Any time that we have a new music video from The Chemical Brothers is a time to celebrate. From the video’s YouTube description, here’s what Tom Rowlands has to say about the song: “The Darkness That You Fear is a hopeful piece of music. When we found the combination of the different voices worked set to the flow of the music it made us feel optimistic, like it was something we wanted to share.”
And here’s what director Ruffmercy had to say about the song (also taken from the video’s YouTube description): ““When I first heard the song I immediately connected with the theme and the overall positive vibe. New government rules for relaxing lockdown had been announced and combined with the sun shining, it left me feeling positive about the forthcoming summer. It also triggered a strong sense of nostalgia that led to me going back to look for visual inspiration from the period in time when I first discovered The Chemical Brothers in the mid ’90’s. The video combines archive rave footage from the mid to late 90’s with hand painted Super 8 film textures and hand drawn animation. I love using colour to create chaos and evoke emotions and this was the perfect project to do that.”
Footage of viewers doing what they had to do to make it through last night’s Oscar ceremony
This morning, I woke up and I thought about the cult of Steven Soderbergh.
Soderbergh is a filmmaker who is fervently adored by some film and cultural critics. They eagerly devour his every thought. They examine his annual list of the things that he watched during the year with the intensity of theological scholars studying an ancient-but-just-discovered religious text. The Cult of Soderbergh reacts with excitement whenever it’s announced that Soderbergh has secretly filmed an improvised comedy on his phone and that he’ll be releasing it on HBOMax. The fact that the movie itself will probably turn out to be a self-indulgent mess never really seems to concern them.
Don’t get me wrong. Steven Soderbergh has directed some very good movies. There are quite a few Soderbergh films — Out of the Past, The Girlfriend Experience, The Informant!, Logan Lucky, Magic Mike — that I really, really like. However, Soderbergh has directed and otherwise been involved with some truly mediocre films as well, films that would probably be totally forgotten if not for the fact of his involvement. Even his worst films tend to get good initial reviews, if just because people tend to assume that anything Soderbergh directs has to be good even when it’s not. But, in retrospect, many of his films are stylish and ultimately empty. Haywire is a mess. The Laundromat was self-indulgent and pretentious. Let Them All Talk was so dull that it felt as if it was specifically made to troll the type of people who proudly proclaim that they will watch Meryl Streep in anything. Contagion may have predicted a pandemic but that doesn’t make it any less of a drag to sit through. When Steven Soderbergh is good, he’s very good. When he’s bad, he’s incredibly bad. He’s one of the most frustratingly inconsistent filmmakers around. That’s something that many film fans and critics have yet to come to terms with.
It’s also why I kind of groaned a little when, last month, I read that Steven Soderbergh would be producing the Oscars this year. Everyone knows that the Oscars are struggling to stay relevant and that the ceremony needed to be jazzed up a little and, if nothing else, that seemed to be something that Soderbergh could deliver. But, even while the Cult of Soderbergh was celebrating, I was thinking about how the Oscars seemed like just the type of event that would draw out Soderbergh’s worst tendencies.
Now, at this point, I should make clear that Soderbergh did not direct last night’s ceremony. He was strictly the producer and, in fact, he was just one of three producers. That said, from the opening scene of Regina King walking through Union Station to the decision to allow the winners to ramble on for as long as they wanted (almost as if they were Meryl Streep and Candice Bergen shooting an improvised film during an ocean cruise), this definitely felt like a Steven Soderbergh production. Even more importantly, it felt like a bad Soderbergh production. This wasn’t Traffic or even Ocean’s 11. This was Solaris. This was Full Frontal. This was one of those terrible movies that he agreed to executive producer as a favor to George Clooney. This was the type of train wreck that could only have been put together by a genius who no one was willing to double guess.
We all knew that last night’s Oscars were going to be a bit different, of course. And I guess we should be glad that they didn’t make the same mistakes that the Golden Globes made. That said, the ceremony was an endurance test. Last night’s ceremony did away with a lot of the things that have been criticized about previous ceremonies but, in doing so, it only made us realize that an awards show actually does need a host. It does need a cheesy montage. It needs spectacle. It needs live performances of the nominated songs. It needs humor, even bad humor. (Glenn Close twerking after her record-setting eighth Oscar loss does not count.) And, perhaps most importantly, it needs a band that’s willing to start playing the exit music whenever a winner goes on for too long. Who didn’t want a full orchestra to drown out the Documentary Feature winners? Do we really need a filibuster from someone who probably had sex with an octopus? That’s what the Senate’s for.
As I watched the ceremony, I thought about something one of my creative writing teachers once told me. Seriously, this is one of the most important lessons that I’ve ever learned and anyone who knows how much I hate learning anything will understand that’s high praise coming for me. If you want your reader to truly feel as if they know your characters, show. Don’t tell. Show. If you want your readers to understand that someone is good at their job, don’t just say, “She was good at her job.” Instead, write a scene that shows she’s good at her job. For the most part, last night’s ceremony eschewed showing clips of the nominated films and instead, we were provided with trivia factoids about the nominees, the type of stuff that you typically find on the imdb or Wikipedia. But hearing that someone worked in a movie theater when they were a teenager doesn’t tell us anything about why they were nominated. Last night, the lack of clips made it seem as if the Academy ashamed of the films they had nominated. They kept telling us the nominees were good but, at the same time, they refused to show us.
At least they avoided this….
Finally, there was the weird choice to move around some of the categories. It’s obvious what the show’s producers — and I won’t lay the blame squarely on Soderbergh because there were two other credited producers on the show — were trying to do. They assumed Chadwick Boseman would win best actor. They assumed it would be a huge emotional moment, the 21st century’s equivalent of Judy Garland introducing herself as “Mrs. Norman Maine” in the 1954 version of A Star is Born. And so, they moved the categories around.
Chloe Zhao, only the second woman in 93 years to win Best Director
As a result, Chloe Zhao won Best Director in the middle of the show. Zhao is only the second woman to win best director and the first woman of color. It should have been a great Oscar moment but instead, it was just randomly tossed in there, with no build-up or anything else. Best Picture, which is traditionally the joyous end of the ceremony, was moved so that the final award could go to Chadwick Boseman. Of course, that didn’t happen. The final award went to Anthony Hopkins for The Father. When presenting the award, Joaquin Phoenix read the name of the winner so quickly that it actually took a few minutes for me to realize that Hopkins had won. Phoenix read the name and the end credits rolled so quickly that you got the feeling someone in the control room panicked. It was an odd moment. Obviously, Hopkins couldn’t come to L.A. for the ceremony but he was also apparently so convinced that Boseman was going to win that he didn’t even bother to stay up for the ceremony. (According to People Magazine, he was asleep when his name was called. Actually, that was true for a lot of people in America as well.)
It was an anti-climatic end to the ceremony but, putting aside the question of who should have won best actor, it was hard not to feel some schadenfreude. The show’s producers basically messed up the show’s entire momentum for a big moment that they assumed was going to happen and then it didn’t. They got a bit too clever for their own good. As more than one person pointed out on twitter, last night was proof that the producers do not know, ahead of time, who is going to win. I know some would say that it’s easy to be critical in hindsight but that if Boseman had won last night, we would be talking about what a moving moment it was. Yes, we would but it would been just as moving if Boseman had won at the end of the ceremony or at the beginning of it or in the middle. Instead, the producers took a risk that only succeeded in making Boseman’s loss the defining moment of the 93rd Academy Awards.
(Incidentally, I watched The Father on Sunday, before the ceremony. Hopkins is amazing in the film and I feel he deserved the award. At the same time, I’m also very aware that Boseman was very good in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and that this was literally the Academy’s last chance to honor both his performance and his legacy. So, when I say that it’s unfortunate Boseman loss, that should not be taken as criticism of Hopkins. Nor should my praise of Hopkins be viewed as criticism of Chadwick Boseman.)
Many of the changes last night felt less like they were the result of seriously considering what would improve the ceremony and more like change for the sake of change. It felt like the people in charge basically said, “This is our show and we have to do something to show that we know better than everyone who has come before us.” There was a lot of hubris involved in last night’s ceremony. There was a definite lack of understanding of why people watch the Oscars in the first place. Watching the ceremony, I was reminded of the experiencing of listening to countless Steven Soderbergh commentary tracks where he got so caught up in discussing dry technical details that he didn’t actually bother to comment much on what it was like to actually make the film and work with the actors. (One gets the feeling that Soderbergh is more comfortable talking about lenses than about human emotions.)
I’m not going to get into an argument about what the Oscars are “supposed” to be. Obviously, there’s no set rule that says the Oscars have to take place in a giant theater or that there has to be a host or a live musical performance. But I will say that, for me, the most memorable Oscar ceremonies have been entertaining to watch, even if they did inspire a bit of snarkiness on the part of many viewers. (The snarkiness, let’s be honest, is a part of what we all look forward to.) The show’s producers were so busy patting themselves on the back for not being tacky that they failed to consider that shameless tackiness is actually one of the things that makes the Oscars the Oscars. Last night’s show was boring. And beyond everything else, that was the main problem. People want to have fun. They want to escape for a few hours. They want a little spectacle. If the Academy and Hollywood at large can’t remember how to deliver that, I don’t know how much longer this yearly tradition of watching the Oscars will continue.
About two years ago, I came across a paperback sitting on the shelf of a Goodwill in Dallas. It was the novelization of the 1978 film, Saturday Night Fever. Naturally, as soon as I saw it, I knew that I had to buy it.
Novelizations of popular films are always an interesting read. Since they’re usually based on the early drafts of a film’s screenplay, the novelization will often include extra scenes or details that may have not been apparent in the film itself. Often, things that may have been left unclear in the completed film will be cleared up in the novelization. At the same time, as a writer, I always find it interesting to see whether or not the author of a novelization can succeed at putting their own spin on familiar material.
Take the Saturday Night Fever novelization. There are two things that everyone automatically thinks about whenever they think about Saturday Night Fever as a film. They think about the Bee Gees soundtrack and they think about the scenes of John Travolta dancing. Obviously, with the novelization, there is no soundtrack. The Bee Gees aren’t even mentioned in the book. As for Travolta’s dancing, the book doesn’t go into a great deal of detail beyond acknowledging that Tony Manero is a good dancer and that everyone wants to join him out on the dance floor. But Gilmour wisely doesn’t try to describe any of Tony’s dance moves. Instead, he focuses on how Tony feels when he’s the center of attention.
Indeed, the entire novelization focuses on Tony as a character. We spend a lot of time inside of Tony’s head and it’s not always a pleasant place to explore. At the same time, we also discover that Tony isn’t quite as clueless as he sometimes comes across as being in the movie. From the start, he knows that he’s going nowhere and he knows that his friends are losers. Without Travolta’s charismatic performance or Staying Alive playing as he struts across New York, Tony often comes across as being an even bigger jerk in the novel than he does in the movie. And yet, we still sympathize with him because the novel makes clear that Tony understands, more than his family and his friends, that he’s trapped in a life that doesn’t provide much hope. Saturday Night Fever is a dark film, even with the music. In novel form, it becomes downright existential in its portrait of Brooklyn as being a Hellish prison, both a location and state-of-mind from which there is little chance of escape.
Tony’s family is a bit more abusive in the novel, which makes the film’s famous “watch the hair” dinner scene a bit more difficult to laugh at. The novelization spends a lot of time on Tony’s brother and his decision to leave the priesthood. In the movie, Frank, Jr. just kind of vanishes. In the book, it’s explained that he went to a sort of halfway house for former priests. I assume this was all stuff that was in the screenplay but cut from the actual film. One can see why it was cut but, at the same time, it was still interesting to learn a bit more about Tony and his family.
In the end, it’s not a bad novelization. At 182 pages, it’s a quick read and it not only does a good job of showing what exactly Tony is escaping from when he gets out on the dance floor but it also provides some new insight into the story. (Of course, the majority of that insight deals with Tony being a misogynistic homophobe but, then again, that’s pretty much who he was in the film too. The book just makes it even clearer, as well as showing that Tony’s prejudices are largely due to where he’s from and how he’s been raised.) It’s a good companion piece to the film and a good collector’s item. The copy that I found still had a pull-out poster of John Travolta in the middle of it!
The 2017 film, Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, takes place in the distant future. It’s been over 20 years since the constant fighting between Godzilla and a host of other giant monsters forced humanity to flee the Earth. Two different alien races offered to help the humans get rid of Godzilla but it turned out that both of them had ulterior motives and ultimately, neither one of them was a match for Godzilla. So, now, humanity is stuck floating through space, looking for another home. An entire generation has never known Earth. Meanwhile, the children who were forced to flee their home planet have grown up hating Godzilla and wondering if they’ll ever be able to return home.
One of them is Captain Haruo Sakaki. He believes that he’s come up with a way to destroy Godzilla once and for all but, in order to do so, he’s going to have to convince the ruling Central Committee to allow him (and several others) to travel back to Earth. It going to take a lot of convincing, especially since Haruo is already in jail for defying orders. But what if Haruo anonymously publishes an essay? Will that be enough to sway public opinion?
Okay, so maybe you’re getting the feeling that Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters is not a typical Godzilla film. You’re correct. This is the first animated Godzilla film. It’s also the first Godzilla film in which the key to getting people to team up against Godzilla is the publication of an anonymous essay. It’s kind of like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton singing pseudonyms to the Federalist Papers because they knew readers would be more likely to listen to Publius than to listen to Jim, the Virginia Lawyer. Godzilla: Planet of Monsters spends a lot of time on Haruo and his allies trying to convince the Central Committee to let them fight Godzilla. On the plus side, the animation is gorgeous so visually, the film holds your interest and, as someone who hates bureaucracy, I appreciated the menacing way the that Central Committee was rendered. On the negative side, this is a Godzilla movie and, in the end, that is who we’re watching to see.
That said, the film definitely deserves some credit for returning a sense of menace to Godzilla. As opposed to some of the later Toho films, where Godzilla was too obviously a man in a rubber suit to really be a credible threat, the animated Godzilla presented in Planet of the Monsters is a terrifying force of unstoppable chaos. There’s nothing cute or cuddly about this Godzilla. This Godzilla is all about mindless destruction. Like the atom bomb that was the original inspiration for the monster way back in the 50s, this Godzilla destroys the innocent and the wicked alike. When he first appears as a shadowy form reigning destruction down upon civilization, the audience is reminded that Godzilla was never meant to be a hero or a toy or any of the other roles that he’s played over the years. Godzilla is pure, mindless chaos and destruction.
Of course, he’s still the most compelling character in the film. Unfortunately, the humans in Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters are not very interesting. We’re supposed to care about Haruo but he’s so obsessed with destroying Godzilla that he becomes a bit of a bore after a while. Does he do nothing but talk about Godzilla all the time? No wonder they tossed him in jail. The other human characters all tend to blend together but then again, this is a Godzilla film. We’re not watching for the humans. We’re watching for Godzilla and his family and this film, whatever it’s other flaws, brings everyone’s favorite monsters to vibrant life. You just wish the film would be a bit quicker about getting to him.
Sadly, Godzilla will never win an Oscar. But his fans will always love him, even as he tramples them and disintegrates them with nuclear fire. In the end, that’s what fandom is all about, isn’t it?
I fully understand why there are some people out who cannot stand Godzilla vs. Megalon. I mean, Godzilla vs. Megalon is a film that totally goes against everything that originally made Godzilla unique. When Godzilla first showed up and destroyed Tokyo, he was relentless and he ruthless and he was destructive. He didn’t care about humanity. One of the most haunting scenes in the original Gojira features a mother holding her children while Godzilla approaches. Godzilla was created to be a symbol of chaos and madness. For a nation that was still struggling with the trauma of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Godzilla was a nightmare come to life. That’s something that was made very clear in the original Gojira and it’s a theme that’s still present in the American cut of the film, Godzilla, King of the Monsters.
That, however, is not a theme that you’ll find in Godzilla vs. Megalon. There is a nuclear explosion at the start of the film, of course. It rips apart Monster Island and it also angers an underwater civilization. The underwater people retaliate by summoning their God, a giant beetle named Megalon. Why would an underwater civilization worship a beetle? Who knows? Once the beetle starts attacking humanity, it’s up to Godzilla to save the day.
Of course, someone has to let Godzilla know what’s going on. That mission falls to Jet Jaguar, a humanoid robot that is briefly controlled by the bad guys before the good guys override their commands. Jet Jaguar actually gets more screen time than Godzilla and, from what I’ve read, Jet Jaguar is one reason why a lot of hardcore Godzilla fans dislike this film.
Jet Jaguar
Yes, Jet is kind of silly but, when you’re fighting a giant beetle, you do what you have to do. Godzilla doesn’t seem to have a problem with him.
See? BFFs.
Perhaps realizing that it’s going to be really difficult for a beetle to defeat both a dinosaur and a robot, the underwater people contact a bunch of aliens who agree to lend them Gigan, who is a really cool monster who has a chainsaw in his chest for some reason.
Gigan and Megalon
It all leads to knock-down, drag-out fight, one that sees Godzilla going in for a flying kick. Basically, it looks more like a tag team wrestling match than anything else but again, it’s all about the saving planet and if you don’t cheer when Godzilla goes flying through the air, I don’t know what to tell you.
Now, those who complain that this film feels like it was made for children have a point. It definitely does have something of a chidlish feel to it and the fact that it was one of the more financially successful Godzilla films outside of Japan led to a lot of people assuming that all Godzilla films were like this one. Whenever anyone rolls their eyes at the thought of Godzilla being a serious metaphor for nuclear war, it’s probably because the only Godzilla film that they’ve seen is this one or the original King Kong vs. Godzilla.
So, don’t get me wrong. I full understand why some people don’t like this movie but …. well, I do like it. Or, I should say, I always enjoy it when I see it. Seriously, it’s just all so silly and rather innocent. It’s pure fun, which may go against what Godzilla is meant to represent but, at the same time, it’s impossible for me not to smile whenever I watch it.
Fortunately, though, Jet Jaguar never appeared in another film. He did an okay job in Godzilla vs. Megalon but, by the end of the movie, you could tell he was starting to let his new-found fame go to his head.
The 1976 remake of King Kong is the version of the great ape’s story that no one ever seems to want to talk about.
Everyone, of course, continues to appreciate the original King Kong from 1933, with its charmingly dated but still somewhat effective special effects. The Japanese King Kong films have their fans, even if it still annoys me that two endings were made for the original King Kong vs. Godzilla. The Peter Jackson-directed remake from 2005 had many admirers, including me. The monsterverse Kong certainly has many fans, as is indicated by the fact that Godzilla vs Kong is the first box office hit of the post-pandemic era. King Kong is a beloved character and yet the 1976 version of his story never seem to get as much attention as all the others.
Some of that, of course, is because the 1976 version of King Kong is often described as not being very good. It tells the same basic story as the first King Kong but there’s a few key differences. The expedition to the hidden island is no longer made up of a film crew. Instead, everyone has a separate backstory that doesn’t really make much sense. Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin) is an energy company executive who is looking for a new source of oil. Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges) is a long-haired hippie environmentalist type who stows away on Wilson’s ship. Prescott apparently thinks that there’s some sort of ancient primate living on the island. Meanwhile, Dwan (future great actress Jessica Lange, making her film debut) is an aspiring actress who is discovered in a life raft, floating out in the middle of the ocean. It turns out that Dwan (that’s not a typo, that’s her name) has escaped from the yacht of a sleazy film producer. Nobody on the ship seems to be surprised when Dwan suddenly shows up in her life raft and Dwan doesn’t seem to have any hesitation about accompanying a bunch of strangers to previously unexplored island. That’s the type of film this is.
After a considerable amount of time, during which Dwan falls in love with Jack and Fred spends a lot of time looking generally annoyed, the island is discovered. As you can already guess, Dwan is kidnapped by the island’s natives, and she’s rescued by a giant ape who falls in love with her after she punches him in the nose and says, “Put me down, you male chauvinist pig ape!” In some shots, Kong is obviously a man in a rubber suit. In others, he’s just as obviously an animatronic model. Unfortunately, the animatronic version of Kong sometimes appears to kind of be leering whenever he looks down at Dwan in the palm of his hand, which bring a definite element of ickiness to a few of the scenes in which Kong carries Dwan across the island.
I would have started praying too.
Eventually, just as in the original film, Kong ends up a prisoner in New York. This time, when he escapes, grabs Dwan, and goes on a rampage, he ends up climbing the Two Towers. This leads to scenes of helicopters and fighter planes all firing at the Two Towers, which is a bit difficult to watch today. I remember a few years ago, one of our local stations actually broadcast this version of King Kong on September 11th and it definitely did not feel right.
The 1976 version of King Kong was a hit at the box office and was nominated for three Academy Awards. It won the the award for Best Visual Effects, sharing the Oscar with Logan’s Run. That said, King Kong wasn’t exactly popular with critics, either at the time of its release or today. To a certain extent, it’s understandable why this version of King Kong is so frequently criticized. The script takes a deliberately campy approach to material that, in order to have any real emotional impact, needs to be played straight regardless of how silly the story might seem. Charles Grodin never seems to be sure whether the film is a drama or a comedy. Jeff Bridges is likable but a bit too naturally mellow for his role. Jessica Lange made her film debut in King Kong, famously beating out Meryl Streep for the role. Despite the fact that the film was a box office hit, the reviews of Lange’s performance were so negative that she didn’t work for three years after appearing in the film. (She spent that time studying acting. She went on to win a Tony, two Oscars, and three Emmys so take that, critics.)
And yet, I kind of like this version of King Kong. When taken on its own very silly terms (and not as a remake of a legitimate classic), it’s definitely entertaining. Even the fact that Grodin, Bridges, and Lange are all miscast kind of works to the film’s advantage. You can’t help but appreciate that all three of them are trying so hard to be convincing in roles that they shouldn’t have been playing. For all the criticism of Jessica Lange’s performance, she actually does as well as anyone could with some of the dialogue that she gets stuck with. It’s not easy to pull off a scene where you explain to a giant ape that the relationship is never going to work because you’re a city girl and he’s a …. well, he’s a giant ape. But Lange manages to deliver the lines without laughing and that couldn’t have been easy. Lange’s then-inexperience is obvious whenever she’s having to react to or interact with the other actors but she does fine when she’s having to talk to a guy in a rubber suit or a big animatronic head. (Let’s see Meryl Streep pull that off.) Though it seems to take forever for Kong to actually get captured, the film picks up once he’s transported to New York. If you can look past the awkwardness of how the film uses the Twin Towers, the scenes of Kong rampaging through the city have an over-the-top grandeur that’s both ludicrous and compelling. By the time he reaches the top of the World Trade Center, you will totally be on his side. That’s the way it should be.
This remake of King Kong is deeply, deeply silly but, sometimes, that’s exactly what you’re looking for.
As you can probably tell just from looking at everything that’s been posted on the site today, I love the Oscars. That said, I realize that the Oscars aren’t for everyone. Some people find Oscar-nominated movies to be boring. Some people find the ceremony to be unbearably pompous. Every year, there’s the lament of “The truly entertaining films always get snubbed!”
Well, fear not! If you’re not into the Oscars, there are alternatives! For instance, you can go over to Prime right now and rent the 1984 film, Conan the Destroyer!
Conan The Destroyer is the sequel to the original Conan the Barbarian, with Arnold Schwarzenegger returning as Conan and Mako returning as the sorcerer who narrates the events of Conan’s life. This film is a continuation of the adventures of the barbarian who would become king, a trip to a world much different from our own, and a study of savagery vs civilization. Of course, to most viewers, Conan The Destroyer is just the film where a weird lizard monster picks up Arnold Schwarzenegger by his feet and spins him around in circles. Have you seen that meme where it’s made to appear as if Kate Winslet is spinning around a helpless Schwarzenegger? Along with Titanic, this is the film that you have to thank for it.
Conan The Destroyer picks up from where Conan the Barbarian ended. Conan is still wandering around the desert, working as a thief and a mercenary. He’s still praying to Crom and missing Valeria. He’s picked up a companion, a cowardly thief named Malak (Tracey Walter). When Conan and Malk are captured by Queen Taramis (Sarah Douglas), Taramis offers to bring Valeria back to life if Conan will escort the Queen’s niece, Jehna (Olivia D’Abo), to a temple so that she can retrieve a gem that will be used to …. you know what? I’m just going to be honest here. I have absolutely no idea what the quest is about. It’s just one of those things where Conan and his crew have to break into a castle or a temple and steal something so that a god can either be awakened or defeated. The film, to be honest, is a bit vague about how it all works but then again, the mission is less important than the journey.
It turns out that, with the exception of her insanely tall bodyguard Bombaata (Wilt Chamberlain), Jehna has never seen an actual man before and, needless to say, she is quickly fascinated by Conan. (She asks Bombaata if Conan is as handsome as he appears to be, Bombaata reluctantly agrees that he is.) However, Conan only cares for the deceased Valeria. As he leads Jehna, Malak, and Bombaata to the castle where they’ll find the gem, he picks up some other traveling companions. The wizard Akiro (Mako) joins them as does the fierce warrior Zula (Grace Jones). Of course, it turns out that Taramis has an agenda of her own and it all ends in a lot of shouting, swordplay, and muscle flexing.
If Conan the Barbarian was distinguished by the grim and girtty approach that it took to material that others would have played for camp, Conan the Destroyer takes the opposite approach. Of course, a lot of that is because director/screenwriter John Milius did not return to oversee Conan the Destroyer. Instead, Conan the Destroyer was directed by Richard Fleischer, who was one of those veteran directors who made a countless number of films in all sorts of genres but who never really developed a signature style of his own. Fleischer takes a semi-comedic approach to Conan and his quest. As opposed to the brutal warrior and conqueror who appeared in Milius’s film, the Conan in this film is a well-meaning rogue who punches out a camel and who also gets tongue-tied whenever he has too much to drink or when Jehna flirts with him. There’s little of the first film’s violence in this sequel and none of the emotional stakes.
That said, Conan the Destroyer is definitely entertaining. It’s just such a silly movie that you can’t help but enjoy it. Schwarzenegger, apparently understanding that the film is never going to make any sense, cheerfully goes through the motions and he actually does a pretty good job with some of his more comedic lines. The allies and the villains who he collects through the film are all memorably flamboyant. Sarah Douglas is especially entertaining as the over-the-top villainous. If you’re going to be evil in a film like this, you might as well go all out.
Conan The Destroyer was not nominated for an Oscars but it’s still a fun movie.
Ah, the 80s! Ronald Reagan was president. America was strong. Russia was weak. The economy was booming. The music was wonderful. Many great movies were released, though most of them were not nominated for any Oscars. This is the decade that tends to drive most Oscar fanatics batty. So many good films that went unnominated. So many good nominees that failed to win. Let’s dive on in!
Should Have Won: Ordinary People is actually a pretty good film. It may feel more like a made-for-TV movie than a feature film but it’s well-acted and it deserves some credit for not offering up any easy solutions. A lot of people would say that the Oscar should have gone to Raging Bull but, as well-directed and acted as that film is, Jake La Motta is such an unlikable character that it’s hard for me to really get emotionally invested in his story. My vote would have gone to David Lynch’s The Elephant Man. Lynch tells an inspiring story without compromising his surreal vision.
Should Have Won: The victory of Chariots of Fire is an odd one. The music is great but the film itself isn’t particularly memorable. I really, really like Atlantic City but ultimately, my vote would go to Raiders of the Lost Ark, an adventure that doesn’t insult the intelligence of its audience.
Should Have Won: Gandhi is the epitome of the type of Oscar winner that won less because of any cinematic artistry involved in the production and more because of what it was about. To be honest, though, I’m not extremely enthusiastic about any of the other nominees either. Ultimately, I guess I would have to go with E.T. It’s a bit heavy-handed but it works.
(My pick for the best of 1982 would probably be …. I don’t know. Blade Runner? Diner? There are some really good 1982 films but it’s hard to find one that just leaps out and says, “This is the best of the year!” Actually, I’d probably go with Tenebrae, despite the fact that it wasn’t released in the States until 1984 and in a heavily edited version at that.)
Should Have Won: Out of Africa is a pretty boring movie and Robert Redford is totally miscast as an Englishman. (To be honest, Redford is pretty much miscast as anyone but Robert Redford.) There were a lot of good films in 1985 that were not nominated: Brazil, Ran, Runaway Train, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club, Mask, After Hours, and quite a few more. Of the nominees, I would have gone for the beautiful and haunting Witness.
Should Have Won: Here’s one of my favorite exchanges from King of the Hill. It’s Peggy and Hank’s anniversary. They have the house to themselves for the weekend. Feeling that the romance has gone out of their lives, Peggy’s depressed. Hank tries to cheer her up.
Hank: “C’mon, Peg, we’ve got the house to ourselves. Plus, I rented an R-rated movie.”
Peggy (briefly hopeful): “Really? What movie?”
Hank (pauses, looks down): “Uhmmm …. Platoon.”
Some people love Platoon and some people don’t. You can put me in the latter category. Oliver Stone achieves a dream-like intensity but good God, was Charlie Sheen ever a good actor? Of the nominees, I would vote for A Room With A View.
Among the films not nominated this year: Blue Velvet, Aliens, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Stand By Me, Mona Lisa, Something Wild, and Top Gun.
Should Have Won: How about Full Metal Jacket? Oh wait, wasn’t nominated. Robocop? Not nominated. Dirty Dancing? Not nominated. Oh well. Even if those films were nominated, I would still have voted for Hope and Glory.
Should Have Won: This is an odd year. It’s kind of a weak line-up. Not nominated were films like Do The Right Thing, Scandal, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Enemies: A Love Story, and Henry V. Driving Miss Daisy gets criticized for obvious reasons but Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman both give strong performances. Born on the 4th of July has some good moments but Oliver Stone’s heavy hand eventually gets in the way and the scene where Tom Cruise-as-Ron-Kovic tracks down the parents of the soldier he accidentally killed only succeeds in making Kovic look like a selfish jerk. Dead Poets Society is, in many ways, just as heavy-handed as Born On the 4th of July but it’s also a lot more likable and I enjoyed the trio of Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, and Josh Charles. In the end, Dead Poets Society gets my vote.
Continuing our look at the Best Picture races of the past, it’s now time to enter the 50s! World War II was over. Eisenhower was President. Everyone was worried about communist spies. And the Hollywood studios still reigned supreme, even while actors like Marlon Brando and James Dean challenged the establishment.
Should Have Won: The Academy started out the decade by getting it right. While I love Sunset Boulevard and could definitely make a case for why it could have won, All About Eve was the best film nominated and one of the best films ever made.
Should Have Won: An American In Paris was a bit of an unexpected winner. A Streetcar Named Desire swept almost all of the acting prizes (only Marlon Brando failed to take home an Oscar) but the film itself is a bit too theatrical for me. As much as I Like An American In Paris, my personal vote would have gone to A Place In The Sun.
Should Have Won: Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show On Earth is often described as being the worst film to ever win best picture. I don’t know if I’d go that far but the Oscar still should have gone to either High Noon or The Quiet Man. With The Greatest Show on Earth, the Academy went for spectacle over …. well, everything else. It was not the first time the Academy did so, nor would it be the last.
Should Have Won: I want to say Rear Window but it wasn’t even nominated. On The Waterfront is the best made and the best acted of all the nominees but that the film’s support for “naming names” will never sit well with me. Like many of Elia Kazan’s films, it also gets a bit too heavy-handed towards the end. (One always got the feeling that Kazan didn’t trust his audience to figure out things on their own.) I’ll go with The Caine Mutiny, if just for Humphrey Bogart’s amazing performance as Queeg.
Should Have Won: This is a difficult one for me. All of the nominated films are fairly weak. The best remember films of 1955 — Rebel Without A Cause, Kiss Me Deadly, East of Eden — weren’t even nominated. Marty‘s likable but it still feels like a made-for-TV movie. I’ll go with Picnic, just for the scene where William Holden and Kim Novak dance on the dock.
Should Have Won: In a year in which all of the nominees were epic in scope, Around The World In 80 Days won because it featured a cameo from nearly everyone in Hollywood. It’s a bit of a drag to watch today, despite the charm of David Niven. Personally, of the nominated films, I would have gone with …. mock me if you will …. The Ten Commandments. As flawed as it may be, it’s still incredibly watchable and never dull. If I couldn’t vote for The Ten Commandments, I’d probably vote for Giant, just because it’s a movie about my home state.
Should Have Won: The Bridge on the River Kwai is a worthy winner but my favorite of the nominees is definitely 12 Angry Men. And I’ll admit that I’ve always enjoyed Peyton Place as well.
Should Have Won: Gigi’s good but I would have to vote for the overheated but always entertaining melodrama of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. Of course, the best films of the year — Vertigo and Touch of Evil — were not nominated.
Should Have Won: I actually like Ben-Hur but I absolutely love Anatomy of a Murder. It’s one of the best courtroom films ever made and it features James Stewart at his absolute best.
Do you want to read a very good book about a very bad film?
If the answer’s yes, Stephen Rebello’s Dolls! Dolls! Dolls!: Deep Inside Valley of the Dolls, the Most Beloved Bad Book and Movie of All Time tells you just about everything you could possibly want to know about the production of the 1967 cult classic, Valley of the Dolls. Starting with the Jacqueline Susann and her decision to write the book that scandalized America and caught Hollywood’s imagination, Rebello offers up information on every bit of the process that brought Valley of the Dolls to cinematic life. From the search for the right director to the effort to turn Susann’s novel into a filmable script, it’s all here. Everything from casting to recasting to the costumes to the music to the release to the film’s subsequent status as a camp classic, none of it is left out.
Perhaps not surprisingly, to anyone who knows me, my favorite part of the book were the two chapters that dealt with the casting of “the dolls” and “the dopes.” A truly impressive number of performers were considered for the roles that were eventually played by Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, and Sharon Tate and, as I read about the casting process, I found myself thinking about all of the alternate casts that could have been assembled. Some of the possibilities feel inspired. Others boggle the mind.
Imagine, if you will, the famous fight scene between Patty Duke and Susan Hayward if the roles had been played by Barbra Streisand and Bette Davis. It could have happened! Imagine Raquel Welch as the tragic Jennifer North and Elvis Presley as her talented but simple-minded lover. Again, it could have happened. Among those who make appearances — some extended and some just as cameos — in the casting chapters: Candice Bergen, Ann-Margaret, Debbie Reynolds, Natalie Wood, Lee Remick, Mary Tyler Moore, Marlo Thomas, Shelley Winters, Jane Fonda, Julie Christie, Faye Dunaway, Angela Lansbury, Millie Perkins, Tony Curtis, Christopher Plummer, James Garner, Adam West, James Caan, Martin Sheen, Tom Selleck, James Brolin, Robert Reed, Richard Beymer, Alain Delon, Richard Chamberlain, Anthony Perkins, Kevin McCarthy, and hundreds more. That’s quite an impressive list for a film that no one was apparently expecting to be very good!
The book devotes quite a bit of space to Judy Garland’s casting as Helen Lawson, a character who may have very well been based on her. Garland was infamously fired from Valley of the Dolls and replaced with Susan Hayward. The book explores all of the conflicting accounts about what led to Garland’s firing. On the one hand, if you’re into old Hollywood gossip, you’ll find a lot of it here. At the same time, Rebello shows a good deal of empathy and sensitivity in describing the situation that the phenomenally talented but emotionally insecure Garland found herself in when she was cast as Helen. For all the space that this book focuses on the sometimes unbelievable drama that went on during the shoot, Stephen Rebello is never less than sympathetic to the performers who worked on Valley of the Dolls. Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, and Sharon Tate are all brought to vibrant life in Rebello’s account. (Rebello is especially to praised for reminding readers that Sharon Tate was more than just the tragic victim of a terrible crime. She was also an actress of great promise and, from everyone’s account, a wonderful human being as well.) In fact, perhaps the only person who really comes across badly in the book’s account of the production is director Mark Robson, who is portrayed as being the type of manipulative showbiz hack that you would expect to find in a sordid, Hollywood roman à clef. Perhaps one like Valley of the Dolls!
Along with telling you everything you could possibly want to know about Valley of the Dolls, the book is also a sometimes humorous and sometimes thought-provoking portrait of Hollywood at the end of the studio system. Trying to keep up with the popularity of television and the permissiveness of European cinema, Hollywood tried to prove that it wasn’t culturally out-of-touch with its version of Valley of the Dolls. Of course, the end result was a film that showed just how out-of-touch Hollywood actually was. That’s one reason why Valley of the Dolls continues to be such a beloved bad film. Stephen Rebello’s informative book tells you everything you could want to know about it. Dolls! Dolls! Dolls! is a must-read for anyone who loves movies or who is interested in the history and development of American trash culture.
Through the Shattered Lens 