Furious on Film 11.09.06: Issue 62
Posted by Arnold Furious on 11.09.2006
Check out some of the character names on display this month Clovis Poplin, Maxwell Slide, Una Flux, Oren Goodchild, Hawkeye Pierce, Trapper John and Spearchucker Jones
The aim of this ongoing column was simple. I've been watching films for a long, long time but along the way I've somehow found myself watching some absolute crap on a regular basis. I've seen every episode of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th and Halloween. Is there any real need for that? Should I have seen Police Academy: Mission to Moscow? The Blair Witch spoof movie that was just a bunch of Blair Witch spoofs hung together by a terrible TV show called The Woods? I Spit on Your Grave? I'm appalled at my own decisions. So I'm now on a crusade to try and be more adult about my film watching. It's time to spread my wings and watch a wider range of films. The biggest problem I've encountered when taking on this challenge is my choices of viewing material aren't always at the level I'd hope for. There are times when I abandon my high and mighty campaign and instead watch whatever my brain decides I need. This can happen at any time but I'll still try to keep up a turnover of films that are challenging in some way.
Warning could well contain minor spoilers throughout. Films are rated on a ***** scale. This week we have
Sugarland Express, Aeon Flux, Screamers, MASH
Sugarland Express (1974)
EXPECTATIONS When I first saw the first half of Sugarland Express (before falling asleep late on a Saturday night) it was because I'm quite a big fan of Goldie Hawn. What I didn't realise at the time was this was the work of Steven Spielberg. It was, in fact, his first cinematic offering. So we're talking hot new young director about to make an impact. He'd already made quite the splash with TV movie Duel, which still has a following to this very day. To give you an idea of how close Spielberg was to becoming one of the biggest names in Hollywood; his next five films were Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, Raiders of the Lost Ark and ET. So he was on the verge of something huge right here. But as I pointed out my main reason for checking the film out was Goldie Hawn. Generally Goldie plays the same character, practically, in everything but it's a nice character. But this film came before she got typecast. The roles she's best known for, which are all very similar, were to follow. I'm talking the Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox, Foul Play, Private Benjamin, Seems Like Old Times, Protocol, Wildcats, Overboard and Bird on a Wire. All of which I like mainly because of Goldie Hawn being so damn likeable and my Mother being a huge fan. There's something about my parents taste in music and film that generally infiltrates down to me. Apart from my Mother's love of show tunes. That's just wrong. But she does have several Stevie Ray Vaughan CD's so I'll cut her some slack.
PLOT Based on a true story. Lou Jean Poplin (Goldie Hawn) breaks her husband Clovis (William Atherton) out of jail so they can go over to Sugarland, Texas and reclaim their child Baby Langston from his foster parents. But when their lift gets pulled over by the cops the Poplin's take Patrolman Maxwell Slide (Michael Sacks) hostage and get him to drive his cruiser over to Sugarland. Captain Harlin Tanner (Ben Johnson) has other ideas and starts to use his full resources to prevent this from happening. As the story unfolds the couple become media stars in Texas and huge crowds come out to support them.
OPINION It's alarming that Sugarland Express is not loosely based on a true story but rather accurately based on a true story. That makes the action all the more alarming. I'm glad I didn't know the outcome of the events prior to sitting down to watch the movie though. Spielberg does a reasonable job with his first feature and it's clear he learned from all his TV projects especially Duel. He manages to create some fine scenes of tension while also adding in his own little moments of comedy, which makes this feel very much like a classic Spielberg picture. The best thing about Sugarland Express isn't a solid rookie performance from Spielberg though but rather Goldie Hawn playing gloriously against type as a hick criminal with a heart of gold. She occasionally drops back into the Goldie Hawn character we know, all smiles and big eyes but then every now again she's waving a shotgun at state troopers and screaming. It's a performance that doesn't stick to one particular character trait but rather explores Lou Jean as a person with a range of emotions. William Atherton is good enough as Clovis although I don't really buy him too much as an anti-hero. I guess I've gotten too used to him as a bad guy (Ghostbusters, Bio-Dome, the reporter in Die Hard, the Last Samurai etc). Goldie Hawn is the definite driving force of this film and I'd probably go as far to say it was her best performance. Not that I don't like her in everything else she does but here she really pushes herself, which I don't think she does often enough. Spielberg is well within himself here merely experimenting with various camera shots and action sequences to see what works well. He'd get far more serious with Jaws the following year. This is more Hawn's chance to shine before heading into her career as a leading lady. Often it only takes one great performance to set up an actor/actress with a series of films. Nic Cage for example got a lot of films off the back of Leaving Las Vegas. Here Hawn had a brave and strong performance that helped pave her path to stardom. For that alone Sugarland Express is worth watching. Of course it'll never go down as one of Spielberg's best because he's gone on to such enormous films since but this is certainly an interesting watch. He's not quite in tune with the audience yet and not willing to give them what they want at the expense of not telling the story right. I think that's why the ending doesn't quite work and the same reason why he couldn't end Munich properly. He feels he needs that grandiose final shot and the happy ending to warm everyone's hearts. Increasingly during his most successful years that was the case. For instance think about the warm fuzzy feeling you get at the end of the Last Crusade and compare that to the end of Sugarland Express. Spielberg became a master at manipulating his audiences' emotions but this was before all that.
BEST BIT The superb conversation between Maxwell Slide and his prisoner on route to the original hijacking incident. The drunken man he's arrested talks repeatedly about God forgiving him and how he isn't really drunk. Maxwell asks him a few questions to try and gauge his sobriety but this is the peach; "Is your name Buster Daniels?" The response from the back of his car; "Well, it was before I married". This is all intercut with Clovis & Lou Jean getting a ride from an elderly couple. The male driver insists on leaning into the back while talking to them and driving at about 20mph on the freeway. It's early in the film and got me into what they were trying to do from the start. Yeah, this is funny but with it comes an actual tension.
RATING - ***1/2. While Sugarland Express will never go down as an absolute classic in anyone's eyes it does have a great performance from Goldie Hawn and Spielberg completists really need to check it out. They probably won't be disappointed. It has a lot of the same sort of vibe as Close Encounters. The same sense of humour only here it's a little darker.
Aeon Flux (2005)
EXPECTATIONS Aeon Flux was a decent cartoon short that aired on MTV back when it played music videos. Although it was nowhere near as good as The Maxx, Aeon Flux had a following because of the weird nature of the storyline. Aeon was a roughly defined rebel who fought against a fascist government in the last city on Earth. Her nemesis was a man called Trevor Goodchild who at times during the series was also her lover. All very confusing stuff as Aeon's character changed randomly from one episode to the next and frequently died. The idea of making Aeon Flux into a film seemed like an impossible dream. Step forward director Karyn Kusama who'd previously directed Girlfight. As for playing Aeon step forward Academy Award winner Charlize Theron. Already a star of such films as the Devil's Advocate, Cider House Rules, Monster, the Legend of Bagger Vance (loved her in that) and North Country.
PLOT In an attempt to give Aeon Flux a linear storyline we follow the government of Bregna, the last city on Earth. A plague wiped out most of the world's population and the remaining five million live under the leadership of Trevor Goodchild (Marton Csokas) whose family have run the city for the last 400 years. The resistance is quickly building momentum against him thanks to the work of their best agent Aeon Flux (Charlize Theron) and her pupil Sithandra (Sophie Okonedo). But Trevor's brother Oren (Johnny Lee Miller) is working against the resistance in an attempt to scupper their efforts.
OPINION Converting Aeon Flux from an edgy MTV cartoon to a full length feature film was littered with problems. The obvious one would be losing the cutting edge that the weird animation gave Aeon Flux. A lot of the imagery was so weird, Japanese weird as well, that converting it into reality would just take the fun out of it. And it does. The entertaining side of Aeon Flux came from the animation along with the story. Although a lot of the story remains and they do some nice intertwining of the characters the simple fact of the matter is that Aeon Flux doesn't have the same futuristic feel that the cartoon had. Just having grass in Bregna seems weird for starters. I don't remember ever seeing any grass in the cartoon. I kind of liked that as well. The future was a big grey city that provided everything without mankind's reliance on nature. The next issue, now they'd failed to deal with the visual splendour of capturing the cartoon, was moving the characters to the screen. First off Charlize Theron was a good choice for Aeon but after that we're in trouble. Marton Csokas looks nothing like the creepy grey haired Trevor of the cartoons. I think that just destroys the dynamic of the show right from the off. I genuinely hated Trevor, which made him such an easy bad guy but at the same time he was a great character. The film relies on the acting strengths of Johnny Lee Miller, oh dear, as his brother to get to their pay offs. That and putting Frances McDormand, Sophie Okonedo and Pete Postlethwaite in daft costumes and giving them worse dialogue. I'm not really shocked that the writers didn't get the original story and misfired on the script but they do get in some neat gimmicks and gadgets. I think that's half the problem. This film comes off as a weird futuristic female James Bond movie. Hell, Aeon beds the main guy in the government to avoid death. There's really none of the depth that the cartoon character had. I think the problem many film makers have with converting cartoon characters is they fail to see the depth in those characters and therefore simplify them to appeal to a mass market. But Aeon Flux was never going to appeal to a mass market because it's not a mainstream action movie nor is it mainstream in any sense of the word. They just didn't go far enough to appeal to the underground fan of quirky weird films. Aeon Flux ends up being too shallow. It's more about action sequences than characters. In the series the action sequences had import because of the casual way Aeon planned her escape routes but then dramatically executed them. Here the planning seems too obvious and too close to the moment where everything comes good. Like Kusama doesn't credit her audience with anything beyond a five minute memory. The relationships between the characters are never fully explored. There isn't enough dissention between Trevor and Oren before they begin to argue. The Aeon-Sithandra and Aeon-Una relationships aren't taken anywhere really important. Una only really gets one scene with Aeon before she's bumped off and we're supposed to feel a connection? You're lifting storyline from Death Wish and putting it into an offbeat cartoon conversion? The result of all this tinkering left me feeling somewhat hollow and disinterested.
BEST BIT The replication of the introduction from the Aeon Flux cartoon series where Aeon catches a fly between her eyelashes. The idea being that Aeon is so totally in control of her body that she's the perfect secret agent. A killing machine.
RATING - **. While Aeon Flux isn't a bad film it's just a bland rehash of something far more creative. The original cartoon series raised more interesting questions without pushing a moral code on its viewer. The film is too straightforward. Aeon's politics are too obvious from the start. The film needed more ambiguity to really thrive. Some of the CGI was nice but beyond that there's not a strong enough or a challenging enough storyline to make this a worthwhile film. Maybe if it wasn't so bland it wouldn't have tanked (budget $60M, gross $25M).
Screamers (1995)
EXPECTATIONS I was initially drawn into watching Screamers because of the involvement of the writing team. Screamers was originally a Phillip K. Dick short story called "Second Variety" (and what was wrong with that as a title?) Dick's work has been successfully converted to the screen before. His novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" became Blade Runner. "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" became Total Recall. Minority Report was based on a Dick story as was the recent release A Scanner Darkly. But that wasn't all with Screamers. You see his story was converted into screenplay form by Dan O'Bannon. He wrote Alien for those who don't know. Before that he wrote Dark Star and afterwards he went on to pen Dead and Buried, Return of the Living Dead and Total Recall. It must have been his success at converting Dick's work on Total Recall that landed him this gig. Attach Robocop star Peter Weller and I'm onboard! Also onboard is Z list movie star Andy Lauer who I recently slated in "HG Wells' War of the Worlds".
PLOT On a distant mining planet, Sirius 6B in the year 2078, two sides have warred long and hard over the rights to the planet. But with few survivors those in charge back on Earth have forgotten about the conflict and left the remaining troops to work it out for themselves. Unfortunately the Alliance has created a blade wielding underground robot that gained its own AI and started to reproduce. The planets Alliance commander Joe Hendricksson (Weller) decides to sort out a peace treaty with his NEB opponents in order to put an end to the fighting so everyone can move on. He takes with him on this mission a gung ho soldier who crashes on the planet on route to the next potential war zone Ace Jefferson (Lauer).
OPINION My first thought regarding Screamers was that the budget was quite small. After all how else could you explain the lame cast? Andy Lauer's presence in anything is because he's cheap. Peter Weller is the only decent actor in Screamers. The actual production is surprisingly solid though and the money seemed to go there. What money you ask? $20M American I say. Although it doesn't show throughout most of the film there are moments when the backgrounds feel like something out of Aliens and the film doesn't look horrible. Speaking of horrible "Screamers" is a horrible title. One that anyone would struggle to like. It's hard to understand why they went for that title when the original title Second Variety was a much better fit. Let me explain the plot a bit more to explain why that's the case. The first generation of Screamers were made by scientists but the Screamers started to build themselves and upgraded to the Type 1 Screamer, which is basically the same thing only slightly better. Then they later encounter a Type 3 Screamer. I won't explain what that is because it'd ruin part of the plot but the problem they then have is identifying the Second Variety, which is why that was the better title because it's the crux of the whole fucking film. While the Screamers drive the plot along it's the mysterious and unknown Second Variety that causes the problems that drive everyone involved into life threatening situations. Plus Screamers sounds rubbish. Watching the first few minutes it feels very much like a Tremors knock off as the Screamers move around underground disrupting the soil as they go. Only they're much smaller and a mechanical species so the differences end quite quickly. Had I been watching on TV I'd have probably switched over at that point. The first few minutes of the film are unashamedly poor but it does get better. As soon as Weller's character gets out of the base the focus is on him and that's for the best because he's the only decent actor in the film. So he happily carries it on his back trying to push the whole "Second Variety" theme as hard as he can by extenuating how important it is that they find out what the Type 2 Screamer looks like. By the end it's clear that the Screamers have already taken the planet and that's when it takes on an Invasion of the Bodysnatchers kind of vibe. Some of the plot twists are a bit silly but the teaser at the end is pure gold. I won't share any of them with you but if you're a sci-fi fan it's worth a look.
BEST BIT The reveal on the Type 3 Screamer as an unsuspecting member of Hendricksson's party gets blown away.
RATING - **1/2. The lack of budget gets exposed at almost every turn, which cripples what could be a great film. The potential is certainly there in the source material and the script. It's almost a shame that Peter Weller has no support from the rest of the cast or an average director. There are some fun moments and the best of the other actors Jennifer Rubin has an ok outing but it does feel like she's a downmarket Ellen Ripley (in Alien Resurrection) at the best of times. Potentially great, but in actuality it was merely ok. Glad I watched it though because I'm always fond of Dan O'Bannon scripts.
MASH (1970)
EXPECTATIONS I've put off watching this film for at least ten years because of how much I loved the M*A*S*H TV show starring Alan Alda, Loretta Swit, Jamie Farr and Gary Burgoff (Radar the only mainstay crossover in the series from the film). I just couldn't imagine anyone else playing Hawkeye Pierce. That said the cast of the MASH film contained several of my favourite actors from the period in question including Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould and Robert Duvall. As for the director, well that'd be Robert Altman. This is his most famous film. He's also made several films I'm quite fond of; Gosford Park, The Player, Short Cuts and the Long Goodbye. Unfortunately he's also prone to very pretentious and self absorbed work. None more so than the dreadful Pret a Porter. Whoever thought THAT would be a good idea? He was also responsible for the Popeye film starring Robin Williams. That just had bad idea written all over it too. The Academy eventually gave him an honorary award after failing to give him a Best Director award on his five nominations. MASH was his first.
PLOT On arriving at a field hospital in Korea doctor Hawkeye Pierce (Sutherland) takes an instant disliking to his bunk mate Major Burns (Duvall). He joins up with fellow miscreant doctors Duke (Tom Skerritt) and Trapper John (Gould) to ruin Burns' life. Burns only has one ally in his religious crusade against Hawkeye and that's head nurse Margaret O'Houlihan (Sally Kellerman) so they make her life hell too. Hawkeye and Trapper spend most of their time drinking, playing golf and making wagers to keep the horror of the war at an arms length.
OPINION While I was trepidatious approaching MASH I shouldn't have been. Sutherland and Gould are both fantastic and almost wipe away any lingering thoughts of Alan Alda inside of the first 10 minutes. I was concerned that Tom Skerritt's Duke would play a major part but as soon as Gould's Trapper John shows up he gets shoved into the backseat where he belongs. The whole Hawkeye/Trapper team is almost reminiscent of another doctor and his cohort; Dr Hunter S. Thompson and Oscar Acosta. While there are no drugs the gambling, golfing and drinking mixed in with some hijinks and politics makes it a close call. I know the war aspect should make MASH a black comedy but more often than not the mixing of surgery and comedy leans more towards the comedy. I was quite surprised by how strong the comedy aspect came across. MASH is a consistently funny film. I laughed out loud several times. There are some terrific gags in MASH. My favourite was probably nearing the end where the 4077th play a football game against General Hammond's team. They draft in ringer, and very un-PC named, Spearchucker Jones (Fred Williamson) who comes up with some plays for the game. The camp's leader Colonel Blake (Roger Bowen) seems very impressed as he looks through them before stopping to ask what all the little arrows mean. It's rare I laugh that loudly just because they built up two characters and then just slapped down a terrific punchline that was entirely down to character building. The whole of the football game is tremendous. Just when you think that MASH can't get any better, after making one of the great war films without showing any fighting, they go and make one of the best sports films ever made and just slap that on the end of the runtime for good measure. Hotlips becomes a cheerleader despite being utterly clueless about the sport of football and has some great interaction with Blake on the bench including a great line where she thinks the opposition had shot Spearchucker. "That's the end of the quarter" replies the Colonel clearly getting agitated by his head nurse. MASH was years ahead of it's time, gave birth to one of the best TV shows ever and is wicked in it's subversiveness often taking shots at war in general. Having seen all his major pictures I would say this is easily Altman's best film and greatest achievement.
BEST BIT "Attention, all base members must report for a drug test for marij- marijua-... disregard last transmission" PA announcer.
RATING - *****. Funny, devious, wicked, subversive, sharp, fresh, somewhat immoral and above all entertaining. Altman's war comedy surpasses even the tremendous TV series it spawned and is without a shadow of a doubt must see' cinema. Odd that 1970 would create two drastically different and yet equally brilliant war movies. This and Patton.
ELSEWHERE
For those who missed the plug in the Cyber Sunday review don't forget to check out Mediocre Films and its creator Greg Benson. Some of the standards in these shorts are better than some movies I review. And a damn sight funnier. My favourite thus far is Greg's Phone Call to God. Although generally I find his stuff amusing. And hey, it'll kill about an hour of your time if you're sitting there with nothing to do.
George Sirois tackles Batman Begins in his last comic book movie Scene Anatomy. Just a week until Scene Anatomy #100.
Chad Webb has week 50 of the Big Screen Bulletin. We're hitting some milestones around here!
November Movies Roundtable. I contributed. Along with Flamingo, Kristopowitz and Sirois. Don't any of us have boring names?
Cyber Sunday reviewed by yours truly. Already getting hate mail for my attack on Jeff Hardy but he really did deserve it.
