I’ve discussed the Max Roseberg/Milton Subotsky Amicus horror anthologies before on this blog. All are good, if uneven, little entries in the genre, and FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE is no exception. This was the last of the Amicus tales of terror, a quartet of creepiness based on the work of British horror writer R. Chetwynd-Hayes. I’ll admit I’m not familiar with Mr. Cheywynd-Hayes’s work, so I couldn’t tell you if the movie’s faithful to it or not. I can tell you FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE is about 50/50 in the chills department.
An all-star British cast gives it a game try, though. The segments are linked by horror icon Peter Cushing , looking rather gaunter than usual as the proprietor of Temptations Ltd., an antique shop which serves to set the stories in motion. Unfortunately, the part is a waste of Cushing’s talent; I could see him in any of…
If you haven’t ever heard of Loyalty Day before … well, then you’re probably a subversive or something. Loyalty Day has been a real holiday since 1955. That was when President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed May 1st to be Loyalty Day. (I’m going to guess that this was done largely to provide an alternative to International Workers Day or Communist New Year or whatever May Day was known as back then.) The official statutory definition reads as follows:
(a) Designation.— May 1 is Loyalty Day.(b) Purpose.— Loyalty Day is a special day for the reaffirmation of loyalty to the United States and for the recognition of the heritage of American freedom.(c) Proclamation.— The President is requested to issue a proclamation—
(1) calling on United States Government officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on Loyalty Day; and
(2) inviting the people of the United States to observe Loyalty Day with appropriate ceremonies in schools and other suitable places.
So, in honor of Loyalty Day, here’s a short film from 1972. It’s called Patriotism and it was apparently made to teach school children what it meant to be a patriot. Apparently, it means working as a crossing guard and wearing a vaguely fascist-looking vest while doing so. It also means keeping an eye out for weeds and trash in your neighborhood. My favorite part of this film is when the kid spots the turned over garbage can and gets a look of disgust on his face. You can just tell he’s thinking, “Those goddamn hippies.”
(For the record, that’s what I always think whenever I can’t find a pen at work.)
Personally, I agree that making a good neighborhood is the first step in making a good country so I definitely applaud the kids for taking the time to clean their neighborhood up. Still, I have to wonder: where are the adults? How many grown ups walked past the overturned trash can and just ignored it? Perhaps all the adults in the neighborhood were so disillusioned by George McGovern dumping Tom Eagleton as his running mate that they just gave up on life. Who knows? 1972 was apparently a pretty traumatic year for some people. Myself, I just find it amusing that there was a politician named McGovern. That’s like a seminarian named McClergy.
Speaking of adults, this short film was hosted by actor Bob Crane, who would be murdered six years later and whose life would serve as the basis for a rather depressing movie called Auto Focus.
Anyway, in the immortal words of Team America: World Police, “America! Fuck yeah!” Let’s make this the best Loyalty Day ever!
Last night, I turned over to the Lifetime Movie Network and watched the latest Lifetime movie, Fiance Killer!
Why Was I Watching It?
It was on Lifetime! By now, y’all should know that I’ll watch anything that’s on Lifetime!
What Was It About?
So, Cameron (Felisha Cooper) is about to be very, very rich. As soon as she turns 25, she’ll be coming into a huge inheritance! On top of that, Cameron also has a new boyfriend. His name is Brent (Adam Huss) and he runs a non-profit! Or, at least, that’s what he says. Cameron’s mother (Kari Wuhrer) doesn’t trust him. In fact, she does a background check on him and comes away convinced that Brent is only interesting in Cameron’s money. Of course, Cameron doesn’t believe that. In fact, Cameron is so offended by her mother’s paranoia that she elopes with Brent!
Except, of course, mom is right. Brent is after Cameron’s money. Of course, Brent doesn’t really have it in him to commit murder. However, his girlfriend, Lexi (Jean Louise O’Sullivan), definitely does…
What Worked?
Lexi is one of my favorite characters of all time! Seriously, she must have undergone ninja training at some point because she could seriously just pop up anywhere. Someone gets in a car and there’s Lexi in the back seat! Someone goes down to the kitchen and there’s Lexi hiding behind the refrigerator. My favorite thing about Lexi was that, for all of the intricate plotting that went into her scheme, she didn’t really seem to care whether it actually worked or not. Lexi was an agent of pure chaos, less a schemer and more a revolutionary. Jean Louise O’Sullivan had a lot of fun with the role.
What Did Not Work?
Obviously, with any Lifetime film, you’re going to have to suspend your disbelief to a certain extent but seriously, Cameron was occasionally too naive to be believed. Maybe if she had been 18, I could have bought that she wouldn’t be able to see through Brent and his schemes. But, by the time you turn 25, you really should know better.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
Obviously, it would have been nice if I could have related to Cameron, who was a very nice person and always tried to do the best for everyone. But, honestly, I could never do the whole eloping thing. When I do get married, it’s going to be a huge wedding and I’m going to expect a lot of expensive gifts. As well, I couldn’t ever marry someone who worked for a “non-profit” because bragging about working for a company that doesn’t make a profit just seems strange to me.
So, that pretty much left with me with little choice but to relate to Lexi. Unfortunately, Lexi killed people and I’m not really into that either. However, I do enjoy making a scene so I guess Lexi and I had that in common.
Lessons Learned
I should sign up for ninja training as soon as possible. Admittedly, I might not be a very good ninja and I’m not really sure if there’s much ninja work available where I live but I’d still love to learn how to just pop up anywhere whenever I wanted to. That seems like that could be a valuable skill to have.
For those who recognize the name, it’s probably because they’ve either read a book or seen a film that portrayed him as being the tyrannical captain of the HMS Bounty. In 1787, William Bligh and the Bounty set off on a mission to Tahiti. When, after ten months at sea, the Bounty arrived in Tahiti, the crew immediately fell in love with the relaxed pleasures of island life. When Bligh ordered them to leave Tahiti and continue with their mission, his own second-in-command led a mutiny. Bligh and the few men who remained loyal to him were set adrift in a lifeboat while Christian and the mutineers eventually ended up settling on Pitcairn Island. Against impossible odds, Bligh managed to make it back to civilization, where he faced both a court-martial and a future of being portrayed as a villain.
Though most historians agree that Bligh was a knowledgeable and talented (if strict) captain and that the mutiny had more to do with Christian’s desire to remain in Tahiti than Bligh’s treatment of the crew, most adaptations of what happened on the Bounty have laid the blame for the mutiny squarely at Bligh’s feet. Personally, I think it has to do with the names of the people involved. William Bligh just sounds evil, in much the same way that the name Fletcher Christian immediately brings to mind images of heroism. In 1935’s Mutiny On The Bounty, Charles Laughton portrayed Bligh as being a viscous sadist. In 1962’s Mutiny in the Bounty, Trevor Howard portrayed Bligh as being an overly ambitious martinet, though ultimately Howard was overshadowed by Marlon Brando, who gave a bizarrely mannered performance in the role Christian.
In fact, it would seem that there’s only one film that’s willing to give William Bligh the benefit of the doubt. That film is 1984’s The Bounty.
The Bounty opens with Bligh (played by Anthony Hopkins) facing a court-martial for losing the Bounty. That the admiral presiding over Bligh’s court-martial is played by Laurence Olivier is significant for two reasons. Olivier’s stately and distinguished presence lets us know that the mutiny was viewed as being an affront to British society but it also reminds us that Hopkins began his career as Olivier’s protegé. Much as how William Bligh was a star of the British navy, Hopkins was (and is) a star of British stage and screen. One gets the feeling the scene isn’t just about the admiral judging Bligh. It was also about Olivier judging Hopkins as the latter played a role that had already been made famous by two other great British thespians, Charles Laughton and Trevor Howard.
By opening with Bligh on trial, The Bounty allows itself to be told largely through Bligh’s point of view. We watch familiar events play out from a new perspective. Once again, it takes longer than expected for Bligh and the Bounty to reach Tahiti and, once again, Bligh’s by-the-book leadership style alienates a good deal of the crew. However, this time, Bligh is not portrayed as being a villain. Instead, he’s just a rather neurotic man who is trying to do his duty under the most difficult of circumstances. Bligh knows that the crew blames him for everything that goes wrong during the voyage but he also knows that the only way their going to survive the journey is through maintaining order.
In fact, the film suggests that Bligh’s biggest mistake was promoting Fletcher Christian (Mel Gibson) to second-in-command. Christian is portrayed as being good friends with Bligh and one gets the feeling that Bligh promoted him largely so he would have someone to talk to.
The film does a good job contrasting the dank claustrophobia of the Bounty with the vibrant beauty of Tahiti. When the crew first lands, Bligh proves his diplomatic skills upon meeting with the native king. However, it quickly becomes apparent that, while Bligh views the stop in Tahiti as just being a part of the mission, the majority of the crew view it as being an escape from the dreariness of their lives in Britain. For the first time in nearly a year, the crew is allowed to enjoy life. When Bligh eventually orders the crew to leave Tahti, many of the men — including Christian — are forced to abandon their native wives.
Unfortunately for Bligh, he doesn’t understand that his crew has no desire to return to the dreariness of their old life, either on the Bounty or in the United Kingdom. Bligh’s solution to the crew’s disgruntlement is to become an even harsher disciplinarian. (Bligh is the type of captain who will order the crew to clean the ship, just to keep them busy.) However, Bligh no longer has Christian backing him. When the inevitable mutiny does occur, Bligh seems to be the only one caught by surprise.
Anthony Hopkins gives a performance that turns Bligh into a character who is, in equal amounts, both sympathetic and frustrating. Bligh means well but he’s so rigid and obsessed with his duty that he can’t even being to comprehend why his crew is so annoyed about having to leave Tahiti. Since Bligh can’t imagine ever loving anything more than sailing, it’s beyond his abilities to understand why his men are so obsessed with returning to Tahiti. Hopkins portrays Bligh as being not evil but instead, rather isolated. He knows everything about sailing but little about emotion or desire. Ironically, the same personality traits that led to him losing the Bounty are also key to his survival afterward. By enforcing discipline and emphasizing self-sacrifice, Bligh keeps both himself and the men who stayed loyal to him alive until their eventual rescue.
Interestingly, Mel Gibson portrayed Christian as being just as neurotic as Bligh. In fact, if Bligh and Christian have anything in common, it would appear to be they’re both obsessed with what the crew thinks of them. Whereas Bligh is obsessed with being respected, Christian wants to be viewed as their savior. When the mutiny finally occurs, Christian gets an almost messianic gleam in his eyes. While Christian is not portrayed as being a villain (and, indeed, The Bounty is unique in not having any cut-and-dried villains and heroes), Gibson’s portrayal is certainly far different from the heroic interpretation offered up by Clark Gable.
(The rest of the cast is full of familiar British character actors, along with a few future stars making early appearances. Both Daniel Day-Lewis and Liam Neeson appear as members of the Bounty’s crew. One remains loyal to Bligh while the other goes with Christian. Watch the movie to find out who does what!)
The Bounty is best viewed as being a character study of two men trying to survive under the most trying of conditions. Just as Bligh’s personality made both the mutiny and his survival inevitable, the film suggests that everything that made Christian a successful mutineer will also make it impossible for him to survive for long afterward. Whereas Bligh may have been a poor leader but a good diplomat, Christian proves to be just the opposite and the king of Tahiti makes clear that he has no room on his island for a bunch of mutineers who will soon have the entire British navy looking for them. Whereas Bligh makes it back to Britain, Christian and the mutineers are forced to leave Tahiti a second time and end up settling on the previously uncharted Pitcairn Island. (Of course, no one knows for sure what happened to Christian after the mutineers reached Pitcairn Island. The last surviving mutineer claimed that Christian was murdered by the natives who were already living on the island.)
The Bounty has its flaws. There are some pacing issues that keep the film from working as an adventure film and a few of the actors playing the crew aren’t quite as convincing as you might hope. (If you only saw him in this film, you would never believe that Daniel Day-Lewis is a three-time Oscar winner.) But it’s still an interesting retelling of a familiar story and it’s worth watching for the chance to see one of Anthony Hopkins’s best performances.
Dear Readers: (groaning) “There he goes again. Another history lesson!”
CRV: “B-but it’s important to put things in their proper historical context!”
DRs: (sigh) “We guess you’re right. Sorry.”
CRV: (beaming) “No problem! Now, like I was saying…”
Back in the day, every major urban city, and many smaller sized ones, had what was known as a “Red Light District”, where sex workers plied their trade. These streets were loaded with sex shops, peep shows, massage parlors, strip joints, and Triple-X movie palaces, with hookers and drug dealers hawking their wares. New York City had its Times Square/42nd Street area, Boston had The Combat Zone near Chinatown, and Montreal the infamous St. Catherine Street. For Los Angeles, the action was on Sunset Boulevard, and it’s into this seedy milieu that writer/director Paul Schrader plunges George C. Scott in 1979’s HARDCORE, which isn’t about…
So, this year I am making a sincere effort to review every film that I see. I know I say that every year but this time, I really mean it.
So, in an effort to catch up, here are four quick reviews of some of the movies that I watched over the past few weeks!
Crisscross
Released: 1992
Directed by Chris Menges
Starring David Arnott, Goldie Hawn, Arliss Howard, Keith Carradine, James Gammon, Steve Buscemi
An annoying kid named Chris Cross (David Arnott) tells us the story of his life.
In the year 1969, Chris and his mother, Tracy (Goldie Hawn), are living in Key West. While the rest of the country is excitedly watching the first moon landing, Chris and Tracy are just trying to figure out how to survive day-to-day. Tracy tries to keep her son from learning that she’s working as a stripper but, not surprisingly, he eventually finds out. Chris comes across some drugs that are being smuggled into Florida and, wanting to help his mother, he decides to steal them and sell them himself. Complicating matters is the fact that the members of the drug ring (one of whom is played by Steve Buscemi) don’t want the competition. As well, Tracy is now dating Joe (Arliss Howard), who just happens to be an undercover cop. And, finally, making things even more difficult is the fact that Chris just isn’t that smart.
There are actually a lot of good things to be said about Crisscross. The film was directed by the renowned cinematographer, Chris Menges, so it looks great. Both Arliss Howard and Goldie Hawn give sympathetic performances and Keith Carradine has a great cameo as Chris’s spaced out dad. (Traumatized by his experiences in Vietnam, Chris’s Dad left his family and joined a commune.) But, as a character, Chris is almost too stupid to be believed and his overwrought narration doesn’t do the story any good. Directed and written with perhaps a less heavy hand, Crisscross could have been a really good movie but, as it is, it’s merely an interesting misfire.
The Dust Factory
Released: 2004
Directed by Eric Small
Starring Armin Mueller-Stahl, Hayden Panettiere, Ryan Kelly, Kim Myers, George de la Pena, Michael Angarano, Peter Horton
Ryan (Ryan Kelly) is a teen who stopped speaking after his father died. One day, Ryan falls off a bridge and promptly drowns. However, he’s not quite dead yet! Instead, he’s in The Dust Factory, which is apparently where you go when you’re on the verge of death. It’s a very nice place to hang out while deciding whether you want to leap into the world of the dead or return to the land of the living. Giving Ryan a tour of the Dust Factory is his grandfather (Armin Mueller-Stahl). Suggesting that maybe Ryan should just stay in the Dust Factory forever is a girl named Melanie (Hayden Panettiere). Showing up randomly and acting like a jerk is a character known as The Ringmaster (George De La Pena). Will Ryan choose death or will he return with a new zest for living life? And, even more importantly, will the fact that Ryan’s an unlikely hockey fan somehow play into the film’s climax?
The Dust Factory is the type of unabashedly sentimental and theologically confused film that just drives me crazy. This is one of those films that so indulges every possible cliché that I was shocked to discover that it wasn’t based on some obscure YA tome. I’m sure there’s some people who cry while watching this film but ultimately, it’s about as deep as Facebook meme.
Gambit
Released: 2012
Directed by Michael Hoffman
Starring Colin Firth, Cameron Diaz, Alan Rickman, Tom Courtenay, Stanley Tucci, Cloris Leachman, Togo Igawa
Harry Deane (Colin Firth) is beleaguered art collector who, for the sake of petty revenge (which, as we all know, is the best type of revenge), tries to trick the snobbish Lord Shabandar (Alan Rickman) into spending a lot of money on a fake Monet. To do this, he will have to team up with both an eccentric art forger (Tom Courtenay) and a Texas rodeo star named PJ Puznowksi (Cameron Diaz). The plan is to claim that PJ inherited the fake Monet from her grandfather who received the painting from Hermann Goering at the end of the World War II and…
Well, listen, let’s stop talking about the plot. This is one of those elaborate heist films where everyone has a silly name and an elaborate back story. It’s also one of those films where everything is overly complicated but not particularly clever. The script was written by the Coen Brothers and, if they had directed it, they would have at least brought some visual flair to the proceedings. Instead, the film was directed by Michael Hoffman and, for the most part, it falls flat. The film is watchable because of the cast but ultimately, it’s not surprising that Gambit never received a theatrical release in the States.
On a personal note, I saw Gambit while Jeff & I were in London last month. So, I’ll always have good memories of watching the movie. So I guess the best way to watch Gambit is when you’re on vacation.
In The Arms of a Killer
Released: 1992
Directed by Robert L. Collins
Starring Jaclyn Smith, John Spencer, Nina Foch, Gerald S. O’Loughlin, Sandahl Bergman, Linda Dona, Kristoffer Tabori, Michael Nouri
This is the story of two homicide detectives. Detective Vincent Cusack (John Spencer) is tough and cynical and world-weary. Detective Maria Quinn (Jaclyn Smith) is dedicated and still naive about how messy a murder investigation can be when it involves a bunch of Manhattan socialites. A reputed drug dealer is found dead during a party. Apparently, someone intentionally gave him an overdose of heroin. Detective Cusack thinks that the culprit was Dr. Brian Venible (Michael Nouri). Detective Quinn thinks that there has to be some other solution. Complicating things is that Quinn and Venible are … you guessed it … lovers! Is Quinn truly allowing herself to be held in the arms of a killer or is the murderer someone else?
This sound like it should have been a fun movie but instead, it’s all a bit dull. Nouri and Smith have next to no chemistry so you never really care whether the doctor is the killer or not. John Spencer was one of those actors who was pretty much born to play world-weary detectives but, other than his performance, this is pretty forgettable movie.
Overboard
Released: 1987
Directed by Garry Marshall
Starring Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Edward Herrmann, Katherine Helmond, Roddy McDowall, Michael G. Hagerty, Brian Price, Jared Rushton, Hector Elizondo
When a spoiled heiress named Joanne Slayton (Goldie Hawn) falls off of her luxury yacht, no one seems to care. Even when her husband, Grant (Edward Herrmann), discovers that Joanne was rescued by a garbage boat and that she now has amnesia, he denies knowing who she is. Instead, he takes off with the boat and proceeds to have a good time. The servants (led by Roddy McDowall) who Joanne spent years terrorizing are happy to be away from her. In fact, the only person who does care about Joanne is Dean Proffitt (Kurt Russell). When Dean sees a news report about a woman suffering from amnesia, he heads over to the hospital and declares that Joanne is his wife, Annie.
Convinced that she is Annie, Joanne returns with Dean to his messy house and his four, unruly sons. At first, Dean says that his plan is merely to have Joanne work off some money that she owes him. (Before getting amnesia, Joanne refused to pay Dean for some work he did on her boat.) But soon, Joanne bonds with Dean’s children and she and Dean start to fall in love. However, as both Grant and Dean are about to learn, neither parties nor deception can go on forever…
This is one of those films that’s pretty much saved by movie star charisma. The plot itself is extremely problematic and just about everything that Kurt Russell does in this movie would land him in prison in real life. However, Russell and Goldie Hawn are such a likable couple that the film come close to overcoming its rather creepy premise. Both Russell and Hawn radiate so much charm in this movie that they can make even the stalest of jokes tolerable and it’s always enjoyable to watch Roddy McDowall get snarky. File this one under “Kurt Russell Can Get Away With Almost Anything.”
A remake of Overboard, with the genders swapped, is set to be released in early May.
Shy People
Released: 1987
Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky
Starring Jill Clayburgh, Barbara Hershey, Martha Plimpton, Merritt Butrick, John Philbin, Don Swayze, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Mare Winningham
Diana Sullivan (Jill Clayburgh) is a writer for Cosmopolitan and she’s got a problem! It turns out that her teenager daughter, Grace (Martha Plimpton), is skipping school and snorting cocaine! OH MY GOD! (And, to think, I thought I was a rebel just because I used to skip Algebra so I could go down to Target and shoplift eyeliner!) Diana knows that she has to do something but what!?
Diana’s solution is to get Grace out of New York. It turns out that Diana has got some distant relatives living in Louisiana bayou. After Cosmo commissions her to write a story about them, Diana grabs Grace and the head down south!
(Because if there’s anything that the readers of Cosmo are going to be interested in, it’s white trash bayou dwellers…)
The only problem is that Ruth (Barbara Hershey) doesn’t want to be interviewed and she’s not particularly happy when Diana and Grace show up. Ruth and her four sons live in the bayous. Three of the sons do whatever Ruth tells them to do. The fourth son is often disobedient so he’s been locked up in a barn. Diana, of course, cannot understand why her relatives aren’t impressed whenever she mentions that she writes for Cosmo. Meanwhile, Grace introduces her cousins to cocaine, which causes them to go crazy. “She’s got some strange white powder!” one of them declares.
So, this is a weird film. On the one hand, you have an immensely talented actress like Jill Clayburgh giving one of the worst performances in cinematic history. (In Clayburgh’s defense, Diana is such a poorly written character that I doubt any actress could have made her in any way believable.) On the other hand, you have Barbara Hershey giving one of the best. As played by Hershey, Ruth is a character who viewers will both fear and admire. Ruth has both the inner strength to survive in the bayou and the type of unsentimental personality that lets you know that you don’t want to cross her. I think we’re supposed to feel that both Diana and Ruth have much to learn from each other but Diana is such an annoying character that you spend most of the movie wishing she would just go away and leave Ruth alone. In the thankless role of Grace, Martha Plimpton brings more depth to the role than was probably present in the script and Don Swayze has a few memorable moments as one of Ruth’s sons. Shy People is full of flaws and never really works as a drama but I’d still recommend watching it for Hershey and Plimpton.
Tabloid journalism has been around far longer than the cable “news” channels of today, with their 24 hour a day barrage of nonstop sleazy scandals and “fake news”. A circulation war between publishers Joseph Pulitzer (New York World) and William Randolph Hearst (New York Journal) in the 1890’s, filled with sensationalized headlines and mucho muckraking, gave birth to the term “Yellow Journalism”, derived from Richard Outcault’s guttersnipe character The Yellow Kid in his comic strip Hogan’s Alley, which appeared in both papers. This legacy of dirt-digging and gossip-mongering continued through the decades in supermarket rags like The National Enquirer and World Weekly News, leading us to where we are today with the so-called “mainstream media” stretching credibility to the max and bogus Internet click-bait sites abounding. All of which leads me to FIVE STAR FINAL, a Pre-Code drama about headhunting for headlines starring Edward G…
Today is 4.26, also known as “Alien Day”, and named after the planet in James Cameron’s Aliens (LV-426 / Acheron). It’s a celebration of the entire Alien Franchise, but I’m only focused on the first film as I finally saw it in the theatre in 2017.
This isn’t so much a review as it’s just my history with Ridley Scott’s Alien. You can find actual reviews all over the internet, and I know very few people who didn’t enjoy the movie. This piece assumes you’ve seen the film and are familiar with it. There are also spoilers within, though with a nearly 40 year old film, I’m not sure if it can be classified as such.
When I was little, my older brother and I shared a room in my grandmother’s house. Below our bunk beds was a open space that contained a set of boxes and each box contained a collection of our toys – board games, knick knacks, things like that. If you needed something, you went under the bed to fetch it. Only thing is, I always reached into those boxes with my eyes closed.
I have a vague memory of when my older brother received 3 toys that affected the way I looked at things. The first was a board game for the movie Alien. On it, you had a map of the Nostromo, about 3 Astronaut pieces and one for the Alien. I can’t recall the exact nature of how it was played, but I do remember it having to do with finding a way to reach the Narcissus – the escape ship – before the Alien reached your character. Each player also had their own Alien they could use to hunt the other characters before they could escape.
The Alien Board Game. Fox marketed toys for Alien (an R rated film), possibly fearing the mistake they made with Star Wars.
The second was a movie viewer. I had to do some hunting around the net to find it, and thanks to The Toy Box, I was able to locate one. These viewers (made by Fisher Price and by Kenner) were really popular, especially after the Star Wars boom. You loaded it with a tape and it would play out a scene. For the Alien tape my brother had, it would play out the egg opening face hugger jump sequence. I rewound that too many times, and perhaps it’s the reason I’m afraid of spiders. I don’t really know for sure. The tape used below goes through most of the film’s plot, so if you haven’t watched the film by now, consider yourself spoiled.
The last toy was the reason I never went into the toy boxes. My brother owned an 18 Inch tall Alien figure, complete with a glow in the dark headpiece and a functional second set of teeth. It was one of the scariest things I’d seen as a kid.
All of this was thanks in part to Star Wars. With the mistake Fox made in giving the merchandising rights for Star Wars to Lucas and Lucasfilm, Ltd., they missed out a major chunk of revenue. So when Alien was set to launch 2 years later, they greenlit an entire toy line for the film, even though the movie was rated “R” and the toys demographic couldn’t really see the movie without parental supervision. For the time, that was a pretty amazing thing.
Back in the early 1980s, my father invited my older brother and I to his place to see Alien. I was about six or seven years old at the time, with my brother a few years older. My parents worked nights, so we pretty much lived with my grandmother. He was always into movies and he acquired a RCA Videodisc Player, along with that film and First Blood. Although I was sick, I still went and watched it. I vomited twice during the playthrough, but it was so worth it.
I’d come to find out years later from my Mom that my Dad really didn’t need to invite us. He was just too scared of the movie to watch it alone. According to family legend, Alien was a date movie for my parents, and halfway into the film, my Dad (along with most guys, I’ve heard), was using my Mom as a shield. Mind you, this was a guy who kept multiple firearms in the house and knew how to use them.
Alien was the brainchild of Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett. Having worked on Dark Star for John Carpenter, O’Bannon wanted to create another space film, but with a more serious tone. They came up with the story, inspired by 1958’s B-movie classic It! The Terror From Outer Space and decided to roll with it. The feel for their story would be more like a set of space truckers hauling ore and picking up a stowaway space possum in their cargo.
And that’s Alien in a nutshell. A crew of seven astronauts heading towards Earth in their mining vessel are awakened from hyper sleep when their spaceship – The Nostromo – picks up a distress signal from a nearby planetoid. They are given orders to investigate the signal, but when one of them is incapacitated by an alien life form, it brings trouble to the rest of the crew once they all return to the ship. Can they survive?
The casting for Alien is damn near flawless. There isn’t a single person that feels out of place. The characterization for everyone is straightforward, from the wisecracking pair of Harry Dean Stanton and Yaphet Kotto to the very systematic Ian Holm as the Nostromo’s Science Division expert, it doesn’t take long for one to get to know them or at least wonder if they’ll make it through the story unscathed. Whether it’s Veronica Cartwright’s Lambert, who is nervous and jittery mid way through the film (and with good reason) or Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley who sees the potential threat before it gets out of hand, everyone here plays their part well.
Ridley Scott was a young director brought on board to create the film. Now, normally, this is where the movie would be made and that really would be that. Scott’s visit to an art gallery in Paris would change the make up of the movie, according to the behind the scenes documentary. What set Alien aside from other space/horror fanfare were the influences of two major artists at the time, Jean Giraud and H.R. Giger.
Concept Art by Jean Giraud, a.k.a. Moebius.
Having seen his work in France, Ridley Scott felt that Giger had to be brought on board. Giger agreed to use some of his designs for the film and actually helped create the entire Space Jockey set. For the late 1970s, Giger’s look – elongated bones with sexual undertones – had to be a shock to audiences. Giraud, known to many fans as Moebius, was one of the greatest illustrators to have lived. Giraud was previously brought on to work on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s adaptation of Dune, but after that fell through, he ended up working with Scott for a bit, mainly coming up with the designs for the suits in the Nostromo. Together, both their designs would be used to bring something entirely new to audiences at the time. Also on hand was Carlo Rambaldi (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Dune), who helped design the Alien’s mouth and motor features. In the effects department, Dennis Ayling, Nick Allder, and even Batman’s Anton Furst had a hand in setting the atmosphere for the Nostromo and LV-426. The result is a sense of claustrophobia. The Nostromo’s hallways aren’t the immaculate ones you’d find on board the Enterprise or the roomy ones on the Millennium Falcon. They’re tight, dimly lit with an obvious function over form factor to them. It’s a space rig.
With older monster films, the creature usually is just one form. Giger’s Alien had three distinct forms used, which has always made me curious for the initial audience reactions. The first encounter is with a the Facehugger, an arachnid like creature with a tail that restricts the breathing of its potential victim. Add to this the notion that it uses molecular acid for blood. How do you even fight such a thing? Imagine thinking this is the “big bad” you’re going to see throughout the movie. Scott was particular in having the advertising reference as little as it could about the Alien itself (though the toy line kind of ruined that).
Just when you’re comfortable with the possiblity of facehuggers crawling around, the movie switches gears and introduces us to the Chestburster, a phallic snake of a creature (thanks again to Giger). . The scene was fantastic. Although the cast was told what was supposed to happen with Kane (John Hurt), they weren’t completely filled in on how it was supposed to occur. It was a two part process. The first involved trying to hold down Kane, and the second was setup with John Hurt in the table to have the “push through”. So, when Kane lets out that one big scream, everyone’s reactions are real. You can see that both Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Dallas (Tom Skerritt) are completely stunned. Veronica Cartwright (and her character Lambert) caught the worst of all this and also had the best reaction. When the Chestburster appears, the effects blood pumps caught Cartwright full on and it was all kept on film. I’m told that the scene in its initial run had people curling in their seats, standing to move to the back of the theatre (for some distance) or walking out altogether. What I wouldn’t give for a Time Travelling DeLorean and an Opening Night movie ticket to that.
So now, there’s a snake running loose on the ship. The film spares very little time before our newborn becomes an adult. Mostly sleek and skeletal, the adult Alien is the stuff of nightmares, but thanks to Scott, and Cinematographer Derek Vanlint, we don’t see much of the Alien until the last act of the movie. Like the Batman, we only see it pounce, and that’s a testament both to the lighting used and the editing of shots. Scott’s close-ups on the Alien’s mouth and forehead doesn’t give anyone enough time to fully make out what it is entirely. Credit also goes to Bolaji Badejo, who portrayed the Alien. At 6’10”, Badejo was perfect for the creature sense of stature and movement, particularly with Harry Dean Stanton’s Brett having to stare up at him in shock.
The production wasn’t without an issue here or there. Giraud’s suits – which had a samurai feel to them – had problems with the ventilation, so some of the actors nearly experienced exhaustion while working in them. This was later remedied, of course.
Alien remains one of Jerry Goldsmith’s best scores, though it’s also a simple one. The music isn’t so much horrific as it just classical. The music in Alien isn’t really used to imply any kind of horror (save for perhaps one sequence), but perhaps that’s a good thing. The music lets the movie do the talking instead of throwing zingers. There’s very little I can say about the score outside of that.
Alien would go on to spawn seven extra films, though personally, only James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) and Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012) are the two worth seeing. Alien 3 (1992) is beautiful, thanks to David Fincher and Cinematographer Alex Thomson, but also kind of damaged the timeline.
So, turn out the lights, settle in with the food of your choice and enjoy Alien Day.
The Space Jockey. Much of Giger’s designs looked like bone.
* – A thank you goes out to Kevin Carr of Fat Guys At the Movies. He once featured It! The Terror From Outer Space years ago during the weekend Live Tweets he used to host. It was a treat to watch.
Long before Marvel Studios convinced everyone in Hollywood that shared cinematic universes were the way of the future, Toho gave the world Destroy All Monsters!
First released in 1968, Destroy All Monsters featured almost every monster that every destroyed Tokyo. As you can see in the picture below, this was a collection like no other. Long before the Avengers, it was all about … The Monsters!
Check out the cast of Destroy All Monsters:
Some of these monsters are more identifiable than others. Everyone knows Godzilla and I imagine that the majority of our readers can identify both Rodan and Mothra (who spends most of Destroy All Monsters in her larval form). And, of course, that’s everyone’s favorite three-headed dragon, King Ghidorah, hovering in the sky.
As for the rest of the cast, they may be lesser monsters but, just like Ant-Man and the Falcon, they all have a role to play. Up at the front of the group is Minilla, who is Godzilla’s bastard son. Walking next to Godzilla is Baragon, who was the antagonist in Frankenstein Conquers The World. The big snake is Manda, who previously appeared in a non-Godzilla film called Atragon. The spiky armadillo is Anguirus from Godzilla Rides Again and directly behind him is Gorosaurus, who previously appeared in King Kong Escapes. The big spider is Kumonga, who previously appeared in Son of Godzilla and apparently no longer wants to eat Minilla. Meanwhile, up in the air with Rodan and Ghidorah, you’ve got Varan the Unbelievablefrom the film of the same name.
When Destroy All Monsters opens, all of these monsters (with the exception of Ghidorah) have been trapped on Monster Island. Somehow, despite the fact that they’ve all tried to kill each other in the past, they’re now getting along just fine. There’s a research station located underneath the island, where scientists can both study the monsters and keep them from escaping. It seems like a great situation for everyone! The monsters get a home of their own and the humans don’t have to keep rebuilding their cities.
But then, one day, all communication with Monster Island is lost and the monsters themselves start to pop up all over the world. Rodan destroys Moscow. Mothra takes out Beijing. Gorosaurus totally destroys Paris. Why doesn’t America step up to save the rest of the world? Well, they’ve got problems of their own. Just check out who has surfaced in New York harbor…
After years of exclusively destroying Tokyo, Godzilla has finally decided to visit New York City! Of course, Godzilla ends up wrecking the place. He specifically takes out the United Nations and wins the hearts of libertarians everywhere.
It turns out that, once again, a bunch of aliens have invaded Earth and are using mind control signals to force the monsters to attack humanity. (After you watch enough Godzilla movies, you come to understand that this happens pretty regularly.) While a team of humans try to figure out how to disrupt the control signals, the monsters are busy destroying every major city that they come across.
However, as the lead human points out, the monsters instinctively know who they’re “real enemy” is and it’s only a matter of time until they turn on the aliens. The aliens, however, have a Plan B. And, like so many intergalactic schemes of the past, that Plan B involves summoning King Ghidorah.
The appeal of King Ghidorah is obvious. He’s got those big wings and those three heads and he breathes fire and he just looks like the type of monster that you would want on your side. But, at the same time, I really do have to question the wisdom of continually trying to use Ghidorah to defeat Godzilla. Ghidorah and Godzilla fought a countless number of times and never once did Ghidorah actually win. He often put up a fairly impressive fight and he usually managed to knock around Godzilla’s friends but, repeatedly, Ghidorah proved to be totally ineffective when it came to actually defeating or even slowing down Godzilla.
That said, Destroy All Monsters just wouldn’t be the same without King Ghidorah. Reportedly, this was originally envisioned as being the final Godzilla film and it’s kind of nice to see Godzilla hanging out with all of the other monsters. Ghidorah and Godzilla may not have been friends but Ghidorah is still as important a part of Godzilla’s life as Rodan and Mothra.
Like most of the Godzilla films of the late 60s and early 70s, Destroy All Monsters spends way too much time on its human characters but, even if there isn’t as much as you might want, the rubber monster mayhem is still enjoyably silly and fun to watch. All the monsters get together and play their role in saving the world. Call it Godzilla: Infinity Wars.
From the very first few scenes of the 1985 film, The Mean Season, one thing is abundantly clear. People are dying in Florida.
In itself, that’s probably not a shock. Death is a part of life, after all. Add to that, the majority of The Mean Season takes place in Miami, the seventh most populous area of the United States. It makes sense that the more people you have living in one area, the more people are also going to end up dead. That’s just the way things work.
Still, Malcolm Anderson is getting tired of all the death. Played by a youngish and sexy Kurt Russell, Malcolm’s a journalist. He covers the crime beat for the Miami Herald. He spends all day reporting on death and violence and he’s finally reached the point where he’s burned out. He and his girlfriend, a teacher named Christine (Mariel Hemingway), are even planning on moving to Colorado. Malcolm says that he could be very happy working at a small town newspaper. His editor (Richard Masur) doesn’t believe him and, quite frankly, neither do we. Malcolm may say that he wants peace and quiet but it’s hard not to feel as if he’s fooling himself.
One day, Malcolm gets a phone call. The voice on the other line (which belongs to character actor Richard Jordan) is deceptively calm. The caller explains that he’s a fan of Malcolm’s work. The caller also claims to be responsible for a series of murders that have recently taken place. At first, Malcolm is skeptical. After all, he gets calls from crazy people all the time. That’s one reason why he wants to leave Miami, after all. But then the caller starts to give Malcolm details about the crimes, details that haven’t been released to general public…
The killings continue and, after every murder, the caller contacts Malcolm. Soon, Malcolm is appearing on the national news, giving carefully calculated interviews about what it’s like to be a celebrity. Malcolm is soon on the front page of all the papers. Malcolm’s happy. His editor is happy. But you know who isn’t happy? The killer. He didn’t go to all the trouble to kill those people just so Malcolm could get famous off of his hard work! Soon, the killer is no longer content to just call Malcolm. Now, he wants to meet face-to-face and maybe even get to know Christine as well…
The Mean Season is one of those movies that starts out well but then falls apart towards the end. It’s not a spoiler to tell you that the killer eventually ends up kidnapping Christine. You probably figured out that was going to happen as soon as I told you that Malcolm had a girlfriend. (It doesn’t help that Christine is such an underwritten character that it feels like the only reason she was put in the film was so she could be used for one gratuitous nude scene and then get kidnapped.) Once the killer kidnaps her, he goes from being a genuinely intriguing menace to just being a typical and overly verbose movie psycho.
That’s a shame because the first half of The Mean Season is really quite good. The film makes excellent use of its locations, capturing the humid atmosphere of Florida in the summer. As the killer, Richard Jordan alternates between being coldly calculating and surprisingly vulnerable without missing a beat. (Interestingly, he appears to be personally hurt when he realizes that Malcolm doesn’t consider him to be a friend.) Not surprisingly, Kurt Russell is likable as the conflicted Malcolm but his best moments are the ones where he suggests that Malcolm has become so addicted to fame that he’s almost hoping that the killer strikes again. As the two homicide detectives who are assigned to keep an eye on Malcolm, both Richard Bradford and Andy Garcia are perfectly cast. A scene where Bradford tries to comfort a child who accidentally gets in the middle of the search for the killer is the best in the film. “We’re just looking for the bad guys,” he tell the traumatized child. It’s small moments like this that elevates The Mean Season above the typical mid-80s serial killer film.
Seen today, The Mean Season — with its emphasis on newspapers — feels like a historical artifact. If the film were made today, Russell would definitely work for either a 24-hour cable news channel or an online news site. It actually would be interesting to see this story updated and retold for the age of clickbait. Somebody needs to get on that and, while they’re at it, come up with the type of ending that an otherwise intriguing story like this deserves.
Today is 4.26, also known as “Alien Day”, and named after the planet in James Cameron’s Aliens (LV-426 / Acheron). It’s a celebration of the entire Alien Franchise, but I’m only focused on the first film as I finally saw it in the theatre in 2017.
Through the Shattered Lens