Joe Dante’s Gremlins created a good bit of controversy when it was released in 1984.It was advertised as a PG rated, Steven Spielberg-produced kids movie featuring a friendship between a teenager and his fuzzy little pet, Gizmo.The promotional materials made the movie seem like it would be the next E.T.When parents took their kids to see it, however, they found themselves in a sometimes violent, scary and black humored hybrid of horror and comedy and Christmas movie.Directly because of Gremlins and Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom the PG-13 rating was created.And of course, Joe Dante’s movie inspired a ton of movies in the 1980’s that featured mischievous pint sized monsters.
Holy shit, that's cute.
Looking back on it, I found the movie deeply satisfying as an eight-year old. Gremlins had everything my young mind wanted in a movie: a cute and exotic little pet, scares, plenty of gore, and an anarchic sense of humor.It was one of those times in your life the right movie hits your at the exact time when you are ready to appreciate it.So while, Gremlins is not exactly a kids movie, at the same time it really is a movie that is perfect for kids.It is scary but not too scary, it is smart but not too smart, gory but not too gory.Okay, maybe some parts of it are too gory.But at least it is gremlin gore and not human gore.
The reason why Gremlins is the best Christmas movie ever.
Gremlins is the story of Billy Peltzer, a teenager who receives a special pet from his father.The pet was bought in a mysterious shop in Chinatown and it is a little animal called a mogwai.Billy’s father names it Gizmo and relays three very important rules to his son:Keep it out of the light, sunlight will kill it.Don’t get it wet.Never ever feed it after midnight.Of course, each of these rules gets broken during the course of the movie.When some water is spilt on little Gizmo, he produces a number of little fluffballs that become new mogwai.Worse of all, while Gizmo is cute and sweet, the new mogwai are all little a-holes.When Billy accidentally feeds the new critters after midnight they molt into creepy cocoons like something out of Alien.The cocoons hatch into toothy and sharp-clawed gremlins who reproduce and wreak havoc in the town.
Stickers, trading cards, gum. What more can you ask for?
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
There are few movie characters who can go toe to toe with Gizmo in absolute cuteness.And it is not an annoying cuteness like an Ewok or Minya.Gizno is just genuinely adorable and he has been known to reduce grown men into cooing Japanese school girls. He’s just that damn cute.
A lot of people don't know this, but Gizmo was the original composer of Axel's theme from Beverly Hills Cop. It's true.
The cool thing about the movie is that the gremlins are as nasty as Gizmo is cute.They look like anorexic evil Yodas.They dance, shoot each other, eat candy, bite, scratch and raise hell.They are what every little kid really would do without parental supervision, which is why the movie was so popular with kids when it came out.
Both Gizmo and the gremlins are realized through different kinds of puppets and animatronics and even some stop motion with various degrees of success.Some shots look really good, some not so good.Give ‘em a break, it was the early ‘80’s.
DVD AVAILABILITY
A couple of different versions are available.Neither one has too much in terms of extras.I would like to see a superduper deluxe version.
A bluray was just released but I don't think it includes any other features than what were on the Deluxe DVD. Kinda sad since 2009 was the 25th anniversary.
Cutegasm.
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE
There are really quite a few.Seeing it again, I love the sequence where Billy’s mom single-handedly fights off three gremlins that have infested her kitchen.You would think she would just turn around and get the hell out but instead she pulls a Sigourney Weaver and dispatches them with various utensils and appliances, concluding with a sequence where she fights one into a microwave and nukes him.
As a kid, the medicine cabinet scene scared the crap out of me.
SEQUELS
Gremlins 2: The New Batchwas released in 1990 and took the series into a wildly comedic
direction.If you liked the bar and movie theater scenes in the original you will love the sequel.
SEE ALSO
Small Soldiers 1998
Gizmo, ka-ka!
MINORITY REPORT
The verdict:
The Black Guy Dies First.Billy’s science professor, who is apparently the only black guy in town is the first to die at the hands of the gremlins.
Also, on a related note, there were charges at the time of the movie's release that the gremlins behaved in what some would consider very stereotypically “black,” ways, particularly in the bar scene.
ALIENS (1986) Director: James Cameron Genre: Sci Fi/Action
THE MOVIE
It is widely thought that Aliens is one of the rare sequels that is actually better than its predecessor. I love both movies and find it very hard to compare the two. Whereas Alienis a chilling horror film with a distinct British pedigree, Aliens is a rock-em-sock-em ‘80’s American action flick. It is certainly one of director James Cameron’s finest films and it is a seminal piece of action filmmaking. Along with Robocop and Cameron’s earlier film, The Terminator, Aliens helped to launch the hard-core action sub-genre of science fiction films. Cameron’s movie was critically acclaimed for its intensity and the overall quality of its filmmaking. Lead actress Sigourney Weaver received an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Ellen Ripley which something virtually unheard of for a science fiction or action movie.
Which one is Sigourney Weaver, again? I kid!
Aliens tells the wholly improbable story of Ripley’s second confrontation with the xenomorphic species first encountered by the Nostromo crew. After having survived her previous encounter with the Alien, Ripley put herself in suspended animation and drifted through space only to be discovered by a salvage craft almost 60 years later. After being reanimated she is held into account by the Weyland Yutani Corporation for the destruction of the Nostromo freighter. Her story about the Alien is ridiculed and she is stripped of her pilot’s license.
When contact is lost with the colony on the world originally investigated by the Nostromo crew, the military enlist Ripley (whose entire life and career have been destroyed by the Alien and her subsequent half century drifting in space) to serve as an adviser with a squadron of Space Marines. Once at the colony, the only survivor they can find is a small girl named Newt who has been living in the air vents. The marines use the computers to track the settlers to an atmosphere processor where they all appear to be gathered. Searching for the colonists, the marines stumble into an Alien nest and are ambushed by the creatures and barely manage to escape. Despite her civilian status, Ripley emerges as the natural leader of this group. The rest of the movie deals with Ripley and the survivors trying to hold off the Aliens in a fortified compound while trying to find a way off world before the reactor explodes.
Deleted scene from Aliens. The marines have set up automated gun turrets to keep the xenomorphs away from the doors. Incidentally, this can also be used at awards shows to keep Kanye West off stage.
While fast paced and action-packed, the movie also takes the time to develop characters and relationships. Aliens explores one of James Cameron’s most recurring themes: the survival of the family unit threatened by extreme circumstances. Ripley almost immediately adopts Newt as a surrogate daughter and risks her own life through out the movie to protect her. Corporal Hicks and Ripley, also develop a gentle affection for one another and these three characters and the family unit they represent are the heart of the movie. The marines as a group, despite their initially annoying macho banter also emerge as a sympathetic family unit.
Interestingly, while the movie is very different in tone from Ridley Scott’s film, it follows a plot structure that is almost identical. Instead of a small group of unarmed humans we have a squadron of galactic marines. Instead of being trapped on a ship, the humans are trapped in a terraforming facility. Instead of escaping from an exploding freighter in an escape pod while the timer counts down, Ripley escapes in a drop ship from an exploding power generator. Instead of an alien drone stowing away on the escape pod, the alien queen stows away (somehow) on the drop ship. Instead of blasting the drone out of the airlock of the escape pod, Ripley blasts the queen out of the airlock of the Sulaco. And so on. I point this out because I think it is interesting how the movie can be so derivative of the original and yet so strikingly different at the same time.
THE MOSTER/EFFECTS
Aliens features the Alien drone slightly redesigned from the creature in the original movie. Overall, they are smaller and less spindly. Gone is the smooth, dome-like head. Instead it is replaced with a smaller ridged head. These have become known as “Cameron Aliens.” Nerdier people than me have speculated that the Cameron Aliens are older than any of the other Aliens featured in the series and that the smooth dome is something that is lost when physical maturity is reached.
Okay, that was a lie. That’s actually my theory.
Aliens also created a life cycle for the creatures that somewhat contradicts the original movie by creating an Alien Queen that lays the eggs which we first saw in Ridley Scott’s movie. Deleted from the theatrical cut of Alien was a scene towards the end of the movie in which Ripley comes across the Alien nest where she finds her crew members being cocooned and being TURNED INO EGGS. So the original idea was that all those eggs in the derelict ship from Alien were actually the crew of that ship. Does this contradict Aliens? Possibly. But I like to think that in the absence of a Queen a drone can produce an egg from a host body.
*adjusts glasses*
The Queen herself was designed by James Cameron for this movie and is a larger more terrifying version of the Alien. She rather looks like a cross between the original Alien, a dinosaur skeleton and Joan Rivers. When we first see her she is disgustingly perched on her bloated, slime-filled egg sack (paging Mr. Lovecraft, your table is ready). Her crowd-pleasing battle with Ripley at the end of the movie is one of science fiction’s most iconic scenes.
The effects in Aliens are clever and largely done in-camera. Cameron uses all of the tools and tricks available to him in 1985 such as extensive miniatures, reverse photography, forced perspective and suitmation. The Aliens here are not designed for long lingering shots but for quick impressions and movement. Cameron tries to make the Aliens move more like living creatures than in the previous movie and he provides us with a variety of movement styles that recall different types of animals. My personal favorite is the quick shot of the Aliens crawling roach-like through an air vent.
Ripley impresses Hicks and Hudson with her pinball prowess.
Now, of course, there are some wince-worthy effects moments. We’re talking the mid 1980’s here. The moment I hate the most occurs in the Alien hive while the marines are making there initial exploration. There is a moment when one of the first Aliens we see seems to zip down from the ceiling and rubberly grabs on to a marine and somehow zips back up. Perhaps for the 25th anniversary in 2011 Cameron will give us a Special Edition with some revamped effects.
MONSTERS FEATURED
Dozens of Alien drones, several face huggers, a chest-burster, a queen, and a partridge in a pear tree.
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
Widely available on its own or in a couple of boxed sets with the first three Alien movies or all four.
Sarah Palin takes Bristol on a particularly dangerous moose hunt.
I have the Aliens Collectors Edition which is a two DVD set (and I think identical to the one in the Alien Legacy and Alien Quadrilogy sets.) This version contains both the theatrical cut of the movie and the longer, but far superior Director’s Cut, which contains several interesting scenes that were edited from the original cut of the movie, one of which is of vital dramatic importance. This is the scene early in the movie in which Ripley learns that her daughter has recently died while she was frozen in hypersleep. This scene is pivotal as it gives depth to Ripley’s relationship with Newt and helps to explain more clearly why she goes back into the Alien nest looking for her at the end of the movie. This is the version of the movie (or one very like it) that was shown on CBS in the 1990’s and subsequently put onto an exhaustive Laserdisc set. It’s definitely worth checking out even if you are familiar with the theatrical cut of the movie.
Can we tawk?
Absent is the infamous scene in which Ripley encounters a cocooned Paul Reiser at the end of the movie. I don’t believe this scene has ever appeared in any broadcast or home video version of the movie.
The Alien Anthology Bluray set is truly beautiful thing, with all of the above features and plenty of Bluray exclusive content, and it offers a customizable way to watch the bonus features according to what you are interested in seeing.
Good thing he didn't have that cornbread, after all.
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE
Six words: "Get away from her, you bitch!"
Five words: "Game over, man! Game over!"
SEQUELS:
Followed by Alien 3 (1992) Alien Resurrection (1997) and Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2008) although the two AVP movies are technically prequels.
SEE ALSO:
Starship Troopers (1997)
"Get away from that bitch, you whore!" Or something like that. Whatever.
THE TRAILER:
TRIVIA
The scene in which the marines are making their initial survey of the Alien nest in the atmosphere processor is a great example of suspense-building editing. In about a minute of screen time there something like 67 cuts. The resulting scene is an unsettling montage of the marines nervously poking around this unexpectedly creepy environment, grainy first-person video feed from the helmet cams, Burke and Ripley bathed in blue light from the monitors as they observe, and the handheld motion sensor with its eerie beep. You jump from one shot to the next in under a second and you never get a chance to get your bearings before the attack.
Ecological horror was all the rage in the 1970’s with a series of well publicized disasters like Three Mile Island and LoveCanal adding to the already bleak and paranoid mindset of post-Watergate America.The Carter years gave us a few solid monster movies, with that gritty 1970’s /early 1980’s feel like Q: The Winged Serpent, Alligator, and John Frankenheimer’s Prophecy, which features a creature born of Maine waters polluted by chemical runoff from a paper mill.
If you liked Jaws, then you are going to love Paws.
Dr. Verne is sent on an assignment by the EPA to report on a logging operation in rural Maine.He takes his wife with him who is struggling with the decision of whether or not to tell him that she is pregnant, as he is against bringing children “into this world.”Soon they stumble upon an Indian tribe (lead by Armand Assante and part of a long tradition of having Italian American actors play Indians) that is showing signs of mercury poison from the local paper mill.The Indians believe that a legendary creature, the Katahdin, is loose on their lands and soon everyone present is hunted by a huge mutated bear-like creature.
Either Maggie is hiding from the Katahdin, or Adrian is seeking refuge from Clubber Lang. Either way I feel bad for her.
The heart of Prophecy is Talia Shire as Dr. Verne’s wife, Maggie as this is a movie that is preoccupied with pregnancy, monstrous birth, mutation and abortion.In a conversation with a female friend, early in the movie, Maggie is told that it is her right “to choose” and that her husband can’t make her have an abortion.Among all of the other things going on in the late ‘70’s, this movie is set in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade. Maggie’s pregnancy is used as an unsettling subplot throughout the movie.There is a great scene later in the movie, well after the two have consumed the some freakishly large river trout where her husband (who is still unaware of her pregnancy) describes to her the effects of consuming mercury-
contaminated food on a fetus.Later in the movie, they discover the pathetic mewling offspring of the monster and it falls to Maggie to take care of the horrible little creature.This imagery is the primary visual on the poster art, which features a monstrous infant in a placental sac.Interestingly, we are left to wonder about the fate of Maggie’s baby.Is it healthy?Does she keep it?Is it perhaps the embryo monster from the poster?Does it become a sort of ecological Rosemary’s Baby?
Manbearpig; it's totally cereal.
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
Unfortunately, the monster is not quite as cool as the more memorable poster art (which I remember vividly from the Beta Video box at my local video store as a child).As it appears in the moive, it looks somewhat like the offspring of a Grizzly bear and a pig that got burnt in a bad fire.Worse yet is the very unscary way that it waddles around in an unnaturally upright way.It looks as though you could tip it over with a good push.
There are two “cubs” in the movie, one living and one dead.They achieve a certain level of creepiness in that you simultaneously pity and are repulsed by them, not unlike the unfortunate and misshapen infant from David Lynch’s Eraserhead.
MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT
Most people seem to remember the scene in which camper in a sleeping bag is awakened, hops around like an anthropomorphic banana and then is violently swatted against some boulders where he explodes in a pristine ball of white feathers.
DVD AVAILABILITY
It’s on Netflix.Put it in your queue.
Smokey warned us that only we could prevent forest fires but we didn't listen. Now he's going to have to kick some ass.
SEQUELS
None. Too bad. This movie could have had a really cool sequel.
So, I never watched Star Trek: The Next Generation when it was on TV. This odd for several reasons. First, I was a sci-fi geek preteen when it came on in 1987. When I was in high-school most of my friends watched it and quoted it all the time but I stubbornly refused to get into it. I started watching Star Trek: Enterprise a few years ago on DVD and have seen various episodes of different shows and on a whim I have just recently embarked on a mission to watch the whole series of The Next Generation from start to finish.
So far I've learned that Dianna Troi is great at reading basic body language and facial expressions and that, when all else fails, separate the saucer section.
I just watched the episode "Symbiosis" in which the Enterprise and crew stumble upon a ship full of hypes and their dealers. Watching Picard react to the ship's clearly baked captain and crew was hilarious.
In fact, they should do a new show based around a medical marijuana ship which boldly goes, you know, wherever. Maybe nowhere.
"Number 1, what warp factor are we in?"
"Captain, we're not moving."
The episode was a Trek meditation on addiction and promped Tasha Yar to give the following speech:
Um, all I got out of that speech was that "Drugs can make you feel good." In fact, she kind of makes me want to start doing drugs. (I may not be young anymore but I am still impressionable.) And is it just me, or does, she really seem like she knows what she's talking about? Data was looking at her like, "Tasha, shut up." I thought she was going to start rolling up a joint for Wesley Crusher.
Note:This profile is based on the Japanese version of the movie.
THE MOVIE
During Godzilla’s first retirement after the poorly received sequel Godzilla Raids Again, Toho Studios tried their hand at a few other giant monster concepts.Varan the Unbelievable was released a couple of years after Rodan but did not seem to be given the attention or budget that was given to that movie or the later Mothra.For one thing, the movie is filmed in cheaper black and white.Rodan two years earlier was filmed in color.Although the main creature is nicely designed and interesting to look at, his suit seems to be cheaply made in comparison to Godzilla or Rodan.The movie is strangely listless and surprisingly dull for a movie of this genre and relies on long stretches of exposition and endless military stock footage and talking heads.
He's un-be-liev-able!
After an inexplicable intro about the wonders of the Space Age, we join a story about a pair of naturalists on an expedition in a remote part of Japan in search of an anomalous butterfly.They instead stumble upon a giant monster worshiped by the locals as Baradaji, a demon/god.A second expedition follows the first and Varan destroys the village.When the military is summoned they attack Varan who is able to glide away on the membranes that connect his forelegs to his hindlegs.Varan makes his way to Tokyo where he is tricked into swallowing several experimental bombs, which kill him as he heads to sea.
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
Varan is somewhat of a black sheep among Toho’s monsters.His contemporaries, Rodan and Mothra, have gone on to be regulars in the Godzilla series and Mothra even starred in her own trilogy of movies in the 1990’s.Varan, however, made a cameo in Destroy All Monsters and appears in stock footage in 2004's Godzilla Final Wars.He has also appeared in a couple of NES and SNES video games.You get the feeling that he stays in his cave on Monster Island and drinks a lot. This is unfortunate because he is one of the cooler monsters in Toho’s universe (he is certainly cooler than Megalon or Titanosaurus).Varan looks a bit like Godzilla (he strongly resembles Godzilla from King Kong vs. Godzilla and therefore Millennium Godzilla) but with vertical spikes running from his head to his tail.He can walk on all fours or on his hind legs much like Anguirus.Much has been made of his ability to fly “like a flying squirrel.”It looks cheesy but most flying effects from Toho movies at this time looked cheesy. Perhaps Varan's most notable appearance since the 1960's has been in the Nintendo Wii fighting game Godzilla Unleashed, where he is a playable character.
MONSTERS FEATURED
Varan.
DVD AVAILABILITY
The U.S. version is fairly easy to find (it’s on Netflix,) however it is a good thirteen minutes shorter AND eliminates the flying sequences for some reason.The U.S. version also cuts out much of the original story and replaces it with American actors a la Godzilla King of the Monsters.While Varan is far from a great movie (or even a good movie for that matter,) I find something distasteful about monkeying around with a movie for the sake of making it more appealing for foreign markets.
If you want to get a copy of the Japanese version you can check eBay or go to ultramanstuff.com.I’ve ordered a couple of movies from them and they are okay.They take a long time to get you your movies but they do arrive and they have a great selection (looking for Godzilla '84 or Biollante? They got 'em).I’m assuming that the movies are bootlegs, but if the versions you want are not for sale here what are you gonna do?
"I came here to chew bubblegum and smash buildings...and I'm all out of bubblegum."
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE
Eh.
SEQUELS
None.
SEE ALSO
Rodan 1956Mothra 1961Gojira 1954
When's it going to be Varan's turn?
TRIVIA
There have actually been a couple of attempts to bring Varan back to the screen after Destroy All Monsters.He was originally to be featured in Godzilla vs. Gigan but was later cut from the movie.Most famously, Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Giant Monsters All Out Attack, was to originally have been Godzilla X Varan, Anguirus, Baragon, Giant Monsters All Out Attack but Toho was reeling from the box office failure of Godzilla vs. Megaguirus and insisted that director Shusuke Kaneko work A-list Mothra and King Ghidorah into the story, which is unfortunate because it would be nice to see a revamped version of Varan (there are photos online of the model of the redesigned Anguirus that was to have been featured in the movie and it is amazingly cool.)
Read the previous entries to this series here and here.
In the three years between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, the Clone Wars have raged on without a clear victor, Palpatine has assumed emergency powers that erode the democratic fiber of the Republic, and the Jedi have narrowed their search for the Sith Lord to Palpatine’s inner circle. In this third movie in the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, we see the fall of both the Republic and the Jedi and the rise of the Empire and the Sith.
At the movie's start the Confederation of Independent Systems have launched a massive attack on the Republic Capital world of Coruscant. Palpatine has engineered to have himself captured by the separatists, both politically inoculate himself when he returns and to lure Anakin Skywalker to the rescue to test him against Dooku. The Sith seem to operate under a brutal system in which they are constantly tested against opponents for the honor of assuming mastership or apprenticeship. We see this later on in Return of the Jedi as Vader and Luke are pit against each other by the Emperor. This scene aboard Dooku's ship in Episode III is designed to visually resemble that later one on the second Death Star.
Odds are Dooku knows he’s being tested but does not consider Skywalker a serious opponent. No doubt Palpatine’s money is on Skywalker.
Anakin and Obi-Wan fly their way to Dooku’s warship through hundreds of enemy fighters. Interestingly, Anakin has to be restrained from flying back to assist the clone pilots who are covering him and Obi-Wan. We are clearly shown that his decision to obey Obi-Wan results in the clones death. Even this late in his story, Anakin still is intent on being loyal to those in his charge. It's not about how evil he has become but how good he still is. Leaving these troopers to die is the first of many perceived compromises he is asked to make for the Jedi during the course of this movie.
Obi-Wan and Anakin reach Palpatine and begin a lightsaber battle with Dooku, who knocks Obi-Wan unconscious early on. Anakin and Dooku then battle one-on-one and soon Dooku is overpowered by the younger man. Anakin here has the choice to capture Dooku alive (and bring him to justice) or to kill him (against the Jedi Code). At Palpatine’s urging, Anakin beheads his opponent. Now Palapatine has struck a fatal blow to Anakin’s relationship with the Jedi Order.
"They say we're young and we have no chemistry..."
When he returns to Coruscant, Anakin meets with his secret wife Senator Padme Amadala. She informs him that she is pregnant and almost immediately he begins to have prophetic dreams that she will die in childbirth. These dreams mirror the Force-visions he had that previewed his mother’s death in Attack of the Clones. He soon becomes obsessed with saving his wife.
One has to wonder from where these dreams come. Are they a true Force-vision? Cinematically they are unique in that they are the only dream sequences in a Star Wars movie. And they seem to be direct copies of shots we see at the end of the movie, only overlain with a dark cloudy effect. Also notable is that when Anakin had visions of his mother's death in the previous movie, they were never shown to the audience. He simply described them. Perhaps these visions of Padme’s death are meant to be more presentational because they are not true visions at all.
We never really learn the extent of Darth Siddious' abilities in the movies but he seems to excel at mind powers. Talking about Episode II, I touched on the fact that Siddious has a limited precognition. That he is able to see far enough into the future to know how make things happen for him. Perhaps he saw a possible future in which Anakin caused his wife’s death and was somehow able to send him that image while Anakin was sleeping, thus ultimately causing the possible event to come to pass and creating a great predestination paradox.
In any case, Palpatine takes the bold step of assigning Anakin to be his personal representative to the Jedi Council, much to the Order’s dismay. The Jedi do not like politicians interfering in their affairs and are suspicious of Palpatine by this point. In response, they make the unJedi-like move of ordering Anakin to spy on Palpatine, who is almost a father figure to him. More accurately, they make poor Obi-Wan do it off the record.
Something is rotten in the JediTemple by the third movie. In the previous two entries we have seen a certain callousness, arrogance, and penchant for secrecy but it seems as the Sith threat grows
imminent the Jedi become even more deceitful and hypocritical. They seem all too willing to break the rules that they have established. The problem is that they just aren’t that good at it. Palpatine can play Anakin like a fiddle. All the Jedi can do is send schlepy Obi Wan to talk him into some ham-handed spying job. They are completely clueless about human relationships and personal loyalty. When Anakin asks Yoda’s advice about his dreams of losing someone close to him all Yoda can tell him is to get over it. I love this scene because it is a great example of how the Jedi Order really does fail Anakin, bringing about their own doom. Perhaps if Qui-Gon Jinn had survived things would have been different...
With Dooku dead, the Republic focuses on General Grevious, his cyborg second-in-command and the defacto leader of the CIS. Obi-Wan is sent after him (and away from Anakin) and he effectively ends the Clone Wars. In an ominous scene, the Jedi spookily gather around a holograph table and discuss
removing Palpatine from power and temporarily taking over the government.
Yoda, doing his best Fred Sandford. "I'm comin' for ya 'Lizabeth!"
The Jedi send Anakin to inform Palpatine of the war's end to see if he will give up his war powers and restore democracy. Instead, Palpatine finally reveals himself to Anakin as a Sith Lord and he tells him he has the power to save Padme’s life. Anakin flees and tells Mace Windu who gathers a team of second-string Jedi Council members to arrest Palpatine/Siddious. Instead Siddious cuts down all but Mace Windu and the two have an epic duel in Palpatine’s office. Anakin arrives to find Mace Windu ready to strike Palpatine down for good and possibly eliminating the only hope of saving his wife.
"Are you ready to rock?"
Anakin protests that killing an unarmed prisoner is not the Jedi way, perhaps still feeling guilty for his murder of Dooku. Here, again, we have Anakin’s fatal flaw: he is not that smart. He needs help navigating complex ethical terrain and the Jedi seem not to be consistent about their positions. Here you have Mace Windu, a senior member of the council ready to strike down a prisoner. Palpatine has been more understanding and accepting of Anakin than all of the Jedi, even Obi-Wan. The Jedi had not wanted Anakin from the beginning and have been distrustful of him ever since.
Mace Windu’s only response is that Palpatine is too dangerous to live, which echoes Palpatine's
words about Dooku earlier in the film. Interesting that Lucas would put the same words in Windu’s mouth as in Darth Siddious. While Mace Windu is certainly not evil, one gets the impression that he has become fanatical about discovering and eliminating the Sith. At this point he would do just about anything if it meant destroying them. This is supported by Samuel L. Jacksons performance and the way he is shot in the scene. He actually looks creepier than Palpatine most of the time.
It is this last act of hypocrisy that finally pushes Anakin over the edge as he cuts Windu’s arm off, preventing him from striking Palpatine and he stands back as the Sith force-electrocutes/pushes the Jedi out the window. Which is not to say that Anakin is against all forms of hypocrisy. He engages in it from now until the end of the movie. It’s just that he is too thick-headed to try and figure out other people’s hypocrisy. Having gone in this deep Anakin swears allegiance to the Sith and becomes Siddious' new apprentice and is tasked with eliminating the Jedi at the Temple and eliminating the leaders of the CIS who are no longer needed in the post war Empire.
Palpatine's most evil plan was to disguise himself as an old British nanny so that he could spend more time with his estranged children. He called himself Mrs. Sithfire.
Padme and Obi-Wan track him down to hidden location where he has killed the leaders of the CIS. After his wife declines to join him in ruling the galaxy, Anakin loses his temper and Force-chokes her. He and Obi-Wan fight it out on the surface of a volcanic planet.
Meanwhile on Coruscant, Palpatine makes a Stalin-esque speech declaring himself Emperor. This is where the movie reveals itself as post 911, Liberal hysteria. Palpatine is a kind of nightmare of George W. Bush: A figure that strips our democracy away piece by piece, creating a police state in the name of security. Lucas claims his ideas about the prequels stem from the Nixon era but the timing and parallels are pretty clear. "If you are not with me, then you are my enemy," Anakin tells Obi Wan, in a very
Bush-like moment.
Yoda, seeking to invoke budget reconciliation to get around Palaptine's filibuster. CSPAN must be much cooler in the Star Wars galaxy.
This is all intercut with a battle between Yoda and Palpatine on Coruscant. It is striking that this, perhaps the climactic duel in the trilogy, takes place on the Senate floor. This is the ultimate political brawl where ostensibly the most powerful forces of good and evil face off. At one point in the fight they are whipping senate pods-literally, the vehicles of democracy-at one another. Yoda eventually concedes this fight-after
all this is Palpatine's arena. It is a fitting climax for a trilogy of movies that are above all preoccupied with politics and the way that democracies go astray. While the original Star Wars movies were often described as modern myths, the new trilogy are modern political allegories.
CALL OF CTHULHU (2005) Directed by Andrew Leman Genre: Silent/Horror
THE MOVIE:
While many movies are Lovecraftian in tone and content there are very few serious H. P. Lovecraft adaptations out there. It seems that most filmmakers would prefer to freely borrow elements from his fiction instead of adapting his stories whole. Along with Edgar Allen Poe, Lovecraft is remembered for his stylistic and thematic contributions more than for any one memorable story. Because of this you have Lovecraftian elements in everything from Alien to Howard the Duck and Hellboy.
Will you accept the charges?
The acclaimed 2005 short film Call of Cthulhu is an audacious 47 minute adaptation of the story of the same name lovingly produced by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society. It is audacious because it attempts to produce the film in a style that is contemporary to the story’s 1926 publication date. Call of Cthulu is a presented as a silent movie. It is shot in black and white, complete with title placards, pancake make-up and Twenties-style acting. In addition to being fun to watch and stylistically cool, all of these conceits help to nicely mask the fact that the movie was shot with a minimal budget.
Call of Cthulhu is the story of a man’s investigation into the mysterious worldwide Cthulhu cult and its connection to his uncle’s death. The movie frequently uses a boxed narrative as the many characters describe their brushes with the mighty Cthulhu and his human worshippers. This ultimately leads to a physical confrontation with the awakened Old One in his mysterious city.
"Toto, we're not in Dunwich anymore."
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS:
When he finally appears, the titular monster is realized with stop-motion effects. While it is not particularly good stop motion it feels appropriate to the overall 1920’s tone of the film.
"Dr. Zoidberg, is that you?"
In the vast and complicated Lovecraft pantheon, Cthulhu is a giant god/monster/alien slumbering beneath a “Cyclopean” city on an island in the Pacific. He is worshiped as a god by human cultists but he is utterly unknowable and indifferent to humanity. He doesn’t have a ton of screen time in Call of Cthulhu so you don’t get a really good look at the stop motion puppet which is probably for the best.
MONSTERS FEATURED:
The Great Old One, Cthulhu.
Love craft, for the gal on the go.
DVD AVAILABILITY:
On Netflix and available for purchase online.
The DVD features interviews with the creators and a good amount of extras.
He's the hero this city deserves.
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE:
The whole movie is remarkable and probably like nothing you have ever seen. It’s worth checking out for the novelty if no other reason. SEQUELS:
None.
TRAILER:
SEE ALSO:
Dagon (2001)
TRIVIA:
*H. P. Lovecraft was a racist, a snob, and probably the 19th Century equivalent of an unsocialized computer nerd but ultimately a visionary and a genius.
*Another Lovecraft adaptation is in the works. Director Guillermo Del Toro is attempting to adapt the novella At The Mountains of Madness, which has influenced such movies as The Thing and even Alien vs. Predator.
