What I've Seen So Far in 2021

I thought I'd do another of those Things I Watched Recently posts while we're at the midpoint of the year.

Let's start with the most recent to be released and work backwards. 

(2020)

Rachel Flynn, a newly divorced single mother, honks at the wrong truck during rush hour, and her life unravels as its mentally unstable driver singles her out as an avatar for all the world's wrongs.

Not bad from what I could tell. I'm not going to lie - I spent at least a half hour of this exploring aloud the comedic possibilities of Chow Yun Fat in the role and the different ways that could change the poster. ("Fat. Unhinged.") Or casting Crowe as Fat. ("Russell Crowe is Fat.") This also led to the creation of a portly potential Kickapoo detective, investigating crimes up and down the pre-Columbian Mississippi, "Fat Crow."

And so on. I don't give you the above because I think any of it is particularly funny - if anything, you probably just put an asterisk next to my name in your head - just explaining how I missed a good chunk of the film being an idiot. I liked everything else I saw. Crowe's a great actor, no surprise there, and good stuff from Caren Pistorius and the kid. (And there's a McPoyle appearance, as well!)

Another movie it reminded me of was Falling Down, or a a less-stupid Falling Down, I should say. To be honest, what it really reminded me of was an unproduced script by Bryan McMillan called Age of the Dinosaurs ("It's the age of the dinosaurs / because we run on gasoline" - Talking Heads) about a mentally unbalanced man who loses his job and randomly targets a mom and her daughter in traffic because they cut him off, ending in a huge car pile up/ riot on Rte 128 outside of Boston. 

I'm not saying it was a good script, just happy to see the idea work on screen the way I always knew it would.

(2015)

An employee of an international water systems firm arrives to his new position in an unidentified southeast Asian country seventeen hours before a coup that puts him and his family in immediate danger.   

My wife liked this one because the kids were realistic. This kept the tension up considerably - I can attest to her literally being on the edge of her seat and full-on talking to the characters mode. (Everytime I left the room for something I thought she was talking after me and turn back, but nope, she was talking to the characters on the screen again.) Engaged 100%.

I liked it, too, and I thought several scenes were staged quite well. The "messaging" of it all was conveniently vague (i.e. “foreign control of water systems” not to mention “unidentified southeastern Asian country,” but it ends with friendly Vietnamese border guards. There’s only a handful of countries that surround Vietnam, so... I know, I know, just a metaphor. Some metaphors rely only on one narrative stack of cards, though.

Not that that's a problem - hey, make whatever points you want to make, just make one story or the other, perhaps. I liked the action thriller one quite a bit, the Confessions of an Economic Hit Man one a little less. 

I agree with my wife about the kids, though. The distance between getting kids right and not can make or break something for sure.

(1997)

There was another island!
Eventually there’s a T-Rex in San Diego, too.

I saw this one in the theater and loved it. Subsequent viewings tempered my appreciation, but I still like it. This was the opposite of my reactions to the first one which I thought was overrated at the time of its release and grew to love. I never felt the need to own either of them, or see the third or recent re-imaginings. Last month, however, there was a crazy Wal-Mart sale for all five Jurassic Park movies on DVD for like $10. (A similar crazy Wal-Mart sale will be coming up later in the post). I remembered that my kids and I watched the first two movies last summer, and they asked me to rent them again fairly recently. I did some quick math and boom: now everyone is (temporarily) happy. I’m kind of amazed they like these things, but never underestimate the power of dinosaurs I guess. Still, they ask me to skip through a lot of parts.

And this is a movie that lends itself well to that. I think certain stretches of it are fantastic (I’m partial to the cold opener, the velociraptor slaughter in the long grass, the gymnast daughter’s (Vanessa Lee Chester) completely cheesy but kind of awesome role in the first place fight and that whole sequence actually, and everything in San Diego) and the rest of it is overdone. There are perhaps five characters too many. Julianne Moore just can't sell certain crucial depths as an actress. A limited range; within that range she's fine. Outside of it, she's a distraction. (Millions disagree. So it goes.) 

Beautiful to look at, and it’s still Spielberg, and still John Williams, and still Janusz Kaminski, so there’s plenty to keep the eye and brain happily occupied.

(1990)

Drifter Harry Maddox takes a job as a used car salesman so he can stake out a bank he intends to rob. Hunted by the law, his boss, and a William Sadler gone-desert-country, Harry falls into a naughty Betty and Veronica triangle of lust, blackmail, and murder.

Here's a desert noir that was on cable all the time in 1991 or so. Which makes sense for cable at that time. The amount of nudity and sex in the movie - particularly for famously good-looking people in the prime of their youth - is somewhat shocking. Some subsequent reading informs me that the cast maybe wasn't so thrilled about that part. 

Me, I agree more with Roger Ebert. "Only movie lovers who have marinated their imaginations in the great B movies from RKO and Republic will recognize The Hot Spot as a superior work in an old tradition." I don't know if I'm one of those people, but I've seen an awful lot of noir and it felt true to the genre through and through. A lot of noir is about disreputable people who are brought down by a mix of their weaknesses and their conscience; their willingness to transcend norms makes them exciting but dooms them. Here, Don Johnson's character is denied redemption / escape he has sacrificed much of his integrity to arrange, but the film ends with him a kept man, driving off with Virginia Madsen's character, a noirish "happy ever after" that I thought to be a good take on the idea of his getting his comeuppance. 

Dennis Hopper is an interesting director. Putting aside the themes and what not, it's just a beautiful movie to look at, not just the nudity parts (and again, it's kind of amazing how much nudity they crammed into this movie) but every aspect of its production design. I know Hopper was an accomplished photographer, although I've never really checked out his work outside of what I've seen here or there in a magazine or on the web.

Keep an eye out for a young Leon Rippy as one of the deputies. I don't know which lead lights more cigarettes on screen, Robert DeNiro in Casino or Don Johnson here. It's something, though. 

(1985)

A naked alien almost conquers Earth because she’s incredibly naked and it’s very distracting. Before anyone can get a grip on themselves, things get very weird.

Over to The Truth Inside the Lie for this one:

"This movie is nuts-and-bugshit gumbo, y'all.  I fucking loved it.  I think it may be an awful movie, but I'm honestly too knocked out by having enjoyed it to say for sure.  Hooper once described it as a seventy-millimeter Hammer film, and that's about right, I reckon.  It looks like it was a big-budget affair (though it does not always feel like it); I can easily imagine somebody remaking it and foolishly spending $300 million on it. (...) If you've seen anything from it, there's a pretty good chance you've seen images of Mathilda May, who plays the lead space vampire. 

Mathilda May in Lifeforce is change-your-life attractive, man; if she were to be kidnapped from Troy, count on a war breaking out.  She's about as nude in this movie as I know of anyone ever being who isn't a porn star or Eva Green, and I sincerely mean this when I say that her body is a work of art that deserves to be archived for the benefit of future ages of mankind.  I do and don't mean this salaciously; as a straight man, it's impossible for me not to have prurient interest in what's on screen here, but I do also mean it simply as a matter of aesthetic appreciation.

People like her are why statues were invented, so if nothing else, I think she should be proud of the truly exceptional level of beauty she displayed in this ridiculous movie.  I'd add that she's pretty good otherwise, as well; she's got a layer of menace on top of the allure that helps the movie out considerably.

The score, the direction, the cinematography, all great. It's a great 80s flick more than it's a great flick, although I lack the focus to truly hammer that observation into shape at the moment. “

Me neither/ me too. As a kid I was never able to follow this one. And while I certainly recognized Mathilda May was attractive, I was just pre-pubescent enough to not have this lodge in mind as one of those eternal callbacks. Anyway, the structure is perhaps a bit odd, but it's really not that hard to follow. Not sure why it threw me so, as a kid.

Based on The Space Vampires by Colin Wilson and featuring one of Henry Mancini's last scores. 

(1979)

The crew of the Nostromo picks up what appears to be some kind of radio signal from a desolate moon. When they investigate, an alien parasite of some kind attaches itself to one of the crew’s face, leading to his and several others’ deaths.

I watched Aliens not too long ago - what a great movie that is - but hadn't seen the original in a long time. Dawn wanted to watch it, so hey: no time like the then-present.

I wonder if this movie would strike a chord with an audience now. I know this is the kind of thing that's impossible to really work out. Because Alien struck a chord with audiences in 1979, a lot of subsequent films were done the way they were done, and those films inspired and influenced still more films, yadda yadda. But still, I don't think this would be a hit in 2021. No good reason why it shouldn't be - slow burn horror films are actually quite popular these days - but just a feeling.

I tell you: watching it really made me dislike Prometheus more than I already did. There's a movie that has not sat well in my post-watch reckoning at all. I also have not seen Alien 3 in awhile - I kind of lost track/ interest in the franchise - but the original trilogy is pretty original, I thought. Prometheus is not. Perhaps it's just the Lindelof factor. 

Anyway, Alien's pace is brutal, really. It's almost all atmosphere, which is certainly enough to sustain everything; has anything ever looked and felt as barren and mysterious as LV-426 (unnamed in this first one)? So I'm not saying it doesn't hold up. It's a classic over and over again for many reasons, but not in my personal top five of Ridley Scott films. 

(1976)
This poster is unfortunate. Makes it look like an 80s sex comedy, which is not accurate at all.

Rick Carlson (Sam Elliot) is a thirty-two year old lifeguard. He reflects on his ambitions and other existential questions over the summer leading up to his fifteen year high school reunion.

Speaking of films that wouldn't be a hit - or even made - today... actually, I don't think this was a hit at the time it came out, either. I don't know if anyone ever recommended it to me or if I read about it in too many places. 

And that's too damn bad, as this is a great movie. Here's the sexually liberated male looking back at things in the wake of his liberation from previous norms - did he just trade gilded cages? What are the costs and trade-offs? At what price one's soul and all of these things.

The romance (if you can call it that, but you really can, which is part of the uncomfortable part) between the lifeguard and Wendy, the seventeen year old who has a crush on him, is fascinating. And very uncomfortably true to life. As is the lifeguards laughing and watching (and reminiscing on their own such hi-jinks) any number of things that would be classified as sexual assaults today. Nevertheless it defies easy characterization. It's neither a rationalization nor a condemnation, like a sun-kissed, less crazy Taxi Driver. (Kind of amusing to contrast the two endings, as well.) 

Also starring Anne Archer.

Good performances all around and definitely worth checking out. Don't let the ridiculous poster throw you. 

(1976)

Driven slowly mad by the bumbling failing upwards of his former charge Inspector Clouseau, former Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus escapes the insane asylum and goes full super-villain, holding the world hostage with his Doomsday Machine. 

What can be said. I will never tire of this movie. Start to finish delightful. One perfect set piece after another - this whole sequence is one rolling LOL from me from start to finish - dragging us along on its politically incorrect crash course behind it. 

That slowed-down Cato/Clouseau battle cry will never not be funny.

aka Lady Cocoa (1975)

A woman is released from jail to testify against her former flame.

I got this as part of a 7-film collection. Wal-Mart strikes again. 

It's not very good, I'm sorry to say. Lola Falana should have been a bigger deal. 

One could get the idea from some of these posters and write-ups I'm some salacious perv. Guilty as charged, probably, but FWIW I mean none of this in a leering way. Pssst - sexy people sell movies. 

(1974)

Having cut corners to open the biggest luxury building ever built ahead of schedule, an electrical fire on the eighty-first floor threatens both the distinguished guests in the Promenade Room on the one-hundred-thirty-fifth floor and the firefighters and emergency workers assembled to fight it from below, above, and adjacent buildings.

I love this movie in all its overwrought glory. There's really not much to say about it. If you subscribe to the theory that the sixties were the true peak of Yankee Power, every scene and broad character sketch is imbued with a certain slow-nodding je-ne-sais-quois. (Except it's fairly sais-quois-able.) If someone used this to describe the end of America, it'd satisfy just about every "end of America" justification anyone could give.

I'm a sucker for this type of thing. Not just the symbolism-friendly disaster/ man vs. scenario set-up, not just the doomed-self-sacrifice, not just the hubris, but the blend of it all, given the big budget, big cast treatment. Paul Newman as the square-jawed idealist thwarted by big bucks capitalism, Steve McQueen as the no-nonsense fire chief willing to call in an air strike on his own position, and so on, through William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Robert Wagner, Richard Chamberlain, and all the rest, equally tropish. Even OJ Simpson gets to save a kitten.

Jennifer Jones' death in this scene affected me more than just about any cinematic death I've ever seen. I still am shocked when I see it. (Needless to say this was a big VHS movie of my youth.)

(1974)

Diana  "TNT" Jackson goes to Hong Kong in search of her missing brother.

This one's from the eponymous collection aforementioned. It's a bit better than Lady Cocoa and has plenty of fun fake kung-fu. Jeanne Bell and Stan Shaw carry the film agreeably enough. 

Co-written by Dick Miller. Or originally written; Roger Corman had it rewritten so who knows what remains. The script isn’t that important either way, I mean come on. It’s no Supercop.

(1972)

Dr. Amusa, a United Nations representative for a newly created nation, hires Dortmunder, a recently paroled professional thief, to help steal a diamond that was once taken from his people. Dortmunder and his crew do, but the diamond changes hands several more times.

Here's one of those movies you see that are conspicuously great and then think good lord, have I just never heard of this before? When I was reading Double Feature by Donald E. Westlake a friend put this on my radar just by mentioning it was one of the few movies made from a Westlake book (something that seems ridiculous, by the by - every book the guy wrote would make a great movie and/or ongoing TV show). Then I watched it and thought, wow, what? Robert Redford? George Segal? Long shots of helicopters weaving in and out of the Brooklyn skyline? This is a very well made movie with big-time actors and lots of first class production design. It's awesome, from an awesome era of awesome movies - why on earth is this not talked about the same way (seriously) as something like The Godfather or The Sting, even? 

I asked my friend Paul - one of those guys who has an answer, and a good one, for any question put to him - if there was some reason for this. He tells me the movie was made by a music company (Landers-Roberts, which had been part of Dunhill Records with Lou Adler before setting up Mums Records) that folded, so the film never got promoted or re-enforced in those days of payola and word of mouth, it never found the audience it deserved. Apparently the same company held the option for Death Wish and put the film together but then had to sell it to meet other obligations. 

Too bad. It's odd it's not been rediscovered though. This movie is brilliant fun. It reminded me a bit of Quick Change, another movie about a group of New York criminals, though that one is played more for laughs. Still, when you watch Quick Change, part of you is thinking "How on earth did they get this cast together for this amount of location shooting? This must have cost a fortune..." If for no other reason, let these films be remembered as the marvels of economy in production cost they were.

Afghanistan Banana Stand is a hypnosis trigger-word in a key scene, and it reminded me of one of George Bluth Sr.'s mantras. ("There's always money in..." )

(1971)

A Sino-Soviet war results in a biological warfare catastrophe, killing billions and turning more into a cult of albino mutants. U.S. Army Col. Robert Neville, M.D.,  injects himself with an experimental vaccine that renders him immune, and does battle with the mutants who seek to crucify him for the old world’s sins. Which they do, puncturing his side with a spear even, but not before his life-giving blood can usher in a new age.

"How's your ass, brother?" 

(Not quite the line, I discovered this time around. I've been saying it wrong for years.)

Here's a film I've been watching every few years since I first saw it at the Lake Chiemsee campground in 1985 or so. My Dad took my brother and me. As a kid I always enjoyed seeing films either of my parents said they liked. It made the past come alive to me. I talk to people who don't routinely watch old movies, and they all seem to lack this experience in their early childhoods. Parents: show your kids the movies you love, FFS. It has positive downstream effect.

Unless the only movies you like are things like Cannibal Holocaust. Then okay, wait til they're in junior high at least. 

Anyway, this one maybe doesn't hold up too well? It's kind of a mess in a lot of ways, and Charlton gives a bit of an erratic performance. Or maybe it's the script. Do I care? Not one iota of a rat's patootie. I love this goddamn movie in all its goddamn gospel-redux glory. 

I'm sure it will be denounced and purged someday, if it has not already. I Am Legend is, in my mind, the lesser of the two adaptations of the source material. Wait there was one more, with Vincent Price. Possibly even more at this point, I have no idea. Anyway, you can keep all of them, and I'll keep The Omega Man. This one achieves a sort of 70s dystopian glory unique to its era. Right place, right time. 

Remember when Charlton Heston was on Whoopi's talk show in the 90s and, reminiscing on the interracial kiss between himself and Rosalind Cash, he leaned over and kissed her? These days that would be racist sexual assault. Thankfully we live in such enlightened times. Makes you want to hole up in Edwardian style in some penthouse, play chess with department store dummies, fill the sprinklers with gasoline, and get a rifle with a night scope.

(I mean the movie, people! It's from the movie.) 

(1968)

Taylor, an astronaut from 1972, and his crew awaken from deep hibernation after a hyper-light voyage. They land on a planet where apes are the dominant species and humans are sub-vocal, feral, and foraging. Taylor is placed aside for medical experimentation and learns of the ape theocracy. His crewmates killed or lobotomized, Taylor makes his way into the forbidden zone, where he makes troubling discoveries.

Yet another perennial candidate for the best movie ever made. I’ve read the Boulle book on which it’s based and enjoyed it, but it does not have the gestalt of the film for me. Nor do any of the remakes, or sequels. There’s some sort of objective distance on humanity on display here that is hard to quantify and none of the things you can point to, specifically, do it justice. I could just be a case of the right man adapting it (Rod Serling, who was born to do this sort of thing.) It’s hard to evaluate things like the Statue of Liberty reveal at the end, as they’ve become such a part of the culture. A friend of mine who is a few years older somehow made it to 2021 without ever seeing this or the original Halloween and asked me if he should. I said of course he should, definitely, but the impact of these movies has so diffused through the culture that he’s “seen” them in a dozen other places now. Which should dissuade no one from seeing it. Or any classic. Maybe I’m not making sense.

(I showed my eldest the ending. I explained the set-up and the impact of it all, yadda yadda, but just more to see what her reaction would be. It was “He said so many bad words!” Which is very close to what one of the kids says to Dee in the child pageant episode of Always Sunny, so I laughed twice. She has no idea why I showed her and my second oldest just wanted to know why no one was wearing any clothes.)

“Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil’s pawn.
Alone among God’s primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed.
Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother’s land.
Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours.
Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair,
for he is the harbinger of death.”

Another of the Wal-Mart purchases. I got the five original Apes movies, the five Jurassic Park movies, and ten blaxploitation (so-called) films all for something like $30. Good deal. For comparison, I once paid $30 for the “Best of Both Worlds” two-parter on VHS.

~

That's all, folks. Not included: The Poseidon Adventure (1973), The Silencers (1966), The Band Wagon (1953), and The Sting (1973). Real quick: The Poseidon Adventure, like the Towering Inferno, is an early childhood favorite and I think held up quite well, but it felt like I’d be repeating my already-written comments. That literal-world-upside-down metaphor never worked better, though, than it did here. I intended to link to that "You're going the wrong way, damn it!" scene. Some days, that's the way it goes. The Silencers is one of those films that peaks with the opening credits. 

Those feature Cyd Charisse at the end, to whom TCM was paying tribute last month, I believe. This scene from The Band Wagon has captivated me since I first saw Martin Scorsese call attention to it in his Personal Journey documentaries. Whole movie's masterful, watch it. As is The Sting – holds up wonderfully.