Bud's Reviews

Failed Movie Franchise Launches and Re-Launches

2012-01-28T11:05:00.000-08:00

When I was a little boy, I was always intrigued by the "James Bond Will Return" blurbs at the end of most of the old James Bond movies. They always excited me, and filled me with anticipation about what was to come, especially when the title of the upcoming sequel was announced.

In 1975, DOC SAVAGE: THE MAN OF BRONZE was released in theaters, and I didn't get to see it during its theatrical run, but I did get to see it when it aired on television about a year later after it flopped. I was 10 years old, and this was in an era when my generation took the old Adam West BATMAN television show seriously - not realizing it was intended to be campy - so I naturally loved DOC SAVAGE, and I was thrilled to see a notation in the closing film credits declaring that the soon-to-come sequel would be entitled DOC SAVAGE: THE ARCH ENEMY OF EVIL. But it was never to be. No such film was ever released.

In 1984, I went to see THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE EIGHTH DIMENSION at the movie theater, and was curious to note that the film's producer's were so confident that the film would be a hit that - in the end credits - the film's anticipated sequel was to be called BUCKAROO BANZAI VERSES THE WORLD CRIME LEAGUE. No such film was ever released and, for the record, I'm of the opinion that DOC SAVAGE and BUCKAROO BANZAI are cut from the same cloth, and are like bookends that compliment one another as examples of the type of story-telling they pay homage to.

One year after seeing BUCKAROO BANZAI, I went to see REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS, and I noticed that the end credits declared that "Remo Williams Will Return," but no sequel was ever produced. Dick Clark productions produced a television pilot that aped and truncated the film, but no follow-up theatrical release was ever made, even though literally over a hundred novels about Remo Williams have been released since 1971, where Remo is known as THE DESTROYER. A sequel was intended to be made, but it was only ever been released as a book entitled THE ASSASSIN'S HANDBOOK 2: THE MOVIE THAT NEVER WAS.

A year prior to the release of REMO WILLIAMS, the movie SUPERGIRL was released, which was clearly an attempt to launch a SUPERMAN THE MOVIE spin-off franchise. It flopped, and deservedly so; most of the acting performances in the film are either weak or over-the-top, and the movie's narrative is as wobbly as JELL-O. Helen Slater as Supergirl/Linda Lee plays the title role with earnest innocence, but she's clearly under the guidance of the movie's director, who didn't seem to know what type of film he was making.

In 2004, exactly twenty years after the SUPERGIRL fiasco, Halle Berry starred in another failed attempt at launching a franchise spin-off - this time lifted from the BATMAN movies - CATWOMAN, and it's so abysmal it's not even worth discussing.

Other film producers have shamefully tried to attempt to milk the success of their previous efforts, but no one was ever more blatantly trying to bring the dead back to life than Blake Edwards, who made three attempts to revive his PINK PANTHER films, first with a 1982 film that was entirely comprised almost entirely of cutting room floor material from the previous PINK PANTHER films that showcased the late Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau: THE TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER. The worst offense in that movie was the implication at the film's end that Clouseau was still alive. For certain scenes, a Sellers look-alike was filmed masking his face in a style not too dissimilar from what Ed Wood did with his chiropractor who attempted to look like the late Bela Lugosi in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. According to IMDB, Peter Seller's third wife sued the makers of the film because she felt it was an insult to the memory of her late spouse, and won a settlement of $1.445 million dollars!

One year later, in 1983, Blake Edwards tried to milk the long-dried teat of the PINK PANTHER series by introducing yet another character seeking to discover the whereabouts of the "missing" Inspector Clouseau, played by Ted Wass. It's essentially a re-examination of all that has come before with the introduction of Wass as the detective Clifton Sleigh playing the American counterpart of the Clouseau character. When the film ends, the audience is again persuaded to believe that Clouseau remains alive, but to what end, since Peter Sellers passed away in 1980, a full two years before TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER was released?

A full decade after CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER was released, Blake Edwards tried to revive his franchise one last time by casting Italian actor Roberto Benigni in the title role of SON OF THE PINK PANTHER. The movie was not well-received, and the franchise floundered until Steve Martin took on the role of Inspector Clouseau in his two PINK PANTHER outings. In Martin's defense, his efforts were much better than the three final films of the original series, but let's not forget that Alan Arkin once assumed the famous trenchcoat in the 1968 film INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU, which was directed by Bud Yorkin, flopped, and was quickly swept under the proverbial rug.

Other films that attempted (and failed miserably) to re-milk previously established cash cows - this time long-running pulp stories or comic books, including the 1994 Alec Baldwin film THE SHADOW...

The 1996 Billy Zane film THE PHANTOM...

The wonderful 1991 film THE ROCKETEER which, in my opinion, truly deserved to launch a film franchise if any of these films did...

The 2005 Keanu Reeves film CONSTANTINE was an Americanized and watered-down to impotence extrapolation of the excellent British comic HELLBLAZER...

The 2008 black-and-white stylized disaster based on the always vibrantly colored comic by the brilliant Will Eisner, THE SPIRIT...

...and the very recent and poorly received (at least here in America) THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, which I have yet to see, but want to, because I've been a TinTin fan since the 1970's, when I first learned to read back in elementary school...

The 2002 Bruce Campbell film, BUBBA HO-TEP, was an anomaly that came out of nowhere and seemed to be the start of an intended B-movie franchise when its closing credits noted, "Elvis returns in Bubba Nosferatu: Curse of the She-Vampires starring Sebastian Haff." No such film was ever made -- but it might become a reality one day, if its rabid fan base has anything to do with it. Unfortunately, Campbell has publicly stated that he wants nothing to do with a follow-up.

To wrap up this post about failed movie franchise launches and re-launches, I'm going to skip some of the better known films that were presumed to be the start of a film series, like UNBREAKABLE and DICK TRACY, because I think there's sufficient evidence that they were meant to be stand-alone pictures. I'm also going to overlook movies that are considered part of a larger franchise like WOLVERINE and X-MEN: FIRST CLASS; those two are a little too early to call dead ends. And I'm going to ignore films that had sequels or spin-offs, like SWAMP THING and THE RETURN OF SWAMP THING, and DAREDEVIL and ELEKTRA. For the remainder of this post I will focus exclusively on a movie phenomenon that I would argue is nothing less than an attempt to imitate the success of the HARRY POTTER movies and, to a much lesser degree, the TWILIGHT movies. Most of them feature supernatural elements, but all of them focus on a youthful cast. I'm not going to say much about these films, but I do want you to note that they were nearly all based on the first book in a series of children's novels, much like the CHRONICLES OF NARNIA films (which petered out after three films, each progressively better than its previous installment in my estimation). The sole exception being the final film in the list, THE LAST AIRBENDER, which was based on a cartoon series, and NANCY DREW, which was an original updating of the classic series of juvenile novels.

Behold the spurned cinematic offspring of HARRY POTTER, none of which produced any sequels:

Frankly, I loved this, and wanted more.

I thought this was rather tepid, formulaic, and generic.

Not seen this one. Probably won't unless it's on Netflix.

Boy, was this plodding. Nice visuals, though. Meh.

This ended up being released to DVD; I hated it. My daughter loves the books.

I really enjoyed this and wanted more.

Generic and, ahem, watered down from its source material.

This was intended to be the first of a trilogy. It was much maligned, but I liked it okay.

Buddomonn's Movie of the Month Club!

2012-01-27T13:46:00.000-08:00

And now for something completely different.

I thought it would be fun to make a post listing movies that featured every month of the year in their title or, at the very least, dealt with a particular holiday observed in each respective month. Instead of listing some of the more obvious titles, like HALLOWEEN or FRIDAY THE 13th (which wouldn't qualify anyway), I decided to list some lesser known fare -- but I'm not going to review these titles -- I'll leave that up to you; you can sum up your opinions in follow-up posts, if you'd like. Let's see how interactive we can make this blog. Which movies do you love? Which do you hate? Which do you regard with indifference?

This won't be an all-inclusive list because I'm sure I'll miss something obvious, like I always do, but will strive to feature either a movie with the title of the month in which it takes place, or during a holiday for a particular month...so...here goes nothin'...

Note that I've opted up an alternate title for the month of June - the converse of a good father, the infamous STEPFATHER...it was remade, as was MY BLOODY VALENTINE, and APRIL FOOL'S DAY.

A Mixed-Up Assortment of New Year's Eve Movies!

2011-12-31T10:48:00.000-08:00

When I posted my "Top Ten Favorite Christmas Movies" list, I accidentally overlooked National Lampoon's CHRISTMAS VACATION like a doofus, so I've decided to begin this list with a disclaimer before I even get started: This is NOT an all-inclusive list of my favorites. As a matter of fact, not all of these movies are favorites of mine - two in particular, I don't even like, but I'm including them so everyone will have a little something to ponder. I'm not going into detail as to what they're about -- so just know they all feature New Year's Eve as a plot point. Let's start with one of my favorites, though. This is my all-time favorite New Year's Eve "grown up" movie, WHEN HARRY MET SALLY. I adore this movie, even though I find some of the morality in it questionable, and some of the dialogue unnecessary. Yeah, I'm a prude. So sue me.

1989

Now, to cleanse the mental palate, an adult movie featuring New Year's Eve as a backdrop that I think is a convoluted mess, STRANGE DAYS...I hate this movie, although some SCI FI junkies think it's okay. Personally, I don't ever want to see it again.

1995

Another "grown-up" New Year's Eve movie for your perusal, BRIDGET JONE'S DIARY, which features Renee Zellweger as the adorable title character...she's beyond cute in this...

2001

A final "grown-up" film featuring New Year's Eve as a backdrop is for all you Horror fans out there, NEW YEAR'S EVIL...

1980

And now we venture into the Kid's Korner, with one of my favorite Walt Disney films, THE SWORD IN THE STONE, which features a miracle on New Year's Day at its climax...

1963

Our final New Year's Eve flick is actually a television special that first appeared in 1976 on ABC TV, and it featured the cutest Baby New Year I ever saw..."Oh, those ears! Those ears! Those WONDERFUL ears!" -- RUDOLPH'S SHINY NEW YEAR...

Behold his wonderful ears...

Father Time was supposed to look like Roy Rogers, but he always reminded me of my mother's younger brother, my Uncle Billy...

Uncle Billy? Is that you as an old man?

Yes, this is my favorite NEW YEAR'S EVE movie. Sorry. I guess I'm just a big kid at heart.

1976

Here's a copy of a TV GUIDE ad for the special that was printed in 1979, when I was 13 years old...

Buddomonn's Top 10 Favorite CHRISTMAS movies!

2011-12-15T18:16:00.000-08:00

Admittedly, this list is eclectic and, yes, it's kind of weird at times and, yes, there's no real rhyme or reason, but these really are my ten favorite Christmas movies. I was tempted into adding the first DIE HARD movie, and maybe GREMLINS, but Christmas is barely even a backdrop in those movies, so I decided to leave them out. These are the ten Christmas movies that I love to watch when the weather outside turns frightful...

#10.


1993

Tim Burton's brainchild, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS takes my mind back to my childhood when Halloween kicked off the holiday season for me, and was the centerpiece of every year of those early days because of this. The songs stick to my noggin like spaghetti thrown against a steamy wall, and I want to see a sequel that explores the rest of those holiday portals. Maybe Tom Turkey from Thanksgiving Town could visit Easterland and trade places with the Easter Bunny or something...who knows. Any combination would be fun.

#9.


1991

A very young Thora Birch has a co-starring role in this, and so does the young star of the underrated John Hughes film DUTCH. Leslie Nielson plays a minor role, and I think this is a delightful lift on THE PARENT TRAP, even if no one else has ever seen it. It's a nice, wholesome family film, and it's loaded with the Christmas spirit. Some might hate this because it's so sweet but, to me, it's as sweet as a candy cane, and I only enjoy those at Christmas time, too.

#8.

2000

Hard to believe this came out eleven Christmas seasons ago, when my now 13-year-old daughter had freshly turned 2, but that's the truth of it. Some hate this movie, but I happen to enjoy it quite a bit. It's not as good as the source material cartoon or original book, but it certainly brings the world of the Grinch to life for me, and expounds upon it in a fun way. It's a million times better than the Mike Meyers film about THE CAT IN THE HAT, but that's not really saying much. It's not quite as good as the CGI version as HORTON HEARS A HOO, either, but I only watch this once every few years. Love me some Grinch.

#7.


1992

This will be the last cartoony movie in the list, but I wanted to add that I liked the Jim Carrey CGI version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL okay, but felt it was a little too long, and the chase scene with the mouse wasn't needed (and I fell asleep during it). There are numerous other versions of A CHRISTMAS CAROL that I love -- especially SCROOGE! with Albert Finney, but I've reviewed it or referenced it here before, I believe -- but this is the one version that reduced me to tears during the sequence where Kermit says a prayer over the family meal in song. Oh, it's a very sweet scene. This movie's really funny, too. I just love it. Didn't care much for the Muppet version of TREASURE ISLAND, and I hated MUPPETS FROM SPACE, but I love this...even the deleted song sequence where the young Scrooge and his lady love share a duet...

#6.


2003

I've wanted to review this for some time, but I don't make it a habit of reviewing R-rated movies unless they're Horror flicks and, even then, I typically reference my dislike of their harsh language and their occasional nude scenes. There's some seriously harsh language in this R-rated feature, and some innocent nude scenes that don't add to the storyline, but most of the subject matter is very adult in nature, and isn't suitable for children, even though it's handled delicately and in fairly good taste. As a matter of fact, I saw that it aired on THE FAMILY CHANNEL the other day, so I guess I'm not alone in saying that - if they removed all the superfluous ephemera, it would be a good movie for general audiences, and maybe the version THE FAMILY CHANNEL aired is - but I haven't seen the edited-down version yet. Frankly, I'm not a fan of movies tossing in profanity and obscenity, and nude scenes, just to seemingly earn an "R" rating, but I am a fan of this movie. I find all of the stories compelling, except for the one about the body doubles who work on a porn set and fall in love despite the awkwardness of seeing each other in the buff every day; should have been a separate movie altogether, if you ask me -- I'll bet that was one of the first scenes they cut prior to airing it on television. Regardless, this movie's very British, and it's an ensemble piece of the highest order, and I enjoyed it far more than I did FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL, which is the closest thing I can think of to compare it to. Look in the Bonus Features Deleted Scenes section of the disc for a hilarious outtake revolving around Liam Neeson's character and internet spam traps. I really love this movie. I just wish it was cleaner. Yeah, I'm a prude. Sorry, gang. I can't help it. It's in my DNA.

#5,

1947

If A NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS connects Halloween with Thanksgiving for me as a prelude to Christmas, then the original MIRACLE ON 34th STREET connects Thanksgiving Day with Christmas for me, and I usually want to watch it after our Thanksgiving meal, and after we've watched the annual Macy's Day Parade. Natalie Wood couldn't be more adorable than she is in this film, and Maureen O'Hara couldn't be more beautiful. Love this movie. Didn't care as much for the television remake, or the John Hughes update, but this movie that deals with Santa Claus used to really get me excited about the possibility of his existence when I was a kid - and seeing it as an adult brings back those happy memories. Great movie. Love the finale.

#4.


1946

This, to me, is one of several of Frank Capra's masterpieces, and it's not necessarily "just" a Christmas movie. To me, it's also a dry run for Rod Serling's THE TWILIGHT ZONE, and was clearly the inspiration for BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II. This is one of those movies where there's not one single wasted frame, and I could watch it any time of year and enjoy it, but it just seems extra special at Christmastime. Look for a cameo by the young actor who played "Alfalfa" when he was a child in the famous swimming pool sequence, and note that the cop and the taxi cab driver are named "Ernie" and "Bert." Donna Reed is stunning in this, and the storyline of the film is yet another that reduces me to tears in various sequences. Jimmy Stewart is absolute perfection in the lead role, and I never get tired of this classic. GREAT movie.

#3.


1990

This Christmas perennial seemed to come out of nowhere when it was released, and it made me nearly hyperventilate when I first saw it in the theater. I love this movie so much, and while it's not a work of art by any means, it certainly satisfies on every level...even though it makes me squirm at times during its multiple scenes of hilarious cartoon violence. Particularly during the nail-through-the bottom-of-the-foot scene with Daniel Stern. I especially love it, too, when Joe Peschi offers us a new visual definition of the expression "Hot Headed," when he opens a door that causes a flame thrower to ignite on his skull...oh, the things Kevin McAllister does to protect his home against the wiles of the notorious "Wet Bandits."

#2.


1992

Crazy, I know, but as much as I love HOME ALONE, I love HOME ALONE 2: LOST IN NEW YORK just a little bit more. Why? Well, because it exceeded my expectations and was just as good as the original to me, but also because I entered the theater sad and depressed, and I ended up laughing so hard during the comedic sequences that I nearly passed out. I felt so much better when I left the movies that night, and that's what movies like this should be like. To me, this one - like the first one - is perfect in almost every way. I didn't think HOME ALONE 3 was all that bad, even though it didn't deal with the McAllister family at all, but the TV movie that Disney pumped out for ABC television in 2002 was sheer garbage, and isn't even watchable.

#1.


2006

And now for something completely different...and completely serious. Honestly, in my opinion, this is one of the very best "Bible Story" movies I've ever seen. Very faithful to the original story, with only understandable embellishments added to help contextualize it, THE NATIVITY STORY is a gorgeous retelling of the events that lead to the birth of Jesus, and it's a movie that should be viewed by every family that's curious about the beginnings of this annual holiday and its accompanying holiday season. Well-acted, well-directed, and with special effects that I found pleasantly surprising, the movie is wholesomely delightful, and very enjoyable and moving.

So there we have it and, just like I said, this list is a mixed, eclectic bag. Kind of like a bag loaded with an assortment of Christmas gifts - hopefully my Top Ten Christmas Favorites List had something for everyone.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Retro "Guilty Pleasure" Review: MOMMIE DEAREST (1981)

2011-12-15T16:34:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while, I encounter a movie that either everyone seems to hate, or makes me feel guilty watching it because of its subject matter, but I can't help but like it...and MOMMIE DEAREST is one of them.

Of course, I know MOMMIE DEAREST has a huge cult following now, but when it was first released, it was regarded as a disastrous shame and a blight on the memory of screen legend Joan Crawford. Actually, I recall feeling as though it should have been a biographical movie of the week on TV, but I was only 15 when it came out, so what did I know? I didn't see it during its initial theatrical run, because my parents wouldn't let me, and my dad was ill with cancer at the time, so it's probably best that I didn't see it until it ultimately made its way to cable.

I saw MOMMIE DEAREST about a year after my father died, when I was 16, and my mom was especially anxious to see it because, up to that point, the proverbial curtain was only rarely pulled back to reveal intimate details about the private lives of movie stars, let alone someone who was once a beloved star.

My favorite Joan Crawford movie prior to seeing MOMMIE DEAREST was MILDRED PIERCE, but it was followed closely behind by WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? -- I remember wondering why WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE wasn't referenced in MOMMIE DEAREST. Then, years after I saw the film, I wondered why movies like STRAIGHT JACKET (another guilty pleasure) and TROG (a laughably bad curiosity of a movie about a stone-ge troglodyte unleashed on the modern world) weren't referenced in it, either, or Ms. Crawford's appearances on old 1970's television shows like NIGHT GALLERY (where she was directed by an extremely young Steven Spielberg) and THE SIXTH SENSE, starring Gary Collins (not the Bruce Willis movie).

With a running time just over 2 hours, MOMMIE DEAREST mostly hits the highs and lows of Joan Crawford's life and celebrity, but it also details how she adopted children, seemingly, in an effort to better endear herself to her fans. The focus of the film is on her adopted daughter, Christina, and the many ways in which Ms. Crawford lured her into psychotic mind games that resulted in her humiliating victimization - even when she was extremely young. The most notorious portion of the film details how Crawford goes ballistic when discovering wire clothes hangers in Christina's closet, and we see Crawford fly into a face-creamed, cross-eyed frenzy that surges out like a volcanic reaction, with Crawford beating the traumatized child with the hangers, and then forcing her to clean the bathroom floor as Christina's horrified adopted brother watches, wishing he could somehow intervene.

Faye Dunaway plays Joan Crawford in completely believable fashion, but rumor has it that she refuses to discuss her participation in the film, and has disavowed it. I would think that she would feel this way, instead, about her horrific performance in SUPERGIRL (1984) as the villainous witch named Serena. I do not say this to disparage Ms. Dunaway, however, because I think she's a fantastic actress as a general rule, but even Babe Ruth struck out more often than he hit home runs. No one is going to deliver a perfect performance every time they're on deck...

The rest of the cast is adequate, although they're just as outshined by Dunaway as Joan Crawford would have outshined her co-stars if the movie relates truth to the viewer (and I firmly believe it does because, to me, ir has the ring of truth to it), but this movie isn't the "campy" dog that many claim it is. Sure, it's not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it looks great, the material is compelling, and watching it triggers a wide variety of emotions from disbelief to astonishment, to shock and hilarity. I'll give it this much: it's never dull.

Seeing it as a married adult with two children of my own, there is a lot about the movie that I find disturbing to the extreme - primarily the child abuse, that ranges from physical to emotional - but my personal motto has long been this: Sometimes we learn the best way to behave by observing really bad behavior.

Oddly enough, the movie has never made me dislike Joan Crawford as an actress as some stories sometimes do when I learn about the jerky ways movie stars behave off-screen (Val Kilmer and Jerry Lewis, I'm talkin' to YOU). I still love MILDRED PIERCE and STRAIGHT JACKET, and WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE. TROG, though, I'm not so crazy about. But it has nothing to do with Joan Crawford.

At the end of the movie, we see a limply dramatic sequence where Christina decides not to let her adoptive mother have the last word, and it sort of brings the movie full circle, like a snake swallowing its own tail. MOMMIE DEAREST, like I said, is not grand cinema, but I can't stop myself from watching it whenever I have the opportunity. It's a real guilty pleasure.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)

2011-11-23T11:29:00.001-08:00

In honor of Thanksgiving 2011, I thought I'd write up a review of my favorite movie that features Thanksgiving as a backdrop. PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES was one of those movies I caught on VHS long after it was released theatrically, and made me wish I'd seen it on the big screen. I absolutely love this movie. It's a comedy that makes me laugh and, at the end, makes me cry - especially in the years that have passed since John Candy passed away. I really miss seeing him on television and in movies. He left us far too soon, just like Chris Farley and John Belushi.

Steve Martin plays the straight man in this, and John Candy is his comedic foil. Martin's character, a business man, is trying desperately to get home in time for Thanksgiving, but obstacles keep slowing him down, the chief obstacle being John Candy's character, Dell Griffith.

Dell Griffith is both annoying and loveable, and while he's street savvy beyond what we see on the surface, the truth of his life story is gut-wrenching and heart-breaking, and though the end of the movie is happy, once the credits roll, you can't help but wonder whatever became of him.

There are memorable moments galore in this movie, and tons of dialogue snippets you'll find yourself quoting once you've been exposed to this film. Personally, I love the classic scene involving pillows, and listening to Dell talk about his "dogs" barking, but sometimes he does things that are simply gross beyond belief - especially with his sinuses. Oh, and be on the lookout for the sequence with the snorting farmer who tells his infant-carrying wife to get out of his pickup truck and put some heavy bags in the truck bed for Martin and Candy, then adds something like, "She's scrawny, but she's strong. Our last baby came out sideways, and she didn't cry or nothin'."

If I were to compare this movie to any other, it would probably be the Jack Lemmon film THE OUT OF TOWNERS, where everything goes against the protagonists of the film in the most comedic ways imaginable. It would be a great film to watch in a double feature with this one, but I'd skip the later Steve Martin/Goldie Hawn remake. The original is far better.

If I had a complaint about PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES, it would be the mostly brief snippets of harsh language, which ruins what would otherwise be a family film. And there's a scene with Steve Martin dealing with the "F" word that's hilarious, but is absolutely not safe for little ears, even if they're sent into another room; I admit, it makes me laugh until I almost cry, but it goes a little overboard.

If you haven't seen this, do yourself a favor and give it a try. And be on the lookout for connections between this movie and FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF and another John Hughes film, SHE'S HAVING A BABY. And don't forget to keep watching after the final credits have run.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Friday the 13th - A Franchise Review...

2011-11-07T12:29:00.000-08:00

Posters for all the "Jason" films, below...

1980

1981

1982

1984

1985

1986

1988

1989

1993

2002

2003

2009

Because one of the "Jason" movies features an opening that parodies the barrel-view openings of the "James Bond" films (I'll let the FRIDAY THE 13th fans figure out which one I'm referring to), I don't think I'm alone in saying that these films all start to (pardon the pun) bleed together after a while. Off and on during the month of October, I participated in a FRIDAY THE 13th marathon, and think I can finally pinhole where these movies start becoming overly convoluted. In order to explain this, I'll have to offer up a thumbnail description of the series which, for lack of a better description, is a celebration of the lusts of the flesh.

The first film, released in 1980, followed in the wake of John Carpenter's original HALLOWEEN. Instead of focusing on a solid narrative with a mere handful of primary characters, it was more loosely structured and dealt with a group of randy teenagers who were organizing to make preparations for the opening of a summer camp. Since there were no small children on site, the counselors use any given excuse to fool around and, as the movie plays out, all of them but one are murdered in a variety of ways by what turns out to be the mother of Jason Voorhees, the supposedly drowned and deformed child who perished when counselors were fooling around 20 years prior. Mrs. Voorhees is killed at the end of the film, but Jason rises from the bottom of the camp's lake in all his freakish glory in one of the film's final scenes, only to vanish once police arrive at the scene of the slaughter.

Jason returns in the second film, and goes on a murder spree that begins after he slays the sole survivor of the first movie. In this movie Jason looks like the Elephant man, and he sports what looks like a potato sack over his head. Once the bag is taken off his head, his face is shown to be quite hideous, and even though he seems to be defeated before the final credits roll, he returns in the third film. I did a more detailed review of this film here.

The third "Jason" movie was shot in 3-D, and it's in this flick that he finally puts on his infamous hockey mask after killing a teen named Shelly, who loves playing practical jokes on his friends.The movie was largely a gimmick, but it seems to have stuck in the American consciousness in a way that the previous films did not, to the point that Part 1 and Parr 2 tend to be forgotten except by die-hard fans. Also forgotten: the fact that Jason is supposedly killed at the ending of the movie by the surviving protagonist of the story.

The fourth "Jason" film, labelled "THE FINAL CHAPTER," was the only original FRIDAY THE 13th film that I saw at the movie theater as a teenager, and it featured a young Corey Feldman playing a special effects freak named Tommy Jarvis. Tommy kills Jason after Jason's supposedly final murder spree, and the movie ends with what seems to be the promise of Feldman's character taking on the mantle of the franchise's slasher after we witness Jason's face slide down the edge of a large machete blade, which should have slain him once and for all. I wrote up a more detailed review of this film here.

The fifth "Jason" movie features the young Corey Feldman very briefly at the film's opening, as Tommy Jarvis seems to be witnessing two unnamed characters digging Jason up from the grave. Lightning strikes, and Jason rises from the dead, and he slays the men, to Feldman's character's great shock. Then Feldman wakes from this dream and, we flash forward several years into the future, and learn that Feldman's character has now grown up, and and new actor is playing the role. The now older Tommy Jarvis, we learn, is being placed in a home for mentally unbalanced young people. Clearly, what follows seems to be hastily thrown together, and the focus of the story is divided between Jason and Tommy Jarvis. THIS is the movie that knocked the series off-track, because it was very clear that it didn't know what it wanted to be. Especially when, at film's end, Tommy Jarvis once again seems to be possessed by the murderous spirit of Jason Voorhees before the final credits roll, and Jason is revealed not to have been the "real" Jason at all in this movie, since he was actually being impersonated by someone seeking revenge for the death of their son!

The sixth "Jason" movie, JASON LIVES, attempts to revive the franchise by cementing the "real" Jason as the preeminent slasher of the series, even though he's revived as a, sort of, zombie this time. Tommy Jarvis (played by a THIRD actor this time) returns and, haunted by the thought that Jason isn't really dead, decides to dig up his corpse to check. He and Ron Pallilo (who played the character known as Horshack in "Welcome Back, Kotter" back in the 1970's) dig Jason's corpse up, and it's struck by lightning, and up Jason rises. Jason murders Horshack, and Tommy flees, and returns to the campsite of the very first FRIDAY THE 13th movie, which is now inhabited by a bunch of small children who are being supervised by some randy teenagers. Mayhem ensues, and Tommy lures Jason out into the lake, where he puts heavy rocks and chains around his neck, and Jason sinks and, seemingly, dies. Tommy also seems to have died, but is revived at the end of the film. And then Jason's eyes open just as the final credits roll.

The seventh "Jason" movie, THE NEW BLOOD, pits the hockey-masked killer against a girl with telekinetic powers, and most fans refer to this film as JASON Vs.CARRIE. Again, it shows the creative forces behind the series simply didn't know where to go with the franchise. Ironically enough, it's perhaps my favorite in the series, other than JASON X, which is an extremely guilty pleasure.

The eighth "Jason:" movie seems to pick up where the fifth film ended, and Jason rises from the bottom of Crystal Lake after his corpse is electrocuted by an underwater power surge created by the anchor of a docked boat being occupied by two randy teenagers whom Jason dispatches rather quickly after he rises from the dead once again. Then he stows away on a cruise ship loaded with teenage passengers headed for New York City to celebrate their upcoming graduation. Yes, Jason kills almost all of them, save a young girl who keeps seeing Jason as a child in visions, and was given a magical pen that was once used by Stephen King. I'm not lying here, folks. Watch the movie yourselves to see if I'm telling the truth. And, yes, she stabs Jason in the left eye with the pen which, in my opinion, should have had no effect on him since his left eye sits well below his right eye, being as he's a freak and all. Jason chases her into New York once the ship docks, and she and her boyfriend lure him into the subway, where he seems momentarily shocked by the notorious third rail. Wait a minute, though, doesn't electricity resurrect Jason?! And wasn't the ship he stowed away on called the S.S. Lazarus? Yes, he rises from the dead once again, and eventually ends up in alley where he's doused with toxic waste and, instead of turning into a Ninja Turtle, he transforms into the small boy we've seen in several weird visions, and then he melts into the sewers of New York. But is this the true end of the hockey masked killer?

In the ninth "Jason" movie, JASON GOES TO HELL, Jason inexplicably returns to Crystal Lake and, since he's now being pursued by the FBI for some reason, he's gunned down and physically destroyed by hand grenades. Somehow, though, his heart survives, and when it is autopsied, the doctor inspecting the corpse becomes possessed by it, and he literally eats Jason's heart. Then he becomes possessed by Jason's murderous spirit, and when he is killed, Jason's essence is passed from host body to host body. Ultimately, a mystical dagger of some sort is introduced, and we learn that Jason, a'la Michael Meyers of the HALLOWEEN series, is now in pursuit of a genetic member of his family, a girl who's recently had a baby. Jason's spirit wants to inhabit the baby's body so he can live again, but he's defeated by film's end, and demonic hands drag him down into the depths of the earth. Then we see the clawed hand of Freddy Kruger arise and pull Jason's hockey mask down into the earth, and we hear Freddy's evil cackle as the final film credits roll. Logically speaking, the next film should be FREDDY VERSUS JASON, should it not?

The tenth "Jason" film, JASON X, is set in the far-flung future, and I've reviewed it here. It doesn't have a lot to do with the previous films at all, and there's never an explanation as to how it relates to the events that precede it. There's no reference to it in the next "Jason" film, either.

The eleventh film to feature Jason Voorhees should have been the tenth film in the series, but FREDDY VERSUS JASON followed JASON X for some reason, and after Kane Hodder played the character in the four "Jason" movies that preceded this one, a new actor was chosen to play the role in this movie, which fairly limply offers up what the title promises. For my money, it's a disappointment all the way around but, let me be honest, I'm not really a fan of the FRIDAY THE 13th movies or the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movies. I just never thought Jason or Freddy (or even Leatherface, for that matter) were even remotely scary. I was always more interested in the stories of the films, and as I've related, after the 4th film, what began with a fairly weak plot to base a series on to begin with, had already begun to show its vulnerabilities, and the series went completely off-track and couldn't figure out where it wanted to go, or what it wanted to be. In FREDDY VERSUS JASON, the Jason character is still a zombie of sorts, but he's now a thinking zombie, and Freddy manipulates him throughout the bulk of the movie by pretending to be his dead mother and giving him marching orders to kill, kill, kill. By the end of the movie, Jason beheads Freddy, but even in death Freddy remains alive, and he winks at the camera with what seems to be the promise of a follow-up. The film made gobs of money, but no sequel has ever been made, and then it was decided to remake the first three FRIDAY THE 13th films in a reboot of the franchise.

The 2009 remake of FRIDAY THE 13th made more money than any of the original "Jason" films, but despite this fact, and despite the announcement that a sequel was in the works, the series has since lain dormant. In the remake, Jason is an adult who, as a child, witnessed the finale of the 1980 film (where his mother was beheaded), and he has lived off the land in the woods surrounding Crystal Lake, He has become a fearless hunter, and in this film, he ends up hunting and slaying - you guessed it - a group of randy young adults who have come into his woods to fornicate and party. Because there are several references to marijuana in the movie, and even one sequence where an elderly woman warns one of the young adults to stay away or be killed by "him," many have inferred that Jason grows, harvests, and sells marijuana through some Crystal Lake-based black market drug ring, but I never gave such an idea a thought until it was expressed to me. Regardless, the movie reveals how the sack-wearing Jason discovers his hockey mask, the many weapons he uses to slay his victims, and far too many sex scenes. Rumor has it that Michael Bay, who produced the film, walked out on a screening of the movie because he said it featured too much sex and nudity. I think the film is vulgar and raunchy, and it made me feel as dirty as I did when I was exposed to my first Rob Zombie film. Some have argued that the FRIDAY THE 13th films are morality tales where those who fornicate and take illegal drugs are executed for their sinful actions, but this remake doesn't convey such sentiments. Instead, it seems to revel in them.

When all is said and done, I have mixed feelings about the FRIDAY THE 13th films. I can see how they appeal to the base curiosities of human beings but, in the end, I wonder what good making such movies really does beyond providing some sort of emotional venting process. Do we really need to entertain such thoughts? Is it good for us? I'm not really sure, but I will never forget hearing my friends and classmates chanting "JA-SON! JA-SON! JA-SON!" when a buddy talked me into going to see THE FINAL CHAPTER at the movies. I couldn't help but wonder what it was saying about us as an audience...and still I wonder.

Post Convention Bootleg Reviews

2011-10-04T09:01:00.000-07:00

For the hard core movie buff, one of the traditions of attending a movie convention is purchasing hard to obtain movies on DVD, also known as "bootleg" copies, because they used to be recorded in movie theaters and smuggled out in the boot leg of the movie pirate or smuggler. Nowadays, bootleg copies of out of print or hard to obtain movies are done on DVD-burning devices and, of course, I had to pick up a few titles when I attended SCAREFEST. By and large, I was satisfied with what I bought, with a few minor exceptions, and I'll explain why in a few brief comments below. I'll start, though, with the best of the batch, and work my way down to the stuff I wasn't too thrilled with. I wasn't wholly disappointed though, because I know you get what you pay for...

I have wanted to see I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF for about as long as I can remember, and this was my first opportunity to buy a copy, so I jumped on it. It was a pristine burn from an old laserdisc and, as far as I know, it has never been released on DVD. If it was ever released on VHS, I've never stumbled onto it, and I've looked. Yeah, it's kind of corny, but you have to expect that, considering it was the first werewolf movie since the original wolfman last appeared on-screen. It was also made in the wake of WW2, so it's not surprising that the werewolf of the title is more the product of a mad scientist's experiment than an actual werewolf bite. With that in mind, I think it has more to do with ALTERED STATES than it does with any of the WOLF MAN movies that came out in the decades before this film's release. Michael Landon does an awesome job, even if his performance is a little over the top at times, with a 1950's script that features beatniks and bohemians, and cornball dance sequences in a teen jaz club. I just wish now that I'd bought I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN.

I remember seeing ads for DR. SYN: ALIAS THE SCARECROW when I was a kid in the 3rd grade, and just being mesmerized, but my parents wouldn't take me to the Manor Theater in downtown WIlmington, NC, to see it for some reason. It was released in a steel case edition by Disney a few years ago, but they released so few copies that it's now a widely sought-after collector's item, and extremely expensive. The copy I purchased on the cheap was a burn of that release, but even though it had a menu screen boasting that it had a link to the bonus features, it didn't and, worst of all, the disc got stuck a good five minutes before the movie concluded, so I had to look it up on YouTube, where I found that the entire film can be found, in 12 parts. It's a long movie, but if you liked the historical films Walt Disney put out in the late sixties and early 70's, you'll love it. Patrick MacGoohan, of television's THE PRISONER fame, plays Dr. Syn, a humble town parson by day, but the sinister Robin Hood-like vigilante The Scarecrow, by night. The movie poster, above, tells it all.

When I was a teenager back in the 80's, I went on a Peter Benchley jag, and read JAWS, and THE DEEP, and then THE ISLAND. All three novels were made into films with diminishing box office results with each release. THE ISLAND is probably the least well known film, and it's about a secret society that's been operating like the pirates of old for the last 300 years on a hidden island out in the middle of nowhere. The movie, which stars Michael Caine, has never been released on DVD for some reason, and most bootleg copies are full frame. I lucked out and found a widescreen bootleg, and the sound quality was awesome, but the image quality was a little lacking - about on par with DR. SYN. It's not a great movie, but I've seen worse, and it's not as good as the book upon which is was based, but it's not too painful a time-killer. For the record, it's a lot better than the Michael Bay movie of the same name that's about clones or something; I hated that movie like I've hated all Michael Bay movies: all flash and no substance.

At the SCAREFEST convention, I met the script-writer who wrote NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD for George Romero, John Russo. When the event was over, I realized that I'd forgotten that it was Russo who came up with the story idea for RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. I also got to meet Linnea Quigley, Don Calfa, and Beverly Randolph, who starred in that guilty pleasure of mine, so I opted to buy the uncut workprint of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, and have the stars sign it. I wish I'd remembered that Russo came up with the idea, or I'd have had him sign it, too. At any rate, the uncut workprint is slightly grainy, it's clearly a burn from an old VHS copy, but it's got great sound quality, and if you're interested in seeing what a movie looks like before all the sound effects, music, and other tweaks have been finalized, it's well worth a look. It runs about 20 minutes longer than the theatrical cut, has extra dialogue, and you even get to see some of the original storyboards, where the scene where the toxic smoke rises into the air and comes down in the form of zombie-creating rain. The opening and closing sequences are different from the final film, too, but perhaps my favorite extra is the sequence where the tiny zombie chases the mortician in the rain, and smacks into a pole; you can almost see it in the theatrical print, but it was uncut in the workprint.

THE MAXX, the animated series produced by MTV once upon a time, was always a curiosity to me, but I was never able to sit down and watch its episodes in chronological order. When I saw that the whole shebang was available at the convention, I snapped it up. Especially when I learned it was a freebie for buying the other titles I purchased. The sound quality's great, and the image quality is okay, but it looks like it was copied off a television station master that was dubbed onto a video tape. Still, it's not unwatchable, so I'm satisfied.

I didn't even know an animated version of THE TOMB OF DRACULA existed until I saw it on the seller's table at SCAREFEST. Apparently, it was produced by a Japanese movie company back in the 1980's, and it was based on the Marvel comic of the same name. THE TOMB OF DRACULA was my favorite Horror comic when I was a kid, so I had to see this. Unfortunately, it was done in traditional anime style, complete with characters who shake and tremble with supposed emotion, and whiney voices that remind me of the old BATTLE OF THE PLANET cartoon. It features appearances by the Devil himself, boasts a storyline about Dracula's lovechild with a human, and we even get to hear a voice from Heaven at one point. It's an odd mix, and not very similar to the comic I used to read. Still, as an anomaly, it's a keeper as a curiosity piece.

At SCAREFEST I got to spend a good deal of time talking with James Hampton, who was one of my favorite TV stars when I was a kid. He starred in F-TROOP, and was also in some Burt Reynolds movies and THE CAT FROM OUTER SPACE for Disney. We talked a lot about his role as the dad in TEEN WOLF, and he and his wife kept referencing CONDORMAN, and how he'd co-starred in that back in 1981. I found a copy after the convention, and gave it a whirl, and recalled how I was moderately interested in it when I saw the commercials advertising it back when it was released theatrically. It's essentially a James Bond parody, and it had a lot of potential, but the main star of the movie is what ruins it for me. He's supposed to be an American comic book artist, but he looks more like Roger Daltry of THE WHO, and his looks just screamed, "British," and his forced American accent screamed, "FAKE!" -- Interestingly enough, I didn't realize the star was Michael Crawford until the movie was over. He went on to greater fame as the star of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA on stage. Clive Owen would be awesome in a remake, if they created a darker color scheme for the Condorman costume and gadgets. The original had an ugly color scheme, and did nothing but remind me of the days when Disney struggled to produce movies worth watching, and failed miserably at almost every attempt. CONDORMAN came after THE BLACK HOLE, but before the originaql TRON, if you're curious. The worst conceit of CONDORMAN, though, is its pathetic score, which was composed by Henry Mancini, of all people, and its corny opening cartoon during the credit sequence, which was clearly trying to rip off the openings of all the old PINK PANTHER movies.

Our Swag from Scarefest 2011...

2011-09-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

Here's some of the stuff the stars gave us (I also bought some bootleg DVDs, and Renee had me buy her some other stuff, too, like C.S.I. and C.T.U. security clearance badges)...

For the curious, the bootleg DVDs I bought included a widescreen version of the Michael Cain movie THE ISLAND; Walt Disney's DR. SYN ALIAS THE SCARECROW; the animated version of the Marvel comic TOMB OF DRACULA from Japan; the complete animated THE MAXX series; I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF with Michael Landon, and the original workprint of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, which I had autographed by three of its stars...what a fun weekend!

Scarefest 2011

2011-09-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

Stepping away from my usual reviews for a change of pace, but this post is clearly movie-related. My wife and I volunteered to be on staff for our first Horror Movie convention, SCAREFEST, and we rotated shifts so we could take turns introducing our kids to the stars; we had a blast, as you can see, and made some unexpected friends...sorry, but some of these pictures aren't in chronological order...

She played the psychic from INSIDIOUS!

I've still got a crush on her...

Felissa & my wife and daughter buddied up all weekend; they loved one another.

GIRL POWER!

Britt is a really nice guy.

I spent more time with Mr. Hampton & his sweet wife than anyone else...

VAMPIRE SANTA

A long-time dream; one of my favorite actors...

Linnea & I became fast friends after I watched her station so she could have lunch.

The TEEN WOLF symposium...

I think she's prettier as herself than as ELVIRA, and told her so.

Where the devils meet and greet, and buy things to eat...

Someone showed her a demon baby doll...

Me and Marty McFly's mom!

SCARY!

She autographed my staff shirt and put a heart on it. <3

We talked about THE DEVIL'S REJECTS...

Not sure why Bill called Kane over, but he did. Bill is a nice guy.

The doomed brother from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD..

The redneck cop from the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD...

Amy is really sweet.

All the female stars loved on this lucky little rascal. He ate it up, too.

Amy really impressed me by being so down-to-earth. Sweet girl.

She never broke character; she scared everyone!

This "Visitor" from "V" was really sweet.

Aaron didn't see him for a long time, so I yelled, "No wonder they can't find any ghosts!"

Aaron Goodwin was a trip. He's got loads of energy.

Zac Bagans from GHOST ADVENTURES...

Michael Biehn was recovering from heart surgery, but showed up anyway!

Aaron was as laid back as anything.

My family spent a lot of time with Aaron over the weekend. Awesome guy.

My wife was sooo excited to meet "Reese" from THE TERMINATOR...

Ernie & I talked about GHOSTBUSTERS 2 & the possibility of a third film...

Zack with another Gremlin...

She just adored my son for some reason...

Me and the Wilma Deering of my teen years...

Not sure why PONDO wants to look like POPEYE...

The mortician in RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD.

I brought him coffee, and we were fast friends. Awesome man,

They had a BALL!

My son has always been a JASON fan, so he was curious about Kane Hodder...

from THE ROAD WARRIOR...

People were paying five bucks to be electrocuted...

Her nickname's always been "Boo," & we've recently started calling her "The Boogens."

This is where the convention was held...

Lexington, KY, offers a great venue...

The Paranormal HOT Squad

My boy was a hit with all the ladies...

"Heeeeeeeeeeere's BUDLEY!"

Oh, no! Renee says it's "TIME TO PLAY!"

PRIEST (2011)

2011-09-20T11:52:00.000-07:00

(2011)

Take one part Bartertown from MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME, add elements from the seminal George Lucas film THX-1138, where a computerized Catholic church offers mechanized confession booths to supplicants who pray under the direction of videotaped priests, one part of the Sylvester Stallone film JUDGE DREDD, where corrupt officials rule over a post-apocalyptic city with an iron hand, add one part 30 DAYS OF NIGHT and another part UNDERWORLD, where the future threat of hyper-evolved vampires is at a new high, twist in elements of ALIENS, with a giant "queen" vampire hatching baby vampires in egg sacks, toss in a one huge chunk of the John Wayne movie THE SEARCHERS, add in a little Jack Nicholson Joker from the 1989 BATMAN film, mix in a character that looks like the WWE's "Undertaker" and others who dress like Darth Maul, and blend well with a whole lot of STAR WARS elements - mostly Jedi knight wannabes with physical and mystical powers, cheesy dialogue, and top it all off with a high-speed finale similar to the Death Star trench sequence in the original STAR WARS (but set on a futuristic train that must be blown up before it delivers certain doom to the city it's speeding toward), and you get PRIEST.

The preceding, long, and seemingly rambling paragraph above may well seem to be a criticism of the movie, but it's really not. I immediately recognized all the elements the film lifts from, but it didn't bother me much until I started noticing tweaked versions of well-known STAR WARS dialogue. namely a scene that was too close to the "I did it!" - "Don't get cocky, kid," sequence from STAR WARS, and the whole "Join me, and together we will rule the galaxy as father and son" sequence from EMPIRE. Both are fairly easy to spot. I let them slide, though, when considering how George Lucas ripped off numerous sources for his films.

If you watch PRIEST without bringing past movie baggage into it with you, it's an enjoyable enough romp. The actors perform their roles in earnest, the effects are pretty awesome, and it's not a very long movie. It's a hodgepodge, though, of movies that have come before it, and while it doesn't bring anything new to the viewer, it left me curious as to whether or not there would be more installments.

If you can't resist playing the Comparing Game, you probably won't enjoy it, especially when it comes to the priesthood in the movie, who are clearly patterned after the STAR WARS Jedi knights. Nor will you be able to let slide their speeder bikes, I mean, motorcycles. I saw elements of the old PLANET OF THE APES films, too, because there's a Forbidden City where no one from the primary town is to go to, and one of the primary characters, a lawman, reminded me of Nathan Filion's character in Joss Whedon's FIREFLY series.There were a lot of things in the movie that reminded me of other, similar films, but at least it played out within its own reality, despite all this.

The greatest well from which PRIEST draws inspiration, clearly, is STAR WARS, but the priests of PRIEST don't wield "The Force," although they can "Force-jump," and fight, etc. Nor do they openly pray to a deity; instead, they just meditate before battles, etc. And then they do miraculous things through sheer power of will. Still, there are so many similarities between them and Jedi that there's really no reason to refer to them as anything else.

In a nutshell, PRIEST is about a future where, after years of battling savage, eyeless vampire creatures, self-contained cities in a post-apocalyptic world are finally starting to feel safe. The inhabitants of this world have nestled into a Western-style future, and are nothing more or less than cowboys. Operating within this bizarre world is a priesthood that is apparently under the sway of a corrupt Catholic religious system that hearkens back to the days of the Great Inquisition, and is led by a council of what seem to be Bishops, and a sort of Pope that is never identified by title (played by Christopher Plummer). The Pope-like character repeatedly states that, "To question the Church is to question God," and assures the people that vampires are no longer a concern. This proves not to be true when a desert settlement is attacked, and one lone priest decides to go against his vows and attempt to rescue someone he has an emotional attachment to.

I actually enjoyed PRIEST. It wasn't Shakespeare, and it certainly wasn't STAR WARS, but it was rather fun for what it was. I understand it was based on a graphic novel, but I'm not familiar with it, or a possible series of graphic novels from which it originated. If there's another PRIEST movie, I'd probably rent it; I checked this first film out at the public library, and saw it in 2-D, not 3-D.

Twelve Movies About the End of the World...

2011-09-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I listed twelve movies that offered viewers glimpses of Heaven and Hell. It wasn't an all-inclusive list, and I didn't include movies like DRAG ME TO HELL or THE MUMMY RETURNS, which either offered a generic glimpse of Hell, or offered a perspective that wasn't the accepted norm in cinematic terms. The list for this post isn't all-inclusive, either. However, some of the movies in my list here could have qualified for the last list, but I didn't include them because I wanted to focus on exactly twelve movies as I'm doing now, and - thematically - they tie in closer to the current topic of discussion: THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT. Somebody queue the R.E.M. song.

Most of the films in this list are speculative, meaning they don't offer a definitive picture of what will happen at the end of the world but, instead, offer glimpses of what might happen if the protagonists of the various stories don't do something to prevent it from happening. Many of them also feature villains or, in some cases, anti-heroes, who either save the world from a diabolical fate unintentionally, or may trigger the end of the world in the future. Personally, I find it rather interesting that almost all of the movies in this list are contingent upon an almost entirely Judeo-Christian perspective of what theologians call "End Time" events, but they all stop short of following the depictions of either the Battle of Armageddon or the Day of Judgment as depicted in the Book of Revelation from the Christian New Testament. Some even go beyond what is found there.

As always, before I get started, I'm going to identify what type of movies I'm not going to include here. Because they lack a theological or supernatural element, I'm not going to list movies like WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, or ARMAGEDDON, or DEEP IMPACT. I'm also going to avoid the obvious, and exclude films like THE RAPTURE, or LEFT BEHIND, because they really aren't mainstream productions (although I'd really like to review THE RAPTURE at some point in the future; it's hedonistic first act makes a review an uncomfortable prospect for me).

Instead of listing these films by their chronological release date, I'm going to list them in accordance with their thematic elements, mentioning movies of like kind in blocks, expounding upon their similarities, and moving from stories that are less supernatural to those that are blatantly supernatural.

(1991)

TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY is perhaps the most well-known movie featuring an End-of-the-World sequence, the world goes out with a bang and not a whimper in a vision of the future conveyed by Sarah Conner, the female protagonist of the movie. We see the world destroyed as the result of a nuclear holocaust, with entire cities shown aflame, and even Sarah Conner melted by a nuclear blast, and incinerated. Clearly the by-product of a Cold War mindset, the end of the world shown in T2 isn't supernatural as much as it is technological.

(1983)

The main protagonist of THE DEAD ZONE can psychically discern the fate of those he physically touches, and when he shakes the hand of a politician who will launch the missiles that destroy the world if he's elected to office, he is forced to decide what he must do. There's a tense scene where we see "the button" pressed, and the primary villain of the movie, played by Martin Sheen, proclaims, "The missiles are flying. Hallelujah!" We don't get to see what happens, but we get a very good idea. Again, a technological end of the world, but with a subtle supernatural twist. I went on my very first date to this movie.

(2004)

Following in the wake of movies like VOLCANO, DANTE'S PEAK, and ARMAGEDDON, DEEP IMPACT, and even INDEPENDENCE DAY, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW shows the end of the world as the result of a new ice age caused, presumably, by humanity's abuse of the planet via pollution, destruction of the rain forests, etc. It's almost like a parable, or a forewarning of things to come if things don't change, but it's difficult to take such a movie seriously - especially when waves of lethal cold seem to chase after some of the characters in the film, in much the same way fire is described as being alive and having a mind of its own in BACKDRAFT.

(2006)

This Mel Gibson film APOCALYPTO ("The Apocalyose," or "The End of the World") doesn't tell the story of the end of our world but, instead, tells the story of the end of the Mayan world. I include it in this list because, since 2006, there has been an increased interest in what is referred to as the "Mayan Calender," which supposedly predicts the year 2012 will hearken the "End of the World." This notion, which I have read should be understood as the dawning of a new age more than as the literal end of the world, has garnered such interest that multiple best-selling books have been published, documentaries about the "Mayan Code" have been made, and it even inspired the plot of the next film in our list. APOCALYPTO, for the record, is a good film, although a little nerve-wracking due to its frightening chase sequences and its on-screen brutality.

(2009)

The movie 2012 presumes that the Mayan Code was correct, and then shows us how the world will end as the result of tidal waves, earthquakes, etc.. Before the movie wraps up, however, it transforms into what seems to be a modern re-visitation of WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, where an astral threat speeds toward Earth promising certain doom, so giant rockets are built to transport select humans to a hospitable planet. 2012 is really quite ridiculous, and is only worth checking out for the special effects, if you can tolerate the tedious conceit of the movie that its main characters are always above any threat of real harm. I really hated this film.

(1997)

SPAWN was the first CGI-heavy Superhero movie, and it's based on the Todd MacFarlane comic book of the same title. It deals with an assassin/soldier who is killed and then brought back to life with super powers after he is tricked into trading his soul to a demon named Malebolgia. The Faustian twist of the story is that the main character, who offered his soul in exchange for being able to see his wife again, is intended to be a commander in Hell's army which is, presumably, training to wage war against God and the Heavenly host. We see the Hell plane inhabited by Malebolgia and his demon armies, but we never actually see the end of the world. Instead, Hell's demons are preparing for it. Spawn, of course, morally repulsed by the deal he's become entrapped in when he realizes he can't interact with his wife, only see her, refuses to serve Malebolgia and, instead, becomes a superhero, intent on protecting the downtrodden. Martin Sheen plays a villain in SPAWN and, in one interesting scene, poses a threat that will trigger the release of nuclear warheads in what almost seems to be a nod to a similar subplot in THE DEAD ZONE.

(2004)

Both HELLBOY movies offer glimpses of a future apocalypse, but it remains to be seen whether or not it can be subverted. The title character is, presumably, a son of the Devil who was adopted by soldiers in World War II, and raised to be a Catholic Christian. In the first film, villains try to trick Hellboy into sparking the apocalypse, but are thwarted, but there's at least one sequence dealing with the future that shows a fully horned Hellboy wearing a crown of flame, looking sad, as he sits within a realm in which the entire Earth has been reduced to ashen rubble. The scene looks very much like the nuclear annihilation scene in TERMINATOR 2, and is alluded to in HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY, released 4 years after the original.

(2005)

Another comic book-inspired take on the on-going war between Heaven and Hell and an attempt at triggering the end of the world, CONSTANTINE features Keanu Reeves as the title character. John Constantine, the main character in an adult comic book actually called HELLBLAZER, is supposed to be a blonde Brit who lives in England, but in the film, he's a brunette from America. Cursed because of a failed suicide attempt as a child. John Constantine can see both the dead and demons, and the main plot of the movie revolves around his investigation of the suicide of a twin, and a covert attempt by one of God's own angels to upset the spiritual balance of the universe. Lucifer makes an appearance in the movie, as does an archangel, but the main sequence that sticks out is a scene where John Constantine takes a trip to Hell which, once again, seems to be a parallel version of our reality where everything seems to have been obliterated by nuclear fallout. Repeatedly, films of this type seem to expect that the end of the world will be the result of nuclear warfare covertly sparked by unseen paranormal forces.

(1981)

The third and weakest installment of the OMEN franchise, THE FINAL CONFLICT reveals the political rise of the anti-Christ, Damien, and his attempt to find and kill the newborn Christ. Where this insane notion arose from in the mind of the script-writer, one can only guess, but even the resolution of the film shows that this was a bone-headed idea. Interestingly, nuclear missiles play yet another role in a prospective end of the world scenario in this.

(1999)

One of the least well-received Arnold Schwarzenegger films, END OF DAYS boasts a storyline similar to THE OMEN III: THE FINAL CONFLICT, but mixed with ROSEMARY'S BABY. In this movie, the Devil, played by Gabriel Byrne, attempts to impregnate a girl who failed at a suicide attempt, so he can father the Anti-Christ, who will usher in the End of Days of the title. Other films have followed a similar plot thread, including THE REAPING, LOST SOULS, and THE SEVENTH SIGN. None of these movies play it straight when it comes to New Testament Scriptural teaching about the "End Times," or even the Anti-Christ.

(1995)

Convoluted with a capital "C," the 1995 film THE PROPHECY nonetheless went on to spawn two sequels. About a supposedly lost book of Revelation, it details the angel Gabriel's attempts to end an on-going war in Heaven. It's noteworthy only for its sequences detailing battle scenes between angels, but the author of the script doesn't seem to grasp that there was only one war in Heaven according to the Old Testament, and it clearly described how Satan and his angels were cast out of it to Earth, where they've been causing humanity problems ever since. Viggo Mortenson plays a sympathetic Lucifer in this, years before he starred in THE LORD OF THE RINGS films. This film makes me uncomfortable, largely because the final chapter of the Book of Revelation plainly states that, if anyone adds to it, they've cursed themselves. This entire film is based on a concept that adds to it.

(2009)

As convoluted THE PROPHECY was in relation to the Scriptures it supposedly was inspired by, LEGION is even worse. According to the premise of this film, God has grown weary of sinful mankind, and has decided to wipe everyone out. Meanwhile, a woman is about to give birth to a child who will ultimately become the savior of mankind, so an angel goes against God's orders to murder it, and a legion of God's morally ambiguous heavenly host ascend to where the child's mother works. All chaos breaks out, and the feuding forces both utilize earthly weapons against one another, including guns. Uh, the gun thing is weird enough, but why doesn't Jesus factor into all this? I mean, they're basing the script on elements from the Christian Scriptures, but they're leaving Christ out of the equation altogether. Not sure why no one behind this action-packed Horror movie thought about that. Seems like a huge oversight to me. Like THE PROPHECY, this movie is notable for its special effects dealing with angelic warfare, but it's a logistical mess when trying to put all the pieces of its puzzle together. Dennis Quaid plays a minor role in the film and, interestingly, he starred in another movie about the Apocalypse that same year, entitled HORSEMEN. The final scene in LEGION is lifted whole cloth from the final scene in 1984's THE TERMINATOR, where an armed Sarah Conner rides off into the sunset bearing her unborn future savior and muttering, "There's a storm coming."

So there we have it, but not a single film in this list comes close to depicting what's actually described in the Book of Revelation in regard to the End of the World. Most of them deal with a potential Armageddon that is ultimately thwarted, and quite a few of them feature sons of the Devil or Anti-Christ figures, but none of them directly involve Christ except for the final OMEN film which, ironically enough, is the only movie in the list to boast a full-grown Anti-Christ in its storyline. Too bad Jesus only warrants a cameo.

Twelve Glimpses of Heaven and Hell

2011-09-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

Hollywood has long had a fascination with trying to offer movie-goers a peek into the afterlife. It would be pointless to attempt to list every Hollywood film that attempted to show us a peek into Heaven or Hell, so I'll stick to a dozen that stand out to me, and all will be from the 1970's on, in chronological order of release. I was tempted to include movies like DANTE'S INFERNO from 1935, starring Spencer Tracy, but its scenes of Hell are from an earlier, Italian film of the same name. I was also tempted to include movies like HERE COMES MR. JORDAN from 1941, but it was later remade as HEAVEN CAN WAIT (1978), and I contemplated adding A GUY NAMED JOE from 1943, but Steven Spielberg remade it in 1989 as ALWAYS, so I'll just list the remakes.

Moat of the movies that deal with Hell are a lift on the old German legend of Faust, who sold his soul to Satan in exchange for all the wisdom and pleasures of the world, but I'm not going to list movies like THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER from 1941, or any of the more comedic takes on that theme, like DAMN YANKEES! from 1958, or BEDAZZLED, released in 1967, and remade with the same title in 2000. I'm also going to refrain from movies like ANGEL HEART from 1987, or THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE from 1997, or even Roman Polanski's THE NINTH GATE from 1999 - none of these movies focus on Hell as much as they do the Devil, or the journey to Hell, and they barely even offer a glimpse into Hell, if they attempt to at all.

The movies that deal with Heaven tend to be more abstract than the movies that deal with Hell. Movies that give us a peek into Hell usually expose us to images of flames and fire, and horned devils etc. Movies that deal with Heaven tend to more about concepts and ideas that bring comfort and give viewers the warm fuzzies. Personally, I find it intriguing that none of the movies about Heaven in our list offer up imagery involving Judgment Day as it is traditionally understood in Judeo-Christian theology, but all the movies about Hell imply that the people destined to go to the "bad place" are ultimately sent there because they are deemed sinful and unworthy of getting into Heaven by the Eternal powers that be, who typically go unnamed.

The movies in the list ping-pong between Heaven and Hell, and there's no real rhyme or reason to it since it's a list based on the chronological order of release for these particular films. Here we go...to Eternity, and Beyond!

1970

Most people would be hard-pressed to recall seeing either Heaven or Hell in SCROOGE, but there's a sequence where Marley's ghost shows Ebenezer Scrooge what awaits him if he doesn't repent from his wicked ways. In that scene, Scrooge sees what Hell will be like for him; it's an eternally hot office room in an icy region of Hell - the inverted price he pays for making poor Bob Cratchit suffer through the chill of winter because he was too cheap to let him use enough coal to warm the room. Muscle-bound demons are shown bringing in Scrooge's custom-made chain, too, before the scene plays itself out.

This scene adds new meaning to "ICY HOT"...

1978

I never really cared for HEAVEN CAN WAIT, mainly because I got stuck seeing it when my sister and some other girls refused to let me see GREASE with them because I was an icky boy. I went and saw HEAVEN CAN WAIT instead, and found it to be a rather limp take on the afterlife. Even as a child, I didn't care for films where Heaven makes mistakes.

1980

OH HEAVENLY DOG was somewhat similar in theme to HEAVEN CAN WAIT in that it focuses on what happens when someone dies a premature death, and Heaven allows them to return to Earth to correct the mistake. It was also a body-swapping movie, where Chevy Chase trades places with the loveable mutt Benji. It's the weakest BENJI movie ever made, and best left forgotten. I remember one scene making me extremely uncomfortable, when Chevy Chase - in the body of the dog - jumps into the bathtub with Jane Seymour's character. I do remember chuckling, however, at a sequence set in Heaven where someone uses a lightsaber as a pointer stick when showing Chase's character some information on a white grease board.

1985

Never really cared much for this supposed "comedy" about the spirit of a dead teenager from the 1960's in training to become a guardian angel. In this film, Heaven and Hell are referred to as "Uptown" and "Downtown" locations that are arrived at via a train and, other than that conceit, it's a typical lame comedy for teenagers from the 80's.

1989

One of the only Spielberg movies I don't much care for, I think ALWAYS is rather limp as an exploration into what goes on "on the other side." Richard Dreyfus, as the main character who can't go to Heaven until he's certain his lady love is okay, isn't a very likeable love interest for his co-star, Holly Hunter. I also don't care much for John Goodman's over-the-top performance as his living best friend, and the finale of the film, in which the lovely Audrey Hepburn plays a white-clad angel just isn't very satisfying. There are a few good moments in the movie, but it's not worth re-visiting too many times. It doesn't really have anything new to say, and only serves to remind us that true love is eternal, and we should appreciate one another during the living years.

1990

Most everyone is familiar with GHOST, but not everyone is aware that it was scripted by Bruce Joel Rubin, who also wrote the screenplay for JACOB'S LADDER, which is the next film in our list. The two movies are almost inversions of one another, although JACOB'S LADDER isn't as straight-forward a narrative, and deals more with horror than anything else. We get a glimpse of the entrance to Heaven at the end of GHOST, but it's mostly an abstract series of images of clouds and light, with spectral images of past loved ones waiting for their friends and family to cross over into Eternity.

1990

Don't want to say a whole lot about this film, because I suspect not many people have seen it, but it deserves to be seen, even if I don't necessarily agree with it on a philosophical level. Regardless, it forces viewers to analyze what they're seeing, and ponder the concepts of Heaven and, even moreso, Hell. This movie put imagery into my mind about Hell that seeped into my unconscious mind and gave me nightmares that I don't think I'll ever be able to shake. An interesting film.

1991

While this film stands in direct opposition to what I personally believe about Eternity as a Christian, I can't help but love it because it's a hilarious romp. Especially the scene where Albert Brooks as the lead character discovers what his past lives were in a viewing room that reveals his various incarnations; it's even funnier when we see the past lives of his love interest, played by Meryl Streep. This movie's hilarious, even if I can't take what it says about the afterlife seriously. Interestingly enough, Heaven is arrived at via a bus, and we see glimpses of the depot from which the main character boards the bus to get there. It reminded me of THE HEAVENLY KID, but on a greater scale. Heaven, in this movie, is more of a luxurious resort than it is the "Heaven" most of us are familiar with, and if one doesn't do enough good in their lifetime, they keep getting reincarnated until they earn enough points to get to Heaven.

1991

This was originally called BILL & TED GO TO HELL, but the title was changed to avoid offending anyone. Still, Bill and Ted do go to Hell in this movie, but it's a brief trip, and they figure out how to escape. It's a personal Hell, though, as opposed to a place of fire and flame. Basically, this film is a rather weak sequel to BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE in which enemies from the future send robot doubles of Bill and Ted into the past to kill them so the future revealed at the end of the first film won't ever happen. Bill and Ted literally outsmart Death, and while the movie could have explored deeper themes about Eternity, it opted instead to revel in its own silliness.

1993

Yet another "afterlife" movie involving an Earthly mode of transportation as a way to Heaven, HEART AND SOULS was released well before Robert Downey, Jr. became a household name as Tony Stark in IRON MAN. In this movie, four people die in a bus crash at the very moment a baby is born, and they are assigned to be his guardian angels so they can assist him while he, unknowingly, helps them settle their unfinished business on Earth before they're allowed to go to Heaven. Its theology is rather shallow, but its heart is in the right place. Still, it doesn't really add anything to the cinematic concepts of Eternity that have come before it.

1998

Based on a novella by one of the original writers of television's Twilight Zone, Richard Matheson, WHAT DREAMS MAY COME deals with a man who dies and goes to Heaven only to discover that his wife is not there because she went to Hell for killing herself. He decides to rescue her, and a mystical trip through Heaven and Hell ensues. The visuals are stunning, and while it offers an interesting variation on themes dealing with the afterlife, it's ultimately conjecture in the grand scheme of things. It offers interesting theories, however, and should be good fuel for discussion to those willing to talk about them. Imagery in this seems to have been lifted, whole cloth, in Peter Jackson's 2009 film, THE LOVELY BONES, previously reviewed on this blog.

2010

Clint Eastwood threw his directorial hat into the ring of Afterlife movies with HEREAFTER in 2010, and his movie deals with three stories about individuals whose lives are affected by death. Matt Damon plays a psychic in the film, and his story doesn't seem to interlock with the other two independent stories of the movie until the very end, when the narratives are all braided together but, like other movies of this type, in the end we're left with nothing less than speculation. It would make a pretty good double feature with the 2002 Kevin Costner film, DRAGONFLY, which treads similar thematic ground.

So there we have it: Twelve movies that deal with Heaven and Hell. But if we hoped to arrive at a more solid understanding or gain a deeper insight into Eternity after watching these movies, could we claim we did? I suspect if we tried to document what we learned we would, instead, hold in our hands something akin to a declaration penned on a parchment woven out of spider webs and mist.

Ten Fantasy Films that Worked...

2011-09-08T09:35:00.000-07:00

It would be foolhardy for me to attempt to list all of the successful Fantasy films I could come up with in a single post - especially when considering how many have been received with enthusiasm. The STAR WARS movies come to mind, and the HARRY POTTER films, not to mention Peter Jackson's LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, or the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN films. Fantasy films are extremely popular, and most of the blockbusters of the last few decades have contained elements of the fantastic. This list, however, is comprised of ten Fantasy films that you may not be too familiar with, for one reason or another. Not all of them were well received at the Box Office, and some of them are far from perfect, but I think they accomplished what they set out to do - suspend our disbelief and temporarily transport us into a world where anything is possible, even if it's not scientifically plausible. Like my other lists, it's not all-inclusive and, of course, it's extremely subjective. For some, these movies don't work but, for me, I really enjoy them.

The first film in my list is my all-time favorite Fantasy film that's not part of a franchise. It's the product of the mind of director Terry Gilliam, who produced several other Fantasy films I really love, but I didn't want any one single director to dominate my list, although one director has more than one movie in my list.

BRAZIL, from 1985, accomplishes everything that Zac Snyder's SUCKER PUNCH failed to achieve. Both films deal with the fantasies of an unsettled mind, and we're never completely sure if the main character is insane or more sane than everyone else around them. Both movies feature fight sequences involving giant samurai, but in BRAZIL one of these giants bleeds fire whereas, in SUCKER PUNCH, the main character fights both a samurai and a fire-breathing dragon. The message of BRAZIL is a lot clearer than that of its counterpart film, but it's still open to debate. Regardless, the fact that both movies end on the exact same note makes me certain that SUCKER PUNCH was a failed attempt at an homage of Gilliam's film. I really love BRAZIL. Can't say the same of SUCKER PUNCH.


My All-Time Non-Franchise FANTASY Film.

1981's DRAGONSLAYER seemed to come out of nowhere, and my older sister and I saw it at the theater just as it was under threat of being replaced by a newer movie.We saw it the summer before our father died of cancer, and we really enjoyed it. The effects still hold up, although certain scenes are rather gruesome. It would be a great companion piece to HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, if you watched DRAGONSLAYER first, but it would also be a good double feature with WILLOW, in whatever order you chose. It's a "Sorcerer's Apprentice"-type story featuring a very young Peter MacNichol as a wanna-be sorcerer, and Sir Ralph Richardson as a master of the mystic arts. They join forces, in a story similar to THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, after the citizens of a small village raise funds and hire them to deliver them from the terrors of a giant dragon whom their monarch regularly offers a virgin to from their populace.

A great, fun adventure movie.

KRULL, from 1983, was the first movie I can think of that dared to merge Fantasy and Science Fiction elements together, and even though it echoed the thematic elements from movies like STAR WARS and CLASH OF THE TITANS, in the end it simply worked. It's not perfect, however. It can be plodding at times, and it can be a little campy and corny at times, but it's still a lot of fun if you're willing to just go with it. The storyline deals with the alien invasion of a medieval planet where magic is real that results in the kidnapping of a beautiful princess, and her fiancee's efforts to obtain a magical weapon in order to save the day and ward off their new enemies and they technological threat they present to their people. Look for early performances by a then-unknown Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane, and a late performance by the great Freddie Jones. The beautiful Lysette Anthony is also featured; it's a shame her career never really took off. I'm a big fan of the video game this movie inspired, and the cool bladed KRULL device. I still want one.

Not for every taste, but I like it.

Like to Coen Brothers, Ridley Scott seems to be on a mission to do a movie in every genre, and his 1985 film LEGEND was his first and last attempt at a Fantasy film after he dabbled with a historical film, THE DUELISTS, and two Science Fiction epics, ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER. Two versions of this movie were released, one in Europe with a Jerry Goldsmith score, and another in America with a score by Tangerine Dream. Both are good, and while the movie is a little long, and it seems over-acted at times by its LORD OF THE RINGS-type characters (particularly the fairies), it's still a good movie, even if it's regarded as something of an anomaly. A teenaged Tom Cruise stars as Jack, a Peter Pan-type boy from the wild, and Mia Sara (who went on to fame one year later as Sloane in FERRIS BEULLER'S DAY OFF) plays his love interest, a princess who dares do the unthinkable, and touch a mystical beast of the forest - a unicorn. The basic plot of the movie is this: DARKNESS, the demonic-looking son of EVIL, wants to rule the world and enslave it in shadow. In order to accomplish this, the natural order of things must be upset, and he assigns trolls to accomplish this by slaughtering a unicorn, since unicorns represent all that is good, and mystical, and pure. When the princess touches the unicorn, the trolls strike, and when the unicorn is slain, they kidnap the princess so Darkness can seduce her into becoming his bride. Jack, of course, doesn't like this plan, and decides to try to rescue her. It's a rather odd film, and it's very long, but it's beautiful to look at, and it can convince you that real odds are at stake if you let it. Tim Curry as Darkness is the film's most potent property.

A good movie, if you've never seen it...

Nick Castle's 1986 film, THE BOY WHO COULD FLY, should have been a box office smash but, like his other efforts, it became more of a cult classic. Castle, the first performer to play Michael Meyers, "The Shape," in the original 1978 version of HALLOWEEN, went on to direct THE LAST STARFIGHTER in 1984, DENNIS THE MENACE in 1993, and he also wrote the screenplay for Steven Spielberg's 1991 film, HOOK. His film THE BOY WHO COULD FLY is a beautiful fable about belief and true love, and how we all need to see the inner beauty of others instead of nitpicking them for their faults. A very young Fred Savage is featured in the cast in a minor role, and I've always been surprised that Jay Underwood, who played the title role, never became a big star. The movie's not perfect by any means, but it's heart is very clearly in the right place, and despite its low budget, it makes a believer out of the viewer by the time the end credits roll. I don't want to say any more so those who haven't seen it can enjoy it for the first time.

Mindy Cohn, from TV's THE FACTS OF LIFE, also has a minor role in this...

After BEVERLY HILLS COP proved to be a Box Office juggernaut, Eddie Murphy ruled the Box Office in the late 1980's, but his 1986 film, THE GOLDEN CHILD, turned out to be one of his less well-received efforts. A great companion piece to BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, which was released that same year, this movie deals with Murphy's character's attempts to rescue a kidnapped child believed to be something akin to a messianic figure to a mystical group of Buddhists from the Orient. Charles Dance, who played the primary villain of the film, went on to play a very similar role in the dismal Arnold Schwarzeneggar offering LAST ACTION HERO in 1993. Murphy is told he's been "chosen" to rescue the Golden Child of the title, but he doesn't really believe it until the very end of the story. Not sure what the movie's message was intended to be, but I do know that I find it to be an enjoyable film, despite the fact that most of its subject matter goes against my religious convictions.


I never cared for this poster. Eddie Murphy looks like "Joe Camel" in it to me.

When I first saw the 1988 film WILLOW, which was conceived by the creator of STAR WARS, George Lucas, and directed by Ron Howard, I wondered if it was the first installment of a primitive trilogy precursor to the original STAR WARS trilogy. Lucas said back in the 70's that he hoped to make three trilogies in all, but he later abandoned that idea. WILLOW could easily have been the first of a three-part story that feasibly would have served to explain the origin of "the Force," and the rise of the Empire and the fall of the Old Republic but, instead, no further films were made. After the film was released, however, Lucas teamed up with the most popular writer of the X-Men comics, Chris Clairmont, and, together they conceived of a follow-up trilogy of novels that explained what happened after the events of the film. WILLOW opens, essentially, with a variation on the Moses story in the Old Testament, merged with the Slaughter of the Innocents in the opening of the Gospels, but the intended victim of the massacre of infants in this film is a little girl, not the baby Moses or Jesus. Willow, a little person similar to J.R.R. Tolkien's hobbits, is assigned by his village elders to return the baby to her human parents, and the bulk of the film deals with his quest to do exactly this in a landscape where magic and magical beings are the norm. WILLOW also features a "Sorcerer's Apprentice" sub-plot, and the movie would be a nice double feature with DRAGONSLAYER.

The actor who played the title role has appeared in four STAR WARS films.

Tim Burton's 1990 follow-up to his first BATMAN film, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, is one of his best-loved films, and rightly so. It features a perfect balance of comedy and drama, and is a beautiful fable about unconditional love in a world filled with hypocrites, prejudice and bigotry. Johnny Depp plays the title role, and this movie marked his first collaborative effort with Burton, with whom he'd go on to work with again in ED WOOD, WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, and ALICE IN WONDERLAND. Wynona Ryder plays the title character's love interest, and Michael Anthony Hall is almost unrecognizable as her bullying boyfriend. Vincent Price offered his last film performance in a cameo as Edward's creator. A lush, beautiful film with multiple layers of meaning.

Burton has wild hair like many of his film characters.

Most people aren't real familiar with Richard Donner's 1992 film, RADIO FLYER, starring an extremely young Elijah Wood, but it perfectly captures the fantasy-laden worldview of a young child. The movies running theme of fleeing and flying away from the horrors of child abuse and domestic violence is wonderfully counterbalanced by the way Donner brings childhood fantasies to life onscreen. If you've not watched this film, do yourself a favor and seek it out. But don't watch it unless you have some tissue handy. A great movie that deserves a wider following.

Donner hated working with kids on THE GOONIES, but you'd never know it when watching RADIO FLYER.

Tim Burton has directed several other Fantasy films that I love, but in the interest of keeping this list to ten titles, I only wanted to include movies I'm extremely fond of. BIG FISH, based on a novel by a fellow North Carolinian, is probably the one Burton movie that is closest to my heart, chiefly because of the way the narrator of the movie gets to say goodbye to his terminally ill father. I was so engrossed in the story as the primary character's tall tales were brought to life before my eyes that, by the end of the movie, I was weeping so hard that my beard had become saturated with tears. I dearly love this movie, and I especially love the way it attempts to look between the lines of the lies our loved ones sometimes try to sell us when they don't want us to know the full truth about something they'd rather keep private.


An extremely imaginative film that deserves to be seen.

And there we are - ten Fantasy movies that are very near and dear to my heart. They might not be anyone else's cup of tea, but they certainly work for me.

A Baker's Dozen of Failed Fantasy Films

2011-09-07T16:09:00.000-07:00

SUCKER PUNCH (2011)

For once I was completely right in opting to miss a movie at the theater and waiting 'til it came to the public library, where I checked it out for free. Still, it cost me the time I wasted watching it, and I'll never get those two hours back. To date, I've liked pretty much every movie Zac Snyder's directed, although I'd have to admit that I've had to overlook a few bits and pieces in his films that I didn't think worked. Still, I was completely and bitterly disappointed by Zac Snyder's SUCKER PUNCH, which was one of the worst vanity projects I've ever seen Hollywood dredge up from the mental depths of a once-promising film-maker. The movie made little to no sense, and seemed to randomly swap back and forth between fantasy realms that had no appeal and no clear connection to one another. It was like watching a video game addict's drug-induced nightmare about residents of an insane asylum seeking escape. Then, at the end, a voice-over narration attempts to encourage the viewers to persevere in the face of adversity, but the words expressed go against everything that happens to the movie's primary character, Baby Doll.

SUCKER PUNCH is all flash and no substance, and I now clearly see why some people walked out of the theater, and why it was very quickly pulled from release. Despite all this, it made me do some thinking, which is why I've decided to list 12 more movies that attempted to be Fantasy epics that also failed to pull it off. I'll go by date of release, starting with the oldest, and ending with the most recent. Some of my choices may be controversial, as I'm aware that they have achieved cult classic status, but I'll briefly explain why I think each movie simply didn't work. Most of these are animated, but since SUCKER PUNCH was a blend of live-action footage merged with computer-generated imagery, that shouldn't make any difference.

BUD'S LIST OF 12 FANTASY FILMS THAT ULTIMATELY FAILED


WIZARDS (1977)

Interestingly enough, the director of this film, Ralph Bakshi, will have more than one film in this list. Why? Because I think his crude design work, his rough illustration and animation style look terribly weak when compared with the work of other animators, he clearly lacks cogent story-telling ability, and his cheap-looking roto-scope work looks phoney and herky-jerky. Also, his work too often features stereotypically drawn female characters who are overly top heavy, squeaky-voiced and air-headed, or slouchy male characters like the one featured in the poster, above. His mixture of nearly realistic characters and wildly cartoony ones just don't mesh, either. Plus, he seems incapable of properly directing the voice-over actors, or the on-screen actors he works with, and there's an imbalance in every single feature he's done that make his movies seem as though they're teeter-tottering between extremes. WIZARDS is supposed to be a post-apocalyptic parable about a showdown between the forces of Good and Evil in a world where magic and technology are at odds with one another, and if there's more to it, it's lost in the clutter. Looking for meaning in this film, for me, is like searching for a golden nugget in a pile of garbage in a Hoarder's house.

LORD OF THE RINGS (1978)

One year after Rankin-Bass studios aired their animated TV movie version of J.R.R. Tolkien's THE HOBBIT, this Ralph Bakshi theatrical release hit movie theaters. It is, perhaps, his best work to date, although his collaborative effort with Frank Frazetta, FIRE AND ICE, featured a more fully realized narrative and was more solidly structured. There's a lot to like in this first film version of the truncated first two parts of THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy but, again, Bakshi's merging of roto-scope animation and traditional animation techniques simply don't work, especially when the characters in most of the roto-scoped scenes seem to be moving in slow motion at times. There's more visual flare in this production than in any other Bakshi release, but the final product seems artificial, and unsatisfying. The movie's greatest failing is its final sequence, which should have been a cliff-hanger but, instead, is anti-climactic. The film just stops short, leaving no one to care whether or not there would ever be a follow-up. Rankin-Bass would later complete the story in the same style as their HOBBIT film, but it looks and feels entirely different than Bakshi's movie.

SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND (1978)

Ah, the movie version of the Beatles album SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton. I can still remember when this movie was released. I was 12 years old, and it seemed to come out of nowhere, and it was banished back to nowhere just as quickly. Later, so the film-makers could recoup their financial losses, it received extensive airplay on Cable movie channels, and I was one of the poor, miserable souls who dared try to sit through this mess. Featuring the Bee-Gees and Peter Frampton, this movie was a self-defeating attempt at transforming the classic Beatles album into a movie, and boy did it not work. The only thing worth watching is a bizarre sequence with Steve Martin, singing "Bang-Bang Went the Silver Hammer" from the era when he was better known as a stand-up comic with an arrow through his head. I still remember seeing multiple copies of the soundtrack album being sold for dirt cheap at the drug stores in Wilmington, but never saw anyone buy a copy. The real fantasy here was the thought that the Bee Gees could do a Beatles movie to the delight of movie audiences everywhere, making oodles of money for the company that produced this waste of celluloid.

THE BLACK HOLE (1979)

A desperate attempt to cash in on the unexpected success of the George Lucas film, STAR WARS, Walt Disney studio's THE BLACK HOLE comes across as a flagrantly disingenuous Science Fiction epic wannabe. Featuring dialogue lifted whole cloth from the first STAR WARS film ("I've got a bad feeling about this," for starters) and boasting barrel-shaped robots like R2-D2 who sport eyes and fly, this movie lifts a page or two from 20,000 LEAGUES BENEATH THE SEA, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and even a few episodes of the original STAR TREK. Part Western, part family film, and part Heaven and Hell allegory, THE BLACK HOLE was later unofficially redone as a Horror film, EVENT HORIZON, which also lifted concepts from Stephen King's THE SHINING; instead of it being about a haunted hotel, however, it was about a haunted spaceship which, like the ship at the end of THE BLACK HOLE, goes through a portal to Hell, only it returns and brings something terrible back with it. Disney's THE BLACK HOLE does offer some gorgeous eye candy to look at, but it's a completely awkward and uneven effort, all told.

HEARTBEEPS (1981)

HEARTBEEPS, another obvious attempt at ripping off STAR WARS, was the first and last major motion picture to showcase Andy Kaufman prior to his death of cancer. Sadly, it was a wasted effort, as the movie is overly long, features boring and unlikeable characters in a bland futuristic setting, and despite its claim to be a romantic comedy, it's just not funny and it's too emotionless to be romantic. This movie always makes me wish it were closer in tone to Woody Allen's SLEEPER from the early 70's than another bizarre Sci-Fi comedy release from the 80's, ICE PIRATES.

HEAVY METAL (1981)

Despite the fact that HEAVY METAL was an animated anthology film based on an adult comic magazine, it seemed to be an identical cousin of the early films of Ralph Bakshi. The animation styles utilized in the production are cut from the same cloth, the same type of characters Bakshi is best known for are injected into some of the stories, and the over-all product is across the board uneven and wobbly. The final story, too, is roto-scoped using the same herky-jerky technique pioneered by Bakshi. Its voice cast is largely ineffective as well, with the final result seeming more a failed experiment than a successful film.


ROCK & RULE (1983)

Yet another animated film cut from the same cloth as the early Ralph Bakshi efforts, ROCK & RULE was actually a fleshed-out theatrical reinvention of a 1978 animated television special for Canadian television, The Devil and Daniel Mouse. At one point there was so much debate about who actually directed it that bootleg VHS copies sold at comic conventions sometimes listed Ralph Bakshi on the cover instead of the film's true director, Clive A. Smith. The movie incorporated both male and female characters similar to what was seen in Bakshi films, and a storyline about a villain's quest for the mystical lost chord that would allow him to take over the world. Like Bakshi's movies, it's entirely uneven and overly long. It's also too adult in regard to some of its subject matter.

THE DARK CRYSTAL (1982)

THE DARK CRYSTAL was the first collaboration between George Lucas and Jim Henson, prior to their joint release, LABYRINTH, which could arguably be labeled a failure as a Fantasy movie as well. Despite the fact that this movie is widely loved, it contains numerous scenes that are largely silent, and it spends so much time trying to force the viewer to examine the alien landscape it introduces, in the end the weight of the whole causes the entire endeavor to collapse in upon itself. It's no LORD OF THE RINGS, but it clearly aspires to be something like it. It fails in this respect as well.


HOWARD THE DUCK (1986)

What in the world was George Lucas thinking when he gave this movie the green light? HOWARD THE DUCK is nothing like the comic book it's based on. The original Howard the Duck is a cynical inversion of Walt Disney's Donald Duck, and should be more Archie Bunker than cute and cuddly. The movie's stupid, hints at bestiality, and instead of making allegorical statements about contemporary issues like the comic, it deals with aliens from another dimension who take possession of human host bodies and, in the end, seem to be almost entirely lifted from the aliens seen in the 1984 film BUCKAROO BANZAI - yet another movie that could arguably be placed in this list because of its uneven narrative structure.

DROP DEAD FRED (1991)

DROP DEAD FRED is one of those movies that seemed to come out of nowhere, and should have stayed there. I was exposed to it when it was released on VHS, and I wanted to see it because I thought the "Fred" of the title was played by John Ritter, based on the poster. I was disappointed to learn that it was actually a British comic I was unfamiliar with, and I still say that image looks like Ritter being silly. DROP DEAD FRED is an "invisible friend" movie attempting to be something akin to HARVEY, but it's more like HARVEY on acid or PCP. The British comic playing the title role is annoyingly unfunny, and I'd lump this one with SON OF THE MASK as one of the most annoying so-called comedies ever produced. Other films have trod this storyline more effectively, and DROP DEAD FRED is best left unwatched. If you ignore the imaginary Fred, maybe he'll just go away.

COOL WORLD (1992)

For animated movie buffs, comic book junkies, and WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT fans, COOL WORLD was one of the summer of 1992's most widely anticipated releases. But when movie-goers finally saw it, their excitement transformed into apathy, and the movie ended up bombing. Yet another failed project by Ralph Bakshi, this was one of Brad Pitt's first movies, and also introduced many viewers to Gabriel Byrne for the first time. Kim Bassinger voiced one of the lead cartoon characterss, and COOL WORLD largely dealt with her animated character's attempts to invade our reality and become real by seducing her character's creator. Not a lot in this movie makes sense, and it's better left unwatched, to be honest. Especially if you're like me, and you can't stand Ralph Bakshi's characterizations. They annoy me because I think they're corny and over the top.

LAST ACTION HERO (1993)

LAST ACTION HERO seems to rip a page from WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY in that it features a magical ticket that helps make a little boy's dream come true. In this instance, however, the little boy's fantasy is not to enter a magical chocolate factory, it's to meet his favorite fictional movie hero, Jake Slade, who comes bursting out of the movie screen..An Arnold Schwarzeneggar vanity project, this movie went seriously over-budget and then flopped at the box office, making it the first shameful footnote in Arnold's film catalog after a string of major successes that spanned over a decade. The main reason the movie bombed is simple: its storyline was as over the top as its budget, and while Arnold had nothing to be ashamed of in regard to his performance, it was the movie's excessive glut of one-liners that fell flat, the limp threat of the villain of the feature, and the film's sheer corniness that makes it so awful. It's simply not worth watching, in my opinion, although there are a few fake movie previews in it I find amusing.

MONKEYBONE (2001)

Brendan Frasier is one of my favorite actors, and I've loved him in nearly every project I've seen him in, but even he couldn't save MONKEYBONE, which seemed to be a lift on both COOL WORLD and the Jim Carrey film, THE MASK (which I happen to love, for the record). It features Frasier as a cartoonist who goes into a coma, and when his spirit leaves his body, it goes to the cartoon realm he created with pen and paper. Meanwhile, in our reality, his primary creation, MONKEYBONE, takes control of his body, and comedy is intended to ensue. Unfortunately, it doesn't. The end product falls short of comedic, and no amount of brain bleach can completely eradicate your memory of this fiasco once you've been exposed to it.

So there you have it - the worst Fantasy movies I've ever had the misfortune of being exposed to. I have a fondness for Bakshi's take on LORD OF THE RINGS, though, just as I do for Walt Disney's THE BLACK HOLE, the Lucas/Henson film THE DARK CRYSTAL, and HEAVY METAL. They were all large parts of my teen years, and every time I revisit them, I ponder how they could have been done more effectively. Peter Jackson did a much better job of interpreting Tolkien's LORD OF THE RINGS films than either Bakshi or Rankin-Bass studios, but THE DARK CRYSTAL could be done better, as could THE BLACK HOLE. There was a sequel to HEAVY METAL in 2000, but it was so sexist and offensive that it made the original seem tame. I have no hope for remakes of any of the other films in my list. Quite frankly, they should never have been made. In my opinion, at least.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

2011-09-06T10:27:00.000-07:00

Let me say this up front: I hated, hated, hated the last PIRATES movie, AT WORLD'S END. I liked the first film, loved the second, and loathed the third; to me, it was nothing more or less than the RETURN OF THE JEDI of the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN franchise, which I thought would end as a trilogy. As a matter of fact, if you think about it, the first three Pirates movies follow the same basic template of the original STAR WARS trilogy in that the first film is introductory, the second film is a cliff-hanger, and the third film seems to go against everything the first two films were about, and is just bug-nuts crazy with excess. I've always hated the pure silliness of JEDI, and when I saw PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END, I hadn't wanted to walk out of a theater so bad since the summer I saw FROM DUSK 'TIL DAWN and BATMAN & ROBIN back to back - ooh, I hated those movies. And I rarely really hate a movie. I think the last film I really, really hated was ZOOM and, before that, MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND, but those are stories for another time..

Even though most critics didn't care for AT WORLD'S END either, it still raked in a ton of money at the box office, so I guess it was inevitable that Disney would return to the financial well with another installment. I knew it was coming in advance, but I wasn't too thrilled to hear that ON STRANGER TIDES was coming up the cinematic pike. Especially when considering that it might be similar to AT WORLD'S END in theme and content. Then I read an interview with Johnny Depp, who said he didn't much care for the way AT WORLD'S END turned out, and hoped any future installments would be more character-driven. I thought this was a step in the right direction, but when the movie came out, it was almost universally panned by critics, even some I generally trust, and my wife and I decided to give it a pass until it hit the cheap theater during its second run. While we waited, we didn't pay much attention to it, and most American media outlets made out like the movie was a big flop. I was surprised when I learned it made over a billion dollars in world-wide box office ticket sales. This is shocking. Especially when you consider there was a long time there when a Johnny Depp movie barely even made a cent at the box office. But this implies that box office revenue and Johnny Depp alone make a movie "good" or "bad," and that's not how I generally gauge a movie. I either like a movie, or I don't.

When I took the family to see PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES, I went in with absolutely ZERO expectations. I wanted the movie to take me wherever it wanted to take me, and if I liked the trip, fine, and if I didn't - well - it would be my last PIRATES movie at the theater ever.

Shockingly, despite its hefty length at over 2 hours and 16 minutes, I rather enjoyed this one. It was a vast improvement over the last film, so the 4 years of rest they gave the franchise was a wise decision. I think. I know some critics said the plot was impossible to follow, but I had no difficulty keeping up, and neither did my wife or kids.

ON STRANGER TIDES deals with how Captain Jack Sparrow, the infamous pirate, gets involved with Blackbeard the Pirate's attempts to discover the Fountain of Youth before he dies.According to a prophecy given to him by a mysterious zombie, Blackbeard will perish at the hands of a one-legged man, and the most likely candidate seems to be none other than the now-peg-legged Captain Barbosa from the original trilogy. In order to obtain access to the Fountain, however, the company must obtain the tears of a mermaid, and two chalices from the wrecked ship of Ponce DeLeon. New characters include a missionary, a mermaid he names Serina, Blackbeard (who wields a magical sword and can mentally control ropes), and Blackbeard's lovely daughter, who was once romantically entangled with Captain Jack.

There's some innuendo here and there, as Jack and Blackbeard's daughter cross swords both literally and figuratively, but it went over my kids' heads. And the movie starts in medias res, like a James Bond movie, but I never saw where it was impossible to track with. Nor did I see where it was really all that far removed from what has come before, or how director Rob Marshall's style was all that different than Gore Verbinski's, who directed the first three films.

There's a hint after the closing credits that there may be more PIRATES movies ahead, and with its billion dollar+ box office booty, there will probably be many more. Whether or not this will be a good thing remains to be seen, but I'd like to see the intentional loose ends that this one film was loaded with fleshed out in at least one more installment. For example, how did Barbosa lose his leg, and how did Blackbeard obtain his magical powers? There are several others as well, and I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out whether this movie was a sequel to the original trilogy, or a prequel and, if it's a prequel, how did Barbosa grow his leg back? The movie begs other questions as well, and some of the more memorable characters from the first three films are painfully missing, so I await the day when we either learn what became of them, or how Jack Sparrow initially met them. My daughter, especially, missed Elizabeth Swann, and my wife missed Will Turner. I missed the two comic relief characters - the one with the glass eye, and the bald one who loved calling Elizabeth Swann "poppet." Elizabeth and Will's fates were sealed at the end of AT WORLD'S END, I know, but they were still missed - and I can't figure out why those comic relief fellows were M.I.A.

All in all, it was a fun movie to watch on a rainy, cold Labor Day, when all other plans for the day were washed out. Thanks a lot, Tropical Storm Lee.

Winnie the Pooh (2011)

2011-09-05T20:32:00.000-07:00

My wife is a die-hard WINNIE THE POOH fan, and she wanted to see the new "Pooh" movie since she first heard about it. Unfortunately, we were unable to see it during its initial run, but we did catch it when it hit the second run cinema. At just a tad over one hour long, it was still worth the wait. The theater had both adults and little children in the audience, and there was a constant stream of laughter in the room as the antics on the screen played out. Our children didn't seem too impressed, but they didn't complain. It was a lot of fun, to be honest - and I loved the way the animators played around with the end credits; there's a bonus scene at the end of the movie, after the final credits roll that's a hoot. There's also a short cartoon before the movie starts entitled "THE BALLAD OF NESSIE," which tells the cute "true" story of the origins of the Loch Ness Monster, who turns out to love her rubber duckie almost as much as Ernie on Sesame Street.

WINNIE THE POOH is a hand-drawn animated feature, and it hearkens back to the original Pooh films. It's light years beyond the Disney Channel's POOH CORNER series, or the fiasco they created some years ago with an altered color scheme and a little girl instead of Christopher Robin. We were glad to see the characters return to their roots, but not hearing the original voices made us a little sad. This is not to say that John Cleese and Craig Ferguson don't do a good job as, respectively, the Narrator and Owl, because they're fine - but it made me a little sad to recall that the voice actors who did Piglet and company had all passed away. Winnie the Pooh was a big part of my childhood, and this movie speaks to that. I didn't think the songs were up to snuff, but they were adequate, and I couldn't really complain but, again, I missed hearing what I was accustomed to back in the day. Still, if Disney is to make any further Pooh Bear films, they have to move forward, so some alterations are necessary. That being said, it was a delight to hear the toddlers in the theater chortling to the on-screen shenanigans of Tigger, Eeyore, and Winnie the Pooh.

Somehow, I think the movie should have been called WINNIE THE POOH: THE SEARCH FOR EEYORE'S TAIL, but that wasn't left up to me. Regardless, that's what the bulk of the film is about. Eeyore's tail goes missing, and the primary characters of A.A. Milne's 100 Acre Wood join forces to seek it out, offering a pot of honey to the individual who discovers its location. Pooh, of course, is repeatedly sidelined by his quest for honey, and the never-ending rumbly in his tumbly. The movie is pure tee cute, as we say down South, and should delight any fan of Disney's original WINNIE THE POOH characters.

Bud's Summer 2011 Box Office Wrap-Up

2011-09-05T11:19:00.000-07:00

I've never done this before, but today's labor day, and I wanted to take the family to an amusement park as the last hurrah of summer, but we got rained out, so we're going to the movies later. There aren't any more blockbusters slated to be released that I can think of, so I've decided to take a look back at all the movies my family and I saw this summer, and point out a few things. I know that box office receipts don't make a movie "good," but they do show, on some level, what audiences are interested in. I'm aware that there's at least one sleeper movie out there that's generating huge box office revenue, but I've not seen THE HELP yet; I'm waiting for it to hit the cheap theater, which is where I saw quite a few of the movies in my list here. I'm sure I'll love THE HELP, however. It's pretty much a given, since I've investigated what it's about, and it looks like it will hit all the right chords for me.

Anyway, in this wrap-up, I'm not going to review this movies, per se, as much as I'm going to list their release date, their world-wide box-office take, and what their initial production and advertising costs. The information is straight off the movie website BOX OFFICE MOJO, and is current for today's date. Bear in mind that they only list Box Office receipts, and none of these movies have yet to be released on DVD or BLU RAY. More money, I understand, is generated from DVD and BLU RAY sales and rentals than is ever taken in at the box office, and some of these movies were hyped before they hit theaters with a lot of advance merchandise, so no one will ever really know what the final gains for the movie-makers will ultimately be.

Again, I'll only be listing movies I've seen (save two, which we'll be seeing later today - I'll review them in the days to come), and I won't be discussing movies that I haven't previously reviewed here on this blog. Also, I won't be discussing any of the raunchier movies that were released this summer and pulled in massive box office figures, such as THE HANGOVER PART 2, BRIDESMAIDS, HALL PASS, or HORRIBLE BOSSES. As a general rule, I don't care to endorse films of that sort here. I know that may sound somewhat hypocritical when considering that I review the occasional horror movie, but Hollywood - in my opinion - has started making movies with subject matter and content that's far more offensive than the average R-rated Horror yarn has ever been. But that's a topic for another day. I just thought this would be an interesting way to end the summer, so let's have at it and refrain from continuing down this bunny trail any further.

First up to bat, with an awesome hammer toss, THOR, which I saw 4 times at the theater; twice in standard, and twice in 3-D. I really loved this movie, and I'd have to say that I enjoyed it in 3-D a little more because it made the visuals pop, despite the argument that 3-D is just a gimmick, and makes the images too dark, etc. The 3-D in THOR worked for me, just as it did for me when I saw AVATAR and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON in those ridiculous plastic glasses.

U.S. release date: May 6th

THOR cost Marvel (well, Disney, if you think about it) 150 million dollars in production and advertising costs. It generated nearly 450 million dollars world-wide, which means the movie is theoretically in the black by over 300 million dollars. I say theoretically, because I recall the lawsuit between Eddie Murphy and Art Buchwald, where COMING TO AMERICA supposedly lost money even after appearing to make a hefty profit. Hollywood plays fast and loose when it comes to how much money a movie makes. Regardless, a sequel has been announced, following on the heels of next summer's AVENGERS movie by the same studio.

U.S. release date: May 20th

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES was largely panned by most U.S. critics, and if you were to follow media reports about the movie, you would have thought it was a box office failure. However, it raked in over one billion, forty million dollars in ticket sales, world-wide, with most of that money being generated overseas, and only 240 million coming from American movie-goers. Not too bad for a movie that cost Disney 250 million in production costs, which ended up being 10 million dollars more than it brought in here in the U.S.


U.S. release date: June 3rd

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS was initially hailed by fans of the original films as the best movie of the summer, despite it being a reboot and a contradictory re-writing of pre-established continuity. Some even claimed it was the best X-MEN movie since the second film of the original trilogy, but in the grand scheme of things, it made the least amount of money of any X-MEN film ever released, save WOLVERINE: X-MEN ORIGINS, which some regard as an anomaly in the franchise. The movie cost Marvel (or, again, Disney - anyone noticing a theme here yet?) 160 million dollars to make, it brought in nearly 353 million dollars, world-wide, with 58 million dollars more being generated overseas than here in America. Compared to the nearly 460 million dollars X-MEN: THE LAST STAND generated in 2006, world-wide, I'd say this was a clear indicator that, despite the claim of some, interest in the X-MEN is waning.Subtract its production cost, and it only generated 193 million dollars in ticket sales. Nothing to sneeze at, but I challenge you to take a look at the money generated by the two HULK films, and SUPERMAN RETURNS, and note how they were regarded as dismal box office failures despite healthy money intake.

U.S. release date: June 10th

Finally, we're stepping away from a movie made by Disney or Marvel! SUPER 8 was a pet project for director J.J. Abrams, who crafted this thriller as an homage to the old Steven Spielberg movies of the 70's and 80's (with a healthy dose of Abram's own CLOVERFIELD tossed in). It cost 50 million to make, and generated nearly 250 million dollars world-wide. A profit of 200 million dollars is nothing to cluck one's tongue over.

U.S. release date: June 17th

GREEN LANTERN was undoubtedly the biggest disappointment of the summer, in both the way it was received by audiences and critics, and in terms of how much money it brought in. This film by DC COMICS cost 200 million dollars to make, and it only generated only 215 million dollars in ticket sales, world-wide; it made 18 million dollars more in America than it did overseas but, despite its measly box office take of only 15 million dollars in profits, DC COMICS has already commissioned a sequel, promising it will be "darker and edgier," which is what they always claim whenever they reboot one of their franchises when their latest release doesn't live up to their expectations.

U.S. release date: July 15th

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART TWO was received in exactly the opposite way GREEN LANTERN was by movie-goers and critics. It was the biggest hit of the summer, nearly generating a staggering one billion, 312 million dollars, world-wide, with 375 million dollars of that box office take coming from America. I don't even want to try to tally the box office take of all the HARRY POTTER movies together. Suffice it to say that I'm sure J.K. Rowling is set for life, and so are her children.

U.S. release date: July 15th

Not even in the same ballpark as any of the blockbuster releases of the summer, WINNIE THE POOH was a return to form for Disney (again), and critics and audiences really loved this movie, but this hand-drawn animated film was released in America on the same weekend as a HARRY POTTER film. Understandably, it only brought in 33 million dollars in revenue, with 26 million of it being generated in the U.S. Still, it cost only 30 million dollars to produce, so its initial 3 million dollars in profit will be a drop in the bucket when this is released on DVD and BLU RAY. The timing of this film's release makes me recall the summer of 1989, when Tim Burton's BATMAN clobbered several movies at the box office that seemed to be surefire hits, including GHOSTBUSTERS 2, which was the initial number 1 hit of that summer before the caped crusader kicked it to the curb and killed its chances to rake in any more cash.

U.S. release date: July 22nd

Comic book geeks seemed to think CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER was fixed in stone to clean up at the box office this summer. However, in an interesting repeat of cinematic history, this movie was well-received by comic book fans and most movie critics but, like the director's other comic book-based film, THE ROCKETEER, it failed to perform to expectations despite a lot of pre-release hype. It made 114 million dollars less than THOR, with a box office take of 336 million dollars, world-wide. Its production budget was 140 million dollars, so it earned only 196 million dollars in the grand scheme of things. THOR, if you recall, made over 300 million dollars after production costs. Captain America, like Thor, will appear in next summer's AVENGERS film, but no sequel plans have been announced to date. Yeah, Cap. I'd look down in shame, too. Still, in its defense, I did see this at the movies twice.

U.S. release date: August 5th

The highest-grossing dark horse film of the summer, RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES surprised everyone when it turned out to be a box office juggernaut despite low expectations prior to its release. After all, the last PLANET OF THE APES film was Tim Burton's re-imagining of the original and, while it made a lot of money, a lot of people hated it because it was so different than the original film. RISE cost 93 million dollars to make and, to date, it's earned 345 million dollars world-wide. After deducting production costs, that puts it 252 million dollars in the black Interestingly, it's brought in 23 million dollars more overseas than here in the States; I can't help but wonder why that is. It would have continued making killer money if THE HELP hadn't knocked it from the top spot, but it's still number 5 at the box office in its fifth week of release.

So there you have it. After reviewing all this, if you're familiar with this blog, see if you can figure out which two films I've not seen yet...

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

2011-09-01T04:35:00.000-07:00

As a Christian, and as someone born in 1966, ROSEMARY'S BABY is a fairly difficult movie for me to write about, because I'm aware that I bring a lot of baggage to the table when I consider such a film. Its subject matter was extremely controversial in my family's home when I was growing up, and I was exposed to a lot of propaganda about it and other films that dealt with the Devil, like THE EXORCIST and THE OMEN. These movies were taboo, they weren't to be talked about and, of course, this made them a little more appealing to those of us who don't like to have someone else do our thinking for us. I recall walking in on the finale of the film when my parents covertly decided to watch it on television when it finally aired, and being absolutely horrified by the scary music and the demonic imagery that flashed on the screen at the film's climax. I avoided even talking about ROSEMARY'S BABY after that, because I was afraid there was even more in it to be scared of. Some time later, however, I watched the weak television sequel, LOOK WHAT'S HAPPENED TO ROSEMARY'S BABY (1976), and it was so watered-down in comparison to the original, I decided that I'd one day watch the original so I could figure out what all the hubbub was about.

By the time I got to see ROSEMARY'S BABY for the first time, as an adult, instead of being overly conscious of the anti-Christian sentiments inherent in its storyline, I was more aware that it was a film by Roman Polanski. I was also aware that the film's director was first a sympathetic figure in the media when his lovely wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by members of the notorious Manson Family, and then became a social pariah when accused of moral failing that resulted in his flight to Europe, where he's remained since the late 1970's. I wanted to watch ROSEMARY"S BABY "cold," so I did my best to watch the movie as a MOVIE, not as a political or religious manifesto, and not as the product of someone with suspect morality who was presumably attempting to persuade his viewers to renounce the Christian God, etc.

On its own merits as a film, ROSEMARY'S BABY is nothing less than a cinematic masterpiece. There are no wasted moments on the screen as the movie plays out, and the film is taught, and tight, and unveils itself in precisely the right manner. As a thriller, it packs quite a punch, especially when viewed on the big screen as opposed to television, which tends to truncate its more dramatic elements by shrinking it down to the size of a television screen. Of course, the fictional "Satanism" in the film made me uncomfortable, as did some of the nudity in the film - and the language, particularly when one character kept taking God's name in vein - but this is because I was brought up in the Church, and a film such as this was clearly not made for me, or for others with similar backgrounds. It was made for adult audiences of the late 1960's and it's more about that generation's questioning of authority - in this case, the Ultimate Authority, God - than anything else. But let's be frank - the movie is also a work of artistic genius, and it would be unfair to label it anything less, even if I'm not real comfortable with the idea that I sound like I'm endorsing the film by stating this.

Roman Polanksi methodically and intentionally wove dark-textured elements into the very fabric of this film, from the sets to the sinister-looking eyebrows of more than one character in the movie. And then he contrasted these thematic elements with the bright colors worn by the title character, not to ignore her fair complexion and blonde hair and blue eyes. Polanski also mixed into the works imagery of fire, and smoke, shadows and sheer horrific darkness. The movie's not in-your-face scary as much as it is creepy, but it's all clearly under the tight control of the director, who clearly oversaw every aspect of this film with meticulous attention to detail, including repeated flashes of scenarios conveying Catholic angst.. ROSEMARY'S BABY is as tightly coiled as a pocket watch, and while it holds up to multiple viewings, it leaves me with unsettling feelings that prevent me from seeing it unless I'm in the mood for it, which is infrequently, and usually when I want to contemplate it as a FILM, analyzing its structure and story composition.

Too often a movie like ROSEMARY'S BABY is ignored as a FILM because it's treated as a DECLARATION OF WAR against Christianity instead of as a work of fiction. I've even seen it referred to as a "Satanic Manifesto," probably because of the fact that it was released to theaters the year before Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan, or because of its subject matter and its shocking finale. The later tragic and controversial events of Polanski's life seem to some to hint that he may have cursed himself by making the film, but this line of reasoning is sort of like believing that the J.K. Rowling made a pact with the devil so her HARRY POTTER books would be successful, which is ludicrous and seemingly anti-intellectual fall-out from the days of the Salem Witch Trials. Interestingly enough, I've heard more criticism over the HARRY POTTER movies than I have ROSEMARY'S BABY over the years. Truth be told, I've heard more claims from right-wing Christians that HARRY POTTER is nothing less than true Satanism watered-down to look innocent which, again, is ludicrous, and clearly came from sources who never even bothered to read the material they criticize before making a judgment call. I find this shocking, since there are blatant cries of "HAIL SATAN!" and "GOD IS DEAD!" at the end of ROSEMARY'S BABY, and nothing whatsoever of the sort in the HARRY POTTER books and films, where Satan's name is never invoked even once.

Of course, ROSEMARY'S BABY - if you aren't aware by now - is about an innocent woman's victimization by a coven of witches, and it also deals with an attempt to groom a human female to bear the offspring of Satan in order to produce the Anti-Christ and usher in a new Dark Age, where demonic powers reign. While some may criticize a film of this type for making the witches coven appear to possess horrific abilities, they rarely seem to take into account the fact that Christians often invoke similar plot-lines into their fiction, chiefly among them the LEFT BEHIND novels, and the THIS PRESENT DARKNESS books of the 1990's. Some could even argue that the OMEN films were "Christian," since they invoke passages from the New Testament to bolster their narrative, and Christ returns victoriously in the weakest installment of the original series, THE FINAL CONFLICT.

Yes, the resolution of ROSEMARY'S BABY makes me feel uncomfortable every tome I see the film and, yes, it presents subject matter that stands in stark contrast to everything I believe as a Christian, but I'd be a fool to say I believe the movie is ultimately realistic. This is not to say that I cannot suspend my disbelief while watching it. Far from it. Within the context of the film, it plays as true and as real as any movie I can think of, but it also boasts a dream-like quality, and even Roman Polanski was known to argue that he filmed the movie from a subjective viewpoint so viewers could regard the movie as being somewhat ambiguous. Are the events in the film the product of Rosemary's mind, or is everything she sees and experiences real? I have a difficult time viewing the movie as if everything that happens in it is the mental and chemical byproduct of per-natal hysteria, but one could make such a case if they wanted to. Honestly, any narrative that avails itself to multiple interpretations is something I would classify as "art." And who's to say that a story that's inherently "Satanic" cannot be considered art?

Popular author Neil Gaiman once stated that it was his opinion that every good writer worth their salt needs to write at least one occult story before they die, and I think there's an element of truth to this. Even Jesus Christ spoke of Hell more frequently than he did of Heaven. So why is it shocking when a film of this type is made, when even John Milton wrote more effectively about the Devil and Hell in PARADISE LOST than he did of God and Heaven in PARADISE REGAINED? For some reason human beings seem to be drawn to darkness long before they ever consider venturing into the light.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

2011-08-28T20:54:00.000-07:00

Previously in this blog, I did a massive retrospective review of the original PLANET OF THE APES film series, its television spin-offs, and the Tim Burton re-envisioning. At the end of the piece, I noted that there were rumors of yet another re-envisioning of the franchise, but I didn't specify what it would be like, or what it was. Turns out it was RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. When I first saw some of the CGI footage of RISE, I was a bit skeptical, because I saw it out of context, and I wasn't completely sure what was going on, or that I would believe that the CGI apes in the impending film looked real in any context. Well, in every way, I was delightfully surprised by what I saw when I caught this at the cinema. I debated about seeing this before its release, but positive word of mouth and the fact that it generated three times its original production budget at the box office, world-wide, in its first three weeks of release, led me to believe that many others had also been pleasantly surprised.

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, in my opinion, is the very best film in the 20th Century Fox franchise, this side of the original film. None of the other sequels or variations hold a candle to this, and in the end, this film scratched every PLANET OF THE APES itch I've ever had, and answered a lot of questions for me. I only had one complaint, and it was an extremely moderate one, because it dealt with whether or not a character called Jacobs (Named after Arthur Jacobs, who produced the original Charlton Heston film) would be able to identify Caesar, the lead chimpanzee character of the movie, after never properly seeing him, and even being prevented from ever learning about his existence after it was discovered he'd been born --- but this enigma wasn't enough to make me want to throw out the ape baby with the proverbial bath water.

RISE is not really a remake of its closest cinematic predecessor, CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, as much as it is a variation on themes first introduced in that film, but to compare them is to try to see similarities between a hand drawing and an oil painting. CONQUEST lacks one key element that RISE has in spades: it offers up a reasonable explanation for how the apes become sentient and set the stage for the ape-run future seen in the Charlton Heston original and the Tim Burton re-envisioning. In CONQUEST, it just, sort of, happens, and "evolution" is blamed, but we're never made aware of how this evolution is made possible. In RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, it's not a spontaneous evolution without explanation but is, instead, a man-made one, that we're introduced to in a major sub-plot about the development of a chemical cure for Alzheimer's Disease that would enable brains to regrow lost or damaged brain cells. When tested on apes, however, it increases their brain capacity, and the first test subject, Caesar's mother, "Bright Eyes" (which is what Charlton Heston was referred to by the chimpanzee scientist named Zira in the original), gives birth to a baby who inherits its brain-empowering benefits genetically, and thrives on its effects at an astronomical rate.

Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in Peter Jackson's THE LORD OF THE RINGS films via CGI techniques, and KING KONG in Jackson's remake using the same technology, plays Caesar in RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. He offers such a compelling performance that I wholly bought into the cinematic reality of the character. To me, Caesar was completely real, and I found myself rooting for him when he was later victimized and even terrorized when held captive in a primate facility for over-reacting in a scene I'll leave up to the reader to discover. I'll try not to spoil to much of the movie for those who haven't seen it, but with a title like "RISE" OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, I'd say it should be a given to everyone that more apes than Caesar become sentient and super-intelligent. Watch the movie to learn how.

Never before have I seen a film that works as a reboot, a re-envisioning, and an extremely respectful homage to what came before. The film is so loaded with visual references to the Charlton Heston original that you could make it into a drinking game if you were familiar enough with the subject matter. There were two scenes that left me slack-jawed with astonishment over how expertly past material was visually and audibly referenced in this film. My favorite thing about this movie, though, was how seeing it caused the part of my brain where my past history with the PLANET OF THE APES franchise was stored to work over-time as I analyzed how this movie could be seen as a more plausible explanation to what had been seen before, and where it might fit within the continuity of the original, or the Tim Burton take.

In the end, I'd have to say that it would fit better in the past of the Tim Burton universe, because Caesar is not the offspring of Cornelius and Zira, and he's not raised by Armando in a circus environment, Furthermore, the events on CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES are too dissimilar to what we see in this film. CONQUEST could still be part of future events, but it wouldn't be believable unless we're introduced to a breed of apes who are made intelligent by a less-potent version of the formula used to make Caesar smart is created, which would explain how future humans make apes their house-pets and slaves. I doubt they go that route, though, if they make anymore APES films, and I suspect they might. Word on the street is that a follow-up would entail future clashes between the apes who become super smart when Caesar introduces them to the same compound that made him smart, and the humans who are shown being subjected to the same chemical and getting deathly ill. Looks like a virus might wipe out a large portion of the human population in tales to come, just as cats and dogs were wiped out in CONQUEST.

If you liked the original series, you should love RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. They ironed the kinks out of CONQUEST, and any follow-up films should follow suit if the same production team maintains their expert control over the subject matter. In many ways this movie does for THE PLANET OF THE APES what the JJ Abrams relaunch did for STAR TREK. I loved RISE about as much as I did STAR TREK, and that's saying a lot.

The Wild Bunch (1969)

2011-08-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

For the bulk of Summer 2011, I've had the great privilege of being able to see several classic motion pictures at the Kentucky Theater in downtown Lexington, KY. It's a beautiful facility, constructed in the 1930's, and the best part about it is the fact that it's largely been maintained as it was originally designed. Before each screening, a professional organist plays music for the audience, and the screen is really massive compared to the modern ones. One thing I've noticed about watching movies in the Kentucky Theater is the fact that, even if I've seen the movie before, seeing a movie blown up on that gigantic screen completely changes my perception about the film. I've had this experience only once before this summer, to a lesser degree, when I finally got to see THE WIZARD OF OZ on the big screen in Roxboro, NC, and I noticed for the first time that, during the Haunted Forrest sequence, the Tin Man is carrying a pistol; I never noticed it before, even after watching the movie umpteen times on television.

The Summer Classics series is winding down at the Kentucky Theater, and one of their last offerings was Sam Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH, which I'd never seen before, either because it was released when I was 3 years old, or because its running time limits it from being broadcast on television with any great frequency. Also, at 2-and-a-half hours long, I never invested the required time needed to become fully engrossed in a film of its length.

While I'm somewhat familiar with Sam Peckinpah's films by reputation, I've not seen a lot of his work. Sadly, I'm more familiar with his later films, which weren't made when he was utilizing his sharpest skills and senses as a film director. So seeing THE WILD BUNCH for the first time was something of a revelation. I love Westerns, so I was really glad to get the chance to see one as notorious as this one on a large movie screen. Unfortunately, I was rather surprised by what I witnessed, because it was not only a revisionist Western, it was far more "adult" than I expected from a movie shot when I was a toddler. The fake, too-dark blood, I expected, largely thanks to the hilarious "Salad Days" skit Monty Python once aired as a parody of Peckinpah films, but I wasn't expecting to see so much nudity and references to Old West prostitution. In a Larry McMurtry novel, maybe, but certainly not in an old 1960's Western. To be frank, the movie deserved the R-rating it received when it was released, and that's not always the case with films of that era.

THE WILD BUNCH features a glut of actors I'm familiar with from other movies of the late 1960's and early 1970's, Ernest Borgnine being one that stands out the most for me. Borgnine plays second fiddle to William Holden, whom I'm also familiar with, but Borgnine's presence made me constantly reflect on his role in THE DIRTY DOZEN, and other "gang" movies of that type I've seen over the years.

THE WILD BUNCH is essentially a tip of the hat to the last gasps of the old West. William Holden heads a group of outlaws trying to get in one final Big Score before they can retire to the cattle ranches they have pictured in their minds. As the movie opens, Holden's gang rides into a town dressed as soldiers, and en route to the bank they intend to rob, they spot a group of kids delightfully watching some ants devour a scorpion. It's a telling image that, ultimately, spells out what is to come before the final credits roll, and lets viewers know that all is not what it appears to be in the cinematic reality of the film. Children take delight in death repeatedly throughout the movie, and beautiful women bear arms and are ready to stab anyone in the back - both literally and figuratively - regardless of how dangerous their prey might be.

After the bank robbery goes horribly afoul, and viewers understand that what they thought were soldiers were actually bandits, Peckinpah begins to reveal the personalities of the Wild Bunch through exposition and flashback sequences, Borgnine's character being the one whose background is fleshed out the least (and perhaps with shrewd intent on the part of the director, since the character makes some decisions in the movie that seem questionable and morally ambiguous, if an outlaw is allowed to have morals).

As Holden's outlaws head to Mexico in search of a final score, they're being trailed by bounty hunters who are even less likeable than the outlaws. The leader of the bounty hunters, it's revealed through flashback, once rode in Holden's gang prior to an ambush in a brothel. His capture resulted in a term in Sing-Sing and, despite the abuse he suffered there, he repeatedly states that he wishes he was still riding with Holden. This blatant yearning for the "glorious" past days of the Outlaw of the Old West is the heart and soul of the movie, and in the end, it's clearly intended to be a document of the transition of that period in American history to the Industrial Age.

In some ways, THE WILD BUNCH reminded me of a more brazen version of BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID with a larger cast, and with more adult situations and far more debauchery. Where BUTCH CASSIDY ends with a still photo of the outlaws going out in a blaze of glory, THE WILD BUNCH shows what happens in their final gunfight. The overly dark-red blood used to display the carnage of bullet wounds reveals what period in Hollywood history the film was made, however, and occasionally disrupted my ability to suspend my disbelief, and I never felt like the actors playing the Wild Bunch were ever doing much more than play-acting. Still, such fake blood was the standard of the day, so I did my best to let it slide.

The clear immorality of the main characters of the film stands in direct contrast to their likeable personalities, and in a sequence near the finale, William Holden's character looks at the prostitute with whom he's just spent the night, and his expression seems to be one of remorse for what he's done, and resignation that it's simply the way things are. As he dresses, he overhears a prostitute in another room crying that his compadres haven't paid her a fair wage for their physical transaction, but he doesn't do anything about it. Instead, he tells his boys to get dressed so they can head out, and one of them crushes a baby bird, leaving it dying on the ground as they walk out. This image of the innocent creature left spent and passing away says as much about Hollywood's past tendency to glamorize old Cowboy stories as it does about what happens when one compares the Hollywood version of the Old West and the true Old West of reality.

In the end, the Wild Bunch is entirely slain, but they do more than their fair share of damage to the army that surrounds them. But, like the scorpion at the film's opening, they are undone by the overwhelming forces that attack them, and Holden's character is shot and killed by both a prostitute and a little boy. The last man standing, when the dust clears, is the bounty hunter who once rode with Holden, who shows up in the aftermath of all the carnage. As his hired men claim the spoils of war under the watchful eye of the real vultures atop the fortress that they emulate, he sits alone outside and takes what's just happened in. He is then approached by the lone survivor of the Wild Bunch, an elderly gentleman who served as the gang's cook and stage coach driver. He's asked to join the new gang that's formulated from the wreckage of the past, and he agrees to ride with them, and off they go into an uncertain future that's framed like a snapshot of a bygone era as the final credits roll.

On the way out of the theater, I overheard a middle-aged woman remarking that THE WILD BUNCH was "one of the best" Westerns ever, and another gentleman rave over the film print and its sound quality. To be honest, I was rather surprised to hear a lady rave about the movie when considering the manner in which it tended to objectify women. But it just goes to show you - there's a certain preconception we all have about Westerns, and despite films like this, most of us have a glamorized image of what Cowboy movies are supposed to be like. THE WILD BUNCH, clearly, set out to shatter those expectations, and even all these years later, some viewers still overlook the inherent dirtiness that Sam Peckinpah seemed to be striving to convey.

Tangled (2010)

2011-08-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

If you're a regular reader, you're probably aware that I admit from time to time that I occasionally miss a movie at the theater, and later regret it. I've written about this experience more than once, and noted this phenomenon for the first time when I wrote my review for THE IRON GIANT. Well, I didn't love TANGLED as much as THE IRON GIANT, but I did regret putting off seeing it at the theater.

The fact of the matter is, I thought - based on the trailers - that TANGLED was a riff on SHREK, which was a clear parody of the established Disney formulaic movies of the past, typically based on old Fairy Tales. My proven-wrong assumption was that TANGLED was Disney's attempt to get revenge on Dreamworks for the SHREK movies, and before I say another word folks, I have to be honest: I've had more than a gutfull of SHREK. Dreamworks went to the well too many times and drained that franchise dry, if you ask me. Dreamworks certainly didn't ask me, and soon they'll be releasing the first SHREK spin-off, PUSS IN BOOTS. What's next? DONKEY'S TALES? Oops, I may have just given Dreamworks an idea. Ignore that last comment, lest they try to wring blood from the chalky white rock that is now the SHREK series.

SHREK did make me laugh, but if anyone tells the same joke over and over, it loses its punch over time, and I prefer my animated movies to offer more than just a few crude laughs and an over-worn premise. I prefer animated movies that either wholly capture my attention and suspend my disbelief, or warm my heart to the point that I feel like a kid again. Many Disney movies do both for me, like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, and in the past I have been moved to tears by old Disney movies that reminded me of the innocence of childhood and the wonder that is human artistry.

When an animation studio completely convinces me that I'm witnessing a story that's taking place in a real world, with real characters, and the drama unfolding can have very real ramifications on the individuals that inhabit those magical planes, I'm hooked. For example, I was brought to tears by WALL-E, and UP left me emotionally shredded with its silent montage sequence near the opening. TOY STORY 3 left me exhausted and weeping with its emotional finale, and I felt as psychologically purged when it ended as I ever have when reading a great work of literature or becoming wholly involved in a good drama. Good animated movies have this effect on me, and THE IRON GIANT certainly brought me to tears when the title character boldly gave his life for his friend and proclaimed, "I'm Superman..." - I get emotional even thinking about it.

When I was younger, I wondered why I was always brought to tears by Bambi's mother's death, or by the presumed death of Baloo the bear in THE JUNGLE BOOK. As an adult, it takes a little more than a death scene to bring me to tears, and sometimes I don't anticipate it happening until it's too late; this certainly was the case with the scene in UP that I alluded to earlier. I actually had to hide my face from my son, so he wouldn't tease me in the theater.

There's a scene in TANGLED that reduced me to tears and, again, I hid my face from my son so he wouldn't point at me and make me the focus of attention. "Hey, look! Dad's crying! Why are you crying, Dad?"

I won't relate which scene it was, but it stands as a testament to the creative power of the human mind. Disney's animators tell a wonderful story in TANGLED, and it's a lot more than a post-modern retelling of RAPUNZEL. It's a lot like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, which is my favorite Disney feature. It's part Fairy Tale, part musical, part comedy, and it's got a lot of emotional heft to it. The Rapunzel character is conflicted for quite a bit of the picture, so I think it's safe to say that she's a much deeper version of the character than anything the Brothers Grimm ever thought up.

After we watched TANGLED, I dug up my old, reprinted copy of the original Brothers Grimm stories, and I reread the tale of Rapunzel. TANGLED hits most of the "beats" of the story, but there are many differences, chiefly plot points that simply wouldn't work in a family movie. Rapunzel, for example, is not a princess in the original narrative, she's the child of a common couple, promised before birth to an old crone after her father steals food from the old crone's garden. Rapunzel's parents willingly give her away, and her new "mother" hides her away in a tower, refusing to ever cut her hair, and using the hair as a way to traverse up and down from the tower she has erected as their dwelling place. In time, of course, someone discovers Rapunzel, and it turns out to be a prince, who cries out, like the crone, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel! Let down your hair!" And so she does, and so begins their romance. Rapunzel unofficially "marries" the prince who found her in her lofty tower, and she ultimately bares his twin children. This enrages her captor, who throws the prince from their lofty home when he next cried out for Rapunzel, and he lands in a thorn patch where thorns pierce his eyes and render him blind. Then Rapunzel is exiled by the old crone, sent away in disgrace with her offspring, and the prince and Rapunzel are separated for many years while the prince blindly wanders in search of her. When he does find her once again, she weeps magical tears that restore his vision, and they live happily ever after.

In Disney's take on the classic story, Rapunzel is the stolen-away princess of a king and queen, and is magically empowered by the properties of a mystical "sun" plant that restores life and health to whomever comes in contact with it. Rapunzel is stolen away by the old crone who originally possessed the magical plant, an act of vengeance after the king uses the plant to restore the health of his ailing wife. The old crone is made young by Rapunzel's magical hair, and she looks sort of like Cher. Rapunzel looks a lot like a living Barbie doll, and boasts the tiniest waist this side of He-Man. I suspect, if she was real, she'd break in half if she sneezed. I've always said that about He-Man, too.

Instead of a prince, Disney opted to make Rapunzel's love interest a thief. A "prince of thieves," I guess, becauswe he reminded me a lot of their version of Aladdin, which is another Disney favorite of mine. Instead of having a horse like the prince in the original tale, he's pursued by a horse who, in an interesting turn, acts more like a dog. The horse in TANGLED is one of the film's most likeable characters, too, so please don't let my description of him fool you. I also like Rapunzel's little chameleon, but I'm not really sure why he was incorporated into the mix, unless he was for exposition whenever Rapunzel talks to him.

The thief discovers Rapunzel in much the same way the prince does in the original version, but no hanky panky ensues, and he convinces her to escape the tower she's imprisoned in, and the two go on the lam, completely unaware of her true identity. She agrees to leave with him becase it will soon be her birthday, and every year she sees thousands of balloons in the sky that she feels somehow connected to. Her true father, the king is of course responsible for the balloons, which he hopes will somehow summon her to return to the castle. What follows hereafter remains up to the viewer to discover.

There are a few twists and turns, and a musical number here and there, but TANGLED is very clearly a movie with its heart in the right place. In the months that I delayed seeing it, I missed opportunities to appreciate yet another great Disney feature - its 50th, to be exact. Let's hope they make many more such great features. I recall a time when they weren't releasing such high quality films, animated or otherwise.

A Survey of the DC Comics ANIMATED movies...

2011-08-05T11:56:00.000-07:00

Well, once again, turnabout is fair play, so it's time to survey all the DC COMICS animated feature releases. Personally, I think they're vastly superior to most of the MARVEL COMICS animated "films," even though they also run around 70 minutes in length on average. To me, their running time ranks them above animated shorts and cartoon episode installments, but below "feature" status - yet they still insist on calling them "feature-length movies," which I feel is false advertizing, if one considers a movie to be a film of about 90 minutes or more on average. Regardless, here we go with our survey:

Released at the theater, and well received by critics; very good film.

DC's first straight-to-DVD release; it's so-so compared to PHANTASM.

Surprisingly good extension of the BATMAN BEYOND series. Watch it uncut or not at all.

The following two BATMAN releases were extensions of the 1990's BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES cartoon and its sequel series, THE BATMAN, and were inconsequential fare at best, and mediocre at worst.

Mediocre extension of SUPERMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES.

Decent adaptation of the famous storyline, but not without flaws.

Unsatisfying anthology with stories that do not intersect.

Fantastic effort set in an alternate DC Universe; great origin stories, too.

Mixed bag, but galaxies better than the theatrical film of this summer.

Really good animated version of a comic book story with same name.

Decent origin tale prevented from achieving greatness because of Steve Trevor's corny dialogue.

Very solid, very good effort. Great fun to watch.

Excellent multi-verse tale. Great viewing fun.

Nice retelling of Supergirl's origin. A lot of fun.

Far too short - needed to run about 30 minutes longer.

Awesome animated version of a great mini-series. Highly recommended.

Another anthology that just didn't do it for me.

The animated arm of DC Comics is currently working on BATMAN: YEAR ONE, which looks to be a sure thing. I will reserve judgement until I see the final product, however. Still, in terms of quantity and quality, I think its plain to see that the DC animated releases are far better than almost anything MARVEL has released to date.

A Survey of the Marvel Comics ANIMATED Movies...

2011-08-05T10:26:00.000-07:00

In the last few years both MARVEL and DC have been periodically releasing animated straight-to-DVD and Blu Ray "movie" versions of their comic stories. They're not really "movies," per se, when considering that none of them run even close to 90 minutes long, and none of them have ever been released theatrically. They're usually around 70 minutes long, at best, and are of varying quality. I much prefer the DC titles, but I'll save them for another post devoted exclusively to them. With no further ado, let's take a look at what the animated arm of the MARVEL empire has been releasing since 2006. Take note that the first two titles were called ULTIMATE AVENGERS, and are largely the platform from which the upcoming 2012 live action AVENGERS film will spring. Also take note that their animated release, THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN preceded the release of the first live action IRON MAN film.

Fairly solid piece, although it's watered down when comparing it to the source material from which it's based.

Weaker installment, inferior largely because it deviated entirely from its original source material.

Fairly decent origin story, but not entirely satisfying.

Differs from the live action film in that it features mysticism. Just okay.

Surprisingly, this is my favorite release after the THOR installment. Very nice.

Weak, largely because its stories aren't connected, and are too short to satisfy.

Despite a change in the finale, a very good release; really entertaining.

My favorite of the releases to date - very solid storyline, great characterization.

MARVEL has also been releasing what they call their "MARVEL KNIGHTS" line of animated features, but they're a mixed bag of tricks, largely because they're not "true" animated pieces except in the sense that they're literally comic book panels that are tweaked to appear as if they're actually moving. I have not cared for these, although the BLACK PANTHER release was an improvement; it was aired on SPIKE TV, though, and actually used a format that was more animated than the other releases in this series.

Animation style is too stilted, and episodes are too short.

Animation is slightly improved, but it's too stilted and herky-jerky.

Longer and better than other KNIGHTS releases, but a little too violent at times.

Weakest KNIGHTS release to date; not worth watching. Too stilted and herky-jerky.

Super Bud's List of Generic "Superhero" Movies...

2011-08-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

My last two posts have focused exclusively on Comic Book movies, with a few movies based on comic strips tossed into the mix. I avoided movies with Comic Book trappings that were based on old Pulp characters or classic novels, like THE SHADOW, DOC SAVAGE, and GREYSTOKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN. I also skipped over movies based on cartoon shows, like UNDERDOG, and movies based on underground comics, like FELIX THE CAT and ZOOM. I think I did a pretty good job giving a thumbnail listing of all that I did, but what I'm listing in this particular post are the generic "Superhero" movies that were cut from new cloth, meaning they weren't based on any specific comic book or book, product, story, or medium. They're all original stories, and the vast majority of them are really rotten to the core. Bear in mind that I'm not going to be listing any direct-to-DVD releases, like THE SPECIALS, or SUPERGUY, or TV movies, like the Disney Channel's UP, UP, AND AWAY! I also won't be listing any parodies, like SUPERHERO MOVIE.

Take special notice of all the posters where the main superhero has his hands on his hips, a'la David Caruso as Horatio Caine on C.S.I, MIAMI -- I never realized how many of these posters feature this particular stance...

Really good release from 1980; excellent story, acting, etc.

Uneven Disney release from 1981; not so good.

Released in 1984, this is probably the worst superhero musical EVER.

Thie release from 1993 has its heart in the right place, but it's over the top.

This 1994 film is too silly for its own good. Not worth watching. Terrible.

Released in 2000, this one is good, but it takes itself a little too seriously.

This 2004 release is note perfect. Best tribute to the Superhero genre ever.

Disney pulled it off twice in a row; this 2005 film is excellent. LOVE IT.

From 2006. one of the worst movies I've ever suffered through.

From 2008. this Will Smith vehicle is painfully uneven. Forgettable.

From 2009, it was as schizophrenic as its title character.

From 2010, this Dreamworks release is a lot of fun, but it's mostly fluff.

Haven't seen this. Not sure I want to.

So, why is it that most of these Superhero "tribute" movies ultimately fail to congeal? I suspect it's got a lot to do with the fact that they're clearly knock-off's of things that we've all seen before, but since most of us are overly familiar with all that's come before, the creative minds behind them (if one can fairly call them "creative") simply don't have a real clear idea of how to strike out in their own individual direction. This was especially true of HANCOCK, which had an intriguing first half, but its second half fell apart like a house of cards when it unexpectedly switched tracks and lost its focus in favor of a sub-plot that made little to no sense.

THE INCREDIBLES and SKY HIGH played like traditional Superhero movies, and MEGAMIND felt like an inverted tribute to the SUPERMAN mythology, but all the other films were either too heavy-handed, or they were too fluffy or over-the-top.

I'm not really sure what to suggest in regard to future "original" Superhero fare, either, because it's now become a serious case of "Been There, Done That," even with many of the more recent Superhero flicks released by the established Comic Book houses. Then again, if I had my way, I'd have the movie companies do straight-up adaptations of certain comic books, or - at the very least - follow the lead of some of the more inventive comic book re-tellings, such as WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF TOMORROW, or MARVELS, or even KINGDOM COME. And while I'm generally opposed to Comic Book movie franchises pushing the "reboot" button, I wouldn't be opposed to retro Comic Book movies, where we revisit the TRUE origins of the characters, and see - for example - modern SUPERMAN movies that were set in the late 1930's, like SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW. I think that would be neat. Instead, we get modern reinvention after modern reinvention, and end up with darker, modified, texturized versions of old heroes and their once bright costumes:

I'll reserve judgment on MAN OF STEEL when it comes out in June, 2013...

I'm simply not sure what tomorrow brings when it comes to Comic Book and Superhero movies, but I am looking forward to next summer's THE AVENGERS.