The Book of Eli, The Road and Post Apocalyptic Visions at the Multiplex

Watched The Book of Eli with Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman this week. The week before I watched The Road with Viggo Mortensen. While Eli has Hollywood's fingerprints all over it, The Road is a pretty faithful adaptation of the bleak but beautiful novel by Cormac McCarthy. Both are set in a ravaged America, where survivors scrape out a living in a grim and dangerous world complete with bands of cannibals and rapists.

The Road wisely stays away from explaining too much of its backstory. It is set within about ten years of some kind of cataclysmic event that has wiped out most of humanity and life on Earth. Because there are no plants or animals left, the surviving human beings have largely resorted to cannibalism. This is horrifically illustrated by a scene in which Mortensen's character and his son stumble upon a human slaughterhouse, where people are kept alive as their limbs are removed.

This seems like a pretty realistic scenario to me. It seems that in order to survive, people would do just about anything. The "good guys," to which the son character refers in the movie, i.e. non-cannibals, only survive by sheer luck. The rest of humanity, while not thriving, is certainly surviving.

The Book of Eli represents a slightly more livable and civilized world, where there is at least some sense of order. It is almost as though the producers read The Road and decided to use it as a backdrop for an action movie. The movie slowly spills out it's rather vague and silly backstory. There was a war. People blamed it on religion. People burned all the bibles. Denzel Washington's character is tasked with taking the last known bible to its sanctuary. Gary Oldman plays the fascist boss of a town of survivors who seeks a copy of the bible to use to create a kind of expansive religious state.

While the movie has a bleak Western beauty to it and two truly great actors in the leads, The Book of Eli falls into its own plot holes. The backstory doesn't survive scrutiny. I really can't imagine an America where people get so fed up with religion that they destroy ALL the bibles. I mean, there are really quite a few bibles out there. Possibly more than there are people.

America is pretty depressed right now. And America is a big drama queen. When drama queens get upset, they like to imagine The End. They like to think about all of the bad things that would happen if they were dead. "You took my laws and infrastructure for granted. You still want smaller government when there is a gang of cannibals on the front lawn?"

Monster Movie of the Week: Garuda (2004)

Garuda (2004)

Director: Monthon Arayangkoon

Genre: Monster-on-the-loose/Action

THE MOVIE

It seems to be becoming a point of pride for Asian nations to have their own signature monster movies. Japan, of course, has Godzilla, Gamera and dozens others, South Korea gave us The Host and Dragon Wars and, in 2004, Thailand released Garuda, which featured a mid-sized killer bird-man monster based on a mythical Thai creature. The plot of Garuda will be very familiar to anyone familiar with the genre: There is a pretty female scientist named Leena (who gives a hilariously inaccurate paleontology presentation at the beginning of the movie) trying to complete her father’s work in discovering the fossils of an extinct creature; a dormant god/creature awakened by man’s activities; a goofy Westerner who acts as a sidekick and comic relief; and a team of para-military commandos sent to combat the creature in the tunnels beneath Bangkok.

Other than the endless discussions of Thai identity and the design of the titular creature, there is very little Thai flavor in the movie to distinguish it from something you would see on the Sci-Fi channel. One of the fun things about seeing foreign monster movies is that they inadvertently teach the viewer a lot about the culture from which they come. From watching hours and hours of Japanese monster movies, I certainly feel like I have learned a little bit about the Japanese character and identity and I can identify something about the movies that makes them distinctly Japanese (this lack of Japanese Je ne sais quois is what has made it difficult to translate the genre to American movies). Or the way that The Host gives you a real flavor for South Korean life in the early 21^st Century. Not so with Garuda, which certainly borrows conventions from Japanese monster movies, and has some requisite action scenes a la Hong Kong cinema, but what is distinctly Thai about the movie feels tacked on and not part of the story or characters. Part of the problem is that the film takes place mostly in underground tunnels. I would have liked to see a little more Bangkok in the movie.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

Garuda does feature a decent monster. The Garuda is sort of like a well muscled human with wings and a bird head and legs. I would say he is about 15 to 20 feet tall with a 60-80 foot wingspan. He seems to be largely realized through digital effects, successfully for the most part.

DVD AVAILABILITY

Not to hard to find, and now available on Netflix.

SEQUELS

None planned that I know of.

MINORITY REPORT

There is one Western character in Garuda, Tim, who is a cowardly, bumbling dork as contrasted to the Thai men in the movie who are sort of macho, lethal, and agile. This is interesting because it is an inversion of popular stereotypes of Asians in movies in the U.S. where Asian men have been historically depicted as uncool, cowardly, nerdy and ultimately unmasculine (this is when they are not being depicted as ninjas and martial arts experts). This was the popular perception in the 1980’s and 1990’s and is thankfully changing and there is now an “Asian Chic” movement that has been forming as pop culture mainly from Japan and China are becoming increasingly popular in the U.S. and the minority population of Asians in the U.S. is growing and gaining its own voice. I suspect that Tim represents a kind of emasculated revenge stereotype on Westerners. It is curious that Tim, a young reasonably attractive guy, has absolutely no sexual tension with Leena (who instantly falls for the macho Thai commander). This, again, is reminiscent of many Asian characters in American movies that had forever enjoyed strangely platonic relationships with the white female characters around them.

SEE ALSO

The Host (2007)

THE TRAILER

Monster Movie of the Week: Congo (1995)

CONGO (1995)

Director: Frank Marshall

Genre: Adventure

THE MOVIE

In the wake of Speilberg’s successful adaptation of Jurassic Park there was an instant rush to adapt all existing Michael Crichton novels for the screen. We were shortly given movies based on Sphere, Eaters of the Dead (retitled The Thirteenth Warrior,) Rising Sun and Disclosure. One of the first in this wave was Congo based on the 1980 novel of the same name that combined at-the-time cutting edge science and technology with an old-fashioned jungle adventure story set on the “dark continent.”

Both the novel and the movie follow a mismatched crew on an expedition into the heart of Africa. The expedition is financed by a representative of a communications company that wants to find out about an earlier expedition of diamond hunters that mysteriously disappeared. Ostensibly, the trip is to send home an adolescent sign language-using gorilla named Amy, who in the movie uses a virtual reality glove to communicate her signs for the audience, both because people don’t want to have to read subtitles and, in the ‘90’s, there was no problem in a movie that was not solved by applying some kind of reference to virtual reality.

Congo tries hard to create another runaway hit science adventure in the vein of Jurassic Park. Of all Crichton’s novels to that time, Congo is the one that has the most similar mix of cutting edge science and imaginative adventure so there were high hopes for it when it was released but ultimately it was not as successful in terms of quality or commercial success. Congo is a decent adventure movie that is hampered by a clichéd script and a wildly over-the-top Tim Curry performance (is there another kind?)

You do have to respect a movie that features a gorilla/laser fight.

THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS

The movie features Amy and a group of mysterious grey gorillas that have been bred to protect the ancient diamond mine. The grey gorillas are supposed to be the velociraptors of this movie and are depicted as being smart and fast. The book implies that they had been bred from human beings and gorillas. The movie is reasonably kid friendly and implies no such thing.

All of the gorilla effects in the movie are done with men in gorilla suits and animatronics. Rumor has it that the grey gorillas were supposed to have been realized digitally but in 1995 the technology was not yet able to realistically create hair and fur. The effects are realistic none the less with the exception of the bad CGI lava at the end of the movie that looks like it was recycled from Aladdin.

Someone set that Monolith to "KILL.".

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

Widely available.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

It’s not a good sequence, but the most memorable one is the one in which Amy rescues her trainer from the troupe of grey gorillas by lamely telling them off with her stupid virtual glove.

SEQUELS

None.

SEE ALSO

Jurassic Park 1993 Primeval 2006

TRAILER

You Wouldn't Like Him When He's Sad

I'm a big fan of the recent batch of Marvel superhero movies that are slowly leading up to The Avengers in 2012. I really love all of the attempts to tie the movies together into a coherent and consistent story. I even enjoyed The Incredible Hulk, which had about everything you could want out of a Hulk movie. So, it's with great sadness that I read the recent news that the studio is going to "go another way" with the casting and not use Edward Norton for the Avengers movie. This is particularly sad because it was only a few years earlier that Eric Bana played the role and now it seems like there is an Incredible Hulk revolving door at Marvel. The Hulk is one of their most popular and enduring characters, so it would be nice to have a little more respect for him. After some sniping between the studio and Norton's agent, and some very douchey statement from Marvel, Norton released the following statement on his Facebook page:

To me, it seems a little senseless to go through all of the trouble of creating this great shared universe (unusual for big movies like these) with an eye towards details and interconnections, to go and capriciously replace major actors. It was obnoxious when they did it with Terrance Howard in Iron Man II (I was really looking forward to hearing how his sweet falsetto voice sounded coming out of War Machine) and it's even worse when it is someone who was actually the main character in his movie. It's always very distracting for an audience who had been invested in a character to start over with a brand new actor in that character. Just ask Julienne Moore.

If you're Clarice then my name is Odin.

As a show of solidarity, I am going to go pick up the Bluray for The Incredible Hulk. Well, as soon as I can find it for under $15.

Monster Movie of the Week: Alligator (1980)

ALLIGATOR (1980)
Directed by Lewis Teague
Genre: Horror, Monster-on-the-loose

THE MOVIE

An enduring urban legend from the 1970's and 1980's was that in the sewers below several major American cities, lived alligators which were purchased as pets but later flushed down the toilet when they became too large. These stories are based on infrequent sightings but have persisted over most of the Twentieth Century, probably because they are so cool and something must be keeping the C.H.U.D. and Ninja Turtle population in check. Recently, an episode of one of my favorite shows/exercises in futility, Monster Quest, mounted an expedition into the New York sewers in search of alligators but found only a fat salamander. And my dreams died.

The 1980 horror movie, Alligator, is based on this sewer gator premise and is the big daddy of all the other crocsploitation movies that came after. SyFy pretty much owes their original movie line up to Alligator. While not a great movie by any means, Alligator is a fun-enough riff on the Jaws formula. It's worth watching if only for its very auteuristic Carter-era approach to the material and that great gritty, late '70's/early '80's exploitation movie feel. Supposedly, it is set in Chicago but, sadly, filmed in LA. At least Robert Forster manages to sound like he wouldn't be out of place ordering an Italian beef and a pop at a Chicago hot dog stand.


Forster stars as beleaguered and mistrusted police detective David Madison (not to be confused with Bruce Willis' character on Moonlighting) who teams up with a herpetologist to investigate a series of grisly murders in the sewer system. Add to the mix a shady pharmaceutical company experimenting on stray pets with a growth hormone (every movie from this era needs an evil corporation), a tabloid reporter, and a big game hunter. Needless to say, the beast finally busts out into the city (and apparently onto the set of the Beat It video) and wreaks havoc.


THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

The Alligator-Ramon-is quite a big puppy at about 36 feet long. Otherwise he's a regular gator. I imagine a lot of the shots were done with a real gator scaled to a slightly miniaturized set.

MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT

In another very '70's moment, Ramon terrorizes a bunch of fat cats at fancy party and goes all T-rex on a limosine.



Throw a Hawaiian shirt on him and you have a scene from just about any Rodney Dangerfield movie. Minus the killing.


SEQUELS

This movie did have one sequel. In 1991, Alligator II: The Mutation was released to no fanfare. Supposedly, it has almost nothing to do with the original movie.


SEE ALSO

Jaws (1975), Rogue (2007)

TRAILER

Toy Story 3-Peat

The thing about the Toy Story movies, is that they are always better than they have any right to be. The first one came out in 1995 and was the first feature length computer animated film and could have easily been a huge hit by coasting on its revolutionary visuals and the cuteness of its "secret-life-of-toys" premise but instead gave us a compelling story and characters and a movie that was more dramatically dynamic than most live-action movies. Toy Story 2 came out three years later and, let's face it, seemed like it was going to be a cheap cash in on a popular movie. We didn't really need a sequel to Toy Story but Toy Story 2 is arguably an even better movie than the first one and goes even deeper to explore the existential dilemma at the heart of its premise. Toy Story 2 also helped to expand the emotional palette of animated films with its often bittersweet tone which set the stage for later movies like Wall-E and Up.

Now, twelve years later we have Toy Story 3, which at first glance may seem like an attempt to resurrect a franchise that is long past its prime a la Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls. There was plenty of reason to be skeptical of this movie (Superman 3, Spiderman 3, Godfather 3, etc. ) but I believe it is the best of the three. Toy Story 3 takes the depth of the previous two movies, combines it with an action-packed plot, weird and compelling characters, a terrific villian, some genuinely thrilling sequences, and a truly touching finale, and creates a prefect conclusion to the Toy Story Trilogy.

If you take acting and especially improv classes a note that is beat into your head is "Raise the stakes!" No one wants to see characters who are unmotivated and just standing around making jokes. Interesting characters are ones that are dynamic, that have wants and needs that are driving them to do things. Characters need to exist in a universe where actions have consequences which impact themselves and other characters who are actively trying to get what they want and what they want needs to be IMPORTANT. That's the secret of the success of the Toy Story movies. Unlike many animated movies which are about funny concepts, talking animals , and glib pop culture references, the Toy Story movies are about characters who are often trying to avoid some horrible fate such as abandonment, loss of identity, or, as in a particularly Hellish scene from the new movie, complete destruction at the landfill. The Toy Story movies never sit back and let high concept cuteness drive the story.

Toy Story 3 is the best movie ever about existential despair and talking toys.

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Monster Movie of the Week: Gamera 2: The Attack of Legion

GAMERA 2: ATTACK OF LEGION (1996)
Director: Shusuke Kaneko
Genre: Dai kaiju eiga

THE MOVIE

Like the Lord of the Rings, trilogy, the ‘90’s Gamera movies seemed to get exponentially better with each entry. Gamera: Guardian of the Universe was at least as good as the contemporary Godzilla series, which in itself was surprising in light of the overall quality of the Showa Gamera movies. By the time we get to the second entry of the trilogy, the series really hits its stride and is actually much better than any of the Heisei Godzilla movies.

Gamera 2 takes up about a year after the events in Gamera: Guardian of the Universe. Japan has rebuilt after the cataclysmic battle between Gamera and Gyaos and a series of meteors strike the country accompanied by strange electromagnetic and atmospheric phenomenon. It turns out the meteorites were harboring an insectile alien life form which cultivate a giant oxygen producing plant that seeks to blast a projectile into space thus continuing the life cycle while destroying the surrounding area in the process.Well, Gamera will have none of it. He enters about a half hour into the movie in exciting superhero fashion, pin-wheeling his way to the giant alien plant and taking it down before being swarmed by the little aliens. By swarmed, I mean literally covered head to toe in them. It is at this point that it becomes obvious that the filmmakers are trying to push the special effects envelope to show you things unseen in previous kaiju movies. They freely employ CGI to augment their suitmation effects to give us scenes like the above where thousands of alien creatures attack Gamera.

One of the military guys names the creatures Legion after the Biblical passage.Gamera manages to shake the little creatures, spilling a great deal of his green paint-looking blood in the process. He retreats before another creature emerges: The Legion Queen, a giant space mosquito/crab. The rest of the movie deals with the creatures trying to reestablish their launch pod and Gamera’s battles to destroy it and the military’s attempts to co-ordinate their attacks with the giant turtle.

Returning from the first movie is Asagi (played by Steven Segal’s Japanese daughter) who has a special empathic connection to Gamera through a curved jewel that was discovered in the first movie. She teams up with an astronomy teacher who has been consulting with the military on the Legion invasion and the two keep a vigil when Gamera is critically injured trying to stop the Legion Queen, Also returning in a cameo is the bumbling cop from the first movie who looks like Japanese Michael Keaton. A year later he is a security guard at a brewery who becomes the first witness of the Legion invasion.


THE MONSTERS/SPECIAL EFFECTS

While Toho showcases Godzilla for his famous invulnerability (he rarely is seriously injured or bleeds), Gamera often takes a severe beating in his movies. Director Shusuke Kaneko seems to enjoy inflicting pain on his star. In this movie alone there are many wince-worthy moments as he is swarmed by biting aliens, is impaled, has part of his shell blasted off, is engulfed in a fireball, and is attacked by laser whips, I like to refer to the 90’s Gamera Trilogy as “The Passion of the Kaiju.” Gamera’s ability to take abuse makes him seem really tough and Ramboesque.

Of course, in this movie we also see Gamera’s ultimate power and I suspect learn the answer to the ancient question that has dogged man kind for over forty years: Who would win in a fight between Gamera and Godzilla? Here we see that Gamera has the ability summon Mana, or life energy from all the living things on earth and use it to fuel an energy column that shoots out of his chest. This power is nothing to sneeze at. I think Godzilla is a total badass but I don’t know if he would be able to withstand all of the power of all life on earth.



This movie also features the Legion, new monsters created for this series. Now, if there’s one thing about the Gamera Trilogy I don’t like it’s the design of the non-Gamera monsters. The Legion drones look like something from a “Legend of Zelda” game. In fact, I’m pretty sure they were in the fire dungeon in “Windwaker.” And while the Legion queen is interesting to look at she is ungainly, awkward and looks like something that was designed as opposed to evolved. How she can dig underground with such an unstreamlined body is beyond me.


The effects throughout are good and near Hollywood quality. Gamera’s first appearance and his destruction of the launch pod are only topped by sequences from Gamera 3 and Godzilla Final Wars as far as special effects in kaiju movies are concerned. The Gamera suit has been subtly redesigned to make it a little spinier and more intimidating part of a trend that continues into Gamera 3.

MONSTERS FEATURED

Gamera
Legion Drone
Legion Queen
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

Gamera initial descent into the city to prevent the Legion from launching. I like it because the writer and director made it so that you don’t see or hear anything about Gamera for the first half hour of the movie. By the time you see him you are sort of waiting for him in the back of your mind while still enjoying this alien invasion story that has been established. Add to that the fact that he enters in his own unique manner and the crowd-pleasing way that he is coming to take on the invaders. The filmmakers have managed to change Gamera from a cheesy “friend to all children” to a credible antihero badass.

SEQUELS

Gamera 3: The Revenge of Iris (1999) Gamera The Brave (2006)

DVD AVAILABILITY

Has been released on its own and in a three pack with the rest of the trilogy. The DVDs have a good amount of behind the scenes material, interviews with the director and special effects designer, and a couple of scenes where the dialogue is humorously redubbed.

SEE ALSO

Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack 2002

TRAILER