Jesse’s latest, The Enterprise of Death, is available for reviewers to check out! You can get an ebook arc here, or you can enter his contest to try to win one of three bound galleys! It’s a really fucking good book, and I’m not just saying that because my cat is a (minor) character.
Jeff VanderMeer’s short story collection, The Third Bear, was recently featured over at Largehearted Boy, for their Book Notes series. If you’re interested in such things as authors discussing how music and words interact and (potentially) enhance one another, you should check it out! It’s interesting stuff. There’s also a free PDF of “The Quickening,” which was the only new story in the collection! Fun times–and if you like the story, consider buying the anthology. All royalties will go to funding the translation aspect of VanderMeer’s forthcoming Leviathan 5 anthology, which seems like an amazing, worthy undertaking.
The Innsmouth crew is doing a lot of cool stuff recently! They just posted the cover for their Historical Lovecraft anthology, which I have every confidence will be completely awesome (and it features an absolutely filthy novelette by yours truly). Currently they’re accepting submissions for their Candle in the Attic Window anthology, which will be Gothic fiction, and I hear they’re eager for shorter stuff, non-repulsive people, and mummies.
Also, I’ll be at World Horror this year, so that’s awesome! I’ve never been, and I’m looking forward to meeting new folks and seeing old friends. It should be a lot of fun! Thanks in advance to the con committee for all their hard work!
I’m sitting here eating Unfried Fried Rice from Appetite for Reduction, the low-fat cookbook I tested for last year, and it occurs to me that I should do one o’them end-of-year thingies I’ve been seeing all about the webz. It’s been a crazy year in general for me—as a writer, as an editor, as a daughter, and as a consumer of media, as well, so yeah. Some documentation seems in order:
As a writer:
2010 saw my first fiction sale ever, and then three others. In January I sold “In Sheep’s Clothing” to Running with the Pack, and the anthology—and my story in particular—got a bunch of reallynice reviews and shout-outs. Then about midyear I heard “The Devil’s Bride” would be picked up by Palimpsest, and in October “The Infernal History of the Ivybridge Twins” was selected to be part of Innsmouth Free Press‘s forthcoming Historical Lovecraft anthology. Finally, Crossed Genres accepted “The Red Terror of Rose Hall” to be part of their subscriber’s content. I’m very proud of all of these!
As for non-fiction (or is it?!?!) my interview with zombie polka band The Widow’s Bane went up at Strange Horizons. That was a hoot, and I’m so pleased it found such a great home. Also this year, Jesse Bullington and I embarked on a quest to re-watch old movies from our childhood and blog about them. Right now “Films of High Adventure” is on hiatus due to both of us being busy (though our review of Dungeons & Dragons went up on Fantasy last week and I failed to make a note of it here—it was such fun), but throughout the year it’s been an interesting project to say the least. A hoot and a holler, yes indeed.
Since this is a rare writerly update from me, I’ll also talk about what’s up with my novel. Last year I typed THE END on the MS, edited it, and sent it on its merry way to an agent. That agent contacted me, and we talked on the phone about the book. While she didn’t wish to represent it at the time, she did say that if I wanted to rewrite portions of the MS, and do some other stuff with it, she’d be willing to give it a second looksee. All her suggestions made sense—total sense, actually—and so that’s where I’m at right now with my big project. It’s been difficult, but I’m starting to see a new book emerge that’s, I think, a better book, and so even if a revised manuscript is all that comes out of this, I sense it will be a net gain.
As an editor:
Last year I was already on board with Fantasy Magazine at the year’s dawn, but toward the end of the year, things started to get wild. It began with some changes for Fantasy: the editor and fiction editor announced they’d both be stepping down, and that John Joseph Adams would be taking over full editorship in March of 2011. In the wake of this, I was asked to take on managerial duties for John’s (now) two magazines—Lightspeed and Fantasy.
So far, this has been a total pleasure. Working with John is a lot of fun, and the Lightspeed team as a whole are awesome folks! I anticipate good things for Fantasy as 2011 progresses and we remodel a bit.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t note a few of my favorite short stories this year, so in no particular order, my highlights for Fantasy (and a few from Lightspeed after I started) are:
In the early months of 2010 my family found out that my dad was battling pancreatic cancer. This came as a shock to us all, as my dad is one seriously healthy dude. We had no idea just how much time we would have with him, but 2011 opens with my dad being healthier than he was this time last year, according to the doctors (I mean, as far as I understand it). His tumors, as of his last scan, were not particularly bioactive, meaning the hard-core chemo he was on did some damage to the cancer. He is working out, walking at least 10k steps every day, and eating healthy. It seems like he is baffling his oncologist and various other doctors with how well he is doing, so that’s awesome. I’m hoping 2011 holds even more remarkable health improvements for him. Big thanks to all who sent happy thoughts his way, in the form of prayer, well-wishes, emails, or anything else!
As a reader/movie-watcher/listener/video game player:
2010’s movie watching was largely “Films of High Adventure”-related, but there were a few others that rocked out and deserve a note. This year I actually saw a few movies that came out in 2010: Kick-Ass, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and, um. . . Splice, but since that movie caused my first-ever film walkout, I dunno if it counts. The others were good! I also watched Hero, which was awesome, A Town Called Panic, which I liked far more than I thought I would, Moon Warriors, Mr. Vampire 2 AKA Crazy Safari, and the two late-in-the-year standouts, The Draughtsman’s Contract and The Prestige. Good stuff. I’m certainly leaving out a few, but those are what I can recall off the top of my head.
As for books, I think my Best Book of 2010 (that, shockingly enough, came out in 2010) would absolutely be Johannes Cabal the Detective by Jonathan L. Howard. I also read the first in the series in 2010, Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, which was great—but I think Detective blows it out of the water. I actually participated in an inquisition of Herr Cabal around the time the book came out, which was a lot of fun, but the book stands on its own. It’s tremendous.
Also of note, I read Imaro by Charles Saunders in 2010, and that rocked my world, as did Elric of Melnibone and its sequel Sailor on the Seas of Fate. I also read Flora Segunda, which I loved, and a bunch of other stuff but I rearranged my books (read: put them on top of the bookshelf because I ran out of space) and now I can’t remember what I read this year. I’ll keep better notes in 2011.
I don’t ever listen to albums as they come out (I suck at keeping up with music) but omfg, Cee Lo Green’s The Ladykiller has been making doing the dishes actually fun.
And to round this out, as a gamer, motherfucking Cataclysm, nerds!
So that’s a year in review. I’m certainly neglecting things, like awesome new friendships made at World Fantasy and elsewhere, novels beta-read for my friends, things of note I’ll probably edit in later, and other stuff I’ve done/thought about/enjoyed/whatever (like, say, the fact that I actually typed THE END at the end of two manuscripts this year, but one will never-ever see the light of day), but I have to go to the bank to get quarters. It’s the first laundry day of 2011! Woo!
After next week’s post up at Fantasy, “Films of High Adventure” is going on hiatus for a while due to Jesse and myself needing to devote more time to other projects. But! This week we celebrate my dad’s birthday by watching one of the movies he showed me as a wee Tanz: it involves Mars, red money (Mars is red!), red dust, red blood spurting out of people, and a red-faced Austrian body builder as a secret agent who thinks he’s a construction worker who thinks he’s a secret agent. Maybe. What could it be?
Film: Total Recall (1990)
WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS??? Direction again by dirt-dog par excellence Paul Verhoeven (Starship Troopers, Basic Instinct), his follow-up to last week’s RoboCop. Final screenplay by half a dozen people after dozens of attempts (including one by Pier Anthony) to adapt a Philip K. Dick short story that featured very few gunfights and mutants—of those who penned the final version, most notable is Dan O’Bannon (Alien, Return of the Living Dead). Soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith (Pretty Much Every Cheesy Action Film From the Last Three Decades) and some decent special effects by frequent Verhoeven collaborator Rob Bottin (RoboCop, The Thing). “Acting” by Films of High Adventure All-Star Arnie Schwarz, Sharon Stone (so, so many turkeys), Rachel Ticotin (uh, Con Air), Ronny Cox (the main OCP baddie in RoboCop), Marshall Bell (the coach in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, Magistrate Claggett in Deadwood), and the dependably angry Michael Ironside (Scanners, Starship Troopers)
Quote: “You blabbed, Quaid! You blabbed about Mars!”
First viewing by Molly: I have no idea. Young, young, young. My dad got really excited when it came out, and so it was one of the rare grown-up sci-fi action movies I saw as a kid.
First viewing by Jesse: Elementary school—another one my dear, departed grandmother showed me.
Most recent viewing by both: A couple of weeks ago.
Impact on Molly’s childhood development: I thought it was pretty fucking cool, that’s for sure. I was never a huge Arnold fan—I found him alarming as a child, and still do, honestly—but I remember being impressed by the things that impress children inclined towards mutants, three-tittied hookers, psychically-implanted memories, and x-rays that show guns, too.
Impact on Jesse’s childhood development: Decent. I generally preferred fantasy to sci-fi but this one had mutants and ultra-violence, so it was alright by me. I remember not understanding that atmospheric pressure affected the human body and thought the reason Arnie et al inflated on the surface of Mars was that the red sand was poisonous or something. That shit freaked me right the hell out:
Random youtube clip that hasn’t been taken down for copyright infringement:
Molly’s thoughts prior to re-watching: Pretty excited. My dad’s birthday was the 16th of November, and I wanted to do this review this week in celebration of his enthusiasm for science fiction and fantasy that was so formative for me. I didn’t recall (oh ho!) much of the film other than the asphyxiation sequence at the end and the three-tittied whore, quite frankly [Jesse says: also, dude, three-tittied whore is not the preferred nomenclature. Tri-breasted sex worker, please].
Jesse’s thoughts prior to re-watching: Cautiously intrigued, as I am with most Verhoeven screenings these days. That he has talent is undeniable; that he uses said talent in the service of vicious, intentionally trashy indulgences of his nihilism is equally undeniable. Yet I seem to remember this one having an honest-to-goodness, no-strings attached happy ending. . . which of course made me think I must have missed something the first time around.
Molly’s thoughts post-viewing: I feel like there’s a whip-smart sci-fi action movie lurking behind the façade of Total Recall. By this I mean that the film could have spent a lot more time exploring the nature of memory and subjective reality, but chose instead to over-rely on chest-thumping and man-worship. That said, it’s still fucking awesome in the way only big-budget sci-fi action movies can be: loud and bullet-riddled, and filled with questionably-futuristic technology, hot babes, awesome dudes, evil corporations, and cool stuff.
I think I prefer RoboCop of these two films simply because it manages to be (1) gorier, (2) smarter, (3) populated with more interesting characters, (4) more violent, and (5) less misogynistic all at the same time. That’s no small feat, but it’s true. That said. . . Total Recall will always have a place in my heart, like Legend, in that even though they’re both questionably good, I saw them at a young enough age that they were utterly mesmerizing and highly educational. Also, Total Recall is obviously the forerunner of Tank Girl, which I didn’t realize until this re-watch. Really! Tank Girl substitutes post-apocalyptic earth for Mars and a suit-wearing corporate grey-haired water lord for a suit-wearing corporate grey-haired air lord. Psychic mutants become warrior-kangaroo-men, and hey! Presto! A script! Sort of [Jesse says: think I still prefer Tank Girl, though—Ronny Cox is good, but he is no Malcolm McDowell, and Arnie sure as shootin’ ain’t half the thespian Lori Petty is].
Anyways, there’s apparently a remake in the works, and it’ll be interesting to see what a 21st century overhaul of this film might look like [Jesse says: maybe with Colin Farrell! I have no idea what his career did to make him hate it so. . .]. I really like Verhoeven’s grimy futures as seen in Total Recall and RoboCop, and if the new film is all shiny and Mac store-looking, I can’t imagine it will be as good. I like that these two films look like they could be our real future; that they could be the near-future that will one day be the far-future of Wall-E. Verhoeven is far too cynical to make near-future films where somehow the world has, I dunno, decided all of a sudden that polluting rivers, littering, strip mining, and overproducing unnecessary commodities so we can all enjoy the planet’s resources is Not Cool Anymore, since. . . well. Yeah. The evidence for that happening anytime soon is not particularly compelling. But in the true Verhoeven style, what we get is all that in the background, for the nerds to ponder. For everyone else, there’s explosions and boobies and one-liners! Thanks, Mr. Verhoeven, for giving us what we want and then sneering at us for wanting it, as you laugh all the way to the fucking bank. It’s what you do best.
Jesse’s thoughts post-viewing: Molly’s summation directly above is pretty much the most accurate description of his Hollywood output that I’ve ever read, and she also managed to connect Mr. Showgirls himself to Wall-E, no mean feat. For my money, Total Recall is decent viewing both by Schwarzie and Verhoeven movie standards, with many a well-executed effect, action scene, and bit of tawdry silliness to help grease the rails. The movie, as Molly pointed out, isn’t nearly as clever as it should have been, and compared to the superficially simpler but surprisingly nuanced RoboCop it’s fairly one-dimensional. Of course, that one dimension has mutants and nudity and mutant nudity and guns guns guns and fights fights fights, so it’s not as bad as it sounds.
The scenes where the film strains to be more than a simple action movie and almost succeeds are easily the most interesting, such as when Sharon Stone and the doctor from Rekall try to persuade Arnie to take the red pill to wake up from his artificial reality (and no, I don’t know why we didn’t cover The Matrix for this month, either, other than neither of us could bear re-watching it anytime soon). Although the scene in question quickly devolves into grunting and punching and shooting, it’s interesting to note that everything the doctor predicts comes to pass in the course of the film, which leads to the possible interpretation that Total Recall really is about a construction worker going crazy from a virtual vacation and not, as is usually thought, about a secret agent rediscovering his identity only to reject it for a nobler one.
The concept is never again overtly referenced in the film, but in the commentary Verhoeven somewhat gleefully offers that the fade to white that concludes the happy ending could be Arnie’s character finally being lobotomized following the hallucinations that have made up the bulk of the film. Given the director’s bleak track record, it’s easy to hypothesize which version of events he favors. So much for that happy ending—thanks for another bedtime story about the human race, Uncle Paul.
High Points: All the classy moments, from Arnie using an innocent bystander as a human shield to just about any scene with Sharon Stone—such as when Arnie greases her and says “considah that a divorce.” The part where Arnie takes the bug out of his nose. Definitely not Arnie’s acting. Johnny cabs, which are an infinitely cooler method of knowing where you are than Garmin or Magellan:
Final Verdict: ARGHHHHHH!!!!!!! But, you know, in a good way.
Next Time: We conclude Memory, Humanity, and Dystopia Month with Blade Runner over at Fantasy Magazine.
Memory, Humanity, and Dystopia Month continues today with a film about a robotic police officer. I wonder what it could be?
Film: RoboCop (1987)
WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS??? Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall, Basic Instinct), perhaps the nastiest, most cynical director of the modern age. Screenplay by Edward Neumeir (who later “adapted” Heinlein’s Starship Troopers for Verhoeven) and Michael Miner, both of whom would probably rather be remembered for this collaboration than their sophomore pairing, Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid. Suitably epic soundtrack by Basil Poledouris (Conan the Barbarian) and impressive special effects by Rob Bottin (The Thing). Acting by Peter Weller (Naked Lunch, Buckaroo Bonzai) Nancy Allen (Carrie, Dressed to Kill), Kurtwood Smith (the dad from That 70s Show causing the same sort of alarming OMG-it’s-that-guy reaction that Paul Riser evokes in Aliens), Ronny Cox (Total Recall), Robert DoQui (Coffy, Nashville), and Twin Peaks alum Ray Wise (Leland Palmer), Miguel Ferrer (Special Agent Albert Rosenfeld), and Dan O’Herlihy (Andrew Packard) as scumbags of various stripes.
Quote: “Excuse me, I have to go. Somewhere there is a crime happening.”
Alternate quote: “I’d buy that for a dollar!”
First viewing by Molly: Last week.
First viewing by Jesse: In the fourth grade, at this kid Nathan Fisher’s house.
Most recent viewing by both: Last week.
Impact on Molly’s childhood development: Very little. I remember it being on the TV at my friend Amanda’s house (Amanda had not one but two older brothers and parents who didn’t give a crap if their kids watched R- or X-rated movies) and being vaguely intrigued. I remember inquiring of one of these aforementioned older brothers, “is RoboCop human inside the suit?” and the answer being “No, he is a robot.” Being a mere child, I did not realize that robots, too, could have feelings and experience angst (thank god the internet was created to teach us such lessons—link NSFW, but worth your time if you like robots and ruffly underpants), and thus figured I would not care about RoboCop’s fate. How wrong I was.
Impact on Jesse’s childhood development: High. I remember being totally unprepared for the wanton violence, and, of course, totally impressed by it. The toxic waste scene freaked me out more than just about anything else from my childhood—I’d seen The Toxic Avenger, so I knew these things were plausible.
Random youtube clip that hasn’t been taken down for copyright infringement:
Molly’s thoughts prior to watching: Uneasy. I don’t really like Paul Verhoeven’s movies in general. I mean—the ending of Starship Troopers, where a haz-mat besuitted scientist gives an unsolicited gynecological exam to an alien still troubles me (around the 3:30 mark), and Verhoeven also directed the only movie I genuinely wish I could un-see: Flesh and Blood. Even Ladyhawke had some moments I didn’t loathe—not so with Flesh and Blood, which made me actively wish I had never been born so I would not have then grown up into a person who was watching Flesh and Blood. Christ. BUT N-E-WAYZ Paul Verhoeven also directed Total Recall, which is pretty awesome, and Jesse assured me that RoboCop was more in the TR mold than F&B. . . even though he also mentioned that it was “a movie that would probably make me hate everything.” With that sort of endorsement, what could go wrong?
Jesse’s thoughts prior to re-watching: Wary. Verhoeven’s mean-spirited, bleak view of humanity has depressed Molly before, and though the pleasure I take in Molly’s reactions to some of these turkeys may appear to be sadistic, I don’t actually like making her unhappy—at least not in the way that Paul Verhoeven makes her unhappy. For one thing, it’s hard to tell if he’s misogynistic or simply nihilistic to the point of hating everyone regardless of their gender. His tendency to cater to the lowest common denominator while simultaneously mocking said denominator for being so low and common is something that puts as many people off as it wins over, and though I enjoy a good-natured torture session along the lines of a Yor: The Hunter from the Future or a Beastmaster I’m not so keen on making her genuinely miserable with the screenings I select.
Molly’s thoughts post-viewing: Man, was I ever surprised by RoboCop! It’s really good! Who knew, besides everybody but me?
Jesse’s review pretty much encapsulates my feelings on the film, but I have to say, I was impressed for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I was amazed by the ridiculous amount of violence of the film—wowza. I mean, I’ve seen enough movies to know something bad was going to happen to the dude who trained the gun on the ED-209, but I was surprised by the sheer number of bullets pumped into that poor bastard. Same goes for the scene where the dad from That 70s Show and his assorted thugs kill Murphy—that shotgun blast to the hand was pretty agonizing to watch, as was the rest of that scene. And oh god oh god where the ginger-bearded bad guy drives a truck into a silo of toxic waste and survives long enough to melt and wheeze in a completely nauseating manner. . . I am going to stop thinking about that right now.
I was also impressed by how merciless and accurate the depiction of a privatized future America was, too. Interestingly enough, Jesse and I watched this the night of the overwhelmingly depressing mid-term elections, as America was voting tea baggers and other sundry assholes into office. Though it feels ridiculous to even type the words, I’mma say it: RoboCop hit a little too close to home for me that night. The fact that an overwrought parable like RoboCop (fucking RoboCop, man) made me so uneasy is both a testament to the state of America in 2010 as well as the overall quality screenwriting and directing of the film.
It’s obvious that the team that brought RoboCop to fruition love their dystopian novels about the dangers of capitalism and what treating people as commodities does to the world, and were intelligent enough to update the old warhorse of Brave New World into relevance. The early shout-out to Henry Ford Hospital pleased me immensely, but then later when a Lee Iacocca Elementary School is referenced. . . that’s brilliant. It’s those little flourishes—as well as updating the shiny bright nobody-has-feelings-but-at-least-they-have-bread-and-circuses of BNW into the more reasonable if ickier future of environmental pollution, lowered standards of living for disposable segments of the population, and general public despair and dilapidation as the rich get richer—that make RoboCop a much better film than Verhoeven’s Total Recall, which I felt had a smart movie lurking somewhere inside of it. Alas, with Arnold in the lead, couldn’t really rise above anything more than him shooting Sharon Stone and saying “considaaah this a divorce” or whatever the fuck happens in that moment. RoboCop, by contrast, is much smarter, much more pointed in its critiques, much better.
In the end, RoboCop is a really weird movie, and watching it for the first time at age 29 is a pretty weird experience, too. I do wonder what I would have thought of it had I seen it at a significantly younger age. I don’t think I would have been able to handle it as a child at all. . . I mean, I had nightmares for quite literally weeks after watching the tequila- and monster-fueled rape scene in Poltergeist II. In high school I probably would’ve resisted the core message of the film due to my objectivist leanings at the time (or re-framed it into a parable about how Man’s Greatness Shines Through and blamed the corruptness of the individual corporate bad guys instead of capitalism as a system). In college I. . . I dunno. Might have become enraged, as that was my default mode? Probably. But as a seasoned adult (or something) I must say: RoboCop is a damn fine movie.
Jesse’s thoughts post-viewing: Hey, very nice! And by very nice I mean incredibly dark and nihilistic and devoid of any sort of catharsis, but by Verhoeven standards this is positively charming. I pretty much agree with Molly’s take on his work in general and this film in particular, although I’m perhaps less turned off by the filmmaker’s unrelenting pessimism.
Verhoeven may be subtle as sledgehammer, but he’s also archly subversive, and certain scenes carry far more weight and gravitas than one would expect from an action movie about a robotic police officer. When RoboCop/Murphy and his partner Lewis are all kinds of fucked up following the penultimate shoot-out and lie bleeding to death in a lake of polluted sludge, Robo reassures Lewis that OCP, the corrupt corporation responsible for the events of the film, “will fix everything. They fix everything.” Murphy may have rediscovered his humanity but he’s still a literal tool of OCP, and though all the Hollywood villains are dispatched by the time the credits roll nothing has really changed—the status quo has been protected, and OCP can continue with business as usual.
For being a movie about a moralistic cyborg cop cleaning up corruption, RoboCop studiously avoids buying into the chest-thumping and flag-waving of most 80s action movies. On the contrary, part of what makes it such a fascinating film is how Verhoeven rejects these conventions of the genre and instead fashions a cautionary tale of the dangers of unfettered capitalism—the privatization of the public sector is nothing short of catastrophic in Verhoeven’s universe, and has led to tv addiction, public apathy, desensitization to violence, environmental collapse, and general misery for the majority of the population. That Verhoeven’s film satirizing America’s desensitization to violence was so bloody its initial cut was rated X plays into what we were talking about earlier regarding the director’s tendency to simultaneously give the audience what they want even as he mocks them for enjoying it. He may be a nasty man with a mean sense of humor and utter contempt for humanity, but at least he’s interesting.
High Points: All the weird Korean commercials it spawned. The effects, which hold up incredibly well and kick the shit out of most CGI nonsense. That such a nihilistic “hey, fuck you dumb Americans” movie spawned a stereotypically American kid-friendly franchise complete with toned-down sequels, action figures, video games, comic books, and cartoons. The mingling of ultra-violence with blacker-than-the-chambers-of-a-dead-nun’s-heart humor, such as this early scene:
Final Verdict: Pretty awesome.
Next Time: We continue Memory, Humanity, and Dystopia Month with Total Recall.
When Jesse and I realized we’d watched Total Recall and Dark City in quick succession, we decided to appoint November as Memory, Humanity, and Dystopia Month. So, cool! Theme months. Be warned, though–I was cranky and tired when I wrote this week’s review, so it’s probably more unfair than usual. . . but I also tend to get more riled by near misses than epic failures, just because I hate to see a good thing ruined. And after a very strong, compelling start, Dark City was ruined for me by a third act fumble of epic proportions, in that involved Heavy Exposition, The World’s Crappiest CGI Battle, Space Aliens, and a Conclusion that is Morally Questionable But Goes Internally Unquestioned. Woo! Onward:
The Film: Dark City (1998)
WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS??? Mostly Alex Proyas (The Crow, Knowing), who directed and co-wrote with screenwriters David S. Goyer (the Blade series) and Lem Dobbs (the Gary Busey classic Hider in the House). Soundtrack by Trevor Jones (From Hell), with some help from Anita Kelsey and Echo and the Bunnymen. Starring Rufus Sewell (A Knight’s Tale, The Illusionist), Jennifer Connolly (Labyrinth, Requiem for a Dream), William Hurt (A History of Violence, the Dune miniseries), Ian Richardson (Brazil), Richard O’Brien (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), and a bizzaro version of Kiefer Sutherland (Jason Patric and the Coreys versus the Dreamy Living Dead).
Quote: “Remember, John, never talk to strangers!”
Alternate quote: “No more Mr. Quick. Mr. Quick, dead, yes.”
First viewing by Molly: A couple of weeks ago.
First viewing by Jesse: In the theatre, so mid-high school.
Most recent viewing by both: A couple of weeks ago.
Impact on Molly’s childhood development:None. Never heard of it.
Impact on Jesse’s childhood development: Slight. I recall appreciating the aesthetic but thinking it aped a bit from City of Lost Children, stylistically. Like any teenager worth their weight in angst and mix-tapes, I was fiercely defensive of things I enjoyed and convinced everyone was out to take cools things and make them not cool via the dread mainstream.
Random youtube clip that hasn’t been taken down for copyright infringement:
Molly’s thoughts prior to re-watching: Our local video store is currently selling off stock, and when Jesse saw it on the rack he said something like “LOL DARK CITY” but in real-life speech. I was like “What the heck is Dark City?” and he replied “Oh, man. We should do that for Films of High Adventure,” but due to his refusal to tell anyone anything about a movie before watching it, wouldn’t say more.
Jesse’s thoughts prior to re-watching: Intrigued. I had only seen it the once, when it came out, and remembered thinking it was good if not great. I really couldn’t remember much about the movie, other than being dissatisfied with the finale and thinking wonky-ass Kiefer Sutherland was about the coolest thing ever.
Molly’s thoughts post-viewing: I’m still recovering from WFC so I’m just warning you—this is going to be disjointed and ranty.
Dark City is a case of squandered potential. I mean, it’s a movie that would be infinitely better without the lead actors’ characters being part of the plot. Yeah, I know, “what?” But it’s true. And just think about that for a second. I’m trying to think of another movie where I wished so continuously that the male and female leads would just go away so I could hang out with the supporting cast, but I’m coming up empty, because most movies where I despise the leads, I also am pretty eh about the supporting actors as well [Jesse says: uh, didn’t we just try to watch The Frighteners? I would watch maybe a thousand movies about Jeffrey Combs’ FBI agent character]. Not so here, where had Rufus Sewell and Jennifer Connolly been totally absent, it would’ve been a much, much better film, even with the goddamn space aliens in the third act.
I simply cannot wrap my head around why on earth the scriptwriters thought milquetoast monomyth nothing-master Sewell and Bland Love Interest Connolly were even remotely as engaging as twitchy mad scientist Kiefer Sutherland and angsty detective William Hurt. Then again, the scriptwriters thought that “space aliens create a large film noir-styled spaceship, populate it with human subjects, and use a scary syringe to switch up memories in people in order to search for what makes the human soul oh-so-precious and unique (?)” was an okay plot, so perhaps I’m just caring about this a bit too much [Jesse says: you’re right, it’s not an okay plot—it’s a great plot!]. After all, the space aliens hire Kiefer Sutherland’s “psychologist” character to go around switching up people’s memories because he. . . is an artist of the mind? Or something? ORLY? Is that what psychologists are? What? Jesus fucking Christ.
It’s just—argh. I just think Dark City had so much to offer, so much interesting stuff that (omg a sports metaphor?) is just sitting on the sidelines. Nay, languishing. Every good character, every engaging concept is benched (woo) in the name of that style of plot wherein a generic white male (with telekinesis!) will save the human race because he is a generic white male (with telekinesis!) and thus must overcome adversity for all our sakes in the form (this time) of the world’s lamest CGI battle.
In the end, Dark City begs no deeper question of its audience than “why should we care?” Sewell brings no depth to his role, but he’s not given much to work with other than a character description that was probably written down somewhere as ‘He is a generic white man who evolves telekinesis and shall save the world,” and indeed, is scripted in such a way that he comes off as kind of a d-bag at the end (more on that later). Jennifer Connolly is only worthy of our interest because she is pretty [Jesse says: and dresses nice and has a lovely singing voice (dubbed over her own)—what on earth more do you want from a female lead?!]. Of the only two interesting characters, one disappears into the shadows by way of resolving his plotline, the other is. . . sucked. . . out. . . into. . . space. Nice tidy ending there, especially because that character had more chemistry with Connolly than Sewell, so out he goes! Yeesh.
For a film that tries to be all moody and dark and emotional, it evokes zero pathos because there is no real substance, and like I said, anything interesting is just ignored. To wit: why did Sewell in particular evolve telekinesis? Why, if the detective had his memories of being a detective implanted, is he so good at noticing stuff? Why is Sewell convinced Connolly actually likes him, when he knows perfectly well that she had her love for him implanted in her skull, just like her memory of cheating on him [Jesse says: because you can’t fake love, Molly, the movie told us that multiple times, REMEMBER?!]? Why does he choose to believe one lie and not the other? (Because she’s pretty.) Why are there spirals everywhere? Does Kiefer Sutherland regret his decision to work for the space aliens? Did he retain any of his own memories? Does RiffRaff’s character yearn to be human and that’s why he chooses to have human memories implanted, or did he have a different reason to volunteer? WHO CARES! CGI BATTLE! IT’S-ALL-OK ENDING! CREDITS!
I dunno. I could go on, but it’s just one of those things where I can’t care any more, so I’ll just put the cap on this bottle of haterade by saying that Dark City’s ending is a perfect synecdoche for the entire film. Basically, at some point, the space aliens re-implant Connolly’s memories, giving her amnesia; Sewell retains his memories. After saving the world and then being given the power to re-shape it however he wants—and he just, like, does it because he’s apparently fully confident that he should be Lord of All and A God Amongst Men—he meets her on a weird little pier and pretends he’s seeing her for the first time, and they go off to presumably have a relationship. THIS IS PROBLEMATIC. Right? Who cares—he gets the girl! That’s it. I’m done.
Jesse’s thoughts post-viewing: I actually thought it was better than I remembered. Although I’ll agree with Molly’s assessment of a third act fumble, plot-wise, it bothered me way less the second time around, probably because I was vaguely expecting it and was thus prepared for it. I also appreciate now that it’s much more of its own thing than I’d previously given it credit—although the City of Lost Children touches are obvious, they’re not nearly as prevalent as I had remembered. The Jeunet and Caro film is one of my all time favorites, hence my protectiveness of it, but coming at it from a more experienced position, cinematically speaking, I see now that it’s just one of many sources of inspiration, and I would never begrudge anyone for loving the same works as myself.
So it’s a bit of a mess, and I agree that Hurt and Sutherland’s characters are more interesting than our actual focal points, but it’s so damn pretty I’m willing to forgive a lot. And I don’t have quite the aversion to aliens of the space variety that Molly does, though I’ll allow that I too was disappointed with the revelation the first time around. This is an unusual case of actually liking a film a bit more the second time around—being forewarned of its failings, I was better equipped to appreciate its successes. Other than that, I think Molly really covered all the bases (sports reference!) so I’ll leave off by saying that while she is technically correct about everything, it doesn’t make this movie any less cool looking, nor does it make Mr. Young Guns any less twitchy.
High Points: Kiefer Sutherland tweaking out. RiffRaff rocking the bald look. The hand-wringing of the creepy-ass strangers:
Low Points: When one gets to the point in the movie that should be titled Kiefer Sutherland Explains the Movie.
Final Verdict: A gorgeous, stylish thriller that trips over its CGI-enhanced feet in the third act.
Next Time: We continue Memory, Humanity, and Dystopia Month with either Robocop or Total Recall.
Jesse Bullington and Molly Tanzer have decided to embark upon a quest: watching “classic” adventure movies that informed one or both of their childhoods. These columns will run every Wednesday on their blogs, excluding the last post of each month, which will appear over at Fantasy Magazine. This week, as they prepare to go out of town for a conference, they asked us, their respective spouses Raechel and John, to take over for them. Sure, we said. We’ll take great care of your column. We’ll treat it like our own. Hey, it’s October. How about a classic Halloween film? Something classy and intelligent, yet terrifying. Leave it to us. Really, don’t worry about a thing. Have fun at the conference!
Film: Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)
WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS??? Jim Varney and the gentle hand of a loving God. Mostly Jim Varney (Ernest Goes to Camp, Ernest Goes to Jail, Ernest Rides Again, and The Beverly Hillbillies) as Ernest, of course. Written and directed by John R. Cherry III (Ernest Goes to Camp, Ernest Goes to Jail, Ernest Rides Again, and shockingly enough not The Beverly Hillbillies). Child acting by a bunch of children who went on to do literally nothing else (with the notable exception of Shay Astar, who rockets from the success of this film right into your nightmares as the “imaginary” friend Isabella in a terrible early episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.) The voice of Ernie Fosselius as the voice of Trantor the Troll! (Who’s Ernie Fosselius? Only the director of Hardware Wars, the greatest Star Wars parody ever made! Also, apparently, the voice of most of the “ack-ack” noises in Mars Attacks!) Oh, and Eartha Kitt (classic Catwoman, of course) setting this film apart from all other Ernest films by actually acting and being awesome in that way that only Eartha Kitt could.
Quote: “You’re the seventh son of the seventh son, you’re the baby, you’re the boy. . . you are the great redneck hope!”
Alternate quote: “You don’t want to fight me. . . I know tai chi, kung fu, chow mein, and. . . I saw Hulkamania three times, once in slow-mo!”
Alternate alternate quote: “Oh! I sure hope you’re from Keebler!”
And one more for good measure: “Well, nobody’s home! I guess they’re out robbing graves or biting the heads off of chickens or whatever’s in voodoo vogue.”
First viewing by John: The moment it came out on video. I’m guessing ’92, making it pretty much the perfect end to the Reagan/Bush years. I imagine W watched this at least a million times while he was supposed to be running his father’s re-election campaign.
First viewing by Raechel: Same here. Also, I’m pretty sure this movie was the cause of my dad’s dramatic breakup with Blockbuster. Upon returning Ernest Scared Stupid for what must have been the hundredth time, he incurred yet another $4/day late fee and finally snapped.
Most recent viewing by both: Too long ago, that’s for sure. Two weeks ago? Maybe more. Too long.
Impact on John’s childhood development: Huge.Ernest Goes to Camp was the Ernest film that kicked my childhood in the nuts (Molly says: wait, what? What does that even mean? Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? How did it come to pass that I married you?), but I only saw it once, at a friend’s house. Scared Stupid came out when my younger brothers were coming of age, and someone gave it to us as a gift, so it was screened in my living room pretty much every day between its release and the release of Major Payne. If I wasn’t watching Ernest I was hearing him in the background or listening to my brothers quote him. Sometimes when I listen to the rain I hear it tap out a soft, whispering “knowhatimean” on the rooftop.
Impact on Raechel’s childhood development: Like John, I was hooked on Ernest after seeing Ernest Goes to Camp, and really, how could one not be? Scared Stupid is the first cinematic masterpiece I ever watched, and I watched it over and over and over.
Random youtube clip that hasn’t been taken down for copyright infringement:
John’s thoughts prior to re-watching: Hells yeah! It’s like Christmas in October!
Raechel’s thoughts prior to re-watching: What the fuck is wrong with Molly and Jesse? Who wouldn’t want to watch this!? Whatever, they’re probably watching some period piece about ladies who die of sadness and people who live off of accrued interest. (Editorial note: Molly believes at least the latter half of that was actually true at the time.)
John’s thoughts post-viewing: God, this movie is even better than I remembered! Seeing Jim Varney and Eartha Kitt in a movie together is like watching a ninja make love to a supernova. It takes your breath away, but it leaves you with a feeling of deep, untarnished joy (Raechel says: this is perhaps the only time I have ever agreed with John’s assessment of a movie). Ernest Scared Stupid has everything that a movie should have: Ernest, Eartha Kitt, a troll named Trantor, an ancient prophecy, Jim Varney playing Ernest’s great-great-etc. grandfather, Ernest driving a garbage truck, a dog. . . everything! And it’s only an hour and a half! You can watch it twice in the time that it takes to watch a lot of movies that have neither Jim Varney nor Eartha Kitt! This movie is perfection.
Raechel’s thoughts post-viewing: Okay, confession time: I developed a severe allergy to slapstick and potty humor quite early in life. I hate most things that can be described as “silly,” and of all the silly things in the world, one of my least favorites is the category of Halloween movies that aren’t about people being gruesomely murdered (Jesse says: someday you’ll have to fess up to owning the Criterion Collection dvd of Hocus Pocus. . .). In short, if I must suffer a Halloween movie that is not rated R for “graphic horror violence and gore,” it’d better be a damn good one. Ernest Scared Stupid is just that. In truth, I was a little worried about re-watching this one because it prominently features children, which I dislike almost as much as slapstick. But in the end, it didn’t matter because Eartha Kitt screaming at Jim Varney while wielding a motherfucking flamethrower is pretty much the best thing ever to grace the big screen. Also, the main troll’s name is Trantor. Oh, and I’m glad I didn’t watch this film with Jesse because I cried when Ernest’s tiny dog, Rimshot, was transformed into a wooden doll, and while John at least tried to comfort me, Jesse is dogscriminatory and would have laughed at my tears. (Molly says: I just asked John “Is the dog really named Rimshot? Like. . . the thing that happens in a bad comedy routine?” John replied: “Yes, it is a joke about humor.” Oh my god.)
High Points: Jim Varney as Ernest. Jim Varney as a dozen other characters. Eartha Kitt. Eartha Kitt screaming and brandishing a flamethrower. The opening credits, which feature Jim Varney making silly faces interspersed with clips from old horror movies. Also, for all you history buffs out there, Ernest’s take on the Ottoman Empire’s attempts to expand into south Africa:
Low Points: The sad, sad fact that it does, no matter how hard you wish it wouldn’t, end.
Final Verdict: Watch it every October and you will achieve enlightenment.
Next Time: Who knows? Probably not an Ernest movie, so who cares?
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 Jesse decided it was time for me to see a movie wherein the monsters are called graboids and Kevin Bacon displays his trademark floppy hair. . .
Film: Tremors (1990)
WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS??? Direction by Ron Underwood, he of City Slickers and The Adventures of Pluto Nash, um, “fame.” Script by Brent Maddock (Short Circuit 2, Wild Wild West) and his longtime writing partner S.S. Wilson, who, in addition to the aforementioned masterpieces, also co-wrote the Tremors sequels and Ghost Dad with Maddock. Zydeco soundtrack by Ernest Troost, with some help from Reba McEntire and some other country music standards. The acting of a lifetime from Kevin “You Can Do It In Six, Guaranteed” Bacon, Fred “Remo Williams” Ward, Victor “Egg Shen” Wong, Michael “J. Fox’s Dad in Family Ties” Gross, Finn “Whatever Happened To Your Career” Carter, and, of course Reba.
Quote: “That’s how they gitcha! They’re under the gottdamn ground!”
Alternate quote: “Who died and made you Einstein?”
First viewing by Molly: Last Thursday.
First viewing by Jesse: As soon as it came out on video. I was eight, and as we were watching it my dad decided I was too scared and so he kicked me out so he could finish it by himself. After much begging it was re-rented and finished a week or two later.
Most recent viewing by both: Last Thursday.
Impact on Molly’s childhood development:None. I don’t think I even ever saw a preview.
Impact on Jesse’s childhood development: Big. To this day I have no idea why, but for some reason graboids were the coolest thing ever to young Jesse—chalk it up to my phobia of/fascination with snakes combined with my love of monsters. I would jump from tree to tree in the woods behind our house to avoid them, and run along the rim of the nearby shale quarry to trick them into falling to their splattery doom. I rarely fell from the trees and never from the quarry, which is why I’m alive today despite the odds I stacked against myself.
Random youtube clip that hasn’t been taken down for copyright infringement:
Molly’s thoughts prior to re-watching: Somewhat mystified and suspicious, given the variety of reactions. Jesse couldn’t believe I’d never seen it and insisted it was amazing. John just laughed and shook his head sadly, as he does at every movie Jesse and I watch for FoHA. Raechel cackled. I told my ace dawgg Brad that we were viewing it and he said “I sincerely hope it’s for your column,” but then I recalled that Brad has a serious but perhaps not wholly unwarranted longstanding hatred for Kevin Bacon, so I chalked it up to that.
Jesse’s thoughts prior to re-watching: Oh hells yes.
Molly’s thoughts post-viewing: Well, OK, the thing is, I like Footloose and absolutely love Dune, so one would think I should enjoy what is essentially a mashup of the two. . . but Tremors has in abundance pretty much everything I hate in movies: comical movie-style rednecks gaping at things, painful set-ups such as the whole rock-paper-scissors gag that you know from the first time it’s trotted out for something trivial that it will later-on be trotted out for more sincere reasons, doo-doo jokes, “scientists” who are highly versed in every field, “and then this happens”-style plots. I could go on. But I won’t, because oddly enough, I. . . I didn’t hate Tremors.
I found it baffling, and balls-dumb, and not really my sort of film, but I think the last complaint is really just a packaging issue. Tremors is basically Big Trouble in Little China with dusty yokels in the mountains instead of Chinese people in San Francisco, and I’m not just saying that because both have Victor Wong doing. . . whatever it is that he did in movies that I suppose we’ll call acting but really just amounts to saying things ominously and scowling in a comical fashion. Seriously, though—both are films about men having no clue what’s up in a complicated, unfamiliar, and potentially dangerous situation, and yet by virtue of playing along and being crafty, they overcome monstrous adversity. It’s not Tremors’s fault that I personally find Chinese apothecary shops more appealing than “the local diner,” six-demon bags more interesting than shotguns, odd subterranean lairs with neon-lighted skulls policed by elemental forces more. . . just all around better than pretty much everything else in the universe. But my preferred brand of stupid doesn’t make it objectively better, and I’m willing to admit that. At least on the internet.
That said, Kurt Russell is better than Kevin Bacon. Objectively (Jesse says: well, yeah, but can you connect Kurt to Goldie Hawn or Sly Stallone in only…oh. Never mind.).
Jesse’s thoughts post-viewing: The old magic is still there. I went in expecting to be amused by Molly’s reactions, given that this has high quantities of banter, macho posturing, potty humor, and everything that else she has limited patience for in the best of times, but what I got was so much more. What I got was the thing of beauty that is the motion picture Tremorsand Molly’s reactions to the same, which is about as good as it gets, although Molly was admittedly more sedate during this than many a FoHA.
I buy the Big Trouble comparison, and agree that it is the superior film. But one of the greatest things about this damn fine country is that here in the US of A we don’t have to pick between Russelling up some adventure in Chinatown or frying some Bacon to Perfection, no, here in America we can have both, and that’s a beautiful thing. Especially since in both cases monsters are involved.
Monsters movies are better than just about any other kind of horror movie, hell, they’re better than just about any other kind of movie, period, and self-referential ones are maybe the best of the bunch. Taken as an homage to the giant monster movies of the fifties and sixties, Tremors works perfectly, and manages to both be dumb as a sack of hammers and aware that it is dumb as a sack of hammers, and thus never takes itself seriously. It is, in a word, schlock, but the best schlock imaginable, and highly quotable—though admittedly not nearly so quotable as its urban, urbane cousin Big Trouble in Little China. To diss this stupid, clunky action-comedy-monsterfest is to diss everything that is awesome about America, and for all this country’s faults I for one hope the wings of liberty never lose a feather.
High Points: The part where the survivalists battle a graboid. The part where Earl and Valentine are chased into the culvert. Egg Shen’s nigh-Shakespearean death scene. Hell, let’s just say “everything” and leave it at that.
Low Points: These are all Molly’s: the septic tank joke, the annoying hippie-mom and her terrible male child, the absence of one of the characters being a slick city-bred out-of-towner trapped in the boonies due to circumstances, which was pretty much the only monster-movie cliché Tremors lacked.
Final Verdict: “GET OUT OF YOUR PANTS!!!”
Next Time: It’s goddamn October already, and thus for the next two weeks, expect Halloween-themed Films of High Adventure. Next week we allow two special guests to pick the film and review it; for Fantasy we’re doing an iconic movie featuring Tim Curry that just so happens to be watched quite frequently around Halloween. . .
Ever since I saw the trailer on Twitch I’ve been eager to see The Secret of Kells (2009), an Irish-French-Belgian animated film about a young monk running around in the woods, as well as his and other people’s efforts to save the Book of Kells from evil Vikings. Here’s why:
I know, right?
Well, I watched it Saturday and I had mixed feelings. It is even more breathtakingly gorgeous than the trailer reveals, which is awesome–it’s not like they put the pretty scenes in there and the rest is sloppy. It’s a total omg!-fest for fans of Irish stuff, medieval manuscripts, abbeys, vikings, all that sort of thing. I mean, for ultimate Hibernophile-squee, there is a character named Aisling and she uses her magic powers to great effect while she sings a song. Woo! And yet, for me at least, The Secret of Kells had substantially less cross-appeal than other films intended for a younger audience, like, say, Ponyo. I was surprised by this, since, well, I mean. . . you saw the trailer.
I think the lack of resonance was, for me, largely due to what I felt was a whisper-thin plot, a clunky script, and a dearth of compelling non-magical female characters. They are complaints that feed one another, in the end. And I KNOW ALREADY that this is a kid’s movie, but I still feel like it bears a bit of scrutiny since by all accounts I should be typing up a big old praise-fest for this film.
Here’s a not-too-spoilery plot setup: Brendan is a young monk who wants to be an illuminator. His uncle, the Abbot, used to be an illuminator, but now is consumed by his obsessive desire to build a wall strong enough to keep out the aforementioned evil Vikings, and is also so scared of Vikings that he’s demanded Brendan stay within the walls of the Abbey. Anyone who’s ever once seen a kid’s movie can guess what happens: Brendan disobeys; plot ensues.
Now, to be entirely fair to my complaint regarding female characters, I thought most of the characters were ossified and lacking any sort of meaningful three-dimensonality. Stern Abbot is stern; Encouraging Monk is encouraging. Italian Monk is Italian, Moorish Monk is Moorish, Evil Vikings are evil, Whimsical Forest-Spirit is whimsical. The plot happens because it happens, not because of real character development except sorta-kinda for Brendan. He grows during the course of the film, literally and figuratively, but only a little.
I was, of course, most bothered by this when it came to the (lone) female character. The ghostly girl you saw in the trailer is the aforementioned Aisling, a standard forest sprite-type who helps Brendan when he makes his first venture into the woods around the Abbey. She is, quite seriously, the only female character in the entire movie. . . which just seemed weird to me because sure, the action takes place at the Abbey of Kells, but it’s filled with refugees! Surely there must be a plucky adventurous refugee girl somewhere there they could’ve give a role to? Because the way it comes across is Standard Kid’s Movie Gender Breakdown: the Boy Character is active, comprehensible, intellectual, questioning, and driven by morality; the Girl Character is unknowable, giggling, whimsical, static, and though a bazillion times more powerful, way more of a fraidy-cat than the Boy Character.
For example, there’s a scary old god who haunts the woods for An Important Plot Reason I shan’t reveal here. Of course, Aisling tells us why she won’t go and why Brendan shouldn’t (one guess as to whether or not he does):
So yeah, given that Aisling is an ancient and wise spirit with powerful magics at her disposal, it just comes across as some kwizatz haderach nonsense. I mean. . . really. Brendan is an 8 year old chump who’s never left the abbey where he grew up. AND YET! Somehow he has what it takes, of course, and blah blah boycakes. Paired with the angsty “A Serious Man’s Serious Expectations For His Successor” theme that takes up so much screentime I felt totally unable to find emotional purchase in the movie.
Which, given the visuals, wasn’t a complete deal-breaker. . . I could sit back and let the gorgeousness pour over me again and again and again. I just wanted The Secret of Kells to be more than that. I mean, the complaints I’m making about Aisling could be applied 100% to Ponyo’s character in Ponyo. . . but Ponyo isn’t the only girl in that film. She isn’t put in the position of Token Girl Who Represents Her Sex because we have, among others, the little girls at Sosuke’s school, we have Lisa, Sosuke’s mother, who is a complicated, engaging character, we have many older women at the retirement home, etc. In fact, pains are taken to “other” Ponyo so that we keep in mind that she is a fish and not a little girl. Aisling doesn’t get anything close to that sort of nuanced treatment, and I kind of wish she did.
In the end, however, I feel that The Secret of Kells is a worthwhile film and I recommend it (with reservations). It is just my personal opinion that contemporary films that tokenize women and people of color should be (gently) called out for doing such when it seems to be oversight (in the case of Kells) as opposed to sexist malice, which is not at all what I felt was happening here. I’m not saying they should’ve made, I dunno, Brendan a girl who wants to be an illuminator, but is hamstrung by her sex because Monks Are Sexist or something. And, though I found Aisling to be slightly too precious, I’m not saying they should have cut her character. I simply wish they chosen to include a human girl who, like Brendan, was interested in the world, and who had goals and desires and a well-rounded psychology. Then again. . . I kind of wish that same thing for all the rest of the characters.
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!
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.
