Monster Movie of the Week: Predator 2 (1990)

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PREDATOR 2 (1990)

Director: Stephen Hopkins

Genre: Sci-fi Action

Country: USA

THE MOVIE:

Predator 2 is the first official Predator sequel and was released three years after the original movie. It is a very different film from its predecessor and the only real links it has to the original are the titular monster and the actor who plays him. Danny Glover plays the lead in this movie and ultimately goes mano-a-mano with the Predator. I really like the choice of casting Glover in Predator 2. First of all, he’s just a good actor and he brings a refreshing reality to the movie. He’s a regular guy who is trying to catch this extraterrestrial killer and you find yourself rooting for him. He's definitely more of an underdog than Ah-nold. Predator 2 also features a great ensemble cast that features Maria Conchita Alonso, Ruben Blades, Bill Paxton and Gary Busey.

No longer a Schwarzenegger vehicle, the movie is free to give us a little more of what we want: The Predator. To that end, it shows us a little more about the alien species and their technology. We learn that the Predator's operate under a kind of code of honor and they refuse to kill pregnant women or children.

Roger Ebert has said that Predator 2 shows us “an ugly and angry dream” and I think he’s on to something. This movie manages to combine the nihilistic ‘80’s police movie (complete with rogue cop facing off against his by-the-book superiors and car trunk full of heavy duty weapons) with the ultraviolent R-rated ‘80’s sci-fi movie. It's like Cobra meets Alien. There’s tons of violence, bare breasts, gratuitous swearing, and even Morton Downey Junior as a sleazy reporter. Although the movie was released in 1990 it is actually set in 1997 (10 years after the original) in an LA that sees crime out of control as Jamaican and Colombian drug gangs battle each other in the street. The script is like some white conservative guy’s nightmare of urban life, with gangs of foreigners taking over the streets (I kept waiting to see Tom Tancredo screaming “This is why we need to build a wall!!!”).

He's in town with a few days to kill...and to visit LA's fabulous Art Deco architecture. 

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Predator 2 is one of those movies that is fairly mediocre for the first half but makes up for it with a rockin’ last third which involves a botched government attempt to capture the alien and Glover's exciting rooftop pursuit of the creature. They ultimately crash through an apartment building and end up in the Predator ship underground. On the ship we have a famous single shot that caused many a nerdgasm back in 1990. On the ship is a trophy room with many skulls of different beasts. One skull is that of an Alien as depicted in James Cameron’s Aliens. This was cinematic proof that the Aliens and Predators existed in the same continuity and caused people to call out for an AVP movie, which didn’t happen until 2004.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

There weren’t many great design or effects strides between 1987’s Predator and its first sequel. This predator looked very much like the one in the original. With the main difference being a slight elongation in the mask. At the very end, we see a group of eight or so Predators on the ship with a variety of masks and facial structures. Some of the masks resemble the more elaborate ones used in Alien vs. Predator.

One of the cool things that Predator 2 does is introduce us to some new Predator weapons and equipment such as the Smart Disc, the Net Gun, and the Spear Gun. Most of which have played a role in later movies featuring Predator characters. This movie also gives us a better look at the Predator medkit as we see the Predator treating the stump of his arm after it has been cut off in battle.

Ruben Blades, about to beat the Predator down with a rendition of Pedro Navaja.

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HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

Available in a regular or 2 DVD disc variety as well as on Bluray. I also recently saw a big AVP mega collection at Best Buy, with deluxe versions of every Alien and Predator movie through AVP 1 and a cool diorama of an Alien and Predator duking it out.

MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT

The whole last half hour of the movie is awesome.

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Nerdgasm!!

MINORITY REPORT

Kudos for having basically all the movies heroes be either black or Latino (salsero Ruben Blades and Maria Conchita Alonso have supporting roles) which was unusual for 1990.

At the same time, Jamaicans and Colombians are made into urban stereotypes (and why do so many of these Colombians speak with Mexican accents? And how can those Jamaicans even see to drive with all the smoke in that car?) Predator giveth and Predator taketh away...

SEQUELS

Until recently, this was the last Predator movie, although the series spun off into the Alien vs. Predator series with Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. Predators was released summer of 2010.

TRAILER

Monster Movie of the Week: CYBORG LAW ENFORCEMENT EDITION: ROBOCOP 1987

ROBOCOP (1987)

Genre: Sci-Fi/Action

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Country: USA

THE MOVIE

Robocop was a milestone among the hard hitting science fiction/action movies of the 1980’s and was Dutch director Paul Verhoeven’s first hit English language movie. It has been called an action movie for liberals and is at once insanely violent and surprisingly intelligent. Like many of Verhoeven’s movies, it features a combination of action and scathing wit. Robocop is a satire on Reaganomics disguised as a bloody cop film. The movie is perhaps the best example of the director’s inhuman humanism, which attacks an exaggerated version of the existing power structure but revels in violence and nihilism at the same time. Paul Verhoeven makes comedies that are frequently mistaken for action movies, thrillers or exploitation movies. It is an orgy of over-the-top violence in the same way that his Showgirls and Basic Instinct were an orgy of ridiculous over-the-top sex.

Robocop represents a liberal nightmare of the conservative agenda, in which a powerful corporation runs rampant in a capitalistic urban nightmare where even our most important and public social service, the police, is privatized. It has aged surprisingly well in the twenty years since its release, partially because we just spent eight years under a president who was the ideological heir to Ronald Reagan. Robocop also takes a swipe at the media, which is depicted as a as a series of vapid personalities, misleading news, and idiotic commercials. Yeah, that sounds about right.

The film features one of cinema’s greatest evil corporations, Omni Consumer Products (it’s right up there with Weiland-Yutani and the Umbrella Corporation). In their attempts to take over the police department, they develop an unstable robot police officer, the enormous bipedal ED-209 and ultimately the cyborg, Robocop. Robocop was created from the remains of a police officer who was brutally murdered and he struggles with his remaining humanity throughout the movie. He is one of the great movie cyborgs, along with the Terminator, Darth Vader and The Borg.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

ED-209 is realized through the default special effect for realizing large creatures at the time, stop motion. Robocop is or course performed by a guy in a suit, nicely portrayed by actor Peter Weller. Robocop is not really an effects movie and the emphasis is more on action and satire.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE



Yeah, that guy up there. He comes to a bad end.



HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY



Robocop is available in a couple of different DVD versions, including a 2 pack with The Terminator, and a collectors edition which features the original X-rated cut of the movie (for violence of course, you don't get to see Robocop's wang or anything). The movie is also available on Bluray and can usually be found pretty cheap.



SEQUELS



Followed by Robocop 2, Robocop 3, and animated and a live action TV series. Like the Planet of the Apes series, the Robocop sequels coast along on the quality and ideas of the original movie and, although not necessarily good movies, are enjoyable explorations of the Robocop universe. There is also a remake planned, which has been attached to director Darren Aronofsky.



SEE ALSO



Starship Troopers (1997)



THE TRAILER

Monster Movie of the Week: Jaws 2 (1978)

JAWS 2 (1978)
Director: Jeannot Szwarc
Genre: Sharksploitation

THE MOVIE

Believe it or not, there was a time when it was not automatically assumed that a successful movie would have a string of sequels attached to it. Sure, by the 1970's there had been some successful movie series, like the James Bond movies, which themselves were based on the extensive novel and short story catalog of Ian Fleming . But with the success of the Planet of the Apes movies, producers became aware of the possibilities of creating original sequels to successful movies. The 70's saw sequels to many of the decades most iconic movies: The Godfather, part II, The Exorcist II: The Heretic, Damien: Omen II. Producers became okay with this Law of Diminishing Returns. If a movie like Rocky, for example, was a great film and a classic, it was ok for Rocky 2 to be merely a good movie, and Rocky 3 to be just okay, as long as they were profitable. So, it was only a matter of time before they sequelized the second biggest box-office hit of the decade: Steven Spielberg's Jaws.

Putting the elements together for the sequel was no easy task. Spielberg was busy with his own projects and uninterested and most of the actors from the first movie were playing hard to get. An interesting but discarded plan for the sequel was to make a prequel focusing on Robert Shaw's character, Quint, and the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. This could have been a really cool movie, as Quint was easily the most compelling character in Jaws, and his monologue about surviving the sinking, shark-infested ship was one of the highlights of the first movie. I'm sort of surprised that in a Hollywood that is now fixated on remakes and prequels of classic movies, that this movie is not somehow in development. This would be a great way to expand the Jaws series without doing an icky remake or another tired sequel.

Once the Indianapolis story was scrapped, the producers managed to lure back Roy Schieder for another outing on Amity Island, in the first of three sequels to the classic movie featuring the Brody family and their endless encounters with Great White Sharks. Jaws 2 is the best of these sequels and a decent movie in its own right, despite the absurdity of the premise of yet another shark terrorizing the town and the fact that Amity's political establishment is, yet again, unwilling to deal with the problem until its too late. This is a little unbelievable to me. The first movie's scenario-the vested economic interests of the town seek to deny or downplay the presence of the shark to avoid scarring away the vacationers-I could believe but while politicians may be slow to act, they are profoundly self-interested and rarely make the same mistake twice.

Jaws 2 also focuses more on the now-teenage son of Chief Brody and his friends, making this sequel feel a little bit like a slasher film at sea. Eventually the shark stalks this group of teens as they are stranded at sea on sailboats and the discredited and fired Brody comes to their rescue. Brody finds another improbable way to blow up a shark in the movie's finale. Jaws 2 also features probably the most famous movie tagline ever: "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water..."



THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

Bruce returns! The shark is largely the same as the one from Jaws, with the exception of the fact that it gets burned halfway through the movie. As it attacks a small boat, a woman tries to fight it off by pouring gasoline on it, which would have been badass if she had had a lighter handy. Sadly, he plan went no further but the shark still got burned when the boat exploded (For Some Reason) and Bruce sports some mean-looking scars for the rest of the movie. 'Cause the only thing scarier than a shark, is an ugly shark.

There is also a chewed up Killer Whale that washes up on the beach, a victim of the shark. I'm not sure, but I think this might be a fun reference to the 1977 Jaws ripoff, Orca. I love a good movie diss. It's like Bruce and that whale are having a rapper war. Quint's boat from the first movie was also called the Orca. That dead whale works on so many levels.

MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT

Bruce takes down a helicopter! Okay, it is one of those floating helicopters so it is not as awesome as the scene from Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus but it is still kinda cool.




HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

Available on DVD and now streaming on Netflix.

THE TRAILER

Monster Movie of the Week: King Kong Escapes (1966)

An interesting and weird fold in the King Kong saga is the 1960's Japanese detour that the character took. He memorably starred in King Kong vs. Godzilla (even getting top billing) and then a few years later did another lesser-known movie with Toho Studios, 1966's King Kong Escapes, which is partially a follow up to his movie with Godzilla and partially a remake of the original King Kong. King Kong Escapes also features the first cyborg version of a kaiju character, Mechani-Kong who has a pretty cool design and is the precursor for characters like the various Mechagodzillas and Mecha King Ghidorah. While not among the best of the Kong movies, King Kong Escapes is an interesting and quirky spin on the classic character and story.

The plot is vintage '60's Toho goofiness. It all starts when a mad scientist builds a giant mechanical gorilla to mine for a mysterious and hard-to-get radioactive element. Naturally, if you need mining done, you build a giant terrifying gorilla robot. That's SOP in the industry.

Meanwhile, a joint US and Japanese expedition lands on a mysterious island and encounters King Kong and some dinosaurs. A blonde, female member of the crew attracts Kong's attention (some things never change) and he battles Gorosaurus for her. The mad scientist learns of Kong's presence and kidnaps him so that he can finish the mining job started by Mechani-Kong, but the giant gorilla escapes. Kong and his robotic doppelganger make their way to Tokyo (naturally) where they do battle.

This was Kong's last Toho appearance, although there have been talk of and apparently even attempts to feature Kong or Mechani-Kong in a Godzilla more or game, they have come to nothing due to the complex rights issues and costs involved with using the character. Sadly, King Kong Escapes marks the end of the big ape's short career as a Japanese movie star.

Thankfully, the kaiju Kong is a little too big for hanky-panky.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

As in Godzilla vs. King Kong, this is not one of the big guy's better appearances. He is basically a Japanese guy in a ratty gorilla costume, only this time featuring some truly awful and glassy animatronic eyes. More often than not Kong's are half-closed, making him look either high or like Garfield.

The other two major creatures come off a lot better. Mechani-Kong, although silly, is a visually interesting monster and his design is more conducive to suitmation. Gorosaurus comes off surprisingly well. Like Godzilla, Gorosaurus is largely based on a T-Rex, but here the designers try for a more accurate look with a larger head and less upright stance. He actually moves in a somewhat realistic way for a time when dinosaurs were usually depicted dragging their tails on the ground. Gorosaurus goes onto be seen in Destroy All Monsters and in All Monsters Attack (via stock footage).

On the left is an incredibly uncomfortable Japanese man.

MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT

The Kong/Gorosaurus fight stands out and has shades of the original scene in the 1933 movie. It is interesting to compare the original version, the Toho analogue of the scene, and the recreation from the 2005 movie to see the same basic concept executed using three distinct special effects techniques.

Kong, desperately searches Skull Island for something to snack on.

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

Available on DVD and on Netflix.

SEE ALSO

Destroy All Monsters 1968, King Kong (1933), King Kong (2005)

TRAILER

The Life Cycles of Stars and National Politics

Political parties, especially the Republican Party here in the US can learn valuable lessons from Astronomy. Keep in mind, I'm not talking about Nancy Reagan style Astrology but the actual science of astronomy. Like anything else, stars have life cycles. They form from dust and gas out in the cosmos, they ignite and begin billions of years of healthy nuclear fusion, until they eventually either explode in a supernova or swell up before finally fizzing out into a tiny shell of its former self. The Republican Party has been extraordinarily successful in American politics. Perhaps their greatest recent achievement is getting that great American lemon of a president George W. Bush re-elected in 2004, despite the unpopularity of his policies.

Since spending massive amounts of political capital during the Bush years, the party has been bereft of new ideas and strong leadership. Like a dying star, it is shrinking down to its unstable and burned out core. The Republican party is now catering exclusively to its base, that loud and rabidly ideological corner of the party that compromises maybe 25% of the American electorate. This may be good short term politics, but once you have made questioning Obama's citizenship, deporting millions of illegal immigrants, repealing the 14th amendment, eliminating Social Security, and generally endorsing a blanket "Just Vote No" policy, it will be hard to actually pivot and embrace the mainstream centrist positions that one needs to win a national election without looking like the worst kind of flip-flopper.

Poor John McCain, who won the Republican Presidential nomination in 2008, and, who rightly made Mitt Romney's various outrageous policy reversals a cornerstone of his primary race against the former Massachusetts governor, is now in a Senate primary race against a Tea Party endorsed candidate and has had to do a series of uncomfortable reversals on what had been his signature issues, Campaign Finance Reform and Comprehensive Immigration Reform, of which he had been a champion as recently as 2007. During the Presidential campaign, McCain spoke eloquently about undocumented immigrants who came to this country and ended up fighting in Iraq and Afganistan because they loved and believed in America. Now he has embraced Governor Jan Brewer's reprehensible Arizona immigration law.

In some states, these Tea Party candidates have already won primaries and have proven to be unsavvy, gaffe-prone, candidates with extreme views that are an anathema to independent voters. Republicans were hoping to do to Nevada Senator Senate Majoirty leader Harry Reid what they did to former leader Tom Dashle and win his seat but candidate Sharon Angle messing up what should have been a relatively easy win for her, losing an 11 point poll lead in a matter of weeks. Like other Tea Party candidates, Angle doesn't seem to know what to do with the media. This past week during an interview with Fox News, she wondered out-loud why the media didn't just ask her the questions that she wanted to answer.

If the Republicans don't win the House and or the Senate in November, we can only hope that there will be the serious soul searching that should have happened in 2006 and 2008. Unfortunately, it may take a 2012 presidential loss for them to put their noisy querulous base in its proper place. Hopefuly, a stronger and more moderate GOP will arise.

Monster Movie of the Week: Them (1954)

THEM! (1954)

Director: Gordon Douglas

Genre: Monster-on-the-loose, atomic mutants

THE MOVIE

Them! is the prototypical 1950’s giant bug movie and one of the best sci-fi/horror movies of the decade. The movie has a very contemporary tone and its very matter-of-fact approach to action and horror are a precursor to James Cameron’s classic movies like Aliens, as are it’s mute, terrified little girl and its labyrinthine and claustrophobic insect nest. Like its contemporaries Gojira and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Them! is shot in stark black-and-white, which helps create a disconcerting documentary feel and loans the film a realism that it wouldn’t have had in color.

The movie opens in New Mexico, where there has been a mysterious sandstorm and several disappearances. The only witness present is a little girl who is in such a state of shock that she will not speak. This character is handled quite nicely and is the antecedent for spooked children in movies for decades to come. Her memorable freak out upon smelling the ant’s formic acid is what gives the movie its name: “It’s them! It’s them!”

The police in cooperation with a father and daughter pair of scientists, soldiers and government agents discover the presence of gigantic mutated ants who have established a nest in the area. The explanation given is that they have been mutated due to atomic testing in the area. They destroy this nest only to find out that the queen has escaped and the rest of the movie is concerned with attempts to locate and contain the nascent ant colonies.

THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS

The ants are decently realized in the form of large puppets or animatronics. The movie is filmed in such a way as to conceal the parts of them that the filmmakers did not want you to see but they are good enough and the special effects are decent for the time period.

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

On DVD.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

The opening scenes of the movie do a great job of creating a sort of menacing, apocalyptic tone, with scenes of a destroyed Western landscape and an unnatural sandstorm in which anything can be hiding.

SEQUELS

None.

SEE ALSO

Aliens (1986), Mimic (1997)

THE TRAILER