The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2021: The Tempest (1979), directed by Derek Jarman

 

A Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune - "Stormy Weather" by Elisabeth Welch

       We talked a little about Cervantes last time, so let’s get to talking about the big leagues now: William Shakespeare. Starting out as an actor and playwright for the acting company Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later the King’s Men around the tender age of 21 (he was already married with three kids at this point too, in case you weren’t feeling inadequate enough), Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets were one of the creative pillars of England during its Renaissance period in the 15th and 16th centuries. As the centuries have worn on and his plays have been translated into more and more languages, William Shakespeare has come to define the art form of theater like no one else in history, especially you Sophocles. How many times has the ‘characters acting in Romeo & Juliet’ trope been used and reused in TV shows? How many times have you seen some character grab a skull and say ‘alas, poor Yorick’? You ask a person what a play looks like and there’s a good chance that what they envision is either similar to Shakespeare, or is just straight up Shakespeare. The same can’t be said for movies or music, or any other medium.

       The Bard wrote around 39 dramatic works before his retirement in 1613; Some comedies, a couple of historical dramas and more than a few tragedies, a natural spread. The one that always stuck out in my mind more than the other though was ‘The Tempest’, mainly because Alan Moore incorporated it in the main mythology of his graphic novel series League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Shakespeare’s last play before his retirement from the stage, and one full of magic and spirits besides, which when adapted sounds like a genre film to me. So I picked the wildest looking one, and now here we are.

       Released in 1979, The Tempest was written and directed by Derek Jarman and produced by Guy Ford and Mordecai Schreiber through Boyd’s Company. On an isolated island somewhere in the Mediterranean there stands a lone castle, empty save for four people: Prospero (Heathcote Williams), his daughter Miranda (Toyah Willcox), his magical servant Ariel (Karl Johnson) and his slave Caliban (Jack Birkett). Once upon a time Prospero had been the Duke of Milan, but due to the machinations of his brother Antonio (Richard Warwick) the King of Naples (Peter Bull) had him and his daughter exiled to this distant land. That was twelve years ago, and now when a ship containing those who wronged him happens to pass by, the stage is finally set for his revenge. Using Ariel and the magicks he’s gathered over those long years he calls forth a mighty tempest to bring those villains, and the king’s son Ferdinand to the island, and so the story unfolds. 

       Looking at The Tempest, we can see the eye for the visual that made him a familiar face in the U.K. music scene in the 80s, directing videos for bands like The Smiths, Orange Juice and Pet Shop Boys. Prospero’s island home is not the beacon of pageantry that we associate with the Elizabethan age but a disheveled wreck, full of sorcery perhaps but moreso cobwebs. Not just the architecture but the people as well, Miranda’s shredded dress and knotted hair in particular acting as a twisted mockery of high fashion. As a period piece it’s nothing on the level of Gothic or The Draughtsman’s Contract, although Jarman would return to the concept several times over the course of his career, but it gets the point across and Jarman gives each character a distinctive look that helps define them to the audience.

       Jarman was also more of a presence in the art house than he was the marquee, and that is reflected in his interpretation of Shakespeare, using techniques such as New Wave style thought narration for certain soliloquies, his use of anachronism and of course the visual aesthetic to give the story an added level of surrealism. Also nudity; Couple of boobs, some ass but mostly dicks, like if Jon Peters made his own version of Porkies. It’s not a big deal unless you’re a prude or a high school teacher looking for a Shakespeare play to show an English class, but it does feel like Jarman is throwing schlong on the screen because he can most of the time. The first couple of minutes of the movie has Ferdinand washing up on Prospero’s island with his dick flapping in the wind, but it’s like... the dude was on a boat when the tempest arrived. Was the storm so violent that it ripped the clothes from his body? Was he naked when he was washed overboard, or did he take the time while he was drowning in the ocean to remove his clothes? Someone’s thirsty and it ain’t the folks on the desert island.

       Having never read the play then, I have to wonder if it’s really as dull as Derek Jarman makes it out to be. Having read my description you might believe that The Tempest is gearing up to be a mystical version of the Count of Monte Cristo as the former Duke of Milan takes his revenge on the conspirators, but even after waiting for a hour for the fuckers to even get to the castle that promised revenge never really happens. You think when Ferdinand is introduced and Miranda takes a shine to him that it’s leading to a kind of Romeo & Juliet romance where Prospero acts as the antagonistic force either condemning the marriage or manipulating them towards his own ends, but even though a ‘romance’ does happen it feels about as passionate as a children’s playdate, which is ironic because I’m pretty sure Juliet would be legally classified as a child in this day and age and yet that romance has a more solid foundation. You think something big is building up with Caliban, slave of Prospero and self-proclaimed rightful owner of the island after Prospero killed his diabolic mother Sycorax, openly declaring his hatred for his master and plotting his murder and usurpation, but most of his screentime is spent hanging around with a couple of drunks who are so obnoxious you want them to fall headfirst into a bear trap within the first couple minutes of screen time. Or even something between Ariel, former slave to Sycorax and now Prospero, who promises the spirit’s freedom with ever-extending goalposts. So many plot threads and potential conflicts that after a while are just resolved without any feeling of suspense or satisfaction. Thus The Tempest seems to confirm the stereotype of Shakespeare’s plays, that it’s just a bunch of silly people in costumes talking to each other for 2 hours, which doesn’t do anybody any favors.

       The language barrier was also a big issue, and yes the same language separated over a couple centuries does make for a barrier. Perhaps that makes me come across as uncultured but honestly there were several parts in this film where I completely lost the thread of what these people were talking about. It doesn’t help that they’re constantly whispering or chewing scenery, which only compounds the struggle to understand the dialogue even when wearing headphones. The actors do a good job of bridging the gaps physically, as I said you understand exactly the kind of people these characters are just by looking at them, but the deeper context of the play was occasionally lost to me.

       Speaking of personal issues, I hate the fact that Jarman utilizes the old filmmaking trick of slapping a blue light filter over the film, which was typically used to indicate night. Filming at night brings its own set of issues, if indeed the scenes in the original play were meant, but the blue filter does not signify night to me, it signifies blue. Were this just for one scene and later transitioned to standard color like the scenes inside the castle, but it’s for every single outdoors scene, which means a significant portion of the film is staring at a blue screen. A tedium which is only increased by the underlying problem of the story barreling towards an anti-climax. It doesn’t look good, it just looks like you couldn’t afford a lamp.

       Those intrigued by Derek Jarman’s visual aesthetic and experimentation and or those who are interested in seeing a retelling of The Bard with a bit of a twist will likely find something to enjoy in his adaptation of The Tempest, and to be honest there’s a part of me that wishes to dig deeper, perhaps read the original play and see what Shakespeare intended in his own words. On the whole however I found myself needing to refocus my attention several times over the course of the film, and I think those who have less of a tolerance for esoteric underground cinema will find themselves feeling much of the time. Derek Jarman’s The Tempest does not get the recommendation, although given the choice between this and Tromeo & Juliet I’d rewatch this one in a heartbeat. Perhaps you will too when Halloween rolls around.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2021: Love at First Bite (1979), directed by Stan Dragoti

 

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune -- "Vampire" by The Orion Experience

       There are probably many of you out there that may draw a blank when I drop the name Harlan Ellison. A speculative fiction writer since the 50s of such stories like “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” and "The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World", screenwriter and contributor to Babylon 5, The (original) Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, Star Trek TOS and Marathon alum A Boy and His Dog, and generally known for being an aggressively opinionated and uncompromising person (his self-appointed nickname was ‘The Human Gadfly’). Even fewer people will know that for a couple decades Ellison also wrote a number of essays and movie reviews that appeared sporadically in various publications, wherein he lambasted those he thought were dumbing-down society and critiqued the films of the day in his typical eloquent but irascible style. Star Wars? Unscientific garbage! Back to the Future? Pointless shit! Gremlins? More like child abuse! In fact many of the films that we would consider emblematic of pop culture in that period were dismissed outright as trash by Harlan Ellison at the time, like an anti-James Rolfe, and his reasoning holds up more often than not. Also like an anti-James Rolfe

       Aside from those hot takes though, which are all collected in the e-book Harlan Ellison’s Watching, these articles were beneficial in helping me discover movies I might not have ever heard of otherwise. Case in point: Love at First Bite, which Ellison described as the only other vampire movie worth watching, aside from the Universal Dracula film in 1931. Vampires had been taken as far as they could go seriously in the Lugosi film, Ellison wrote, and with their deconstruction in this film the concept was officially played out and should be retired. Glowing praise for Love at First Bite and a damning indictment of every vampire movie since the 30s, but even if he were being hyperbolic in order to sell a couple more newspapers or magazines it did get interested in seeing what the big deal was with this movie, as it did for several other films that may be featured in future reviews. Also I tend to throw a vampire movie on this list every year anyway, so bob’s your uncle.

       Released in 1979, Love at First Bite was written by Robert Kaufman (a frequent writer on The Bob Newhart Show), directed by Stan Dragoti and produced by Joel Freeman through Melvin Simon Productions. George Hamilton stars as Count Dracula, who with the help of his crony Renfield (Arte Johnson) managed to survive the events of the novel and has since puttered around in his castle in Transylvania, pining over magazine model Cindy Sondheim (Susan Saint James). That is until the Romanian government comes in and declares that they will be appropriating Castle Dracula and turning it into a boy’s gymnasium and training center. What’s a blood-drinking demon and his verminous lackey to do? Why go to New York of course, where Dracula’s one true love Cindy lives, and make her his immortal bride! What awaits the Count as he makes his way to this land of opportunity, this Big Apple as they call it? Comic shenanigans, perhaps?

I’ve been struggling for a while to put my thoughts into words for this review, and in the end the issue was Ellison. Given that this film was praised so highly I expected that there was something about it that was deep or profound, but there’s not. There was a hint of something there near the beginning, when Dracula really meets Cindy and we find out she’s kind of a neurotic mess with a passion for pharmaceutical cocktails that we were in for a real deconstruction. Dracula, this old world aristocrat who is used to having whatever he wants clashing against this 20th century doesn’t-take-shit kind of woman and realizing that his usual tricks don’t work. Except they do work and it turns into a bog-standard romance where Cindy is ready to completely throw her life away for this guy she met less than a week and also drops a couple IQ points. Dracula has a moment of vulnerability once about all the things he’s missed by being a vampire, and then this is wasted by barely having to struggle to get everything he wants. Not that every movie romance needs to be Annie Hall, but considering the way Ellison roasted films for not living up to his standards of writing it’s surprising he would let that slide.

Which isn’t to say that Love at First Bite is without merit. When it’s in parody mode and messing with tropes from Dracula it’s funny, like the scene with Jeff and Dracula at the restaurant. There’s plenty of great zingers and dialogue exchanges here as well, the opening scene with Dracula at the piano, Cindy and Jeff’s therapy session, as you’d expect from one of the writers on the Bob Newhart Show. Yet at other times it feels like it’s trying way too hard. Hey let’s be wacky but also serious sometimes while also doing meta commentary and George Hamilton was on Roots that time so let’s name drop Roots a couple times because that’ll always be timely and why not do some race jokes too and it’s all just...meh. At it’s best Love at First Bite is the perfect companion piece to the Mel Brooks classic Young Frankenstein, and at its worst it’s like one of the Mel Brooks movies that no one talks about.

The casting was also good. I’m not quite sure about George Hamilton’s hair but he does do a convincing faux-Lugosi accent and he’s able to do comedy while still largely retaining the mystique of Dracula. Susan Saint James also isn’t bad, but a lot of what she does is subordinate to the romance angle which I’ve already stated my issues with. Richard Benjamin as Jeffrey Rosenberg (formerly Van Helsing) has some of the better jokes in the movie but they really needed to reign him in because at some point he just abandons the premise that this character is meant to be a human being and in favor of ‘look at me, I’m crazy now!’ style comedy. Except he’s not high energy like Robin Williams to make that work, he just grins a lot and shouts randomly, like the one weird kid in class you didn’t interact with much. I did like Arte Johnson as Renfield though, dude had the creepy laugh down pat.

I ended up running out of juice on this review right out of the gate, but no, Love at First Bite is not the only other Dracula movie you need to watch, or the only other vampire movie, or the only vampire comedy movie. It wants to be a screwball comedy but lacks the confidence and wants to be a parody but lacks the conviction, so it ends up all over the place. Whether I would have felt this way if I managed to stumble upon this movie on my own and not had Harlan Ellison in the back of my mind, I’m not sure. Either way I’m giving it the recommendation, as there is some funny stuff here and it’ll probably be a lot more enjoyable to those not pushed into scrutinizing it. Pop open a bottle of champagne and light up a joint this Halloween and see where this film takes you.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2014: Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979), directed by Werner Herzog

     

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "Nosferatu Man", by Slint

     Out of all the monsters on this list, all the aliens and zombies and lovecraftian horrors, there is one creature who stands above them all as the absolute king of the creeps: Dracula. Often based on the historical figure Vlad III or ‘Vlad the Impaler’, the infamously brutal ruler of Wallachia in what is now known as Romania, the king of the shadows first appeared as the antagonist in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. Even though Stoker’s novel was not the first to feature vampires, nor was it all that successful when it was released, Dracula has gone on to become of the most significant pieces of horror literature of all time, and the Count has been propelled into pop culture stardom. And all without sparkling in the sun like some kind of asshole.

      Although the Dracula novel is obviously quite important, there’s no doubt that a lot of the popularity for the character came through film. The 1931 Universal Dracula starring Bela Lugosi is by far the most iconic form of the famous vampire with the 1958 Hammer Films Dracula starring Christopher Lee coming close behind, and he’s been in hundreds of movies ever since, including one that came out recently known as Dracula Untold, which has been rumoured to be the beginning of a monster equivalent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (not sure how that would work, but whatever). With all these movies, there are so many different iterations of Dracula that films that address the original story are probably in the minority. So in the spirit of Halloween, I’ve decided to honor everyone’s favorite corpse by making the last film on my Long Dark Marathon of the Soul one all about Count Dracula.  Because why the hell not?

      Directed by Werner Herzog (Fitzcarraldo, Grizzly Man), Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht comprises the entirety of Herzog’s feature-length foray into the horror genre. Though several things are altered from the original book (the film takes places in Wismar, Germany rather than London, Harker’s wife is now Lucy rather Mina and there are no ‘Brides’), the basic premise is the same: Jonathan Harker is sent by his employer to Transylvania to meet one Count Dracula (Herzog regular Klaus Kinski, whose design in the film closely resembles that of Max Schreck in the 1922 silent film Nosferatu), who is looking to purchase a house in the area. While there, Jon and Dracula have several incredibly awkward conversations about the night and the inevitable passage of time, and Jon suspects that this deathly pale man with long claws and a bat face might in fact be das vampyr. Jon’s suspicion turns to fear when Dracula discovers a picture of Lucy and becomes enraptured by her beauty, which is not the kind of attitude you want for a guy who lives next to your wife. He tries to escape but fails, and Dracula makes his way to Wismar. How will Lucy and Jon contend with the forces at the night nipping at their heels? Will Dracula feast upon the blood of the living? That’s for fate to decide.

      There are some interesting twists to the Dracula story here in Phantom der Nacht. Kinski’s portrayal of the vampire as a monstrous, miserable wretch rather than a suave seductor is a nice change of pace. Vampirism is supposed to be a horrible curse after all, not ‘free super powers and immortality at the cost of a tan’, and if people wanted to bang corpses so much they should go to the morgue. I also found that it interesting that about halfway through the movie Lucy becomes the protagonist, rather than Jon. Lucy is the one that Dracula wants to bang after all, so if anyone would have an issue here it would be her, but it’s a nice change of pace when you see the woman in a vampire movie that isn’t a damsel in distress or a vampire herself. Definitely one of the more dour movies on the list, and I can’t tell if it’s because of all the dead people or because it’s directed by Werner Herzog. Probably Herzog.

      Are you a big vampire fan? Do you have an unhealthy obsession with Germany or the German people? Then why not put on Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht on your television/computer screen this Halloween. It won’t make you scream in fright, but it will make you have long bouts of introspection on the nature of life and love, and isn’t exploring one’s feelings something which all men fear?

     There you have it, 31 movies that I watched this October, and perhaps some you might want to watch as well. For those who did read through all this crap, I hope you found some movies that you really enjoy. For those who didn’t, it’s pretty weird that you would read the last paragraph in a multi-page list and skip the list itself. But before we go, there were a couple of films I tried out for the marathon, but they were just too damn bad to go the next round:

The Hills Have Eyes (1977), directed by Wes Craven

 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre earned its place in horror movie history for its incredibly visual imagery and disturbing atmosphere, so it’s only natural that the crop of imitation films that came after it would try and copy that. Films like The Hills Have Eyes, which replaces a backwoods hick family with a backwoods hick family, essentially a lateral change, and still manages to fuck it up. No likable characters on either side, crappy story, unimpressive action, and a dog with a higher body count than the murderous hillbillies. Good thing Craven went on to do Nightmare on Elm Street, because sitting through this crap was a chore.

Godzilla vs King Ghidorah (1991), directed by Kazuki Ohmori

 I love Godzilla. I’ve loved Godzilla ever since I was a kid. I own almost every Godzilla movie (including the ‘98 Tristar film), I’ve watched the animated series, read the comics, played the video games, owned the action figures, etc. etc. I got that Godzilla shit on lock down. But HOLY SHIT is this movie a pain in the ass. Getting to see the 90’s badass Godzilla fight his greatest enemy? Awesome. Sitting through the hour or so of confusing time travel bullshit that makes no fucking sense at any point to get to that fight? Not awesome and frankly not worth the effort for those few minutes of greatness. There are better Godzilla movies out there.

Flesh for Frankenstein (1972), directed by Paul Morrissey

Produced by famous artist Andy ‘Soup Can’ Warhol, Flesh for Frankenstein is the shitty movie that high-minded art snobs have been waiting for. In the film, Baron Frankenstein is a fascistic Czech nationalist living with his sexpot sister/wife (who looks like a goddamn lizard person) and his two creepy mute kids in some castle presumably in Czechoslovakia. Frankenstein is an ardent believer in the idea that pure Czechs a descendent from the Ancient Greeks, and he plans to use his power to create a master race that will eventually dominate the world (sound familiar?). Bad acting, bad accents, unlikable characters, and Frankenstein fucks a corpse in the gallbladder. No amount of ultraviolence can stop this shambling trainwreck of a movie from pulling in to shit station, and good fucking riddance to bad rubbish.







Happy Halloween!

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2014: Alien (1979), directed by Ridley Scott

     

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "Alien Days", by MGMT

     With this Halloween movie marathon, I’ve tried to compile a list of movies that were obscure, fit my criteria for a holiday-appropriate film and, most importantly, were films that I either hadn’t seen before or had only seen parts of, in order to have a fresh experience. Alien is one of the most famous horror movies ever made (even more so now that the new game by Sega is out) so I’ve completely failed on the obscurity front, but I put this on the list anyway because I had never seen it before and because I felt like it. Yes, this is the first time I’ve ever seen Alien, even though I’ve already enjoyed Aliens and yawned through Prometheus. I also saw Ghostbusters 2 before Ghostbusters and Army of Darkness before Evil Dead. Didn’t plan for it, that’s just the way she goes.

      If you’ve seen Alien here’s the synopsis: Deep in the bowels of outer space, thousands of miles from Earth, the crew of the mining ship Nostromo are awakened from hibernation by a distress beacon transmitting from a nearby planet. Because the beacon is of unknown origin the crew is forced to investigate, whereupon they find the remains of an alien spacecraft that had crash landed on the planet. While investigating inside the spacecraft, one of the crewmembers (Caine, played by John Hurt) is attacked by an unknown organism, which attaches itself to his face. After returning him to the Nostromo, the alien (known today as a Xenomorph), eventually grows and tears itself  out of his chest in a blatant display of symbolism. The rest of the crew are understandably a little freaked out, but now the alien has matured into its’ iconic adult form, and the first order of business is to find every human on board and tear their intestines out through their asshole. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and the rest of the crew are going to need to be pretty damn lucky if they hope to get off the Nostromo alive and with assholes intact. Because in space, no one can hear you scream. #catchphrase

      Part science fiction, part slasher movie, Alien was not only a breakthrough, it’s just a damn good movie in general. Because Ridley Scott knew that however scary the monster is (and the late great H.R. Giger’s design for the Xenomorph is indeed amazingly horrific), however gruesome, the scariest parts of horror movies are when you don’t know where the monster is or when he’s going to appear. Paranoia is the gateway to fear, and Alien engenders paranoid feelings like a damn boss. If you haven’t seen it yet, why not put on your Halloween watchlist this year?

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2017 - The Amityville Horror (1979), directed by Stuart Rosenberg

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Our House", by Madness

     Even though I’ve seen a lot of movies (over a hundred just going by this blog), many of those in the horror genre, there are plenty of big name films that have passed me by completely. I’ve never seen any of the Friday the 13th movies for example, despite being one of the biggest franchises of the genre. Never experienced the joy of Pumpkinhead, never spent long nights pondering the philosophical implications of Child’s Play, never filled the forums of fanfiction.net with a 17 part Puppet Master/Gingerdead Man crossover epic. That’s the hard truth when it comes to movies: There will always be more movies that you haven’t seen than ones you have.

     So it was with the Amityville series, up until this entry. For years I had heard the name Amityville, seen it name dropped when horror movies came up, but I had never actually seen one of the movies. Hell, I didn’t even know it was (technically) based on a book, or that Amityville apparently was a real place in New York City. All I had was a name, and a reputation for being shit, generally speaking. What horror franchise doesn’t have a few clunkers in there though, am I right? Remember that one time Michael Myers got beat up by Xzibit? I don’t, because that’s another movie I’ve never watched.

     Anyway, the flagship of the Amityville series: The Amityville Horror, starring James Brolin (father of Josh) and Margot Kidder (girlfriend of Superman) as George and Kathy Lutz, a married couple who move their family into a big new house in Amityville, Long Island in late 1974. A house that just happened to be the scene of a gruesome mass murder of an entire family by a member of the family. And is definitely haunted. And definitely wants to drive this family to insanity and eventual murder. When religious people vomit uncontrollably in the mere presence of something, that’s usually a sign that might want to reconsider making that down payment. In my limited experience at least, I don’t know where the limit is for the average prospective home owner. Is black ooze coming out of the toilet a deal breaker or not?

     Released in 1979, The Amityville Horror comes at the tail-end of what I’d call Satan-o-rama, a period in Hollywood’s history where the key to a successful horror movie seemed to involve not masked serial killers, but demons and other members of the supernatural. Starting with the award-winning Rosemary’s Baby in 1968 (a notoriously despised movie within this blogosphere) or arguably Leslie Stevens’ Incubus in ‘66, the 1970s and early 80s saw a string of films with a strong Satanic focus. From critical and commercial successes like William Friedkin’s The Exorcist and Richard Donner’s The Omen to cult favorites like The Wicker Man total flops like The Devil’s Rain, starring Ernest Borgnine as a goat man. People were obsessed with the devil man, I don’t know what to tell you. If it wasn’t movies, it was in Dungeons & Dragons or metal music, or later with Pokemon and Harry Potter. It’s really dumb.

     Problem is, The Amityville Horror suffers from the same issues that Rosemary’s Baby had: It’s really fucking boring, and nothing fucking happens in it. At least with Rosemary’s Baby there was this atmosphere of hopelessness by the end that I can sort of respect, even though I don’t like that movie. Amityville Horror is two hours of waiting for shit to pop off, it finally popping off in the last 20 minutes, and it having no consequence. No one dies, no one even gets severely injured, and the subplots are just abandoned like orphans on a church doorstep. Interested in seeing what happens with the priest? Wondering when the detective is going to stumble on a clue? Convinced that the psychic friend might become possessed by demons? Hoping beyond hope that that whole ‘George is being driven insane by the house’ thing would actually result in a scene that’s more than five minutes long? Well tough shit, because this house is about as horrifying as Eddie Murphy’s The Haunted Mansion, with a few extra flies.

     You might think I’m being harsh, but there’s nothing that The Amityville Horror does that hasn’t been done better by other films. You want a haunted house? Try House, the 1977 cult classic from Japan. You want something kids being contracted by spirits or demons? Try The Exorcist, or Poltergeist if you like 80s movies. How about a movie where the father goes insane and tries to murder his family? Look no further than Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and it gets bonus points for also taking place on a desecrated Native American burial ground. So watch one of those better movies for Halloween instead, and avoid this three-story stinker if at all possible. You’ll be a lot better off.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016 -- Stalker (1979), directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "The Spirit Was Gone", by Antony and the Johnsons

     I’ve always had kind of a weird relationship with Russia. I’ve never been fond of their government’s dictatorial and imperialistic behavior when dealing with the rest of the world (of course, I feel the same about the U.S.), and I feel like they tend to be rather antiquated when it comes to a couple social issues, but I am completely fascinated by it. The history, the folklore, the architecture, it’s this big unwieldy melting pot of European, Middle Eastern and Asian culture that’s managed to survive hundreds of years thanks to being mostly empty space that’s too much of a hassle to try and take over. It’s been one of the strongest nations in the world and the weakest, it’s been one of the biggest breadbaskets yet suffered some of the worst famines, it’s had some of the most blatant autocratic rulers in history yet was the first major country to attempt Communism on a national scale. At it’s best it’s beautiful chaos, and I hope one day the U.S. and Russia really can become buddies. Not Trump and Putin kind of buddies, actual friends.

     Despite my interest in Russia however, and my interest in film, I haven’t actually seen that many Russian films. Seen plenty of films from countries that used to be part of Russia, but not that many from Mother Bear herself, unfortunately. The McCarthyist in the room might say that, for most of the history of cinema, Russia was not a country that would endorse a popular medium for individual expression and creative freedom like moving pictures. While it’s true Russia did put out plenty of movies that ‘towed the party line’ so to speak, we already know from The Cremator a couple spots back that entertaining and thought-provoking films were indeed made during this time. So for the very last film in this Long Dark Marathon of the Soul, I decided to pick out a movie straight out of the depths of the former Soviet Union. A movie that actually inspired a series of video games back in the day, although what those games had in common with this movie I’m not entirely sure. I’m talking about Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 magnum opus Stalker. And no, it isn’t what it sounds like.

     One day, the Zone appeared. No one was quite sure how it originated, although some credited it to a fallen meteorite, but what was certain that anyone who tried to venture into the Zone never returned. Although the government set up guards and barbed wire in an effort to keep people away, still a rumor managed to sneak its way out: That inside the Zone is a room, and when one enters that room, miracles happen. If you are a person of sufficient moral character (it helps if you’re a miserable piece of shit, apparently), and you find a Stalker, or a person with the ability to navigate the traps and bizarre geography of the Zone, then you too could enter the room and have your wish granted. And also suffer a horrible punishment, because sometimes that happens along with your wish. Hey, it’s Russia, what do you expect?

     This time, two men join the Stalker and attempt to make it to the room. One, the Writer, desires the inspiration and motivation to write again, indeed to have no doubts whatsoever about his skills as an artist. The other, the Professor, places knowledge and understanding above all else. Along with the Stalker, a man as wretched as those he helps, they will descend into the depths of the Zone to try and achieve their wildest dreams. What will they see in that outlandish place? And is having your your wishes granted all that it’s cracked up to be? I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?

     If you’re interested in watching Stalker, be warned that it requires a certain level of commitment. Not only of time, because this is a two and a half hour long film, but one of patience and understanding. You see, while Stalker can be classified as a science fiction film, the Russian view, and to a greater extent the European view of sci-fi is not quite the same as it is here in the States. In America we tend to prefer our science fiction hard- space marines, alien marines, space alien marines, that sort of thing. Concrete, realistic, and so on. In Europe, sci-fi tends to be a lot more literary, focusing more on symbolism and philosophy than whether the stuff going on is straight up science. So instead of action and killer robots and whatnot, Stalker is far more interested in exploring character’s psyches and presenting concepts for critical thinking. By which I mean the most action you’re going to see in this entire film are people walking around places and talking to each other and the most sci-fi you’re going to see is vague and unknowable, like a lost Lovecraft manuscript. At least HAL 9000 lauched some fucker into deep space, am I right?

     So what is Stalker about, what are the ideas it’s presenting? Well when you get into more artistic cinema the question of ‘what it’s about’ becomes a little subjective, but there seems to be a couple things running through here. Pragmatism vs. Romanticism, The loss of faith in modern society, the decay of society because of that loss, the need for hope, the torture that is being an artist, and so on. And it isn’t it a little strange, seeing the rusted out tanks and dusty skeletons populating the Zone, and knowing that in about 6 years Russia would have a real-life Zone they kept people out of known as Chernobyl? Plus the fact that the Stalker, a frequent visitor of the Zone, ends up having a child with a serious birth defect. Could that miracle in the room be a metaphor for nuclear power, which as we all know has some hefty punishments related to its use? Possibly, but that’s just one possible answer to a film that doesn’t provide any on its own. It’s up to the viewer to make their own conclusions about what they see.

     The question of the day is thus: Does Stalker make the cut? Well as I said, you’re going to have to devote a decent chunk of time to watch it, and this movie is more about making you think and feel things than it is about entertaining you, so if either of those conditions is a deal-breaker then you’re probably going to look elsewhere. I dunno, even though the runtime was a bit trying, by the end of the film I found myself drawn into this peculiar sepia-tone world, and I found that it echoed some of the thoughts that I had been having myself. Especially the parts dealing with Writer, obviously. So yes, I’d recommend that you check out Stalker whenever you get the chance. It might not be a film you break out during a Halloween party, but if you’re on your own and you’ve got the time, go ahead and pop it in. You might end confronting things about yourself that’s scarier than any monster could be.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016: Time After Time (1979), directed by Nicholas Meyer

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Time After Time", by Chet Baker

     You ever notice how in TV and such, I’m looking at you Quantum Leap, that whenever you’re dealing with historical figures they really hit you over the head with the whole ‘this is what they’re famous for’ thing? Like if they do something with Albert Einstein, they always have a moment where he figures out the Theory of Relativity or atomic energy and what not. Or it’s Arthur Conan Doyle, they have him solving mysteries or playing Watson to somebody. As though it’s not enough for our protagonists (if they aren’t the figures themselves) to interact with these people, we always have to be on the stepping stones of history, to see the moment of inspiration that sets these people off on their life’s journey. I mean, is there anyone the Doctor doesn’t know at this point? Because I’m pretty sure he’s saved every major novelist and the Queen of England at least 5 times.

     It makes sense then that eventually the bottle would land on H.G. Wells. He was the grandfather of science fiction after all, even if he didn’t establish the literary genre he certainly brought such concepts into the public eye, while embodying the progressive spirit that the genre would be based on. Plus the wealth of material you get to work with; alien invasions, time travel, grotesque animal men (manimals, if you’re from the 80s), future wars, invisible killers, the possibilities are endless. Not to mention that, as an avid pacifist, women’s right advocate and all around nice guy, you can use him as a benchmark for how great we are as a society for having progressed. Wanna remind people how awesome women’s liberation or children not working in sweatshops is? Throw some dude from the Victorian era into the future and have him be all like ‘woah man, women can vote and Little Jimmy didn’t have his fingers ripped off in a textile factory? I am flabbergasted, to say the least’. Really makes us modern folks feel like we accomplished something, when in reality we just take this stuff for granted and actively work against other people trying to share those same freedoms.

     Anyway, that mindset, and the whole ‘novelists live out their books’ thing is what fueled the creation of 1979’s Time After Time, starring Malcolm McDowell (whom you might remember from A Clockwork Orange), David Warner (whom you might remember from Brazil, The Omen, Tron or Batman: The Animated Series) and Mary Steenburgen (whom you might remember from Back to the Future Part III, Elf, or the award winning film Melvin and Howard). Directed by Nicholas Meyer, who was also the director/writer for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and the writer for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and The Prince of Egypt. A solid wellspring of talent to work from, seems like.

     The story goes as follows: In a Victorian era London not entirely unlike our own, a not-yet-famous writer known as H.G. Wells has stepped beyond the realm of theories and into the world of super-science when he constructs an honest to goodness time machine. The greatest scientific discovery since that guy figured that if you dumped your shit away from your drinking water you wouldn’t get typhoid some might say, but before Wells is able to test his extraordinary invention, it is stolen by his former friend John Leslie Stephenson, who just so happens to be the infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper. Jack ends up in San Francisco in the far flung year and Wells, feeling a bit responsible for allowing a sociopathic murderer free reign over the entirety of human history, decides to go after him. Wells was an idealist however, a utopist who genuinely believed that humanity was one step away from reaching a Golden Age of peace & prosperity. How does a man who believes in the universal goodness of man deal with a world that’s already been through two world wars? A world where books are gone in favor of televisions, where horse-drawn carriages have been replaced with fantastical motorized vehicles, and women do things other than push out kids and die of tuberculosis? Well, presumably you’d watch the movie if you really wanted to find that out, because I’m not telling you.

     Now you’re probably thinking to yourself, ‘a movie where H.G. Wells tracks Jack the Ripper across time & space? That sounds fucking awesome!!’, and you’d be right in the sense that that is basically what the movie is about and that the idea sounds cool as hell, but Time After Time falls a little bit short of expectations. Here’s a handy bulleted list to address the major points:

• Despite being a movie that prominently features a time machine, and the actual Wells’ novel The Time Machine taking place at several points in the future, Time After Time deals almost entirely in one place (San Fran) and one time (1979). Might seem like a bit of a ripoff, but I guess the fact that Frisco is technically a the future to Wells they get away with it. 

• Despite being a movie about H.G. Wells tracking down Jack the Ripper, it doesn’t really feel too much like anything resembling a suspenseful thriller. In fact, most of the movie is spent dealing with the romance between Wells and modern day woman Amy (Steenburgen), and the ultimate confrontation with Jack, the clashing of ideologies, is treated more as an afterthought when compared to the ‘relationship’. Take that as you will. 

• Despite being the major driving force of the film (you know, aside from that whole ‘time traveling serial killer’ thing), Amy just rubs me the wrong way as a character. Like they make it a major point of the film that women’s liberation is great and that women are independent and can do things for themselves, but then she doesn’t do anything on her own terms aside from screwing H.G. Wells. She’s the damsel in distress, she does everything Wells asks her to do, and at a time when her life is in danger and she needs to stay alert she gulps down booze and valium like she’s Lucille Bluth. While still pushing this ‘I am woman hear me roar’ line. I dunno, seems a bit hypocritical. 

• Plenty of ‘stranger in a strange land’ humor, which can be good or bad depending on your preferences. ‘Look, he doesn’t understand telephones!’ or ‘Tee hee, look at him try to work an electric toothbrush!’ type stuff. If you’ve seen Encino Man, My Favorite Martian or about hundreds of other movies over the years, then you get the jist of it. I never really found Time After Time all that funny though, despite the scenes of Malcolm McDowell being mystified at the sight of Mickey Mouse. Whimsical maybe, but never really funny. 

• The runtime. Time After Time clocks in at about 2 hours long, which isn’t an uncommon thing in modern movies, but it just doesn’t utilize it well. You really start to feel the drag at the start of the second half, and considering that this isn’t a movie with a lot of action in the first place, expect your mind to wander while the Victorian bonefest plays itself out. Would it have been better if Meyer had lopped a few minutes from the final cut 

     Time After Time is a charming film though, in spite of those issues. Wells’ wide-eyed wonder at this strange world that we call the present can be a bit infectious too, even if he ends up becoming a little jaded by the end. Maybe not jaded, maybe it’s more that he becomes a bit more grounded in his beliefs. And in so doing, maybe we modern cynical types can learn to be a bit more hopeful. If you’re looking for something light this Halloween season, then this might be the film for you. Recommended.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), directed by Hayao Miyazaki

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Lupin III", by Yuji Ohno

     When it comes to animation, few names entail a level of respect and admiration like Hayao Miyazaki. In a market dominated by Disney and Dreamwork’s forever war, the work of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli have been the outlier, one of the few to chip away at the saccharine stigma the U.S. has when it comes to animation, like his peers Don Bluth and Ralph Bakshi. Even more noteworthy, he is the only director of anime (or anime movies, to stop any naysayers) to hold any sort of regard in America. People who have never watched anime, maybe even shit talk it when asked, will often give a pass to Miyazaki’s films. That’s power my friends, more than any one of your Dragon Balls or Narutos.

     While he is generally known for his original works, like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro, Miyazaki’s first major work was actually an adaptation of the popular Japanese comic Lupin III, which in anime terms generally means using the characters in original stories rather than taking something from the comics. Created by mangaka Monkey Punch in 1967 for the magazine Weekly Manga Action, Lupin III detailed the adventures of the titular character, Arsene Lupin III, the cocky, perverted descendant of the master thief Arsene Lupin (the French equivalent of Sherlock Holmes, sort of a proto-pulp hero). Alongside his team of reprobates: eagle eyed marksman Jigen, master swordsman Goemon and femme fatale Fujiko Mine, Lupin frequently engages in acts of high risk, high reward and high profile theft and espionage, always one step ahead of his arch-nemesis, Interpol Officer Zenigata. Manga gave way to a popular anime series, which eventually transitioned into a full-blown franchise with several films and OVAs to its credit. What Lupin eventually became may not exactly resemble Monkey Punch’s original series, but he’s still pretty awesome, and he’s carved himself a nice place in pop culture to boot. Japan’s very own crazy James Bond.

     The Castle of Cagliostro, though not an ‘original’ story, still carries that distinctive Miyazaki flair that we would come to know and love from his later films. While on a visit to the Duchy of Cagliostro, a tiny nation known in criminal circles as the counterfeiting capital of the world, Lupin and Jigen come to the aid of a runaway bride, on the run from shadowy goons. The bride, as it turns out, is Lady Clarice, the last surviving member of the royal family, and the goons are employed by the Count of Cagliostro, the current regent and huge asshole. Seems that there is a secret treasure connected to the royal rings, and by marrying Lady Clarice the Count gets to solidify his rule and get access to the treasure. It’s a job with little to gain and much to lose, considering the death traps, security systems and ninja guards, but the master thief just can’t sit idly by while there is a lady in need, can he? Add to that a chance to depose the ruler of a sovereign nation and create an international incident, and it’s like icing on the cake. Go big or go home, it’s the Lupin way.

     I don’t know what it is with Miyazaki’s films, but they always fill me with a sense of nostalgia. It’s the same with Cagliostro. It’s not about the bittersweet process of growing up like Kiki’s Delivery Service or Totoro, and yet in a way it kind of is. By 1979 Lupin the Third, Jigen and the others had already existed for over 10 years, characters which to a lot of people embodied the fun and seemingly endless days of their childhood. By taking those characters and placing them in a classic archetypal framework, the hero rescuing a princess from an evil ruler, Miyazaki is telling the audience a modern day fable, substituting characters like Robin Hood or Lancelot with Lupin and Jigen. It gives the film a timeless quality, and it imbues the characters with this sense of magic, this wonder that so often seems to leave us as we grow older. Yet that magic, the unshakeable belief that Lupin will always get away, that Zenigata will always chase him, it’s...comforting, I guess is the way to describe it. Comforting to think that, like with Indiana Jones or the original Star Wars, the world was this amazing exciting place, and that heroes really did exist and adventure was always around the corner. That’s the world I want to live in, and that’s the world that has been taken from me over the years, to be replaced with this ugly cancerous cynicism about politics and the environment and life. I hate it, I honestly fucking hate it. But when I watch this movie, when I watch any Miyazaki movie, I get to remember what it was like, and live in that moment for a while.

     Halloween is a holiday all about remembering that feeling, I think. Like the rest of these movies though, it’s just an excuse to watch something I haven’t seen, so decide for yourself whether it fits your criteria. Either way, it’s recommended.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), directed by Robert Wise

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Star Trek Theme", by Leonard Nimoy

R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy

     I don’t know how it happened, but at some point I became a fan of Star Trek. Not that I’d call myself a trekkie or trekker or whatever label obsessive Star Trek fans like to label themselves, the idea of watching Voyager or Enterprise still doesn’t appeal to me, but I still find myself interested in the series more so than the average person. If I had to make a definitive statement, I’d say it likely has something to do with watching through The Next Generation, which I fondly remember catching occasionally back when G4/TechTV was still a thing, which lead me to watching some of the original series, and which will likely lead me to watching Deep Space Nine in the future. I just can’t get enough of it, seems like. It may not be the best television in the world, in fact a lot of it can be embarrassingly dumb at times, but what makes Star Trek good (when it’s good) is the strength of its cast; their unique personalities and the way those personalities play off of each other. Plus the fact that there are like three other sci-fi shows worth watching means you don’t have much choice either way.

     Since all the TNG movies suck ass, I decided to go with the first of them all, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Released at the start of the space movie craze (Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind had come out two years prior, Alien released earlier that year and Flash Gordon would come a year later) and 10 years after Star Trek had gone off the air, TMP takes place several years after the Enterprise’s famous year mission to boldly go where no man has gone before. It seems that there’s a enormous death cloud out in space with destructive capabilities far beyond that of mortal ken, and it just so happens to be making a beeline towards Earth. It’s up to Admiral James T. Kirk to get the band back together, glue the Enterprise back together and save the day yet again. Now with 100% more hot bald chicks!

     Star Trek: The Motion Picture retells a story that had already been played out several times over the course of 79 episodes: The Enterprise encounters an omnipotent being which puts her crew in danger, and lessons in the value of humanity and insight into ourselves is had by all. In that regard, like Pacific Rim, the appeal in my opinion isn’t so much the story (which is worthwhile, considering they got Isaac Asimov to consult on it) as it is the visuals. This film takes its time to lavish over every bit of scenery it can, whether it’s going over every single inch of the Enterprise or the breathtaking view of the death cloud’s interior, and it works out works out just as well if not better than A New Hope. This was the film that legitimized a cultural phenomenon and established a franchise that’s still going 30+ years, and it shows.

     The major flaw? No action. Perhaps Gene Roddenberry was a big fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey at the time, because there are a lot of long cinematic shots and guys floating in space but not that much energetic conflict. The death cloud, or Vger if you’d prefer, is not so much an antagonist as a force of nature, and much of the film’s time is spent on the task of attempting communication with it or crew tension. There’s nothing wrong with that approach, the mission statement is all about exploring after all, but the original series was a show that thrived on action, and so the lack of it is much more noticeable than it might be if Star Trek wasn’t in the title. Pop culture would seem to agree with me, as The Wrath of Khan is a much more action-oriented film, and is generally considered the better film. Though that might just be because of Ricardo Montalban’s luscious pecs.

     Halloween, like most of our society, has become increasingly nerdy over the years, but much more cynical. Things that we should love we get angry about, and in turn we tear down others. This year, why not put down the pitchforks and the torches and join together in the spirit of peace and cooperation, much like the Federation in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Just for a moment, among the ghosts n’ goblins, we can believe that one day mankind can rise above the hatred and bigotry that has marked our past and achieve things far greater than we ever expected, that one day utopias could be the norm, rather than the ideal. One day.

     And then you can go back to eating candy.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: Phantasm (1979), directed by Don Coscarelli

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Phantasm", by Flying Lotus feat. Laura Darlington

     I feel like the reason that sci-fi and horror films, especially the older ones, aren’t generally respected by the film community is because they’re easy. Although there have been some films of the genre that have achieved some level of critical praise, The Thing, Terminator 2, Alien, generally that isn’t the case. A strong plot, well-developed characters, these aren’t necessary when it comes to these genre films. All that’s really required is a couple violent deaths, a bit of special effects, some tits and a monster. No thought required, no real attempt at establishing something new and interesting, just have Michael Myers stab a some chick you don’t remember the name of and have Freddy Kreuger spout off a couple puns. You can complain about Hollywood’s obsession with biopics and romantic-comedies, but it’s not like horror films are any less formulaic than that. In fact, seeing as how seemingly every horror franchise seems to have at least half a dozen movies to their credit, all of which are just the same fucking movie repeating itself, I’d say they’re even more formulaic.

    Such is the case with Phantasm. Horrible androgynous teens, subpar acting, boring protagonists, music that sounds like the bargain-bin version of Halloween, and questionable cinematic decisions that occasionally left me wondering what the fuck is happening when I could bother to pay attention to the plot. But all of that doesn’t really matter when it comes to the horror genre, right? All that really matters, the only thing that people will remember and the one thing that will be run into the ground is the villain, in this case The Tall Man. Who could have potentially been an interesting movie monster, if he actually killed people and didn’t just walk slowly from place to place. You could tell they were relying heavily on the ‘mystery’ of the Tall Man, his motivations, his technology, his biology even, but there is so much mystery and so little substance that by the end I couldn’t scrounge up a fuck to give. Especially when it drudged up an Elm St./Friday the 13th twist ending that would have managed to ruin the entire buildup leading up to it, if the film wasn’t already ruined enough already.

     So why is it on this list? I don’t know. Maybe because in a way Phantasm isn’t that much different than other horror films from the era, and if you enjoyed those you’d probably enjoy this, so I featured it. Maybe because I already watched it and wrote this article, and I don’t feel like doing extra work. Whatever it is, if you’re digging into the scary movies this Halloween, you’re probably looking for something to get drunk and eat popcorn to, not something you have to worry about expending thought towards. So go fucking nuts.

Mad Max (1979), directed by George Miller

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Hot Rod Lincoln", by Commando Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen

     Poor Mel Gibson, things just haven’t been going his way for the last couple of years. After a couple of social faux-pas, including sexually harassing a female police officer after being pulled over for a DUI, claiming that Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world and telling his wife that she should be gangraped by a pack of racial epithets, his star in the Hollywood sky has dimmed considerably. I mean, when your most notable movie film role in recent memory is from Expendendables 3, which is itself notable for being three times shittier than the original, you know shit has turned south for all intents and purposes. You’d think that if you’re the kind of person who thinks a secret cabal of Jewish folk control Hollywood, you probably don’t want to accuse their people of being the basis for world conflict if you’re interested in job security. By the way, if any secret Jewish leader in the film industry is reading this, I totally have no problem with you guys running Hollywood. So if you just happened to have a movie deal or a full scholarship to film school or something just lying around, I’d be more than willing to take it off your hands for you. I also accept cash and money orders.

     Much like his buddy Robert Downey Jr., ol’ Mel is a fine actor whose career as of late has marked by his excessive lifestyle (plus that whole ultraconservative antisemite thing). Unlike RDJ with Iron Man however, Gibson never got that dramatic redemption story that completely redeemed him in the eyes of the public. Not everyone gets one of course, and not everyone deserves one either, but I’ve decided to cut that Australian dick a break and grant him the honor of writing about a movie he was in for the internet. As of this writing the only film of his that I had seen previous to this was Lethal Weapon (which is damn good buddy cop movie), so I decided to go with the franchise that put Mel Gibson on the action hero map. Before we went Beyond Thunderdome, and before he was Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, Mel Gibson was... Mad Max.

     A few years from now’, in a postapocalyptic world (that somehow manages to have electricity, running water, nightclubs, television stations, broadcasting equipment, a functioning bureaucratic legal system and enough gasoline to power dozens of automobiles), small towns in what is presumably Australia are terrorized by gas-stealing motorcycle gangs, as is their wont. The peace-loving citizens’ only defense in these trying times are the police, who wear leather jackets and drive sports cars for some reason, but the conflict seems to be at a standstill. The greatest officer of them all is Max Rockatansky (seriously), who always works alone and manages not to crash his car at every available opportunity. When he’s not in the leather though, Max is a sensitive and caring family man with his wife Jessica and infant son Sprog (with a name like that, he’s sure to be a winner). It’s as close to idyllic as life can be, in a world where everyone dresses like the cast of Easy Rider wandered into a Doctor Who convention.

     As is the case with all media however, happiness is only a construct to be destroyed to provide dramatic tension, and so it is with Mad Max. In this case, the inevitable conflict begins when Max causes the death of the Night Rider, a psychopathic criminal and member of a particularly rapey and cultish motorcycle gang. This sets off a series of events that see great tragedy come to Max, friends get fucked up etc., which eventually spur him to violent and bloody revenge on those who did him wrong. It’s a pretty simple plot, one that’s been replicated in hundreds of other films over the years, so don’t expect any masterful twists or anything like that. Not to say simplicity is bad, depending on how it’s utilized it can even be preferable but it’s pretty easy to see where you’re heading when your path is a straight line.

     Which bring me to my ultimate impression of Mad Max: it’s bad. Not Manos, the Hands of Fate shithouse horrible, just kind of stupid and ultimately disappointing, like Saturday Night Live after the 90s. All the villains feel like they studied at the feet of Cesar Romero’s Joker, and the ‘good; characters are far more vehicles for situations rather living breathing humans we are supposed to identify with. It seems like George Miller was attempting to craft a campy action flick in the vein of Death Race 2000, maybe even one with a poignant social message in the wake of the petroleum crisis in the 1970s, but it just doesn’t work. It’s too campy to take seriously when the actual drama is attempted, and it’s too sluggish to be all that engaging. For a movie that implies it’s about fast cars and high-octane action in a post apocalyptic setting, it doesn’t really get to those implications at any point in the movie. Sure, there are some car crashes and such sprinkled throughout, to remind you that this movie is supposed to be exciting I guess, but anything resembling real action doesn’t take place until around the last 18 minutes of the film, which isn’t all that satisfying even when it does happen. The rest of the movie Max doesn’t really do much of anything to distinguish himself as a protagonist or make him worthwhile to the audience. In fact he does so little throughout the movie that you have to look at the title of the damn movie to remember he’s the main character of the movie. Yes, you want to save the biggest action for the climax of the film, but if the only slightly interesting part of your 90 minute movie is the last 15, maybe even 10, then why even bother trying it? Watching Mad Max was such a slow trudge of an experience that I actually started opening other tabs to find something more entertaining. Hell, the thought of writing this article left me with such a sour taste in my mouth that I had to take a walk after starting it up. I bought some nonpareils at the local store, tried to forget my troubles.

     None of my problems with Mad Max have anything to do with Mel Gibson per se. Whenever he gets the chance to actually act, you can see that the man has the chops to be a leading man, but everything around him is pretty much just garbage. Perhaps the later films are better, but in my opinion this is not the film to start with if you’re looking to explore the work of the man. I’d say go with Lethal Weapon or Braveheart, or maybe even go for his directorial work, as I’ve heard some say that he’s a better director than an actor. We better hope so, if that ‘RDJ wants Mel to direct Iron Man 4’ thing ever comes to light. Who better to direct a film about a rich alcoholic who alienates his friends and family than Mel Gibson?

     #ohsnap #dropthemic

RESULT: NOT RECOMMENDED

The Warriors (1979), directed by Walter Hill

not quite a full return, but I said I wouldn't just drop this thing didn't I?

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Stranded in the Jungle", by New York Dolls

     Do I tend to watch movies that fall under the ‘cult’ banner intentionally, in order to create a sort of reputation for myself? I don’t think so, or rather I choose movies to write entries based on whether they appear interesting or not, and the movies that most often catch my interest are those that tend to fall outside normal radar channels. Have I become that which is most feared in man’s world, the dreaded hipster? I don’t hate movies that are mainstream, whatever that may entail, but I know what I like and what I don’t like. I also don’t pretend to hold any great knowledge of much of anything, taking a few film classes doesn’t make you a film scholar after all, but I feel that by watching different styles and genres help to gain some sort of knowledge. Experience in the field, you know?

     Who am I defending myself against? I’m too insignificant to be hated, at least as far as I know.

     One of the biggest cult films that I had never seen (popular enough to get it’s video game at least, in the PS2 era), was The Warriors. Based on a novel by Sol Yurick, the name refers to our protagonists the Warriors, a gang of street toughs that dress like the nerdy end of the Hells Angels and operate in a distinctly empty Coney Island. The title is apparently also supposed to reference the infamous Battle of Thermopylae, in which 300 Spartan soldiers faced the Persian forces of King Xerxes, laid out for us in literal storybook form at the beginning of the film. Which is confusing, because the plot of The Warriors isn’t really that similar to that situation at all, which may potentially be spoilers, I don’t even know anymore. If anything, it much more closely resembles the Odyssey, but even that is somewhat of a stretch. Any time you start off your film by basically putting up a sign saying “THIS IS WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO DO, REMEMBER THIS?”, it seems a bit sketchy. If it is a B-movie, is it more appropriate for it not to make sense, or is it still stupid because all films are judged on particular guidelines? These are kind of questions that are raised while watching this movie, or maybe just me watching this movie, I’m not sure.

     The Warriors, known exclusively through the nine members Swan (Michael Beck), Ajax, Cleon, Snow, Cochise, Cowboy, Fox,Vermin, and Rembrandt, are invited to a gathering of all the street gangs in New York City. Said gathering has been organized by Cyrus, the prophet-like leader of the Riffs, the A-grade gang in town. In one of the two (that I know of) iconic scenes in the film, Cyrus addresses the assembled committee of various vagabonds, riffraff and scoundrels. His message is an interesting one: In terms of sheer numbers, the total population of all the major street gangs gathered there outnumber both the Mob and the NYPD combined. If, by chance, all of those aforementioned gangs were to join forces rather than engage in the petty territorial squabbles that they had been locked up in for so long, what could they accomplish? Perhaps they could take over the entire city, and no cop or mafia thug would be able to stop them. CAN YOU DIG IT?!

     Tragedy strikes, however, when Cyrus is shot and killed at the apex of his speech (the meeting was being conducted during an unarmed truce, you see), by Luther (a very Spicoli-esque David Patrick Kelly), leader of the leather-jacket clad Rogues. As you might have guessed, Luther claims that Cyrus was murdered by the Warriors, and in the aftermath there’s no way for the group to prove their innocence. The new leader of the Riffs puts out the order, he wants the Warriors brought to him dead or alive, and all the gangs of NYC have answered to his call. It’s now a mad dash back home to Coney Island for the Warriors, avoiding cops, thugs, jezebels and all sorts of city-based obstacles along the way. You’ll thrill at the intense chase scene, and be driven to the edge of your seat by the pulse-pounding other chase scene! If ever there ever a film there was that really pushed the limits of how many times you could see the main characters run around like Mystery Inc. in a particularly spooky haunted house, this would be it.

     Also they pick up a prostitute along the way, because you can’t have a movie without a romantic subplot, and New York is packed with whores. Packed.

     To be honest, this is not what I would call a good movie. For example:

•      The Gangs: It is appropriate that scene transitions in this film are marked by shifting into a comic book style (so it’s like you’re moving to the next panel, or the next page), given the fact that every single gang in The Warriors look like rejected henchmen from a Silver Age rogues gallery. Which is not a bad idea in and of itself, because seeing weirdos in facepaint dressed like the ‘29 Yankees get into street fights sounds stupid enough to be fun, but you hardly ever get to actually see these strange guys actually do anything. So what’s even the point of having them in the first place, or to have them seem so outlandish? Purely for visuals? Lame. 

• Acting: I don’t know what it is about putting some people in front of a camera that paralyzes their facial muscles while simultaneously removing all traces of inflection in their voice, but man is it ever present in this film. I know that due to budget constraints I shouldn’t really expect DeNiro levels of performance, but can anyone actually behave like a human being in this film without devolving into a cardboard cutout? Which sort of ties into my next point… 

• Characterization: As it turns out, trying to split the focus over nine ways tends to subvert attempts at character development. All of our titular Warriors are two-dimensional at best, if they even get the screen time to actually interact with each other, which makes me wonder why there needed to be so many in the first place. Swan is an untalkative stoic at the beginning of the film and doesn’t get a hint of an arc throughout the film, the same with Luther as the often seen and overdone ‘unrepentant psychopath’ archetype. These guys are all members of street gangs anyway, who am I supposed to sympathize with? The Warriors? Leaving aside the fact that one of their numbers is a bigot and an attempted rapist (he gets a large amount of dialogue as well, as if you couldn’t guess), none of the Warriors feel real. That goes for the rest of them as well. 

• Action: It’s the one thing you would expect to see in a film called “The Warriors” that’s filled with gangs, but you would be sorely disappointed, because this film is very much geared towards the ‘running the fuck away’ crowd rather than the ‘punching’ crowd. I understand what they were trying go for; the Warriors are but nine men, unarmed and under constant threat of attack, so it makes sense for them to want to avoid confrontations. That’s what they intended, but all I really felt was a profound sense of boredom. Running away in Doctor Who works because I know that it’s leading up to the Doctor pulling some pseudo-scientific thing out of his ass to win, but in The Warriors there’s no payoff. Besides, if I don’t feel anything for the characters, because the film failed in giving them engaging personalities or reasons to feel sympathy for them, why should I care? I don’t. 

• The last major point involves plot-holes, and since I try to avoid spoilers in these entries/musings, I don’t want to go much further than that. Trust me when I say that this is not the watertight script you might think it is. A subtle dig at the inherent ridiculousness of comic books? I doubt it. 

     Sometimes a movie is cult not because it’s a hidden gem, but that it is so bad that you can’t help but enjoy it. The Warriors would definitely fall into that category, but it’s the inaction that keeps it from making that leap. Check out the Cyrus speech and the Warriors chant, and you’ll get the two things about this movie that anyone remembers. Just trying to save you some time.

Result: Not Recommended

Quadrophenia (1979), directed by Franc Roddam

R.I.P. JJ Cale.

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Quadrophenia", by The Who

     Most people probably know who The Who (heh) are, even if you don’t like or listen to their music. Composed of vocalist Roger Daltrey, guitarist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon, The Who were the most successful band to come out of the 2nd wave of the British Invasion. Known for their extravagant clothing (copped directly from the British mod subculture that ran around at the time) and their notoriously destructive live programs, The Who quickly rose to fame on the power of singles like ‘My Generation’ and ‘Substitute’. After the release of “Tommy” in 1969, billed as the first ‘rock opera’, about a deaf, dumb and blind boy who is somehow abnormally good at pinball and eventually becomes a religious leader through shenanigans (you know, that old chestnut), The Who officially graduated from rock band to full-fledged rock stars. “Tommy” would prove to be so popular that it would eventually get its own movie, which would star Elton John for some reason.

     The whole pinball thing was only added in to score brownie points with a influential critic, by the way. It holds no intrinsic value beyond that.

     Seeing the success of the rock opera format, The Who attempted to replicate that success with their next album. The first project, called “Lifehouse”, ultimately failed to take form, but several of the songs ended up on the incredibly well-received “Who’s Next”, released in 1971. The next Who rock opera would actually come into the world two years later, with “Quadrophenia”. While not the firebrand that “Tommy” turned out to be, “Quadrophenia” featured some now-classic songs from the group, and is considered by some (me) to be the altogether better album. Does that mean that, like “Tommy”, it needed to be made into a film as well? Even though “Tommy” was a nonsensical album, and made for an even more nonsensical movie? Yes, says the Who circa 1979, and so here we are today.

     Presented by The Who Films, Quadrophenia revolves around the life of Jimmy Cooper (Phil Daniels), a young mail clerk living in the heart of swingin’ 60s London. Jimmy and his friends are mods, their crazy nights spent taking amphetamines, riding scooters, dancing to top 40 hits, and beating the ever-loving shit out of any ‘rockers’ (also known as ‘greasers’, another youth subculture revolving around the aesthetic of the 1950s) they happen to find. Jimmy is a teenager who craves his own identity (that’s why he joined a group that all dress alike, you see), as well as large supply of pills and the beautiful yet elusive Stephanie, a mod girl of fairly easy virtue. Little does he realize however, that such a hedonistic existence is practically made to fail, and Jimmy is on a collision course with harsh reality. Set to the music of The Who, of course.

     It’s a similar plot to a movie we’ve already seen before in 1995’s The Basketball Diaries, where teenagers who like to take drugs just end up in a spiral of shit. In TBD it was a bit on the nose, but you could see the arc rather clearly: Jim has a life and takes drugs, he can’t cope with school life and his friends death so he takes harder drugs, we see Carroll’s life and we can see the linear downward progression. I’m finding it difficult to articulate what I’m trying to say, but in Quadrophenia you don’t really get the sense of action/consequence. Every significant negative event except one happens near the end of the movie, to the point where it doesn’t feel like a natural reaction to what Jimmy has done over the course of the film. Rather it’s all piled on at the tail end of the movie, as if they spent so much time filming people dancing to all the happy 60s music that they forgot this was supposed to be a depressing movie. I could be exaggerating or biased towards TBD, but if you’re trying to condition the audience to feel sympathy for the character, shouldn’t you make a character you can feel sympathy for? The Jimmy you see at the beginning of the movie is an obnoxious pissant, and that’s the Jimmy you see for the rest of the film. There’s no character growth as there is in The Basketball Diaries, Jimmy doesn’t seem to learn anything from his experiences, so what’s the point? If Shakespearean tragedies have the cathartic moment of release, this one has the apathetic shrug.

     The thing about operas is that the story portion is generally not the important part of the production, but rather the music/singing (lookin’ at you fat ladies in metal bras). That being the case, I don’t think there’s anything the movie provides that listening to the album would not, aside from Sting as Ace Face I guess. I don’t believe you even get to hear one song from the “Quadrophenia” album in its entirety, so why would I even watch this movie if I was interested in that album? You’re left with an approximation of the opera story, which I mentioned is the least important part of an opera, and who really cares about the story in “Quadrophenia”? It seems like they were banking on the name recognition of The Who to carry along a plot that reads like a snuff film and makes up for likable characters with gratuitous dick shots, but it doesn’t work for me. Everything this movie pushes I’ve seen before in A Clockwork Orange, The Basketball Diaries and others, and while that isn’t bad in and of itself, it doesn’t quite set itself apart from the others in a way that makes it interesting to watch.

     While there are a few redeeming moments (I do enjoy the Brighton scene), overall this movie felt overly long with no real payoff. If you’re interested in the Who you’ll do best sticking with their albums, preferably the ones before Keith Moon’s death. If you want the Who on film, just watch the footage from Woodstock and the Monterey Pop festival instead, which are both pretty damn entertaining to watch. It will help you get some idea of how The Who became so big that, like the Beatles, they could afford to make a boring movie without it affecting their legendary status.

     The power of fame, baby, the power of fame.

Result: Not Recommended