Monthly Archives: August 2020

Film Review: Revelation (dir by André van Heerden)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The world which started to end in the 1998 film Apocalypse continues to end in its first sequel, 1999’s Revelation!

Revelation beings three months after the end of Apocalypse.  The people of the world worship the president of the European Union, Franco Macalousso (Nick Mancuso, replacing Sam Bornstein from the first film).   The world is ruled over by O.N.E., which stands for One Nation Earth.  Those who oppose Macalousso’s claim to the messiah are known as “The Haters.”  At the start of the film, a school bus has been bombed and all of the children aboard have been killed.  O.N.E. claims that the Haters bombed the bus but counterterrorist agent Thorold Stone (Jeff Fahey) comes across evidence that it was actually an inside job.  When Macalousso’s second-in-command, Len Parker (David Roddis), attempts to murder Thorold, he’s forced to go on the run.

The Day of Wonders is approaching.  On this day, everyone on Earth is to put on a VR headset.  Macalousso hasn’t made clear what the headset will do but everyone’s planning on doing it because Macalousso has told them to do it and everyone on the planet does what Macalousso says.  Thorold tracks down Willy Spino (Tony Nappa), a wheelchair-bound programmer (in the 90s sense of the term, of course) who is somehow involved with setting up The Day of Wonders.  Willy says that O.N.E. is not the benevolent organization that everyone thinks it is.  You would have thought that Thorald would have figured that out after Parker attempted to kill him but Thorald remains convinced that Maclousso is the messiah and that his wife and daughter previously vanished not because they were Christians but because they were abducted by aliens.

Anyway, long story short, it turns out that Willy’s stepsister is Helen Hannah (Leigh Lewis), the news anchor from the first film.  Helen is now a leader in the Hater underground.  While she tries to convince Thorold that Macalousso is actually the Devil, Willy spends his time flirting with a cynical blind woman named Cindy (Carol Alt).  Both Willy and Cindy find themselves tempted to put on the VR headset, just to see what the Day of Wonders will hold for them….

Revelation is a marked improvement on Apocalypse though, considering how shoddy the production of that first film was, that’s really not saying much.  As opposed to the first film’s stiff performances and reliance on stock footage, Revelation features actual actors, actual sets, and an actual script.  There’s even a few action sequences and some attempts at intentional humor.  That said, if you’re a nonbeliever, Revelation isn’t going to convert you and, about halfway through the film, all of the action stops so that Thorold and Hannah can have a very long discussion about faith and whether or not God should prove his existence by turning over a glass of water.

Like the first film, Revelation actually works better as a political allegory than a religious tract.  Today, it’s kind of easy to laugh at the bulky computers that fill O.N.E.’s headquarters and the scenes where Willy carefully explains what virtual reality and computer viruses are serve as a reminder that, apparently, there was a time when all of this stuff was still viewed as being somehow exotic.  I mean, it’s easy to be snarky about this movie.  But let’s be honest — it’s probably easier today than it was when this film was first released to imagine a world where everyone blindly does whatever the government tells them to do.  And the idea of a group running a false flag operation — like blowing up a school bus and blaming it on unseen enemies — no longer seems quite as outlandish as it perhaps did it 1999.

Revelation was apparently enough of a success that it was followed by yet another sequel.  This one was called Tribulation and I’ll be posting a review of it in about 15 minutes.  Hope to see you then!

 

Film Review: Apocalypse (dir by Peter Gerretsen)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the 1998 Biblical prophecy film, Apocalypse, the world ends not with a bang but with stock footage.  Lots and lots of stock footage.

Admittedly, I’m being a bit snarky about Apocalypse‘s reliance on stock footage but it’s actually kind of understandable.  When you’re trying to convincingly end the world on a budget, it just makes sense to borrow someone else’s footage of a plane exploding than going through the trouble (and expense) of buying a plane and blowing it up yourself.  The two main characters in Apocalypse are both anchorpeople for a 24-hours new channel called WNN.  Because they’re constantly reporting on the end of the world, the stock footage is portrayed as being a part of their report.  That’s kind of clever but it’s also really icky.  For instance, there’s a clip of a woman sobbing in front of an angry crowd.  We’re told that the woman is sobbing because her relatives have mysteriously vanished but, because the footage is in focus and the camera is held steady, we know that we’re actually watching stock footage.  Which means that this woman truly was crying about something but we don’t know what.  It’s hard not to feel that the filmmakers essentially took her pain and used it for their own advantage.  By that same token, when we’re shown people rioting in the streets and getting attacked by police, we’re told that it’s because the world is about to end but we know that there was another real reason why those people were rioting and it’s doubtful that any of those rioting people ever thought to themselves, “Hmmm….I wonder if this footage of me getting chased by the police will ever somehow appear in a propaganda film that has nothing to do with what I’m risking injury to protest about?”

The main characters of Apocalypse are Bronson Pearl (Richard Nester) and Helen Hannah (Leigh Lewis).  Bronson Pearl is the most trusted man in the world.  We know this because there’s a shot of a Time Magazine cover declaring that Bronson is the “Man of the Year.”  (It must have been a slow year.)  When the president of the European Union, Franco Macalusso (Sam Bornstein), announces that 1) he has magically vaporized every nuclear missile on the planet mere moments before Earth went up in a nuclear fireball and 2) he’s the true messiah, Bronson is enthusiastic but Helen has her doubts.  Those doubts are caused by the mysterious disappearance of millions of people across the globe.  One minute, they’re there.  The next minute, they’ve vanished and left behind a pile of neatly folded clothes.  Before Helen’s aunt disappeared, she organized a box of VHS tapes for Helen to watch.  The tapes feature footage of televangelists interpreting prophecy, which of course means that it’s time for more stock footage!

Anyway, you can guess where all of this is leading.  Over the course of six days, the world goes from being on the brink of nuclear war to being ruled over by Franco Macalusso.  Everyone sacrifices their individual freedom so that Maclusso can keep them “safe” and Macalusso even takes over WNN and turns the news channel into his own personal propaganda outlet.  In some ways, this film does feel a bit prophetic.  In the years since this film was first released, news channels have become propaganda outlets and people have started to look to their political leaders as being messianic figures.  In fact, I’d argue that Apocalypse works better as a warning against authoritarianism than it does as a biblical tract.

Which isn’t to say that Apocalypse actually works.  This is a low-budget and stiffly acted film and, as I said before, the use of stock footage of real disasters to stand-in for fictional disasters is undeniably icky.  It’s one of those films that was made for an evangelical audience and which seems to be more concerned with taunting nonbelievers than with actually trying to be dramatically convincing.  Still, if your natural instinct is to distrust authority, you’ll probably find a lot to relate to in Apocalypse‘s not-quite paranoid vision of people being brainwashed into accepting dictatorship.

Or you might just view the film as being a tribute to the power and convenience of stock footage.  I guess it all depends on how you look at it.

M.S. Harkness’ “Rotten” Proves That Timing Is (Almost) Everything

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)'s avatarRyan C.'s Four Color Apocalypse

I’ve gotta hand it to fellow Minneapolitan M.S. Harkness — if you’re going to release a comic set on (and immediately after) election day 2016, then choosing to do so on the eve of the 2020 election is a savvy move. And if there’s one thing you can say for Harkness in addition to being creative, it’s that she’s very much in tune with the times — as anyone who’s read her satirical evisceration of online dating, Tinderella, can tell you — so it should come as no surprise that her latest self-published mini, Rotten, is as timely and topical as it is, well, twisted.

And true. Albeit with a bit of artistic license thrown in for (melo)dramatic effect. But such is usually the case with autobio to one degree or another, and parsing out the accurate from the amped-up is pretty much just part and parcel…

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Smokey and the Bandit (1977, directed by Hal Needham)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

 

Smokey and the Bandit is a simple film. Burt Reynolds is the Bandit. He’s hired by two bored brothers to smuggle beer from Texas to Georgia. Working with the Snowman (Jerry Reed), Bandit is easily able to pick up the beer but it’s while driving back that the two of them run afoul Smokey, a.k.a. Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason, who reportedly improvised most of his profane lines). Bandit also picks up a hitchhiker and runaway bride (Sally Field) who he calls Frog.

There’s not much to Smokey and the Bandit. The Bandit has an incredibly cool car and he drives really fast. Snowman is funny and has a dog. Smokey has a dumb son and is constantly threatening to hit people.   It’s a dumb movie but it works.   The cars are fast, the crashes are spectacular, and the entire film is the perfect daydream for when you’re sitting in your office at work and wondering whether there’s something more rewarding you could be doing with your life.

Who hasn’t wanted to the Bandit at some point in their life?

Who hasn’t wanted to get behind the wheel of black trans am and just take off, driving down country roads while giving the slip to old Smoky and joking with Snowman on your CB radio and maybe picking up a young Sally Field while smuggling beer and winning a bet?

(There’s been a lot of terrible moments on The Family Guy but, for me, one of the absolute worst was when Brian Griffin went into the past and asked 70s Burt Reynolds, “So, you’re going to go get some of that hot Sally Field action, huh?” Anyone who has seen Smokey and the Bandit knows that Sally Field was smoking hot back in 1977!)

Smokey and the Bandit comes to us from a different time. No one worries about what speeding halfway across the country in a little over 24 hours is doing to the environment. No one apologizes for who they are or where they’re from. The Bandit lives by a simple rule: Treat him with respect and he’ll treat you with respect. Talk down to him or try to tell him what to do and the Bandit’s just going to jump in his car and leave you standing in a cloud of dust.

During the latter part of his career, Burt Reynolds would often lament that appearing in financially successful but critically lambasted films like Smokey and the Bandit made him a huge star but also kept him from getting the type of roles that he felt he deserved. Reynolds was right but there are worse things than being known as The Bandit.   For many, Burt Reynolds will always be the Bandit because he was so perfectly cast for the role. Not many actors could pull off the scene where, after fooling a cop, the Bandit looks straight at the camera and grins. Burt Reynolds could. Playing the Bandit may have never won Burt Reynolds an Academy Award but it did make him an American icon.

If you’re feeling down, watch Smokey and the Bandit. If you need an escape, watch Smokey and the Bandit. It demands so little and gives so much.

The Covers of .44 Western Magazine

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Artist Unknown

For 17 years, from 1937 to 1954, .44 Western Magazine shared stories about life in the wild west.  As you can probably tell from the magazine’s covers and definitely the title, most of those stories revolved around revolvers and the man who shot them.

Below are a few of the covers from .44 Western Magazine.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any information regarding which artist or artists were responsible for these covers.

 

Film Review: A Thief In The Night (dir by Donald W. Thompson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1972, A Thief In The Night is one of the most successful independent films ever made.

Shot in Iowa with a largely amateur cast, A Thief In The Night was made for a budget of $68,000.  During the first decade of its release, it made a profit of 4.2 million dollars.  Interestingly enough, the film itself rarely played in theaters and the majority of the money came from donations made by the members of the audience.  Consider that.  Audiences had the opportunity to watch the movie for free and still chose to pay.  People were either extremely generous in the 70s or the film’s target audience really responded to it.

In a 1989 interview, the film’s producer estimated that the film had been seen by 100 million people.  By the time the 2010s rolled around, that number had grown to 300 million.  Though the film never got much attention from the mainstream press, it was a big enough success to spawn three sequels and to also inspire countless other films that dealt with the same themes as this film.

As for what the film’s about, it opens with Patty (played by Patty Dunning) waking up and discovering that her husband has disappeared.  (His razor is sitting in the sink, almost as if he had been holding it before suddenly vanishing into thin air.)  Over the radio, she hears reports that people all over the world have disappeared!  Religious scholars are saying that perhaps the rapture has happened.  Interestingly, those religious scholars have apparently been left behind and …. wait a minute!  Patty’s been left behind too!

The first half of the film is full of flashbacks to Patty’s childhood and how she first met and married Jim Wright (Mike Niday).  Interestingly enough, the flashbacks don’t necessarily play out in chronological order, which gives the entire first half of the film a stream-of-consciousness feel.  We also get a somewhat random scene of Jim getting bitten by what appears to be a cobra.  It feels like one of those things where you simply don’t turn down the chance to put a cobra in your film.  If you’ve got a snake, you use it.  And the first half of the film actually works surprising well.  The low-budget and the random flashbacks and even the rather amateurish acting make the entire film feel like something of a fever dream.

During the second half of the film, the UN takes over the world and everyone is required to get the mark of the beast.  Patty doesn’t want to get the mark but it turns out that those without the mark can’t shop for food or buy the latest fashions.  Eventually, soldiers start to round up the unmarked and, before you know it, Patty is being chased through Des Moines by not only the United Nations but also by all of her friends, who now have the mark.  Eventually, Patty ends up on a bridge with only two possible options.  Either get the mark or jump.  As opposed to the unconventional first half of the film, the second half is basically one long chase scene and it does get a bit repetitive after a while.  That said, it’s kind of interesting to see someone being chased through downtown Des Moines as opposed to downtown New York or Los Angeles.

A Thief In The Night is undeniably crude and it gets a bit heavy on the preaching.  Patty is continually told that it’s not good enough to just be a Christian.  She has to be a super Christian or she’ll get left behind.  I would think that would make anyone either extremely neurotic or extremely cynical.  But if you can overlook the film’s preachiness, it’s a crudely effective in a dream-like way.  You can tell that the filmmakers must have spent some time at the drive-in and that maybe they watched Night of the Living Dead when they weren’t in church because they whole film is full of skewed camera angles and abrupt jump cuts with a good deal of emphasis being put on Patty’s newly isolated status.  In more ways than one, the film was obviously designed to scare the Hell out of its target audience.

A Thief in the Night works best when viewed as being a filmed fever dream.  It’s crude but effective.

“Trolls : 1 Trip 2 Many” May — Or May Not — Be Exactly That

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)'s avatarRyan C.'s Four Color Apocalypse

Hmmm — this is a strange situation. Usually I’ll let you know if you should buy and/or read a comic or not, but when it comes to Michael Aushenker’s latest self-published number, Trolls : 1 Trip 2 Many — the third installment of his ongoing Trolls series (just look, the numbers in the title even add up!) — I might just have to give it a grade of “I” for incomplete.

I think, at any rate. It’s hard to say. And how successful this particular comic may be really does depend on what happens next — or not. Are you confused yet? Because there’s really no reason why you wouldn’t be.

Let me try to break it down — this comic starts off with our erstwhile protagonists, lovable fuck-ups Edward and Mayward, in a typically ridiculous situation : they’re being rocketed to Mars on the “Spaced X” probe owned by billionaire…

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