Deliverance Challenges Our Belief in The System

Now son, WHO'S YO DADDY?

 "S   ir, it's Corporal Hicks sir." 

"What is it, Corporal?" replied the sergeant.

"Found another one—looks to be from the 21st century."

"It's got the signs?" 

"Sir, yes sir. Portable body scan confirms it sir. About thirty years old, cervical vertebrae one through five in a state of hyper-flexion, shortened extensor pollicis longus muscle on both thumbs, both from over-usage of the old telecommunications devices. She appears to be well dressed and her shoes are imprinted with "Jimmy Choo" on the heel, her tags say she was a lawyer of some sort—a definite believer in the System." "Okay, Corporal, I've heard enough, tag her and bag her, over and out."

Unfortunately, this is not an excerpt from the latest James Cameron movie depicting the downfall of man. As human beings and North Americans, we love and believe in the System. We go to school, educate ourselves, get jobs, make money, buy houses, pay taxes, have children and believe that we are protected and entitled to lead good lives because we have paid our dues and can now watch the hockey game with our feet up.

Over the last forty-three years, we have managed to pervert and abuse the system into a fossil-fuel-using, gluttonous, judgmental society that uses cell phones in a manner that begs for the old phrase in reference to masturbation, "Don't do that too much or you'll go blind."

When was the last time we gave a dollar to a toothless beggar when we were stopped at a traffic light? When was the last time we volunteered our time to help someone who did not own a $40,000 car? To say that we—the educated, the hardworking, the plasma-TV and iPhone-6-owning—think we are special is really an understatement.

What if a movie director and a writer were able to take that system that we believe in so much, and wrap it up and reshape it into a policeman's nightstick? What if they then took that nightstick and inserted it into everyone's rectum so far that it made them vomit? Would that change things?

In 1972, director John Boorman and writer James Dickey teamed up to make a movie about progress, the system, and the imminent death of a small town in the middle of the woods riddled with mountain men who know about as much about technology and city life as we know about how not to waste things like water.

When four businessmen set out on a canoe adventure to see a fictional Georgian river before it is engulfed by the construction of a dam, all in the name of progress, each of them quickly learns that judging a book by its cover and following the system may lead to, at the least, various orifices being violated, or at the very worst, death.

When virgin-like Bobby (Ned Beatty) first sees what appears to be an inbred young man holding a banjo, he doesn't think he can play it. Boy, was he wrong. When Ed (Jon Voight) has to do the unthinkable to survive, he quickly learns that his sophisticated negotiation skills are no match for a toothless cracker hell-bent on using Angelina Jolie's father's mouth for something other than target practice.

When Drew (Ronny Cox, the head villain in 1987's Robocop) realizes that city laws do not apply in the woods he quickly falls victim to the theory Darwin referred to as "survival of the fittest."

Even Lewis (Burt Reynolds) who is both macho and cynical and has his doubts about the "system" is quickly put to the test as to what he will do in order to survive.

Forget The Walking Dead, The Terminator, the Mad Max series and just about every other apocalyptic movie you've ever seen. The way we are living, right now in 2015, we will be the cause of the downfall of Man.

It won't be a virus or a radioactive war, it will be because we have raped this planet of ours and turned it into one giant cellphone.

Perhaps we need to be violated to change our ways. We certainly don't listen to environmentalists or politicians or the few savvy youth of our seemingly doomed generation but, I dare anyone who watches this film not to be shocked into submission and a state of change after viewing one of the most unforgettable rape scenes in movie history that makes this film even more of a masterpiece than it was 43 years ago.

What the "True" Really Means in True Detective

This must be Alaska . . . those mosquitoes are fuckin' huge

 W   hat is it that really drives us to get out of bed in the morning? Is it to "do good" or to "make a difference" and somehow improve things in a world that is constantly getting a little worse each day? If so then then why are we so fascinated with stories of murder, escaped convicts and devastation? What is it we are hiding?

Judging by the success of such "entertainment pieces" as Mad Max: Fury Road and season one of Nic Pizzolatto's True Detective (TD), we are a lot darker than our nicely groomed front lawns and our shiny SUV's with bumper stickers depicting representations of happy families, would have the public believe. If the first episode of season two of TD is any indication of things to come, Pizzolatto has somehow discovered what it is that we are truly searching for when our feet hit the ground each day.

What do California Highway Patrol Officer Paul Woodrugh (essentially "Ponch" from the tv series "Chips"),  young and innocent looking female detective played by Rachel McAdams, Detective Ray (Colin Farell) Velcoro, and "criminal" Frank (Vince Vaughn) Seymon have in common? They are all deeply disturbed and self-destructive in fact, Frank is perhaps the straightest arrow of the bunch.

In just one hour of television we are introduced to a suicidal, albeit somewhat ethical, viagra popping, blow-job receiving cop played by Taylor Kitsch (the high-school football hero from Friday Night Lights); a sexy female detective who's got several problems with a) sex, b)her David Koresh-like father c)gambling and d)booze; a detective father of a pudgy son (the product of a rape, no less) who he's supposedly proud of, whose got issues with booze, abuse, and a brass knuckle he's most definitely quite fond of; and last but not least, a clean cut criminal who is married and attends parties looking like no less than a respected politician. 

All are linked together by the murder of so and so in a setting reminiscent of a David Lynch movie that has shades of Blade Runner and Black Rain thrown into it seemingly just for fun.

Why will we tune in for more next week to watch an "entertainment piece"? Because behind the facade we are experts at staging in our daily lives is a dark side we are too afraid to indulge or much less admit to even having. Ironically, the criminal in the show opitimizes what each of us do every day: hide who and what we actually are. 

Simply put, shows like this that show characters like us, both hidden and fully exposed, make us feel less alone and give meaning to the word "True" in True Detective.

Sad is Good!

"If you say What The Fuck one more time, I'm gonna shame you on Fuckbook" 

 I   s a generation of young people ready to feel sad at the movies again as they did in 1982 in parts of E.T.? Can children raised on youtube and the internet concentrate long enough to comprehend the human psyche and its five components of joy, anger, fear, disgust, and sadness? The folks at Pixar appear to believe that the answer to both of these questions is "Yes" and have made a film that is completely unorthodox in a movie climate blatantly overloaded with sequels, CGI dinosaurs and robots.

Inside Out starts off as its trailers indicated: 11-year-old Riley has five voices in her head which all contribute to who she is (unfotunately, she is not schizophrenic . . . sequel?). Naturally, and in typical Hollywood fashion, the leader of the five is "Joy" making Riley a predominantly happy child.

The happy scenes—although necessary—are relatively boring and predictable until her parents whisk her off to San Francisco and her life takes a dramatic change. Her old friendships crumble, she breaks down and cries in class on her first day in a new school and she quits hockey, sending islands in her mind crashing into an abyss of darkness full of lost and or useless memories.

Joy then takes it upon herself to save Riley and ends up getting lost in her mind along with Sadness who really is the star of the film. It seems that Sadness can't keep her hands off of Riley's happy memories (softball-sized marble-textured objects) and tries to change their color from bright yellow/gold to blue, thereby making them sad. Joy tries to keep Sadness away from the memories of an eleven year old and that's when things get interesting.

As Sadness and Joy make their way through Riley's mind, they encounter her dark subconscious that is guarded and locked, her "train of thought" which literally is a train, and her imaginary friend Bing Bong, who probably deserved a better fate.

While the duo continue to try to figure out how to make it back to Riley's "headquarters"—a kind of command and control center—the viewer is subjected to a self-indulgent animated adventure reminiscent of what Tarantino fell victim to in Inglorious Basterds.

It turns out that indeed, sometimes, we need to be sad and judging from Inside Out's wide success so far and its stellar reviews, children can handle its heavy subject matter as easily as they can text "LOL".

Yes, the folks at Pixar can be considered geniuses for taking a chance at making a film where joy is not all it's cracked up to be, but, they know it all too well.

Shameless Plug

Someone I know has a small child to whom something is happening that the little guy doesn't deserve.

Maybe you could donate a couple of bucks -- Dog knows these parents need it.

Wut The Fuck YOU Lookin' AT?

Not the first time a star has regarded a director with such utter disdain.

Filmed in Notre-dame-des-Neiges Cemetery.

 (Please put on HD)

Muzik

Welcome To My World. Like my Joy Stick?

 I   hate to steal Dane's brilliant thunder, and this is definitely "off-topic," but . . . I was ruminating, as I am wont to do (also will to do) and hey, Lookout, World. Durknit Is Ruminating Agin.

And I ruminated about this:

I was over at my pal Dimitri's house yesterday (he's all of 30 years old!) and he regrettably had the radio tuned to some mindless station, which was presumably pumping out the "latest hits."

It had been the first time I was subjected to the assault on my ears of this kind since Giorgio Moroder and disco.

This stuff is INCREDIBLE! And I don't mean that in a good way.

What I find remarkable, other than the immensely boring 4/4 tempo, is the complete lack of chord structure. You thought Punk only had three chords? Try TWO. It's like they took a couple of chords, put them through a shredder and then fed them into a computer and then autotuned the fuck out of it.

"Mindless" gives it too much credit.

If this music had a color, it would be GREY. No, strike that: it would be the color of static on your TV set . . . when there was static, that is. Just random audio pixels assembled by a computer and then extruded, like bland pasta, into a shape: "Lady Gaga Love To Love Me Mixtape 25" . . . "Kanye West Shoot The Cop Mashup/Vangelis Chariots v. 87" . . .

Remember that music that George Lucas imagined would be playing sometime in the far future in the Star Wars bar scene -- you know, the alien horn section -- well, Georgie was WAAAAYYY too optimistic. As I recall, it was a blend between Artie Shaw and Dizzy Gillespie.

Today's hits are a blend between Coke Zero and A McDonut.

Is Music Really "The Universal Language"?

 I   s it possible for someone with no training in music to recognize great musical compositions? What is music anyhow, but a way to make us feel something in an otherwise fairly dull world? We listen to the radio, the internet, go to concerts, and many of us say: I just couldn't live without music.

That being said, can just an ear alone tell the difference between what is considered by "experts" to be great and what is considered by those same "schooled" experts to be garbage?

Having been raised by two professional musicians, I was dragged to concert after concert, watching my father both play and conduct, all the time wondering What the hell are these people so excited about?

When I was eight years old, I used to go with my mother to the university at which she taught piano, at 5 a.m. on weekends (she said she could play better early in the morning), to turn pages for her as she belted out her latest rendition of Beethoven or whoever it was that happened to be taking a beating from her swift but skillful hands that day.

I had no idea what it what I was listening to and could not understand what all the fuss was about at the time, but it obviously made her happy.

Thankfully, my parents both loved movies and all us sons were pretty much raised in front of a big screen. I remember first feeling something―call it excitement, rhythm, an adrenaline rush or a hankering to throw more popcorn in my mouth―in 1978, during the opening to Superman and John Williams' score (now called The Planet Krypton).

As a few years went by and we continued to go to the movies, VCRs became popular and watching videos over and over again became a tradition on our Sanyo Betamax.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was released along with a musical and special effects extravaganza, and even after seeing it in the theater, we watched it again and again, wondering how the effects were accomplished. The beginning of Raiders is truly amazing and once again John Williams got my heart beating for reasons I am still not entirely sure of.

In my teens, movies became more and more interesting, partcularly the ways in which they began, as the beginning credits rolled. The ability of movie directors to instantly capture a viewer's attention, usually by music, was fascinating.

In 1984, The Terminator was released and Brad Fiedel's brilliantly synthesized score riveted movie-goers as they became introduced to a then-young James Cameron's vision of the future.

Arnold Schwarzenegger became a household name and movie lovers flocked to video stores (remember them?) to see some of his older movies, including Conan the Barbarian. When I first saw Conan in 1985 and heard the opening to what many consider one of the best movie scores of all time, Basil Poledouris' drums made me want to see more movies.

In CEGEP, I took a few movie courses and in 1987, Brian De Palma released The Untouchables—the opening of which, with Ennio Morricione's pianos and synthesized drums, inspired me to make a short film using that very same two minutes of music. My film teacher said it was "the work of an avant-garde film-maker" because I understood the music so well—whatever the hell that means.

In film class, we watched movies like Touch of Evil and North by Northwest. The former was called "the quintessential film-noir" and the latter, "a masterfully made suspense film" but I was more moved by Henry Mancini's sinister horns and Bernard Hermann's power-score, respectively.

And then, one night, The Omen was on.

I was sixteen years old and had never heard a movie with such an eerie opening. I remember my father commenting laconically: "That's nothing . . . it's stolen from Lion in Winter" —which indeed it was.

Still, Jerry Goldsmith, who to this day remains as one of my heroes, was responsible for the inspirational Logan's Run, the terrifying Alien, and the unbelievably exciting Capricorn One openings. (Who can forget his groundbreaking Planet of the Apes score? - Durknit)

One Sunday afternoon, Spartacus was on. Alex North's drums perked my interest but it was his strings that made me fall in love with Jean Simmons.

In 1991, Martin Scorsese remade Cape Fear and Bernard Hermann became another hero of mine but above all others, for me, it was James Horner.

I was only twelve years old when I first heard the beginning of 48 Hrs. I was in an electronics store and they had it on full blast on a giant screen with what was considered to be, at that time, "state-of-the-art sound" and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Such strength, such timing; it reminded me of all the times I'd watch my dad conduct his orchestra in a full-bodied sweat, wondering what all the fuss was about.

Thirty-two years later I saw Gladiator with a live orchestra. Hans Zimmer's masterful  opening brought tears to my eyes and once again reminded me of the power of music, family and love.

Oddly enough, like Jimi Hendrix, jazz drummer Tony Williams, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton and many other real musicians who have done bonafide masterpieces, I cannot read or write music. But, like Anne Murray once said "I trust my ear". 

Judging from what professionals have had to say about the composers of my "Top 15 List of Movie Music Scores"―all have been nominated and have won award after award―I believe that music really is "The Universal Language" and that anyone can be affected by its power.

15) Brad Fiedel : The Terminator

14) Basil Poledouris : Conan the Barbarian

13) Jerry Goldsmith : Logan's Run

12) Alex North : Spartacus

11) John Barry : The Lion in Winter

10) Henry Mancini : Touch of Evil

9) Bernard Hermann : North By Northwest

8) Jerry Goldsmith : Alien

7) Bernard Hermann : Cape Fear

6) Ennio Morricione : The Untouchables

5) Jerry Goldsmith : Capricorn One

4) John Williams : Raiders of the Lost Ark

3) John  Williams : Superman (the Planet Krypton)

2) Hans Zimmer : Gladiator

1) James Horner : 48 Hrs

June 23 update: James Horner decided to fly and died instead.

Jurassic Jaws Befriend "The Bachelor"

An idea that never made it into the final script

 T   wenty-three years later, we are bored of dinosaurs. It's no longer enough for us to see a "T-Rex" or a Brachiosaurus, now, a generation of kids who can't even tell time via an old-fashioned wrist-watch want to see bigger and badder creatures that have names that are as easy to pronounce and write like "awesome" and "LOL". The men and women running "Jurassic World" are, of course, happy to oblige 20,000 of their patrons and invent a new kind of dinosaur without respecting the laws of Mother Nature.

When eligible bachelor and Raptor wrangler "Owen" (Chris Pratt) gets thrown into the mix after being summoned by a temporarily professionally clothed heroine with lots of sex-appeal named "Claire" (Bryce Dallas Howard) to inspect a paddock meant to keep  her newest creation locked up, the pair soon find out that this new dinosaur is a little more than they bargained for after it escapes and starts killing everything in its path. Along for the ride are, of course, the obligatory children who seem to be there only to satisfy a Spielberg-esque genre but have little or no appeal to the viewer, and lots and lots of dinosaurs, who are the real stars of the film.

For adults and teenage boys alike, the Raptors are particularly interesting to watch as they have bonded to Owen and communicate with him with riveting eye movements, snarls, and incredibly smooth gestures. The "T-Rex" is still a marvel to watch and the Indominus Rex is really something to behold but, when Claire finally takes off her blazer and exposes some cleavage to Owen and says "I'm ready", it does not take a genius in 3D glasses to figure out just who this movie is really geared towards.

The sub-plot of turning the Raptors into weapons of war reminiscent of the "Alien" movies is particularly boring as are the scenes when bad-ass, gun-toting marine types are trying to take down the Indominus Rex that are ripped off from, of course, "Aliens". The human characters in the film have little or no chemistry except in a phoney t.v. style fashion in the vein of "The Bachelor" complete with slow-motion dinosaurs that by far outclass them.
All that is missing from the film's ending is a cliched kiss between Owen and Claire that is instead replaced by one of its fantastic-looking dinosaurs who are really the only redeeming features of this so far over-rated, un-original movie that is guaranteed to  satisfy viewers with three-second attention spans and make millions.

More iPad Mini Movies

We took a ride to Plattsburgh, NY this afternoon, and I got busy with my iPad Mini.

Unfortunately, I had to process the videos through iMovie 11, a truly MS-DOS-worthy program that Apple has completely fucked up -- you know, like moving the "Save" command to the "Share" menu.

I don't want to "Share," I want to "Save."

But they turned out pretty well! At the border leaving New Your state there were dozens of heavily armed cops with automatic weapons searching every vehicle thoroughly for two escaped murderers from a nearby prison (Dannemora). I wanted to film them, but Brigitte didn't think that would be a good idea.

Dane Joe and I are thinking of going in on halves to buy this incredible new drone. Then my videos would become truly epic (have the drone automatically follow the car from above? It's got an app for that!)

Don't forget to watch these in full-screen 1080p High Definition!

I Wuz a Director Once

 T  here was a time when I was a video editor. It was my profession. I worked with Final Cut Pro and iMovie and a number of other applications (they weren't called "apps" then. Just "programs.")

I wrote this piece entirely on my computer -- there wasn't even a regular keyboard available -- everything, including the drum tracks -- every single note, flute sound, hi-hat, effects sound was pencilled in laboriously on a long timeline -- it took me over a year for this one track -- and then I took footage I had shot in Hi-8 mm and digitized it into Final Cut Pro, with all the edits done laboriously in time with the sound track.

I really can't believe that I did this. It was not for anyone or any monetary gain. I remember just making it in silence as my marriage fell apart and my son was born; I remember working on it while he sat in my lap, less than one month old.

I think at the time I made it I thought I was making my version of Blade Runner. The footage certainly supports it. Sharp eyes will recognize the very turf shot in Black Rain, the Ridley Scott epic that was being made the very month I arrived in Osaka, literally a 10-minute subway ride away.

Anyway, here you see it: my magnum and only opus. Do me a favor and make it full screen and as high a resolution as it allows. And remember that this thing took a YEAR to make

Genuine Human Responses Abundant in The Deer Hunter

Bobby, there are other ways to deal with your bad hair

 W  as our world better in 1978 than it is today? Judging from the unbelievable advances in telecommunications in the last 37 years, it should be. As children, we learn early on how to get away with and say things we don't mean.

While riding in the back of a school bus, we are quick to make rude gestures to car drivers behind us because we know there won't be any repercussions. As we age, we learn how to get through mundane days at work via banal conversations about the weather, sports or current events with our colleagues, even though we are not making direct eye contact with each other. 

Our latest piece of equipment, besides the University degrees we think will propel us to a level of importance worthy of an expensive house, is the Apple Watch. As if we need another reason to get neck torticollis from looking down at a screen pretending to exist in a world that is becoming more and more fake by the minute. 

Today's movies are by and large fake representations of ourselves and it makes one wonder, when will we be able to be replaced by CGI and not have to step out of the house at all? Like a slap in the face and a wake up call from Hell all wrapped up into one three-hour extravaganza, our society is crying out loud for a viewing of The Deer Hunter.

Filmed by a hand that understood genuine human emotion, The Deer Hunter begins by showing the viewer what small-town America was once about. 

Each of its characters are hard-working, lower-class purists and don't seem to mind if they have to kick the trunk of a car do get it open or put tires on the roof of a shack-like house to keep its ramshackled roof from flying off. 

They work hard, play hard and love being together. Their conversations with one another, although unsophisticated, are heartfelt and genuine. They love their town and their town loves them. 

Shot by award-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, The Deer Hunter's hunting scenes are a sample of raw, breathtaking beauty that soon become a beacon of light in a film that at times looks even darker than Blade Runner.

After three of its main characters go off to Vietnam following a beautifully put-together wedding scene that exposes a small Pennsylvania town as a place that anyone with a heart would want to be a part of, The Deer Hunter then explores just how we humans deal with immeasurable stress in a way no Vietnam film has ever done. 

The torture scenes are so inhumane that they are difficult to watch, even by today's standards but, the film's director Michael Cimino never loses sight of the theme of this movie: the beauty of the human condition. 

We seek love and companionship and when pushed, we push back. 

In the face of danger, we break down and count on each other to bring us back up. We know how to sing and music brings us together even in the face of inexplicable horror. We never give up even though we might become scarred, stuttering shadows of our former selves.

The Deer Hunter is pure, it is raw and it is an emotional trainride to Hell and back, but, it is just what this world needs as we become more and more distant from each other, with small screens quickly surpassing what makes us so special.

Let's Start Dying: Death Wish (The Original)

Let's Start Dying: LSD . . . get it?

Hold it! One - more - wrinkle - and - you're - DEAD

 T  he story is legend by now: Charles Bukowski, a.k.a. Chuck Bronson, in the seminal Michael Winner film, Death Wish.

Yeah, I know: seen there, been that. But I'll bet you've never seen it on Acid.

There are some mistakes in life you just don't want to repeat, and watching Death Wish for the first time, sprawled on a shag rug carpet in front of your parents, who are reclining with their evening scotches in their easy chairs -- you, eschewing the scotch in favor of a particularly strong hit of Blotter - well, I guess ya just hadda bin there.

Now, some forty years later, I watch it with a much more jaundiced eye -- one that is not busy seeing small patterns move in the wallpaper.

We all know the story, but what do we really know about this movie? There are a bunch of superlatives. This was a true groundbreaker -- it did, after all, spawn three sequels -- and pretty much put Charles Bronson permanently on the A-list of Hollywood.

He had had a storied career so far, in such legendary cinematic triumphs such as Once Upon a Time In The West and The Dirty Dozen -- but this was his crowning ouevre.

Let me start by noting here is that this is a movie that is a period piece of New York in the 1970s, along with others such as Mean Streets, The Out-of-towners, and Serpico. The grit is real, the store signs are authentic and even the subway trains have Winston cigarette ads.

I am very familiar with this territory because I lived in Manhattan between the years 1970 and 1973, on what is now a ritzy Upper East Side. It wasn't so ritzy in 1971. In fact, New York was in the midst of a low-grade war.

Although I was just in my early teens I do remember that living in New York at that period of time was somewhat stressful, to say the least; schoolyard bullies ruled the roost and the Public School system was a nightmare to be in.

So Paul Kersey, the protagonist in this movie, is the proverbial embattled Everyman, whose wife is murdered by a youthful (and uncredited) Jeff Goldblum, his daughter left a vegetable.

We all know the story: Paul channels his inner Charles Bronson and goes on a vigilante rampage, creating a Who Is Killing The Great Muggers Of Manhattan classic.

What is interesting here is to watch director Michael Winner's cinematography. It screams Kubrick, Kubrick Kubrick -- but this is a full six years before The Shining.

Heeeeere's a fairy!

The classic Kubrick wide shot where all angles lead to the geographic center of the screen, in which stand the two main characters, is used with great abundance here. It's hard to say whether or not this was a typical trope in the Director's Bag of Tricks at the time or particular to Winner and Kubrick but let's just say that Kubrick could have been the director of this movie.

Lots of odd angles and strange closeups of bugged-out villains populate the landscape and The French Connection also makes its first true reappearance in this movie, although that was done by William Friedkin, and there are no car chases in Death Wish.

Hmm. Now where have I seen this in the future?

Otherwise, it's Mix and Mash The Early 70s Directors Week at the cinema here; I suppose, like all film eras, this one has a name: "School of newly minted widescreen classics" or something similar.

But a forgotten gem in this movie is the soundtrack, by jazz giant Herbie Hancock, in a classic Fender Rhodes and synth soundscape that yells "Never been done before," like so many other things in Death Wish.

The story is predictable but we forget that this was the first to do it -- all others since have merely quoted the master -- and let me tell you, watching this movie on very good LSD was an experience that Timothy Leary would have been shut the fuck up for.

In retrospect, maybe it wasn't such a mistake. But I'll pass on the blotter tonight -- San Pellegrino is the New Acid.

I don't recall what my mother thought. I was too busy counting Wall Lions.

Animated

Someone should document the Rise of the Animated Gif.

Here is one that I created way back at the dawn of Gifs, 1996, on a Proto-Blog I had that was a FULL SEVEN YEARS BEFORE THE RISE OF THE BLOG . . .

 . . . and one I did of my son Taishi a couple of years ago:

Ideas For Posts Part II: Movies About Mars

"Skipper, I think we have an anomaly." "No shit! Can I still get a Mars McMuffin or is breakfast over?"

(Image manipulation Durknit Pentex)

 T  he Martian Conicals.

I've always wanted to use that in some regard, be it a band name or the title of an article, but whatever I do, I'm determined to examine the Copper Planet's role in the movies.

Movie Mars has stood in for all sorts of situations -- as a jungle environment with alien Amazon-type women to allegories about desert-living peoples (did I just use the word "allegories?" I don't know what it means in relation to this article! But it sounds great, don't you think? I'm going to be a film critic for the NX Times yet, just you wait! How can I fail by sprinkling film reviews with lofty words like "allegory" and "lofty"?)

(Another word I'll try to use a lot is "skewers," because it has great edginess and cinematic drama! In fact, I should write some movie-reviewing algorithm where you just plug in the movie name and push "random," and up pop sentences like "with an often too-broad a sweep of the cinematic brush" and "the component angst of Scott's premise" and fuckin' A, you have a meaningless movie review that looks GRRRREAT!)

But I digress.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, Movies about Mars.

Perhaps the most famous line concerning Mars in cinematic history must be Arnold Schwarznegger's unforgettable line in Total Recall: "Honey, LET'S DOO IT! Let's move to Mahsss!"

Coming right up! A few whips of the cat on Dane and I'm sure a great article will result.

BREAKING NEWS: KUBRICK'S JUPITER PROBE FOUND ON DWARF PLANET

Remains of Discovery One on dwarf planet Ceres

 I  t's official: NASA scientist have confirmed that the mysterious lights on the dwarf planet Ceres are, in fact, the remains of the Jupiter spaceship Discovery One that was piloted by Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood in 1969.

"We don't know quite how it ended up there, but it seems clear from the movie that Keir Dullea experienced some bizarre hallucinations just before we lost contact with him and the ship was certainly in that region of space."

NASA has not published the closeup photographs of the wreckage out of respect for the families involved.

Discovery One near Jupiter

"Keir was a good friend, a great astronaut," says retired NASA director Gene Kranz, who oversaw the launch and mission of the Discovery One. He was also the last person to have had any contact with the ship. "It took almost eight hours for our transmissions to reach the ship," explains Kranz, "so when I heard Keir's last transmission the ship had probably already crashed on Ceres. He wasn't making any sense at that point—he was rambling about disabling HAL and seeing lights everywhere."

"He asked if someone had perhaps spiked his Tang with LSD as a joke. I assured him that was not possible," Kranz continued.

"He will be missed."

Disney's Latest Vision of Hope is a Mess

 M  any of the world's most brilliant minds came wrapped in packaging that could definitely be considered less than perfect. Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Alan Turing can all be considered flawed but brilliant, and the public has a generalized vision of them as being physically incapable of being pinups in the latest fashion magazines riddled with perfect bodies and beautiful faces. It would appear that the makers of Disney's latest version of hope for the future — Tomorrowland — have not seen the latest ad campaigns for Dove, encouraging real beauty (yes, most women do weigh more than 120 pounds!) as a source of confidence, not anxiety.

Tomorrowland is about a parallel world, where the best and brightest, and in this case most beautiful, can get together and share their ideas and change the world. In it there are boring ships that of course fly, futuristic jetpacks that bounce its users around like pinballs, and buildings that predictably look like the buildings of tomorrow.

Its star recruiter, Athena, played by the perfect looking Raffey Cassidy, sets in her sights on a young version of George Clooney's character, played by another perfect-looking boy, and brings him to Tomorrowland where he can show off his newly built jetpack made from some kind of neutrons and an Electrolux vacuum cleaner.

In the years that follow, something goes wrong and the world, our real world, is doomed. Enter another perfect looking heroine — Casey — who teams up with a now aged Clooney — still considered one of the sexiest men alive, and they embark on a half-assed, poorly edited hour of boredom, in an attempt to save our world from ourselves. It seems that Disney believes we love destruction and doom and would rather watch things get destroyed than try to change them (a great idea for kids eh?) unless we are gifted and belong in Tomorrowland, but that would require us to look perfect as well. 

As the villain in the film puts it, we are in a land that has an epidemic of obesity and starvation at the same time and our destruction is inevitable. 

But, not so fast. If you get a retro-looking pin from a recruiter from Tomorrowland, there is hope for us after all.

At well over two hours in length, with a score ripped off from John Williams and his effort in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, with one boring action scene after another chock full of CGI drivel, if it weren't for my 11-year-old daughter, who for once I had some time to spend with, and the great time we had ralphing down pizza, chicken fingers and fries during this oxymoronic film, I'd have walked out like about ten others who got fed up of it after about eighty minutes. 

Mind you, the extra few pounds we might gain from the junk food we ate would exclude us from saving the world as our wastelines would ban us from entering Tomorrowland, like a three foot high toddler is denied entrance to the latest rides at Disneyland because he or she is not tall enough.

My daughter liked Tomorrowland and said it was far better than that clichéd Cinderella, which I actually enjoyed. But hey, what do I know?

Quentin Gets a Hardon

This is about as close as Brad Pitt gets to acting

 O  kay, so this site is not exactly about the latest and greatest. We like to chew over movies, sometimes for months. Sometimes for decades. We like it that way. Time sorts out the good from the hype.

Which brings me to Quentin Tarantino and Inglorious Basterds.

I have to say, there is not much love lost between me and Quentin. After the shock of Reservoir Dogs wore off and I realised it wasn't shock, but schlock, then the rest followed in a miserable parade of cinematic excess. You've seen them: Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, maybe even his little "Grindhouse" debacle.

Well, I never much cared for Tarantino and his strutting ego; to me he'll always be the Guy Who Rewinds Other People's Rental Tapes.

He's beyond smug. He's a caricature of a filmmaker. He's a poseur pretending to be an edgy dude, and he's not shy about ripping off everyone who's anyone just so he can come off as the Film Buff's Film Buff. His violence is always crudely staged, but in a way so that he lets you know it's crude. He doesn't want to have any polish or style with it; he wants to rub your nose in it, because, well, that's actually all he knows how to do. He knows that he doesn't possess the skills to bring off anything resembling a serious cinematic effort, so he covers it up by doing the opposite: deliberately making it so clumsy and badly written that that is what you applaud him for; kind of like a Bizarro World director who makes bad movies so badly that he wants you to think they're good.

So we come to Inglourious Basterds.

Oddly enough, I want to like this film, mainly because Nazis are a favorite subject of mine, and I like nothing better than to see them bashed -- in fact or in fiction. I like the premise of the film, which is basically, payback by the Jews Times One Hundred.

But it's curious to me why Tarantino, a non-Jew, picks the Jews to be the Nazi-bashers. Why not the Italians? They hanged Clara Petacci by the heels, after all. However, as one is no doubt aware, Tarantino doesn't like to follow any rules or logic -- he just emotes, like a small child. This is why all of his films end up looking like Tintin on steroids . . . a nasty, brutish Tinitin, usually with a Haddock-like sidekick who's equally brutish, but both cartoon characters nonetheless. And that's what Inglourious Basterds is, from the ground up: a cartoon fantasy straight from the childish, one-note mind of Quentin Tarantino.

His casting choices are poor. and puzzling at the same time. Brad Pitt is hilariously miscast but that's a minor quibble compared to the mishmash of other casting choices: Mike Myers might be occasionally funny, but his British accent is actually one of his best jokes, and Rod Taylor as Winston Churchill . . . Mr. Time Machine of Morlock fame as the portly prime minister . . . well, I rest my case.

Tarantino's Hitler is basically an eight-year-old's conception of the strutting dictator and can be immediately dismissed as such; nothing about the German actor's performance goes an inch above parody.

It's obvious Quentin idolizes this dwarf

Tarantino's laborious unter-plöt about Kinema in Frankreich is absurd, but it's a transparent vehicle for Tarantino to name-drop all his cinematic heroes. However, his attempts to be subtle are completely overblown; he just can't do "subtle." He tries desperately to riff on Leni Riefenstahl and her Triumph of the Will but just ends up sounding like one of Dr. Joseph Goebbels's sycophants.

It's clear he admires WWII German propaganda films with unusual enthusiasm, even as he attempts to mock them, as in his parody of a Nazi propaganda film about the young German soldier who kills hundreds of Americans singlehandedly. It's obvious he loves the over-the-topness of the Nazis, but it becomes unclear just how much is actual admiration and where the mockery begins -- I'd vote towards the former. Like I said, Tarantino can't Do Subtle.

The storyline, while satisfying on many levels -- after all, who doesn't harbor secret fantasies about blowing up the entire Nazi regime with a single blast? (Indeed, a certain Von Stauffenberg actually attempted that feat in real life) -- ends up being a clumsily assembled comic book where every scene is a panel with speech balloons. You can almost see the Comic Sans font spewing from every actor's lips, along with the BAM! POW!! WHOMP!! of the old Adam West Batman series.

And sadly, it just doesn't work. It doesn't work because Tarantino is incapable of making it work. He's just not good enough, not professional enough, to rise above his own mediocrity, and this is not just with the look and feel or the storyline but everything: casting, violence, dialogue, concept -- the entire movie never rises above the level of a Road Runner marathon. And this is what I have come to expect from every movie he has ever made.

I just don't buy it. As with popcorn, Tarantino is mostly hot air.

UPDATE 06/03: We make it a rule here at DJ&DP@themovies never to read someone else's review before writing our own. We don't want to have to be influenced by other people's opinions -- including each other's! However, post-writing this review, I've read a few other opinions supporting my own and posted appropriate links to them. Also bear in mind that Dane and I do not always agree on each other's reviews. THAT would be sacrilege! In those cases, we amicably agree to fucking punch each other's lights out.

That said, here's some wag's hilarious comment about Quentin: "Tarantino now talks about his 'oeuvre'. Apparently he’s spent his remaining talent buying vowels."

48 Hrs. for 12 Million Dollars

 T  hirty-three years ago, before YouTube, the Internet, and CGI (computer-generated imagery), movie makers absolutely had to be good at their craft in order to make something of value. They relied on real actors, music, editing and above all, timing, in order to make movies that could stand the test of time and entertain viewers who actually stood on line to see them.

In 1982, Walter Hill took a young Eddie Murphy, paired him up with former football player-turned-actor, Nick Nolte, and made what is possibly the best cop-buddy movie ever made; 48 Hrs. From its opening chain-gang scene that starts off with an incredible, award winning James Horner score, to its use of editing, timing and the physical presence of its actors, 48 Hrs. was technically perfect. With just 12 million dollars (1979's Star Trek the Motion Picture had a budget of 46 million) Hill was able to put together ninety-six minutes of film that should be shown in film classes around the world before future directors even start thinking about CGI.

Essentially, the story of a convict and a cop chasing a psychotic cop-killer through the streets of San Francisco who is hell-bent on getting back a whole bunch of money stolen from him in a drug sale gone wrong, what made 48 hrs so special was they way it used each of its characters' physical movements, gestures and dialogue, and timed them all together with dynamic editing, jazzy background music by the Busboys and Ira Newborn, chase after chase involving Nolte's old Cadillac, a stolen bus, and two crazy gun- and knife-wielding maniacs, giving the viewer what should be considered a genuine masterpiece. 

Eddie Murphy is physically slick as he jumps over turnstyles with ease in the subway and when he unleashes his quick combination punches against Nolte's face. He steals the movie with his infamous redneck bar scene which would later catapault him to stardom and turn him into a human cash register for Hollywood. Nolte, like his car, is brutish but reliable while relentlessly searching for the killer who stole his gun in a fantastic hotel shootout. Albert Ganz, ruthlessly played by James Remar, invokes genuine fear as the viewer is never sure what he will do next in his grey wifebeater sweater and slicked-back hair. His partner in crime, a musclebound indian named Billy Bear, is just as scary without saying more than a few lines the whole movie.

Brilliantly edited to Horner's visceral score with tympanic drums, blaring saxophones and a synthesizer for the climactic scene, which sounds like it was dragged out of the gates of Hell, 48 Hrs. stands alone as an example of what can be done in the editing room without a computer or microchip but just the vision of a director who knew how to maintain rhthym and keep time with his actors in a way that was incredibly intimate. This vision is sorely lacking in most of the movies made today by a slew of directors who rely on special effects to save them from a YouTube generation that makes movie-making far too easy.