Patrick Garone

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Monster Movie of the Week: The Relic (1997)

THE RELIC (1997)

Director: Peter Hyams

Genre: Horror

THE MOVIE

Peter Hyam’s The Relic was one of the more visually impressive monster movies of the 1990’s. The film was adapted from the novel Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The Relic takes the very strong core concept from the novel-a monster stalking the halls of a natural history museum after hours-but leaves out almost everything else that made the book such a good read. As is the case when almost any novel is adapted to the screen, the plot is streamlined, characters and motivations rearranged or eliminated (in this case they decided to cut out a character who is perhaps the greatest detective in contemporary fiction, Special Agent Pendergast). This is to be expected. But The Relic replaces what was a fun and smart read and replaces it with a cookie cutter monster movie screenplay.

There’s clumsy exposition such as the scene where Margot Green takes Lt. D’Agosta on an extended tour of what will be the movie's final action set piece so that the audience knows EXACTLY how everything works when we see it later. There are clunky “character” moments such as D’Agosta’s unfunny running joke about his ex-wife getting custody of their dog (WTF?). There’s ridiculously advanced technology that conveniently advances the plot, such as Margo’s DNA Sequencing program that can not only identify animal species from a blood or tissue sample in a matter of minutes but can identify the DNA of an individual human being complete with name and photo. It’s silly now. It was even more so in 1997. All that being said, The Relic is a fun and adequate monster movie with a very cool and memorable monster: the Kothoga.

Larry Craig's evening goes horribly wrong.

The movie is set at the fictitious Chicago Natural History Museum where a mysterious package containing a small statue and some weird leaves arrives from an anthropologist who has gone missing in Brazil. Soon, researcher Margo Green is drawn into a murder investigation at the museum where people are being decapitated and having their hypothalamus glands ripped from their brains. The city officials decide to keep the museum open for a special fundraiser (shades of Jaws) and the monster strikes, trapping a bunch of high-society douchebags in the museum. Margo and D’Agosta try to find a way to stop the beast while the others attempt to escape through the sewers.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

The Kothoga (or Mbwun in the book) is one of the better recent movie monsters despite his harebrained origin. He combines elements of a large mammal with reptilian and insectile features. He has large tusk-like mandibles and saurian claws. Perhaps most remarkable is his range of movement. This was striking at the time because prior to the ‘90’s movie monsters were very limited in how they could move so it was a lot of fun seeing this movie in the theater and watching the Kothoga run, leap and climb on walls. The effects are quite good considering it was a medium-budget film from 1996 and they have held up quite nicely in decade-plus since the film was released.

I really want to see the Kothoga fight the monster from The Host as they are in the same weight category.

A face only a mother could love. Well, Predator's mother.

MONSTERS FEATURED

Kothoga

A large bug

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

I like the Kothoga vs. SWAT team sequence in which the monster acrobatically attacks a police team trying to descend into the museum lobby via the skylights.

Also good is a dryly humorous scene involving an autopsy, which seemed to become the template for depictions of crime lab workers in procedural shows.

"This test will determine whether or not you are actually Michael Madsen."

WHERE TO WATCH

Widely available on streaming and physical media.

SEQUELS

None to the movie.

The book had a direct and fairly unpredictable sequel, Reliquary. The characters introduced in Relic continue on to an extremely long-lived novel series known featuring quirky and intelligent Special Agent A. X. Pendergast. It's ironic since he is absent from the only on screen adaptation of his books.

This is not the most ridiculous monster you've ever seen.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Scareglow...Is That Your Boy?

Boo!

Coming later this month to mattycollector.com is the hotly anticipated Masters of the Universe Classics figure, Scareglow. Scareglow has always been a mysterious character, due to the fact that his appearances in MOTU have been rare. He was released at the end of the 1980's toyline and was never actually in the Filmation cartoon. He was also never included in the 2002 relaunched series. His sole appearances to date have been in a few comics.

Ali G once asked the important question: Why is all skeltonz involved in evil stuff?

On top of that, he was confusingly listed as The Evil Ghost of Skeletor in his vintage release. People can be forgiven for wondering if he was actually somehow Skeletor's ghost. After all, there is somewhat of a resemblance around the eyes. However, as often happens, the collective imagination of the fandom is better than the people who write the stories, and now Scareglow is listed as The Evil Ghost Serving Skeletor. So instead of being Skeletor's ghost from the future, he's just some ghost who works for Skeletor. And happens to look like him.

"Hello, my name is Scareglow. I'll be serving you tonight. Can I start you off with any drinks or appetizers?"

As with the original figure, Scareglow features a glow in the dark skeleton design painted on a black body. The effect is something like that of a large muscly man who is wearing a skintight skeleton Halloween costume. He was originally going to dress as the Joker, but that's kind of played out.

What the hell does a ghost need bones for, anyway?

Scareglow goes on sale at 12PM shart on November 15th at mattycollector.com. The He-Man figure released in January will also be reissued that day. Scareglow should be a big seller so I wouldn't wait too long to grab him. That is, unless you are too scared.

Fun fact: Back in the '80's, when he still had his Gheri curls, he was known as Soul Glo.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Monster Movie of the Week: KILLER CYBORG EDITION: The Terminator (1984)

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THE TERMINATOR (1984)

Director: James Cameron

Genre: SciFi/Action

THE MOVIE

The Terminator was only a modest hit when it was released in 1984 but it was one of a new generation of movies that found a second life on home video, where it was incredibly popular. Perhaps single handedly, the movie popularized the R-rated sci-fi action movie, taking a clever science fiction plot and wrapping it in the trappings of a violent action movie. The low budget works in the movie’s favor, giving it a grimy and realistic 1980’s feel, as does the oily synthesized score. Cameron’s script and direction give the movie his characteristic “heart” that makes it a richer experience than the lesser action pictures of the day. Let’s not forget that at its core, The Terminator is as much a love story as the director’s later Titanic. The Terminator and his next movie, Aliens, are Cameron's two masterpieces but Terminator gives us a leaner, more stripped-down, action movie.

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Don't blame me, I'm not sewf a-wee-ah.

The intriguing premise of The Terminator is that in the future, machines rule a post-apocalyptic word. A defense computer called Skynet became self aware and decided that all humans were a threat to its existence and instigated a nuclear war. Upon Skynet’s defeat by human rebels, it used the same wonky logic to send a cyborg assassin back in time to kill the mother of John Connor, the man who would lead the human resistance. I’m a sucker for a good time travel story and the paradoxes that often occur in these types of tales (I’m one of the few enthusiastic fans of Back to the Future 2).

In The Terminator, you have a couple of good predestination paradoxes. First, John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to protect his mother. The two fall in love and end up conceiving John Connor. So it is Connor’s (presumably knowing) decision to send Reese back that results in his own conception. Could he have chosen to send someone else instead? Since Connor obviously was conceived, would events have had to work out so that Reese would have been sent back in time no matter what? A similar paradox occurs with the development of Skynet because of sending the Terminator back in time. Skynet, insured its own existence by providing the physical technology in the form of the Terminator, whose remains were then studied by scientists and reverse engineered to eventually develop the Skynet and Terminator architecture (this is confirmed in deleted scenes and later in T2).

People are generally left with such a strong perception of Sara Connor from T2 that they forget just how quirky and girly she is in the original movie, with her pink smock, feathered hair and pet lizard. This movie also features some other Cameron regulars. Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton (one of the punks in the beginning) would all go on to do Aliens. Genre and B-movie actor Brian Thomson (Cobra, The X-Files, Star Trek: Enterprise) also is featured as one of the punks dispatched by Arnie early in the movie.

Thematically, The Terminator explores the fertile tech noir science fiction territory of “Man vs. Machine,” much like The Matrix Trilogy and even the reimagined Battlestar Galactica TV series. It is interesting to compare the Terminator post-apocalyptic future with that depicted in The Matrix as both feature futures in which machines have taken over the world and enslaved humanity. Like many classic depictions of the future from the Twentieth Century, Cameron's future is very hardware oriented. The emphasis is on robots and machinery. By contrast, The Matrix was made at the very end of the century and the internet had already become widely used and computers were in a majority of homes in one form or another. The new depiction of the future was now software oriented. This is so true that the “terminators” of the Matrix movies, the Agents, are actually computer programs without physical manifestations in the “real” world and most of the story took place in a virtual reality. Terminator Salvation tried to present a more high tech facet of this future but the premise is still very rooted in the 20th Century.

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Terminator, going commando.

Finally, the movie (and its sequel) works on a visceral level because they tap into the common fear of being pursued by an unstoppable force that means to do you harm. There’s something terrifying about the fact that even if you escape once, the thing will be out there waiting for you. Particularly scary is the limping endoskeleton that slowly and inexorably pursues Sara down in the factory at the end of the movie. And the damn thing is tough: it is shot at, blow up several times, run over by a truck, set on fire, blown up again and it still is chasing her down before it gets crushed.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

For anyone who doesn’t know, the most common form of Terminator and the one featured in this movie is basically a very robust robotic skeleton that is covered in flesh and blood and can pass for a large, muscular man. During the course of the movie’s many action scenes, the Terminator takes a lot of damage and increasingly reveals the metallic endoskeleton beneath. This degradation is first accomplished through make-up appliances, which are more successful over the bony parts of the face but tend to move around on the fleshy parts. For the more extreme and demanding shots (such as when Arnie pulls his eye condom out), the movie uses an articulated dummy Schwarzenegger head which doesn’t work exactly but works more than you think it would because of Schwarzenegger’s appropriately bland performance. Once the flesh has burned off the robot, it is realized through stop motion and an articulated life-sized puppet. The stop motion is not perfect but it works well enough.

The Terminator, on the cover of Cigar Aficionado.

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SEQUELS

Terminator 2: Judgment Day 1991

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines 2003

Terminator Salvation 2009

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

There a few different version available. I picked up a Terminator/Robocop double feature set at Target for $7.50 that has little in the way of special features (although it does have the original treatment, and two drafts of the screenplay).

The Terminator is also available on Blu-Ray.

Now I know why you bleed.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Ex Games: The Ongoing Plastic Guitar Wars Saga

At first I had zero interest in any of the Guitar Hero games. They reminded me uncomfortably of that Dave Chappelle sketch that showed the effects of guitar music on white people. But then I learned to embrace my inner suburban white boy and actually got into them. The influence of these games is undeniable and there is no doubt that they have been a significant boost to the flagging recording industry as well as repopularizing the genres of classic rock, hard rock and heavy metal.

Chappelle's Show

Electric Guitar, Drums or Electric Piano Pt. 1

www.comedycentral.com

Buy Chappelle's Show DVDs

Black Comedy

True Hollywood Story

I picked up Guitar Hero III, which was the first really blockbuster game of the genre. It turns out the people who produced Guitar Heroes I & II split off before part three and formed their own company, Harmonix, which went on to release the competing Rock Band game which came out shortly after. The confusion began which was compounded by the interchangeable guitars.

Rock Band took the basic gameplay of Guitar Hero and expanded it to include vocals, drums and bass. Game over, right? Not so fast Hudson, when Guitar Hero IV came out it included the full band set up, as well as the ability to customize your own tracks. Rock Band 2 then came out, and didn't offer too much new but it did let you import almost all of your Rick Band 1 tracks as well as an impressive library of downloadable songs. You could literally have hundreds of songs to choose from.

Then things got more complicated. It seemed there was a new Guitar Hero game every few months, most focusing on bands of middling importance like Aerosmith, Metallica, and Van Halen (WTF!). That's on top of the trio of hand held Guitar Hero games from the Nintendo DS, which are guaranteed to give you carpal tunnel syndrome.

The Rock Band series has taken the slow and steady approach, perhaps realizing that the music game craze could easily become a fad in a market that Activision is over saturating with their Guitar Hero games. They have recently released their third entry to the series: Beatles Rock Band, which is a stylish and lovingly produced game that focuses solely on the Fab Four. If you are going to make a game devoted to one band, then you can't go wrong basing it on what is arguably the greatest rock/pop band in history. The Beatles are easily worth ten Aerosmiths, Metallicas, Van Halens, Oasises, and whoever else they are thinking about making a game around.

Very well done, Harmonix! Of course, having said that they have a game coming out called Lego Rock Band. Meh.

Well, now I have seen everything.

And that's not to ignore the recent release of Activision's DJ Hero, which takes the music game into a whole new direction and explores a totally different genre of music than the guitar rock that these games have been focusing on.

Here's what I'd like to see in the inevitable slew of music games that are on their way out:

*Someone needs to make a game based on The Rolling Stones. I will buy it. And love it.

*Lets open this up to more genres: How bout an R&B track pack, or Latin Rock? I am willing to smoke lots of cigarettes and get kicked in the throat to sound like Alejandro Sanz.

*Artists, you need to stop being uptight about these games. They allow a whole new generation of people to get into your music. I'm looking at you Prince, U2 and Led Zepplin.

*Salsa Hero? Anyone?

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Monster Movie of the Week: King Kong Vs. Godzilla (1962)

King Kong Vs. Godzilla (1962)

Director: Ichiro Honda

Genre: Daikaiju eiga

THE MOVIE:

Almost immediately after the original Gojira, Toho studios prepped a sequel which is known here as Godzilla Raids Again, in which Godzilla tangled with his first monster opponent, Anguirus. The movie was not particularly well received and the King of the Monsters was given his first of many retirements, during which Toho developed a stable of other giant monsters such as Rodan, Mothra and Varan who starred in their own movies.

That's messed up. You just don't do that.

Meanwhile, in the US, King Kong special effects director Willis O’Brien was shopping around ideas for new Kong movie and caught the interest of Toho Studios, who opted to produce the film and bring Godzilla out of retirement to battle Kong in a kind of “event” movie. You'll notice that despite the fact that this is a Japanese movie, Godzilla gets second billing to Kong which is both a testament to the popularity of King Kong in Japan at the time and to the fact that Godzilla had been out of the limelight for a while with only one successful film to his name, eight years earlier. This was definitely a comeback for Godzilla.

Toho gives this movie the same kind of lush and colorful production that distinguished Mothra the year before and it continues a winning streak that would continue with the Toho's next kaiju movie, Godzilla vs. Mothra. It also marks the first time either Kong or Godzilla appeared in a color movie. To date, King Kong Vs. Godzilla remains the most popular of all of Godzilla’s movies at the Japanese box office and without its success there would likely been no ‘60’s and ‘70’s Showa Godzilla series. It also introduced a lighter tone to the series that would come to dominate the Godzilla movies of that era.

As with the original Gojira, this movie was heavily re-edited for American audiences, although not as audaciously as in the original. The American cut of the movie inserts a lot of hilariously-expositional UN newscasters who are following the “situation” via a large wire-suspended satellite that resembles a roulette wheel (are these the same miracle wires that they use to suspend Kong from the balloons later in the movie?)

Godzilla challenges King Kong to take back what he had said about his mama.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS:

Godzilla gets a make-over in what is one of the best suits of the early movies and one that seems an ancestor to the later Godzilla 2000 suit. The ’62 suit looks evil and reptilian (at least from the side.) Kong, however, is very different from his appearance in his original movie in which he was realized as a stop motion puppet. Here, he’s a guy in a bad gorilla suit. The face is inexpressive, except in certain shots when a crappy hand puppet is used.

Most of the effects are pretty primitive and there is plenty of really terrible blue screening. There are some really good shots of a giant octopus that had me wracking my brain thinking “That looks so real. How did they do that?” Being the CGI whore that I am, it didn’t occur to me that they simply filmed an octopus on a miniature set, which questions all of my assumptions about octopus biology.

His lunch money stolen, Kong goes into a wild rage.

Honestly, I find many of the Showa Godzilla films a little tough to sit through what with the primitive special effects, the annoyingly light tone, and plots that are ridiculous even for movies about giant monsters. King Kong vs. Godzilla isn’t as annoying as say, Godzilla vs. Megalon (1972) but it’s not as cheesily entertaining either. But King Kong vs. Godzilla is remarkable for its historic importance and cross-cultural impact.

MONSTERS FEATURED:

Godzilla

King Kong

Giant Octopus

DVD AVAILABILITY:

The American version is available in a bare-bones DVD. The Japanese version can be ordered in a region free DVD.

Don't call it a comeback.

SEQUELS:

Godzilla continued in: Godzilla Vs. Mothra (1964) Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster (1964) Invasion of the Astro Monster (1965) and many others.

King Kong had one more Toho film:

King Kong Escapes (1967)

TRAILER

SEE ALSO:

Alien Vs. Predator (2004) Godzilla Vs. Mothra (1964)

TRIVIA:

In order to have Kong and Godzilla fight, Toho had to inflate King Kong’s size dramatically. Originally King Kong was between twenty and thirty feet tall whereas Godzilla is normally depicted anywhere between 150 and 300 feet tall.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Bonus Monster Movie of the Week: Jaws (1975)

JAWS (1975)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Genre: Nautical Horror

THE MOVIE

While there were hit movies in the 70’s such as The Exorcist and The Godfather, 1975’s Jaws was a phenomenon unto itself and-for better or worse-helped to create the summer blockbuster mentality that rules Hollywood. However, unlike many of today’s blockbusters, which are produced via corporate committee and probably some sort of Hollywood supercomputer that calculates which star will appeal to what demographic to put in which vehicle that remakes or relaunches which franchise resulting in X amount of dollars at opening and X percent of drop off on the second weekend and X number of DVD units sold, Jaws comes from a relatively unsophisticated time in terms of movie marketing. Certainly, it was an adaptation of a best selling novel and there were certain expectations of it in terms of box office performance, but you don’t get the idea that was conceived from the ground up as an exercise in making revenue. The movie retains some of the characteristic 1970’s auteurism, and is heavy on character and suspense and light on special effects and frenetic editing. Compared to today’s popcorn movies, it is very slow moving and offers a typically cynical post-Watergate commentary on government and authority, although in this case said government is extremely local.

Jaws tells the story of a small Mid-Atlantic beach community plagued by a Great White shark and the town’s new police chief’s attempts to protect the people from the ocean predator. The problem is compounded by the fact that the town is economically dependent on the beaches and the powers that be are trying their best to downplay and deny the shark’s existence. Ultimately Sheriff Brody teams up with a grizzled fisherman and a young marine biologist to track down and kill the shark. There are lots of good and quirky performances such as Roy Scheider as an a hydrophobic New York cop who moved his family to a small island community to “make a difference.” Robert Shaw steals many scenes as Quinn, a veteran of the infamous U.S.S. Indianapolis, which sank in shark infested waters during the Second World War.

A very young Richard Dreyfuss plays Matt Hooper, a wealthy shark expert who uses a lot of (at the time) high tech equipment. The last quarter of the movie is the three of these characters at sea attempting to track and kill the shark. There is a lot of tension built into the story between Quinn and Hooper, with Quinn relying on almost 19th Century technology and Hooper representing a newer, 20th Century way of exploring the sea.

If the movie were made today, it would be George Clooney, Keanu Reeves and Ryan Reynolds.

Jaws also launched the career of a young Steven Spielberg who had prior to this movie only made Sugarland Express and the TV movie Duel about a motorist plagued by a monstrous semi truck on an abandoned stretch of highway which actually shares some thematic similarity with Jaws. After Jaws, Spielberg went on to such classics as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. He has gone on to win an Academy Award for his work on Schindler’s List and is one of America’s most respected motion picture directors as well as one of the most popular.

On a personal note, although Jaws was released a few months prior to my birth, it was a movie that I grew up with thanks to being part of the first home video generation. As odd as it may seem, there was time not too long ago when there were no DVDs or even video cassettes and if you wanted to see a movie you had to either go see it in the theater or catch it on a TV broadcast. In the early 1980’s this all changed drastically with the affordability of VCRs and the ability to rent movies or tape them off TV or later premium cable channels (until the mid 1990’s it was still prohibitively expensive for most people to buy a video of a movie as most “official” videos of movies cost anywhere from $75-$125 a pop. They eventually started releasing selected hit movies on VHS at an affordable price and when DVD became the standard now all movies are released at an “ownable” price point). Jaws was a movie that was on heavy rotation in my household when I was growing up and consequently I pretty much know it by heart (along with Rocky, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, and The Godfather) so it was weird and bittersweet for me to pop in a DVD of this movie and watch it after not having seen it for fifteen years or so.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

Another hallmark of when this movie was made and another reason that it earns my respek is that the monster is basically a realistically proportioned shark. It is estimated by one of the characters to be about 25 feet long, which is large but not impossible. If they were to make this movie today, the shark would be at least 100 feet long and probably some kind of mutant. As a matter of fact, there has been a movie in development hell since the 1990’s by the name of Meg based on a novel-or rather a screenplay disguised as a novel-that would be a de facto Jaws update. Meg features a giant prehistoric shark that literally eats a tyrannosaur in one bite in the novel’s prologue. This gives you a pretty good idea what a contemporary Jaws would be: lots of showy effects and a creature bigger and more spectacular than anything we’ve seen before: The American Godzilla syndrome in full force.

Who are you calling a son of a bitch?

Spielberg’s movie on the other hand barely shows you the shark until the end but it’s presence is felt through out the whole movie, whether it is seen or not. I won’t pretend this is due solely to artistic reasons or an attempt to be Hitchcockian. After all, Steven Spielberg has given us plenty of visual excess in his long career. Anyone who knows anything about this troubled production knows that the animatronic shark didn’t work half the time and the filmmakers had to work and edit around it. Spielberg repeatedly refers to it in the DVD extras as “The Great White Turd.” But the movie is better and more suspenseful for it.

DVD AVAILABILITY

Widely available as a 2 disc 25th anniversary edition originally released in 2000.

Sadly, not yet on Blu-Ray.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

It’s funny. What I remember most about the movie are the little mundane details that have absolutely nothing to do with the shark. Spielberg’s early movies have this great ability to capture detail of life in the 70’s and 80’s, especially regarding child life. I love the little scene in this movie where Brody and his younger son are mimicking one another’s faces. It is a short little scene with no dialogue but it is so evocative of a small boy’s world. Spielberg was a master of capturing these kinds of little moments and details.

I also love Roy Scheider getting slapped by the woman in the veil.

And the girl who yells, "Sh-shark!"

Also, this movie features one of my favorite clichés in which the Hero Studies a Well Illustrated Book about the monster he will later face.

SEQUELS

There are three sequels to Jaws each one more improbable and of worse quality than the last one. Although, Jaws 2 was pretty good.

ORIGINAL TRAILER

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Politics and the Prequels: Episode II

By the time we get to Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, set ten years after the events of The Phantom Menace, the political crisis started in the previous film has now become a full-fledged secession movement known as the Confederation of Independent Systems. Thousands of planetary systems are leaving the Republic under the leadership of an ex-Jedi Master known as Count Dooku, secretly a Sith Apprentice working with Darth Siddous/Palpatine.

The movement is supported by a conglomeration of corporate entities with names like The Banking Clan, The Techno Union, and the Commerce Guild as well as the Trade Federation from Episode I. These groups have all been chafing under the taxation and regulation of the Republic, under the leadership of Chancellor Palpatine, who is deftly using all the powers at his disposal to arrange things in a way the leads to a giant war. It may at first seem that The Phantom Menace has little to do with the other two movies in the trilogy as it takes place so far before them but the political climate in the previous movie sets the stage for the breakout of the Clone Wars in Attack of the Clones.

They are defending freedom! Or attacking it! Either way, support them!

The Jedi, having grudgingly accepted the return of the Sith toward the end of the last movie, are no closer to identifying the Sith Lord hiding right under their noses. The fact that the CIS is lead by an ex-Jedi is no doubt a great embarrassment to them, although at the beginning of the movie they (again) wrongly believe that Dooku is just a "political idealist." The de facto rulers of the Jedi Council, Yoda and Mace Windu, later on discuss that the presence of the Sith is diminishing their collective powers and that they must keep this from the Senate. Here we see the Jedi defensive and their secretive and autocratic streak is revealed.

Ethically ambiguous, we are.

The Jedi never state what powers are being diminished and it seems curious as the movie is filled with Jedi doing amazing things. The power that Windu refers to I believe is the power of foresight or precognition. This is Siddious's greatest ability, the power to see enough into the future to see what needs to be done at a given time to reach the desired goals. It's a power that the Jedi perhaps never get the hang of. "Always in motion the future is," Yoda years later would complain to Luke Skywalker whereas the Emperor Palaptine of the same era seems supremely confident of his abilities to see the future ("I have foreseen it!")

An assassination attempt on now-Senator Amadala of Naboo brings her once again face to face with Obi-Wan Kenobi and his restless apprentice, Anakin Skywalker. There is an immediate attraction between Skywalker and Amadala, despite the fact that these sort of romantic entanglements are against the "Jedi Code." Kenobi warns him against trusting her, as she is "a politician." And he astutely observes that Chancellor Palpatine is good at manipulating the Senate. It seems everyone is cynical about politics in a galaxy far, far away.

Skywalker is ordered by the Chancellor to protect Amadala as she flees to her own planet despite the fact that she is dead set on voting against the upcoming "Military Creation Act" that would give the Republic a standing army. Anakin and Amadala spend a lot of time exploring their feelings for one another on Naboo. The two discuss politics and romance and Anakin voices his disgust with the corruption of the Senate and describes a dictatorship as the ideal form of government. A dictatorship run by "someone wise." This is one of the best and most illuminating exchanges in the whole movie, unfortunately buried in one of the worst scenes in all six movies.

This scene reveals Anakin's fatal character flaw: He is unable to deal with subtleties and fine distinctions. People have said that based on his portrayal and the way that the character is written that he is stupid but what if that is his tragic flaw? What if he is supremely powerful and good but unfortunately just not that bright? Personally, I think that is a really interesting (and realistic) combination of traits. How often to you really see a stupid hero? Villains are frequently presented as stupid but almost never heroes and he certainly does a lot of stupid things in the following movie.

She's with stupid.

His intentions are good. After what has already been established of politics in the Star Wars galaxy, he is absolutely right to be upset with the Senate but if he could, he would force his idea of the "right" thing upon everyone. How much of this is his own arrogance and how much has been fostered by the Jedi Order? Despite the fact that they are sworn to protect the government, they don't seem to have much respect for it (perhaps rightly so). In the next film we see them all but ready to take over when they have decided they've had enough of Palpatine. After Episode III, and the famous "Only Sith deal in absolutes!" line people began comparing Anakin to George W. Bush but I think the comparison starts here. Attack of the Clones is, remember, the first post 911 Star Wars movie.

Ah, remember those days?

Obi-Wan, meanwhile, has traced the Senator's attacker to the planet Kamino (Camino=Path, in Spanish) where he discovers a secret army of clones grown for the Republic on the orders of a deceased Jedi Master. Interestingly, Obi-Wan (nor any of the other Jedi) does not seem bothered by the idea of genetically altered human beings mass produced in a factory to fight in a war. I would think this would be against the Jedi Code but apparently it is not. The Jedi are very particular about the moral battles in which they engage. Mysteriously, the clones are all grown from DNA of Amadala's attacker, the bounty hunter, Jango Fett.

And nobody has a problem with this?

Following a force-vision of his mother in danger, Anakin and Amadala return to Tatooine, Anakin's home world. When he finally locates his mother, she has been captured and tortured by a native group on the planet. In his rage, Anakin slaughters the entire tribe and takes his first real step toward the Dark Side. He vows never to lose anyone like that again and his obsession with protecting those he loves will take him the rest of the way to the dark side.

"Around the survivors, a perimeter form must you," Yoda, giving concise military instructions.

Obi-Wan has followed Jango Fett to the Planet Geonosis (Based on the Biblical Genesis?) where an army of robots is being manufactured and a meeting between Count Dooku and the backing organizations of the CIS is taking place. In a telling line cut from the final movie, Dooku promises the organizations "unrestricted capitalism," continuing the theme from Episode I of the evil using the greedy to their own ends. So if the CIS represents "unrestricted capitalism" then does that mean the Republic represents regulated socialism? While transmitting his findings to the Jedi Council, Obi-Wan is captured. Anakin, Amadala, the Jedi, and their new army of clones all converge upon the planet and do battle with CIS and their droid army. Thus begins the Clone Wars.

One of the great things about the prequels is that the concept of the "good guys" and the "bad guys" is very nebulous. There are only a couple of characters that we can support as "heroes" without reservations (Obi-Wan and Padme never let us down). Although the Jedi as a whole are superficially presented as heroic characters, they are deeply flawed. As viewers, we are meant to sympathize with the Republic and not the Confederation but the Republic is controlled by the most evil character in the movies. What about the clones? Should we support these troops even though they so closely resemble the evil Stormtroopers of the Original Trilogy?

This ambiguity even applies to the movie's title, arguably the worst of all six movies. To attack usually has a negative connotation, yet it seems the only thing attacked by the clones in this movie are the "evil" Separatists, who in some ways seem analogous to the heroic Rebels in the classic movies. Are we supposed to suddenly jump to the CIS point-of-view to appreciate that title? In the larger and more metaphoric sense, what the clones are attacking is the peaceful Republic that had existed up until this point. What they represent is an attack on ideals.

Does anyone know of a good Queensryche song to play over this scene?

By the end of the movie Anakin and Amadala are married in secret. Siddious has succeeded in dividing Anakin from the rest of the Jedi as Anakin now has something to lose which can be manipulated to control him, which makes one wonder if the kidnapping of his motheer was somehow engineered to happen. We also see a meeting between Dooku and Siddious that formalized their association. The Clone Wars will now be an enormous chess match between the two that will allow Siddious to assume more executive powers and also thin the ranks of the Jedi who will now be Generals in the war until his end game is ready to be played.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Monster Movie of the Week: Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)

THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF if you read this before seeing the movie it may impair your enjoyment of the film.

Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)

Director: Christophe Gans

Genre: Period/Martial Arts/Monster-on-the-loose

THE MOVIE

The 2001 French movie, Brotherhood of the Wolf is a genre bending mix of period intrigue, martial arts and horror. It is actually based on a real-life historical cryptid, The Beast of Gevaudan which supposedly terrorized the French countryside in the 18th Century. In the movie, a pair of investigators are sent from Paris. One is a famous naturalist, the other is an American Indian. Inexplicably, both know all kinds of martial arts.

There are lots of twists along the way and the monster is fairly secondary to the overall story which involves a religious cult. Despite its title and very familiar set up, this is not the werewolf movie which you might be expecting. Brotherhood of the Wolf is very good at turning genre conventions on their heads and taking sharp turns every time you think you have it pegged down. The monster and its nature are much more bizarre than you would think. If you are the kind of viewer who needs to have your movies all figured out while you are watching them or, if you like your genres neat and self-contained, this may bother you.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

The Beast is a unique and interesting movie monster and his true nature keeps you guessing throughout the movie. It is strongly suggested that he is a lion that was brought back from Africa and trained by the film's villain to terrorize the countryside and empower the church which is suffering from waning influence in this Age of Enlightenment. The Beast is outfitted with a kind of armored suit that seems to be permanently attached to its body. His claws and teeth have been augmented with blades and the creature is barely recognizable for what it actually is.

The Beast is a great monster because he is also very tragic. He was animal that was taken out of his environment and warped by human cruelty and bound to a painful armor. Like many great monsters from literature and film it is ultimately a pathetic creature that lives a tortured existence. In a genuinely sad moment, he is shown a small measure of kindness before he is put down.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE:

Mark Dacascos' Indian forest ninja rampage.

HOME VIDEO:

Several versions on DVD. Avoid the Director's Cut, the movie is already a bit too long as it is and the DC doesn't warrant the extra length.

Not yet on BluRay.

SEE ALSO:

There is really nothing else like this movie but you can try Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow (1999) which has a similar set up and and is set in a similar time period.

THE TRAILER: