Damn. I wish my eyes could see the world the way Terrence Malick’s movies visualize it. I don’t want to come off as corny right off the bat but watching his movies, well the only intelligent way I can put it is that shit is like watching a moving painting. I get blown away by each frame. Here’s the trailer to his next movie The Tree of Life.
I get a very Thin Red Line-esque (that’s right I make up words on this) vibe from this first trailer. I have no problem with that. I love The Thin Red Line. When it comes to contemporary war movies people usually fall into three categories: Saving Private Ryan people, Black Hawk Down people, and people like me who don’t shut the hell up about The Thin Red Line.
The Thin Red Line was a huge deal when it first came out. It’d been twenty years since Malick had made a movie and every actor around wanted to be in on this one. Go back and look at the cast of The Thin Red Line. Everybody is in that movie. I’m at the point now when I watch it I’m just looking to see who’s not in it. Like how is Billy Crudup not in TTRL? If I was Billy Crudup and I was watching TTRL on a lazy Sunday afternoon sitting on my couch butt naked and blue in my Watchmen makeup I’d be like, “Am I in this movie? Jesus Christ aka Jim Caviezel is in this, Adrien Brody’s in this movie, there’s John C. Reilly, John Travolta, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Nick Nolte’s sweaty forehead veins. Damn! Casey Jones from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie is in this! Am I in this? Why am I not in this?”
Talk to that Criterion Collection blu-ray if you haven’t yet. It’s fantastic. It’s a a great way to see the movie for the first time and the bonus features do as good a job as I’ve seen on Malick’s movie making process.
*Spoiler alert, according to everyone who worked on TTRL Malick’s way of making movies is: 1)Genius oozes out of him. 2) He makes a lot of it up as he goes along.
Damn, I said all of that and I’m supposed to be talking about The Tree of Life. You’re going to get everything in this first trailer that you’ve come to expect from Malick. Voice overs, eye candy galore, and visions of space that I haven’t seen since the last time I did acid and was convinced tacos were the key to life’s answers. Sign me up! It stars Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain (her last name should be Chastity. Don’t ask me why but it should.) The Tree of Life opens on May 27, 2011. You’ll be wondering what the hell it was about on May 28th.
After the Showa series ran its course with 1975’sTerror of Mechagodzilla, the Godzilla franchise went on a long hiatus until 1984’s relaunch, Godzilla (known here as Godzilla 1985).The movie was praised for its return to the darker themes of the early films but was criticized for its often ponderous tone and its lack of a monster opponent for the Big G.It would be another five years before the new Heisei, or versus series, would resume in earnest with Godzilla vs. Biollante, a movie that is notable for its remarkably unique and imaginative creature design, introduction of new “hard” science fiction elements, and often bizarre plot.
Biollante begins in the aftermath of the previous movie, as scientists are sifting through the rubble of Godzilla’s most recent attack on Tokyo and pulling out bits of the monster’s biological material from the debris.Godzilla vs. Biollante introduces a element into the series through its biotech subplot.In the Showa movies, Godzilla’s biology had not been given much attention, but in the 1990’s and 2000’s it is a recurring theme.In the 1980’s, the use and ethics of biotechnology and genetics was a huge issue.Biollante was actually released the same year as Michael Crichton’s landmark sci-fi novel, Jurassic Park, which also featured the application of biotech as one of its main themes.
Much of the human activity in the movie concerns the quest to obtain and use the Godzilla cell samples by different factions.This is actually kind of a cool idea, and if there had been a Godzilla attack, you can bet that lots of people would like to get their hands on his samples to use for their own ends.Researcher Dr. Shiragami, mourns the loss of his young daughter in a terrorist attack and spends much of his time looking into psychic phenomena, especially the psychic properties of roses (Um, whaaa?).One of his students is Miki Saegusa, a psychic who develops a bond with Godzilla.Miki becomes a fixture in the later Heisei movies, which feature a fairly tight continuity.
Meanwhile, Dr. Shiragami has come into possession of some Godzilla cells and has been tasked with using them to create a weapon to be used against Godzilla.Unbeknownst to his employers, Shiragami has been combining them with both the DNA of one of his psychic roses and that of his dead daughter (WTF?!), needless to say this does not end up well, and the resulting creature, Biollante, escapes into a nearby lake and grows to an enormous size.Biollante is a genetic relative of Godzilla and begins calling him to her.When the King of the Monsters arrives, the two have a skirmish, and Biollante is apparently defeated.
Godzilla then makes his way to the nearest nuclear power plant (as is his wont) he faces an all out attack from the humans, who unsuccessfully attempt to use Shiragami’s weapon against him.A fully-grown Biollante also appears, and battles Godzilla, nearly destroying him, before he triumphs and heads to sea.Biollante releases spores which briefly form into an image of Shiragami’s daughter and then head out into space(!?).
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
First, Biollante features a new look for Godzilla and one that stayed fairly consistent throughout the 1990’s.The Biollante suit remains an iconic look for the character and one that is beloved by many fans.Strangely, it adds features that are actually less reptilian, such as a set of mammalian specialized teeth instead of the fangs or jagged teeth of past suits, an almost feline face, topped with what look like cornrows, and small, intelligent eyes.Apparently, this Goji has been doing push-ups, because he has a more muscular upper body, with pronounced pectorals and deltoids (the lower body is still flabby though).
The real star, however, is Biollante herself, who is totally unique in the history Godzilla monsters.This is the rare instance of Toho forgoing the usual man-in-suit technique and opting for a different approach to bring its monster to life.Biollante, in her final form, looks like a giant Audrey 2 from Hell and actually dwarfs Godzilla in comparison.She is a genuinely horrible monster and not at all goofy-looking, as many other Toho monsters are.Her “body” is sort of bulbous with a luminescent potbelly, crisscrossed with sinewy vines . She moves on a bed of tentacle-like vines, many of which end in toothy jaws. On her back are mossy scales. Half of her body is taken up by an absolutely huge and croc-like mouth, which is full of teeth, even on the base and roof of the mouth, and from which she sprays a radioactive sap.She is definitely one of the most original and compelling monsters to have appeared in a Toho movie.
As a Toho monster, Biollante is part of a long line Godzilla clones, demi-Godzillas, usurpers, and wanna-bes that include, the original Mechagodzilla, Spacegodzilla, and Orga (from Godzilla 2000).Even the American Godzilla has been worked into the mythos as a pretender with his reference in Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah and finally his appearance in Godzilla Final Wars. In GMK, poor Baragon, is temporarily confused with Godzilla and it doesn’t end well for him.If there is a real theme to the Godzilla franchise, is that there can only ever be one Godzilla, and you’d better not even try to replace him.
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE
The battle at the end is quite good, and represents a rare moment where Goji is truly outmatched by an opponent.
SEQUELS
Followed by the also interesting, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah.
Sadly, this is Biollante’s sole appearance in a Godzilla movie.She does appear in the recent Wii game, Godzilla Unleashed as a playable character.And Shiragami appears in the cutscenes as well.
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
In the DVD and Bluray age, Godzilla vs. Biollante has been pretty much unavailable in the USA.With no official DVD release, it is necessary to order it as an import or wait for the movie’s eventual release on Bluray. As of yet, only the very first Godzilla has been released on Bluray and the 1998 remake. If Toho and Columbia follow suit with what they did last time, you can expect most of the catalog to be released on Bluray with the new American movie in 2012.
TRAILER
Patrick Garone
www.patrickgarone.com
twitter.com/patrickgarone
facebook.com/cityofthegodsnovel
The shocking twist ending ofPlanet of the Apesdidn't exactly loan itself to a sequel but that didn't stop the powers that be at Fox from churning one out and creating a "franchise" that would set the stage later film series like Star Wars.The Apes sequels are a pretty diverse lot and, truth be told, it is one of the weakest and least original entries to the series.The first half of the movie is basically a retread of Planet of the Apes and the latter half is a bizarre visit to the remains of New York City and the psychic mutants which inhabit it.
Charlton Heston was not hot on doing a sequel but was talked into appearing so long as his role was scaled back to a cameo and his character Taylor was killed off at the end.The movie begins at the iconic conclusion of POTA and we follow Taylor and Nova into the Forbidden Zone where they come across some strange phenomena.Heston's character disappears and the rest of the movie is a search for him.To replace the Taylor character the writers came up with Brent, portrayed by mini-Heston, James Franciscus.Brent is an astronaut sent in search of Taylor who, improbably, passes through the same freak time warp which ensnared the crew of Taylor's ship.
While the first movie had some serious socio-political themes embedded into the story, in Beneath they seem a little forced and superficial.The Ape society as depicted in Beneath is highly divided between the chimpanzee "intellectuals" and the militaristic gorillas lead by the new character, General Ursus.Ursus seeks to lead a gorilla squad into the Forbidden Zone to confront the mysterious forces that have been observed there and any humans that they may encounter because, "the only good human, is a dead human." This whole subplot is a pretty ham-handed commentary on the Vietnam war, complete with chimpanzee peace protesters.The political angle in Beneath the Planet of the Apes lacks the wit and cleverness of the original.
Ursus, is the first in a long line of warrior gorillas in the movies. Even the Tim Burton remake carried on this tradition. In the original movie, however, the gorillas were depicted as laborers.
What is present in the sequel is a rather weird and subversive commentary on religion.There are two belief systems present in the movie: that of the apes, who worship a long dead messianic figure that they refer to as The Lawgiver and that of the mutants who worship a super-powerful doomsday missile.The religion of the apes is presented as a superficial and ineffective control system(Ursus barely tolerates sitting through a service) while the beliefs of the mutants presented as absurd and perverse.
Preparing for services at Our Lady of Perpetual Nuclear Destruction.
The other important point in talking about Beneath is the ending, in which Taylor blows up da earf, continuing/establishing a tradition in the Planet of the Apes movies for shocking or downbeat endings.I suppose there is no way to top the amazing ending of the first movie (although Tim Burton tried) so the writers just decided to go for destructive finality.Plus Heston wanted to have his character killed off.It is a pretty shocking ending, but one that is in character for the misanthropic Taylor.The funny thing is that there is not even music over the credits, just silence.I can imagine the slack-jawed, horrified reactions of audience members when the movie played in the 1970's: ominous silence, and then the sound of little boys afraid to cry.No wonder the next movie was a gentle fish-out-of-water comedy (well, with a shocking and traumatic ending).
But first you may want to catch a show while you are in town with the Ben Nye Dancers.
THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS
Sequels often operate under the economic principal of diminishing returns, that is each successive installment will bring in less money than it's predecessor.This is not really the case these days, unless you are talking about a series that is purely a money-making enterprise.Apes was a pioneering franchise that paved the way for all of the trilogies and sequels that would pop up in the '80's and beyond.Unfortunately, the producers of these movies were still operating under the old fashioned idea that each movie would make less and less money, and therefore should cost less to make.In Beneath, you can really see this in the decline in quality in the makeup.While the main characters, Cornelius, Zera, Zaius and Ursus, are given decent treatments, many of the background-and not-so-background-apes are given awful pullover masks with unarticulated mouths like something from Troll 2.
Ursus and Zaius even have a steam bath scene (!?) in which both actors wear some really bad full body monkey costumes.This is a pretty strong argument for keeping things concealed.No one was clamoring to see Dr.Zaius without his shirt on.
A lot of attention was payed to the newly introduced mutant characters who wear rubber masks to conceal their skinless faces.The mutants are irradiated humans who have developed psychic powers including telepathy, the ability to mind control humans to produce visions. These guys have some cool make up to give them that "invisible man" effect but are otherwise kind of goofy.
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE
Beneath the Planet of the Apes features some impressive sets.There is a great scene in the middle of the movie where Brent stumbles upon the ruins of a New York subway station.The last third of the movie is set among these dilapidated urban underground settings.
SEQUELS
Escape From Planet of the Apes
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
Widely available in a variety of really good formats.Can usuallybe found in one of the many Apes boxed sets, the best of which is the exhaustive Bluray set, which is complete with a book and an interactive documentary. The DVD set is quite good also.
TRAILER
Patrick Garone
www.patrickgarone.com
twitter.com/patrickgarone
facebook.com/cityofthegodsnovel
Like nothing you've ever seen before...unless you've seen Godzilla. Or King Kong. Or Mothra. Or Gamera.
Gorgo (1961) Directed by Eugene Lourie Genre: Anglo Kaiju
In the swinging '60's, every country had to have their own giant monster. Japan had Godzilla and co., Korea had Younggary, and America was frequently overrun by irradiated insects and spiders. Not to be outdone, En-guh-land came up with its own homegrown giant monster movie, Gorgo. Gorgo has all the elements of 1960's kaiju cinema: a giant monster, minature sets, landmarks destroyed, a kaiju single parent, military battles and even an annoying little kid.
Gorgo went on to start his own Skiffle band.
In Gorgo, an earthquake awakens a giant prehistoric reptile that has been slumbering off the Irish coast. When it comes ashore, it is subdued and transported to London to be shown off to the public by some people who have obviously never watched King Kong. They are also unaware of The Grendel Rule of British Monsters, which states that all British monsters have bigger more vicious mothers waiting in the wings. Kaiju-licious mama Gorgo comes to London in search of her son, and also enjoys some of the sites and attractions of the British capital. By "enjoy," I mean "goes all blitzkrieg on."
In Britain in the '60's, you could be a sex symbol and still have bad teeth. It didn't matter.
THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS
Compared to the contemporary Japanese giant monster movies, the effects in Gorgo are pretty crude. This is particularly true of the minature work, which lacks the detail of the Japanese kaiju movies. It is interesting to note that Gorgo really features two scales: what we find out to be the infant Gorgo is about thirty feet tall and there are sets scaled to him and then there is the more traditionally gigantic scale for mama Gorgo.
The creature design is pretty unimaginative, Gorgo is typical of the upright vaguely saurian monsters we have seen a million times in giant monster cinema. Gorgo has some little finlike appendages on either side of her head that highlight her aquatic roots and give her a bit of a Nessy vibe. I'm surprised they didn't try to tie her more into the many legends of lake monsters that spring from Great Britain. She also has some big mitt-like hands, unlike the rather fine pianist fingers of Godzilla.
SEQUELS
None.
MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT
This movie gets the Golden Meh Award.
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
On DVD, and available on Netflix.
TRAILER
Patrick Garone www.patrickgarone.com twitter.com/patrickgarone facebook.com/cityofthegodsnovel
Basedon the short story of the same name, the original version of The Fly is a decidedly different experience than its more famous remake.The 1958 movie features classic horror icon Vincent Price, and the story unfolds as a murder mystery, instead of the body horror/love story of the 1986 David Cronenberg movie. The movie is set in Montreal, (making both this and the remake Canadian-set) and there is a lot of Quebecois flavor throughout, which is a little confusing at first.
When a local scientist is found brutally murdered in an industrial press, his wife becomes the sole suspect. She refuses to reveal what she knows, instead she is obsessed with locating a strange white-headed fly that has been seen around her home. Her brother-in-law and the local police investigator are tasked with finding out what happened, which is finally revealed in a lengthy flashback. The scientist had invented a teleportation device, which he decided to try on himself but when a common housefly flew into the chamber, he and the fly ended up swapping heads and arms. In order to reverse the condition, he must locate the aberrant fly and go through the teleporter one more time.
Framing the movie as a kind of detective story was a nice touch, which allows the audience to peel back the mystery of The Fly a little bit at a time, as opposed to the more direct approach taken by Cronenberg, which allowed us a more intimate look at the characters. I imagine for someone watching the movie, not knowing anything about the story, The Fly would be a wild, weird ride. Also, the presence of the smaller fly/hybrid is a horrific little subplot that is not found in the remake. One has to wonder, to what extent can the poor creature reason. We don't see it until the movie's most famous shot at the end, in which the tiny screaming human-faced creature is devoured by a spider.
THE CREATURE/EFFECTS
This version of the creature does not feature the full genetic transformation that was featured in the 1986 movie, instead we see a man with a giant fly head and an insect arm. The head is actually pretty effective and realistic, covered in black hair and with a quivering proboscis and multifaceted eyes. The total effect is fairly revolting.
This scientist has neatly traded heads and limbs with the fly and doesn't really undergo any kind of transformation, except perhaps a mental one. We see him late in the movie, losing the ability to write and think, shades of Jeff Goldblum's performance two decades later. The actor playing the scientist, David Hedison, does some very nice work physicalizing the creature, with erratic jerky body language.
MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT
I really like the scenes late in the movie when Dr. Delambre really starts to really loose it. He begins having difficulty hanging on to his humanity. In these scenes lay the seeds for tragic horror of the remake.
SEQUELS
Return of the Fly 1959, and Curse of the Fly 1965
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
DVD and currently streaming on Netflix.
TRAILER
Patrick Garone www.patrickgarone.com twitter.com/patrickgarone facebook.com/cityofthegodsnovel
Everyone is talking about the Green Lantern trailer that was just released but I actually went with my gut and watched this trailer and in the words of the late, great, famous, somebody old who died, “Me likey.”
Oh the little things in life that make me laugh like a child, like cursing. I got a huge smile right at the 0:40 sec. mark in this trailer. Then what happens, Charles Dance shows up. “Who’s Charles Dance Ricky?” Who is Charles Dance? Charles Dance is “Sardo Numspa” the villain from The Golden Child!!! Don’t you people watch movies—Maaaaaaan get the f@ck outta my house!!! Actually come back, it’s cool.
Your Highness stars Danny McBride, not enough of Natalie Portman, and James Franco. (Little known fact, James Franco actually grew a new arm for this movie.) Rounding out the cast are Justin Theroux and Zooey Deschanel. (Littler known fact, Zooey Deschanel is actually pronounced “You Know That Really Pale Cute White Girl. No The Other One.”)
Let’s get this out of the way. I’m not a fan of westerns. I can’t relate to them in the same sense that I can’t relate to musicals or movies set in Victorian times. And if a musical Victorian era movie ever gets made my head is gonna have a Scanners moment.
Josh Brolin may be the new go to when it comes to casting the role of a ”sonumbitch”. You just think “sonumbitch” when you see him. His teeth look like rotten corn. His beard looks like chewed up food, tumbleweeds, and “El Guapo” from The Three Amigos should be hanging from it.
Matt Damon! When I saw this trailer in the theater and he showed up onscreen I kept wanting to yell “Silverado! Silverado!”
But if this isn’t gonna be Jeff Bridges knocking it out of the park then you might be missing an eye just like Rooster Cogburn. If a Terminator could exist in the wild west I would imagine it would be in the mold of Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn. The relationship between him and Hailee Steinfeld’s character just seems John Connor-esque.
Hailee Steinfeld……somewhere Dakota Fanning sits, plotting, rubbing her hands together, wondering, “Who this B@&h think she is?”
True Grit opens on Christmas Day. It’s directed by the Coen Brothers. Never heard of’em.
MONSTERS (2010) Director: Gareth Edwards Genre: Sci-Fi, Drama
With recent movies like Children of Men, District 9 and Moon, we seem to be having something of a renaissance in thoughtful social problem sci-fi . Now we have director Gareth Edwards' Monsters, which, while not as good as those movies, offers up a Mexican-set giant monster story which has roots in the current political situation between the US and its southern neighbor. While a lot of the political commentary is in the background of the movie, it is clearly extrapolated from real world current events and the (US-caused) alien monster outbreak in Mexico is cleverly layered over existing issues like illegal immigration and the War on Drugs. With a huge chunk of Mexico considered an "Infected Zone" in the movie, American conservatives finally got to build a massive militarized wall along the border, and, ironically, two Americans have to be smuggled to it.
The focus of Monsters is heavily on the relationship between the two lead characters: the daughter of a wealthy family who is stranded in Mexico and a photojournalist who is tasked with bringing her back to the US. It is really more of a quiet character-driven indie road movie than the orgy of action and special effects you might expect from the title . I've grown fond of calling it Lost in Monstration for its foreign setting and the weird quasi-romantic relationship at its core.
Monsters is a gorgeous-looking movie and it captures the particular beauty of Mexico, here often in ruins. The vivid Latin American color palette is muted with smoke and rubble. The movie presents us with a haunting apocalyptic vision contrasting ruined urban landscapes filled with architectural skeletons and jungles dotted with Mayan ruins and abandoned military hardware.
For a movie that gets a lot of mileage out its Mexican setting, Monsters makes some inexplicable mistakes about the country's basic geography. When the characters finally reach the US border near the end of the movie, they find the terrain covered in jungle and peppered with Mayan pyramids, which would more accurately be Mexico's border with Guatemala to the south. Anyone who has ever been to the arid American southwest will have a good idea what the US border would look like. C'mon, guys, look that shit up.
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
The movie handles its creatures in an interesting way. For most of movie, the monsters are either referred to, glimpsed in Cloverfield-like video clips, or seen in illustrations and photos, which is in keeping with the movie's emphasis on its human protagonists. The monsters are handled in a way that is refreshingly casual, instead of reverential. The movie is not trying to knock you over the head with CGI. As in Cloverfield, the creatures are kept mysterious, except for the fact that they crashed to Mexico on some sort of NASA sample return mission which immediately overran a large chunk of Mexico, the "Infected Zone."
Once we finally see them, they are somewhat of a letdown, though. While an octopus is a great starting point for an alien creature-the tentacles, the slimness, the soft boneless body-the aliens of Monster look a little too much like octopi. Other than their size, bio-luminescence, and their ability to walk on their tentacles, they are pretty much Space Octopi. Maybe they are from the Mon Calamari system. It is unimaginative creature design and somewhat of a letdown after being teased for the whole movie. But again, Monsters is not really about monsters.
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
Currently in select theaters and available On Demand.
SEE ALSO
Cloverfield 2008, District 9 2009
TRAILER
Patrick Garone www.patrickgarone.com twitter.com/patrickgarone facebook.com/cityofthegodsnovel
Superman: The Movie. Damn. It's one of my favorites of all time. All. Time. He's not even my favorite superhero but the film make you do exactly what the poster says above, it makes you believe son! That's what good movies should do. Alright here's two solid articles on the movie and more things Superman-centric.
First is an installment from Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" where he reflects on Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie. You can talk to that here:
http://tinyurl.com/2bka5do
Second is also courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Times and it's also about the big man in blue from the Max Fleischer cartoon all the way up to Donner's film. Fun reads. Enjoy:
Well look at me being all fancy letting you know about a foreign movie. Keep looking. Keep looking. Hold up, let me strike another quick pose…..BLA-KOW! Alright stop looking. Stop! Now check out this trailer to the upcoming Italian film The Last Circus. What’s it about? What’s everything about when you boil right down to it? If you believe, like I do, what One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest mental patient Mr. Harding believes it’s about “…form. I’m talking about content! I’m talking about interrelationships. I’m talking about God! The Devil! Hell Heaven! Do you understand! Finally!!!” Say that shit Harding! Say it!
Watch this trailer and see if it’s not about all of those things as well as it’s about clowns, machine guns, knives, lips, more clowns, and silhouettes humping. I know this word gets thrown around a lot and overused but damn this trailer really does look beautiful. And what is it that works so well when you combine a really pretty moving song with just hardcore aggressive violent imagery? Is it like a really sweet ballet of sound and imagery? Wow. I sounded like a real uppity douche right there. Let me go back and read those last couple of lines again. Yep. A douche that is uppity. I like it. Word!
The Last Circus is directed by Alex de la Iglesia. I’m not familiar with his other work if he even has any. If he does let me know and I’ll check it out but I am looking forward to this when it’s released in 2011.
Evolution started its life out as a serious sci-fi/horror film about a hyper-evolutionary, extraterrestrial eco system that invades earth.When director Ivan Reitman took it over he rewrote the script and made it into a sci-fi comedy much in the vein of his earlier Ghostbusters.Like his earlier hit, Evolution is centered on a group of smart misfits lead by a laconic slacker who are tasked with a huge pseudo-scientific problem.Dan Ackroyd even has a cameo towards the end of the movie.
While the special effects and science fiction aspects of the movie are well-executed (it is actually a pretty cool concept which makes me wonder what the original straight version of the movie might have been like), the comedy elements don’t come together so well.This might have something to do with the weak script or the shtick of the incredibly unfunny Orlando Jones (he’s a funny guy but he’s workin’ his Eddie Murphy act way too hard in this movie) or the frequently annoying Sean William Scott.The leads, David Duchovny and Julianne Moore work out a little better.The movie seems to be fighting a loosing battle between a very droll and smart sense of humor and jokes about bodily functions.
THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS
Evolution’s saving grace is the quality and variety of its creature effects, which run the gamut from microorganisms to a goofy/ terrifying amphibian to a towering blob monster.The best one is probably the winged velociraptor-like creature that rampages through a mall.Also interesting are the blue-furred ape-like animals that represent the highest shown level of alien evolution.Apes are great subjects for monsters because they are so like us anatomically and when we see an ape that is fundamentally wrong it strikes a disturbing chord with us.
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
Widely available on DVD.Has some deleted scenes, including an unfunny alternate ending.
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE
The flier’s attack on the shopping mall.
SEQUELS
None.
SEE ALSO
Ghostbusters (1984)
TRAILER
Patrick Garone www.patrickgarone.com twitter.com/patrickgarone facebook.com/cityofthegodsnovel
INDEPENDENCE DAY (ID4) (1996) Director: Roland Emmerich Genre: Sci-Fi/Disaster
THE MOVIE
I learned a valuable lesson from Independence Day. It wasn't that people of all walks of life will come together to confront an insurmountable foe, with only their faith and patriotism to protect them. It wasn't that extraterrestrials have an overarching hatred for national monuments. It wasn't that alien computers are compatible with Mac OS 8 and susceptible to computer viruses.
It was that you should never, ever, trust a cool movie trailer.
I came into Independence Day with very high expectations due a very good trailer that should off some very cool visuals and ID4, promised to be a modern update of an old-school invasion stories like War of the Worlds. The story looked like it had shades of the great 1980's minseries V, which also featured a fleet of massive spaceships parked over Earth's cities.
But writer Dean Devlin and director Roland Emmerich-who were not well known at this point-give the movie a wide scope but almost no depth. Independence Day is not really about anything other than people fighting with spaceships. I like to compare this movie to M. Night Shyamalan'sSigns, which is another invasion movie, but instead of being globally focused, Signs tells the story from the point of view of one family living in a rural house. There are only a handful of characters and you actually care about them. The characters of Independence Day are not really worthy of being cared about because they are simply two-dimensional avatars with simple relationships calculated to give the movie "heart," yet it has no heart. At best, the characters are archetypes (Cocky Fighter Pilot, Idealistic Young President, Good-Hearted Stripper) at worst, out and out stereotypes (Old New York Jewish Guy, Big Gay Mama's Boy).
The great visuals and set up are not supported by any ideas. There is no exploration of what it means that we are not alone in the universe. The aliens never reveal their intentions, they simply exist to be antagonists. This movie is science fiction in the most shallow sense. The sci-fi elements only exist to make the kind of big stupid disaster movies that the filmmakers seem to love so much. So Independence Day is a movie with neither heart nor brains.
It should be noted that this is one of Will Smith's breakout performance and the first of his many hit July 4th movies. It's really striking to see just how much he has grown as an actor since ID4. Thankfully, he no longer feels the need to constantly "work it" on camera like he does in this movie. Just look at the wonderfully somber and nuanced performance he gave in I Am Legend a few years back for comparison.
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
The aliens of ID4 were designed by Patrick Tatopolous, who also worked on Devlin and Emmerich's hated Godzilla movie and are cool if derivative. The exoskeleton is biomechanical and looks a good deal like Giger's Alien, with the addition of a series of tentacles that come out of its back. This armor is apparently vulnerable to being punched in the face. Sadly, we see very little of these guys in the movie and we don't really see how they move around. Do they walk around on the tentacles like Doc Ock? These guys were briefly popular as toys in the '90's.
Inside the exo-suit are little guys that resemble the "grays" that are prevalent in UFO mythology (especially in the 1990's). They are given flared, manta-like heads and iridescent skin and eyes but are otherwise pretty typical aliens. They do resemble the alien from Devlin and Emmerich's previous movie, Stargate, giving some continuity in the Devlin/Emmerich cinematic universe (such as it is).
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE
I will say that there is an interesting detour midway through the movie where the main band of characters end up in Area 51. The movie has some fun working some contemporary UFO mythology into its story in an almost clever way. There is also a very fun cameo from Brent Spiner (Data in the Star Trek: The Next Generation series and movies) as a wild-eyed scientist who looks to have been locked in the facility since the 1960's. This is a great bit of sci-fi casting in what is otherwise an unimaginatively cast movie (Jeff Goldblum as ascientist? Where'd you think of that?)
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
Available on DVD, Bluray, and currently streaming on Netflix.
MINORITY REPORT
Verdict: The gay guy dies first!
So this movie pretty prominently features the pioneering openly gay actor Harvey Firesteinin a supporting role.While he never actually says that his character is gay, it not unreasonable to assume it based on his performance and the fact that the character has a stereotypically overbearing mother. So this character that a savvy audience will be lead to assume is "gay" is the first speaking character to die and doesn't get to party with Fresh Prince, Brundlefly, and Lone Starr at the end of the movie.
The message: Diversity is great! We just don't want you around when we rebuild civilization.
SEQUELS
None yet but then Will Smith's career hasn't hit the rocks.
