World Fantasy is looming; projects are calling. I’m taking a stern internet break–email, facebook, LJ, lots of stuff will be verboten for a while, except at certain intervals. I’ll still be doing “Films of High Adventure” with Jesse and doing what it is I do for Fantasy, but if I’m slow to get back to anyone or anything, it’s because I have to do this for me. I tend to get caught up in online stuff too frequently–or, as I said to someone recently, I am Eve to the apple of the internet.
LOL, we’ll see how long this lasts. I anticipate full withdrawal symptoms–the shakes, the sweats, the, um, whatever else it is that happens to people in withdrawal. But hopefully the internet will be like cigarettes or something, and after the three-day hump I’ll be feeling OK. Right? RIGHT?
Jesse Bullington and I have decided to embark upon a quest: watching “classic” adventure movies that informed one or both of our childhoods. These columns will run every Wednesday on our blogs, excluding the last post of each month, which will appear over at Fantasy Magazine. This week we re-watched a movie that Wikipedia tells us was awarded the somewhat dubious honor of being “the 7th highest grossing movie since 1980 dealing with the genre of witches.” With a pedigree like that, it can’t be bad–right? RIGHT?!
Film: The Craft (1996)
WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS??? Direction by Andrew Fleming (Dick, Hamlet 2), from a truly odious script by Fleming and Peter Filardi, who wrote Flatliners and TNT’s Salem’s Lot remake. Soundtrack allegedly by Graeme Revell (Pitch Black, Sin City), but mostly it’s Letters to Cleo, Juliana Hatfield, Elastica, and other 90s bands you’d expect to find in such a production (I, Molly, will admit here that I owned a CD by every one of those artists). The teenagers are played by a host of 20-something actors, including Fairuza Balk (Return to Oz, American History X), Robin Tunney (End of Days—the movie where Schwarzenegger fights the devil), Rachel True (Nowhere, Half Baked), Neve Campbell (Scream, the perfectly respectable Wild Things), and Skeet Ulrich (Heh, Chill Factor) and Breckin Meyer (Clueless) as douchey high school dudes.
Quote: “If God and the Devil were playing football, Manon would be the stadium that they played on.”
Alternate quote: Bus driver: “watch out for weirdos, girls.”
Fairuza Balk: “We are the weirdos, mister.”
First viewing by Molly: Lord, I guess. . . 1996 or 1997? Soon after it came out. I remember watching it while lying on the floor of my friend’s bedroom. We had met at drama camp (!) and she decided it was high time I watched more movies about witches and serial killers, thus we watched The Craft and also all the death scenes from Se7en, which I have still yet to see in its entirety.
First viewing by Jesse: Around the time it came out on video—maybe 97? Early high school, probably.
Most recent viewing by both: Last week.
Impact on Molly’s childhood development:Thankfully less than it might have been? I remember thinking it was pretty OK but being underwhelmed by the conclusion, which had far too much of Fairuza Balk’s teeth-baring craziness and the obnoxious rich girl being rewarded for her highly-questionable virtue.
Impact on Jesse’s childhood development: Negligible. I was really excited about the movie when it came out, especially the prospect of Fairuza Balk playing some badass witch wrecking havoc at a Catholic school, but remember being disappointed and never bothered re-watching it.
Random youtube clip that hasn’t been taken down for copyright infringement:
Molly’s thoughts prior to re-watching: EXCITED. All I remembered was gothed-out schoolgirls successfully executing the “light as a feather, stiff as a board” trick and a scene wherein an icky racist blonde girl tells the lone black character that her hair looks like pubes. I had high, high hopes—the sort of hopes that only make the gods laugh and rub their hands together, as it turns out. Also, Jesse has a huge crush on Fairuza Balk and is totally and weirdly embarrassed about that, and so I anticipated teasing him a lot during the screening (Jesse says: I am not, in fact, embarrassed about respecting her work and talent, but I am hurt at the allegation that this appreciation for an actor’s ability and seemingly pretty cool personality stems from a simple “crush.” Which I also have for her). This anticipation was only bolstered by knowing that 10 Things I Hate About You is in no way a candidate for FoHA and thus I was immune from similar taunting regarding Heath Ledger.
Jesse’s thoughts prior to re-watching: Hopeful it would be better the second time around, but not exactly counting on it—the odds that the movie had miraculously altered into a state of not-sucking since my inaugural viewing seemed unlikely.
Molly’s thoughts post-viewing: Shit, this movie sucks. It sucks so, so hard. Harder than any movie about teenage schoolgirl witches has a right to suck because really, who could screw that up? These screenwriters, apparently. I just. . . OK. Pretty much any plot that only works if you believe the old chestnut “Girls! Ha ha! They just don’t get along!!” is stupid and should be called out as such ruthlessly and tirelessly. As Jesse will point out below, the “characters” are all dreadful stereotypes who act the way you’d expect dreadful stereotypes to do, especially when those stereotypes are thrown into a movie so classically sexist and repulsively classist I can’t even speculate as to what the writers must have been thinking. I mean, ok, here’s a brief run-down of the main players in this travesty and what they do with their magic powers:
The Pretty White Rich Girl who tried to commit suicide for no stated reason and likes the Male Lead even though he’s a complete fucking douchebag to her and her friends. When she casts a magic spell it’s to make the Male Lead like her even though. . .yeah. She gets to win at the end because she realizes what she has done is wrong and that she’s better than everyone else by virtue of being pretty, white, and rich. YAY!
The Token Black Girl who is. . . mad. . . about racism? And swims? And. . . is overlooked constantly because the only reason she’s in the movie is to be the Token Black Girl because it was 1996 and they knew they needed one? Her spell is something like “help me resist the hatred of haters” or something and it makes the aforementioned racist blonde girl’s hair fall out. Which in turn makes the swim coach notice Token Black Girl is a good diver? OMG.
The Ugly White Girl who is generally treated as a heinous monster by her classmates because she has a few totally average-looking scars on her shoulders from being burned as a kid. OH NOEZ. Let us note that her face is totally fine—more than, as it is NEVE CAMPBELL—and yet. And yet. All she wants is to be pretty!! ALL SHE WANTS IS TO BE PRETTY. Her spell is, you guessed it, to be pretty, and it makes her burns go away! But once she’s pretty she’s a bitch! Women, amiright?
The Batshit Crazy White Trash Girl who is batshit crazy and white trash. Let me say right now I tried like hell to find a different way of describing Fairuza Balk’s “character” but it’s so obvious the writers were thinking “she’ll be white trash!” as they wrote her that it’s literally impossible to think of her as anything else, as problematic as we all know that term to be (Jesse says: at least Fairuza does what she can with the role, turning a lemon role into a delicious Tom Collins of camp craziness). She (1) lives in a leaky trailer with her (2) wandering-handed wifebeater-wearing stepdad and (3) bleach-blonde mother who gets beat on when she’s uppity and then later-on (4) buys a jukebox with her insurance money and (5) wears a lavender silk pants suit while (6) smoking in her new house. Jesus Tapdancing Christ. Her spell is something like being powerful and stuff I guess? But it mostly just makes. . . a bunch of sharks die? Or something. God. GOD.
The Gypsy Woman Who Owns the Local Witch Emporium and what can I say other than that? Her magic spells are all about nurturing the white girl because the white girl is a “natural witch” of course.
I’m too disheartened to continue this. Honestly, I had to struggle to type anything other than “this movie is stupid” over and over again but I gave up my freebie on Aeon Flux. I had every intention of being amusing and teasing Jesse for crushing on Fairuza Balk but I can’t even (Jesse says: I guess that makes this week my “freebie?”). I’ll just conclude with the ardent wish that I never ever have to think about this movie again because it is enraging me simply to write about it.
Jesse’s thoughts post-viewing: Yup, it’s still terrible. The thing is it could have been awesome, it should have been awesome, and yet it’s not. I suspect the reason for this falls entirely on my gender—I can’t be sure, but I suspect if this movie had been at least co-written by a woman it wouldn’t be so offensively bad.
The reason it pissed me off so much as a teenager, I remembered as we were watching it, is that as an erstwhile outsider I really wanted the teen coven to use their powers to fuck up the jocks and bullies who had been making their lives miserable. That is what this movie should have been about. Instead, we get some of that before, natch, the young women either a) realize that they were too hard on their tormentors, or b) go bugfuck crazy from the power they have gained and turn on each other. Only the rich, pretty white girl maintains perspective, and natch, the rest of the coven— rich black girl, poor white girl, formerly “ugly” white girl—tries to murder her fucking ass. Why? Well, uh, cause they’re crazy? And stuff? You know, like women get when they’re allowed to have too much power without being white and rich, I mean, mature enough to handle it.
As a teenager I felt like my intelligence was being insulted watching this turkey, and the only thing that’s changed is that I can better articulate what makes it so horrible. I’m going to cover some of the same ground as Molly did above, but like a fire marshal investigating arson, just because the earth is scorched doesn’t mean you can’t look closer at it for clues to how the house burned down. What better place to start than with the main character, Pretty White Rich Girl (PWRG)? PWRG thinks Hunky Jerk is cute, so they go on a date—when she doesn’t want to go back to his place he acts like a turd about it, and then tells the school he slept with her and she’s “a bad lay.” When she confronts him he makes fun of her, and the rest of the coven tries to cheer her up by telling her that he does that to girls all the time.
So, what do the male screenwriters think would be a sensible reaction for PWRG? If you guessed “cast a spell to make Hunky Jerk fall in love with her” you win, except we’re talking about this stupid movie so actually you lose just by association. Anyway, the love spell works, and because of this he tries to rape PWRG. Yeah, I know, classy film. So PWRG gets away, tells her coven, and Fairuza Balk’s character, who is poor and therefore incredibly mean and jealous of PWRG, sees an opportunity to try to get with Hunky Jerk. You see, Hunky Jerk also treated Fairuza badly but of course she also still has teh hotz for him because she is a female character in this idiotic film. When he doesn’t want to get with Fairuza she freaks out, because she is also crazy as well as poor and jealous and mean, and she thus uses a glamour spell to make herself look like PWRG, whereupon dry-humping ensues. Blah blah blah, Hunky Jerk is a jerk some more, so Fairuza uses her witch powers to kill him (which, in case you forgot, is what this movie should have been about—Fairuza Balk and company offing or at least punishing high school d-bags). So where do we go from here? Directly to a scene of PWRG crying on her father’s shoulder because she knows Hunky Jerk was good on the inside—that taste in your mouth is bile, just choke it back down.
I can’t even talk about the class trash going on where Fairuza’s character is concerned without getting so pissed off I just started mashing the keys unintelligibly, but trust me when I say her character is handled just as poorly as PWRG and everyone else. What could have been an awesome film about empowerment and solidarity and a cautionary tale for bullies and oppressors instead turns into a disenfranchising pile of garbage where the clear lesson is that seeking to redress the racism, misogyny, and general cruelty of your so-called peers inevitably leads you to corruption, jealousy, and madness. Better to just accept that you’re a freak and accept the abuse than try to fix things, amiright bullied teenage girls? What a fucking terrible, terrible movie.
High Points: Seeing Fairuza Balk enroll at the Hammer Horror School for Camp is pretty amazing, and she gets to wear a lot of great outfits to pair with her screaming tirades, so that’s something. The soundtrack, while nowhere near as good as, say, the Tank Girl CD, at least instills one with a sense of nostalgia for an age when this movie hadn’t yet been released but the music videos were on MTV and so you didn’t know how much the film itself was going to hurt your brain. That’s it.
Low Points: Just about everything else. Like, why couldn’t the girls worship Hekate instead of the bogus-sounding male entity Manon? Oh, because that would be cool, that’s why. (Molly adds: don’t forget that Hekate is a girl, and in this movie, only men may award women power and a sense of security.) Ugh.
Final Verdict: Stink, stank, stunk—but we still love you, Ms Balk!
So you guys know about Tea Party Jesus, right? The concept is brilliant–put the words of batshit Tea Partiers into the mouth of Jesus Christ Himself (as envisioned by people who draw Jesus for those little cards that have Him looking beatific and then there’s, like, the 23rd Psalm on the back), and then you get to click on the image to find out who said what! It’s like a game! Except there’s no way to win, and the only prizes awarded are the tears you shed as you realize how truly fucking insane the people leading this growing movement really are.
Now, of course, one has only to spend five minutes in the company of a Tea Partier to find out the socialist implications of goddamn near everything in the universe, but still. What? Here’s the news article and what this insane republican is ACTUALLY talking about (hint: there was never any “danger” of the CDC calling you up to tell you to eat your broccoli). Good times. By which of course I mean the worst of times.
Of course, all the vitriol the Tea Party uses to fire up indignant retirees on medicare is just that. Yet, as we all know, words have power. They have the power to influence people and their actions, and when we see Tea Party politics put into action, people suffer. Terribly. Such as, oh for example, privatizing social services, a truly stupid concept Tea Partiers uniformly agree is fucking awesome and the Right Direction for America. And yet. . . what happens when we privatize, saaaaaay, the fire department?
So I seem to recall hearing some stuff recently about the genre community, unrepentant, vitriolic Islamophobia, bigotry going unpunished by so-called advocates for safe spaces, and–you know, look, if this isn’t ringing a bell, just stop reading, because I’m not going to recap what’s essentially been front page news for weeks in the Genre Writers with Internet Presence Times.
For weeks now I’ve been typing up half-posts, trying to figure out what’s been bothering me about this whole situation, and completely failing. But yesterday I was able to really identify for the first time the source of my discomfort. The smart, savvy Shweta Narayan asked an insightful question about WisCon’s decision to not strip Elizabeth Moon of her Guest of Honor status. She asked: Who do you think will, or should, carry the burden of the Teaching Moments at the con?
OK. Yes. Here is the thing: before posting her hateful screed against Muslims and their allegedly uncitizenlike behavior (you know, like always trying to build community centers and shit), Elizabeth Moon was in a position of power. From reading her bio on her website, we can see that she was a white, Christian American who was college-educated. She actually holds multiple college degrees. She had been taught by the Marines to use computers during the infancy of computer science. She was able to pursue a career in writing that led to her winning multiple high-profile awards.
Now, it does seem like Elizabeth Moon “earned” a lot of this “for herself,” which should be a signifier for every American reading this that she should be awarded the Holy Order of Horatio Alger. And yet, as people who like to critically engage with American notions of meritocracy know, she had herself a pretty hefty invisible knapsack of privilege. While some might describe this as “immaterial” (like, apparently, the fact that Muslims also died in the 9/11 attacks), it isn’t actually immaterial at all. It is essential for those who have benefited from unearned privilege (skin color, social class one was born into, gender, sexuality, whatever) to acknowledge they have benefited from that unearned privilege and and not cultivate a disingenuous “but I did it all by myself!” attitude which elides the very real help they’ve gotten from such. It shouldn’t (for reasonable people) diminish her accomplishments to acknowledge that she benefited from being white, Christian, etc. It does, however, contextualize those accomplishments, and it makes her ignorant ranting against Muslims who don’t “realize how much forbearance they’ve had” all the more upsetting.
So moving on, people feel icky about WisCon’s decision to keep Elizabeth Moon as the Guest of Honor. We should feel icky. Because, like I said in a somewhat roundabout way, Elizabeth Moon was in a position of power before she posted her lecture on “citizenship” (as envisioned by a white Christian ex-Marine), and Muslims in America were having their prayer rugs peed on and their mosques burned and their cemeteries being alleged as illegal and their proposed community centers being treated like. . . you know, I don’t even know what. Now, after posting her lecture on “citizenship,” Elizabeth Moon is still in a position of power, and American Muslims are still. . . I think I’ve made my point. The really shitty status quo goes unchallenged, due to people conflating “not wanting to engage in censorship” or “not wishing to violate someone’s first amendment rights” with the idea that with great power (free speech) comes great responsibility (accepting the consequences of your behavior when those consequences might be. . . saaaaaay. . . getting your Guest of Honor status revoked at a progressive convention).
WisCon, through their refusal to strip her Guest of Honor status, is basically saying “hey, it’s OK that you did this, it’s all a dialogue, right?” I mean, they’re actually saying that Elizabeth Moon “would make a positive contribution to WisCon” and she is “an idol who turns out to be human.” Well, as Saladin Ahmed pointed out, it’s not that “an idol turned out to be human,” it’s that “an idol” turned out to be “hateful and cruel and vicious.”* There’s–there’s a big difference there. And it also unfairly puts the burden of “dialogue” (and “teaching”) on Muslims, as Shweta pointed out.
And then there’s just the fact that the way Moon has behaved throughout this thing demonstrates that she doesn’t want to be taught or learn new stuff. I mean, if you’re going to be a bigot, at least be a brave bigot. Deleting 400+ comments, most of which, from what I saw, were of a “hey, being a jerk to 1 billion+ people makes you a jerk” nature makes you a coward, as does posting a snide note that amounted to “go home, kids,” as does locking the post against further comments but keeping it up. It certainly doesn’t indicate that she’s interested in dialogue or learning or, as WisCon put it so teeth-hurtingly, engaging in “a difficult conversation.” It indicates that she’s the sort of person who is right and everyone else is wrong/just doesn’t understand. And that is total bullshit, and she shouldn’t be rewarded for it.
Elizabeth Moon is a person who deliberately and unrepentantly put unnecessary stress on an already misunderstood and marginalized community. WisCon, by keeping Moon as a Guest of Honor and slapping together some panels and stuff to provide “balance,” is also putting stress on a misunderstood and marginalized community. In the wake of hateful shit being slung about, the people in power are still in power, and the people who are marginalized are still being marginalized. Nothing’s changed. And it just goes to show that when a bigot somewhat spectacularly shows her ass, as long as that ass is white, Christian, and economically successful, it’s totally OK.
***
*I’d like here to record Saladin’s entire comment, which I found extremely illuminating, but couldn’t find a way to neatly quote in text:
Even though some of them SHOW SIGNS of being civilized, these Muslims are dangerous and ungrateful” is not a position from which to launch reasonable discussion of our current political climate, any more than “Rape is bad, but women who dress that way are asking for it” is a reasonable point to start a discussion about rape. No one’s talking about barring her from the con–they’re talking about, in light of her remarks, an ostensibly progressive con not according her its highest honor.
Due to the fact this is an interview with a group of gentle and talented undead artists, I’d heartily appreciate it if anyone who reads the piece (and ends up liking them and their music) could re-post! They deserve it.
Oh, and this interview went up as part of Strange Horizons‘ 10th Anniversary celebration, so if you’ve enjoyed the high-quality fiction (and non-fiction, natch) they’ve brought you over the past decade, why not help out with their fund drive?
Jesse Bullington and I have decided to embark upon a quest: watching “classic” adventure movies that informed one or both of our childhoods. These columns will run every Wednesday on our blogs, excluding the last post of each month, which will appear over at Fantasy Magazine. This week we tackle a TV show that. . . well. . . was a TV show in the mid-90s on MTV that taught me a lot about life, and no, I’m not talking about Beavis and Butt-Head.
Show: Æon Flux (animated series1991—1995)
WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS??? Created by Peter Chung, who also wrote and directed several of the episodes—Chung’s oeuvre includes Phantom 2040, the disappointing Sci-fi take on Alexander the Great Reign: the Conqueror, the Chronicles of Riddick animation Dark Fury, a segment for The Animatrix, and Nickelodeon’s Rugrats. The distinctive character design, Chung’s trademark, is based heavily on the work of early 20th century artist and Klimt disciple Egon Schiele’. Scripts were by a lot of different people; I recall Japhet Asher, Liquid Television executive producer, wrote one of the episodes we sampled. Æon is voiced by Denise Poirer, a true 90s tv actor who one-off jobs for everything from Seinfeld to Frasier to Murphy Brown to 3rd Rock from the Sun, as well as a regular stint on the Spawn animated series; Trevor Goodchild is voiced by John Rafter Lee, who voiced the main bad guy in the US dub of Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, as well as providing “additional voices” for the Yankee version of Princess Mononoke. Music by Drew Neumann, who also did the soundtracks for The Wild Thornberrys and Aaaahh!!! Real Monsters.
Quote: “That which does not kill us makes us stranger.”
Alternate quote: Æon: “You’re drooling on me!”
Trevor: “I’m a genius; therefore I can afford to drool.”
First viewing by Molly: I think they aired prior to The Maxx, which I somehow found out about and watched during 7th grade? I think? Maybe 8th?
First viewing by Jesse: Back in the day, when the short first started showing up on Liquid Television.
Most recent viewing by both: Last night
Impact on Molly’s childhood development: High as a Georgia pine. OMG. I had a poster up in my room FOR YEARS of Aeon that was signed by Peter Chung, and I wanted her hair more than anything in the whole world. Aeon Flux was a show that taught me a lot about things. . . things like time travel, bondage aesthetics, the grossness of watching two people’s tongues moistly connect outside their faces, how sometimes it’s OK if your plot doesn’t make a lick of sense, and the heady combination of power and sex. Also, bird-people.
Impact on Jesse’s childhood development: Moderate. The aesthetic of the show really worked for me on most levels, but the character design always squicked me out—everyone was too angular, like they were descended from greyhounds or something. I recall digging the earlier shorts more than the full length show, although I suspect that may have simply been a matter of exposure—I saw less of the actual episodes than I did of the Liquid TV shorts, and this Diet Pepsi commercial.
Random youtube clip that hasn’t been taken down for copyright infringement:
Molly’s thoughts prior to re-watching: Hesitant. I own the whole series on DVD, as a few years ago I got a gift certificate to a Borders and that was what I bought, for some reason? I was vaguely underwhelmed when I watched them, though—a sentiment I become increasingly more familiar with, due to this column—and promptly forgot I owned the series. Then Jesse and I were like “oh fuck, it’s Tuesday, what are we going to do for FoHA?” and I saw them whilst trawling for something to watch in my collection.
Jesse’s thoughts prior to re-watching: Fairly pleased by the prospect. As I said, I didn’t see a lot of the episodes when they first aired and have never been much of a tv person in general so I never caught any re-runs, but it always seemed like something I should like. Then again, I watched the live action movie and was less than impressed, so I had some grounding to not be too excited.
Molly’s thoughts post-viewing: Oh, I dunno. Jesse kinda summed up everything I felt about the experience below, bizarrely enough. . . so I’mma take the week off. PEACE (Jesse says: WTF, dude—you’re gonna get yours. Maybe not next week, maybe not the week after, but one of these columns you are totally in for it)!
Jesse’s thoughts post-viewing: Fun, in small doses. Overexposure strips some of the gloss, and this show is more about gloss than a Claire’s crossed with a Cinderella II’s. OK, so I feel really, seriously, intensely creepy about that last line (Molly says: as well you should, man. . .why do you even know those stores exist, unless it’s because you hang out there, offering to buy some girls a glittery barrette or something? [Jesse says: really? Really? You’re taking the week off from writing a proper column, but not from saying stuff like that? One of these days, Tanz…]), but it’s been chiseled into the stone of this dying loaner mac that hes…it…ates before letting me do anything, so I ain’t going back to take it out—just saying the show is style-heavy, is all.
Surprisingly, however, it isn’t a case of style over substance—the scripts of the episodes we sampled were very tight, if intentionally overwrought, and delectably weird. We watched three, of them, which I think had plots as follows: the episode “Thanatophobia” is about a couple who want to escape from their totalitarian city-state to the freedom-loving country literally next door, but instead wind up as disfigured sex-pawns for Æon and Trevor, who use their new conquests to make each other jealous though highly kinky, exhibitionist methods. At one point the couple manage to fuck through a gap in a border wall thanks to the woman’s missing vertebrae allowing her to stretch under a fence and provide him access to the surgical hole in her back where her artificial spine pops into place, presumably, but “it just isn’t the same.” (Molly adds: also, the title? What? “Fear of Death?” I still can’t figure out what the fuck that has to do with the episode, but given that the bird-people episode detailed below is called “Isthmus Crypticus”. . .”)
The next episode had to do with Trevor keeping a bird-woman as a possibly willing sex-slave, only to have Æon roll up in to liberate her. Unfortunately, Æon’s female assistant has a thing for a bird-man also in captivity, and before you can say don’t-touch-that-or-the-mother-will-abandon-it the assistant has shacked up with the bird-man, who is infested with deadly mites. For serious. The last episode we screened was the season finale and had Trevor getting hot and bothered over a psychic alien that doesn’t have orifices (“one would have to be creative”), Æon trying to prevent Trevor from killing half the planet only to kill the entire planet herself, and plenty of other weird shit that creeps me out just to think about.
Obviously the show is better than I remembered, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m in a rush to re-watch the whole series. Æon and Trevor’s ever-changing but ever-present kinkiness gets to be a bit much after a while, and as every episode seems to revolve around Trevor wanting to fuck someone/something and/or achieve ultimate power, and Æon trying to thwart him for dubious reasons, the show becomes repetitive despite its disconnected, fragmentary nature. I also feel a little weird about Æon seeming to be defined solely by her jealousy/sexuality, but since that’s how it seems to roll for all of the characters I guess that makes it less rubbing. See, you can’t even talk about this show without sounding like a perv.
High Points: The high level of kink which, when combined with the high level of camp, comes across less as exploitive and more as simply freaky. The self-referentially nonsensical nature of the show, which works better than it has any right to. The tidy action sequences, which still look pretty cool.
Final Verdict: Even after all these years, it’s still a weird, nasty, but ultimately intriguing little program.
You are all aware by now that Jesse Bullington and I have decided to embark upon a quest: watching “classic” adventure movies that informed one or both of our childhoods. These columns will run every Wednesday on our blogs, excluding the last post of each month, which will appear over at Fantasy Magazine. This week we do some good work filling in yet another Arnold-shaped gap in my movie knowledge. . .
Film: Predator (1987)
AKA: Hunter (insert Frisky Dingo reference here), and Primevil—would it still be a classic if it had been saddled with this horrible title?
WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS??? Direction by John McTiernan, who once gave a less than convincing explanation for how his film Die Hard is actually an adaptation of A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Screenplay by Jim and John Thomas, who also penned the De Palma not-classic Mission to Mars. Not-really-all-that-appropriate soundtrack by Alan Silvestri (The Abyss, Lilo and Stitch), with a number by the always-appropriate Little Richard. Starring more beefcake than is really reasonable for a single film: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Sonny Landham, Kevin Peter Hall, and some other people who don’t deserve mention by virtue of not being super beasts, except maybe action movie screenwriter Shane Black, who plays the terrible nerd commando. Oh, and Elpidia Carrillo as the film’s single female character, who spends most of the time cowering.
Quote: “You’re ghostin’ us, motherfucker. I don’t care who you are back in the world, you give away our position one more time, I’ll bleed ya, real quiet.”
Alternate quote: “If it bleeds we can kill it.”
Alternate alternate quote: Not as strong guy: “You’re bleeding, man.” Stronger guy (Jesse the Body, specifically): “I ain’t got time to bleed.”
First viewing by Molly: A couple of nights ago.
First viewing by Jesse: Around eight years old.
Most recent viewing by both: A couple of nights ago.
Impact on Molly’s childhood development: Honestly, I had no idea there was even a monster in Predator until, seriously, I saw the trailer for Alien vs. Predator and I laughed bemusedly along with the rest of the theatre.
Impact on Jesse’s childhood development: Sizable. Mind, I didn’t actually watch the movie with sound for years after my initial viewing, which makes a pretty big difference in appreciating the film, though the muted viewing wasn’t the impediment to understanding that it would be for most movies.
See, when I first watched this I was a really little kid visiting my family in California because my grandfather was dying. He was at home, hospice being the only real option, and wasn’t conscious most of the time. Since the only tv was in his room—he loved to watch horse racing when he was awake—when my brother Aaron and my cousin John rented Predator they had to watch it with my semi-comatose grandfather right behind them, and obviously all the shouting and explosions and gunfire and flaying of human skin wouldn’t help a dying man find peace, so they did the considerate thing and put on head phones. There weren’t enough jacks for me to listen as well, so I had to watch in silence; well, not quite silence, since the wheezing of my grandfather was right beside me. Thinking back on it, I really hope he slept through the film and didn’t awake to images of skinned people strung up in the jungle where his ponies should have been. Even without sound the film made no small impression on me, I assure you.
Random youtube clip that hasn’t been taken down for copyright infringement:
Molly’s thoughts prior to watching:
(cell phone rings)
John: Hey, Beez! What? Hold on, lemme ask. Hey Molly—Jesse wants to know if we want to watch Predator tonight?
Me: What? OK? I guess?
Jesse’s thoughts prior to re-watching: Pretty happy—Molly’s reactions to seeing these movies for the first time are usually every bit as entertaining as the films themselves, and I very much doubted Predator would be the exception to the rule. I also had beer and freedom fries, which enhances the viewing of such things exponentially. The only thing I was really worried about was whether or not the movie would set off my beef allergy, and so I kept benadryl at the ready lest I break out in hives.
Molly’s thoughts post-viewing: I know I have a degree in Women’s Studies, but fuck that noise, I’ve seen the light (hallelujah!) and that light is men. MEN. In the jungle. With MUSCLES. Solid, rippling man-flesh and man-cunning, and also sometimes a Native American with sixth sense to go with his man-flesh and man-cunning. Oh, and guns! Guns with lots and lots of bullets. But in the end, what matters is men. In the world of jungle, where a predator stalks the unwary, bullets can only take you so far. I know this now. It is man-muscles and man-brain that determine whether you’ll be skinned and hung from a tree by a snatch-faced alien, or standing above said alien until it’s time to book it away from a nuclear explosion. (Jesse says: really, it’s a small nuclear explosion, so it’s not as implausible as she’s making it sound. Also, Molly is forbidden from describing movie monsters in the future—not cool)
But seriously, wow. Wow! This movie. I got into trouble with my friend David for alleging that the first part of Predator has nothing to do with the actual movie itself, documented here in this Facebook conversation:
David: Molly, the beginning of that movie is the plot. Coincidentally an alien shows up, guns are fired, people die, but the real question remains–who is the strongest (physically that is) warrior? Only a power handshake can tell us who the greatest of foes for the predator can possibly be.
Molly: David, no. The beginning of the movie is entirely irrelevant. They could’ve plugged in any “reason” to get Arnold and Jesse the Body into South America to bazooka a bunch of huts (is that a verb? it is now!) and then get messed with by the Predator. I was unmoved at the time and remain nonplussed that Arnold’s team “only does rescue missions” or whatever, it makes no difference to his “character” since his character was mostly biceps and tying spikes to tree limbs with vines and the awesomeness of being called “Dutch” as a nickname. Which is pretty cool, don’t get me wrong–but the plot has nothing to do with the beef between the CIA and the Army or whatever Arnold and Carl Weathers argue about intensely for a few minutes before the explosions start.
David: Molly, you are mistaken and this is why. The power handshake (Jesse says: see clip below) determines not only who is the most powerful, as in who will be the champion, but also to show us the audience exactly what kind of champion we actually have. It is Dutch that will defeat any foe. As you can see, he [can] and will beat all foes in the way most fitting. Carl Weathers (or Dillon) tries to subdue Dutch with politics, but Dutch will hear no lies and defeats him with his own tactics. A handshake of unmatched power is the weapon against the enemies of freedom.
And yet.
Regardless, it is silly, and I liked it a lot. It’s not often that you find a film as educational as Predator—being in the Army is awesome; mud negates your body heat—as well as explaining perfectly why the citizens of California have elected Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Governator (a phrase that Wikipedia earnestly informs us is a “portmanteau” of Terminator and governor!) more than once. Seriously! Why? Because in one scene Dutch demands that Anna tell them what she saw; Anna has, up until that point, spoken only Spanish, but then, through the sheer willpower of man, Arnold Schwarzenegger (apparently) makes that girl speak English. From what I hear out of CA these days, that really, really matters to folks out there.
Jesse’s thoughts post-viewing: Jesus, man—fucking Predator. Molly’s reactions ranged from a mild gape to a full-on gawp at points, and I know my arms gained about three inches of thickness just from exposure to the testosterone levels. Really, there’s not much to be said about this film that hasn’t been said elsewhere, but holy goddamn hell, it is one stupid, loud, awesome film. My friend David wrote a paper in college breaking down the worth of the characters by their physical strength and BMI, and I’ve gotta say he hit the nail right on the head—strength is everything; well, strength, and an ability to set traps that would make Wile E. Coyote jealous.
Jean Claude Van Damme actually played the Predator for a few days before quitting and leaving the role to Kevin Peter Hall (who played Harry, of the Henderson Harrys); van Damme was apparently pissed that his face would not be shown. Sixty-four people die in the course of the film. The Predator’s blood is, indeed, made of the stuff inside glowsticks. All this is incidental, anecdotal, irrelevant: Arnold fights an alien badass in the jungle. That’s it.
High Points: The unapologetic and unintentionally hilarious machismo, which starts at farcical levels and only increases as the movie progresses. The Predator itself, which remains a pretty sweet cinematic monster. Arnold’s trap-building montage. The hand shake, which sums up the whole movie perfectly, as does the giggling in the background of the clip:
Final Verdict: Though Molly prefers her Arnold with long hair, sword, and loincloth, in terms of modern action movies where shit blows up and guns are fired, Predator is hard to match.
I just got done with a fun, busy week with my parents! They came into town last Wednesday and left Sunday morning. While they were here, we went to the Denver Botanic Gardens, did the Continental Divide drive, took a lovely hike in the Flatirons, went to the Boulder Farmers’ Market for fresh peppers and Colorado peaches and bread, visited Boulder Falls, and ate a lot of delicious food, including my parents’ first-ever encounter with Ethiopian food at Ras Kassa’s! While John took my father on a brewery tour, my mom and Raech and I all got pedicures at ten20, which is an awesome establishment for many reasons, not the least of which is that they TiVO What Not To Wear so I got to watch an episode for maybe the first time in a year. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, but man, I am tired.
Now vacation is over and it’s back to work. I am anticipating receiving the edits from Strange Horizons for my interview with The Widow’s Bane (which is going up the 27th of September, so huzzah!), and working on another go-through of my novel.
Regarding the novel MS, I’ve received most of the comments back from my beta-readers, which have been incredibly helpful and not-discouraging, so that’s rad! It seems that, on the whole, everyone pretty much enjoyed reading it, and enjoyability was a huge concern for me. While I cannot be certain of the novel’s prospects, I am certain that I have written something genuine about things I care about, and I am happy about that!
In other news, I successfully veganized something I used to order when I was a vegetarian–baked goat cheese in tomato sauce. It came out amazingly well, and I plan on posting a tutorial ASAP. For any former Pinehurstians who might occasionally visit paper fruit, it’s totally that thing we used to order at Cafe Tu Tu Tango! OMG!
WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS??? Direction by Tim Burton, back before he came the thing he is today. Screenplay by Sam Hamm (the M.A.N.T.I.S. tv show) and Warren Skaaren (Beetle Juice), from characters created by Bob Kane. Atmospheric soundtrack by Danny Elfman and Prince—the atmosphere of the film changes quite a bit, dig? Suitably campy performances by Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Bassinger, Robert Wuhl, Billy Dee Williams, Pat Hingle, and Jack Palance.
Quote: “Never rub another man’s rhubarb!”
Alternate quote: “I have given a name to my pain. . . and it is Batman.”
First viewing by Molly: When it first came to VHS, my parents shockingly allowed me to rent it, so def. still in grade school, possibly as early as 2nd or 3rd grade?
First viewing by Jesse: At the pictures, when I was seven years old.
Most recent viewing by both: Last night.
Impact on Molly’s childhood development: Substantial. Violent and/or scary movies were rarely allowed in my house—seriously, when I was in high school (yes, high school) my father forbade me from watching Deliverance after a friend told me it was pretty awesome—so anything mildly spooky that squiggled through the cracks made an impression because I was always pretty hungry for dark or weird stuff. Batman was deemed acceptable for some reason, probably because of my father’s fondness for the Adam West Batman, or perhaps because it was directed by Tim Burton, and my parents enjoyed Frankenweenie and Beetlejuice. Super heroes generally held little appeal for Young Molly—too much machismo, not enough decent female characters—but the aesthetic of Batman tempted me, because while my parents were iffy about allowing violent weird movies in the house, they were dedicated to the laudable project of exposing me to Quality Cinema from Days of Yore from an early age. I’d at that point already seen quite a bit of Hitchcock, screwball comedies, and other such fare that tended to have art-deco movie magic goin on, so I could relate to the aesthetics of Batman as seen in the trailers. . . also the little snippits of the Joker really spooked me out in a way that I found interesting, so I begged and begged and lo, Batman was rented.
Impact on Jesse’s childhood development: High. As far as tights went, I was always a Bats fan—the Adam West series was one of the few programs I watched with any real regularity growing up, and so my appreciating a big budget film about the caped crusader was never really in question. I was a weird kid, though, and thus recall harboring a strong desire to see the Weird Al Yankovic vanity piece UHF instead of Batman when the choice was put to me, but my parents wisely vetoed that selection. The sequel had a bit stronger of an effect, I think, but we’ll get to that when we get to that—the point is, this movie pretty much solidified Batman’s place as my favorite superhero growing up, which is no small thing for children of my temperament.
Random youtube clip that hasn’t been taken down for copyright infringement:
Molly’s thoughts prior to re-watching: Excited. I own the movie, as my husband is in the process of building his Michael Keaton Collection. I can’t remember the last time I sat down to watch Batman all the way through, but it had been, as they say, a while. I’d seen the Nolan Dark Knight in the theatre as part of the process of mourning Heath Ledger, but as much as I loved Heath’s take on the Joker, it wasn’t Jack Nicholson, who will always, for me, be the person who defined the role.
Jesse’s thoughts prior to re-watching: Pretty pleased about the prospect—I hadn’t watched it in maybe ten years, long before the Christopher Nolan reboots arrived. The circumstances leading to that last screening involved my going to a flea market, which is every bit as tawdry as it sounds. A greasy creep was selling old vhs tapes, most of which were lacking any kind of case, and there amidst the rubber-banded-together Titanics and Bravehearts I saw a copy of Batman.
“How much is this?” I asked.
The merchant squinted at me through horn-rimmed glasses that hadn’t been wiped off since the Reagan administration. If then. “Two bucks.”
Casually inspecting the dusty plastic vhs, I noticed the tape had long ago snapped off inside, and peering closer through the clear plastic windows that exposed the reels I could see several dead cockroaches. I said, “The tape’s broken off inside, and it’s full of dead bugs.”
“Huh,” said the merchant, wiping funnel cake sugar off on his shirt and inspecting the tape. After a moment he handed it back and said, “No charge, then.”
So I did what any eighteen year old weirdo would do—I took the vhs home, opened it up and cleaned out the bugs, and then spliced the ends of the snapped tape using the special silver splicing stickers I had gotten from a video store through some equally bizarre sequence of events. I realize this diversion had gotten rather far from the point of the movie itself and is instead show-casing my legendary—and unfairly mocked—frugality, so perhaps it would be best if we simply pretended I never said anything beyond, “Batman, yeah, awesome flick, looking forward to rewatching it.”
Molly’s thoughts post-viewing: It’s really good. The aesthetics and effects have aged reasonably well for a movie from that late 80s era of OMGNOOOOOO-ness, with excellent set-design and cool costumes—in particular the purple tailcoat the Joker wears is amazing, and Michael Keaton in nerd-glasses is a nice touch, too.
Given that Tim Burton directed the film, I spent a lot of time being just so, so happy that Batman wasn’t being played by Johnny Depp and Vikki Vale’s character wasn’t obliterated by the comedic stylings. . . excuse me, acting, of Helena Bonham Carter. The triple wowza of Batman, Beetlejuice, and Edward Scissorhands has long been the reason I get so irritated with the recent epicness of Tim Burton’s directorial failures. Every single damn time a new Tim Burton movie comes out these days to disappoint and horrify all but the most dedicated Hot Topic employees, the 5th grader in me remembers crying her eyes out at the ending of Edward Scissorhands; thinking Beetlejuice was the coolest movie ever; being terrified by the Joker. I’d throw in something about how viscerally I responded to The Nightmare Before Christmas when I saw it a million times in the theatre in 6th grade, but I don’t want to perpetuate the mistaken belief that Burton directed that film. One only need compare Corpse Bride to Coraline to see that Henry Selick was responsible for the awesomeness of Nightmare. Him, and Danny Elfman.
Enough—back to Batman. The script is pretty awesome, especially the Joker’s one-liners, though this time round I kinda noticed there are some. . . problems with the movie. I mean, OK. So at the beginning, it’s mentioned a bunch of times that Batman is a newcomer to the Gotham city crime scene. . . but then later on Bruce Wayne goes on and on about how he “has” to do this, and all this additional weirdness that makes it seem like he’d been the World’s Greatest Detective for a lot longer than, say, a month or two? I mean—did he just get all his Batman gear at once, plane, car, suit, computer station, and all? How? Who manufactures it? How does he know how to research stuff? Where does he get all his files on criminal proceedings in a pre-The Smoking Gun age? Is he naturally good at detective-ing? Was it like in Kick Ass and he started out in a black jumpsuit punching people in the face? If he’s such a great crime fighter, why isn’t he going after Jack Palance’s skyscraper full of organized criminals, instead of beating up street punks, some of whom are likely turning to crime due to, and I’m just speculating here, a damn-plausible lack of social services available in Gotham City?
But none of that seriously takes away from the film as a whole, though. I know Jesse will follow my write-up with a burn on the decision to make the Joker responsible for Batman’s parents’ death, but I like it. I think the single best thing about Tim Burton’s Batman is the careful effort to make the Joker and Batman mirror-perfect foils for one another. This is illustrated so perfectly in the scene where Bruce Wayne tries to tell Vikki Vale about being Batman, which I could not for the life of me find on YouTube, but no matter—at first, it just seems like a nice gag when Wayne says “Nice apartment—lots of space” and the Joker reiterates that same sentiment verbatim. It becomes more apparent what’s really going on when the Joker goes on to break his former girlfriend’s mask after placing it on Vikki’s mantle, and then Brucie proves himself to be just as fucking. . . well, nuts, as the Joker:
After all, they’re both grown men who put on elaborate costumes to shape the world according to their unique vision, whether or not anyone thinks that’s a good idea or not, right? I think it’s handled lusciously, and the “we made each other” weirdness at the end works for me.
Jesse’s thoughts post-viewing: When Batman Begins came out people were falling all over themselves to point how much darker it was than the previous four Batman films. “It’s just so dark,” they would say, as if they had just spent two hours sitting in a cave. “The old ones weren’t, you know, so dark, but this one was just, like, a really dark movie. Dark dark dark.” Sometimes that was a bad thing, as in, “it’s way too dark,” but more often than not it was a sign of respect, because we all know darkness is totally cool. Personally, although I enjoyed Nolan’s films I hate his fight sequences—they’re not “dark,” they’re muddled (Word! exclaims Molly), and while he’s obviously trying to convey the frantic feel of actually being in a fight, I for one like to see what is going on in a movie, especially when something cool is presumably happening inside all that dark dark darkness. The thing is, Tim Burton’s first crack at the Caped Crusader is plenty dark in its own right—the tone is much, for lack of a better word, darker than the Adam West series, which admittedly isn’t such a feat, but it also manages to retains some of the camp and humor of the old show while still bringing bite to the proceedings.
Jack Nicholson is clearly having the time of his life, and both his impressive costumes and accompanying Prince jams compliment his Joker nicely—but for all his campy lines and dances, this is a Joker who doesn’t think twice about murdering anyone he can get a hold of. Though he isn’t played as straight as Heath Ledger’s take on the role in The Dark Knight, Nicholson is no mustachioed Caesar Romero, either. Then there’s Batman himself, who doesn’t even attempt to take the Joker alive in the end, and Burton does some nice—if not always subtle—layering to highlight the similarities between hero and villain, though the decision to make the Joker the one who killed Bruce Wayne’s parents is a bit overkill. Michael Keaton makes a surprisingly satisfying Batman, though his Bruce Wayne is more late eighties super-nerd than playboy.
Batman is Tim Burton near the top of his game, with a superficial noir atmosphere layered nicely over the timeless Gotham his set design team assembled. The problematic class issues inherent in the Batman mythology are on prominent display here—blue collar good guy Knox gets his ass handed to him when he tries to take on the bad guys with a baseball bat, whereas Batman swoops in with his private plane and not only saves the girl Knox is after but also the whole city—but that’s always been an issue with the character, and even Christopher Nolan’s ham-fisted swipe at subverting it in The Dark Knight didn’t quite wash the taste of moldering class trash from the mouth, but so it goes. Batman may be a crypto-fascist, but he’s always been a damn cool one.
High Points: The Joker doing his thing, especially the scene in the museum. Being reminded of how impressive Tim Burton is when working with a good script and predominantly practical effects—the small uses of jarring animated effects here are a grim reminder of the over-reliance he would put on CGI in his later films. The soundtrack—Danny Elfman and Prince, together at last. The part where Conan’s sidekick from Destroyer gets shot in the gut and left in the dirt (Jesse Says: Molly’s hatred for Tracey Walter is kinda spooky—I like the guy, personally). The costumes. And, really, the Joker, who steals the show from Bats every moment he’s onscreen:
Final Verdict: We’ll dance with that devil in the pale moonlight any time.
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| leave a comment | Comments Off on films of high adventure, volume something: the abominable dr phibes
After a hiatus of some amount of time, Jesse Bullington are once again doing Films of High Adventure, you know, where we watch “classic” adventure movies that informed one or both of our childhoods. This week we recap something we viewed a while ago, which was definitely a film, but the adventure in it was more bizarre than high, at least in the sense of the word “high” that we usually intend to evoke. . .
Film: The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
Also Known As: No joke, the first two times I started writing the title I wrote The Awesome Dr. Phibes, and then, catching myself, started typing The Amazing Dr. Phibes instead. Ok, so not technically alternate titles, but a telling sign nonetheless. . .
WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS??? Direction by Robert Fuest, who also helmed The Last Man on Earth (I Am Legend with Vincent Price in the lead!), The Devil’s Rain (The Milk and Cheese favorite starring Ernest Borgnine!), and a bunch of episodes of The Avengers (if you’re not familiar with John Steed and Mrs. Emma Peel it’s high time you made their acquaintance). Script by James Whiton (uh, an episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) and William Goldstein (screen story credit for The Amazing Dobermans, a movie featuring Fred Astaire fighting crime with a pack of pinschers), although Fuest apparently rewrote most of it. On one side of the ring of absurdity we have Vincent Price (everything that is good in this world) as Dr. Phibes and Bond-girl (On her Majesty’s Secret Service) Virginia North as his assistant Vulnavia (!), and on the other we have Joseph Cotton (The Third Man), Hugh Griffith (Tom Jones, the whacked out Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling So Sad), Peter Jeffrey (Count Grendel in some old Dr. Who episodes), and a host of other actors looking to chew some scenery and get done in by the good Dr. Phibes. Bizzaro soundtrack by various artists, including lots of organ music and Vincent singing “Over the Rainbow.”
Quote: “Nine killed you! Nine shall die! Nine eternities in DOOM!”
Alternate quote: “A brass unicorn has been catapulted across a London street and impaled an eminent surgeon. Words fail me, gentlemen.”
First viewing by Molly: Pretty recently
First viewing by Jesse: Really young
Most recent viewing by both: The aforementioned “pretty recently”
Impact on Molly’s childhood development: Well, none, given that I’d never even heard of this weird little movie, but given that my early adolescence was largely me thinking The Phantom of the Opera was like, the single most amazingly romantic book evarrrrrrrr and why didn’t Christine go for the Phantom when he was clearly so much more interesting than that milquetoast nothing-master Raoul, I feel like I was a pump well-primed for this omgwtfbbq-fest, especially the bizarre Phibes/Vulnavia relationship.
Impact on Jesse’s childhood development: High. Of all the old horror movie icons, Price was my favorite, and of all his roles, this was perhaps the most important to Young Me.
Random youtube clip that hasn’t been taken down for copyright infringement:
Molly’s thoughts prior to re-watching: “WTF is this?”
Jesse’s thoughts prior to re-watching: Excited. Price undeniably made some stinkers in his time, but I was confident that this film had aged like a fine Roquefort. I had no idea if Molly would love it or hate it, and, frankly, didn’t give a damn—nothing could possibly diminish the experience, though I of course hoped she would dig it. . . contrary to what this column might occasionally imply, I don’t actually enjoy punishing Molly with cinema.
Molly’s thoughts post-viewing: Awesome. I really, really liked it, even though now, as an adult, I often find things that have a sort of Phantom of the Opera-ish sensibility about them to be pretty tiresome—obsession is really only sexy on the page or on the screen, a lesson I hope the legions of Twilight fans realize before they end up in problematic relationships with dudes who like to creep into the bedrooms of girls that smell real good and only have two emotional modes—constipated disapproval or condescending amusement.
N-E-WAYZ, I had my doubts during the opening sequence that has Dr. Phibes in a hooded robe playing an organ, but as the movie progressed into unapologetic insanity, I warmed to it, and then thoroughly enjoyed it. At the center of my affection was the Phibes-Vulnavia relationship, which is just so outright bizarre that it works perfectly without explanation. Wikipedia says that originally it was to be revealed that Vulnavia was one of Dr. Phibes’ clockwork creations, but I call bullshit on that, and I’m glad they left it undefined. For me, it’s a much more amazing scenario if Vulnavia is. . . just. . . some girl he met somehow? Who was totally OK hunting down and murdering doctors and nurses as long as Dr. Phibes kept her in furry hats and let her pose like a Mucha girl while he put on his gold lame cape and played music. Sure! Why not?
Good times.
Jesse’s thoughts post-viewing: Such exquisite film-making! Fitting tidily into the “Vincent Price whacks a bunch of people according to a theme” sub-genre of the great man’s career, I say, with only slight reservation, that this is the best of the bunch. Theatre of Blood makes it a tough call, as the murders in that film are all based on scenes from Shakespeare instead of biblical plagues, and it features a fencing match on trampolines, but Phibes still comes out ahead if no other reason than I saw it first and that has to count for something.
I suppose the main thing I had forgotten over the years was how bugfuck the movie really is—virtually no effort is put into explaining how Phibes manages to pull off his outlandish murders, let alone build a clockwork band and, maybe, girlfriend. . . he’s a doctor, sure, but a doctor of divinity and musicology (for serious). I suppose if they had started worrying about logic and realism they would have had to scrap the scene where fruitbats suck a guy’s blood, or the part with the locusts that. . . well, it really has to be seen to be believed, but the point is if reality intruded then all the fun would be gone and you’d be left with, I dunno, Se7en.*
The thing is, other than the poster and spoiler-heavy trailer, the movie seems to play it fairly straight-faced. Maybe? As a kid I certainly took it very seriously, yet rooted unreservedly for Phibes—he did what he did for love, after all, and is that so wrong? As an eight year old I had a hard time holding him accountable for his nefarious deeds, and as a twenty-eight year old I still refuse to pass judgment on the doctor.
It’s a bizarre, campy picture even by Price standards, and the script gives him ample room to do what he does best, even if he is talking out of his neck. It’s impossible not to root for Phibes, if only to see what insanely complicated murder he will pull off next, and I still get choked up thinking about what happens to poor Vulnavia. To say they don’t make them like this anymore is a bit of an understatement—gone are the days when studios would be like “this makes absolutely no sense, and doesn’t seem to be a comedy but definitely isn’t a horror film, either, and will use up a decent sized budget. . . but what the hell, go nuts—have your proto-slasher lead cover Judy Garland while you’re at it.” Alas.
High Points: Vincent Price doing what he does best. How straight everyone is playing it. The unsettling—and unaddressed—relationship between Phibes and Vulnavia. Vulnavia herself, and apparently we’re not the only ones to realize this—somebody out there on the internet not only recognized her importance, but also the importance of mistakenly attributing the Flashdance theme to Hall and Oates:
Final Verdict: Excellent.
Next week:Batman? This column needs an enema, so. . .
*Uninteresting Facts about Molly’s Youth: I’ve never seen Se7en all the way through because when I was in 8th grade or thereabouts, I had a friend who wanted me to see it, but she claimed most of the movie was “boring” and thus fast-forwarded her VHS copy to all the murders. So to this day, my only notion of that film is something along the lines of Brad Pitt being Angry (or something) at Keven Spacey for asploding a fat man and raping someone with a bizarre BDSM-inspired knife harness? Yeah.
World Fantasy is looming; projects are calling. I’m taking a stern internet break–email, facebook, LJ, lots of stuff will be verboten for a while, except at certain intervals. I’ll still be doing “Films of High Adventure” with Jesse and doing what it is I do for Fantasy, but if I’m slow to get back to anyone or anything, it’s because I have to do this for me. I tend to get caught up in online stuff too frequently–or, as I said to someone recently, I am Eve to the apple of the internet.
