Archive for end of the world

Lady Anachronism’s Fallout Shelter Inhabits the REFUGE OF FEAR (1974)

Posted in 1970s Movies, 2013, Cold War Chills, Lady Anachronism's Fallout Shelter, Post-Apocalypse Movies, Radiation, Sheri Sebastian-Gabriel Columns with tags , , , , , , on January 23, 2013 by knifefighter

Lady Anachronism’s Fallout Shelter Inhabits the
REFUGE OF FEAR (1974)
By Sheri Sebastian-Gabriel

Refugeoffear

Pull up a chair, pass around some rations, and get comfortable. Here at Lady Anachronism’s Fallout Shelter, I’ll take you back into time, when Atomic Age cats and dolls fretted over the bomb and visions of alien invaders flickered on the big screen at the local drive-in. Technological or political developments may have made these films obsolete, but I hope you’ll join me in rediscovering forgotten Cold War-era cinema.

It’s hard to make a boring film about nuclear annihilation, but REFUGE OF FEAR (1974), which was also called CREATION OF THE DAMNED, makes surviving a nuclear holocaust seem like the dullest fate imaginable.

The bomb has already been dropped when we meet the two couples surviving underground in a sophisticated shelter. We witness the survivors—Carol (the lovely Patty Shepard) and her husband Arthur (Fernando Hilbeck), Margie (Teresa Gimpera), her husband Robert (Craig Hill) and their son Chris (Pedro Mari Sanchez) —playing billiards, chatting, and having impromptu striptease shows. There’s actually no full nudity, which means the first hour of the film is pretty boring.

Chris attempts to contact other survivors over the radio, with no initial success. The group watches a Geiger counter to see if the radiation levels go down enough to leave the shelter.

The group begins fighting, mostly over petty things. Boredom sets in. Arthur develops an addiction to pills. Carol starts taking her clothes off and dancing provocatively for the group’s entertainment.

The survivors discover their pet cat dead. Robert, being the strict military man he is, skins and cooks up the cat. They can’t afford to waste anything, he tells Arthur.

Meanwhile, Chris is able to find another faction of survivors over the radio. They keep him updated on the radiation levels. Knowing that others have survived is of little comfort. They’re unable to leave. The air is still poisonous.

Eventually, boredom and her husband’s whininess drive Carol to have an affair with Chris, who is much younger and much more studly than Arthur. Carol taunts Arthur that her period is late. Arthur puts two and two together and tells the whole group that Carol is pregnant with Chris’s child.

Things become extremely tense in the shelter, so Chris leaves for the surface. We get a brief glimpse of the impact of the bomb. Chris enters a home, only to discover the fried and decomposed bodies of the former residents. Chris succumbs to the radiation and drops dead.

Back in the shelter, Arthur dies. Robert is convinced he committed suicide over the news of Carol’s illegitimate baby. Carol thinks Robert killed him. She’s so convinced that he’s a killer that she ties him up and holds him hostage. His wife, Margie, doesn’t seem to mind any of this.

Robert escapes. The three remaining members of the group try to get along, but Robert murders Margie, leaving him alone with Carol. He tries to control her, even going as far as drugging and raping her.

Carol eventually fights back. She keeps hearing someone over Chris’s radio. The other faction of survivors comes over the airwaves to tell them that the radiation levels have improved enough for them to leave. Robert doesn’t want to leave. He’s afraid Carol will go to the authorities and tell them that he killed Arthur and Margie. He attempts to kill her, but she locks herself into a room. She finds a gun and shoots through the door, killing Robert.

In the final scene, which seems odd and out of place, we see the whole gang back before the bomb hit, having a barbecue and discussing the construction of the bomb shelter. It’s a bizarre way to end the film.

REFUGE OF FEAR drags on at times. The characters are forgettable for the most part. The film could have been about half an hour long, and it would have been much more effective. We do see some tension, but tempers never fully boil over, which would have made the movie more exciting. People mostly snip at each other and storm off. It’s almost like a feature-length Spanish soap opera.

The one interesting thing about REFUGE OF FEAR is that it is a Spanish film about a nuclear weapon striking the United States. It’s a unique choice. Other Spanish films have addressed a nuclear weapon striking Europe, including Leon Klimovsky’s far superior THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK (1976).

Despite its failings, the film captures the very real paranoia of the United States during the Cold War. People did build underground bomb shelters. People did stockpile food and medications. REFUGE OF FEAR is a solid example of the fact that the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union troubled the whole world.

© Copyright 2013 by Sheri Sebastian-Gabriel

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SKYLINE

Posted in 2010, Aliens, Apocalyptic Films, Cinema Knife Fights, Giant Monsters with tags , , , , , , , , , on November 15, 2010 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: SKYLINE
by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

FADE IN

(MICHAEL ARRUDA wakes up to find his bedroom flooded with light. He covers his eyes and goes out to the kitchen, where L.L. SOARES is helping himself to a large sandwich. The refrigerator door is open)

MA: What are you doing here?

LS: I woke up hungry.

MA: Then why not make a sandwich at YOUR house?

LS: I was out of mayo.

MA: What happened to your eyes?

(LS’s face looks burned, especially around the eyes)

LS: Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you. Don’t look out the window. If you look into the light, you’re doomed.

MA: Thanks for the warning.

LS: Actually I was hoping you’d play dumb, ignore my warning, and look out the window anyway.

MA: Maybe later. Right now, since you got me up, it’s probably a good time to review the movie SKYLINE.

LS (takes a bite of his sandwich): Good idea. Hmmm. Do you have any pickles?

MA: No. It’s your turn to start the review.

LS: Oh, okay.

(There’s a knock at the door)

MA: I’ll get it.

(MA opens to door to reveal the weird dwarf woman from the movie POLTERGIEST)

MA: Hello? What are you doing here? Don’t tell me someone is remaking POLTERGEIST now?

DWARF WOMAN: Go into the light. All are welcome.

MA: You’re in the wrong movie, sweetheart. SKYLINE tells us not to go into the light. Why don’t you go home?

DWARF WOMAN: I’d rather come in and talk about—.

(LS comes over the kicks the woman out in the hall and closes the door)

DWARF WOMAN (out in hallway): OUCH!

LS (to MA): Isn’t this your cue to complain about my abrasiveness?

MA: No. I’m no fan of POLTERGEIST, nor of that character.

LS: Are we finally seeing your dark side?

(Darth Vader-like breathing sounds come from outside the door.)

MA (to door): Sorry, no one’s home right now! (to LS) Let’s start that review.

LS: Right.

This week, our movie is SKYLINE (2010). It begins with people waking up on a particularly strange morning where loud noises are coming from outside, and bright light has the power to hypnotize you if you look straight into it. Then, we suddenly jump back 15 hours to see Jarrod (Eric Balfour) and his girlfriend Elaine (Scottie Thompson) on a plane, going to Los Angeles from the East Coast. They’re going to visit Jarrod’s old friend Terry (Donald Faison), who has since become a wealthy rapper. After a night of partying, they will all find themselves in a morning-after nightmare.

MA: Yep, it’s the dreaded flashback routine all over again. There’s nothing that ruins the natural flow of a story more than suddenly seeing the words superimposed on the screen, “15 hours earlier.” Why can’t we just start 15 hours earlier? Or skip the earlier part and stay with the dramatic action which opens the movie? I don’t get it. And I don’t like it.

LS: In this case, it’s clear they did it to give us a teaser before the name of the film came onscreen. Then, once they grabbed us, they went back to the backstory.

Anyway, overnight, strange blue fireballs have fallen from the sky. And large, menacing space ships hover in the skyline overhead, emitting bright light. Our protagonists try to figure out their best course of action. Should they stay in the building and try to avoid the strange monsters that occasionally look in from outside, or should they make a break for it?

It looks like the whole world has been taken over by these strange aliens.

MA: I guess. The characters say the whole world has been taken over, but we don’t actually see this. We see only what they see right outside their window. I for one wasn’t that impressed by what I was seeing outside that window.

LS: Never once does this movie explain what the aliens really are, or where they came from. All we need to know is that they’re dangerous, and they don’t think twice about killing us.

Aside from the big blue spaceships, there are also big, spidery things, as well as giant monsters who stomp around outside, smashing everything that gets in their way. There are several different kinds of monsters, but they all have a similar look to them. It’s also suggested that the various alien crafts, even the big spaceships, are also living creatures, made up of organic as well as machine parts.

SKYLINE just suddenly thrusts us into this situation and shows us the survivors panicking. They have no idea what is going on or how to protect themselves. The fact that all this happens without explanation actually works very well. We are thrust into the situation just as suddenly as the main characters are, and are as much in the dark as they are (despite the fact that the aliens like to shine bright lights on us).

At one point, we see hundreds, maybe thousands, of people being sucked up into a spaceship. What do they want with us?

MA: We were supposed to see this. I thought this was a poorly constructed scene with weak special effects. It looked like a cloud of dust to me.

LS: Yeah, you do have to look pretty closely to see the tiny people.

MA: Unimpressive.

(DARTH VADER knocks at the window.)

DARTH VADER: Unimpressive. Most unimpressive.

LS: I dunno, I liked SKYLINE. I like its pace and its adrenaline, and the actors were pretty good, too. I saw a lot of familiar faces from television here, including Balfour who has appeared in several shows over the years (including 24 and SIX FEET UNDER), Donald Faison (who many of you might recognize as Dr. Turk from the long running hospital sitcom SCRUBS) and David Zayas (who most recently has been on the Showtime series DEXTER, as Sgt. Angel Batista). I thought the characters were believable, for the most part – even if they weren’t always likable – and helped keep the movie moving at a brisk pace.

SKYLINE was directed by the Brothers Strause (Colin and Greg), who also gave us ALIENS VS PREDATORS: REQUIEM, which we actually gave a good review here at Cinema Knife Fight. I liked SKYLINE, too. I didn’t love it, but it’s dumb fun.

I really had no idea what to expect. When I saw the first trailer for SKYLINE a month or two back, it just looked like a straight-ahead alien invasion movie. Then, as the release date got closer, they released a second trailer a few weeks ago that revealed the movie also had giant monsters in it (bringing to mind CLOVERFIELD). Suddenly, I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this one or not. Would they be throwing in everything but the kitchen sink?

What we actually get, however, is an interesting variation on the whole WAR OF THE WORLDS scenario.

I liked SKYLINE and was pleasantly surprised by it. I give it two and a half knives. I guess I’d recommend seeing it at a matinee. If you’re interested, it’s better to see it on a big screen, but don’t pay for a full price ticket if you don’t have to.

What did you think of it, Michael?

MA: I was disappointed with SKYLINE. Seeing it back to back with MONSTERS, two movies about monstrous alien life forms arriving on earth, I didn’t like either film, but for different reasons.

The knock I gave MONSTERS was that there weren’t many monsters in it. Here, in SKYLINE, there are plenty of monsters. However, I just wasn’t impressed by the way they looked. The monsters in MONSTERS actually looked better and came off as more realistic. They just weren’t in the movie all that much. The quality of the monsters in SKYLINE reminded me less of CLOVERFIELD and more of TRANSFORMERS. In short, I thought they were kind of fake-looking, and very obvious CGI creations. I didn’t find them scary at all.

(Tentacles suddenly crash through the window and surge toward them)

LS: The aliens are coming!

MA: Nope, it’s just that idiot Squiddly, from the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

SQUIDDLY: Hey, I thought you guys would be scared!

LS: Hi Squiddly, my man. I thought you were super scary.

SQUIDDLY: No you didn’t. You’re just trying to make me feel better.

LS: Yeah, you’re right. Now get your slimy butt out of here before I make some calamari!

SQUIDDLY: Yikes! (disappears from outside the window)

MA: Wow, he slid away fast.

LS: Threatening to cook them always works.

MA: I had bigger problems with SKYLINE than just its sub-par monsters and special effects, though.

LS: Oh yeah, back to the review.

MA: I’ll start with the story. This should have been a compelling story, but for some reason, it never grabbed me. First off, the events are pretty much contained to the inside of the apartment building. Now this in itself is not a bad thing. What’s bad is all this time inside the apartment is largely wasted.

For example, there’s a scene where Terry seeks out his neighbor, an elderly gentleman who won’t let go of his tiny dog, and they’re inside the man’s apartment when the aliens break in.  You hardly have time to worry about their safety when the old man is snatched away to his death.  It’s a wasted scene.

There are a lot of wasted scenes like this that don’t generate the suspense you expect them to.

We also don’t get to see what’s happening in the rest of the world. I wanted to see this invasion. Again, this in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but if you’re going to choose this route, then the scenes inside the apartment have got to be intense, and they’re just not.

Also, I wondered where everyone was? Where have all the people gone? Now I know that the aliens are abducting humans, but so many so fast? Really? I mean, within minutes of the event happening, the characters turn on the TV and there’s nothing on air at all. We see a newscast set just there without any people. They were all abducted that fast? I just didn’t buy this.

LS: The movie is just told from the viewpoint of a handful of people. I thought that kept things interesting. But it definitely goes back to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1969), where people were trapped in a house surrounded by monsters. Man, I can’t tell you how many movies have ripped that premise off. SKYLINE was just the latest variation on the theme.

MA: I also didn’t really like the characters in this one or the acting performances. I found Jarrod and his girlfriend to be very annoying. In fact, I’d go so far as to say each of the main characters in this film was annoying. They just weren’t likeable. I wanted to see the aliens abduct them so we could move on to some new characters.

I thought the performances were weak. I like Donald Faison a lot, and I loved him on SCRUBS, and he’s acceptable here, but his characters isn’t so swift for a guy who’s supposed to be an overachiever. He comes off like a guy who’s drinks way too much coffee, and his leadership skills don’t exactly help the group’s cause.

Eric Balfour, who I saw in RISE OF THE GARGOYLES (2009) a movie I reviewed last year, walks around this whole movie looking like he’s constipated. He was OK in the GARGOYLES movie, and he’s so-so here. His face seems to be stuck in a weird expression in this one, as if he constantly smells crap and doesn’t know where the smell is coming from.

LS: Yeah, you’re right. He did look kind of constipated. Poor guy.

MA: I wasn’t impressed with any of the actresses in this one either.

I was very disappointed with the direction by the Brothers Strause (Colin and Greg). This movie lacks anything resembling a memorable scene, which is amazing when you think of its subject matter. The closest the movie comes to such a scene is the first appearance of the huge alien ship in the sky, coming out of the clouds, but again, I thought the special effects here was no better than average.

The monsters failed to impress me throughout the movie. They looked too polished and nice, rather than horrific and deadly.

There’s little suspense. The characters are running around scared, and they’re being chased by monstrous aliens, but the chase is from one apartment to another, from a roof back down to an apartment, from a parking lot to a street and then back. I just didn’t find it that cinematic.

The screenplay by Joshua Cordes and Liam O’Donnell was particularly weak. Things are left unexplained, and I know you thought this didn’t hurt the movie, but in a movie as weak as this, it didn’t help. The dialogue was plain and uninspiring. It’s bad when you start saying the lines before the characters do. You know the drill. Things like: “What were those things?” “I don’t know, but we gotta get out of here.” That sort of thing.

The characters Cordes and O’Donnell created were boring. Compare the folks in this film to the characters in CLOVERFIELD and you’ll notice right away a huge difference in the quality of writing. The characters in CLOVERFIELD were really fleshed out and came across as real people, and in spite of being terrified they were still humorous at times. The folks in SKYLINE aren’t fleshed out. They’re just going through the motions of being scared. I didn’t care about them at all.

LS: I agree with you that SKYLINE is not in CLOVERFIELD’s league, but I think you’re exaggerating some of your points. I let the movie suck me in and I wanted to find out what happened next. If you don’t think about it too, much, it’s a fun time.

MA: Well, I like to think when I’m watching a movie.

The ending to SKYLINE was absolutely silly. It was as if the writers decided to end the film this way to make up for the fact the ending might be too hopeless.

LS: I actually would have preferred a much bleaker ending. But it seemed like they decided to finally give us an explanation of what the aliens were doing with all those people they abducted. For what it is, I liked the ending. It worked for me.

MA:  I liked the explanation of what the aliens were doing.  I thought that part was actually cool.  I’m talking about what happened to Jarrod’s character.  I didn’t get that part at all.  What was that all about?  That’s the part I found silly.  He should have ended up like the rest of humankind.

Anyway, SKYLINE is a muddled mess, with little about it to recommend.

So, like MONSTERS before it, I give it 1 ½ knives.

LS: Oh well, we can’t agree on all of them. That’s two in a row that you were clueless about. I think you should avoid movies about alien monsters on earth.

MA: I think I should avoid BAD movies about alien monsters on earth. But unfortunately, we have to review them.

LS: Hey, can you take a look outside the window and see what’s going on?

MA: Yeah, sure— wait a minute.  You’re not going to trick me that easily! You look out the window! In fact, I’m going back to bed. Don’t forget to clean up after yourself before you leave.

LS: Awww, rats. I thought I’d be able to trick you.

(MA leaves the room, closes the door behind him.)

LS: Next time, buy some damn pickles!

(From behind the closed bedroom door shines a bright white light.)

LS:  I wish I could say I planned this, but I didn’t.  (calls through door)  Hey, don’t look at the light!

(Door opens and MA staggers out of room, disheveled and frightened.)

LS:  Are the aliens outside your window?

MA:  No, it’s that POLGERGEIST lady again.  She’s in my bed.

LS (grimaces): Oooh!  Now that’s a scary image.

MA:  You’re telling me!  I need to go for a walk.  Let’s go buy some pickles.

(They exit.)

FADE OUT

© Copyright 2010 by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

Michael Arruda gave SKYLINE – one and a half knives!

L.L. Soares gave SKYLINE - two and a half knives!

4 Comments »

2012!

Posted in Apocalyptic Films, Daniel Keohane Reviews, Disaster Films, Science Fiction with tags , , , , , , on April 27, 2010 by knifefighter

DVD Review : 2012 (2009)
by Daniel G. Keohane

OK, well, this is a big movie, so let’s get right to it. 2012 is a good old-fashioned disaster movie – a disaster of Epic Proportions, yes, but still a disaster movie. Was it a good one? If I told you that in the first paragraph, you’d stop reading, so on we go:

Directed by today’s disaster master Roland Emmerich (who also gave us INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996), GODZILLA (1998) and DAY AFTER TOMORROW (2004), this film delivers what his movies usually offer: a lot of screaming people dying in disturbingly large numbers, a cast of hundreds doing a good day’s work and eye-popping special effects.

I popped this movie into the player not expecting anything more than to be entertained, and maybe a little depressed. Do that, this movie will blow you away.

2012 opens as all well-behaved End of World stories open, showing the earth from space with the planets aligning. Racing through 2009, 2010 and 2011 in the first five minutes, the stage is set for the coming carnage. The governments of Earth learn that its core is being microwaved by a new kind of neutrino from the sun. No special drill-ship is going to dig to the center of the planet and save us this time. In fact, nothing is. What follows are quick scenes taking place over the next couple of years. The world’s most beloved artworks are being replaced with perfect replicas. The richest people in the world are being asked for a lot of money to fund Something Big.

With the appropriate Ba-Doom of music, the year 2012 arrives, and we meet our characters and learn the status of the sun’s flares and weird neutrinos via background news broadcasts (a method which works well because we can actually hear what they’re saying without having to use subtitles)

From here on in, the End of the World (sorry, those words need appropriate Capitalization) is told through two distinct groups (with a million extras looking skyward and screaming in between): The White House, spearheading a secret project aimed at saving vestiges of the human race before it’s wiped out, and a fractured family thrown back into each others’ arms (there’s always a fractured family thrown back into each others’ arms in these stories) as they try to find this fabled salvation before they’re sucked into the bowels of the dying earth with everyone else.

Everyone playing a part in this film did a superb job. They took their roles seriously, seemed to put everything they had into their roles. More so than some of Emmerich’s earlier films. I enjoyed INDEPENDENCE DAY, but it felt a little campy at times. In 2012, everyone played it straight, and did so really, really well.

The best: tough call, but I’d have to say from the opening scene, I was very impressed with Chiwetel Ejiofor. He played science advisor Adrian Helmsley with such an understated intensity I immediately wanted more of him in the film, and was happy to learn he was the main character in the White House storyline. His co-lead, in the Hapless Family storyline, was John Cusak - also excellent as writer and estranged dad Jackson Curtis. Oddly In the two scenes where these actors shared the screen, however, it didn’t work. Not sure why, and I won’t waste your time trying to figure it out. No chemistry, or maybe it was simply two great actors dimming when their respective lights shone… sorry, it’s National Poetry Month as I write this. The best White House scenes were between Ejiofor’s Adrian and the Secretary of State, played by one of my favorites Oliver Platt. Platt’s Carl Anheuser is the no-nonsense, tunnel-vision leader of the project. The fate of humanity rests on him being as cold (and secretive) as possible. Against this, Adrian’s passion for the individual’s Right To Know constantly battled. Neither is wrong, and I appreciated that neither was elevated to the Noble Right Thing… until the end, which I was a little disappointed in.

Honorable Mentions:  Thomas McCarthy as the hapless boyfriend of the ex-wife, a stereotype always thrown into the Fractured Family storyline as the scapegoat for the male lead’s angst. He was played as a nice guy. I enjoyed that about this movie – the filmmakers had a large canvas, and used it to full force on the Big Things, but took the time to throw in smaller plot elements, like spice to a stew, enough to add color and depth to what could have otherwise been a flat plot with nothing but a series of progressions toward the inevitable end.

Woody Harrelson is a major presence in any movie he’s in. He plays an over-the-top radio personality who points the Curtis family in the right direction with perfectly crazed flair. He’s in only three scenes, but steals them when he does (another nod to Cusak: he keeps up). Hell, I could list everyone, from Blu Mankuma’s aged lounge singer stuck on a cruise ship with buddy George Segal, to the small but memorable role of bodyguard played by Johann Urb. Everyone was peachy, and this facet elevates this movie above the more two-dimensional DAY AFTER TOMORROW.

And there’s the End of the World, itself. All we can do is sit back, watch it happen, and hope someone survives.

It begins in a supermarket being ripped in half and falling into the earth. Most of this scene looked shot on a full set which was then torn in half, illustrating just how big a budget this movie had. The special effects in this film really, really impressed me. I think they did a lot with the old “mix & match” approach Peter Jackson used in the LORD OF THE RINGS, fooling the eye before it got used to seeing the “strings.” For example, Las Vegas’ destruction was a combination of CGI and modeling like the old masters used. As you probably read in the papers, however, the filmmakers actually destroyed the city of Malibu so you wouldn’t be able to tell what was real and what was not.

Speaking of Malibu… this was the first Oh WOW That’s An Amazing Scene! scene. If it wouldn’t be in very poor taste, it’d be a cool Islands of Adventure ride. Now, there’s only one way to watch this movie and still come out with a smile on your face – and not because the revolver is pressing too hard against the roof of your mouth:

By the time the End of the World begins with the Malibu scene, you need to have been watching the first 20 minutes carefully and with an open mind. The filmmakers added many winks and nods to get you ready for the sheer impossibility of our Hapless Family’s escape from mortal danger without making the film seem annoyingly cute. There are subtle nods to other disaster movies and disaster movie stereotypes, both in dialogue and in quick background images. The first scene between Cusak and Harrelson is a good example. By the time the Curtis family take off through Malibu airspace in a plane (freshly refueled by a Union actor whose character seemed to have died before their arrival from nothing more than fear) you’re not mumbling to yourself, “Oh, please, there’s NO way they could have done that…”  These characters are simply anatomically-correct human cameras through whose lenses we see the apocalyptic events and how they contrast to the We Have All Information and Know We’re Screwed view of the scientists and government. You expect these people will see it all, so sit back and try to think happy thoughts as they do. Even so, I found myself gripping the arms of my couch in a scene where Yellowstone Park explodes and our Hapless Dad races to make it back to the plane in time. Gotta give kudos to the crew for making me do that.

Time for a sidebar, before we skip quickly through the remaining carnage.

I wouldn’t let my 12-year old daughter watch this movie. Why? She already got her “Don’t Open Till Doomsday” scare a few months back when I let her watch KNOWING (2009), another end-of-the-world flick. When the latter was over, she was as quietly terrified as any Innocent Young Thing would be after seeing such devastation. Could that happen, she asked? Is the end of the world going to be like that? When I was her age, two things scared me like that: the above-referenced Outer Limits episode, and the movie WHEN WORLD’S COLLIDE (1951). I was probably younger than twelve when I saw that OL episode, “Don’t Open Till Doomsday” (which first aired in 1964),  but remember asking Mom, “Is Doomsday real?” The same question Youngest Daughter asked, in so many words. Mom gave the same “Um”-filled half-answer I offered to YD, including the requisite “Oh, but it won’t happen in your lifetime” wrap-up. We’re so clever, we parents. Still, it’s either say that, or stare in horror and shout, “Is that a spider in your hair?” Either method effectively ends the conversation. Seeing Earth completely destroyed in WHEN WORLD’S COLLIDE hit my younger self the way a film like that is intended: Some fates cannot be escaped, so you may as well see it all unfold now with popcorn, because when it really happens you’ll probably have no head. Unless, of course, you build a ship and save the remnants of humanity like both films offer.

So: Malibu, toast. Las Vegas, toast and now Hapless Family is in a bigger plane crossing the Pacific Ocean. Via the frenzied-announcements-of-news-anchors trope we witness the terrible events across the world, and see most of the scenes we’d become inured to from the trailers. The Vatican, toast. Washington DC, toast. It was during this barrage of destruction when my psyche began to take a bruising from watching billions of people – fictitious as they are – die swift and terrible deaths. It was akin to the horrific sinking scene in TITANIC (1997), where most characters we’d gotten to know throughout the film meet a brutal end. I remember watching the James Cameron’s opus and, when the back of the ship rose and so many frightened people fell into the water, closing my eyes. Couldn’t watch any more. Since I watched 2012 at home, I simply looked left and gave my dog Molly a scratch. She appreciated it.

The White House crew (now Air Force One en route to the escape plan) gets word: all communication on the ground has ceased. The carnage has mostly ended. Quiet falls. Now, we simply have to deal with saving the Remnant on modern day arks. Much like a novel I wrote a few years back and haven’t sold yet and probably never will now.. sigh….

Welcome to Tibet, a mountaintop retreat in this mysterious (and high elevation) country. Nice scene, calm, until a little later when we get the infamous bell ringing / oceans drowning the world scene which graces the DVD cover.

Through a series of impossibly lucky breaks (like a near-immediate Continental Shift), our heroes reach their destination – a few characters lighter. By now you’re either swearing off disaster movies for another few years or, like me, have been more than happy with how they carried this movie off and simply want to see which of our heroes survive. The final survivor list will not surprise you – at all – which I found a little disappointing.

One last point and I’ll wrap this puppy up: The soundtrack was great. Composed by Harald Kloser (who also co-wrote the script) and Thomas Wanker (snicker) it wove non-stop throughout the film, but subtly. The score played to the mood of each scene, fell silent when required to and when it did, its absence was strong enough for an effect. Never overbearing. Good stuff. First time I’ve noticed how good a soundtrack was since SIGNS (2002). I also liked the closing credits song. Can’t remember the lyrics, but it had a general theme of, “Everything’s OK, life is really good, honest, don’t go doing anything rash on the way home. Have a nice day.”

I gave this movie 4 out of 5 stars because I’m a Movie Reviewer and we like to give stars to movies. Though 2012 isn’t much of a date movie, for what it is, it’s terrific. The Special Effects are mind-boggling; the actors took their jobs seriously and played their roles with enough gusto and vigor to make this over-the-top ride of a movie, human enough to make diehards like myself occasionally grip the arm of my couch.

-THE END…………(of the WORLD!)-

© Copyright 2010 by Daniel G. Keohane

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THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW

Posted in 2004, Apocalyptic Films, Cinema Knife Fights, Disaster Films, Post-Apocalypse Movies with tags , , , , , , , on February 25, 2010 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT # 3: THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (2004)
by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

MICHAEL ARRUDA:  Welcome to CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT.  I’m Michael Arruda and this is L.L. Soares.

L.L. SOARES: Yep, that’s me.

MA:  Today we look at THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (2004), the much hyped disaster movie that is taking the nation by storm.

And storm is what THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW is all about.  Scientist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) warns a group of world leaders that unless serious measures are taken to stop global warming, there will be changes in the ocean currents that will lead to a second ice age.  When severe storms break out across the entire northern hemisphere, and temperatures drop dramatically, Hall realizes his predictions are happening right now.

We see tornadoes in Los Angeles, a huge tidal wave in New York City, and ice and snow that covers just about everything in its path.  The movie follows small groups of survivors who fight against the elements, including Hall’s teenage son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal), and Hall himself, who travels from Washington D.C. to New York City to rescue his son.

As you would expect, the true star of THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW is the special effects.  To this end, I was disappointed.  When creating fantasy worlds, such as Middle Earth in the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, CGI effects are close to flawless, but in real life settings, there’s just something missing.  The look is almost animated and as a result the anticipated sense of awe and terror you expect when seeing scenes of great destruction, it’s just not there.

This is not to say I didn’t like THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. As a fan of the disaster flicks from the 1970s, I enjoyed watching this movie, though I wish somewhere Charlton Heston would have shown up to say with his ’70s cynicism, “Oh my God.”

LS (doing a Charlton Heston imitation):  ”Damn Dirty Apes!”

Ahem…..This movie wants to be a new generation’s EARTHQUAKE (1974) or THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972), but those movies had interesting characters, and storylines that kept you wanting to see more. I’d take Gene Hackman or Ernest Borgnine over Dennis Quaid any day of the week.

MA (pulls out ice pick.) (Hums).

LS:  I think I liked the effects a little better than you did, although I didn’t find them realistic as much as just fun….what are you doing?

MA (waving pick):  Just listening to what you have to say. That’s all.

LS: OK….Director Roland Emmerich provides us with a few good images, but when it comes to engaging characters, he consistently comes up short, as anyone who has seen his god-awful GODZILLA remake (from 1998) already knows. The movie starts off fast with a lot of potential. By the time giant tornadoes are ripping Los Angeles apart, I was actually digging it. But all the really good stuff happens early on and the second half of the movie just didn’t do much for me.

MA: I agree the characters weren’t all that interesting, but I did enjoy Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance as Sam.  He reminded me of a cross between Tobey Maguire and a very young Oliver Reed- I guess that’s the horror film fan in me!

LS: Jake Gyllenhaal is okay, until you realize this is the same guy who was the lead in DONNIE DARKO (2001), and in comparison, his DAY AFTER TOMORROW character is one-dimensional and inconsequential. He’s just some smart kid without much personality. So what?

And Dennis Quaid looks like he’d make a good leading man, but his acting is pretty wooden. I didn’t feel much empathy for his character because he seems like someone going through the motions, rather than someone who has genuine emotions. We’re expected to believe that he desperately wants to connect with his son again, even though most of his son’s life he’s been an absentee father by choice, choosing his career over his family. His goal to reach New York and his son doesn’t seem to have any emotional investment. It’s just a plot device to provide motivation for the second half.

I’d even go so far as to say that not one of the characters in this movie convinces us they are worth saving. There isn’t anything about them that makes them special compared to the millions who presumably die. They’re just dots on a line from Point A to Point B.

MA (slams ice pick into wall):  I completely disagree.  I thought Sam and his friends were likeable, and I bought into their plight in the library.

(PuLS out ice pick) For me, the biggest disappointment, especially in terms of this column, was that I didn’t find the film very frightening.  It’s rated PG-13 for “intense situations of peril” and to be honest, I didn’t find the situations very intense.  As much as I like to lump all sorts of movies into the horror category, I can’t do that with THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW.  It’s just not horror.

LS: Actually, nature striking back at humanity has a long history in horror. Done right, this could have been an effective movie. But as is, it’s just a mediocre and often implausible story with some nice visuals.

I also had a problem with a few times where things got preachy – it was like a big budget public service announcement for global warming. That kind of stuff really bugs me in a movie. Just tell the damn story!

MA:   Lucky for you, I agree.  (tosses pick aside)  I was also bugged that everyone in the movie watched “Fox News.”  That was the scariest part of the movie!

LS: I went into THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW expecting to absolutely hate it. I didn’t. But it’s only a so-so movie. And so-so movies just don’t justify a $10 ticket price.

MA:  No they don’t.  But Jake Gyllenhaal is good, and I hope one day he plays a werewolf!

—END—

(Originally published in the Hellnotes Newsletter on June 17, 2004)

© Copyright 2004 by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

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LEGION

Posted in 2010, Cinema Knife Fights, Post-Apocalypse Movies, Zombie Movies with tags , , , , , , , , on January 25, 2010 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT:  LEGION (2010)
by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

(MICHAEL ARRUDA and L.L. SOARES are seated inside a greasy spoon diner. They are looking over their menus. Around them sit a few other patrons, a waitress taking an order, a cook behind a greasy grill, and the owner fiddling with the TV set mounted on the wall. An OLD LADY sitting next to them initiates a conversation.)

OLD LADY:  I just love the food here.

LS:  That’s nice. (under his breath)  You old hag.

MA:  Hey, she’s just a sweet old lady. (Smiles at old lady). What’s your favorite item on the menu, M’am?

OLD LADY:  Raw steak with maggots.

(MA grimaces, but LS nods his head, drooling in approval.)

OLD LADY (to LS):  So, tell me, how far are you along?

LS:  Excuse me?

OLD LADY:  How many months have you been carrying your baby?

LS:  Get some glasses, you old bat!  I’m not pregnant! I’m a man!

OLD LADY:  Your baby’s going to burn!!! (OLD LADY suddenly bares razor-sharp fangs and hisses at them).

LS (Pulls out flame thrower and blasts OLD MONSTER LADY, engulfing her in flames):  No. You are.

(Looks around at stunned customers)  Sorry.

DINER OWNER:  Don’t worry about it. This sort of thing happens here all the time. Last week we had a midget who sprouted a second head.

MA:  What’s up with that?

OWNER:  Don’t know, but he left twice the tip. Okay, people, everything’s fine now. We’ll put out the fire. In the meantime, enjoy the ambiance. (OWNER goes back to pounding on the television, trying to get reception)

LS:  Let’s get this review started. Why don’t you start things off while I toast us some marshmallows before they put out the fire?  (Begins toasting marshmallows over to the charred body of the OLD LADY).

MA:  Sure thing. Today we’re reviewing LEGION (2010), a movie that attempts to answer the question, what would happen if God got sick of his creation and sent his angels to destroy us?

The story takes place for the most part inside a diner called Paradise Falls in an out-of- the way desert location somewhere south of Los Angeles. The diner is owned by Bob Hanson (Dennis Quaid), and he employs his son Jeep (Lucas Black), a young waitress Charlie (Adrianne Palicki), and a chef, Percy Walker (Charles S. Dutton). There are a few customers inside the diner on this particular day, a married couple with their rebellious teenage daughter who are waiting for their car to get repaired, and a mysterious man, Kyle Williams (Tyrese Gibson), on his way to LA for a court date, presumably to fight for the custody of his kid (based on a phone call he makes in Hanson’s office).

Charlie is eight months pregnant, and Jeep, though he’s not the father, has pledged to stand by her and her baby. He’s intimated that he’d marry her, but Charlie hasn’t acted on his offer, instead showing continued interest in other men, much to Bob’s dismay, who’s worried about the decisions his adult son Jeep is making.

The characters here are all fleshed out rather nicely and things are set up neatly for what’s to come. What’s to come begins in Los Angeles, as we witness the arrival of an angel, Michael (Paul Bettany), in a scene that reminded me of all those arrival scenes from the TERMINATOR movies.

LS: Definitely a TERMINATOR vibe with that arrival scene. Although, he goes the extra mile to become human, by cutting off his wings. For some reason, I thought that would be a lot more difficult and messy than it actually is.

MA: At the diner, things grow unsettled when the TV suddenly flashes the Emergency Broadcast System logo, just before it loses its signal, along with the radio and phones, including cell phones.

An old lady arrives at the diner, and after shocking Charlie by telling her that her baby is going to burn, she sprouts fangs and leaps onto the ceiling.

LS: Hey, just like the lady here!

MA: As things grow weirder when a horde of flying insects descend upon the diner, Michael arrives in time to explain to everyone that God is miffed at the world, and he has sent his angels to earth to punish mankind. It seems, God has allowed his angels to possess the bodies of humans, and it is these possessed humans who are attacking mankind, a la zombies.

LS: They sure don’t act like any angels I know of. Aren’t demons the ones who possess humans?

MA: As far as I know, that’s the way it’s always worked. Angels have been the good guys. But in this movie, not so much.

Why are the angels here? Well, their goal is to kill Charlie’s baby. If Charlie’s baby survives, so does humankind, and thus it becomes Michael’s job to protect the baby. What follows is just that, a battle between Michael and the diner’s occupants vs. the possessed humans, as these angel zombies attempt to kill the baby. And just when you thought that maybe the human folks had an edge with the super angel Michael on their side, his counterpart, the angel Gabriel (Kevin Durand) shows up to finish the job, and dispose of both Michael and the baby.

I gotta tell you, I really enjoyed the first half of this movie a lot. I thought the horror scenes early on worked really well, but when the film shifted from a story about a small group of people trapped in a diner fighting for their survival against some unknown horrific threat, to a story about evil angels, it lost it for me. It became silly, hokey, and way too simplistic. In short, though I really liked the first part, the second part of LEGION completely falls apart.

(Another OLD LADY enters the diner from the restroom).

OLD LADY #2:  Where’s my sister? I was meeting her here for lunch!

MA:  Uh oh.

LS:  Here, have a toasted marshmallow while you wait. (Hands toasted marshmallow on a stick to OLD LADY #2).

OLD LADY  #2 (sniffs marshmallow):   This smells like— did you turn my sister into a marshmallow?

MA:  Not quite.

OLD LADY #2:  I’ll fix you two!

(She sprouts long fangs and leaps onto ceiling before stopping dead in her tracks. She suddenly has a heart attack, groans, and falls to the floor, dead.)

LS (To deceased old lady): Not quite the spring chicken you thought you were, are you?

DINER OWNER:  It’s alright, folks. Let me get a dust pan and broom.

MA:  Better make it an extra large dust pan and broom.

(Someone enters the diner and a bell rings above the door. LS claps.)

MA: I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Every time someone comes in, you clap. What’s up with that?

LS: Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings!

MA:  I never would have pegged you as a fan of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE.

(LS starts singing “Buffalo Gal Won’t You Come Out Tonight”)

MA: Anyway, back to LEGION.

In the beginning, this movie rocked. I liked the opening sequences involving the angel Michael. The scene where he has to stitch the wounds on his back where his wings used to be induced a few grimaces, and the shoot-out with the police officers upon his arrival I thought was exciting.

LS: I think you just like him because his name is Michael!

I dunno how well the whole “cutting off wings” thing works. He cuts his wings off pretty easily, considering they’re a part of him. And those wounds he stitches up seem like minor cuts instead of the gashes they should be. And how is he able to stitch himself up so well? It’s not like it’s easy to reach your own back!

And the whole point of cutting off his wings seems to be so he can be human like us. But he still seems to have super strength, he’s amazingly accurate with guns, and when he drives by buildings, their power shuts off. Doesn’t sound like a normal human to me.

MA: The scenes early on in the diner were well-crafted, and I liked all of the characters involved here. The acting performances were all excellent. I enjoyed the two young leads very much. Adrianne Palicki as Charlie delivered one of the best performances in the movie, and Lucas Black as Jeep, though not as dynamic as Palicki, still made for a very believable, likeable character.

LS: There are a LOT of TV actors in this movies. Palicki, some people might recognize as the bad girl Tyra from the excellent show FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. And even Lucas Black was in one of my favorite shows – as a kid he starred as Caleb in the very cool, but short-lived series AMERICAN GOTHIC (1995-1996).

MA:  I remember that show, and I remember Lucas Black in it as well. That was a good show. It’s too bad it never caught on.

LS:  And the mother of the teen-age girl is Kate Walsh, another TV star from GREY’S ANATOMY and PRIVATE PRACTICE.

As for Lucas Black’s character – I found him really annoying. His passive character might have been realistic (not everyone’s a hero), but I found it very hard to believe his importance later on in the story. I just didn’t like him.

MA:  The character of Jeep becomes important because he’s a caring person, and he’s been there to take care of both Charlie, and his dad Bob, and that’s what the angel Michael has been looking for in the human race. Like I said, it becomes very hokey.

But back to the cast. I sometimes poke fun at Dennis Quaid, because he makes so many movies, and a lot of them are just OK, and often he’s just OK, but I thought this was one of his better performances that I’ve seen in recent years. Quaid is really good in this movie, as is Charles S. Dutton as the cook, Percy Walker.

LS: Charles S. Dutton is another actor from TV. He used to have his own show back in the early days of FOX, called ROC. But he’s also been in lots of genre movies since, including ALIEN 3 (1992), MIMIC (1997), and GOTHIKA (2003).

As for Quaid, he does make a lot of movies: some of them are good, and some of them ain’t so good. One of my favorite genre flicks he starred in was ENEMY MINE, way back in 1985! How many of you remember that one?

MA: But my favorite performer in this one was Tyrese Gibson as Kyle Williams. His performance was the strongest by far, and I wish his character had been the lead in the story. He was better than just a supporting player.

LS: Yeah, I thought Gibson was good, too. And he would have made for a strong lead actor. His character isn’t given enough to do here, and I wanted to know more about him. You might have seen Gibson in the TRANSFORMERS movies and the recent remake of DEATH RACE (2008).

MA: The two angels, Michael and Gabriel, were rather blah characters, and there wasn’t much actors Paul Bettany or Kevin Durand could do to make them more interesting.

LS: I actually disagree about this, but more on that later.

MA: The scary stuff early on also really worked for me. The old lady sequence was very intense and much better than the way it came off in the trailer, which made me laugh. I also liked the Ice Cream Man and the Minivan boy.

LS: Y’know, I would have found the old lady sequence a lot more effective if I hadn’t seen it 20 times already in the trailer! This is definitely one of those movies where the trailer gives away THE ENTIRE PLOT. And the old lady sequence is almost shown in its entirety, which sucks for poor Jeanette Miller who does a great job with the old lady/demon character, named Gladys.

MA:  I don’t know, the language she used, which was not included in the trailer for obvious reasons, made the scene better in the movie, and I liked it, even though I had seen it many times in the trailer.

LS:  As for the Ice Cream Man (another character who we saw too much in the trailer), how many people recognized him as Doug Jones, the go-to guy for people who need an actor to play monsters? Jones’s resume is pretty impressive. He’s done everything from play one of the “Gentlemen” in the classic silent episode of the TV show BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1999),  to the Pale Man from PAN’S LABYRINTH (2006) to Abe Sapien from the HELLBOY movies, to the Silver Surfer in FANTASTIC 4: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER (2007).

As for the Minivan Boy (Cameron Harlow, with a cool devil voice by Django Marsh), I thought he was the best of the three you mentioned, but then I’ve always dug evil/monster children.

(MONSTER BOY taps LS on the shoulder.)

MONSTER BOY (with deep voice):  Have you seen my mommy?

LS: How the hell is a little kid able to tap me on the shoulder?

(LS and MA realize the kid is levitating)

MA:  Whoa!

LS:  Your mommy wasn’t a little old lady, was she?

MONSTER BOY:  No.

LS:  Good.

MONSTER BOY:   I want to play with the baby. (To LS)  You look like a baby.

LS (rolls eyes):  What is it with this diner?  First someone thinks I’m pregnant. Now this kid thinks I’m a baby. I’m a grown man, kid. How many babies you see with whiskers?

MA:  You must have one of those faces.

LS:  Hey, kid, here’s a quarter. Go run in the street and see if you can bounce if off one of those Mack trucks driving by.

MONSTER BOY:  Gee, thanks, Mister!  (Takes quarter and leaves).

MA: Where were we? Oh yes. So where does LEGION go wrong?  Pretty much with its entire angel plot. Bodies possessed by angels?  It’s kinda stupid when you think about it. If God really wanted to destroy humankind, why send angels in the bodies of humans to do it?  Seems like an excuse for a horror/fantasy/action movie plot to me!

LS: And why now? What’s so special that God would want to destroy the earth now? What finally broke the camel’s back? I’d just like to know.

Okay, back to the angels. The whole “evil angels” plot has been done before, and better, from movies like THE PROPHECY (1999), with Christopher Walken as an evil angel, to CONSTANTINE (2005). So it’s nothing new. But I didn’t really mind it here. You said the angel characters here were “blah,” but I thought the battle scenes between Michael (Paul Bettany) and Gabriel (Kevin Durand) were the best fights in the movie.

MA:  Really?  I was bored.

LS: I dug the way Gabriel used his wings as a weapon. C’mon, it wasn’t that bad.

What I had a problem with was the way this movie seemed to make up its rules as it went along.

First, there’s this gigantic cloud of flies that descends on our heroes. Then, just as conveniently, they’re gone. Then the possessed people show up, become a major problem for a while, and then they’re gone (and I still didn’t buy that “people possessed by angels” thing – mainly because the angels would have been a lot more powerful and effective just showing up as themselves!). Then the possessed people come back only when it’s convenient to the story, and are rendered inactive when Gabriel shows up. Why? The explanations for why one threat ends and another begins isn’t properly explained, and isn’t believable. If any of these creatures kept their onslaught going instead of running away, they would have been able to defeat a handful of humans!

I think a lot of this has to do with the budget. Maybe it cost too much to outfit a bunch of people with angel costumes, so they went for the easier to do “possessed humans” thing. But angels are just as easy to do in CGI as crowds of zombies are. This whole aspect just seemed dumb to me.

MA: I would have to agree with you on all these points. Plus midway through this movie the pace really deteriorates. It’s almost as if after an intense exciting first half, the movie runs out of gas.

LS: The reason for the bad pacing in the second half is exactly because of the stuff I just mentioned. One threat comes, then suddenly leaves without reason. It totally messes up the pacing of the movie.

MA: There’s some other holes in the plot as well. It’s never explained who the baby is supposed to be. Why is the baby so important?  If the baby dies, so does humankind. Why?  This is never explained. Imagine the TERMINATOR movies not really explaining why the unborn John Connor had to be killed?

LS: Yeah! Is he the messiah? Is he a human/angel hybrid somehow? Does he wear lots of Angel Repellent? There is absolutely no attempt to explain why he is so important.

MA: The threat isn’t really explained all that well either. Just why exactly do the angels need to possess human bodies to do their dirty work?  Why doesn’t God just end things himself?  The story just doesn’t make much sense, and this really kills a lot of the suspense.

LS: Exactly.

MA: I also thought the plot point of trying to save an unborn child borrowed too heavily from the TERMINATOR series, so this didn’t help.

If LEGION hadn’t been about angels, it would have been a much better movie. Had the threat been something else, something that made more sense, the story would have held up better. Then again, even if the threat had been something other than angels, the movie still would have had problems because the pacing slowed down to a Romero zombie pace, and the ending was nowhere near as exciting as the beginning.

LS: Hey! Don’t bring Romero into this! He knows how to pace a movie!

MA: No, I said it moves like one of his zombies!

I highly recommend the FIRST HALF of this movie, which is a wild, fun ride, but the second half completely falls apart, as it descends into a silly storyline about battling angels. To put it in perspective, I enjoyed the first half of LEGION better than any part of the other January new releases, DAYBREAKERS or THE BOOK OF ELI, but the second half was sillier and made less sense than either of those two movies.

So, what does this all mean?  Like the other two movies this month, LEGION is a mixed bag, and it’s definitely one where you wouldn’t mind stepping out for that bag of popcorn midway through the movie.

LS: I think the first half is better, too. But I don’t think the problem is the angels. I think the problem is the writers just didn’t know what to do with the angels. In a flashback scene, we see hordes of angels filling the sky as Michael and Gabriel look on (this is before Gabriel comes to earth). And you wonder, why couldn’t that have happened in present day? Hordes of angels attacking the diner (instead of just ONE!) would have been so much more dramatic and visually exciting than the same old possessed people/zombie thing we’ve seen a million times! If you’re going to do something creative, go all the way with it! Don’t sell it half way and then drop the ball.

Despite a mostly good cast, and a promising plot, this movie ends up being a big dud. Definitely wait to rent the DVD for this one. I paid $11 for a ticket, and I don’t feel I got my money’s worth by any stretch of the imagination.

MA:  Well, that about wraps things up.

LS:  Yeah, let’s pay our bill and get out of here before somebody mistakes me for Santa Claus or something.

MA:  Yeah, right.

(They pay their bill, and as they exit, they bump into a LITTLE GIRL.)

LITTLE GIRL to LS (in demonic voice):  Hey, Santa, where’s your fluffy white beard?

(LS and MA scream and run away from the diner.)

-END-

© Copyright 2010 by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

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