Terry Jones in Memoriam

 
It's been a tough year for Monty Python fans, and it's still January. We've lost the songwriter and Python friend Neil Innes, and any remaining shreads of respect for Terry Gilliam to boot. And now dementia got the best of one of the remaining Pythons and Terry Jones is no more. He has ceased to be, etc.

Jones might have been the most important glue that kept the Pythons together, arguing for good connective material from one sketch to another in Monty Python's Flying Circus, and for the material to push forward. While he had to do his share of fighting for these artistic ideas, particularly with John Cleese, I think the entire group respected him for it. His ideas made the stuff funnier. That's why it was he who emerged as the main director of their movies instead of Gilliam, who was more gifted as a visualist.

Jones' career also was lesser after the group went their own seperate ways. He did direct a number of movies, comedies and kids' films, wrote books and scripts, and actually went back to be a historian and researcher of ancient English texts. I remember from early 2000s how he wrote some beautiful anti-war essays to protest the emerging Iraq war, sadly to no avail. But films are which he's remembered for, so let's take a look at some of his work.

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983)
Director: Terry Jones

This is the last major Python film I haven't reviewed on this blog throughout the years. And it's the third movie directed by Jones. The movie won at Cannes film festival, and has an important place in my heart since it's the first film I ever got as a dvd. One could say I got a dvd player in order to see this movie. Thus, I loved it dearly as a teenager, but since then I've started to notice it has some flaws as well. But Jones himself considered the film to have some of the best material they ever did and was not wrong about that.

Python member Eric Idle's problem with the film was that they retread their steps and went back to just doing sketches without a story or a concrete thoroughline. But if there was, the film couldn't jump back and forth in time and place to the Third World, the Zulu War, the First World War, to the edges of the Galaxy and to Heaven itself. But one can see how the bigger themes such as religion, school and war seem to interest the group members more than actual life phases beyond the middle age. And they didn't actually manage to find any good funny answers to life's biggest questions in the end, with a fake-out which feels quite cheap after they've done something akin to this a couple of times before already. Probably they should have just saved the Galaxy Song music number for last.

In the films he's directing, Jones tends to keep his roles few and minimized. But here, he has the probably most memorable and grotesque character of not only the film, but the entire Python oveure; the morbidly obese Mr. Creosote, a seemingly fabulously wealthy culinarist and bulimic, who goes to eat every possible treat a fine French restaurant has to offer only to shoot vomit over the staff and fellow guests. But John Cleese's maitre d' gets the last laugh with the help of a wafer-thin mint. The film dares to go more into gross-out humour than Pythons ever before, but they did find a way to make everything character-based, and having the butt of jokes be a recognizable type of character rather than just the shock of guts flying or someone getting a bucket of vomit on the head.

★★★★

The Wind in the Willows (1996)
Dir. Jones

I have fond memories of this children's film of Kenneth Grahame's classic book. Besides writing and directing, Jones himself plays the lead role of Mr. Toad, although only gives himself the third billing. The whole cast is wonderful, featuring Steve Coogan, Stephen Fry, John Cleese, Bernard Hill and Nicol "Merlin" Williamson. Interestingly, Michael Palin was also involved in another Wind in the Willows released the previous year, being the voice of Rat in an animated film. Fellow Python Eric Idle plays Rat here, with Palin having a cameo as the Sun. I guess Teletubbies is set on the prehistory of this universe.

It is a bit of a film of two halves, the first being more akin to the original book, with Mr. Toad's obsessions with cars and the sunny countriside milieu. The other, then is more of a heist movie with Mr. Toad breaking out of jail and trying to get his house back from rascally weasels who have turned it into a meat-packing factory. Jones can carry the movie very well, being equal parts annoying, silly and a little bit tragic as well. And he sells the groth of the very immature but rich Mr. Toad in the latter half. The film was very much sold as a Python reunion, but other from some fleeting jokes and a general anarchic viewpoint, it is a lot more testament of Jones's singular styles.

★★★

Absolutely Anything (2015)

Dir. Jones

I wasn't expecting much from this film, since a lot of the latter-day Pythonesque works tend to be either forgettable or even terrible. Case in point was the Graham Chapman animated biopic A Liar's Autobiography (that did at least have respect for the late Chapman and some inspired moments). This was not only the last film to feature five Pythons, but also the last role of Robin Williams (as the voice of a dog). And yet, you very rarely hear anything nice being said about it.

Jones started to write the movie in the early 90's, and since then there have been a number of films that have had a similar premise of an ordinary schlub being able to do anything he wants. Most notable were Jim Carrey's Bruce Almighty and Adam Sandler's Click. Even though the film feels like a retread of similar ideas, at least it's not cynical American shit like those ones. Most of it is due to it's charming cast, featuring Simon Pegg and Kate Beckinsale as leads, and nice voice workd from the aforementioned comedy legends. The main problem is that it's just not very funny.

But really, the sort of film like this is hard to follow through, since it gives so few rules on which to work. Every problem the main character comes up with, he could fix easily if he just thought about it longer than a second. And since the possibilities given are so limitless, keeping the film mostly Earthbound feels very unimaginative. The bits with weird aliens are my favorites, but you could say this also about any Star Wars movie. So I wouldn't necessarily recommend this, but it didn't make me mad or anything. Just a bit bittersweet, since we are living in an age where old legends like Jones keep disappearing.

★★1/2

Christopher Lee in Memoriam

On June 7th, the world lost one of the greatest living screen legends and a personal favorite actor of mine, Sir Christopher Lee. Much as everyone would´ve expected him to turn 100, he left this realm at the ripe age of 93. He certainly had a long and amazing life, and no one could deny his love for the craft, since he was working until the end. And a good thing too, because his recognizable baritone could liven up the most dire of blockbusters. He´s one of my all-time favorite actors precisely because there´s no thrash film so rotten that he wouldn´t improve it just by with his immense charisma and serious speech patterns.

I am a bit late with this post, but I couldn´t have a better reason to get this blog running once again than to start out by reminiscing some of Sir Christopher´s work. This isn´t necessarily a listing of his greatest roles (might I direct you to this post about The Wicker Man for that), but these are some of his most iconic performances, with some curiosities thrown in for good measure.

Horror of Dracula (1958) 
Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)
Dir. Terence Fisher

Of course, the role that made him famous, and a cornerstone in his career was the defining portrayal of Count Dracula in numerous Hammer Studios´ films, starting with this one. As it is, it´s surprising to see just how little we see of the old count in Horror of Dracula, and even in the following film, Dracula: Prince of Darkness. But Lee is such a perfect embodiment for otherworldly evil, as well as a sexy outsider, that he leaves an immediate impact.

As Hammer films tend to have, this one also has top-notch sets, music and a foggy athmosphere you could cut with a knife. The cast is very good, but the acting is still very theatrical. Later on, Hammer directors eased out on acting-direction, but sadly this coincided with the scripts getting worse and worse. At this point they were still eager to try their claws with classic horror stories and giving them an unmistakably English twist.

In The Horror of Dracula, the most notable problem is the same one as in Stoker´s book (from which the film otherwise takes notable liberties). While the opening scenes of Jonathan Harker traveling to castle Dracula and realizing that the man he thought to do real-estate business is in fact an undead monster, are exciting, feverish and threatening. But once the action settles on patriarchal Victorians trying to solve the case of women enjoying sex, the film jars to a halt. Never mind that the obsessive, cold and violent Van Helsing as portrayed by Peter Cushing is one of the best portrayals of that character.

Lee hated the role of Dracula so much, that he refused to say any of his lines in the first sequel, PoD. That film was made to keep the struggling hammer Films afloat, so Lee had to grudgingly accept. The resulting pantomime performance emphasizes the character´s otherwordliness, and the surrealism feels much more like the live-action reprisal of Nosferatu than Werner Herzog´s actual remake could ever manage.

Dracula: ★★★ 1/2
Prince of Darkness: ★★★ 1/2

The Hound of Baskervilles (1959)
Dir. Terence Fisher

Lee played in many different versions of Arthur Conan Doyle´s Sherlock Holmes stories, managing to play Holmes twice and his brother Mycroft once (in Billy Wilder´s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. I have a lot of fondness for that role). Curiously, he was never cast as Professor Moriarty, but perhaps that would´ve been way too obvious. This Hammer Films version of perhaps the most famous Holmes story deserves merit because it takes the opposite direction, casting Lee as Sir Henry Baskerville, with his best friend Peter Cushing as The Great Detective.

Lee´s Sir Henry is something of a buffoon, a very self-important aristocrat that is introduced complaining about his missing shoes and mistaking Holmes as a servant. Lee´s no-nonsense charisma and a sort of anger seethe through a man who´s deadly afraid, but can´t manage but to try to keep up appearances. A scene with a killer tarantula for instance reveals the cracks in his facade, making him totally freeze up in fright.

It´s always a pleasure to see Cushing and Lee play off each other (which makes it such a shame they have so little interaction in Dracula films or, for instance Curse of Frankenstein). They are a pair for the ages, usually having one of them be the straight man, voice of reason, and the other the passionate character, fringing on the edges of madness. It´s evident that the pair got on off-screen as well.

★★★

The Bloody Judge (1970)
Dir. Jesús Franco

If Lee´s career in the 1950´s and early 60´s was emphasized by the films he made with Terence Fisher and Hammer Films, in the late 1960´s and early 70´s his most frequent working partner was the Spanish schlockmeister Jesús Franco. In many ways, Franco had a way of continuing on with some of the work Hammer started, such as taking on their Fu Manchu films with a couple of movies of the Diabolical Doctor of his own. It seems Lee had a fondness for Franco, since he could even convince him to play The Lord of the Vampires once more for 1970´s Count Dracula. Lee has gone on record to praise that film, probably because it gave him dialogue straight from Bram Stoker´s novel, a feat which none of the Hammer movies could manage to do.

Another of Franco´s films that pleased Lee was this historical thriller about the 17th century Lord Chief of Justice Jeffries, who was known for public executions. One must say that Franco was riding on the wave of the wave of British horror of the day, releasing this film between such films with similar subject matter as The Witchfinder General and Blood on Satan´s Claw. Cynical looks at the bloody and unfair history of England were all the rage then.

However, like Franco´s films tend to be, this one is thin on story and oddly uneven. Scenes of torture and nude women were inserted to the finished film in order to gain notoriety. Thus also Lee´s performance disappears from the film from time to time. As Jeffries, he does tremendous work, with his burning gaze and reasoning that he is serving the kingdom by killing people he sees as threats. Lee could make Franco´s films a lot better than they had any right to be, and this one is certainly watchable, if nothing to really write home about.

★★★

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
Dir. Guy Hamilton

Of course, the work Lee did in the 70´s weren´t all zero-budget horror films. He was a particularly apt choice for a Bond villain, playing the assassin Scaramanga. He happened to be a distant cousin of 007 creator Ian Fleming, and actually was his first choice to play the agent way back when. While Lee could´ve pulled off both Bond´s ruthless side as well as the more gentlemanny traits with ease, in the films we´ve got, he wouldn´t really have worked.

This particular film is from the most silly period of Roger Moore´s agent, featuring things like Nick-Nack the killer midget, comic relief Southern Sherriff J.W. Pepper and a Funhouse assissation arena. Bond films play for the tastes of that day with some kung fu action thrown in the mix. Yet Lee´s Scaramanga still feels like a genuine threat, never mind that you couldn´t really kill anyone with golden bullets (I´m not sure about the gun, though. It would be very heavy and soft, though).

The character of Scaramanga would prove to be one of the first of Bond´s "dark reflections" (of course Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love being the first). As such, it´s a pity they couldn´t mine some more substance out of that dynamic, resorting to quips about superfluous nipples and bikini girls instead. But this has been a well from which the Bond producers have returned to with every iteration of the character since.

★★★

Mask of Murder (1988)
Dir. Arne Mattson

Now, a lot of Finnish media tended to tell about how much Christopher Lee loved Finland. he came here to fight as a volunteer in the Winter War, after all. Also, as he loved J.R.R. Tolkien´s works, he also appreciated the Finnish language. But he never did act in a Finnish movie. This is something the Swedes got and we didn´t. For Lee had a sizable role in the Swedish thriller maestro Arne Mattson´s English-language film mask of murder, which saw the actor in a Swedish setting.

As far as plots go, this is not really something to write home about, and certainly not one of Mattson´s finest. The Swedish town of Uppsala is here representing a desolate Canadian village. Murders of women start to occur, and it´s at first up to Lee´s Chief Supt. Jonathan Richto solve them, but then he´s suddenly wiped off the game and the case left to his assistant Supt. Bob McLaine, played by Rod Taylor. They have their own skeletons in the closet, and the film has a very cynical outlook in the small town police force as a whole.

I´m going to admit it´s a pleasure mostly because of the setting of an obviously Swedish town, as well as it´s nice to see the nicely mustached Lee and Taylor thinking. The violence is surprisingly stark, owing to the slasher films of the day. Horror fans despise the film, perhaps because it delivers very little in the way of actual horror and that the end twist is easily guessable. But there´s surprisingly lot of Lee in the film, and he gives a fine, subdued performance so I´d say it´s worth checking out.

★★★

The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
Dir. Peter Jackson

I have to mention this last, since it was the last time I saw Christopher Lee on the screen. On Jackson´s bloated prequel trilogy, there are very few things on screen that feel tangible, realistic or even emotionally resonant. Lee´s Saruman the White fighting Ringwraiths is of course horrendous as an idea for a Tolkien fan, but it´s also the only offering of fan service in the films that I actually enjoyed. That´s kick-ass, even if it is a stunt double most of the time, and a better fight scene than Lee got in either of the Star Wars prequels he appeared in.

Many people complained that Saruman´s trechery was telegraphed too plainly in the first Hobbit movie. I thought that Lee portrayed him as Tolkien suggested, arrogant and pompous, with a love for his own voice. Again, while the material he had may not have been up to standards, Lee made it his own, and with his extensive knowledge of literary sources, made it even more accurate. As such, he is the best part in that movie, too.

★★

So in conclusion, rest in piece, sir Christopher. I know you´ll be coming back, because that´s the way you work, but try to come back as a benevolent spirit, guiding us to reach to be as awesome as you were in life.

Michael Winner in Memoriam

It was very saddening to hear the passing of the British director Michael Winner on January 21st. He was aged 77. Since then, a lot of other beloved, interesting movie folk have passed as well. Night Visions Back To Basics -festival this weekend had a special screening of Death Wish 3 in memoriam of Winner, a true sleazy master and creator of a truly unforgettable classic. So, lest we forget the wine- and fancy dinner-loving, punk rocker and poor people -hating renegade, I take a look at the first three Death Wish films, his most popular work.

Death Wish (1974)

The nominal, original vigilantist movie, the film sees a peaceful architect getting pushed too far and starting to solve New York's crime problem by killing off muggers. Winner prides himself of having done ground-breaking work with this film. According to the director, American heroes had not killed other civilians in a modern-set movie before. While not strictly true, it was a new, novel idea on a mainstream film and subsequently this film became a big success.

Korean war veteran Paul Kersey (Bronson) shrugs off the news of New York City's rising crime numbers, thinking they are caused by poverty rather than the corrupted youth. Yet when street punks break into his own apartment, killing his wife and sexually assaulting his daughter, he starts to see the situation differently.

Kersey starts to prowl the streets, waiting to get mugged only to beat up or kill the attacking criminals.
As it happens, Kersey's extreme approach to the problem brings solutions and crime rates start to drop as citizens are inspired by the mysterious vigilante and his actions. Detective Frank Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia) must decide whether to capture the vigilante or to raise his hands, allowing him to clean the streets one thug at a time.

The film is suitably gritty and sleazy, a real serious affair. The film is very close of actually being as good and ground-breaking as Winner says, if not for one thing: Charles Bronson. Don't get me wrong, I love the wood-faced lug, but as an actor, he just doesn't have the chops. The film would require a regular man spiral out of control, to have a real-seeming death wish, if you will.

Bronson, however, seems like he's going to murder a couple of punks on his way to the store from the get-go. Even while his character goes through an emotional rollercoaster, Bronson remains kind of stoic and unmoved. Only at the end does he seem to develop a kind of an enjoyment in harassing street punks.

It's an outrageous, entertaining film thats till works quite well on his own. But as it was, Kersey's adventures were far from over.

★★★ 1/2

Death Wish II (1982)

Having been ran put of town at the end of his first vigilantism affair, Paul Kersey has since settled to live in Los Angeles. Which, as everyone must know, is far from being a crime-free city. He takes care of his daughter Carol (Robin Sherwood), who still hasn't quite recovered from the traumas she suffered back in New York. Kersey is also dating a new woman, Geri Nichols (Jill Ireland).

Of course life doesn't hand good cards to Kersey and one bad run-in with a gang of punks leaves them hungry for vengeance. So, they assault his housekeeper, kidnap and rape his daughter, which drives poor Carol to jump out of the window to her death. So, Kersey returns to his old, murderous vigilantist ways. And the cops realize this too, and contact New York and Detective Frank Ochoa.

This part II is one of those sequels that offers little beyond more of the same. There is some more outrageousness in the kills and Winner seethes with even more hatred and distaste in the modern youth and their punk culture. The grittiness and sleaziness has bulged to the point of making the hinges creak. Yet Winner does manage to keep the tone of this still relatively serious, mostly by keeping the pace still quite slow and the action inglorious, fast and ugly.

The film has a cynical ending that's even more open than the previous one. As New York's crime problems seemed to at least have taken a turn for the better, now the only thing at stake is Kersey's personal vengeance. he does get it, doesn't get caught, keeps working as an architect and feels somewhat satisfied at the end. But the film does question whether he actually had any affect in the overall situation, killing criminals out of personal reasons rather than because it is the right thing to do. According to Winner, at least.

★★★

Death Wish 3 (1985)

It should be noted that the Finnish name for these films is Väkivallan vihollinen, which means An Enemy of Violence. It does somewhat work on the first one (the title stems from the name of the book the first film was based on, I guess), but gets more ridiculous the further the series goes. None more so than in the third part, since there's not a single enemy of violence in the film. Everyone thinks violence is a reasonable solution to crime problems, from little old ladies to police officers to attorneys. And Kersey is of course a champion of this viewpoint.

At this point it is forgotten that Kersey used to be an architect, as he is now characterized to be more or less a drifter. An old west drifter, to be exact, arriving to areas of unrest to bring Old Testament -style justice to wrongdoers. Now Kersey returns to New York to visit an old war buddy, only to find he has been murdered by a local street gang, led by Fraker (Gavan O'Herlihy), keeping a whole neighborhood in terror.

Since the police is also fed up with the gang's reign of terror, they offer Kersey a deal of looking the other way while he does what he does. Kersey sets up in the old apartment of his friend, making friends of his neighbors, and of course ordering the hugest handgun the world has seen to start cleaning up the streets.

Cheerfully fascist, Winner shows every dead punk as a reason for rejoicing. Bronson himself found the film a bit distasteful, maintaining that the idea of the series is that violence stems violence. Indeed, Kersey's actions stem an entire block war, with booby traps and closeted old war relics being brought up to kill as many gang members as possible.

The disregard of human life goes to ridiculous lengths, making this one of the most purely enjoyable of 80's action films. It's not a mean feat, because Bronson himself has grown older, and the scenes which require him to run from gunfire in particular are laughable. But Winner knows he can shoot rotten youngsters getting shot in an infinite way, and gleefully exploits this notion to the point of pure mania. The explosive finale in particular is an incredible idea of a pure creative genius and madness in the same package.

★★★★

So rest in piece Sir Michael, your films still bring us great amounts of pleasure, as could be seen in the Night Visions screening, with a hooting and applauding audience loving every minute.

The other two Death Wish films were not directed by Winner, so I won't include them here. But fear not, I'll find another way to write something about them as well.

Friday Night's A Great Night To Remember Tony Scott

RIP Tony. Image source

Every true movie fan across the planet was devastated to hear about the death of action auteur Tony Scott. His peers and fellow directors rushed to bring out their condolences and remember the good times. The old man used to mentor his younger colleagues, and gave a much needed crack at greatness or stardom with many collaborators, be they Tom Cruise or Quentin Tarantino. As sad it is, sometimes we recognize a great talent only when he's gone. So I'm certain Tony Scott's collaboration to particularly the action movie genre will be remembered years from now. Hell, he pushed the limit and brought out new things even in his most commercial work. The overall record of his filmography may be even better than his overrated brother's...

I'll take a look at three of my favorite Tony Scott films.

Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)

For a long time I held an inexplicable hatred for this blockbusting Eddie Murphy vehicle. I thought it was as bad as number III, or even worse, boring. Well, such misconceptions must have come from me falling asleep after the shooting range scene of this movie when I was a highschooler. Recently, I gave the movie another shot due to a friend's multiple year-long insistence. And as much as I hate to always admit it, I was wrong. Beverly Hills II is an uproaringly entertaining event movie, and holds up even when watched back-to-back with Beverly Hills Cop I. Indeed, it's everything that made the first one so good, but upped to the MAX. And with some extra Tony Scott craziness in between, especially in the grandiose and explosive action setpieces.

A hitman called "The Alphabet Killer" is on the loose in Los Angeles, and he severly wounds Captain Bogomil (Ronny Cox). Since Detroit cop Axel Foley became good friends with the Captain by the end of the first BHC, Axel F rushes from his job to another vacation in Malibu. Reunited with Detective Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Sergeant John Taggart (John Ashton), Foley swears to capture the persons responsible for wounding Bogomil, and to protect his daughter Jan (Alice Adair). The investigation leads to weapons kingpin Maxwell Dent (Jürgen Prochonow), who is, of course, protected by the law. But that sort of thing hasn't stopped sneaky Axel before.

Smartly, even though Murphy had gone to be one of the biggest stars in the world since the first film, this isn't just his solo show. Quite the contrary, in fact, since Scott allows much of the supporting cast to shine this time. Reinhold's squeaky-clean Detective Billy Rosewood is seen to have some rather unsettling enthusiasms for plants and guns, and Gilbert R. Hill's pissed-off Police Chief's mad rant in the beginning goes up to be my very favorite. "Don't think, Foley! It makes my dick itch!"


That's not to say Murphy doesn't shine once again with his mad ad lib skills. Whether faking one's identity as a Caribbean psychic, cheating his way into Hugh Hefner's Playboy party, or getting info wrom a weasely accountant by threatening him with parking tickets, Murphy's o absolute roll here, at the top of his game and absolutely hilarious. I'm also long overdue a proper post to praise his talents anyway. Nudge me if you'd like to read it.

And I adore every scene with Foley hijacking a mansion that's supposedly renovated.

The film's casual misogynism is also endearing. This is a party strictly for the boys, not to scarily big bitches.
Women.

★★★★
 
The Last Boy Scout (1991)

The late-80's to mid-90's were Scott's best time because he had the ability to pick just the right scripts to work with. With a good screenwriter on his side, Scott could rarely miss. And when he got the best action screenwriters of the game, he created classics. At that time, Shane Black, the talent behind the success of the first two Lethal Weapon movies, rose up in Hollywood's ranks and became more and more irresistible for any action movie director worth his salt. In their collaboration, Scott really understood Black's worth by not filtering out his words too much, nor ordering many rewrites. Thus, The Last Boy Scout is quite close to what Black managed to do while holding all the strings on Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang over a decade later. TLBS was said to be by Total Film Magazine "an endlessly rewatchable parade of good bits and great bits." And that pretty much nails on why I love this film so much.

Joe Hallenbeck is trying to save the life of the guy who ruined him to avenge the guy who screwed his wife.

Something fishy is going on in the world of pro league American football. A star quarterback takes a gun to the field and shoots his way to a touchdown, before offing himself by saying "Ain't life a bitch." A stripper named Cory (a very young Halle Berry) knows what's happening but fears for her life. She hires the private eye Mike Matthews (Bruce McGill) to investigate and to protect her. But this private eye is secretly having an affair with the wife of another private eye, Joe Hallenbeck (Bruce Willis), and offers him the job in case he would get killed. The plan backfires as Joe catches on to Mike and his wife, and Mike gets blown to bits by a car bomb. But Joe is a former secret service agent, who's so down on his luck that he needs the cash, so he investigates further. Along the way, Cory's boyfriend and former star quarterback Jimmy Dix (Damon Wayans) joins Joe as he also wants to get to the bottom of things.

Dix may be a great guy but he still can't spell worth shit.

So, from the plot synopsis the film's plot seems quite tangled, but actually it is a buddy cop movie much like Lethal Weapon. Again, we have a bum-like white asshole on the edge, who eventually redeems himself. His black partner's more down-to-earth and less violent, but when push comes to shove, does show he can handle things. Even the main villain's henchman is named formally, even though he only has a first name, Mr. Milo (as opposed to Mr. Joshua). But the rude and crude dialogue couldn't pass the mustard in a major studio film like LW. Thus, the film works almost like a parody of the films that put Shane Black on the map. Like in BHCII, everything is ramped up to be funnier, bigger, more violent, and considerably less comfrotable Hollywood-style corner-cutting.

"Awright, it's riddle time! Why did Mr. Milo cross the road? Because his dick was caught in the chicken!"

A good way to illustrate them is to look at the characters. Willis' Joe cracks jokes at every situation, and insults just about everyone he meets. He gets out of a tight jam TWICE by making dumb henchmen laugh at dick jokes, and uses the distraction to kill them. He doesn't seem like a very likeable character, but Willis' charm and comic timing do wonders. As does Black's ability to bring a dash of tragedy to his heroes. Willis' career has been ruined and his personality likewise. Even worse off is lovelorn Dix, whose story of his firstborn child is truly gut-wrenching and very unexpected at a film such as this.


But the real meat of the film is of course in the action, and boy does the film deliver. From trying to ward off bombs to many tight saves from flying bullets, Scott handles suspense well and at times it really does feel like Willis, Wayans, and Hallenbeck's 13-year-old daughter Darian (Danielle Harris) are in life-threatening jeopardy. But the bad guys get their bloody end, whether it's the inventors of Scrabble, or Mr. Milo, who gets a send-off so violent and crushing it could only happen in a 90's action movie.
In sum, the sky is blue, water is wet, this film is great. And then some.

★★★★ 1/2

True Romance (1993)

The most famous case of Scott supporting a fresh screenwriting talent is of course this film, based on the first script Quentin Tarantino ever sold. And it is undobtedly a Tarantino joint. The pop culture-obsession, the snazzy dialogue, the knack to write rather a collection of cool scsnes rather than a coherent story, it's all there. The main character is such an easily spottable alter ego to the screenwriter it is quite laughable how much of a badass Tarantino seems to think he is.

Clarence (Christian Slater) is a comic book shop employee, who has little luck with women. He tends to just blabber on about his love for Elvis which leaves any girl he meets in a bar cold. On his birthday, he's left alone to see a Sonny Chiba triple bill. But in the audience is also the beautiful but clumsy Alabama (Patricia Arquette), who finds his pop culture knowledge charming. After a night together, Alabama confesses she's really a call girl hired by Clarence's friends, but has really-real fallen in love with him. But she's scared since she fears her pimp, Drexl (Gary Oldman). Clarence has fallen for Alabama too, so he marches to Drexl's to demand Alabama's freedom. A shootout ensues that leaves only Clarence alive. He steals a suitcase full of drugs to fund a new life for Alabama and himself, in Hollywood, California!

The film does have a sort of a scattershot feeling to it, especially at the latter half. It seems originally True Romance's end half was to become Natural Born Killers. But the rights to that script had been purchased by Oliver Stone, who was about to rewrite it, much to the chagrin of Tarantino. So, the end half of TR had to be rewritten, and since at the time Tarantino only wrote about what he knew, he wrote about his experiences in Hollywood. It's quite easy to draw a parallel to coke-vacuuming Vietnam-movie directing has-been Lee Donowitz (Saul Rubinek) to Stone. Nevertheless, there's plenty of pure brilliance within the film and it's certainly never boring. For one, there's this scene which still ranks very high on the best scenes Tarantino has ever written.


Scott also deserves a lot of credit for the film, and even this scene to turn out so well. While the writer himself might have used an ironic 70's pop song on the soundtrack, Scott knows how to up the ante and to build tension in the way Tarantino really only learned recently. One important thing about this is that Scott shoots the film's violence as gut-wrenchingly brutal and painful. The scene where James Gandolfini's mobster beats Alabama is particularly hard to watch.

I bet Tarantino used to be more like this than Clarence.

Scott also has perfectly cast the film. the main couple are a little awkward and stiff, because Slater and Arquette usually are as actors. But it works great as two young people experiencing their first, great love. The casting of the bit parts is nothing short of brilliant. Scott must have seen that Brad Pitt would become the biggest star in the world in a few years so the joke concerning his non-role in the film would work. Almost as funny is Val Kilmer, whose face isn't once shown. Alongside that, we have the likes of Christopher Walken, Michael Rapaport, Bronson Pinchot, Tom Sizemore, all doing great to career-best work. And Dennis Hopper, man, I miss that guy. And Chris Penn, too. May the rest of the cast and crew of this film live long and prosper.

★★★★

Much love and all the best to all of Scott's family, friends and fans. The world does seem a lot poorer without him. But the way I see it, the best way to remember him is to take a cold beer and pop a favorite film of his to the DVD player.

Ray Bradbury Presents

 
The acclaimed sci-fi author Ray Bradbury passed away June 5th at the ripe old age of 91. His contributions to the genre were huge, and he was rightly beloved. But I never read a single one of his books (Well, maybe I read a comic adaptation or two). Most of my knowledge of Bradbury's body of work, like with a lot of other stuff, comes from cinema. So I'll take a look at four motion pictures (like a 91-year-old would say) that were in some way made due to a contribution by Bradbury.

Moby Dick (1956)
Director: John Huston

Bradbury was a co-screenwriter with director John Huston in this adaptation of Herman Melville's metaphorical sea-faring novel. The film makes several of the novel's underlying metaphores painfully clear, but at least it recognizes that it's where the real meat of the novel is, rather than an adventure in whaling. It's a man-versus-nature story, or rather, man versus his own overwhelming negative emotions, hatred, rage, vengefullness and spite. For those sins, man also deserves God's wrath, which like the biblical whale that ate Jonah, comes Moby Dick, the almost diablocal whale, and an unstoppable force-of-nature.

A young man named Ishmael (Richard Baseheart) seeks to head out to the seas as a whaler. He meets and becomes friends with a Polynesian harpooner named Queequeg (Friedrich von Ledebur) as both men are seeking out work in the harbour. They finally strike luck when a vessel named the Pequod, led by Captain Ahab (Gregory Peck), hires them aboard. But as the young whalers will soon see, they won't be just hunting whales for a living, they are hunting a very certain whale for revenge. For Captain Ahab blames the huge white whale Moby Dick for the loss of his foot, and has since dedicated his life to slay the beast. His hatred for the natural predator grows so strong, that Ahab doesn't care about anything else, not even the safety and survival of his crew.

"From hell's heart, I'll stab at thee!"

It's the sort of classic film that looks almost comically theatrical by today's standards. Gregory Peck hams it up as the crazed Captain Ahab, and the film also features a cameo by Orson Welles as a fire-and-brimstone preacher. But because in essence the story is about man's worst feelings, it's not necessarily a bad thing that the film drips of pure emotion. The effects scenes are very convincing for the time, and the look of the film is an accurate representation of my preconceptions as a reader. It chops a long novel into a fairly short movie (115 minutes) and thus also simplifies it a lot, but as an adventure story, this is one that is both an intriguing adventure and something that gives one a bit to ponder about.

★★★★

Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Director: François Truffaut

Fahrenheit 451, perhaps Bradbury's most famous novel, had a very artistically successful movie adaptation. The title refers to the heat in which truth burns. Thus, the story is a cry for the freedom of speech, the value of literature, imagination and individuality. It's a very functioning portrayal of a dystopia, in that it's threats are not underlined by an ominous score or a dark cinamatography. Rather, Truffaut's stylish film evokes the best in 60's design, the cinematography is colorful and beautiful. It undelines the fact that the dystopian future it depicts, with all modern comforts but books being banned, is little more than a gilded cage.

Montag (Oskar Werner) is the head of the future fire brigade, whose job it is to raid private houses, find hidden books and burn them to cinders, rather than to fight actual fires. Basically he's Gestapo if the printed word is the Polish Jew in 1940. He lives a simple life, with his wife staying home and watching television, and popping pills and being drugged out of her mind at all times. But in one case, Montag meets Clarisse (Julie Christie), a bibliofile hoarding books, yet he finds her attractive so he doesn't blow the whistle on her. Clarisse in turn starts to help Montag open his eyes and see that the things he stands up for are wrong, and people are only free if they are allowed to read, think and act for themselves. Montag in turn is caught between his past life, and a life with Clarisse, which is the life of a fugitive.

While the effects have aged badly, they are still oddly ominous.

Truffaut proves once again his skills as a true auteur, as he won't frame this as a simple high-tensioned thriller or an action movie. That's not to say there aren't any suspense, with several very Hitchcockian chase scenes included. But in the end, the film's a thoroughly cerebral affair. The film's plot moves along very slowly, and similar book-burning scenes follow each other. Truffaut also likes to show in closeup just what books are being burned at any times, and they also include a number of Cahiers du Cinema, and his own book about screenwriting. The TV shows he contrasts thinking with, are thoroughly braindead material, only meant to get the audience's obidience. Werner acts the main role mostly without any expressions. That's so we the viewers must figure for ourselves what is going through his head at all times. One should think, watching this, whether we've already taken a step to this direction. Will all printed words be burned soon and replaced with iPads, Kindles and other technology, which can be more easily controlled by those in power? There's also a good reason why the film's opening credits are spoken aloud.

★★★★

Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1989)
Directors: Masami Hata, William T. Hurtz

Perhaps a bit surprisingly, Bradbury also did some work on the script of this animated film based on Windsor McCay's classic comic strip. He is credited of coming up with the "concept". Another recently passed visionary, comic artist Jean "Moebius" Giraud, wrote the story with Hayao Miyazaki's trusted screenwriter Yutaka Fujioka, and Home Alone's director Chris Columbus wrote the actual script with, um, Journey 2's Richard Outten. As one can plainly see, the writing staff has quite a varied set of talents, and even cultural backgrounds. But considering this, the script holds together surprisingly well, and features call backs on many of McCay's most memorable fantasy segments.

Nemo (voiced by Gabriel Damon) is a young boy who has a vivid imagination and a pet flying squirrel named Icarus. At nighttime his dreams tend to come alive, and his bed starts to fly, taking him to adventures. One night he barely escapes a charging train with his life. The adventure only ends when he wakes from falling out of his bed. The next night, after eating a whole pie, he's visited by Professor Genius and his ward, who explain to him that he's been chosen to be the playmate of King Morpheus's daughter Camille. So, the trio flies off to Slumberland. On the way, Nemo meets the troublespme Flip (Mickey Rooney), a clown who tempts Nemo to join him on mischief and trouble-making. Eventually, Flip's uncontrollability and bad influence makes Nemo break King Morpheus's rules and open a door which releases Nightmares to Slumberland. But can Nemo tell the difference of what he's deaming and what's real? INCEPTION!

The subconscious aspect of the story is dwelled on briefly, but then forgotten along the way.

The film is a near Anime, in that most animators working for this are Japanese. Yet it has a certain western flavor to it as well, and the characters are expressful and move according to their physique. The film spends quite a lot of time lingering on the various wonders and big ideas that McCay might have based a single-paged strip with. It also takes quite a long time for the central conflict to come to picture. The central nemesis, Nightmare King, is also a bit too clichéd and underwhelming main villain. I prefer my favorite nemesises to pull the strings for a long while rather than just appear at the final fight. Also the film's songs are ear-piercing and I hate the "good goblin" comic relief that appear near the end. The show is stolen by the anti-heroic Flip and his hedonistic, fun-loving and cigar-chomping habits. Rooney does fine job as his voice, too. The main problem, as with McCay's strip, is, that Nemo himself is quite a blank and boring character, more a vessel than a real person with conflicts and such. Of course, during the course of the film he learns the value of responsibility and whatnot. But this is still a vivid, colorful and interesting animated movie.

★★★

A Sound of Thunder (2005)
Director: Peter Hyams

Sigh. It's sad to leave Bradbury's career in such a down note, but we must aknowledge that this abomination also exists. One of Bradbury's most famous short stories features time-traveling to meet dinosaurs in the past. Of course, since time-traveling is an unstable concept at best, even the slightest change in the past can have catastrophic consequences for history once the traveler gets back. The best adaptation of this story is The Simpsons' classic Treehouse of Horror segment Time And Punishment, where Homer travels to the past with a broken toaster, squashes a bug, and finds that in the modern day Ned Flanders is the unquestioned overlord of the universe. D'oh! But Time And Punishment this ain't, and I tell you, a Punishment it surely am.

So in 2055 there's a company that brings hunters to the Cretaceous era to hunt the Most Dangerous Game... Dinosaurs! All animals have long been extinct, but the very rich still have a strong urge to kill living things, which makes the business plan a success. But the "Time safari" goers must follow strict rules, stay on the given path and only kill game that would die soon anyway to prevent any effects to timeline. Of course one asshole has to ruin it for everyone and strays off the path. This sends "time ripples" all through history and generally messes evolution up all through time. Since all changes don't happen at once, a team of scientists and hunters must go back and prevent the catastrophy before all of the world is entirely changed.

All of the above may seem quite interesting and good, but it's only since I've reduced the movie back to text form, which came from the mind of Bradbury in the first place. Watching the actual movie is another thing altogether, and a painful experience. The complicated story, involving futuristic machines and dinosaurs would need high production values to be done properly. Unfortunately, the producers making this film have had a budget that even Asylum employees would find to be a pittance. Thus, the effects would look bad in a PlayStation 1 game cut scene. And there's nothing charmng about CGI effects this horrendous. There's not even the tiniest shred of anything interesting in the film's extended cast. All they do is run around, shouting exposition and getting killed in unpleasingly non-violent fashion. The film is dark and badly directed, so one can't make much of what's happening on screen anyway. Renny Harlin was reportedly considered to direct this. While I can't imagine he could've done anything good with a budget so small and a script so stinky, at least he could've delivered a fun action scene or two. Stay away!

★