Science Fiction |

Archive for the Science Fiction Category

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (2013)

Posted in 2013, 3-D, Action Movies, Alien Worlds, Based on TV Show, Blockbusters, Cinema Knife Fights, JJ Abrams, Plot Twists, Science Fiction, Space, The Future with tags Benedit Cumberbatch, Chris Pine, into darkness, jj abrams, Kirk, Spock, Star Trek, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana on May 20, 2013 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT:
STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (2013)
By L.L. Soares and Michael Arruda

(THE SCENE: The vastness of space. Drifting among the stars, we see the space ship the U.S.S. Enterprise. Camera moves in closer, and then we find ourselves on the bridge. L.L. SOARES is dressed in a gold shirt, sitting at the control chair, while MICHAEL ARRUDA stands nearby, wearing a blue shirt and pointy rubber ears)

LS: Engines full thrust. We have to get to Jupiter by dinnertime.

MA: Flying a starship in search of food is highly illogical.

LS: Hey! Stop taking your role too seriously!

MA: Well, perhaps if I were playing Captain Kirk right now, and you were Mr. Spock, you could handle things differently.

LS: No way. I should be Kirk. I’m the captain. Stop whining, Spock. You’re supposed to be cold and logical.

MA: It’s illogical to assume that you would play the captain and I the first officer based on—.

LS: There you go again! Stop with the logic crap!

MR. SULU: Gentlemen, can you please stop your bickering and review the new STAR TREK movie already?

MA: Sure. Why don’t you start us off, Captain.

LS: STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS is the new movie in the Star Trek franchise by director J.J. Abrams, who gave us such previous films as MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III (2006) and SUPER 8 (2011), as well as television shows like ALIAS and LOST.

His previous Trek film, simply called STAR TREK (2009), was something of a calculated risk. By rebooting the original series with a new generation of actors, Abrams somehow was able to give us a movie that could please both original fans and people who were new to the franchise. While it had its flaws, I thought Abrams’ STAR TREK was a pleasant surprise, and the casting of younger actors to play these characters was pretty good.

MA: I agree. As a fan of the original series—the adventures of Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy, and company remains my favorite—I had my doubts about the 2009 film, but it was just good enough for me to put aside my affection for the 1960s TV show and buy into what J.J. Abrams was selling.

I liked the alternate universe idea in that film very much, in that it allowed Abrams to basically play with the characters and stories in a way that would be refreshing and new, and hardcore fans wouldn’t be able to complain about things being “changed” since in this parallel universe things are expected to be changed.

It was a brilliant plot device, and Abrams uses it to full effect here in STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS.

LS: In this first sequel by Abrams, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS brings back Chris Pine as Starfleet Captain James Tiberius Kirk, the character made famous by William Shatner in the original Trek series in the 1960s, and Zachary Quinto as his First Officer Mr. Spock, the role originally made famous by Leonard Nimoy.

MA: And once again, they are both excellent in these roles, which is a key reason I’ve enjoyed these new STAR TREK movies. The cast, especially Pine and Quinto, is very good.

LS: The new movie starts with a bang as Kirk and his ship’s doctor, “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban) are running through an alien red forest, being pursued by eerie, white-painted primitives, as an active volcano is on the verge of erupting them in the background.

MA: Great opening scene. A rousing way to start the movie.

LS: They are there to prevent the volcano from killing all life on the planet, and giving the inhabitants a second chance to advance as a species. During this cultural rescue mission, however, Kirk has to make a desperate decision when Spock’s life is put in danger, and makes a choice that puts him in hot water with his superiors back on Earth. As a result, Kirk and Spock are both demoted, and Kirk is “relieved of duty” as captain of the Enterprise.

But, as any fan of the series knows, this won’t last long. And while Kirk accompanies the Enterprise’s new captain (and the guy who was in charge of it before him), Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood), to a meeting of Starfleet elite, they are attacked by a man in a small, but heavily-armed ship, which results in several casualties. Kirk is called upon to hunt the murderer down, and in the process gets reinstated as Captain of the Enterprise (and Spock is reinstated as his First Officer).

Along for the ride are the usual cast of characters, including Communications Officer Uhura (Zoe Saldana from AVATAR, 2009) , who is also Spock’s girlfriend; Engineer Scotty (Simon Pegg from SHAUN OF THE DEAD, 2004), John Cho (Harold from the HAROLD AND KUMAR movies) as Mr. Sulu, and Anton Yelchin as Russian crewmember Chekov (Yelchin was also in movies like the FRIGHT NIGHT remake from 2011, that you liked a lot, Michael, and TERMINATOR SALVATION, 2009). There’s also a new crew member, Carol (Alice Eve) who looks great in her underwear and who just happens to be the daughter of Commander Marcus (Peter Weller, ROBOCOP himself back in 1987), the man who sent Kirk and his crew out to get the murderous bad guy dead or alive, preferably dead. This is former Starfleeter James Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch, who you can also see as the Necromancer in the recent HOBBIT films) who just happens to really be a classic villain from the original TV series using an assumed name.

MA: Carol Marcus is the character from STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982) who, as was revealed in that movie, is the mother of Kirk’s son. So, we know where this relationship will go. Then again, it’s a parallel universe, so maybe we don’t know. Perhaps this time around she’ll end up with Dr. McCoy.

(Door slides open and DR. MCCOY enters the bridge.)

MCCOY: Dammit, Jim! Why is that Dr. Marcus always parading around in her underwear? The crew’s distracted! We can’t get anything done!

LS: Maybe I should go down there and settle things down.

MA: No, captain, you’re needed here on the bridge. I’ll go.

LS: Shut up, Spock! I’m the captain! I make the decisions! It’s only logical!

SULU: Don’t you both have to stay here to finish the review?

LS: Dammit. He’s right. McCoy, you’re just going to have to handle things yourself.

MCCOY: Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a customer in a strip club! But if someone has to lay down the law, quiet the crowd, and set that woman straight, it might as well be me. (checks his wallet) I think I have just enough for a lap dance. (Smiles devilishly and exits.)

MA: Moving right along.

As far as the baddie in this one being a classic villain from the original show—.

LS: Shh! No spoilers here!

MA: I wasn’t going to spoil anything, but carry on. I’ll comment on this later.

LS: Along the way, Kirk and his crew are used by villains on both sides as the Enterprise tracks Harrison down to a supposedly uninhabited area on the planet Cronos, which also happens to be the homeworld of the warlike Klingons.

Can Kirk bring Harrison to justice without setting off an intergalactic war? You’re going to have to see INTO DARKNESS to find out.

Like Abrams’ first TREK film, I found this one likable enough. Everyone is good in their roles, even if they can’t be developed anywhere near as in-depth as they were in a weekly TV series. In a way, a lot of these characters seem more like recognizable nationalities and familiar catch-phrases from the past than real people. And while I like the new cast, I don’t think they’re half as good as the originals.

MA: I would have to agree with you here, but in the new cast’s defense, they’ve only been together for two movies, where the original cast starred in 79 episodes. They had more practice.

But that being said, I prefer the original cast, too.

LS: Also, the plot of this one is a little convoluted at times. At 132 minutes, it’s a little long, and they take their sweet time revealing who bad guy Harrison really is (see if you figure it out way before the big revelation, like I did). Also, there are lots of scenes, especially in the middle, that just seem like a lot of loud noises and giant spaceships and not a lot of substance.

MA: Yeah, it’s a little long. I didn’t mind the revelation about the villain coming later in the film though. It added a nice boost to the movie, and I liked this.

LS: Yeah, it’s worth the wait. Toward the end, things get better, and I found myself caught up in some genuine suspense as Kirk tries to make the right moves in this gigantic game of chess. The movie goes out of its way to include inside information that will make hardcore fans of the series very happy, while drawing in a new generation of fans.

MA: I agree again. The film gets pretty suspenseful towards the end, and I was certainly caught up in it.

LS: While I liked STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, I didn’t love it. It still seems like a pale imitation of the original 60s show, even if Abrams does give it a solid try. Then again, even the original cast had a hard time translating the best aspects of the television show into feature films. Of the original movies in the series with the original cast, the only one I ever liked a lot was STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982), which is kind of significant, as that was the second film in the first franchise and INTO DARKNESS is the second film in Abrams’ reboot.

I thought there was a lot to like about the new STAR TREK film, and I definitely recommend it to fans of the series, but there was also something about it that left me cold. I can’t put my finger on it: it’s like there were all these bells and whistles, but it lacked real depth. Maybe if I didn’t grow up with the original show, I would feel differently, but I give the new movie three knives. It’s well made and capable, things we’ve come to expect from Abrams, but I guess I didn’t walk away from it as emotionally satisfied as I thought I would be.

What did you think, Michael?

MA: I liked it a lot too, but like you, I didn’t love it. It’s kinda how I felt about the first one, and I think it’s because I like the original series so much. I know my teenage sons love these new movies more than I do, and I’m sure it’s because I’m a bigger fan of the 60s show than they are.

One difference between these new films and the original series that I have trouble getting past—although it’s not necessarily a bad thing—is that these films are much more action oriented. In terms of cinematic entertainment, that’s fine. It’s probably why they’re so successful. They’re slick, they’ve got great special effects, and they’ve got some cool action scenes. I can’t deny that I like this.

For example, the chase near the end where Spock pursues Harrison is one exciting sequence. It’s as riveting as anything you’d see in a James Bond movie. I don’t think the previous STAR TREK movies could make this claim. So, in terms of cinema, this is a good thing.

But in terms of STAR TREK, it troubles me. Gene Roddenberry’s vision of STAR TREK was science fiction based, and it was a forum where he hoped to explore social issues of the day but in a science fiction format. This new TREK is much more action oriented than any STAR TREK before it.

LS: Yeah, I think you’ve touched upon my problem with it, too. There’s a lot of action, and Abrams is great at that. But there’s only enough time to delve into the characters in a superficial way, by playing on personality traits we know all too well. And that wasn’t enough for me. The original series was more about ideas, and the new series is more about dazzling us with action and explosions.

MA: Exactly. While I’m not necessarily knocking this, there are times where I wish the action would just slow down and take a back seat to some ideas. It would also help us get to know these characters more. I can’t fault Abrams for this, really, as even the original STAR TREK films edged towards action. After all, the STAR TREK film which Roddenberry had the most control of, the first one, STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (1979) had no action at all and for most viewers was boring, although I do like this movie a lot, believe it or not.

LS: I remember being pretty disappointed with that one when it first came out, which is why WRATH OF KHAN, the film that came after that one, was such a big deal. It felt more like the original show, and had a great villain, which STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE lacked.

MA: I agree. I was disappointed with STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE when it first came out as well, but over the years, it’s really grown on me.

Getting back to today’s movie, although I prefer the original cast, I do like this cast a lot. Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy might be my favorite. He nails the character, and he reminds me so much of DeForest Kelley it’s uncanny.

LS: Yeah, he’s great. I’ve been a fan of Urban’s since way back when he played Julius Caesar on XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS.

I also really liked Zoe Saldana as Uhura. She’s a strong woman and is given some significant things to do this time around. Although I didn’t believe her relationship with Spock for a minute – and thought it was one of the few missteps here.

MA: Yeah, they don’t exactly share much onscreen chemistry. I’m not sure a love story involving a Vulcan is such a hot idea.

LS: And Simon Pegg as Scotty is another big highlight. He’s a scene-stealer here.

MA: The same can be said for Zachary Quinto as Spock. And while there’s nothing wrong with Chris Pine as Kirk—in fact, he’s very, very good—he has the most difficult job of the entire cast. He’s sitting in William Shatner’s captain’s chair, which is no easy task. Shatner is just one of those larger than life personas. He’s hard to replace.

LS: I agree with you. They all have big shoes to fill, and do a very good job. Whoever did the casting for these movies did a terrific job. And I do think Pine has the hardest job. Shatner was one of a kind.

(Door slide open and WILLIAM SHATNER steps onto the bridge.)

SHATNER: I am— Kirk. Did you hear me, Spock? I— am Kirk.

MA: Are you talking to me? I’m not really Spock. I’m just playing him for purposes of this—.

LS: Hell, Arruda doesn’t even look like a convincing Spock…

SHATNER (ignoring them): To be first, to be the original, it’s all part of the human condition. It’s what makes us— human, Spock, what gives us our identities. We are unique. We are hu-man.

LS: What the hell is he talking about?

SHATNER: What the hell are you doing in my chair, Picard?

LS: Picard? I’m Kirk.

SHATNER: You have no hair. How can you be Kirk?

MA: He makes a good point.

SULU: Gentlemen, the review, please?

MA (to Shatner): Don’t you have some green women to chase?

LS: Or girls with tails.

By the way, Captain, you should see the new Carol Marcus in her underwear. She’s hot. And, she’s on Deck 9 right now. If you want, I could go check on her while you resume your captain duties…

SHATNER: Deck 9 you say? On second thought, as you were, gentlemen,. You’re doing a fine job.

(SHATNER exits without another word.)

MA: Where was I? The cast.

The rest of the cast is fun as well, and probably what I like most about this cast is that they succeed in capturing the essence and spirit of the original characters without coming off as caricatures. I never feel as if they’re trying to impersonate the characters. They make them their own.

LS: I don’t know. It’s not their fault, but there’s so little time here for character development among all the giant space ships firing at each other and buildings crashing. Sometimes they do come off as caricatures. But it’s not their fault. A movie that really explored each of the main characters’ personalities would run about five hours.

MA: I hear you, but a lesser cast would make it seem more obvious, I think.

I also thought Benedict Cumberbatch made a nice baddie here. He was very convincing and was a formidable foe for Kirk and company.

LS: Yeah, at first he seems kind of like a cold fish, but as we get to know him, he’s a pretty strong bad guy.

MA: Again, the parallel universe concept worked for me here, although there were times in the movie where I wasn’t so sure. For example, regarding the true identity of the villain, at first, I liked this, but then, when I saw where the plot was going, involving a certain sacrifice by a key character, I thought it was too soon in this new series for something so dramatic. I mean, these characters haven’t been together for as long as the original characters had been together when a similar event occurred in one of the STAR TREK movies. But then, the writers saved the day by tweaking this event yet again, and by the time it was said and done, I liked it.

LS: Yeah, one thing about this movie, I thought, was that it all comes together by the end. The way things are resolved make sense based on information that came earlier. It’s well thought out at least. Even if it does tie up loose ends a little too neatly.

MA: Which is a roundabout way of saying I think the writers—Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof—do a great job here. They successfully breathe new life into classic characters and situations, and change just enough to keep things interesting without ruining the history from the older series and movies. That’s no easy task.

LS: Like I said, it’s a formula meant to please old fans and new. Which is why these movies work so well.

MA: I liked the new-look Klingons, although I did wonder why they looked different. I guess it’s all part of the parallel universe, but I’m not quite sure how the changes made in the first movie would affect the way the Klingons looked.

LS: They didn’t look that different.

MA: Really? I thought they looked a lot different.

The special effects are also excellent. There were some really cool shots of the ships, and I especially liked the shots where we see the ships first from the outside and then the camera tracks into a close-up of a crew member inside. Those shots looked authentic, as if the camera was really filming the exterior of a real spaceship before zooming into a real person on the inside. It was smooth and seamless.

I did see STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS in 3D, it looked good, but again, I think it would look just as good in 2D, and it’s cheaper.

LS: Yeah, I saw it in 2D and it was fine. I doubt it lost much of its spectacle, and I’m just sick of paying extra for 3D effects that are almost always disappointing.

MA: All in all, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS is a very entertaining movie. It’s sure to satisfy fans of the series, and it’s good enough to please folks who aren’t familiar with STAR TREK as well.

I also give it three knives.

LS: Perfect timing. We’ve reached Jupiter. Okay, Spock, you can have the captain’s chair now while I beam down for dinner. I’ve got a couple of gals from Ganymede waiting for me.

MA: Oh, that’s what the hurry was about. Do they have tails, by any chance?

LS: Actually, they do.

MA: Well, I’m feeling a bit hungry myself (takes off pointy ears). I think I’ll join you. We’re done here anyway, and I’m done with this character.

LS: Sorry, three’s company, four’s a crowd. You’re no fun. I thought you’d be happy to be Spock!

MA (lifts hand and separates fingers in Vulcan greeting): Live long, and prosper.

LS: Gee, thanks.

MA: That was for the rest of the crew. This gesture’s for you. (Flips him the bird.)

LS: No, you’re doing it wrong. It’s like this. (Uses both hands to make an even more violently obscene gesture to MA.)

SULU (turns to camera and rolls his eyes): It was never like this in the old days.

—END—

LL Soares gives STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS ~three knives.

Michael Arruda gives STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS ~ three knives, too!

Leave A Comment »

Quick Cuts: Special RAY HARRYHAUSEN Edition!

Posted in 1950s Movies, 1960s Horror, 2013, Animated Films, Dinosaurs, Fantasy, Quick Cuts, Science Fiction with tags Cyclops, gwangi, ray harryhausen, stop-motion, ymir on May 17, 2013 by knifefighter

QUICK CUTS: Ray Harryhausen Favorites
With Michael Arruda, L.L. Soares, and William Carl

MICHAEL ARRUDA: Welcome to another edition of QUICK CUTS. Today we remember Ray Harryhausen, who passed away last week at 92. I think we can all agree that when it comes to stop-motion animation in the movies, Harryhausen was a true artist and visionary. No one did it better than him.

Earlier in the week, L.L. Soares and I did a formal tribute to Mr. Harryhausen. To honor him today in a special edition of QUICK CUTS, we look back at some of our favorite Ray Harryhausen movies, monsters, and scenes. Joining us this time is William Carl. Okay, gentlemen, let’s get started.

What’s your favorite Ray Harryhausen movie and why?

WILLIAM CARL: VALLEY OF GWANGI (1969).

Gwangi vs. Elephant in THE VALLEY OF GWANGI (1969)

ARRUDA: One of my favorites

SOARES: Mine, too.

CARL: Not only did this movie have cowboys and circuses, but it also had dinosaurs! This was like a mash-up project created by my pre-pubescent mind at about eight years of age. The women were beautiful, the men were rugged, and the scenes of the monster rampaging were very well executed. I still watch it at least once a year, and I still cheer on the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

L.L. SOARES: T. Rex, yeah! Marc Bolan rocked.

CARL: Not the band. The dinosaur in the movie.

ARRUDA: THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1958) is my favorite. I love the Cyclops, the colorful print, the rousing music score by Bernard Herrmann, Nathan Juran’s brisk direction, and Torin Thatcher’s performance as the evil wizard. I just like the whole package. And of course Harryhausen’s stop-motion effects are some of his best.

SOARES: I think my favorite one is 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957). I’ve just always been a fan of the creature from Venus, the Ymir, and not only does this movie revolve around Harryhausen’s creation, but you really care about the stop-motion monster by the end, unlike some of his other creatures.

Cyclops vs. Dragon in THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD

ARRUDA: Next up: What’s your favorite Harryhausen creature and why?

I have to go with the Ymir from 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH, as well.

CARL: Nice choice

SOARES: Copy cat!

Ymir vs. Elephant in 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH! What did Harryhausen have against elephants, anyway?

ARRUDA: Followed closely by the Cyclops in 7TH VOYAGE and Medusa in CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981).

SOARES: What are you doing picking more than one? This is QUICK CUTS! Our answers are supposed to be brief.

ARRUDA: I know. I just can’t help myself.

But the Ymir is my favorite because it’s a cool monster, an alien from Venus. We don’t see too many of those, which makes him unique. I would have loved to have seen him in more movies. He deserved a better fate!

CARL: I agree with you. This is a tough choice, but like you guys, I would say the Ymir from 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957). The expressions Harryhausen managed to create on this beastie’s face made it seem all the more terrible when it is killed. You can see all the pain and fear in its eyes. Plus, it was completely unique and not based upon any other existing monster like a dinosaur or a mythical creature. It was a true original.

SOARES: As I stated before, the Ymir is my favorite as well.

I also really like the movies Harryhausen worked on that revolve around mythology, especially JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963) and the SINBAD movies. He created some great creatures for these!

ARRUDA: See, it’s not easy picking just one, is it?

Last question. What’s your favorite Harryhausen movie scene and why?

SOARES: The obvious one is the battle between Jason and the skeletons in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS. But that might be a little too obvious. I also liked scenes in the Sinbad movies where creatures fought each other, like the Centaur vs. the Griffin in THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1973), or the Cyclops vs. the Dragon in THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD.

CARL: Oh, my favorite scene was definitely the scene in VALLEY OF GWANGI, where the cowboys rope and capture the dinosaur.

Cowboys lasso a dinosaur in THE VALLEY OF GWANGI (1969)

ARRUDA: Yep, this is a very exciting scene.

CARL: It’s a scene that is still thrilling today in its weird mixture of action, western, horror, and sci-fi elements. Come on, we have rodeo cowboys roping a huge monster like it was a calf. Plus, for sheer expertise, this scene is flawless in its animation execution and its combination with the live footage. Those lassos are animated in half and real in half, but it all flows so seamlessly you really buy into the ridiculous notion that these guys are roping a dino! I think I need to go watch this again right now.

SOARES: Sit back down. We’re not finished yet!

CARL: But I can hear dino roaring already!

ARRUDA: We’re almost done.

Well, obvious or not, my favorite scene is the sword fight between Jason and his men and the skeletons in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS. It’s probably the most ambitious scene Harryhausen ever created. It’s fascinating to watch, and intense to boot.

Second would be—.

SOARES: Second? Who said anything about second?

ARRUDA: — the Medusa scene from CLASH OF THE TITANS. I really don’t like this movie all that much, but this scene is one of Harryhausen’s best. Eerily lit, with an ultra-creepy Medusa slithering about, it makes me pine for an all-out Harryhausen horror film, of which, sadly, there is none.

And third—-.

SOARES: Third? You’re cheating!

ARRUDA: — is the giant crab scene in MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1961), which is a riveting sequence.

Sorry, I couldn’t limit myself. There are just too many Harryhausen gems.

SOARES: Are you through now?

ARRUDA: Yep, I’m done. Hey, where did Bill go?

(William Carl’s seat is empty)

SOARES: Looks like he left early for his T-Rex date.

ARRUDA: Hmm. I just thought of another question. Which Harryhausen creation would you most want to have lunch with?

SOARES: A better question would be which Harryhausen creation would most want to have you for lunch!

ARRUDA: True. On that note, let’s grab some food. I’m hungry. I’m in the mood for a giant crab salad sandwich.

SOARES: I’m on a diet. I’ll just have soup and Krakens.

—END—

Leave A Comment »

Suburban Grindhouse Memories: XTRO (1983)

Posted in 1980s Horror, 2013, Aliens, B-Movies, Cult Movies, Just Plain Weird, Nick Cato Reviews, Science Fiction, Suburban Grindhouse Memories, UFOs with tags Alien Monsters, evi toys, Grindhouse, Maryam D'Abo, UFOs, XTRO on May 16, 2013 by knifefighter

Suburban Grindhouse Memories No. 63:
Not all E.T.’s are Friendly…
By Nick Cato

Released less than a year after the success of Steven Spielberg’s E.T., low budget British sleaze-fest XTRO (1983) exists basically to support its infamous tag line, “Some extra-terrestrials aren’t friendly.” And in the case of XTRO, not all E.T.’s make much sense, either.

A father (Sam) and son (Tony) are playing around on their isolated farm when the son witnesses his father being abducted by a UFO. Three years go by and the poor kid is still having nightmares, and worse, no one believes his story, figuring his old man took off on them. His mother, convinced her hubby has met another woman, grows tired of waiting for him to return and gets involved with another man, leaving young Tony not too happy.

From here on out, XTRO is a bit difficult to follow because it truly doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense.

A space craft crashes in a wooded area, setting most of the place on fire. We see a humanoid/spider-like alien emerge from the wreckage and examine its new surroundings and it’s eventually hit by a car (apparently these XTRO’s aren’t only unfriendly, but are rather stupid considering they’ve traveled from space to get here). The alien doesn’t die, and manages to make it to a small house where it rapes a woman, which leads to one of the most absurd sequences I’ve ever seen on the big screen: the woman gives birth to a full-grown Sam, apparently now returned to earth in a most strange manner (don’t bother to ask why…it’s just not worth it). The scene is truly gross and still sticks with me thirty years later.

Sam is now on a mission to find his son, who is living in an apartment with his mother Rachel and new boyfriend Joe. He starts to pick Tony up from school, pissing off Joe and causing Rachel concern. Sam claims he can’t remember a thing that’s happened in the past three years (where he has been, his former job, etc), so against the Joe’s wishes, Rachel allows him to move in with them for the time being.

One night, Tony catches his father eating his pet snake’s eggs, and high-tails it out until his old man catches him and bites into his shoulder (we later learn he’s planting alien seed in his son).

And the film gets even more asinine: Tony discovers he has gained a bunch of new powers, including the ability to make his toys come alive. He puts this skill to use when one of his neighbors kills his pet snake. He makes one of his toys turn into a midget (dressed as a clown) and it attacks people with a lethal yo-yo-type of weapon. He also sends a toy soldier after his neighbor for some snake-revenge.

If the theater I saw XTRO in (the now defunct Fox Twin Cinema) had a bar, I would have definitely pounded down a few shots at this point.

For some reason Sam and his wife (ex-wife?) decide to visit the farm they used to live on and leave Tony home with a gorgeous nanny (played by Maryam D’Abo of the 1987 007 film THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS), who of course has her boyfriend come over for a shag session (and Bond fans might want to note Miss D’Abo does a generous nude scene here). Tony keeps bugging them to play hide and seek, and they eventually do, but during the game the nanny is knocked out by the aforementioned midget clown and impregnated with alien eggs (remember, I told you this thing makes little sense) while Tony sends one of his toy army tanks to deep-six her boyfriend.

Meanwhile, back at Sam’s old farmhouse, he manages to have sex with his wife (ex-wife?) but during the act his body starts to bleed profusely and transform. Joe shows up with Tony looking for Rachel, and this is when total chaos ensues: Sam and Tony follow the light from a UFO, and Sam turns into an alien, who manages to kill Joe with his ear-shattering screams. The alien Sam then takes Tony and heads toward the space craft as a confused Rachel goes back to her apartment … and is raped by the same alien who raped the poor woman earlier in the film.

The more you consider XTRO, the more you’ll be convinced the makers of it were determined to create the exact opposite of E.T.: where Spielberg’s film was family friendly and featured a positive, wholesome ending, XTRO is a mess of gore, splatter, alien slime, and one of the most nihilistic, depressing endings to ever grace a sci-fi/horror film. All the strangeness with the toys still baffles me, but it did provide some laughs for the grossed-out audience.

I recently watched this film for the first time since seeing it theatrically upon its release, and found it even more confusing than I had remembered. I’m surprised this one has such a healthy cult following, especially since stretches are a bit slow and the acting stiff, with the exception of Rachel (played by Bernice Stagers, of Fellini’s 1980 CITY OF WOMEN), who most of the film revolves around, despite an ad campaign that would let you believe Tony was the focus.

XTRO is a real mess. It’s gross, nasty, and ends on such a low note some might consider the director to have been a manic depressive. Yet at the same time, lovers of B-movie schlock should enjoy it well enough. This here’s one father/son relationship tale I doubt any parent would approve of. I still haven’t seen the sequel.

Live long and SUFFER!

Ever see a woman give birth to a full grown man? Yeah, XTRO goes there!

2 Comments »

OBLIVION (2013)

Posted in 2013, Action Movies, Aliens, Apocalyptic Films, Based on Comic Book, Blockbusters, CGI, Cinema Knife Fights, Clones!, Dystopian Futures, Science Fiction, Special Effects, Tom Cruise Movies with tags Andrea Riseborough, Joseph Kosinski, Morgan Freeman, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Oblivion, Olga Kurylenko, Sci-Fi Blockbuster, tom cruise on April 22, 2013 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: OBLIVION (2013)
by Michael Arruda & L.L. Soares

(THE SCENE: A spaceship high above Earth in the future. MICHAEL ARRUDA & L.L. SOARES sit at the controls.)

MICHAEL ARRUDA: Shouldn’t one of us be down on the planet’s surface fixing drones?

L.L. SOARES: No. We both should be up here reviewing today’s movie.

MA: Good point. Shall I begin?

LS: Sure. I’m going to check out the swimming pool out back, to see if there are any nude female assistants swimming about. That was one of the highlights of OBLIVION!

MA: No, you’re going to sit right there and review today’s movie with me. Although I do agree with you, about that scene being a highlight.

LS: As usual, you’re no fun.

MA: Anyway, today we’re reviewing OBLIVION (2013) the new science fiction movie starring Tom Cruise.

OBLIVION isn’t exactly the most emotional movie you’ll ever see. Its interior sets are dominated by one color, white. As such, the film presents an almost sterile environment. Likewise, it evokes about as much emotion as a sterilized white room.

In the future, Earth has been attacked by aliens. Humanity won the war, but lost the planet, because in order to defeat the aliens, we used nuclear weapons, in effect making Earth uninhabitable for life any longer. Now, in 2070, humans live on Titan, Saturn’s moon.

LS: I didn’t realize Titan had an Earth-like atmosphere. Why the hell did they choose that as the new home for mankind?

MA: Beats me. Plus it’s not exactly in our backyard. The trip would take several years. Can you imagine the kids in the back seat? Are we there yet?

Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) remains on Earth, working with a young woman named Victoria (Andrea Riseborough). Their job is to repair the drones that are defending the planet against the remaining aliens, known as “Scavs.” They report to their commander Sally (Melissa Leo) who’s stationed in the space station above them known as the Tet.

(C3PO and R2D2 from the STAR WARS films, enter the cockpit)

CP30: Excuse me, gentlemen, did you say “droids?”

LS: No, he said “drones.”

C3P0: See R2D2, I told you you were mistaken.

(R2D2 beeps and whistles)

MA: What did he say?

C3P0: He said that OBLIVION sounds rather dumb. And I must say, its lack of droids is quite suspicious.

LS: I agree.

(R2D2 beeps again.)

MA: Now what did he say?

C3PO: He said he’s bored and he can’t wait to piss off more Stormtroopers in the upcoming STAR WARS movie.

(R2D2 beeps some more.)

C3PO: No, R2, I don’t think these gentlemen know if there are any Stormtroopers in the area.

MA: No, but there’s some drones down there on the planet you two could annoy.

C3PO: Oh, splendid! Let’s go, R2. (The two droids exit.)

MA: Back to our review.

All is well, except that Jack is haunted by images, perhaps memories, of a mysterious young woman whose identity he can’t remember. Later, he finds this woman asleep in a kind of metallic coffin which has arrived on Earth from a spaceship called the Odyssey. He awakens the woman, and she reveals to him that she’s his wife Julia (Olga Kurylenko). She tells him that his memory has been erased, opening the door for some dramatic revelations and plot twists.

Jack is later captured by some remaining humans, who are living underground. Needless to say, they aren’t supposed to be there. Their leader, Beech (Morgan Freeman) asks for Jack’s help in defeating the true enemies of Earth. Jack then has to decide who to believe, who to fight for, and where the truth lies, but since he’s being played by Tom Cruise, there’s little doubt whether or not Jack will make the right decisions.

I can’t say that I really liked OBLIVION. I never really got into its story, which wasn’t all that interesting. I also wasn’t crazy about the characters..

The “aliens” are boring. We never really see them. The real menace in this one is Sally, and as played by Melissa Leo, she’s nothing more than a face and a stern voice on a video monitor.

LS: Yeah, that was major problem with OBLIVION. I thought it looked great, with the flying machines and drones. But to what end? I didn’t really care about these characters all that much. There are a couple of scenes that show us Jack’s humanity, the most obvious one being scenes at a cabin he made in the mountains, by a lake. It’s his one sanctuary from the world around him, and it’s a potent image. But otherwise, there’s not a lot about OBLIVION that has any emotional value.

(The robot from the 1960s series LOST IN SPACE enters the cockpit)

ROBOT: Warning! Warning! We are entering the planet’s atmosphere!

MA: I thought you turned off the engines.

LS: You didn’t tell me to do that. It’s been on autopilot.

ROBOT: Warning! We have entered Earth’s atmosphere.

LS: So what? We have to land sometime.

ROBOT: This does not compute.

LS: Be quiet you bumbling bucket of bolts!

MA: You’re starting to sound an awful lot like Dr. Smith.

LS: Why thank you!

ROBOT: Humans. I will never understand them.

(ROBOT leaves the cockpit)

MA: Are you sure entering landing on Earth is a good idea?

LS: Why not? (looks out the window) Ah, home sweet home.

MA: Ahem. Time to get back to our review.

Tom Cruise is fine as Jack, but he was better as Jack Reacher in JACK REACHER (2012), as that character was more fully developed. Jack in this movie is just your average standard hero. I didn’t buy into his mission on Earth, nor was I all that intrigued by his love story with Julia.

LS: Oh yeah, JACK REACHER was a much better movie, and probably made at a fraction of the budget. No fancy special effects in that one.

MA: I did like Andrea Riseborough as Victoria. There was something very sexy about her in a quirky, offbeat way, but she’s not the main character in this one. That would be Olga Kurylenko as Julia, who I didn’t enjoy as much.

LS: I liked both women, but I agree that Victoria gets short shrift. My main problem is that Jack and Victoria seem to have real feelings for each other, but when Julia shows up, Jack pretty forgets all about his feelings for Vicky.

MA: I definitely agree with that point. I really had the impression that Jack had genuine feelings towards Victoria, and so I agree with you it played out as strange that he simply forgets about her. I expected some angst on his part, some tension, perhaps a love triangle, but as I said before, this movie’s too sterile for that.

LS: Yeah, a love triangle would have been more realistic, and would have provided a bit of drama to the stale proceedings here. Sure, Victoria is uptight, is afraid to break the rules, and is an all-around stick in the mud a lot of the time-hey, she sounds a lot like Michael Arruda!

MA: Hey! I resemble that remark!

LS: —but we’re led to believe they have a strong bond, and it’s not believable that Jack would be able to just sever that without a second thought. It would have made more sense if he had a real conflict about which woman he wanted. Instead, he doesn’t seem to have any trouble making a choice when this new woman shows up. Sure, he has had dreams about her before he meets her. But I just didn’t like how Victoria was tossed aside so easily.

MA: I agree.

LS: By the way, Olga Kurylenko who plays Julia was previously in movies like SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS (2012), Neil Marshall’s underrated CENTURION (2010) and was even a Bond Girl—she was Camille in 2008’s QUANTAM OF SOLACE.

MA: Meanwhile, Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman. He’s fine, but he doesn’t do anything here we haven’t seen him do before.

LS: I’m not sure what I feel about Morgan Freeman at this point. When there’s the big scene where he reveals himself for the first time, I felt it was almost—laughable. Like he was doing a parody of himself. But the thing is, his role in OBLIVION isn’t funny. Maybe he’s just played so many roles like this that I just can’t take him seriously anymore. He can’t be a convincing character—you just think of him as “Hey, it’s Morgan Freeman.”

MA: Maybe he should just stick to narrating.

LS: I liked the women in this one, and I liked Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Sykes, another leader of the human rebels on earth (kind of Morgan Freeman’s right hand man). Most people may recognize Coster-Waldau as Jaime Lannister in the great HBO series GAME OF THRONES. But while I liked seeing him in the OBLIVION, he really isn’t given very much to do.

MA: I thought the visuals and special effects were just okay. They didn’t wow me. Neither did any of the battle scenes. I thought it was pretty ho hum throughout, and in this day and age, where movies can look so good visually, I thought OBLIVION was just average. There weren’t any memorable images to go along with this one either. The movie had its chances, with various images of Earth after the nuclear holocaust, but few if any of these images resonated with me. There’s only so many times you can see the Washington Monument or the Empire State Building looking beaten and dilapidated and feel something, especially when these scenes don’t look all that real.

LS: I thought the machines and high-tech contraptions looks convincing enough. I thought they were all well done. But I didn’t felt “wowed” either. There’s just something about OBLIVION that wasn’t very exciting. And you’re right about the battle scenes. They were kind of boring. The first time we see Jack confront a drone, it’s kind of interesting. But after a while, they just become tedious.

MA: The screenplay by director Joseph Kosinski, Karl Gajdusek, and Michael Arndt did little for me as well. It’s based on a comic book by Kosinski and Arvid Nelson.

LS: It’s called a graphic novel.

MA: Comic book, graphic novel. What’s the difference?

LS (shrugs): Beats me.

MA: I thought the story was confusing at times, but worse than that, it didn’t win me over emotionally. I cared little about these folks, mostly because they themselves didn’t seem to care much about what was going on. I also didn’t find that Cruise and Kurylenko shared much chemistry, which didn’t help the love story. I thought Cruise shared more onscreen chemistry with Riseborough, but they’re not the main love focus here.

LS: I didn’t find the story very satisfying, either. And while I am not as down on Kurylenko as you, I do think Cruise had better chemistry with Riseborough, too. I just found OBLIVION to be kind of bland and sanitized and despite its various plot twists, it seemed like something we had seen before.

MA: Director Kosinski also directed TRON: LEGACY (2010), and I would say both films score about the same in the quality department. Neither one wowed me.

LS: I didn’t see TRON-LEGACY, so I don’t know if I’d agree with you. But I’ll take your word for it.

One thing that did interest me a little was the movie’s soundtrack. Kosinski has been making some interesting music choices in his films. In TRON: LEGACY, the soundtrack was done by French electronic group Daft Punk. This time around, OBLIVION was scored by another band I like, M83. Truth be told, however, I wasn’t really all that aware of the soundtrack while I was watching OBLIVION, maybe because I was kind of bored a lot of the time. I am curious to see if I listened to the soundtrack without the visuals if I would have enjoyed it more.

MA: OBLIVION is also nowhere near as ambitious in theme or scope as last year’s science fiction hit PROMETHEUS (2012) but the results are about the same, mixed.

LS: I don’t know. I thought PROMETHEUS was a little disappointing, but I thought it was much better than OBLIVION.

MA: I feel a chill in here, and that’s because I never warmed up to OBLIVION. It was cold and emotionally detached throughout.

I give it two knives.

LS: I’m pretty much in agreement with you on all counts here. I give OBLIVION two knives as well. I thought it looked great, but it had no soul. Nothing meaty to grab onto.

(The DROIDS and ROBOT have returned)

C3P0: Excuse me, gentlemen, but how do you get off this ship?

(R2D2 beeps and whistles.)

C3PO (pointing out window): Look, there are those pesky drones come to attack us.

MA: I told you it was a bad idea to land here. Didn’t you learn anything from OBLIVION?

LIS ROBOT: Warning! Warning!

LS: So long, fellas.

(LS pushes a button that ejects the section of the craft where MA and LS are)

MA: I hope they know how to fly the ship without us.

(There is the sound of drone fire and an enormous explosion)

LS: Oops,

-END-

Michael Arruda gives OBLIVION ~ two knives!

LL Soares gives OBLIVION ~two knives, as well.

Leave A Comment »

Scoring Horror Presents: An Interview with MICHAEL WANDMACHER

Posted in 2013, Barry Dejasu Columns, Classic TV Shows, Horror, Interviews, Music for Film, Science Fiction, Scoring Horror, Soundtracks with tags Drive Angry, Haunting in Connecticut II, Jackie Chan, Last Exorcism Part II, Michael Wandmacher, Movie Soundtracks, punisher war zone on April 17, 2013 by knifefighter

Scoring Horror Presents:
An Interview With MICHAEL WANDMACHER
By Barry Lee Dejasu

Film composer Michael Wandmacher

For over two decades, musician and composer Michael Wandmacher has scored a little bit of everything, be it action, horror, science fiction, and comedy. Just a small handful of his film works include Twin Dragons (1998), Cry_Wolf (2005), Punisher: War Zone (2008), Drive Angry (2011). He’s also ventured into video games (last year’s Twisted Metal) and television, including the now-defunct Night Stalker reboot, and the Fox comedy Breaking In. Most recently, he’s scored this year’s sequels to 2006’s The Haunting In Connecticut, and 2010’s The Last Exorcism.

The Last Exorcism, Part II continues the first film’s story of Nell (Ashley Bell), who is somehow still alive after a grisly supernatural possession. Nell is trying to get her life back into order, but the demons of her past—literal and otherwise—are far from finished with her…

Michael, you’ve worked in a wide variety of film, television, and even video game genres. Are there any particular areas that you like working in more than others?

Well, not really. I like genre stuff because that’s what I grew up with. So I guess from a comfort level, that’s what I like to do, and it’s easier for me, just because it’s something sort of ingrained in me. I’ve been watching monster movies and cartoons and reading graphic novels and comic books and things on TV since I was a little kid, and I kept on doing that my entire life, so all those types of storytelling are very familiar to me.

It really boils down to what the musical approach is on a particular project. Dramas can be fun because they tend to focus more on melodies and fleshed-out musical ideas, so that’s a different challenge. Comedies are fun because there’s a very broad spectrum of what exactly comedy is; they can range anywhere, from more that actually sounds like doing songs that are produced without vocals, to what a lot of people consider to be classic comedy music—that’s more kind of an upbeat orchestral approach, going back to what was done in ‘40s and ‘50s cartoons, the kind of zany, Carl Stalling-type thing. It’s really broad, and that can be fun because each one, even though it might be classified as a comedy, it can be a completely different kind of take on what that is, exactly. I just like different things; I like the variety, because it continues to keep things interesting (and) to not get stale, and you’re always trying to find ways to approach something differently.

Even in your days of working on various Jackie Chan movies, you have brought lots of variation to the situations going on, from screwball to slapstick to action.

His brand of comedy is sort of an evolved variety of the Keystone Cops. It’s cartoonish, it’s comedic, although the action is played pretty straight. Depending on the film, there’s sometimes an Asian influence, but most of it is pretty modern, at the time, modern action scoring because it was all based on him being either a cop or a spy or some sort of government operative, and he would go from being in a very serious situation where someone’s wife was in danger, or there’s a big car chase, or explosion, or some chase through a building that was burning down—something like that to being a complete misfit in social situations. Those scores are challenging, because a lot of times… within a single cue, there was a transition between a big moment in terms of action and it would literally cut away to something that was going on that was simultaneously very goofy and zany, and to sew those two together into one cue was really challenging. But it’s fun! It’s great, and when it doesn’t work, it can make you crazy. (laughs.) He’s a great physical comic. He really has a gift for it, and for those stunt people, it looks like it’s easy, but it’s not; the people who can do physical comedy really well are few and far between.

What was your first instance of noticing music and sound in the cinematic experience? (Including in video games and television?)

I think on TV, the original Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974-75) was the first thing that I really got into, music-wise. It was something that I wasn’t even supposed to be watching, but I’d sneak downstairs with my brother and watch it, and that had a big impact on me because the music in that show was something that really added to what was going on. That show really scared me.

And on the movie side, as with a lot of people in my generation, seeing Star Wars for the first time, because it was coming out on the end of a whole run of films in the ‘70s that were sort of… they were more jazz-based scores. You go back and see a Dirty Harry movie, or something—all the action movies, and the sci-fi movies even, had very jazzy, very combo-ish type of scores, and that classic, golden age-sound of Hollywood music hadn’t really been heard in a film in a while. So when you’re sitting in a theater, and you see that very first…that Star Destroyer coming across the screen, and that massive fanfare playing, and everything. The title coming up, the back story rolling across the screen… There was this huge-huge-huge music playing with a very definitive theme that left a huge impression on my ten-year-old brain. So that was something that sort of set me off from there, and got me into film music. At that point, I started collecting film soundtracks, and listening to scores from that time. I still have a lot of that vinyl, and I still listen to it from time to time. I was a score collector and enthusiast before I even got into working on them directly.

What led to you working in the field?

I guess the straight answer would be… I don’t know; I just liked music, and started out in playing in bands, and I was also really interested in technology. It was something that I did all through high school, started in junior high, just experimenting with whatever electronic instruments I could get my hands on. I started playing guitar, and I was listening to film scores at the same time, so I was sort of absorbing both sides of the spectrum, and that eventually led to coming out of college, (when) I started working doing advertising music, just all commercials, network promos, news music, that kind of thing, which was great. At that time, it was a great learning experience, because you have to write so many different kinds of styles of music, you have to do it fast, and you have to think in terms of music in both five second increments and five minute increments. So getting all those skills was really good in terms of applying it to film music because I moved into that. I lived in Minnesota, and I left there to pursue film music, and that’s when I started to get into television and movies. It grew from doing short films to doing really small independent films, and a couple in California, and as you form relationships, it blossoms into something bigger. The most important thing you can do, as a composer, is try to form alliances with young filmmakers as you’re coming up the ranks, and hoping that they keep the team together, and continue to work with you; so as their responsibilities grow, they bring you along, and as everyone works together, the projects just keep getting bigger.

Speaking of experimenting with different sounds and instruments, in your score for The Last Exorcism, Part II, there’s such a variety of sounds being employed. Some of them are more immediately recognizable, such as stringed instruments and piano; however, there were a few sounds that were almost unrecognizable; what were some of the other instruments you used?

For each score, I try to find a different template of sounds. In the case of The Last Exorcism, I knew, going in, that in terms of the score, it was going to be smaller in sound. It wasn’t going to be a big orchestral score, or even a big electronic template, like some of the other horror scores that I’ve done. It’s an intimate story, basically centered around one character, and we found that just using a smaller template was scarier.

It was a long experimentation process. The film score went through a few iterations, in terms of trying different approaches. It started out as experimental and very open, and kind of avant-garde and weird, and ended up being much more scene-driven, but there were sounds that we came up with early on using instruments like a guitar vial, and an old baroque instrument called a psaltery, and I used a few traditional instruments that were played in really weird ways. If you listen to the score, you’ll hear this kind of bending, screaming solo string sound in a lot of the cues, and that’s me doing a kind of random bowing technique on a variety of string instruments, and it’s meant to be sort of a juxtaposition between the two main voices in the film, and that’s Nell’s evil side becoming seduced by the demon presence in the film. You can hear those two elements are separated, and other cues where they’re sort of coming together into one complete thought. At moments it can feel really cacophonous, and suddenly there’s a consonance that happens as they sort of consummate with seduction. It was cool! It was a very odd, unorthodox sound, it’s not something you normally (use) in a score, and I’ve had other people ask me, “What is that?” It really came out of a period of sitting here, trying out different instruments, playing things like string instruments with things besides bows, or…I don’t know, just taking a random shot at it and seeing what happens.

There’s been a lot of experimentation going on in film scores, I think, in the past ten or fifteen years.

It’s definitely a trend. Every composer I know is constantly searching for a new sound, a timbre, a texture, a color, that they can use in a score; (something) that sticks out, that might give some sense of time, place, some particular emotion, that is new. Even if it’s an instrument that some people would consider traditional, or something used in the past even often, they may find a different way to utilize it. Some composers build their own instruments.

What I did on The Last Exorcism was basically destroyed a piano in the process of doing the scoring. I was playing a prepared piano with lots of different things. I got particularly good effects by using chopsticks that were taped together, and squeezing the strings between the chopsticks, and then either hitting the chopsticks with another stick, or rubbing them up and down the wound strings really, really fast. It (brings) almost a human quality to the sound of it when it was resonating; it sounded like someone was breathing very shallow and quickly, and (it was) creepy.

The one way that composers can differentiate themselves, try to make the process more interesting and fun for people on the outside, when you’re trying to sell yourself on the job, is that they like the idea of doing something new and different. (By) taking some chances and find a new sounds, things that are really particular to the films that give it a unique twist, musically, that’s important. Even in films that are thematic, it can help to have some kind of texture in there, or some tone or instrument that is a sort of really unique color in the whole palette of the film score. It’s just one part of the process that makes it more fun.

Do you find that everything comes together, depending on what one film requires versus another? Or do you have a checklist somewhere, of instruments or sounds that you wish to use someday?

It’s both. There’s always what I call a “mad scientist mode” on a score, where I’ll take two or three days for no other purpose than to figure out a set of sounds that are particular to that project, and I can never say for sure where they’re going to come from. It might be a very typical source, and it might end up being me banging on the washing machine with a sledgehammer—I have no idea.

I’m pretty much willing to try anything, and I’ll use that, and I have an idea of what kinds of sounds will work in the score, based on what it is. If it needs to be, say, more fluid, or more legato, or more melodic, or if they can be very percussive, or metallic, or something that’s more soft; it’s something that speaks of wood, or cloth, or something warm in tone—those are just generalized terms that I might be throwing around in my head while I’m looking for particular sounds.

A good example, and every composer goes through this, is, say, small percussion; finding the right ticking sound, or little tiny percussion sound, right when you need to create tempo, or pacing something—you need background ticking sounds. So many different ways to create that sound, instead of, say, using a shaker, everybody’s constantly looking for little new, cool ways to make a little ticking sound. I sampled the igniter snap on the range here in the house; it’s that snapping sound of trying to light the gas flame (on our stove). I recorded that, and cut it up, and used it as a sort of a hi-hat, and it’s got a very short attack and release, but it really cuts through everything; it has a really powerful snap to it. If you play it back in a mix, it sits in there really nice, but it’s really hard to figure out what it is, because it’s not anything actually being struck, it’s air moving. I don’t want to get too technical about it, but it’s just a really cool noise, and I never would’ve thought of that, but when I’m in that process of, “What’s going to be cool in the score?,” my ears are open.

So (my wife and I) are sitting there making dinner one night, we turn on the stove, and I’m like, “Wait, that’s cool!” (laughs) “Do it again!” So I run and get the recorder and stand next to the stove, going, “Okay, start it!” (laughs)

So you must be listening to sounds all the time.

Yeah. I did a lot of sound design when I was working in commercials. I’d spend fifty percent of the time I was working doing sound designing, and the other half writing music, so I had a lot of practice doing that. My brain is sort of in that world all the time, a little bit at least, and being aware of things that just have different tones and textures and might elicit certain emotions very well, even if it’s just a single tone. You’d be surprised how many mechanical things that are just sitting in the background, anywhere, in an airport or a mall or something, and you just listen. You go beyond the voices and just listen to the tones of the place, the lights, the air conditioning, the guy cleaning the floor—the things that have more of a drone-y qualities, they usually have a pitch, and I’ll tune in on those things, and then think, “Okay, that sounds really cool, if I can capture that noise I can sample it and put it in and re-pitch it and script it so it’ll work as an instrument.” And you have something that’s both organic and electronic at the same time, and you often can’t quite place it with your ear, which makes it more interesting.

With so many movies in the works, any number of possibilities of scores could happen. Which ones would you want “dibs” on, given the chance?

Anything that has to do with superheroes; that’s still something very near and dear to my heart. I still so totally believe that every single superhero movie, you should come away with a theme that’s so knocked into your head that you’ll never forget it. What’s sad is that a lot of the (superhero) films that have come out, you don’t have that, at least the newer ones; some of them do, some of them don’t. I just think that should be very much a (given) for the score. We need a theme that everybody’s going to remember. We need the next Superman, that sort of thing. I need to do that, that sort of challenge-movie, that would be awesome.

I don’t know, I would love to do something that’s more of a sword-and-sorcery-type epic. A Lord of the Rings type of film would be such a blast, because you get to do so many different types of things.

What would be most fun to do one film that was completely acoustic, very traditional, because those are usually the films that are the most fun to do, musically, and then do one that was completely electronic, where you have to create all the sounds from scratch, or—I was telling the director on The Last Exorcism that I would love to do a horror film just with a choir, and nothing else. That would be a lot of fun, because I really believe you get the scariest noises with humans. To be able to use both acoustic choir writing, and then to take the voices and manipulate them into other things, but to use nothing but a forty-person choir for the whole score, would be a blast. That would be the scariest score of all, because people always respond to in music, if it’s there, the human voice. If it’s in the cue, if it’s in the theme, singing the theme or whatever, your ear always goes to the human voice first, no matter what. It’s the most relatable thing, the human voice.

What about scoring the next Star Wars movie?

I don’t know if Star Wars would be (for me). Like, talk about pressure! Oh my god! I just don’t think… My personal feeling is, no-one should touch that. Even if they have to take the old music and re-record it and re-cut it for the new film. They got it right the first time, and that’s the most iconic film music of all time, so don’t touch it, don’t try to change it, don’t try to update it. It’s like trying to cover Pink Floyd—just don’t go there. I even felt that way with Superman (1978). That’s another Top 10 theme of all time; don’t mess with it!

What about a Tarzan movie?

That would be incredible! I especially love primitive instruments doing period movies from the time of the Bible, or the Dark Ages, or Ancient Egypt, or something where you can really go back and use indigenous instruments, get something that’s really raw and primal would be a lot of fun. Those scores are always a great learning experience, not just from the writing standpoint, but you learn about an entire culture, musically, when you’re doing that, too.

As a composer, you just want to keep skipping around, doing as much as you can. The biggest problem for a lot of composers in Hollywood is they get pigeonholed very quickly when (for instance) most composers do a lot of action films are completely qualified to do comedies and vice versa. Or people do a lot of, say, period dramas could do an action film, and vice versa. They’ve got a lot more ability than people give them credit for.

The Last Exorcism, Part II comes out on Blu-Ray and DVD on June 18^th.

Leave A Comment »

Cinema Knife Fight/New Filmmakers Edition: CELL COUNT (2012)

Posted in 2013, Body Horror, Cinema Knife Fights, Conspiracy Theories, Disease!, Indie Horror, Mad Doctors!, Mutants!, New Filmmmakers, Science Fiction with tags Body Horror, Cell Count, Daniel Baldwin, Haley Talbot, Indie Horror, Robert McKeehan, Todd E. Freeman on March 25, 2013 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT.NEW FILMMAKERS EDITION
CELL COUNT (2012) Directed by TODD E. FREEMAN
Review by Michael Arruda & L.L. Soares

(THE SCENE: A lab, almost prison-like, with plain gray walls, and security doors and cameras all around. Several “patients” sit around a table. The security door buzzes open and MICHAEL ARRUDA & L.L. SOARES enter wearing lab coats.)

L.L. SOARES: Welcome everyone to a special edition of CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT. Today we bring you the latest installment in our “Up-and-Coming Filmmaker” series, where we review movies by new directors who are trying to make a name for themselves.

MICHAEL ARRUDA: So today we are reviewing CELL COUNT (2012) by writer/director Todd E. Freeman.

But let me say first, that our good friend, best-selling author Rick Hautala passed away unexpectedly on Thursday, and both out of respect for Rick and his family, and out of genuine grief, I’m not much in the mood for joking today. I almost prefer a straight review.

LS: I agree that it was sad news, but knowing Rick, I don’t think he’d want us to tone down the column on his account.

MA: True. For me, it’s more that I’m not in a joking mood this weekend, but I don’t see why we couldn’t throw in a few jokes here and there, I guess.

Anyway, let’s get things started. CELL COUNT is—.

PATIENT #1: Excuse me? What are we doing here exactly?

LS: You’re our audience.

PATIENT #1: We didn’t sign up for this. We’re supposed to be—.

(LS suddenly Tasers the guy, who falls to the floor, writhing in pain.)

LS: You’re also the comic relief. Anyone else have any questions?

(Other patients shake their heads.)

LS: Good. Let’s continue.

MA: So much for toning things down.

As I was saying, CELL COUNT is a science fiction horror movie about a group of people subjected to one very weird and unsettling medical experiment.

The film opens with Russell Carpenter (Robert McKeehen) comforting his dying wife Sadie (Haley Talbot) in a hospital. It’s clear that these two are very much in love. Russell is informed by Dr. Victor Brandt (Christopher Toyne) that his wife is going to die in no uncertain terms, unless…and then he makes Russell an offer. He tells Russell that he’s involved with a special study that is seeking test subjects like his wife in order to treat this deadly disease. He tells Russell that he can guarantee his wife will be cured. But Russell will have to be part of the experiment as well if he wants to come with her.

I guess Russell never heard “if it sounds too good to be true, it really isn’t” because he agrees…

LS: Of course he agrees! He doesn’t want to lose his wife.

MA: … and he and Sadie find themselves inside a weird prison-like facility with other “patients.” All of them have small incisions in their chests, where Dr. Brandt supposedly implanted the powerful viral cure into their bodies. In addition to these patients, there are also two “special” patients housed in a secure part of the building—two convicted criminals who are highly dangerous.

When the group begins to suffer from weird side effects, they begin to suspect that something is wrong, and they discover that Dr. Brandt’s vision of a cure isn’t quite what they expected. They’ve been implanted with a strange worm-like creature that burrows out of their mouths at will, and does some other things as well, like one wrapping itself around its victim’s face, forming a mask that resembles an alien in a bad science fiction movie.

LS: I actually thought the “mask face” thing looked pretty cool.

MA: I liked the idea of the “mask face” but I didn’t think it looked good. It looked like Dumb Donald from FAT ALBERT.

So, it’s up to Russell and Sadie to lead their fellow patients out of Dr. Brandt’s high security lab, while trying to defeat the monstrous “cure” that they now have inside their bodies, a cure put there so it can literally eat the disease. The trouble is it devours other things as well.

(Patient #1 keels over onto the floor, and a large worm-like creature oozes out of his mouth. LS Tasers the worm creature and then stabs it with a giant fork. He carries it across the lab and deposits it into a huge pot.)

LS: Gotta let this simmer.

PATIENT: I’m cured! I’m cured! Thank you for curing me!

LS: Keep your shirt on. You’re not cured yet.

PATIENT: I’m not?

LS: Not until after you’ve had my soup.

MA: If you survive his soup, (Points to large pot on stove.) you’re cured.

PATIENT: Couldn’t I just take a pill instead?

LS: And skip my all-natural worm soup du jour? No way, buddy. Soup for everyone!

(There is a collective groan.)

MA: I hear it tastes like chicken.

Anyway, CELL COUNT succeeded in drawing me in initially. I liked the opening scene where Russell comforts his wife, and then listens as Dr. Brandt entices him with his offer to cure her. Anyone who’s had to deal with very sick loved ones can attest to the temptation of doing whatever it takes to cure that person, no matter how unconventional the method may seem. So I bought this set-up.

LS: Yeah, I got hooked early on, too. While I don’t think they ever actually say it’s cancer during the course of the movie (they just say “the disease”), it seems pretty obvious that’s what is going on here. And it would make sense that people would do just about anything to avoid the inevitable.

MA: I liked the acting performances, even if they weren’t as polished as you might find in a mainstream movie. I enjoyed Robert McKeehen in the lead role as Russell Carpenter. He made for a believable hero, and I bought that he’d go the extreme route to save his wife. Admittedly, there were a few scenes where his performance was uneven—the scene where he first sees the worm thingie climb out of someone’s throat, for instance, his over the top reaction made me laugh out loud. I don’t think that was the reaction he was looking for.

LS: Yeah, I agree there are a few missteps, but overall, McKeehan is really good here. He looked like an elongated, big-eyed Christoph Waltz to me at times.

MA: I also enjoyed Haley Talbot as his wife Sadie.

LS: Sadie was my favorite character. Once she gets “better” and has a major role in what’s going on, I found her strong and very likable. Despite “the disease,” I think she’s the strongest one in the movie. Kudos to Haley Talbot.

MA: I agree. Christopher Toyne made for an effectively mysterious Dr. Victor Brandt, although at times, especially towards the end of the movie, he tends to overact.

LS: I actually thought was a little over-the-top from the first time we meet him. He’s effective here, but he does tend to ham it up. Which isn’t completely bad. He’s entertaining at least. He’s just not as believable as some of the other characters, and you distrust his motives right away.

MA: The supporting cast is actually very good. Adrienne Vogel and John Breen stand out as fellow patients Mary Porter and Billy Mayor, and Ted Rooney’s performance as Abraham Walker, one of the “violent inmates,” who it turns out isn’t such a bad guy after all, is especially memorable.

LS: I liked Rooney a lot. Don’t forget Judd Eustice as Timothy“Tiny Tim” Jacobs, He’s the other dangerous criminal who “agreed” to be part of the experiment, and he’s pretty creepy. He’s the closest thing the movie has to a human villain, except for maybe Dr. Brandt.

MA: Even one of the Baldwin brothers shows up, Daniel Baldwin, in what amounts to nothing more than a cameo, so I guess someone needed a paycheck!

LS: Yeah, what was up with that? I know he was hired to give the movie a little bit of star power, but his role actually made me laugh. He comes onscreen like he’s some heroic figure, but he’s actually kind of a dud.

MA: Again, the set-up to the story works. I believed that these people would subject themselves to this kind of test treatment if they believed they would be cured. The middle part of the movie, where you really weren’t certain as to what was going on, and who to trust or who to believe, reminded me a little bit of some those early episodes from the TV show LOST, where you weren’t sure what Benjamin Linus and his family of “Others” were up to.

LS: This movie looks great. But I had trouble understanding some of the motivations here. And the way the “facility” was set up—I know this abandoned prison must have seemed like an amazing location to set a film, and it is—but there were more than a few things that didn’t make sense to me.

For example, in one part, Billy takes Russell through the facility. You have to press your hand against a pad so that it can identify you and give you access to certain areas. They go to this locker room where Billy’s dog, The Kid, is. We hear Dr. Brandt tell them that they shouldn’t really be interacting with the animals that are part of the experiment, but then he pretty much says it doesn’t matter. Later, in another scene, Mary Porter brings the dog back to where the people are, and Dr. Brandt comes to visit. He doesn’t have any problem with them having the dog there. Then why make an issue of it initially?

MA: Yeah, that didn’t make any sense to me either.

LS: Also, characters are able to get into the section of the facility where the dangerous criminals are located. When they get to that area, a recorded voice tells them that this is a dangerous area, and they should turn back. Why not just have the door there coded so that it denies access? That didn’t make any sense to me.

MA: Right. I kept thinking there was a reason Dr. Brandt wanted his test subjects to interact with the dangerous criminals, but we’re never given that reason. And then later the recorded voice does announce that it’s time to intermingle, and the dangerous prisoners are released, but for what reason is never explained.

LS: There’s another scene where they “coax” one of the worm monsters out of someone, and instead of trying to pull it out when it makes an appearance, they simply take this as a sign that the person in question is beyond help. Why not just try to get it to come out again and grab it?

MA: And, when it gets to pay-off time, the film falters. First off, visually, the special effects weren’t all that special. I’ve seen worse, but the effects here weren’t good enough for me to buy into them. And several key moments, which could have made for some very dark grisly scenes, were glossed over, as the camera would cut away at the last minute. I expected that this was going to turn into a gruesome—or at the very least, intense—horror movie, but it never reaches that level.

LS: Well, this is a low-budget movie (although, once again, it looks great). So it makes sense that in certain scenes, the camera cuts away. They probably couldn’t afford to show everything they wanted to.

I didn’t think the effects were bad. For the most part, they worked for me. I really liked how Tiny Tim’s insides come out of his mouth and then cover his head for that “bag head” effect. That was pretty cool. The worm thingies weren’t perfect, but they looked good, too.

MA: At times, it seems to be striving for that WALKING DEAD feel—a story about a group of survivors against a deadly threat—and while the characters in this movie are somewhat interesting—enough so that in a better movie I’d follow their plight—the situations they find themselves in here never become so riveting that I was really into it.

For the most part, I liked the story, as written by writer/director Todd E. Freeman, but I certainly could have used more information. I never really had a firm grasp on what the cure was or even what the disease was. I understood the reactions of the victims, but I didn’t understand the motives of the guy causing all the trouble, Dr. Brandt, other than a generalized notion that he was seeking a “cure.” While the patients seemed real, Dr. Brandt played like a mad scientist in a bad science fiction movie.

LS: I wasn’t always clear why people did the things they did. Motivations seemed cloudy to me. It was almost like they did things to further the story, but they weren’t necessarily things that made sense.

I just thought that the script, also by director Todd Freeman, was the weakest aspect of the movie.

And yeah, Dr. Brandt does seem like your typical mad doctor. It would have been nice if he had more depth to him. Early on, he says that he was the first patient to be experimented on, when they first created the cure. That was a step into humanizing him more, but the script really doesn’t flesh him out much more than that.

MA: Behind the camera, director Freeman does an adequate job, but his effort needed to be stronger. There are some cool scenes here, but at the end of the day, it’s simply not enough. The film needed more of an edge. Perhaps it was budget restrictions that caused those unfortunate cutaways and mediocre special effects. If this was the case, then more creative direction should have been in order. I just wasn’t feeling it at the end.

LS: I wasn’t completely sold on the ending, either. I wasn’t clear on why some of the characters did what they did.

MA: But I’ve seen much worse, and for the 90 minutes I spent watching CELL COUNT, I was entertained.

I give it two knives.

LS: I thought there were a lot of strong aspects about this movie. I liked Freeeman’s direction for the most part, the actors were mostly good, the effects decent (considering the budget constraints), and I just thought the movie looked slick and professional (the cinematography is by “The Brothers Freeman,” i.e., Todd and Jason Freeman). But the script was uneven. I give it two knives as well.

But I do see a lot of potential here, and I’d be interested in seeing what Freeman does next.

MA: Well, we’re done here. I guess it’s time we headed out.

(DR. BRANDT suddenly bursts into the room)

DR. BRANDT: No, you cannot leave. It is too dangerous. The “cure” has infected you.

LS: What are you talking about? We didn’t have any surgery to have the cure implanted in us.

DR. BRANDT: But you did eat the meatloaf in the cafeteria!

MA: Oh no. I thought that tasted funny.

DR. BRANDT: Yes, you must stay here in Quarantine now, until I am ready to extract the cure.

LS: Screw that (Tasers Dr. Brandt, who writhes on the floor)

MA: Nice job.

LS (to other patients): Let’s blow this joint. I hear Daniel Baldwin has a bus ready for our escape. If he can start it up!

-END-

Michael Arruda gives CELL COUNT ~ two knives!

LL Soares gives CELL COUNT ~two knives.

Leave A Comment »

The Reassessment Files Look at EVENT HORIZON (1997)

Posted in 1990s Horror, 2013, Compelling Cinema, Ghosts!, Outer Space, Paul McMahon Columns, Reassessment Files, Science Fiction, Space with tags 90s Horror, Event Horizon, Kathleen Quinlan, Laurence Fishburne, Outer Space Horror, Paul W.S. Anderson, Sam Neill on March 20, 2013 by knifefighter

EVENT HORIZON (1997)
A Reassessment File
Review by: Paul McMahon

There was a stretch of time after I got my own place that I reveled in free weekends. Such weekends didn’t happen often, but when they did I would celebrate by hitting the video store to load up on movies. Usually I crammed six movies between Friday night and Monday morning. I first saw EVENT HORIZON during the last of one of those marathons.

The movie didn’t stand out for me back then. It struck me as excessively weird and illogical in its execution. I’ve always regarded it as a broken film that should’ve been a whole lot better. The production values were impressive, however, and though at the time I wasn’t filtering my cinematic opinions through a ratings system, I imagine that if I had been, I’d have given it half a star. At the time, I walked away and didn’t give it another thought.

Fans of the movie exist, though. I’ve met a few of them. One or two were quite rabid in their defense of it, which made it a prime candidate for a reassessment. I toyed with the idea for a while, and recently stumbled across a copy buried in a $5.00 MOVIES box at the front of my grocery store. I took it as a sign that the time had come.

(Disclaimer: As with other Reassessment Files columns, this movie came out so long ago that I feel no need to avoid spoilers. If you haven’t seen it in the past fifteen years, I recommend you check it out before reading on.)

The movie kicks off with a text backstory detailing the history of the space ship EVENT HORIZON. She was launched in 2040 to “explore the furthest reaches of the galaxy,” but disappeared just beyond Neptune. We’re told it’s 2047.

Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill—star of one of last year’s Reassessment subjects, IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, 1994) suffers a nightmare featuring the EVENT HORIZON and awakens surrounded by dozens of photos of the same woman. “I miss you,” he tells one of the pictures, and we know immediately his mental train’s running with at least a few wheels off the track. He boards a rescue ship, the Lewis and Clark, and the movie’s characters begin tucking themselves into stasis for the long trip to Neptune.

To float in stasis grav tanks…perchance to dream.

Once “the Clark” reaches its destination and the crew awakens from their grav tanks, Captain Miller (played by Laurence Fishburne, who recently completed a stint as Dr. Langston on CSI, and is cast as Perry White in the upcoming MAN OF STEEL, 2013) calls a meeting so Dr. Weir can fill the crew in on the real story behind the Event Horizon. “… it’s the culmination of a secret government project to create a spacecraft capable of faster-than-light flight.” Making this impossibility possible is Dr. Weir’s “Gravity Drive,” a device he himself designed and built. Problem was, when they activated it back in 2040, the Event Horizon disappeared without a trace. Now, apparently, it’s back and stuck in a decaying orbit around Neptune.

The Clark attaches to the Event Horizon and some of the rescue crew board to search for survivors. There are none. In some areas of the ship there are greenish blobs floating in the zero gravity. “There’s been a coolant leak,” says Justin (Jack Noseworthy, U-571, 2000) as he makes his way toward the engine to restore power. The Gravity Drive, a spinning gyroscope of metal plates, seems to liquefy and then sucks Justin inside. This causes an explosion that rips through the Lewis and Clark’s hull, compromising its atmosphere. The entire crew is ordered to suit up and board the Event Horizon. Meanwhile, Justin reappears from the gravity drive unconscious and unresponsive, though his vital signs remain stable.

The Gravity Drive:- round and round and round it goes, and when it stops, you’re in hell.

Work begins on trying to repair the Clark for the trip home, but when the gravity drive begins draining power from the Event Horizon, Dr. Weir climbs into the bowels of the machine to attempt a repair. As he tries to locate the problem, he hears a woman’s voice calling his name, and then the lights go out. “Captain Miller? I’ve got some problems here!” he yells. The lights blink back on and the woman from all the pictures at the beginning of the film is only inches away from Dr. Weir. “Be with me, Billy,” she says. “Forever!”

The cast is impressive. Laurence Fishburne is a former Oscar nominee for his portrayal of Ike Turner in 1993′s WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT. He gives a stellar performance here, as you would expect. Kathleen Quinlan (THE HILLS HAVE EYES, 2006) plays Med Tech Peters. She is also a former Oscar nominee for her work in 1995′s APOLLO 13. The rest of the cast includes Joely Richardson (THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, 2011, as well as the TV show NIP/TUCK), Richard Jones (COLLATERAL, 2004 and SUPER 8, 2011), Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy in the HARRY POTTER series), and Sean Pertwee (DOG SOLDIERS, 2002). All of them give great performances.

The movie is directed by Paul W.S. Anderson of RESIDENT EVIL and ALIEN VS PREDATOR fame. Apparently, Mr. Anderson turned down the opportunity to direct 2000′s X-MEN, opting instead for this “The Shining In Space” tale and the chance to deliver an R-rated horror movie. He handles the material very well, building suspense throughout while delivering subtle homages to popular haunted house movies, including THE HAUNTING (1963), Stanley Kubrick’s THE SHINING (1980), and THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979).

For my part, I accepted that re-watching the film with an eye toward glimpsing what people like about it would create the possibility that I would change my mind. I did not expect that my opinion would change as much as it did. I have completely re-written this column five times now. Every time I think it through, I find that I like the movie even more. I’ve watched it three times in the past week, letting other chores and expectations fall by the wayside.

I do recognize where EVENT HORIZON fell apart for me fifteen years ago. By the time Weir enters the workings of the Gravity Drive, other members of the crew have been reporting strange occurrences. Weir has scoffed at all of them, insisting that their experiences are imaginary. The moment fear enters his voice inside the Gravity Drive, we get that “Told You So” tingle because the skeptical fool is being confronted with the same phenomena he’s been discounting all along. In the very next scene, though, he’s back to insisting that nothing unusual is happening. Such an unexplained and illogical character turn leads to questions, such as: Has Weir been taken over by the ship? Has he been driven completely mad? Has he suffered such a traumatic shock that he’s blocked out the experience altogether? Or, remembering the nightmare that woke him in the opening shot, does he have some kind of psychic link with the ship? I think this psychic link is what the writer and the director were going for.

Also, with today’s technology it doesn’t take much to pause the film during the “glimpses of hell” montage so you can gape and squirm at the brilliant and intense practical make up effects that zip past the screen. Much of it betters horror images being released today.

This film surprised me completely. I remembered it as something very different, and I find myself wondering how I missed so much goodness back in the day. Maybe cramming so many films into a single weekend wasn’t the best choice after all. Be that as it may, I’m changing my rating of the film to an embarrassing degree.

Original assessment: half a star.
Reassessment: 3 and a half stars.

I’m not ashamed to say that I’m going to watch this at least once more before I move on to the next film.

2 Comments »

THE REMOTE OUTPOST LOOKS FORWARD, THEN BACK AT 2012

Posted in 2012, 2013, Alien Worlds, Based on Classic Films, Mark Onspaugh Columns, Prequels, Remote Outpost, Science Fiction, Television, TV Shows with tags Banshee, Battlestar, Breaking Bad, Defiance, Fringe, Remote Outpost, Television, Vikings on January 16, 2013 by knifefighter

You find yourself on a barren and desolate world, light years from anything or anyone you know… Without much food or water, your oxygen running low, you strike out for the distant hills… After days of torturous climbing, you see an oasis below. An installation of quonset huts bedecked with hundreds of television antennae. Congratulations, Traveler, you’ve reached… THE REMOTE OUTPOST.

THE REMOTE OUTPOST LOOKS FORWARD, THEN BACK
By Mark Onspaugh

Well, the holidays have come to an end at the old Remote Outpost. The freeze-dried Christmas tree has been vacu-packed, the electronic menorah has been powered down and reintegrated into the antenna array, and the powdered eggnog and dehydrated turkey are on order for next year.

Now that the snart herds have moved to the Seventh Crater and the triffids are dormant, it’s time to reflect on that most marvelous technological advancement, television. We’ll try to adopt a more positive air going into 2013, at least on this rainy afternoon. (Besides, a “Worst Of” list would take many times the word count I am allowed.)

5 SHOWS THAT MAKE ME DROOL WITH ANTICIPATION

New shows are on the horizon, and some of them sound just peachy. Here are the ones I am most excited about:

BANSHEE (Premieres January 11, Cinemax). Alan Ball has become one of those names you look for. He wrote the screenplay for the movie AMERICAN BEAUTY back in 1999, and has since been the creative force behind the television series SIX FEET UNDER (2001-2005) and TRUE BLOOD (2008 – Present). I am a big fan of TRUE BLOOD and recently came under the spell of SIX FEET UNDER (see below). So when I heard Ball was executive producing a new series, I got downright twitterpated. BANSHEE concerns an ex (or escaped) con who poses as the (murdered) sheriff in the Amish community of Banshee. As with other projects with Ball at the helm, the secrets our protagonist keeps are just the tip of the iceberg in Banshee. One of the characters is named Mr. Rabbit, who will be played by Ben Cross. Mr. Cross portrayed Sarek, Spock’s father, in the STAR TREK reboot of 2009. He also stars in the upcoming JACK THE GIANT KILLER (2013), which is NOT to be confused with JACK THE GIANT SLAYER (also 2013)—that stars Ewan McGregor. It looks like it’ll be Brits vs Scots in the land of the giants.

BATES MOTEL (Premieres March 18, A&E). A psychological thriller that will give background on Robert Bloch’s beloved psycho. Hitchcock’s 1960 film is the initial inspiration, but beyond that, the producers will not be a slave to it or its sequels. The show is not, as one critic suggested, “How I Stuffed My Mother.” Besides Norman’s mother and her lover, the townspeople will also play a role in Norman’s descent into madness, and producers promise it won’t all be black and white, connect the dots. Norman Bates will be played by Freddie Highmore, the young actor so wonderful in FINDING NEVERLAND (2004), CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (2005) and AUGUST RUSH (2007). Freddie has grown up, and actually looks like a young Tony Perkins. Norman’s mother will be portrayed by Vera Farmiga, who promises mother Norma Bates will be both sympathetic and layered. We all know Vera from such films as THE DEPARTED (2006), JOSHUA (2007), SOURCE CODE (2011) and the upcoming THE CONJURING (2013). BATES MOTEL is produced by Carlton Cuse of LOST (2004-2010) and Kerry Ehrin of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (2006-2011).

DEFIANCE (Premieres April 15, Syfy). A lush science fiction drama where Earth has been remade into an almost alien world by extraterrestrial visitors who were denied permission to settle. After a long and costly war with humanity, the two species now live in an uneasy peace and try to make the Earth habitable for both. Defiance is the name of the town in the ruins of St. Louis, and where our protagonist, Jeb Nolan becomes head sheriff. There he must contend with humans, aliens, military types and various dangerous characters. From the trailers I’ve seen, this will be no cheap-looking, terrible CGI suck-fest. It is tied in with a game, but what show isn’t multi-platforming these days? Hopefully the writing will give us another BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (2004-2009) or SGU STARGATE UNIVERSE (2009-2011).

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: BLOOD AND CHROME (Premieres February 10, Syfy). I was around when Glen A. Larson first introduced us to Cylons and humans whose names were the same as some of our more ancient gods and goddesses. I didn’t much care for the show, but watched it because I was starved for SF on TV. When the (then Sci-Fi Channel’s) remake was announced for 2004, I just shook my head and chuckled. I ignored it, until a friend hit me over the head with the DVD’s. I quickly became an ardent fan, and was sad when the (regrettable) ending aired. Now we have a chance to visit that universe again, as we see young “Husker” Adama and his friends in the first war with the Cylons, before the skin jobs made the scene. Like the many incarnations of STAR TREK, I anxiously wait for the chance to geek out in a world that is interesting and well-formed. Here’s hoping it’s as good as its predecessor.

VIKINGS (Premieres March 3 on History). Cable has often found fertile ground in examining (often in lurid detail) historical events, places or infamous families. DEADWOOD (2004-2006), THE TUDORS (2007-2010) and THE BORGIAS (2011 – Present) gave us all the scandal, gore and sex we were never taught in history class but always suspected (or hoped) was there. While perhaps not wholly accurate, all these shows had/have sumptuous production values, good writing and acting. Now comes the saga of Ragnar Lothbrok, who, legend has it, was descended from Odin himself. VIKINGS will be produced for the History Channel, who brought us that bang-up version of the feud of the HATFIELDS AND McCOYS (2012). VIKINGS was created by Michael Hirst, who created the aforementioned TUDORS, and one of its stars will be Gabriel Byrne, who has been in such movies as STIGMATA (1998), END OF DAYS (1999) SPIDER (2002) and GHOST SHIP (2002). By Odin’s eye I will be there!

WELCOME TO THE PARTY, PAL!

If I’m wrong, I am usually man enough to admit it. Two shows I came late to the party for are THE BIG BANG THEORY and SIX FEET UNDER (2001-2005).

BIG BANG is shown initially on CBS (on Thursdays at 8pm EST), and then rerun about a billion times a day on TBS and Fox. Even though I love science fiction, pop culture and DC comics (all of which BB has in buckets and bales), I thought the character of Sheldon Cooper (portrayed by Jim Parsons) was just too two-dimensional. A friend of mine is very devoted to the show, and kept tempting me with anecdotes about appearances by Wil Wheaton as an evil version of himself (Wil was the much-loved or despised character of Wesley Crusher on STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, 1987-1994), and a Spock action figure voiced by Leonard Nimoy himself. I finally watched the show for more than one episode, and found that Parsons is quite brilliant. It’s not easy to portray such an unlikeable character and make him endearing. I have to admit, when he approached Penny (about her intending to break up with his roommate) and said, “Please don’t hurt my friend,” I actually teared up. The entire ensemble is terrific, and there are lots of references to physics, DC superheroes, Star Trek, Star Wars and sex —and who doesn’t love one or all of those things?

SIX FEET UNDER is no longer with us, but lives on in DVD form. Created by Alan Ball, it revolves around the Fishers, a family who owns a small but honest funeral home in L.A. Patriarch Nathaniel Fisher is killed in a bus crash while driving one of the family hearses. Though dead, Nathaniel often appears to council or annoy one of his family, and is played by the amazing Richard Jenkins (THE VISITOR 2001, CABIN IN THE WOODS 2011, JACK REACHER 2012). His family includes son Nate (Peter Krause of THE LOST ROOM, 2006 and currently on the NBC drama PARENTHOOD), son David (Michael C. Hall, now the star of DEXTER), daughter Claire (Lauren Ambrose of the recent remake of COMA 2012) and wife Ruth (Frances Conroy of AMERICAN HORROR STORY). Each episode begins with a death (not always the one you expect) and that corpse’s impact on one or more of the family and/or staff. At times, the deceased will interact with a character. In addition, a huge funeral home conglomerate is trying to put the Fishers out of business, and each member of the family has secrets that are coming to light.

IT’S SO HARD TO SAY GOODBYE, FAREWELL, AUF WIEDERSEHEN, GOOD NIGHT

Two of my favorite shows are saying “adieu” this year (inarticulate sobbing here)…

One is FRINGE (Fox, Fridays 9pm EST), which began in 2008 as a sort of new take on THE X-FILES (1993-2002) but evolved more into a love story and a search for redemption. Though complex, I never felt lost in the mythology as I came to be with THE X-FILES. The central core of characters Agent Olivia Dunham, Peter Bishop, Walter Bishop and Astrid Farnsworth are all wonderfully played by Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble and Jasika Nicole, and ably supported by Blair Brown as Nina Sharp, Lance Reddick as Philip Broyles and Leonard Nimoy as Dr. William Bell. Noble as Walter is one of the great characters of recent SF TV, a genius and mad scientist who had parts of his brain cut out so he would not become evil and callous, unlike his counterpart on a parallel Earth. The elective surgery has left a man with a taste for sweets, inappropriate sexual banter and a craving for LSD and music of the 60s and 70s. If you never gave this series a try, do so. I, for one, will sorely miss it.

BREAKING BAD took one episode to hook all of us here at the Outpost. It concerns a high school chemistry teacher who discovers he has cancer. Looking to make money to pay for his treatment (and to take care of his family once he is gone), Walter White (the just awesome Bryan Cranston, once the father on MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE 2000-2006) turns to making meth with a former student, Jesse Pinkman, portrayed by Aaron Paul. And he’s real good at it. His product is so good it’s soon drawing the attention of tweakers, dealers, cartel members and DEA agents. Complicating matters is the fact that his brother-in-law works for the DEA, and is not the lunkhead he seems to be. What is fascinating is how Cranston essays a good man who gets into a dirty business, and transforms over time from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde… This is not only someone who becomes evil, he enjoys it. BREAKING BAD airs on AMC (the last episodes of the final season will be airing soon), but you’ll want to watch it from the beginning.

I’ll close out this year-end wrap-up with a list of shows I think are well worth your time:

BOARDWALK EMPIRE (HBO) —A bloody and dark series about Atlantic City in the 20s and the rise of organized crime, with Steve Buscemi at the center of it all.

GAME OF THRONES (HBO) —Warring kingdoms, sex, gore, dire wolves, dragons and things undead. What’s not to love?

THE WALKING DEAD (AMC) —A wonderful series where the living are just as important as the living dead, with brilliant makeup, effects and many WTF! moments.

JUSTIFIED (FX) —A Federal Marshall returns to rural Kentucky in this bitchin’ series from the mind of Elmore Leonard. Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins are lawman and outlaw who were boyhood pals. Brilliant.

SONS OF ANARCHY (FX) —Hamlet on Harleys. Also brilliant.

ARROW (CW) —Green Arrow without the Smallville soapiness.

THE NEIGHBORS (ABC) —A very human family moves to a cul-de-sac filled with aliens. The seemingly one-joke premise continues to be inventive, delightful and hilarious.

BOB’S BURGERS (FOX) —My favorite animated show. Unattractive characters (literally) and hilarious send-ups of family sitcom sweetness.

SHAMELESS (SHO) — The saga of the Gallaghers, who are grifters living by their wits in Chicago. Many of their efforts are often derailed by the worst of the lot, their patriarch, played by William H. Macy. A U.S. version of a Brit show, and hilarious.

LUTHER (BBC America) —Idris Elba is amazing as a British detective in this dark and inventive series.

FACE-OFF (Syfy) —The only reality show I watch—sure, some of the drama is manufactured through writing and editing, but the contestants come up with amazing effects makeup—without CGI!

Leave A Comment »

Bill’s Bizarre Bijou’s TOP 20 MOVIES OF 2012

Posted in 2012, 2013, Best Of Lists, Bill's Bizarre Bijou, Comedies, Drama, Horror, Musicals, Science Fiction, Superheroes, William Carl Articles with tags Battleship, Best Movies of 2012, Bill's Bizarre Bijou, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, The Avengers, William Carl on January 3, 2013 by knifefighter

Bill’s Bizarre Bijou

Presents

Top 20 Movies of 2012

I hate admitting it, but 2012 turned out to be an exceptional year for film entertainment. When I made out my list of favorites for the year, I was astounded to find twenty six movies listed, and these were the ones I really, REALLY liked. So, in all fairness to the year that was, I am making a list of twenty best this year. Please keep in mind, I have not been able to view everything released. I still haven’t seen THE MASTER, ZERO DARK THIRTY, PROMISED LAND, and others, but I have seen the films listed below, and they were all terrific in their own way.

And now, counting backwards:

20. THE AVENGERS – A comic book movie done right! Exciting, funny, if a bit too long; it was always entertaining.

19. SAVAGES – Oliver Stone brings us a wickedly twisted take on Don Winslow’s great novel and gives Salma Hayek her best role ever as a Mexican drug kingpin.

18. CABIN IN THE WOODS – A hoot and a half for horror lovers, this clever film turned the viewer into an active participant.

17. MAGIC MIKE – Filmed in beautiful pastel hues, this is more than a stripper movie; it’s a rom-com with just the right bit of silliness to combat the sweet. I hate admitting how good this is or how good Channing Tatum is in the lead.

16. THE RAID: REDEMPTION – Asian action to the tenth degree, this movie was more exciting than a hundred Hollywood blockbusters at a hundredth of the budget.

15. JOHN CARTER – Maligned by critics who never read Edgar Rice Burroughs, this is a faithful, old-fashioned and FUN film that brought out the twelve year old boy in me.

14.THE BAY – I thought I hated found footage films by now, but Barry Levinson made it fresh again with a truly horrifying take on a parasitic outbreak. It brought immediacy to the drama without making me scream “Put down the damn camera and run!” at the screen. Best horror film of the year.

13. PITCH PERFECT – Aca-hilarious! This does for acappella choirs what BRING IT ON (2000) did for cheerleading. A funny, wise-assed script, terrific music, and the best use ever for a John Hughes ending. I loved this even though I knew I shouldn’t.

12. THE PIRATES! BAND OF MISFITS and WRECK IT RALPH– Who expects wit in a cartoon? These are both full of wit and wonder, beautifully animated, funny, and better than anything Pixar has done in years.

11. THE IMPOSTER- Riveting documentary about a boy who disappeared and the young man who claimed, four years later, to be that missing kid. Why didn’t the family report him to the police when it is so obvious he wasn’t their son?

10. LIFE OF PI – Easily the most beautiful and transcendent of the top twenty, Ang Lee’s terrifying story of a boy trapped on a life raft with a Bengal Tiger is scary and moving, opening up questions about truth and story-telling. Every writer should watch this one.

9. LINCOLN – Absorbing historical film with a riveting performance by Daniel Day Lewis. Some say it is slow moving, but the scenes of Congress battling over the future of slavery are gripping and beautifully written and directed. Spielberg’s best film since 2005’s MUNICH.

8. BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD – Nobody I know saw this lyrical, gorgeous, fascinating story of a childhood in poverty and the beauty a little girl creates within her fantasy world to block out reality. Rectify this and watch it now.

7. LOOPER – The best science fiction movie in years. Thoughtful, well-acted, and intense in ways most thrillers aren’t. Welcome back to the fold, Bruce Willis. We missed you.

6. MOONRISE KINGDOM – Wes Anderson’s lovely film about childhood and how we want to protect our children from themselves. It’s also a perfect blend of whimsy and Anderson’s perfect visual compositions.

5. SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED – A wonderful comedy that sneaks up on you and remains with you forever. Snarkiness is rampant, but the heart of this movie is worn on its sleeve, and the ending will make you believe in love and the impossible.

4. DJANGO UNCHAINED – Quentin Tarantino’s homage to Italian Westerns is an incredible piece of work with numerous great performances, terrific music and songs, the best shoot-out since THE WILD BUNCH (1969), and the funniest scene ever involving the KKK.

3. ARGO – Possibly the most entertaining movie of the year with a great script, tight direction, lots of suspense, humor, and John Goodman and Alan Arkin in career bests. This is crackerjack Hollywood filmmaking, the kind you rarely see anymore, and everything in it works. Ben Afleck has become one of our best directors. How the hell did that happen?

2. SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK – This is how you make a crowd pleaser without resorting to mawkishness and pandering. Two fragile, emotionally disturbed people meet, become friends, and help each other win a dance contest. Sounds hokey, right? It isn’t. This movie is so well acted and directed that I can’t imagine anyone not being moved by it.

1. LES MISERABLES – With all the faults of the stage play, this is still a wondrous experience in a theater. The actors sang their songs live – something unheard of in movie musicals – with varying results, but the immediacy and emotion this brought out of the score make this the closest we’ll ever get to a live Broadway Show on film. Plus, someone just engrave Anne Hathaway’s name on the Oscar now. I was reduced to an emotional puddle by the end, as was the entire audience.

*****

WORST FILM OF THE YEAR – No competition! BATTLESHIP was everything an action movie shouldn’t be…overblown, overlong, dull, unfunny, badly acted, with the dumbest script I have ever heard. My mouth hung ajar over this fiasco. And not in a good, “let’s make fun of it” manner! This snoozefest blew up everything in its path and still nearly put me to sleep.

Honestly, what a great year!

Leave A Comment »

THE BEST MOVIES OF 2012 by L.L. Soares

Posted in 2012, 2013, Anthology Films, Best Of Lists, Comedies, Comic Book Movies, Horror, LL Soares Reviews, Science Fiction, Tarantino Films with tags Best of 2012, John Carter, l.l. soares, Sinistert, tarantino on January 1, 2013 by knifefighter

THE BEST MOVIES OF 2012
By L.L. Soares

This time around, Michael Arruda and I decided to write two separate lists listing our favorite films of 2012. It was just getting confusing trying to do both of our lists in one column. So, without any bells and whistles, here are my Top 10 Movies of 2012:

NUMBER ONE:
DJANGO UNCHAINED

It’s funny how the last movie I saw in a theater in 2012 (and the movie I was most looking forward to all year long), also turned out to be my favorite film of the year. I’m a huge Quentin Tarantino fan, because I love his style of filmmaking, and he hasn’t let me down yet. A new Tarantino movie has become something of an event for me, and I had a great Christmas afternoon sitting in a movie theater, watching DJANGO UNCHAINED.

Intense, gory, violent, often funny, terrifically acted, wonderfully scripted and directed, I just can’t praise this movie enough. Tarantino mashes up two staples of 1970s grindhouse cinema—the Blaxploitation film and the spaghetti western—and in the process transcends everything that inspired it. At its heart, it’s just a great revenge drama and a love story. With Jamie Foxx as the biggest badass of 2012.

NUMBER TWO:
THE KILL LIST (2011)/MOONRISE KINGDOM (TIE)

Technically, THE KILL LIST is a 2011 film, but it got a limited release in America in 2012, and that’s when I saw it, so it’s going on this list. A hitman drama with a very strange twist. This movie was also incredibly violent, but also incredibly satisfying. Beyond that, I don’t want to say much about it, except that it was one of the most original flicks I saw in 2012. It was going to be my Number 1 choice until I saw DJANGO UNCHAINED. Directed by the very talented Ben Wheatley.

We didn’t review MOONRISE KINGDOM here, the latest movie by Wes Anderson (who also directed some other movies I love, like RUSHMORE (1998) and THE ROYAL TANENBAUMS (2001)), probably because it didn’t fit in the with the usual genre-driven stuff we focus on here, but it was easily one of my favorite movies of 2012. A strangely innocent movie about two young teens who run away from home to live in a tent together, it was chock-full of quirky characters and terrific performances (from people like Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, Bob Balaban and Anderson regulars Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray). I loved every moment of this wonderful, whimsical, original movie.

NUMBER THREE:
JOHN CARTER

JOHN CARTER had to be the most criminally underrated film of 2012. It will go down in history as one of the biggest box office flops of all time, and it cost some Disney executives their jobs, but I still say it’s one of the best movies of the year. Based on the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, who also created Tarzan, John Carter of Mars is a character who should have been adapted for the movies decades ago, but something always went wrong, preventing that from happening. The biggest obstacle was always bringing Burroughs’ world of Mars to the big screen without looking cheesy. Modern-day special effects finally made this possible, but by the time this came out, a lot of people thought it was derivative of science fiction epics like STAR WARS, when in fact, the original books were the forerunner to hundreds of movies that stole –er, paid homage –to them.

This was the real deal, and it captured the spirit of adventure in Burroughs’ novels (the book this movie was based on, A Princess of Mars, was first published in 1912!). Unfortunately, most theater-goers had no idea, because the marketing campaign for this movie was abysmal. If anyone is responsible for this movie’s failure at the box office, the biggest burden of guilt has to fall on the publicity department at Disney. First off, removing the OF MARS part of the title left most people scratching their heads and wondering “Who the hell is John Carter?” And none of the promotional material linked JOHN CARTER with its creator, who also gave us Tarzan.

The movie is pretty faithful to the source material. The acting is really good, especially Taylor Kitsch in the title role. And this movie should have made him a star. Directed by Andrew Stanton – his first live-action film after helming animated movies for Pixar like FINDING NEMO (2003) and WALL-E (2008). Everyone involved deserves high praise.

NUMBER FOUR:
THE AVENGERS and THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (TIE)

There are going to be a few ties in this list, since there were so many good movies that came out in 2012, and it was tough to fit them into 10 slots (there are also a bunch of Honorable Mentions, as you’ll see).

2012 was, without a doubt, the year of the superhero. And as a long-time fan of Marvel Comics, it was a thrill to finally see THE AVENGERS hit the big screen. I grew up reading the adventures of Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk and Captain America (by themselves and as members of THE AVENGERS – even if the Hulk only appeared in the first few issues) and Joss Whedon gave us a movie version of “Marvel’s Mightiest Heroes” that was a ton of fun from beginning to end. As a Hulk fan, I was thrilled to finally see him done right in a movie, and the big green guy stole every scene he was in. The main villain could have been a bit more menacing (we’d already seen Loki in the THOR movie and I would have preferred someone else facing off against the Avengers besides him and a bunch of generic space aliens), but all in all, it was a really enjoyable experience. Kudos to director Joss Whedon.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES started off on a depressing real-life note, when a nut shot up a movie theater in Colorado during one of the first screenings, and I thought this would doom the movie, but DARK KNIGHT RISES was able to endure and get the praise it deserved. Darker and more introspective than the lighter AVENGERS, I think DARK KNIGHT was the better film, capping off Christopher Nolan’s above-average Batman trilogy. Tom Hardy turned out to be pretty terrific as the main bad guy, Bane (even if I still think they could have made his voice more understandable with that mask on – you had to really listen to decipher some of his dialogue), and Anne Hathaway was a kick-ass Catwoman. The thing about this movie that impressed me most was that it stayed with me after I saw it, where THE AVENGERS was like a great feast of junk food that was almost forgettable once the credits rolled. DARK KNIGHT haunted me, and I found myself thinking about it more as time went on. I even think it’s the best of Nolan’s Batman movies.

Two very different takes on the superhero story. Both successful in their own way.

NUMBER FIVE:
THE RAID: REDEMPTION and THE COLLECTION (TIE)

Two indie films make up my number five choice.

THE RAID: REDEMPTION was my favorite action film of the year, featuring cops invading a multi-story building full of criminals, to arrest the kingpin on the top floor. But to get there, they have to survive being under attack, continuously, floor by floor. Not big on plot (although there are a few twists along the way), THE RAID was pure, undiluted action. Nothing like the (often disappointing) brainless big-budget blockbusters it competed against. And the fight scenes were amazing pieces of choreography. Made in Indonesia and directed by Welsh director Gareth Evans, THE RAID was like a bullet-ridden, bone-crunching ballet.

THE COLLECTION was that rare sequel that transcended the first film (in this case, the 2010 movie, THE COLLECTOR). Without the hypocritical moral “message” of the SAW movies (this one was made by some of the same guys who made a bunch of the SAW films), THE COLLECTION was a non-stop journey through a house of horrors, courtesy of a sadistic bad guy who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty when he had to. So violent and gory that it pushed its R-rating to the limit. Sure it got dismissed by a lot of critics as just another “torture porn” flick, but they missed the boat on this one. THE COLLECTION was suspenseful, and entertaining as hell. I just had a helluva great time watching this one. Directed by Marcus Dunstan.
Two movies that seemed like adrenaline-stoked roller-coaster rides from start to finish.

NUMBER SIX:
SINISTER

One of the best horror movies of 2012, SINISTER actually had some disturbing plot points and intense imagery, and it made me like an actor I’m not always a fan of, Ethan Hawke, a little more.

Hawke plays a true crime writer who brings his family to a house where the horrific murders of another family happened not long before. He thinks it will inspire him to write the book of his career. Then he finds a box of home movies in the attic. They’re actually snuff films of the murderer’s past crimes. Hawke can’t stop watching the movies, and they’re driving him mad. A great idea, done very well. And one of the few truly creepy horror films of 2012. Directed by Scott Derrickson.

NUMBER SEVEN:
THE COMEDY and CLOUD ATLAS (TIE)

Another tie of two very different movies.

THE COMEDY is more of an anti-comedy as Tim Heidecker (of the “Adult Swim” series TIM AND ERIC’S AWESOME SHOW, GREAT JOB!) plays a completely obnoxious bastard who offends everyone he meets and somehow doesn’t get his teeth knocked out on a daily basis. Despite the fact that the lead character is almost completely unlikable, I found myself really impressed with the fearlessness of this one. Directed by Rick Alverson.

CLOUD ATLAS couldn’t be more different than THE COMEDY. It was an epic involving multiple characters in multiple time periods (with several actors playing multiple characters, led by Tom Hanks and Halle Berry), ranging from the 1800s to the post-apocalyptic future. The movie jumps constantly between stories and time, yet you never get confused, and it’s fascinating throughout. It did poorly at the box office and most critics attacked it. I thought it was terrific. Directed by Tom Tykwer (RUN LOLA RUN) and the Wachowskis (Andy and Lana, who gave us THE MATRIX movies) and based on the novel by David Mitchell. Along with JOHN CARTER, CLOUD ATLAS was one of the most (unjustly) underrated films of the year.

NUMBER EIGHT:
KILLER JOE and V/H/S (TIE)

Yet another tie.

KILLER JOE features probably the best performance of Matthew McConnaghey’s career (so far), as a crooked cop who moonlights as a hitman. A family of hick morons hires him to knock off the estranged mom for the insurance money, then try to stiff him. Joe then has to set them straight. Along the way he takes their daughter as sexual “collateral” and they fall in love. Directed by the legendary William Friedkin from Tracy Letts’ play (and screenplay).

There have been a lot of horror anthology movies lately – which is fine by me, because I’ve always enjoyed them – but V/H/S might just be the best of the bunch so far. Featuring five films by different up-and-coming directors, I found all of the tales to be pretty satisfying (not one real clunker in the bunch) and the movie as a whole to be very enjoyable.

NUMBER NINE:
SAVAGES

In some years past, a movie like SAVAGES would have topped my list, showing just how good 2012 was in cinema. SAVAGES is Oliver Stone’s best movie since the 90s, based on the book by Don Winslow, with Taylor Kitsch (from JOHN CARTER), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (from 2010’s KICK-ASS) and Blake Lively as three very different stoners in a ménage a trois, trying to get through life growing and selling the best pot in the land. And the Mexican cartel that decides to make a hostile takeover, led by drug kingpin Salma Hayek in one of the best roles of her career, and terrific performance by Benicio Del Toro and John Travolta.

NUMBER 10:
THE GREY/BRANDED (TIE)

Liam Neeson may seem a little old to be an action star, but that’s the way his career decided to go, and he is damn good at it. THE GREY might be the best action flick he’s made so far. After a plane crash in Alaska, a man named Ottway (Neeson) who was hired to keep wolves away from an oil company camp, has to use his wits to stay alive against some brutal fellow survivors, the harsh elements, and a hungry pack of the same kinds of wolves he used to hunt. With an intense final scene that some people didn’t like, but I thought was perfect. Directed by Joe Carnahan.

BRANDED is a really strange movie about an advertising guru, working in Russia, who has a strange epiphany and is able to see marketing brand names and logos as grotesque monsters fighting for control of the populace. This movie was so damn weird and different that it just caught me completely by surprise. Based on the trailers, I was expecting some kind of “alien takeover of Earth” story – but it has nothing to do with that. By the time we get to Misha (Ed Stoppard) building an altar he saw in a dream and slaughtering a red cow on it (which allows him to see the “real” world as it truly is) we’re entering some serious Alejandro Jodorowsky territory. Co-starring Leelee Sobieski, and directed by Jamie Bradshaw and Aleksandr Dulrayn. This one was so strange, that, looking back, I’m shocked it got a theatrical release at all (I actually saw this in a multi-plex!), even if it was a limited one.

HONORABLE MENTIONS (Yep, there are a lot of them):

THE MASTER
Paul Thomas Anderson makes the best unwatchable movie of 2012. What do I mean by this? The story of Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), a confused, violent young man, fresh out of the Navy who comes into the orbit of a larger-than-life L.Ron Hubbard-type religious guru named Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Quell wants desperately to take control of his life, and Dodd wants someone totally disconnected from the world to use as a guinea pig for his new religion. Hoffman and Phoenix deliver some amazing performances in this one, especially Phoenix who I think should be a shoe-in for an Oscar Nomination. They why isn’t it in my Top 10? Because it’s incredibly long, slow, and hard to sit through. When I saw it, I left the theater angry because it had been such an endurance test. But I can’t deny its moments of brilliance. A movie I want to praise, but I find difficult to recommend.

BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW
Really low-budget flick about a company that seeks to infiltrate the human mind. I couldn’t tell if it was a brilliant movie that was hampered by its budget, or an interesting idea that was just done badly. I’m prone to believe the former, as this movie really stayed with me over the months. With some really great imagery. Directed by Panos Cosmatos.

HOLY MOTORS
A very strange film from France about Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant), who travels around Paris in a stretch limousine and pops out now and then, in full make-up, as a variety of odd characters. But he’s not some prankster playing games; he takes this all very seriously. From an old woman beggar, to an assassin, to a monster who kidnaps model Eva Mendes from a photo shoot (after licking her armpit) and drags her down to the sewers. This is one messed up movie. And I loved it. Written and directed by Leos Carax.

KILLING THEM SOFTLY
Brad Pitt as hit man Jackie Cogan, sent to wipe out three guys who robbed a Mob-connected poker game. With terrific performances by Pitt and James Gandolfini, as another hit man on his last legs (Gandolfini is amazing here), and a solid cast that includes Ray Liotta and Richard Jenkins. Based on the novel “Cogan’s Trade” by crime fiction legend George V. Higgins (who also wrote “The Friends of Eddie Coyle”). Directed by Andrew Dominik.

GOD BLESS AMERICA
I’m a sucker for very dark comedies, and Bobcat Goldthwait has become a really great director of this kind of stuff. This one is about a man who finds out he is dying and decides to spend his final days ridding the world of obnoxious reality television stars. An indictment against the horrible crap we try to pass off as entertainment, and popular culture in general, this one will have you thinking long after it’s over. Starring Joel Murray (Bill’s brother) and Tara Lynne Barr.

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS
Joss Whedon’s spin (he wrote the screenplay with director Drew Goddard) on the clichés of all those “kids go to a deserted cabin and are picked off by madmen” movies that we’ve seen a hundred times before. With some interesting twists and even some laughs. Not a perfect movie, but a really entertaining one. With memorable performances by Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford as two corporate drones behind the scenes, and Fran Kranz, who steals every scene he’s in as Stoner dude Marty.

LOOPER
One of the best science fiction movies of 2012, I was completely surprised by this one. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a guy who kills criminals sent back in time from the future (talk about disposing of the bodies!), until the day when his intended victim is an older version of himself (played by Bruce Willis)! One of the smartest movies about time travel in a long time, with great performances and a suspenseful script. Directed and written by Rian Johnson.

CHRONICLE
Another of those “found footage” faux documentaries, this time about three high school kids who gain incredible mental powers after coming into contact with a meteor. With moments early on that are pretty funny as the kids learn to use their powers, becoming more scary as one of the kids starts to go insane and use his powers for violence. A really effective little film, directed by Josh Trank.

THE TALL MAN
Pascal Laugier, the genius who gave us the horror masterpiece MARTYRS in 2008, makes his first English-language film starring Jessica Biel in a surprise-filled plot about a mysterious figure who steals children in a small town. Not as good as MARTYRS (how could it be?), but fascinating in the way that nothing is as it seems to be by the time we get answers at the end.

THE MOTH DIARIES
At an exclusive all-girls school, Rebecca (Sarah Bolger) slowly comes to the realization that her new roommate, Ernessa (Lily Cole) is a vampire. A lot more interesting than it sounds, with some really nice imagery and some truly spooky moments. Another movie that stayed with me long after I saw it, and that grew on me more and more over time. Directed by Mary Harron, who also gave us 2000’s AMERICAN PSYCHO.

COMPLIANCE
A great little movie based on a real crime, concerning the manager of a fast food restaurant who gets a phone call from a man claiming to be a policeman, who tells her one of her employees is going to be arrested for stealing. The caller claims to be unable to get there in person for a while, and gets the manager and some fellow employees to do some pretty awful things. A movie that really questions blind obedience to authority. Disturbing stuff, with great performances by Ann Dowd as the manager and a fearless performance by Dreama Walker as the abused employee. Directed by Craig Zobel.

PROMETHEUS
This was one of the most ambitious films of the year. Ridley Scott’s prequel of sorts to his film classic, ALIEN (1979), it was one of the movies I was looking forward to most in 2012 (probably the movie I most wanted to see other than DJANGO UNCHAINED). I gave it a decent review when it came out, but it really didn’t live up to my high expectations. While it’s well made, smart (except for a few odd missteps) and visually arresting, it just was nowhere near as memorable as ALIEN, and the more 2012 went on, the more I realized how many other films I enjoyed a lot more.

3 Comments »

Archive for the Science Fiction Category

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (2013)

Quick Cuts: Special RAY HARRYHAUSEN Edition!

Suburban Grindhouse Memories: XTRO (1983)

OBLIVION (2013)

Scoring Horror Presents: An Interview with MICHAEL WANDMACHER

Cinema Knife Fight/New Filmmakers Edition: CELL COUNT (2012)

The Reassessment Files Look at EVENT HORIZON (1997)

THE REMOTE OUTPOST LOOKS FORWARD, THEN BACK AT 2012

Bill’s Bizarre Bijou’s TOP 20 MOVIES OF 2012

THE BEST MOVIES OF 2012 by L.L. Soares

Pages

Follow “”