Doctor Who (1996), directed by Geoffrey Sax

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Doctorin' the Tardis", by The KLF

     Considering that Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction series in television history (starting with “An Unearthly Child” way back in 1963) and has since then spawned enough spin-offs, comics, hit singles, video games, books and films to become a full fledged multi-media franchise, you’d think that would entitle it to some sort of time-based pun for the opening line of this article. Perhaps even an intentionally bad pun, so I can pretend to be awkward and we can all revel in mocking a currently unpopular form of humor. Well I’m sorry to say that we won’t be traveling down that particular path of cliches in this particular article, mostly because I couldn’t think of a pun at the time. Rather we will be revisiting my particular path of cliches, which involves a little opening bit tangentially related to the film, perhaps dipping into some autobiographical territory, before summarizing the film and failing at cogent analysis. Much like sex with the spouse that you’ve long since lost all affection towards, it’s ultimately unfulfilling but consistent.

     I first became aware of Doctor Who after watching the Ninth era episode “The Unquiet Dead” on the Syfy Channel (the channel which hates science fiction so much it calls itself Syfy), but it wasn’t until the Tenth era with David Tennant taking over the role as the Doctor that I started watching the show in earnest and truly became a fan of the character. Once Tennant gave way to Matt Smith (who gave way to Peter Capaldi) and the Stephen Moffat reign began in full however I lost interest, choosing instead to move the large backlog of episodes prior to the modern series. At least in those olden-times episodes I could forgive the ridiculous things that occurred as it being a product of its time, shoestring budgets and all. Even at it’s most campy the old Who never insulted my intelligence the way the way it does in the modern series, which repeatedly attempts to be grandiose and compelling and manages to fail on most of those occasions. In my opinion of course, since I haven’t bothered watching any of Capaldi’s episodes after the first and so have no idea as to the quality of the most recent Doctor Who series. I did hear they made the Master a woman though, and a ‘I’m crazy so I must be kooky’ one at that, which might’ve been interesting if it also didn’t seem on the surface like a poor attempt at shifting the status quo. The series already has a female villain, the Rani, that they could have brought back and built up instead, thereby leaving the Master open for another potential story arc, but instead they decide to genderswap an existing male character and call it progress. Of course it doesn’t really matter if it’s done well, but considering Moffat is the type of artist who sculpts with a jackhammer rather than a chisel, I have my doubts that he could ever write a female character that didn’t lose to a puddle in terms of depth, even if said female character used to have a penis (and was also a cat person).

     But I digress.

     If we want to to get technical, and I know you nerds love technology, Doctor Who has had three films in its 51 year history. The first two, Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks -- Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (1966), are adaptations of two stories from the original William Hartnell series of Who (The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth respectively) and featured Peter Cushing as an absent-minded human scientist named Doctor Who battling the xenocidal alien squids across time and space. While Cushing would have made for an excellent Doctor, the two 60’s films are their own property and hold no connection to the canon and continuity of the television show. The third film however, a made-for-TV movie simply titled Doctor Who, does in fact fit within the canon of the show. According to wikipedia, it was originally intended to serve as the pilot to an American Doctor Who series and was actually co-produced by Universal Studios, 20th Century Fox and the Fox TV channel, although no such series was ever made. It was also the only appearance of Paul McGann as the 8th iteration of the Doctor until recently, although he is consistently featured in the Doctor Who audio dramas by Big Finish. We may get into the Cushing Who films at some point in the future, but this time we’ll be checking to see if Who ‘96 is up to snuff. Does it serve as a worthy addition to the franchise, or did Geoffrey Sax take a demon dump in the T.A.R.D.I.S.? Only time will tell.

     About 7 years after the conclusion of the show’s ‘Classic’ run, Doctor Who begins with a voiceover by Paul McGann, the 8th Doctor, telling us the backstory to this particular adventure. Some time after the events of “Survival”, the last episode of the Classic series, the Doctor (in his 7th incarnation, played by Sylvester McCoy) transports the Master (the Doctor’s archenemy as well as a fellow Time Lord) to Skaro (the original home of the Daleks) to stand trial for his numerous and horrible crimes. The verdict is death, and since the Master had already exhausted the 13 regenerations afforded him by vague unexplained rules, he gets liquidated with seemingly no issue. The Doctor, in accordance with the decision of the council of Skaro is then tasked with transporting the Master’s remains to the planet Gallifrey, homeworld of the Time Lords, presumably so the rest of the species can piss on his grave. This, as McGann explains, turns out to be a bad idea. #Spoilers

     Sure enough, during the trip to Gallifrey, the Master (who is now a puddle of bad CGI goo, like an off brand T-1000) escapes from his hi-tech urn and sabotages the T.A.R.D.I.S., forcing the Doctor to make an emergency landing in San Francisco circa 1999, on the eve of the Willenium. The Doctor steps out of the T.A.R.D.I.S. and is promptly shot by Chinese thugs in pursuit of thief Chang Lee (who ends up being a somewhat important character but never a likable one), while the Master sets off to enact whatever evil plan he’s come up with this time around. Thanks to the barest minimal efforts of Chang Lee, the Doctor is taken to the hospital, where he comes under the care of Dr. Grace Holloway (Daphne Ashbrook), who is called away from the opera and her apparently pissy boyfriend to attend to him. Despite her great surgical skill (which is told to us but never actually shown) and the pleas of the weakened alien, Dr. Holloway doesn’t take into account the Doctor’s two hearts (Time Lord physiology) and promptly fucks up the surgery. The Doctor, shining beacon of hope to a million worlds across the universe throughout all of time, dies on the operating table, with nary a friend to remember his life or his grand achievements.

     Or so it would have been if the Doctor was some sort of pansy-ass human, as he eventually transforms from his old, mostly dead Sylvester McCoy body into the suave, debonair form of Paul McGann. The Master, in a similar-but-not-quite fashion, becomes a bad CGI goo snake and possesses the body of an EMT by the name of Bruce (Eric Roberts), thereby granting him new life of a sort. This feeble human body is not enough for The Master though: he wants the Doctor’s life, or his future lives to be specific, and if that means opening the magical plot device known as The Eye of Harmony (conveniently located within the T.A.R.D.I.S.) and destroying the Universe as we know it, so be it. It’s up to the new Doctor, along with Grace Holloway, to find the MacGuffin (in this case some sort of microchip in an atomic clock) so that they can fix the T.A.R.D.I.S., close The Eye of Harmony and stop the Master once and for all. A walk in the park for the guy who saves the Earth every week.

     Now I’ve watched a decent amount of movies in my day, and from the movies I choose to write about you folks know I have a certain fondness for movies of an underground, cult, and low-budget nature, because I’m of the mind that a good movie is good regardless of the money thrown at it. So I hope my meaning comes through when I say that Doctor Who looks and feels cheap. The production values of today might be spoiling me as to what to expect from television, but I think that even if I were watching this back in the day I would have found it chintzy as well. The bad CGI snake has already been mentioned, and could probably be forgiven considering the state of computer graphics at the time, but the special effects in general barely seem like an upgrade from the original series, despite coming a decade and with a presumably larger budget than the show ended up with at that time as well. Combined with the cheezy flirtations with melodrama, the grossly out-of-place cartoonish sound effects placed during attempts at ‘comedy’, plus the issues with plot (nothing too outlandish for Doctor Who, but the surrounding elements are pretty bad) and characterization, it’s all mixes together to make a shit stew. It’s a made-for-TV movie that no one could mistake for anything other than a made-for-TV movie, and that’s not a compliment. When you’re dipping into Hallmark Channel territory, you’ve lost all hope.

     One of the main parts of the Doctor Who formula is the addition of a companion who travels with the Doctor and acts as the audience surrogate/damsel in distress, usually a white female in her early 20s (#diversity). Occasionally these usually female companions work well opposite the Doctor and become interesting characters in their own right, like Sarah Jane Smith (who was popular enough to get a spin-off show, The Sarah Jane Adventures) or the Time Lady Romana, and sometimes they’re just a character for the Doctor to bounce dialog off of. Grace Holloway is of the latter, a character that isn’t absolutely horrible but sort of builds up enough bad karma to become unlikable. I’ll give Daphne Ashbrook the benefit of the doubt and say that it was the director and the script that allowed Grace Holloway to come of as such a vapid, wooden character that seemingly exists for the Doctor to get his proto-50 Shades freak on with. Grace Holloway is a character that has no problem making out with a guy that accosted her in a parking lot, a she repeatedly states is mentally ill mind you, less than 24 hours (hell, less than 5 hours) after breaking up with her boyfriend, whom she is never shown to have any feelings for whatsoever. Is this supposed to be a character the audience is supposed to identify with? Is it supposed to be one that we like, that we’re supposed to like interacting with the Doctor? Because she fulfills none of those criteria. In fact, for a franchise that’s lasted long enough to see the bad balance evenly with the good, I’m failing to recall a single secondary character in this film that I actually liked or cared about one way or another. Just morons and chucklefucks the whole way down.

     Then, of course, there are the issues affecting Who canon itself. Making the Master into a bad CGI goo snake is pretty bad, and claiming that the Doctor is half-human seems like a pointless addition for the purposes of plot, but my personal biggest grievance with Doctor Who is the reason they give for the transition from the 7th and 8th Doctors. While I like every incarnation of the Doctor’s character in one way or another, I’ve always had a fondness for Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor, and the fact that his whole death scene is “walk out of T.A.R.D.I.S., get shot by thugs which only appear in that one scene’ is both stupid and unfortunate at the same time. Not that all the Doctors have had grand exits (Sixth Doctor Colin Baker got it even worse) but both Colin and McCoy came in at a time when everything was against them in regards to production, bad administrators, budgetary issues, all in a period where the BBC was trying to phase out the show altogether. Despite all the crap they had to deal with, there are still moments in their respective series when the brilliance that makes Doctor Who great could shine through. They needed some way to get McCoy out and McGann in obviously, but he didn’t get to save the Earth one last time, or stop the Daleks/Cybermen/Zygons/whoever from committing evil space crimes on some innocent planet, he was shot by some extras and died a victim of malpractice. What a goddamn waste.

     As for what I actually liked about the movie...there’s not much, to be honest. As I said before, I like every incarnation of the Doctor in some way, and when McGann isn’t bogged down by the movie’s shit he’s the quirky and enigmatic Time Lord that we’ve come to know and love. Eric Roberts as the Master isn’t all that bad either, even though he dresses like the Terminator and has stupid green eyes, he’s as ridiculously sinister as ever. I think I might prefer the T.A.R.D.I.S., which has gone from the white circled walls of yesteryear into a full-on Victorian mansion motif, complete with stained glass windows and wood-and-stone foundation. It’s a bit excessive but I’m a sucker for late 19th century decor, and it gives a far larger sense of space than the singular room shown in the classic and modern runs of Doctor Who. It makes the T.A.R.D.I.S. feel like the Doctor’s home, rather than just the vehicle he travels in, which is often implied to be the case but rarely shown. Dude’s been traveling the Universe for hundreds of years but I think this might be the only time he’s shown to have actual furniture.

     Doctor Who is not for everyone, but 1996’s Doctor Who is not for anyone. I suppose I might recommend it to DW fans interested in seeing the first and only appearance of the 8th Doctor, but from what I’ve heard the audio dramas from Big Finish do a much better job of fleshing out McGann’s character and adventures, so honestly I’d say go with those instead. To everyone else I’d say that if you’re actually interested in getting into DW, this road leads to nothing but hate and confusion. You’re better off just trying out the modern series, or maybe a Tom Baker serial and seeing how you feel about it then, put this shit off until the last minute. Don’t worry, when it comes to Doctor Who, you’ll always have time to spare.

     Always leave them wishing you had left sooner.

RESULT: NOT RECOMMENDED

Happy Thanksgiving Folks!

Just want to say that I'm thankful for all of you have happen to read my inane scribblings, whether you're a first time reader or repeat offender. New article coming up in the near future, so I hope you all have a great day.

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

Crumb (1994), directed by Terry Zwigoff

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "My Girl's Pussy", by Robert Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders

     Despite what my writings on my oft-neglected film blog might imply, I actually do more than watch pro wrestling and movies. I’m more of an all-inclusive nerd, and there are many things that I spend my time on while I waste the precious hours of my life. Books, video games, theater, history, music, hardcore pornopgraphy, and as is most relevant to this article, comic books. I’ve been reading comics/graphic novels since I was 12 or so, and I’ve always been fascinated with it as a medium for creative expression and the bizarre characters brought to life within its pages. Although I wouldn’t put myself on the level of my more serious comic book fan friends, but I feel like I’ve read enough of the things over the years to know what I like and what I don’t on a somewhat critical level. Especially if it’s written by Alan Moore or Grant Morrison, in which case I’ll probably read it regardless of popular opinion.

     Much like the film world has Troma and music has its Velvet Underground, the world of comics has its own alternative and/or underground figures that have changed and revolutionized the field over the years. One of those figures for comics was Mr. Robert Crumb, whose work with Zap and other publications in the late 60s and early 70s helped bring new form of comic art and storytelling to the public consciousness. Highly sexualized, openly confessional, frequently neurotic, Crumb’s LSD-inspired take on American society and the people who lived in it was all the rage in Flower Power centers like Haight-Ashbury and the like. You might know him from the iconic ‘Keep on Truckin’ image that has been repeated on mud flaps and other media over the years, or for the equally iconic cover for Big Brother and the Holding Company’s amazing debut album Cheap Thrills. You might even know him for Fritz the Cat, which was eventually adapted into an animated film directed by Ralph Bakshi, and was the first and only animated film to receive an X-rating (it also kind of sucks, but whatever). There was no superheroes or magical dragons in the comics of R. Crumb, just the sexual fantasies of a compulsive masturbatory visualized with pen and paper. What better subject for a feature-length film could there be than that?

     (Spoilers: Nothing)

     Directed by Terry Zwigoff and produced by surrealist filmmaker David Lynch (Twin Peaks, Eraserhead, a bunch of other stuff that people either obnoxiously love or hate), Crumb details the life and times of the famous artist in the months prior to his move from San Francisco to the south of France in the early 90’s. Through candid interviews of Crumb as well as his friends, family and academics, Zwigoff reveals to us a more intimate portrayal of the man than we are normally privy to, despite the highly autobiographical nature of his art. His loves, his hates, the erratic childhood that drew him into comics and art, all of these things come together to form the image of R. Crumb, as well as the strange and off-kilter people around him. We also get to see some critical reception to his work from colleagues and peers, which range from revelatory to displeased, particularly in regards to Crumb’s notorious views on women and sexual intercourse. Most of those displeased opinions are from women, as you might expect.

     I have to wonder whether it’s the influence of Lynch that causes the strange atmosphere that seems to hang over this movie. Despite being a down-to-earth real life movie, Crumb has a definite Lynchian bent. The nostalgia for an idyllic past comes up is a classic Lynch motif of course, but more generally I mean presenting a positive story through dark and often disturbing means. Hearing the stories of Robert’s brothers Charles and Maxon, one a suicidally depressed wreck who still lives with his mother and the other an epileptic former molester who meditates on a bed of nails for spare change is definitely what you might call a case of life imitating Lynch, and the descriptions of parental abuse are many and varied, but it’s not played as a vehicle for sympathy, just an unfortunate bump in the road that we’re all far past by now. All of this builds up into the weird and bizarre world that has built up around Crumb over the years, which is juxtaposed by the man himself. Although we can see where the basis for his art comes from, Robert Crumb appears in this film as a man who is more or less at peace with himself and his various personality quirks. He’s got nothing to prove and has no desire for it, being perfectly content with the life that he’s carved out for himself through his work. Occasionally he comes off as a bit callous, and certainly unapologetic for those who demand he should be, but I think we all know somebody who comes across the wrong way every once in a while. There’s no malice to it, just how they are as people, for good or for worse. The biggest hurdle for this movie was showing Crumb as a man rather than a saint, as we so often typify other artists, but I believe they cleared it. A ‘you may not agree with him, but you respect his work’ kind of thing, and it’s better than spending 120 minutes blowing smoke up his ass. Which Robert Crumb might actually enjoy, I don’t know. I’m not privy to his sex activities, or sextivities as we ‘in the know’ call it, but I’m sure they get pretty weird. Even weirder than the sextivities that we actually hear about in the movie, which is probably more than any of us really wanted.

     Obviously if you don’t care about Crumb or comic books in general, then you’re probably better off ignoring this movie. If you are interested in those, or underground art movements, or you like seeing movies with weird people in them, then this might be right up your alley. Generally I don’t try doing writeups about documentaries, it just feels weird to me to try and dissect them as I would a fiction film, and the director’s role in said films feel more subtle than the grand artistic statements of their personal worlds. Given the subject matter and my continual return to off-beat films however, I decided to make an exception As far as documentaries go I found that Crumb succeeded in making life seem far more interesting and eloquent than it actually is, and the scenes of pre-Millennium America gave me the bittersweet sense of nostalgia that all the kids these days love so much. The portions of the film where we get a look into his early work and his philosophy on the art of drawing were similarly very informative and frequently engaging as well. I say give Crumb a try and put it in your watch queue, get double your daily dose of info and insanity at the same time. Keep on truckin’ folks!

RESULT: RECOMMENDED

The Third Man (1949), directed by Carol Reed

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Harry Lime Theme", by Anton Karas

     If ever there was a man who not only defined the role of auteur director in the United States, but that of a career peaked too early, it’s Orson Welles. I mean, when your debut film is Citizen Kane, one of the most influential and well-regarded works in film history, the power of the sophomore slump becomes all too real. Not to mention being the mastermind behind the infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast, being friends with H.G. Wells and Ernest Hemingway, and establishing himself as an A-list actor and director in one fell swoop. Which is quite the accomplishment by the way, I can’t think of many examples of great films that starred and were directed by the same person, much less on their debut movie. Aside from Yahoo Serious in the 1988 cult classic Young Einstein of course, but that goes without saying.

     At some point point though, whether through his own excesses, a Milius style ostracization from the industry or simply the public moving on, it seems like Welles fell off the face of the earth. By the time of his death in the late 80s, Welles had gone from big budget filmmaking and bullfighting in Spain to doing commercials about frozen peas and ‘playing a giant toy that terrorizes smaller toys’ in 1986’s Transformers: The Movie (a write-up on which can be found on my oft-neglected film blog), which was actually his last film role. A far cry from the Golden Age of Hollywood, and an inglorious end to a contemporary of Billy Wilder and Frank Capra (insert Rust Never Sleeps reference here). So what better way is there to honor the legacy of a great figure in film history than by some jackass watching a movie he was in and writing about it? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

     Directed by Carol Reed (Flap, Fallen Idol) and released by 20th Century Fox and British Lion Films in 1949, The Third Man is of the film noir genre, and more generally a thriller/mystery. Film noir was of course the artistic response to the works of German Expressionism (which includes Fritz Lang, who we touched upon last time), and dealt principally with morally bankrupt figures in the dark underbelly of society. Film noir is known today for creating the hardboiled private eye archetype, like Humphrey Bogart’s character in The Maltese Falcon, but both criminals and crime-fighters were common features in the genre. Though not as successful commercially in its heyday, film noir has gone on to become a defining part of pop culture’s perception of the 1940’s and 50’s, and inspired some fantastic films. The aforementioned Maltese Falcon of course, The Big Sleep, Roman Polanski’s Chinatown and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, and The Third Man. In fact, Craig Johnson of Welcome to the Basement (which has been a huge inspiration to my own film analysis attempts) once labeled The Third Man as the best film of all time, which might have been an incentive to check it out for myself. To see if Flava Flav’s advice was legit or not, you understand.

     In post-war occupied Vienna, down-on-his-luck novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) arrives from the United States to stay with his mercurial friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). Unfortunately for Martins it appears that Harry Lime has passed away, tragically killed in a hit-and-run accident some time prior to Holly’s arrival. Martins is understandably distraught, even more so when the military police (headed by one Major Calaway) make it quite clear that they’d very much prefer that he take the next plane out of here. It seems that Lime was a businessman of the illegal black market variety in Vienna, one famous enough and dirty enough to warrant a major investigation upon his apparent death. It’s pretty common to see folks change after they move to a new place, but you always hope that they don’t get involved in racketeering and other general crimes. You want to talk about the price of gas, they want to talk about beating snitches with baseball bats, the common ground is lost. Damn shame.

     Being the good friend that he is, Martins is unwilling to just skip town without finding out the truth over Lime’s ultimate fate, and so he starts his own investigation. Lime’s beautiful yet enigmatic former love interest Ms. Anna Schmitt doesn’t know anything, and Lime’s friends rattle off the same story as Calaway: Lime was struck by a car whose driver had no prior intent to kill him, he was then carried into a nearby building by his where he promptly died from his injuries. Sounds like a cut-and-dry no mysteries twist of fate (#words), until Holly meets with an elderly porter who happened to witness the event in question. According to him, there were in fact three people that carried the injured Harry Lime on that particular day, rather than the two in the official story. Who is this third man? Is Harry Lime really dead, or is there some sort of devious scheme at work here? And if Lime is still alive, how will Holly react knowing that he is a criminal? Plenty of questions to be answered in this mystery movie, amazingly enough, which you’ll have to watch for yourself to find out.

     I have to admit that I’m a sucker for film noir, and have been for quite some time. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact reason why; maybe I’m just a sucker for a good mystery, or perhaps a grey world of morally ambiguous failures and badniks appeal to a depressive guy like me, who can say. Film noir much like horror is a genre that can fall into the repetitions of the same trope, the hard-boiled P.I., the femme fatale, etc., but much like with horror (Much like with any movie I suppose, considering how many times the ‘Hero’s Journey’ archetype has been repeated throughout history), it doesn’t really matter if familiar ground is trod upon when the movie itself is good.

     Such is the case with The Third Man, which I found to be a fantastic film. Although Welles doesn’t get into the film until about halfway through, and doesn’t really have that much in the way of speaking roles (even though I prefaced this whole thing by hyping up his acting status), his portrayal of Harry Lime is subtly brilliant; charmingly charismatic yet callous and manipulative, the kind of guy you’re not sure whether to like or hate. In fact everyone puts on a magnificent performance here, the perpetually out of the loop Holly Martins, the hard-nosed Major Calaway, the romantic Anna Schmitt, everyone feels vibrant and real to me. Same goes for the location, either Vienna or a city meant to look like it at least, I believe Prague is usually the most common substitution. There’s just something about old world architecture that I love, buildings and streets that have been around since the days when folks used mercury as a beauty cream. It’s familiar and alien at the same time, and it serves as iconic set pieces for the film’s pivotal scenes.

     There’s really only one thing I can think of about the film that bothered me enough to affect my experience. Originally it was going to be two, but upon further reflection I’ve decided against it. That singular point would the music, which forgoes the smoky bebop jazz ingrained in pop culture’s vision of film noir in favor of what I assume is Austrian folk music. It’s appropriate to the setting of the film and I probably wouldn’t mind it on a repeat viewing, but it sounded almost cacophonous this time around. Either the mixing was a bit off or I’m just a bit over sensitive to those kinds of things, but I found the score to be grating more often than not.

     Aside from that though, I found The Third Man to be a fantastic film, as I mentioned previously. Great characters, great locations, a healthy dose of moral ambiguity and an ending that ties it all up with a bittersweet ribbon (don’t eat ribbons kids). Those interested in exploring film noir would probably benefit by putting this on the top of their watch queue, and those who enjoy a good thriller will find some enjoyment as well. For those looking to get some more Orson Welles under their belts, I’d also suggest his almost-Orwellian take on Franz Kafka’s The Trial, which he directed and acted in. Legendary work from a legendary man.

Result: Recommended

Metropolis, (1927), directed by Fritz Lang

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "I Feel Love", by Donna Summer

"The mediator between brain and the hands must be the heart."

     In my little write up of Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, which you can find on my Long Dark Marathon of the Soul articles, I gave a little explanation as to my feelings on the ‘genre’ known as silent movies. As I said then, it’s not so much that I have an aversion to soundless films as that I’m not very experienced with them as a viewer. I’ve grown up in an age where the ‘talkie’ is a common thing after all, where the context of a film is gathered from the dialogue as much as it is the physical action, and it’s quite to split your attention between other things and still understand the events of the film. Watching silent films took a level of concentration that I wasn’t used to, and so in the past I haven’t been as involved mentally as more modern cinema. Now that I’m principally a ‘movie guy’ however, who is attempting to gain respect and perhaps actual legal tender from writing about films (and maybe making them, if I ever get the opportunity), I decided that it’s best for me and all you out there in internet land if I expanded my horizons as much as I can. You know, rather than try and improve my writing ability or anything like that, because that sounds hard and I’m too lazy.

     #truthbombs

     Even in it’s infancy, film was seen as an artistic medium as well as a business venture, and one of the most influential artistic movements in film is Expressionism. The most famous form of Expressionism in film is perhaps the so-called German Expressionism, which was most popular in the years leading up to WWII (by then they had other things on their mind). These Expressionist films, Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu for example sought to portray an inner, subjective view of reality in direct opposition to realism, which resulted in the famous warped buildings, extensive shadows and highly stylized surrealistic tone that has become iconic. Many of these elements would later be adopted by directors like Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles, and there is a definite connection between German Expressionism and Universal’s horror films, particularly in Dracula and Frankenstein. Hell, Tim Burton probably would be directing Burger King commercials today if not for the visual style pioneered by the German Expressionist movement. We wouldn’t have had to suffer through his film remake of Dark Shadows though, so there’s a tradeoff.

     When it comes to silent era German expressionist film directors, you don’t get much bigger than Fritz Lang, and when you’re talking about silent era Fritz Lang films, you don’t get much bigger than Metropolis, released in 1927. I’ve had this particular film in my to-watch queue for quite a while now, but only now decided to check it out totally on a whim. I suppose it was my aversion to silent films that had kept me away for so long, and partially because I wasn’t sure which version of it should attempt. On netflix there are two edits of Metropolis you see; Metropolis Restored, which used previously lost footage to recreate Lang original 2+ hour cut, and Giorgio Moroder Presents Metropolis, released in 1984 featuring a soundtrack handpicked by the 80’s music legend himself, whom you might remember from that one song on Daft Punk’s last album. Although I have a deep passion for synthtastic 80s music, I decided to to go for the restored version in order to get the ‘true’ experience of the film. Plus I've dipped into the 80’s far too much recently, so I figured it was time for a change.

     The year is 2026 and mankind has finally reached its cultural zenith. Nowhere is this more apparent than Metropolis, a enormous, gleaming utopia of a city, where the residents bustle about the streets like ants around the legs of an elephant. Life for those who move within the boundaries of this veritable Garden of Eden is one of leisure and the pursuit of comfort for its affluent citizenry. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Clubs of the Sons, where the offspring of these wealthy men engage in the recreation of the rich, which involves banging a new chick every day and running track for some reason. Or, if you don’t feel like banging chicks at the Club of Sons, you could always go to Yoshiwara, the most popular night club/brothel in all of Metropolis, where good times can also be found. Basically, if you’re not a fan of good times, then you wouldn’t have a good time here

     A city as large as Metropolis needs an equally large number of people to maintain it however, and it is here where our major conflict resides. In true H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine fashion, the people are divided into two classes: the rich who live the idyllic live up above, and the laborers who toil on the great machines in the underground city. Unsurprisingly, these almost-Morlocks are treated like slaves by the rich owners of the machinery (apparently Republicans are still around in the future), and the two get along like vomit and fine wine. Also unsurprisingly, the oppressed working class is abuzz with talk of mass revolt, probably because of that whole ‘forced to live in an gigantic ghetto and dying en masse due to faulty machinery’ thing. You’d think that in a hundred years people would have learned not to oppress the working class and that it only leads to problems, but I guess old habits die hard.

     The most pampered of all the member of the Club is the good-hearted Freder (Gustav Worlich), son of Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel),architect of Metropolis and subsequently the most powerful man in the city. All that Freder knows are the things that his father has provided, but after a chance encounter with beautiful working girl Maria (Brigitte Helm), he starts to realize that there might be more to life than his olympian lifestyle. It just might be that Freder is The Chosen One, the prophesied mediator that will unite humanity together as one. Unfortunately for Freder and Maria, Ol’ Poppa Fredersen is none too keen on having his son fraternize with some lowly working girl, especially one preaching some sort of radical agenda. With the mad professor Rotwang and his mysterious Machine-Man, Fredersen plans to destroy Maria and Freder’s relationship and crush the rebellion before it even begins. Shenanigans abound, as they are known to do.

     Metropolis is essentially a big fairy tale: you’ve got a collection of archetypes, the whitebread hero, the pure damsel, the old ugly villain, the Christian imagery, all thrown together to tell a story with an obvious moral message (don’t put poor people in giant underground factories). Simple but effective, but where the film really stands out to me is in Lang’s visual design. Metropolis is a breathtakingly beautiful film, and Fritz’s Lang Expressionistic take on the future is every bit as fantastical as anything written by the Brothers Grimm. From the monolithic, monotonous housing complexes of Worker City to the radiant splendour of Metropolis itself, almost every scene looks like something out of a dream. Just an amazing sense of scale that I didn’t think was possible in the 20’s. Of course I’m a sucker for open space in film, as readers of my little write up of King Kong (or even my review of Easy Rider if you want to go obscure), but it is the space combined with the society that the director envisions that really strike me creatively. The combination of the old and modern is really fascinating to me, and really old sci-fi in general like in Batman: The Animated Series where there are robots walking around but the police department still uses zeppelins.

     As far as cons go, the ending seemed rather anticlimatic when compared to the buildup towards it. The subplot for setting up 11811 as an important character does little to establish that, so the resolution lacks the emotional impact it could have had. Some scenes also seem a bit foolish or otherwise are too deus ex machina for my tastes, such as Maria’s escape from her captors. I guess you could forgive it because of the time it was made, and sometimes you make allowances in the plot to tell a story, but there are just a couple moments where character actions made no sense and it was irksome to watch.

     As I mentioned earlier I watched Metropolis Restored, which added previously lost footage to bump it up to a 148 minute runtime, as opposed to shorter cuts like the 83 minutes Moroder edition. From what I could tell, the footage that was added was generally complimentary to the theatrical cut, and a lot of them expound on scenes that seemed to have been edited rather haphazardly back in ‘27. I’d say that you’re probably better off watching the Restored version, since it’s the closest to Fritz Lang’s original idea, but it’s your choice. That runtime is an obvious turnoff for some, but it’s a long movie that doesn’t really feel all that long to me due to how it’s paced. Which is the same way I felt about The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, which I also loved, and which coincidentally is another fairly long movie with a lot of open space. Who would’ve guessed?

Result: Recommended

Fargo, (1996), directed by Joel & Ethan Coen

     A flash of creativity inspired this new little post. I can't say that this is the start of a whole new era of film blogging, but at least it exists.

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "The Happiest Girl In The Whole U.S.A.", by Donna Fargo

     I believe I mentioned the subject of ‘favorite directors’ once before in this oft-neglected, oft-ignored series of poorly written film reviews. It was in the write-up for Jabberwocky if memory serves, directed by former Pythonite Terry Gilliam, the man behind several Thunderbird-approved films: The Orwellian black comedy known as Brazil, the insane adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, and time-traveling action flick 12 Monkeys (the first Bruce Willis time-travel action flick, by the way, back in the day when you had Die Hard and Pulp Fiction to counteract the Hudson Hawk and Bruno). On the whole yeah, I’d say that Gilliam is one of my favorite directors. I haven’t seen his entire filmography (blame laziness or depression or whatever), but everything I have seen of his so far I have enjoyed, and I’m optimistic about his as-of-yet unreleased Zero Theorem, if only for the spin on science-fiction that no one else is tackling in Hollywood.

     The same can be said for the folks behind this particular entry, Joel and Ethan Coen, sibling writers/directors/producers extraordinaire. Once again, while I haven’t seen all of the films that the Coens have been involved with, I can’t say I’ve seen one yet that I’ve haven’t loved. In fact, 1998’s The Big Lebowski has occupied a spot on my Top 10 Movies list for years, ever since watching the horribly butchered version on Comedy Central (this is also where I saw Ghostbusters 2 before Ghostbusters, because somebody doesn’t know how to run a TV station). While Gilliam might be considered a cult or a niche director, as far as millionare filmmakers go, the Coen Bros. have too many awards and accolades to be anything other than Hollywood mainstays at this point. The Ladykillers might be their only recent fumble that I can think of, and even that was 7 years ago. Other than that though, it’s a track record not many in their generation can compete with. So instead of making an effort to be topical by checking out the currently recent Inside Llewellyn Davis, I’ve decided to go back and look at a film oft-regarded as one of their best. We’re heading to the frozen North ladies and gents, to a little town named Fargo.

     Supposedly based on real life events, the story of Fargo is a typical Coen Bros. plot. Things start off simply enough, then quickly snowball into mystery, intrigue and deception. It all begins with Jerry Lundegard (William H. Macy) walking into a Minnesota bar in the winter of 1987 (or maybe it was summer, you never can tell with those states). Jerry, by all appearances a nice guy, is there to meet with two rather seedy looking gentlemen, venomous shit-talker Carl (Steve Buscemi at his most weasley) and the silent Scandinavian Gaere (Peter Stormare) for a clandestine meeting. Mr. Lundegard is a man looking for wealth and respect you see, chiefly that of his wealthy father-in-law Wade, who is not that impressed by Jerry’s fatherly lifestyle and car salesman career. Eager to grab a piece of the money pie for himself and stick it to Big Poppa, Jerry has hatched upon a plan to hire Carl & Gaere to kidnap his own wife and hold her for ransom, with the intention of splitting the hefty ransom between the three of them and impress Wade with his Colt 45 handling of the whole situation. It’d be a fool proof plan, if only everyone involved weren’t vain, greedy and ultimately doomed by their own ineptitude.

     Lo and behold, the plan goes spectacularly awry. The wife is kidnapped, but the problems that occur in the process push Carl to demand the entire ransom for him and Gaere. Wade, completely uninterested in having Jerry handling his money and daughter, decides to take matters into his own hands and totally fucks up that formerly foolproof plan. As everything starts to unravel, it’s actually Margie (Francis McDormand), the homespun, very pregnant police officer that starts to piece everything together that threatens to destroy Jerry’s scheme once and for all. And so on as movies are wont to do.

     The Coens are undoubtedly fantastic characterization, it just might be their strongest points as filmmakers, and Fargo is no exception. Every character feels unique, the world they inhabit feels vibrant and alive, yet they are also very real if that makes sense. Of course I’ve never been to that part of the country, and the ‘folky Midwesterner’ stereotype might not be all that appreciated over there, but it’s an easy way to give the setting a familiar-but-alien flavour. The endlessly flat snow white plains might also have something to do with it.

     Whether or not Fargo is actually based on true events might be a matter of debate, but the fact that it’s just weird enough to be believable really helps establish the reality of the world. Sure, a car salesman hiring guys to kidnap his wife while a pregnant cop investigates may seem bizarre, but it isn’t any less implausible than whatever happens in Florida on any given week. In fact it may be even more believable than today’s news, which is a horrifying thought.

     Fargo is a great crime thriller in the body of a particularly black comedy. Not an unfamiliar topic for the Coen Bros., but when they do it so well you can’t help but be impressed. If you’re interested at all in their filmography, this is as good a starting point as you’re likely to get. Chalk up another (past) success for Joel & Ethan, and if you’re visiting North Dakota, make sure you’re packing heat. You never know what kinda psychos are out there.

Result: Recommended