Taylor's tendency to smoke aboard ship, some good, old-fashioned anachronistic Mad Man-era sexism also lurks just below the surface here. Linda Harrison, easily one of the most gorgeous women to ever grace a sci-fi film, is little more then eye candy as Nova. Even though she does fearful, protective and indignant quite well and the character is clearly integral to Taylor's arc, she's completely mute and doesn't get very much to do except look absolutely freakin' amazing.

Then there's Dianne Stanley as Stewart, the fourth member of the crew and the only female included on the mission. Above and beyond the indignity of being killed off in the first few minutes of the film, this monolog by Taylor to Nova hints at the twisted rational behind Stewart's inclusion on the expedition:

"Did I tell you about Stewart? There was a lovely girl. The most precious cargo we brought along. If human life could survive here, she was to be the new Eve - with out hot and eager help, of course. It's probably just as well she didn't live to see this."           

"Just as well" indeed.

Curiously enough the "hot and eager help" line doesn't appear in any of the shooting scripts so I'm wondering if it was ad-libbed on set to crank up the social commentary and not just some cheap, salacious innuendo. I'd prefer to subscribe to the former and considerably-less-icky former interpretation. After all, Heston mutters this line with distaste and throughout the film he's a pretty vocal critic of the warped society he's left behind.

In spite of its technical limitations or the prevailing social mores of the time, Planet of the Apes is a classic. Even with all of the thrilling action scenes, amazing production design and groundbreaking makeup effects, the movie's best feature it still the bright and calculating brain diligently working away inside its simian skull.

            Tilt: up.

Movie Review: "Flash Gordon" by David Pretty

Fun fact: George Lucas originally wanted to remake the old cliff-hanger serial Flash Gordon but he couldn't secure the rights. "They said they wanted Federico Fellini to direct it," he was later quoted as saying, "And they wanted eighty percent of the gross, so I said forget it. I could never make any kind of studio deal with that."

The rest, as they say, is cinema history.

After Star Wars became a full-fledged cultural phenomenon in 1977, producer Dino De Laurentiis decided to fast-track his own long-gestating Flash Gordon remake. But even as filming began the producers still couldn't nail down the tone they were going for. Instead of playing it straight, as Lucas did with his own space opera, De Laurentiis pushed for a more campy tone. The result was a film that baffled most movie-goers at the time.

The film starts promisingly enough with a theme song by everyone's favorite operatic rock band Queen. I promise if you listen to this just once you'll be walking around for days shouting "FLASH!!! AAAAA-AHHHH!!!!" to anyone within earshot, much to their chagrin.

Pretty soon we're introduced to Sam J. Jones who we immediately recognize as the titular hero mainly because he's wearing a t-shirt that actually says "Flash" on it. For this reason alone the film earns one full star from me. We also meet the gorgeous Melody Anderson as Dale Arden who is alternately winsome, distressed and, as we later discover, inordinately self-reliant. As the two embark on an ill-fated charter flight back from some undisclosed sunny, exotic vacation hot-spot in northern Scotland (?), the chemistry between the two quickly begins to percolate.

In my humble opinion the casting for Flash Gordon is nigh-impeccable. Now, I'm not going to sit here and claim that Jones was the strongest actor for the role, but the dude's got charm and charisma in spades. Earnest, lunk-headed and oddly abetted by a vaguely dweeby re-dub of his own voice, Jones is the sort of white-knight hero that doesn't seem to exist anymore but probably should.

Dale and Flash inadvertently crash land in the lab of mad(ish) scientist Hans Zarkov, played by a sweaty, bug-eyed Chaim Topol who shamelessly mugs and over-acts at every opportunity. At first I thought that this was going to be really distracting, but then everything, and I mean everything else in the movie suddenly gets dialed up to "11". As soon as this happens Topol's over-the-top performance just seems like par for the course.  

At gunpoint, Zarkov insists that his new guests accompany him on a bold counter-attack against the marauding planet of Mongo which is threatening to destroy the earth. The resulting rocket launch showcases some terrific olde-skool model work and special effects. Be warned: the trippy "Imperial vortex" scene alone might induce permanent psychosis if viewed under the influence of even the lowest-grade hallucinogenics.

"Whoa...man..."

Just moments after our heroes crash-land on Mongo they're captured by what appears to be a platoon of gay pride stormtroopers. They're brought to the main audience chamber of Ming the Merciless, which looks like a Vegas variety show set co-designed by Liberace and Hunter S. Thompson. Not only are the environs gloriously tasteless, the joint is populated by dozens of brightly-attired denizens wearing frocks that even Cher would be hesitant to don.

Ming himself is played with reptilian relish by a flawlessly-cast Max Von Sydow. Unlike Jones and Anderson this guy's the real deal. Not only does he physically embody this iconic villain he also has the acting chops to back it up. Since the script offers absolutely no insight as to why Ming is such an unrelenting prick (save perhaps self-preservation), finding an actor with the gravitas required to flesh this out is imperative.

This scene gives us many more reasons as to why casting directors Michael McLean and Mary Selway deserve a special nod. First off we have Brian Blessed as Vultan, the leader of the Hawkmen. Resplendent in his metal wings, bikini briefs and hipster beard, Blessed could very well be the most bombastic actor to grace the screen since Oliver Reed. Indeed, his line deliveries are so loud, so hammy and so genuinely off-kilter he makes Topol look like Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense. There's never a dull moment when he's on-screen bellowing such deathless proclamations as "GORDON'S ALIVE?!?", "IMPETUOUS BOY!!!!" or "D-I-I-I-I-I-VE!!!" in his inimitable, ear-splitting manner.

Also on hand is future James Bond Timothy Dalton, who plays Prince Barin, the leader of the Arborians. If you're wondering what fuck an "Arborian" is, just think elves with neutered ears crossed with Rocket Robin Hood. While shooting Star Wars, George Lucas was adamant that all of his actors play it perfectly straight, no matter how ludicrous the scene might be. Apparently Timothy Dalton was the only member of the Flash Gordon cast to receive a similar memo since he delivers every single line of dialogue with Shakespearean aplomb. His presence in the film adds considerable weight to to all the bizarre proceedings. 

 
Peter Wyngarde deserves particular praise as the Doctor Doom-like General Klytus. Even though Wyngarde's face is completely obscured by a mask for the entire duration of the film, the actor's famous voice and ominous presence make for one of the most prototypically-villainous performances ever. We're talking melodramatic olde-skool baddie here: the sort of ripe bastard that you feel compelled to hiss at as soon as he appears on screen. He's aided in his machinations by the bloodless General Kala (Mariangela Mela), who comes across as a combination of Juliet Landau's Drusilla from Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Meleficent from Sleeping Beauty. 

No less memorable, but for an entirely different reason, is the impossibly hot Ornella Muti as Ming's hormonal daughter Aura. Slinky, sexy and constantly scheming, every scene she's in is the equivalent of a cat in heat scooting its ass across the floor. When she isn't playing her pops or Prince Barin like cheap fiddles she's using her considerable feminine wiles to protect boy-toy Flash from harm. Muti is such a sultry, alluring presence you almost forget that Melody Anderson exists.

What follows is a series of increasingly-ludicrous yet oddly-charming series of set-pieces. Flash uses his football skills to put up a fight against Ming's intergalactic linebackers. Unfortunately thanks to a dreadful pass from Zarkov he's captured and thrown in a dungeon where he's rendered shirtless and forced to wear a helmet apparently salvaged from a GWAR yard sale. He's then marked for execution in a scene nicely complemented by the Vengelis-like musical stylings of Howard Blake.

The absurdities continue to pile up at an alarming rate. Dale Arden, who started the film with an acute case of pteromerhanophobia, suddenly turns into River Tam during an escape attempt. The action then moves on to Arboria, the set for which looks like it re-purposed three years later for the Ewok village in Return of the Jedi. Flash and Price Barin flagellate one another on a giant spinning, spike-covered hubcap while Vultan bellows "GIVE ME THE REMOTE CONTROL!!!" As a very terrestrial rendition of the wedding match strikes up, the citizens of Mongo are ordered to "make merry under punishment by death" in anticipation of  Ming and Dale's impending nuptials.

Seriously I'm not making any of this shit up.

The whole thing is gloriously loopy. Now, I'm sure that a straight-laced version would have been fine but the original subject matter was pretty dated, even back in 1980. In retrospect I can understand why King Kong remake / Batman T.V. show scribe Lorenzo Semple Jr. was brought on board to deliver a jokey version of the script. Somehow it all manages to work in a "put your brain on idle" kinda way.

Even as things start to veer towards the sublimely ludicrous, director Mike Hodges and production designer Danilo Donati spare no expense when it comes to replicating the sets, color palate, rocket ships and costumes from the original comic strip. With the aid of ace cinematography Gil Taylor, the movie comes across as a refreshing riot of color and a pleasant contrast to today's boring, monochromatic sci-fi color palate. 

Despite its dumb charms, the movie does have more then a few problems. As I already mentioned, some of the performances are pretty uneven. The "lizard men" look like reject background dancers from a 70's-era T.V. variety show. Many of the blue screen matte shots are laughably inept with foreground plates that are nearly washed out in order to cope with the lighter backgrounds. But most importantly, the script is much more concerned with plowing headlong into the next spectacular set-piece versus telling a coherent story or crafting any genuine character arcs.  

Regardless, the film is still a lot of fun to watch.  Keep in mind that there's a clear distinction between Flash Gordon's unique brand of high-end cheddar versus the spaghetti-flavored schlock of something like  Starcrash which was rushed into production two years earlier. You get the distinct impression that the cast and crew actually gave a shit about the movie, as evidenced by the care and craftsmanship up there on the screen.

In many ways, Flash Gordon reminds me of Clash of the Titans which followed one year later. Both films suffered because special effects technology wasn't quite up to par with the highly-ambitious scripts. Even though Star Wars made a compelling case that anything imaginable could be rendered on screen, I think a lot of directors found out the hard way that it wasn't as easy as it looked. It's probably the same reason why the CGI in Jurassic Park (1993) still looks amazing while the digital effects in The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) looks like boiled dog ass.

Even though Dino De Laurentiis had the reputation of being a bit of a tool, I think his decision to make the film tongue-in-cheek was essentially a sound one. I'd much prefer a Flash Gordon that's goofy, fun, over-the-top and memorable versus something that could just as easily have been a mediocre and disposable Star Wars rip-off.

           Tilt: up.
      

Movie Review: "Apocalypse Now" by David Pretty

 
I've been sitting through a lot of "blockbusters" lately so I felt compelled to re-watch Apocalypse Now in order to cleanse the ol' palate.

Right from the first few frames of celluloid and the haunting strains of "The End" by The Doors, Coppola snags our attention and never lets go. In a scene designed to establish the main character's fragile mental state and foreshadow the insanity to come, we get a locked down shot of the jungle's treeline and glimpses of helicopters buzzing around in the fore and background. Then, mere seconds later, this lush, tropical vista is annihilated right before our unbelieving eyes.

It's a vivid and haunting flashback (foreshadowing?) courtesy of our ersatz protagonist, Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Martin Sheen), a military veteran who's constant diet of classified missions and black ops-style wetwork has twisted his definition of normalcy into something beyond repair. Via a haunting voice-over narration we learn that Willard's recent stateside leave resulted in nothing but the disintegration of his marriage:

"I'd wake up and there'd be nothing. I hardly said a word to my wife, until I said 'yes' to a divorce. When I was here, I wanted to be there; when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle." 

Sequestered in a seedy hotel room in Saigon, Coppola conveys Willard's fragile mental state with a maestro-level use of composition, sound and lighting. Ihe set is dressed and lit like a squalid opium den. Images of a wide-eyed Willard bleed into scenes of pandemonium. The ceiling fan overhead beats the air like a helicopter blade.

During a self-destructive, booze-soaked rampage, we literally watch Martin Sheen mentally unravel right on screen. If we're to believe the claims made by the equally stellar behind-the-scenes documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, this is perhaps the most authentic example of method acting ever committed to celluloid. I'm stunned that Sheen wasn't nominated for an Oscar that year.

Eventually the M.P.'s are sent to retrieve Willard who by now resembles G.G. Allin after a particularly intense concert. They clean them up and drag him before the military brass who offer him a particularly dangerous covert mission. As a side note, film fans will be thrilled to see a ludicrously-youthful and moist-looking Harrison Ford in this scene as "Colonel G. Lucas", named after Coppola's budding protegee who was originally slated to direct Apocalypse Now. Since Lucas was diagnosed with hypertension while making Star Wars, this movie probably would have killed him.      

This mission is exactly what Willard's been waiting for, his lone raison d'être. But as he listens to his superiors nervously talk about how a highly-decorated and respected Army Colonel named Kurtz (Marlon Brando) suddenly snapped and "went native", something just doesn't quite feel right. But knowing that refusal means more solitary confinement in his hotel holding cell, Willard agrees to terminate the rogue Colonel "with extreme prejudice".

 
Coppola slowly and stingily peels back the layers of mystery surrounding Kurtz and the effect is truly captivating. Despite the film's generous run time the experience is compulsively watchable and even more relevant now then it was in 1979. After all, what is Willard if not for a drone with some last vestiges of autonomous thought?

Willard hooks up with a PBR crew skippered by the no-nonsense Chief Quartermaster George Phillips, played instinctively by Albert Hall. Along for the ride is Jay "Chef" Hicks (Frederic Forrest), a high-strung sous chef from New Orleans, Lance J. Johnson (Sam Bottoms) an incongruous surfing champion from California and Tyrone "Mr. Clean" Miller a wet-behind-the-ears gunner played by a pubescent Laurence Fishburne. Exactly how young is Fishburn here? Well, put it this way, you get to see the culprit acne that resulted in his current pock-marked complexion. 

By all accounts Coppola's decision to shoot on location in the Philippines resulted in a pretty hellish experience, but no film better embodies the ethos of " pain is temporary, art is permanent" then Apocalypse Now. As soon as Willard and company start heading upriver, everyone involved in the making of this film needs to rest assured that their misery wasn't in vain. There aren't very many movies that immerse the viewer in its milieu with such authenticity. Witness the scene in which Willard and Chef go hunting for supplies in the jungle. The setting is so grand, so beautiful, and so abstract that it almost feels like a sci-fi environment.

As a modern retelling of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness filtered through the cynical sensibilities of the Vietnam War era, the film soon degenerates into a series of loosely-connected, increasingly-surreal and shockingly-violent vignettes. One of the most memorable, of course, is the group's encounter with the borderline psychotic Lieutenant Colonel William "Bill" Kilgore.

Robert Duvall is nothing short of brilliant as the Patton-esque, swaggering, tin-plated, cavalry-hat and aviators-sporting military madman. When we first see him, he's tossing "death cards" onto the bodies of  fallen Vietcong, which begs the question if life imitates art or vice versa.

Kilgore refuses to help Willard until he learns that the famous Lance Johnson is with him. In a bizarre bid to impress the professional surfer, Kilgore offers to liberate a heavily-guarded enemy beach featuring a "good left slide" mainly because "Charlie don't surf". Immediately you start to wonder why Kilgore's unique brand of insanity is state-sanctioned while Kurtz has essentially been given a death sentence.

The resulting attack sequence is perhaps the most amazing action set piece in all of cinema history. To those readers out there weaned on shitty CGI-abetted action movies, this is the real deal right here. Employing a sizable fleet of Huey helicopters, a reconstructed Vietnamese village, hundreds of extras and more explosive firepower than Michael Bay's entire oeuvre, Coppola delivers a thrilling and horrifying visual riot that has, in my humble opinion, never been rivaled in its epic scope or terrible beauty. 

Along the way Coppola weaves in some gloriously-subversive social commentary. En route to their meeting with Kilgore, the PRB overturns a Vietnamese fishing boat all to the tune of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones. Blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, Willard and his team encounter a "documentary" filmmaker played by Coppola in a wonderfully self-effacing cameo. An impromptu Catholic Mass beaks out in the middle of a hot fire zone, contrasting wildly with the hellish surroundings. A stilted audio tape of a character's cheerfully optimistic mother drones on in the background long after he's been killed. Kilgore firebombs an entire swath of jungle just so he and his droogs can "Hang Ten" for awhile.

Kilgore: "Smell that? You smell that?"
Lance: "What?"
Kilgore: "Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like...victory."

 
Music is applied brilliantly throughout the entire film.The aforementioned use of "The End" bookends the surreal opening and the darkly-chaotic finale. Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" is the perfect aural accompaniment to Kilgore's "death from above" chopper attack. Copolla swings back and forth between classical pieces, contemporary tracks like "Suzie Q" by Flash Cadillac and an odd, discordant original electronic score by his father Carmine. All of these choices serve to punch up the drama and drive home important thematic elements.

The further Willard and his team go up river the weirder things get. When a twitchy Tyrone snaps, a routine inspection goes horribly awry and Willard is forced to show his true colors. During an ill-gauged U.S.O. show, Playboy playmates are dangled like meat in front of sex-starved Marines, leading to a moment presaging the fall of Saigon. Willard tries to make contact with a commanding officer at Du Lung Bridge, which the U.S. Army re-builds "every night" so the Vietcong can "blow it right back up again." The combat zone is completely rudderless, infused with a disjointed, hallucinogenic quality that feels as if it's been filtered through Johnson's acid trip.

In the final stretch of the film, the PRB plunges into an impenetrable fog bank as if it's crossing the River Styx and then re-emerges into Kurtz's realm. Copolla immediately clobbers us with a virtuoso combination of auditory minimalism, riotous color and gruesome spectacle. The first time I saw this, my mind was completely and utterly blown. The cavalier display of mutilated, half-naked bodies dangling from trees and decapitated heads lying around like macabre garden gnomes had me dreading the appearance of Kurtz.

Then, when Dennis Hopper picked up on Willard's agog reaction to the carnage it almost seemed as if he was addressing me directly:

"The heads. You're looking at the heads. Sometimes he goes too far. He's the first one to admit it."

 
Hopper's hyperactive, slavish, spaced-out take on the role is completely fascinating to me. I don't see it so much as a brilliant performance as an honest and accurate snapshot of an amazing actor at that particular moment in his life. Apparently Brando didn't want to share any scenes with Hopper but I don't think that had anything to do with behind-the-scenes rancor. I just think that Brando was sharp enough to know that Kurtz would regard the photog as a pest to be ignored. This is born out somewhat in this exchange between Hopper and Sheen:

Photo Journalist: "I wish I had words, man. I wish I had words... I can tell ya something like the other day he wanted to kill me. Somethin' like that..."
Willard: "Why'd he wanna kill you?"
Photo Journalist: "Because I took his picture. He said 'If you take my picture again, I'm gonna kill you.' And he meant it."   

Copolla's tactic of building up Kurtz's cult of personality works perfectly. By the time Willard sits down with him, the A.W.O.L. Colonel has become something inhuman, terrifying and mythic. As you might expect, their scenes together are completely riveting. At first, Kurtz asks a series of banal and innocuous questions about  Willard's life back in Ohio. But things quickly turn dark, really dark. In his own inimitable and naturalistic way, Brando delivers a haunting monologue that further cements his reputation as one of the greatest actors of all time.

During an orgiastic montage of fire, rain, blood, murder and real animal sacrifice, Apocalypse Now comes to an appropriately Götterdämmerung climax. When I first saw this I was left reeling and devastated but each time I re-watch the film I realize that there could be no other way to end this story. In fact, I wouldn't change a single frame of this masterpiece.

Oddly Copolla himself released a Redux version of Apocalypse Now back in 2001. Unfortunately the changes were ill-gauged, leading me to believe that the director was seized by the same regrettable revisionist fever that his contemporaries George Lucas and Steven Spielberg fell prey to. Either that or he was merely trying to snag some quick and easy re-release money. Whatever the reason, I urge you to skip it and just stick with the original.

Before Star Wars came along and forever altered the model, Apocalypse Now was an event films. Epic in scale, chock-a-block with A-list acting talent, a master class in direction and rife with social commentary, a movie like this probably wouldn't even get made today and that makes me supremely sad. At least conditions once existed in Hollywood which gave rise to such tremendous cinematic art.

If Apocalypse Now didn't exist we'd all be the poorer for it.

Movie Review: "X-Men: Days of Future Past" by David Pretty

The Elevator Pitch

In the second phase of his campaign to restore the X-Men franchise back to its former glory (phase one being 2011's X-Men: Mad Mutants, er...First Class) Bryan Singer personally helms this adaptation of the classic and much-beloved "Days of Future Past" storyline from the original comics.

In a stark and dystopic future all of mutant-kind have been identified, captured and exterminated by a horde of adaptive, man-made robotic watchdogs called the Sentinels. At the behest of Professor X and Magneto, Kitty Pryde uses her phasing powers to send Wolverine's consciousness back through time to 1973. His mission: to get the two arch-rivals to reconcile in a bid to thwart Mystique's assassination of the Sentinel's creator Bolivar Trask.

In The Wheelhouse 

Comic book and, more specifically, X-Men nerds will be all over this like Mr. Fantastic on Sue Storm during their honeymoon. The movie is also a must-see for anyone interested in watching a talented ensemble of actors preside over a brain-twisting time travel story with plenty of thoughtful plotting, solid dialogue, creative direction and colorful spectacle.

The Pros

• Even though the original "Days of Future Past" storyline is only two issues long, Singer and his writing partner Simon Kinberg manage to flesh out and update the original plot without dragging in a bunch irrelevant mush. Instead of treating their previously-established X-continuity like an albatross around their necks, they took these limitations as a challenge to forge a new timeline. The manage to color within the lines and knit together a bunch of disparate plot threads while dispensing with the problematic ones. 
• Notwithstanding the creative license provided by all those wacky mutant powers, the action scenes are incredibly colorful, dynamic and thrilling. Then when you throw visually compelling characters like Blink (Fan Bingbing) into the mix, these centerpieces become even more engaging. Believe it or not, this is one of the very few comic book movies that actually shows a team of super-powered heroes using their abilities in tandem to defeat a common foe. 
• I'm pleased that the unexpected success of First Class gave the producers of this film enough clout to properly bankroll the epic scope of Days of Future Past. The flawless special effects, myriad of real-world locations and 70's era props and costumes look pretty durned convincing, even with l'il ol' Montreal standing in for Paris.  
• Matthew Vaughn and Bryan Singer's scheme to inexorably link the X-Men's origins with real historic events and personages continues to pay dividends. Not only does this honor the original source material by respecting Magneto's concentration camp internment and the genesis of the original comic book back in 1963 but it also grounds these wildly fantastic stories in reality. Bonus points for the conspiracy-licious JFK mention, by the way.  
• The principal actors alone make this film compulsively watchable. Logan, a.k.a. Hugh Jackman completes his journey from violent wildcard to responsible leader. Young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) presides over a tremendous character arc that sees him go from a self-pitying mobility addict to a selfless and resolute idealist. For this stage in Mystique's life, Jennifer Lawrence is a good fit: she's lithe, dangerous and passionate yet still betrays a hint of fragility and self-doubt. Peter Dinklage is also wonderful as Bolivar Trask. His casting and performance are both inspired, leading the audience to suspect that Trask's mindless goal of quantifying, curtailing and eliminating mutancy may be driven by a healthy dollop of self-loathing. I kinda wish Nicholas Hoult's Hank McCoy / Beast was more Kelsey Grammer and less Terry the Toad from American Graffiti but his Jekyll / Hyde take on the character is still kinda cool. Personally, I would have cast him as a young Scott Summers / Cyclops but that's my own personal hang-up. Finally, a subtle and nuanced performance by Michael Fassbender as Magneto keeps us guessing right up to the very end. I love the fact that the screenwriters had the cajones to remain true to the character's bleak world-view.  
• The film is loaded with tons of insular comic book lore and geeky visual minutia. Since the film takes place back in 1973, Wolverine is pre-"Weapon X" here so he's still sporting bone claws and downright giddy whenever he passes through a metal detector. Having said that he still experiences a well-timed panic attack when confronted by his future tormentor William Striker, played here by Josh Holman. We also get some welcome appearances by Halle Berry as Storm, Omar Sy as Bishop, Daniel Cudmore as Colossus, Adan Canto as Sunspot, Booboo (!) Stewart as Warpath, Evan Jonigkeit as Toad and others that I wouldn't reveal if I was water-boarded. Bonus points: Shawn Ashmore finally gets to go full-on Iceman!
• Like a young Jack White on a cocaine bender, Evan Peters of American Horror Story fame deserves special mention as Quicksilver. Blessed with a truly-memorable fight scene that showcases the proper creative application of top-notch digital special-effects, Peters sets the bar pretty darned high for any future incarnations of the character. I'm lookin' at you Aaron Taylor-Johnson. The gauntlet has officially been thrown down, my friend. 
• Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen and Ellen Page are all great. In other news: bears are still shitting in the woods.
• Just by its very existence, Days of Future Past justifies all of the venom and derision that's been heaped upon the brain-damaged head of X-Men: The Last Stand over the years. Instead of assuming that the audience has the attention span of a toddler at a portrait studio and cramming two (or even three!) completely separate plot-lines into one script, Singer and company pick one angle and go with it. In fact, the highest praise I can give to Days of Future Past is that it retcons the justifiably-loathed X3 right out of existence.
• Bombastic and confrontational scenes between McAvoy and Fassbender contrast nicely with some great, smart introspective moments. Investing in quiet moments of character development like this pays off in spades when things go completely batshit nuts during the climax and large chunks of A-list real estate starts flying around.  

Cons

• In their mad quest to redact X3 it looks as if the events of the first two X-Men flicks were also "Bobby Ewing-ed" into oblivion. This endows upon me the mutant power of UNCONTROLLABLE RAGE. 

The Bottom Line

Ever since Bryan Singer made the mistake of throwing over the X-Men franchise to produce the slavishly-unmemorable Superman Returns, it seems as if he's been on a one-man crusade to set things to rights. Thanks to an engaging, tight and well-groomed script, I'm pleased to report that Singer has succeeded in fixing the time line in more ways then one.

  Tilt: up.

Movie Review "Godzilla" (2014) by David Pretty

The Elevator Pitch

"A massive, ancient creature fueled by radioactivity wakes up and then proceeds to make life complicated for anyone within driving distance of the Pacific Ocean. Godzilla guest stars."

The Wheelhouse

If you're allergic to bad dubbing or if you roll your eyes at the sight of a dude dressed up in a giant rubber lizard suit stomping HO-scale buildings into matchsticks, then you'll probably be more predisposed to this take on the subject matter. Conversely, if you're discriminating enough to require real, three-dimensional human characters to identify with in a two-hour long film about giant monsters wrasslin' with one another, then you can consider this time well-spent.

The Pros

• The film kicks off with a genuine sense of gravitas thanks to the presence of high-caliber actors like Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche and Ken Watanabe. When the ball gets passed off to the young-un's, a bulked-up Aaron Taylor-Johnson (of Kick-Ass fame) rises to the occasion as an engaging, self-assured and highly-capable lead. Pity his on-screen wife Elizabeth Olsen spends most of her screen time in the shadow of special effects 'cuz she's pretty darned good as well.
• Monsters director Gareth Edwards and his screenwriting partner Max Borenstein exhibit a palpable level of respect for Godzilla and his sixty-year cinematic lineage. Beyond references to 1954, Bikini Atoll and Dr. Serizawa, a portion of the film actually takes place in Japan. A Japan seemingly over-run with gaijin, but Japan nonetheless.
• I was worried about the monster's new appearance since the toys and preliminary art made the "Big G" kinda look like a club-footed, flabby-limbed "Person of Wal-Mart". Although I still prefer the more traditional 1954, Godzilla 2000 or All Out Attack designs, this new version certainly succeeds at depicting our scaly hero as a truly colossal, shambling juggernaut of brute force instead of some scrawny, jut-jawed overgrown iguana. 
• Speaking of ol' G.I.N.O., this new film takes deliberate steps to avoid the arrogant mistakes made by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin back in 1998. This is the Godzilla fans were expecting to see back then: a clumsy, lumbering, invulnerable force of nature. The producers also do justice to his iconic roar and his, shall we say, ranged attack. In fact, the few times in which Godzilla busts out his most famous party trick it results in a sincerely thrilling stand-up-and-cheer kinda moment.      
• The special effects are both special and quite effective. The scenes of devastation in Las Vegas, San Francisco, Waikiki and the fictional Janjira are all completely convincing. The monster battles are creatively staged and convey a primal fear of titanic power. Our highly-vaunted weapons of mass destruction come across as comically inept and the on-screen physics they're subjected to feel disturbingly genuine. It's a damned good thing that the special effects guys got this right because if it looked fake, things would quickly become surreal, abstract and, ultimately, disengaging.  
• The film is actually reasonably well-plotted and contains a few unexpected and welcome revelations. Above and beyond pulling a Janet Leigh on us, the script side-steps the sort of plot pitfalls that most modern Hollywood blockbusters thrive on. Just when it looks as if we're going to re-live that hoary old trope of "moronic military versus the beatific scientists", something miraculous happens which completely alters our expectations. Words can't describe how refreshing this is to me.
• Although I'm not particularly crazy about the M.U.T.O.'s design, the creature's ability to deliver an electromagnetic pulse is a brilliant new concept which results in a few memorable and scary moments.
• Gareth Edwards brings some tremendous artistic flourishes to the film. I really appreciate the creative and visually-arresting main title sequence, the use of György Ligeti's "Requiem" during the H.A.L.O. drop and the the low-angled shots which really help to convey the sheer size and scale of these creatures. Also, taking a cue from the original 1954 film, there are some truly inspired moments of sound design here. Compare and contrast Godzilla's bladder-shaking roar with the minimalistic noise of only tracer fire during his big reveal in Hawaii.  

 

The Cons

• How 'bout this neat n' tidy little exchange of redact-alicious dialogue: Dr. Serizawa: "In 1954, we awakened something." Vivienne: "All of those nuclear tests in the Pacific? Not tests." Dr. Serizawa: "They were trying to kill it." Y'know, if it wasn't so damned brilliant I'd feel compelled to hunt down screenwriter Max Borenstein and kick him right in the cubes for fictionally excusing America's real reason for setting off atomic bombs all over the South Pacific during the 1950's. It might seem inordinately clever to exonerate your country like this but it also completely and totally dismantles the original film's social commentary if not its entire raison d'être. Hey, Max, just because you can do something clever it doesn't necessarily mean that you should.
• The harrowing early scenes at the Janjira nuclear power plant bring to mind the still-painful Fukushima disaster. This would have a been a perfect opportunity to inject some much-needed social commentary into the film but, alas, the possibility is quickly dispensed with and it's right back to the action.  
• Even though it's Godzilla's name on the marquee, he comes off as a second banana here. Scroll back up and re-watch the trailer again. Go ahead, I'll just wait here. Okay, didja watch it? Wanna know a little secret? Most of the destruction you see in the trailer wasn't actually caused by Godzilla. And that's just lame. 
• Americans are creatively bankrupt compared to the inspired lunacy of Japanese monster makers. The M.U.T.O.'s, I.E. the unfortunate and unexpected real stars of the film, look like a boring amalgam between the Cloverfield monster and the critter from Super 8. Fans hoping to see a wildly-original, bat-shit crazy design like Gigan, Biollante, Destoroyah or King Ghidorah will likely be disappointed.
• Because of all the bait-and-switch emphasis placed on the M.U.T.O.s, the first quarter of the film comes across as needlessly muddled. Honestly, looking back I still can't tell you exactly what origin story belongs to what monster and who exactly did what. 
• Look, I'm all for a slow-burn lead-in to our boy's big reveal but after the third or fourth fleeting glimpse of Godzilla, this technique really started to get on my nerves.  
• In the original Showa series it took about five or six films before Godzilla went from "wrath of God" to defender of the Earth. Here it happens within the space of two hours. Sorry, but I like my Godzilla more heel then hero. 

The Bottom Line  

Despite all my belly-achin', Godzilla is a surprisingly well-made flick. The direction is tight, the cast is excellent, the special effects are top-notch and the script respects the original concept while striving for do something different.

It's a refreshing palate-cleanser that makes amends for that Kaiju-sized celluloid turd that got dropped on our collective heads back in 1998. Regardless of the film's flaws, at least the creature up on the screen can be identified as Godzilla.

I just wish he'd actually been on-screen a little bit more.  

      Tilt: down.

  

Movie Review: "Gojira" (1954) by David Pretty

The Elevator Pitch

By peppering the South Pacific with H-Bombs, asshole Americans dislodge a colossal, prehistoric, pissed-off mutant dinosaur with atomic breath from its underwater habitat. How pissed off is he? Have you ever taken a cold shower? Well multiply that by about a hundred; that's how pissed off this guy is.

The monster, known in local legend as "Gojira", warms up by destroying a huge chunk of the Japanese shipping fleet and then wanders onshore where he kicks the shit out of Tokyo and lights everything on fire. When conventional means of destruction (tanks, fighter planes, electricity, sarcasm) fail to destroy the creature, the human protagonists must convince a tortured scientist to use his secret doomsday device on the creature, knowing that tragic results are inevitable.

The Wheelhouse

Anyone with a still-intact inner child will probably dig this flick. How can you go wrong with giant, fire-breathing, radioactive lizard with atomic breath? Fans of 50's era monster-on-the-loose type movies will also be predisposed to this one. 

On a deeper level, if you've only seen the crappy North American edit (a.k.a. Godzilla: King of the Monsters) which shoe-horned footage of Raymond Burr into the film and atrociously re-dubbed all of the Japanese cast, then you owe it to yourself to see this version instead. Bonus points: the original director's cut also features a strong anti-nuke message and calls out the indiscriminate testing of atomic weapons.

The Pros

• The film's sound design is terrific. As soon as the credits roll we get Akira Ifukube's iconic score punctuated by Godzilla's trademark roar, which, interestingly enough, was achieved by rubbing a resin-covered leather glove across the strings of a double bass and then under-cranking the playback. It's a profoundly discordant and unsettling auditory experience and it really sets the tone for the entire film.
• Shot in moody black and white by cinematographer Masao Tamai, the film feels atmospheric, oppressive and dire; kind of like a living nightmare.
• The cast might not be perfect but they're still quite appealing. Akira Takarada is kinda wooden as Ogata, but he's still a solid generic hero type. Momoko Kōchi is sweet and earnest as Emiko and despite the fact that she quickly gets annoying (see "Cons" below), at least her character is integral to the plot. Takashi Shimura is great as Dr. Yamane. At first he's enthusiastic and amazed by the discovery of Gojira and keen to share his knowledge about the creature. But when it becomes clear that everyone wants the monster dead, Shimura takes on the disposition of someone betrayed. Finally, Akihiko Hirata is great as the twitchy and sweaty Dr. Serizawa. The script puts the character in the worst imaginable place and Hirata sells this to the hilt.
• Gojira gets a very nice little build-up. After plenty of tantalizing references to missing links, radioactivity, giant footprints and trilobites we get a brief glimpse of him about twenty-one minutes in and then another short appearance about ten minutes later. Finally the full-out rampage happens around the forty-three minute mark. To me this structure actually kinda hints at the monster's mindset. Sure, the "Big G" sinks a few ships; but you would too if you just got explosively evicted from your Mariana Trench hidey-hole. He only goes totally Battra-shit nuts after the military tries to give him a depth-charge enema. 
• I can't help but emphasize the surprising levels of social commentary at work here. The original director's cut of Gojira isn't the same mindless, disposable atomic-monster-on-the-loose movie which was clogging up American drive-in theaters at the time. Quite the opposite; the film actually feels like the therapeutic diary of an entire country ravaged by horrible memories. Keep in mind, Gojira was lensed just six short years after suffering a devastating twin nuclear attack. To make matters worse, in 1954 a Japanese fishing vessel, the Daigo Fukuryū Maru, was horribly irradiated by fallout from an unexpectedly-large nuclear weapons test on Bikini Atoll. Since the Japanese were already painfully aware of the devastating effectiveness of the H-Bomb, they probably couldn't fathom why the Americans were still chucking them around like frozen yogurt coupons. Gojira's message is abundantly clear: if we keep poking Mother Nature in the eye with a pointy stick, eventually she's gonna wake up and stomp a mud-hole in our collective asses. 
• Just like the monster, the Oxygen Destroyer itself gets a pretty scary and effective introduction. When Dr. Serizawa inadvertently stumbles upon this "Pandora's Box" of a weapon he's so horrified by its potential destructive power that his first impulse is to destroy it. It's almost as if screenwriters Ishirō Honda and Takeo Murata were trying to show us what Robert Oppenheimer and company should have done with The Manhattan Project. And with our own modern society still wresting with big issues such as cloning, artificial intelligence, drones, genetic and technology modification, climate change, privacy issues and the emergence of new super-bugs, the real story of Gojira is just as timely today as it was in the 1950's. In other words: just because science and technology can do something, it doesn't necessarily mean that it should.
• Even though Odo Island and Tokyo get stomped into oblivion by the equivalent of a wiry Japanese dude in a giant rubber monster suit, the destruction, damage and loss of life is depicted with the utmost respect and horror. Director Ishirō Honda's atmospheric slow pan across the destroyed city-scape of Tokyo brings to mind the still-raw images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During Gojira's devastating attack we see scads of people getting crushed under falling debris and charred alive by the creature's fiery breath. In one heart-rending scene a mom clutches her two children close and tries to re-assure them that "It'll all be over soon!" and "We'll be with your daddy!" Yeeeesh, that's some depressing shit right thur. In the aftermath we see countless shattered bodies, bloodied victims laid out on stretchers and children wailing over their injured parents. Add in a creepy and mournful choir of singing girls and you've got one of the most somber and intense giant monster movies ever made. 
• Serizawa's quandary is pretty meaty stuff for a film that's often maligned as a cheesy creature feature. Eventually it pays off in a tragic finale that's downright Shakespearean.
• For the most part, the model work and full-sized monster suit look pretty good. The special effects are aided somewhat by the murky black and white photography. To this day, my favorite photos of Godzilla are promotional stills from this first film:     

Sorry, but my boy looks totally bad-ass with those beady silvery eyes and that gnarly, radiation-scarred hide.

The Cons

• A lot of the performances can be characterized as "over-ripe" or downright stilted, occasionally resulting in some inadvertent laughs. For example, Emiko bawls at the drop of a hat. Cripes, she even freaks out when a few fish get killed. She must be real drag when you take her out for sushi.    
• Some of the model work is so chintzy that it kinda devalues the decent script. In one shot, Gojira's fiery breath ignites an entire city block and when the explosive charges go off underneath the set the miniature buildings bounce up off the floor like little cardboard boxes with painted on windows and doors. A few seconds later two "fire engines" (I.E. a pair of Tonka trucks) crash into a wall during a laughably fake-looking scene. 
• The stock footage used for the large-scale military operations looks decidedly out of place when spliced together with the original footage.
• There are some really odd moments of dead silence on the soundtrack. Although the cool n' creepy effect it produces is pretty jarring the whole things smacks of a huge technical fuck-up. 
• As intriguing as the Serizawa sub-plot is, it's pretty turgid stuff for modern audiences to slog through. And even though I appreciate that the film was made w-a-a-a-a-y before Hollywood's current obsession with homogenized story structure, there isn't really a lot of hot monster action. After Gojira's big rampage about two-thirds of the way through the film all we're left with is endless scenes of destruction and a metric shit-ton of exposition. In fact, we only get one more fleeting glimpse of the "Big G" right at the end. 
• Depending on whether we're seeing just the head, the upper torso, the legs or the full body, Gojira alters his appearance more often then the "Real" Housewives of Miami. In some shots he looks totally bad-ass and in others he looks like Kermit the Frog on a meth bender. 

The Bottom Line

I think the concept of Gojira / Godzilla is a great one, but the idea was probably just slightly ahead of its time. As a result, Godzilla's been in more shitty movies then Adam Sandler.

But this first film is pretty decent. If you're interested in the new Godzilla movie then I highly recommend that you check this one out. Just remember to seek out the original Gojira and avoid that bastardized Perry Mason abortion like a size four-hundred foot-stomp.

Tilt: fifty meters straight up, yo.

Movie Review: "The Thing" (2011) by David Pretty

The Elevator Pitch 

The Thing is the altogether-unnecessary prequel to the classic 1982 sci-fi / horror film. Finally, we get an answer to the thirty-year old question that no-one wanted to ask: what exactly happened to the ill-fated Norwegian research team in their first encounter with the shape-shifting, body-hopping alien menace? 

The Wheelhouse

Fans of John Carpenter's hollowed remake might be tricked, as I was, into watching this garbage. Gorehounds might come sniffing around but will probably end up drifting away in abject boredom. Essentially, if you don't give a shit about such trivial things as pacing, build-up, mood, tension and character development then you might find this flick vaguely distracting.

The Pros 

• Some of the film looks like it was shot on location and the cold, isolated, desolate setting still makes for the perfect horror picture milieux.
• The movie does feature a few surreal and ambitious body-warping creature effects which would have been nigh-impossible to produce back in the early 80's. Some of them are actually pretty grotesque, perverse and stomach-churning.
• Despite being cursed with an uninspired script, Mary Elizabeth Winstead gives a highly-capable performance. She's tough, smart and resolute; almost to a fault since most normal human beings, present company included, would be completely catatonic with fear after witnessing some of this crazy shit. Cripes, even Ellen Ripley had to be work herself up to confronting the Alien. Joel Edgerton is also fairly decent and I love that he spends most of the first half of the film playing second banana to Kate. 
• Every once in awhile we get shades of the sustained terror that made the original so great. In one of the film's few original moments, the creature's inability to replicate metal is parlayed into a nail-biting sequence involving an impromptu dental check-up.
• It's pretty obvious that great pains were taken to replicate the environs and visual tone of the original film.

 

The Cons

• The hellish, unexplained state of the already-trashed Norwegian research station was the perfect creepy set-up to Carpenter's remake. Going back in time to explain exactly what happened to the camp is about a boring as showing Darth Vader as a little kid. Oh....oh wait...
• The dialogue is flat, unmemorable and perfunctory.
• Not two seconds after the Thing in question breaks loose, the characters start doing supremely stupid shit. Despite the fact that an eyewitness actually watched the creature STRONG-ARM ITS WAY OUT OF A MASSIVE CHUNK OF ICE AND THEN TEAR ITS WAY THROUGH THE FUCKING CEILING, they all decide to split up into pairs and look for it, armed only with pointy sticks, flashlights and sarcasm.
• There's a blatant disregard for already-established continuity. In Carpenter's film, the Norwegians are clearly shown using seismic charges to break through the ice to get to the Thing's space ship. In the prequel they find it in a pretty ice cave like a convenient episode of Adventure Time.
• Like all prequels, we pretty much know exactly what's going to transpire. In essence the film is the equivalent of watching a two-hour self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Rob Bottin's original visual effects might not have been quite as agile but they're a helluva lot more slimy, tangible and gory. In this one the creature alternates between looking like a Disney-animated Hieronymus Bosch painting or a stagnant, plasma-covered plate of Alaskan King crab.
• At least Carpenter's version gave us a few quiet, idiosyncratic character moments to ponder before all hell broke loose. Here the monster wakes up within the first thirty minutes and all we know about the characters is that Mary Elizabeth Winstead's Kate is GOOD, Ulrich Thomsen's Dr. Halvorson is BAD, Joel Edgerton's Sam Carter is a milquetoast KURT RUSSELL and everyone else is Thing-bait. 
• The cynical and greasy fingerprints of committee marketing are all over this script. By the already-established dictates of prequel continuity, the entire cast should have been Norwegian but instead three out of the four lead characters are American.
• Screenwriter Eric Heisserer assumes that the audience won't be interested in a tense, low-key yet timely parable about modern paranoia and de-humanization. Instead the film kicks off with a needlessly boorish and cartoony scene in which the scientist's snowcat suddenly plunges through a gap in the ice and discover the alien ship. The whole thing is capped off with the typical bullshit Hollywood ending that would be more at home in Predator 2.

The Bottom Line 

If you're a fan of John Carpenter's original masterpiece then you may want to check out this curiosity. Then again you might not 'cuz it'll probably end up pissing you off royally.

           Tilt: down.