Freaked

Dir: Alex Winter, Tom Stern

1993

*****

Something terrible happened in the early 90s. Studios, who would quite happily let established directors piss money up the walls, suddenly lost their bottle. You have to look at the Coppola’s of the game, who over-ran on projects and made many a studio executive’s heart weak. They made a few masterpieces for sure, but their work ethic made studios nervous because it lost them money. It’s always about the money, which is understandable, but more and more studios couldn’t see beyond the money. Now I am surprised that 20th Century Fox went for the film quite as much as they did. Alex Winter and Tom Stern pitched the idea to 20th Century Fox and Joe Roth, the head of the studio at that time, loved the idea and offered the two a twelve million dollar deal to direct it, despite the fact that neither of them had any experience directing a major Hollywood film and had never even shot on 35mm film before. Freaked, originally called Hideous Mutant Freekz, was conceived around the time Winter and Stern had directed 1988's Bar-B-Que Movie, a short film starring and featuring the music of rock band Butthole Surfers. Winter, Stern and Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes began work on the first draft of the script, envisioning it as an obscene, ultra-violent horror film once again featuring the Butthole Surfers, costing around $100,000. The idea was, as Alex Winter put it, "Beach Blanket Bingo meets The Evil Dead". The two fished the script around to various studios for years, but to no avail. Following the end of production on Stern and Winter's MTV sketch comedy show The Idiot Box, staff writer Tim Burns was recruited to join the two in a number of rewrites. The film was completely revisioned, dropping the aspect of the Butthole Surfers entirely and turning it into a full comedy in the vein of the Monty Python and MAD Magazine-inspired humour that was present in The Idiot Box. Joe Roth loved it but signed them up on the condition that the film had to be rewritten and toned down to fit a PG-13 rating; therefore, most of the profanity was written out of the final draft to fit MPAA standards. Within a month of being picked up, the film began production. However, during filming, Joe Roth was fired as studio head by Rupert Murdoch and replaced with Peter Chernin, who didn't like the film nor the fact that twelve million dollars was being invested in it. It was perhaps a little premature of Roth to release a line of action figures, a novelization and, most notably, a comic book released by Hamilton Comics that was drawn before most of the casting was completed, so none of its characters looked anything like their real-life counterparts. Chernin cut the film's post-production budget, thus forcing a lot of the soundtrack (including a demo song that Iggy Pop had recorded for the closing credits) and special effects to be greatly cut down or eliminated altogether. The film's title was changed, as well, from the poorly received "Hideous Mutant Freekz" to the supposedly more accessible "Freaked", a title neither Winter nor Stern much cared for. After several poor test screenings, Fox chose to pull the film from a nationwide release and cut its advertising budget, leaving no money for commercials or newspaper ads. Despite initial positive critical response, the film opened in October 1993 on only two screens, making a mere $6,957 in its first weekend. It quickly dropped out of theatres, making less than $30,000 and becoming a box-office failure. It doesn’t take a genius to see that by trying to save money, the studio ended up loosing way more than they had to. The whole concept of test screening is utterly ridiculous. The film is amazing, a cult classic, although so few people have seen it it still isn’t the cult classic it deserves to be acknowledged as. It’s everything I love about the 90s. It begins with Skye Daley (Brooke Shields) as she is interviewing beloved former child star Ricky Coogin (Alex Winter). Rather bluntly, Skye asks how Ricky so quickly went from one of America's sweethearts to a name that makes children scream in terror. Ricky, completely in silhouette, begins his story. Ricky is shown accepting an endorsement contract from slimy mega-corporation E.E.S. (Everything Except Shoes) to promote "Zygrot 24", a toxic fertilizer, in South America. Although hesitant at first, the greedy, self-centered Coogin caves in after their sleazy CEO (William Sadler) offers him $5,000,000. Ricky travels immediately to the South American town of "Santa Flan" with his buddy Ernie (Michael Stoyanov). During their flight, the duo have a run-in with Ricky's 12-year old number one fan Stuey Gluck (Alex Zuckerman). Stuey begs Rick not to promote Zygrot 24 only to accidentally fall out of the plane. Once Ricky and Ernie arrive in Santa Flan, they cross paths with an angry group protesting Zygrot 24 and Ricky. In the group is environmentalist Julie (Megan Ward), who Ricky is instantly smitten with. The two con Julie into thinking they're also environmentalists (Ricky posing as a highly injured accident victim, his face covered in bandages) and she agrees to join them on a trip to another protest. However, she soon finds out their true identities and the three are stuck with each other for the rest of the drive. They decide to take a detour to see Freek Land, a local freak show only to wind up in the clutches of demented proprietor and mad scientist Elijah C. Skuggs (Randy Quaid) and his henchman, Toad (Jaime Cardriche). Utilizing his "Testy Freeks Machine", he merges Julie and Ernie into a single body and turns Ricky into a hideous green mutation. As Elijah has run out of Zygrot, only half of Ricky's body is mutated. Ricky meets the other freaks, including Ortiz the Dog Boy (an uncredited Keanu Reeves) Worm (Derek McGrath) a giant arthropod, Cowboy (John Hawkes) a literal anthropomorphic cow, the Bearded Lady (Mr. T in a dress) and Sockhead (Bobcat Goldthwait), who has a sock puppet for a head. Ricky has trouble adjusting to his new life as a freak, though he opens up when some of the other freaks recount how they were captured and disfigured by Elijah. During his first performance, Ricky foregoes his act (which inexplicably had him dressing like a caveman) and with some suggestions from Worm he performs a Shakespearean monologue which captivates the audience. Spotting his agent in the crowd, Ricky jumps off the stage hoping to be rescued, but flies into a murderous rage when the agent makes fun of him. Ricky tears his agent's head off and the crowd runs screaming into the night, with Elijah simply noting "that's what I call entertainment." The next day Ricky discovers to his horror that he is seeing a floating specter of Stuey. He angrily shoes Stuey's astral form away, but Cowboy states that only a pair of soulmates can have such a strong telepathic bond. After multiple failed attempts to sell the story to newspapers Stuey manages to sell Ricky's story to the Weekly World News, who will print anything, but ends up being captured by a group of shady businessmen that work for E.E.S. Ricky tries to escape by stealing the outfit of a milkman, only to be captured by Skuggs's gun-toting Rastafarian eyeball henchmen (literally giant eyeballs with Rastafarian accents and headwear) and brought before Elijah. Skuggs tells Ricky he plans to have him fully mutated into a blood-thirsty monster who will kill all the other freaks at the next show. On his way back to the freaks shed, he runs into the other freaks also making an escape attempt, and also dressed as milkmen. Ricky butts heads with Ortiz and the two fight until Ortiz is distracted by a squirrel and runs off, the Rasta eyeballs in pursuit. With Ortiz gone Ricky is named the new Freaks leader. Ricky and the freaks break into Skugg's lab to create a serum that will complete Ricky's mutation and have him kill Skuggs instead of the freaks. Ricky accidentally leaves the concoction in the lab, but finds a bag of tasty macaroons which the freaks enjoy. Ricky eventually finds out that Elijah's Zygrot suppliers are none other than E.E.S., who arrive at Freek Land with a shipment of Zygrot 24 and an imprisoned Stuey Gluck. As they discuss their plans to mutate the world's population into an race of E.E.S workers and consumers, Stuey follows a telepathic tip from Rick and manages to escape, grabbing the coffee can of mutation goo left behind by Ricky along the way. On the night of the show, Stuey appears with the batch of Zygrot only to have an annoyed biker dump it onto him, which turns him into a grotesque seven-foot monster. Stuey kills the biker and prepares to storm the stage and save Ricky. The Rasta eyeballs attempt to kill Stuey but he kicks dust into their eyes, blinding them. Toad tries to swallow Stuey only for Julie and Ernie to throw an M80 onto Toad's tongue which he swallows and promptly explodes. In response, Elijah infects Ricky with his own Zygrot, turning him into an equally grotesque seven-foot monster. As Ricky and Stuey battle to the death onstage, Elijah notices the E.E.S. executives trying to steal his equipment. Elijah stops them by soaking them with a Zygrot bazooka, mutating and merging them all into a giant, fleshy shoe. Right before Ricky is about to destroy Stuey, Cowboy reminds him that Stuey is his soulmate. A wave of compassion comes over him, and he gives Stuey a hug. Enraged, Elijah unsuccessfully tries to fight Ricky, who bashes him in the head, breaking his spine. Skuggs tries to get Ricky not to kill him by offering him the antidote for his mutation, telling him it was a time-delayed serum baked into a batch of macaroons. Ricky comments that he skimped on the sugar and punches Skuggs, sending him flying into the vat of Zygrot 24. An FBI task force arrives to save Ricky after having learned of Stuey's article. Skuggs suddenly reemerges from the Vat, having taken the form of Skye Daley. The FBI task force guns Skuggs/Skye down.Back at the interview, it's revealed that Ricky had turned back to normal (along with most of the other freaks, except for Worm, who hates Macaroons). They are then joined by Ortiz who has finally caught the squirrel and Stuey, still a giant super-freak. Skye comments on Elijah mutating to look like her, and Ricky realizes that Skye actually is Elijah. Skuggs lunges after Ricky with a machete, only to be gunned down by the now normal Julie. As she embraces Ricky, Skye rises again, this time to be gunned down by Ernie. Ricky and Julie kiss and everyone waves farewell to the audience until the film ends on a frozen shot of Skuggs once again rising up to attack Ricky. It was the ultimate film to me back in 1993. It had Bill & Ted, it had Brooke Shields, it had MR T!!! It is amazing John Hawkes had such a shining career after this. William Sadler, from Bill & Ted, was great and this was probably my favourite Randy Quaid performance of all time. I also think Bobcat Goldthwait’s Sockhead is the greatest character of all time and should have had his own film. Add to that the great music and the amazing special effects from the three best effects companies of the day: Tony Gardner's company Alterian, Inc., Steve Johnson's XFX, Inc., and Screaming Mad George's Studio and what you are left with is possibly the greatest example of early 90s counter-culture. This would have been a classic had it been given a proper release. The irony is that it would be a better known film had it been as bad as the studio thought it was. Films like Troll 2 are now official cult classics because they’re known as ‘best worst’ but Freaked doesn’t fall into that category. Freaked is the best, it’s just that not enough people know it.

Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D.

Dir: Lloyd Kaufman, Michael Herz

1990

***

I appreciate Troma films more than I enjoy them and while I regard Lloyd Kaufman as a genius of sorts, I also find it hard to watch most of his films. I’m not shocked or disgusted, they’re just not very good, or at least, none of them live up to their ideas or their reputations. Quite how he built such a cult empire is beyond me, but I guess bad taste needs its champions. I have a love/hate relationship with The Toxic Avenger – I didn’t love the first one, quite liked the second one and hated three and four. Sgt. Kabukiman appears in a couple of them and I think I liked him better there – as a supporting character. Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. is odd, very odd, and while odd is good, Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. is far too long for its own good. The same joke it told over and over again and it gets a little too much to bare. Like all Troma films, it suffers from bad editing and from being far too self-indulgent. It’s origins are perculiar. While filming The Toxic Avenger Part II in Japan, where the original Toxic Avenger had been a major hit, Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz were approached by Tetsu Fujimura and Masaya Nakamura of Namco to create a Kabuki-themed superhero film, supposedly based on an idea by Kaufman. Namco became a producer, giving Troma a one and a half million dollar budget to begin preproduction. Creative differences troubled production from the start. Namco and Herz wanted a mainstream-accessible film geared towards children, whereas Kaufman wanted the usual Troma-esque sex and violence style. The film was eventually cut into both PG-13 and R-rated versions – I’m not sure which is worse or makes the least sense. The film follows Sergeant Detective Harry Griswold (Rick Gianasi), a clumsy N.Y.P.D. cop investigating a string of murders involving Kabuki - a classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the unique style of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. While attending an amateur Kabuki play, Harry witnesses thugs gun down the entire cast. In the ensuing gunfight, Harry is forcefully kissed by one of the dying actors, unknowingly becoming blessed with the powers of Kabuki. Before he knows it, Griswold finds out that he has the ability to transform into Kabukiman, a colorfully dressed slapstick superhero who has the ability to fly and access to such unique weapons as heat seeking chopsticks and fatal sushi. He also has to eat worms, but I think that’s a Troma thing, rather than a Kabuki thing. With the assistance of the beautiful Lotus (Susan Byun), he helps clean up the crime-ridden streets of New York and try to stop maniacal businessman Reginald Stuart (Bill Weeden) and his Goons, who plan to fulfill an ancient evil prophecy that will summon The Evil One whose demonic powers can enslave the world. The plot is thin and the acting is bad, although Rick Gianasi is pretty good. I do wonder whether it would be considered racist, if it wasn’t so ridiculous. It is probably best known for Troma’s one and only Hollywood stunt. There is a car chase scene that happens midway through the film where several carloads of gangsters chase Harry Griswold, wearing a clown costume, through the streets of Jersey City. The chase climaxes when one of the cars, a 1979 Ford Thunderbird, strikes another vehicle, flips upside-down 30 feet in the air, lands, and then inexplicably explodes. Five years later, exactly the same footage was used in a scene in Tromeo and Juliet for not only being cost-effective, but also because Kabukiman had yet to be widely distributed on video (and thus brought some confusion as to which film the footage originated from). Despite obvious continuity flaws, Troma has managed to fit the same footage into each of their films as a tongue-in-cheek homage, including Terror Firmer, Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV, Poultrygeist, and Return to Nuke 'Em High Vol.1. Since the film's video debut in 1990, Sgt. Kabukiman has gone on to make several appearances in the "Tromaverse", becoming one of the company's most well-known mascots next to The Toxic Avenger. Kabukiman (played by Paul Krymse in a simpler costume) can be seen in a number of Troma commercials and video introductions throughout the 1990s. Most notably, Kabukiman was one of the prominent figures on Troma's Edge TV, where he appeared in a short parody of old public service announcement films, entitled Sgt. Kabukiman Public Service Announcement, which was directed by former Troma employee and Guardians of the Galaxy director/screenwriter James Gunn. The character almost got himself a carton, much like Toxic Crusaders, but he was deemed too odd. Kabukiman made the return to the screen in 2001's Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV, where he was once again played by Paul Kyrmse. In the film, Kabukiman has gone from a serious superhero to a pathetic, drunken has-been who is looked upon with disdain by the citizens of Tromaville. There was quite a bit of backlash from the hard-core fans of the original film. 10/10 for originality but the character is love/hate. It is what it is, its too obvious to criticize in many respects and I would never tell people who love it that they are wrong but I just found it a little too long and mind-numbing – even for a Troma film. However, I do love seeing 1990 in all its glory and I adore the special effects.

Godzilla (Gojira)

Dir: Ishirō Honda

1954

*****

Ishirō Honda’s 1954 classic Godzilla (Gojira) isn’t about a giant green lizard that terrorizes Tokyo. I mean it is, but that’s not really what it is about. Written by Honda, Takeo Murata, and Shigeru Kayama, Gojira was written to symbolise nuclear holocaust from Japan's perspective and is a metaphor for nuclear weapons. Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka stated back in the 1950s that, "The theme of the film, from the beginning, was the terror of the bomb. Mankind had created the bomb, and now nature was going to take revenge on mankind." Honda filmed Gojira's Tokyo rampage to mirror the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, stating, "If Godzilla had been a dinosaur or some other animal, he would have been killed by just one cannonball. But if he were equal to an atomic bomb, we wouldn't know what to do. So, I took the characteristics of an atomic bomb and applied them to him." Themes aside, Gojira was really just a classic 50s B-movie, but there was always something more to it above the others and most of it’s American counterparts. When the Japanese freighter Eiko-maru is destroyed near Odo Island, another ship – the Bingo-maru – is sent to investigate, only to meet the same fate with few survivors. A fishing boat from Odo is also destroyed, with one survivor. Fishing catches mysteriously drop to zero, blamed by an elder on the ancient sea creature known as "Gojira". Reporters arrive on Odo Island to further investigate. A villager tells one of the reporters that something in the sea is ruining the fishing. That evening, a storm strikes the island, destroying the reporters' helicopter, and Gojira, who is seen briefly, destroys 17 homes and kills nine people and 20 of the villagers' livestock. Odo residents travel to Tokyo to demand disaster relief. The villagers' and reporters' evidence describes damage consistent with something large crushing the village. The government sends paleontologist Kyohei Yamane to lead an investigation on the island, where giant radioactive footprints and a trilobite are discovered. The village alarm bell is rung and Yamane and the villagers rush to see the monster, retreating after seeing that it is a giant dinosaur. Yamane presents his findings in Tokyo, estimating that Gojira is 164 ft tall and is evolved from an ancient sea creature becoming a terrestrial creature. He concludes that Gojira has been disturbed by underwater hydrogen bomb testing. Debate ensues about notifying the public about the danger of the monster. Meanwhile, 17 ships are lost at sea. Ten frigates are dispatched to attempt to kill the monster using depth charges. The mission disappoints Yamane, who wants Gojira to be studied. When Gojira survives the attack, officials appeal to Yamane for ideas to kill the monster, but Yamane tells them that Gojira is unkillable, having survived H-bomb testing, and must be studied. Yamane's daughter, Emiko, decides to break off her arranged engagement to Yamane's colleague, Daisuke Serizawa, because of her love for Hideto Ogata, a salvage ship captain. When a reporter arrives and asks to interview Serizawa, Emiko escorts the reporter to Serizawa's home. After Serizawa refuses to divulge his current work to the reporter, he gives Emiko a demonstration of his recent project on the condition that she must keep it a secret. The demonstration horrifies her and she leaves without breaking off the engagement. Shortly after she returns home, Gojira surfaces from Tokyo Bay and attacks Shinagawa. After attacking a passing train, Gojira returns to the ocean. After consulting with international experts, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces construct a 100 ft, 50,000 volt electrified fence along the coast and deploy forces to stop and kill Gojira. Yamane returns home, dismayed that there is no plan to study the monster for its resistance to radiation, where Emiko and Ogata await hoping to get his consent for them to wed. When Ogata disagrees with Yamane, arguing that the threat that Gojira poses outweighs any potential benefits from studying the monster, Yamane tells him to leave. Gojira resurfaces and breaks through the fence to Tokyo with its atomic breath, unleashing more destruction across the city. Further attempts to kill the monster with tanks and fighter jets fail and Gojira returns to the ocean. The day after, hospitals and shelters are crowded with the maimed and the dead, with some survivors suffering from radiation sickness. Distraught by the devastation, Emiko tells Ogata about Serizawa's research, a weapon called the Oxygen Destroyer, which disintegrates oxygen atoms and causing organisms to die of a rotting asphyxiation. Emiko and Ogata go to Serizawa to convince him to use the Oxygen Destroyer but he initially refuses, explaining that if he uses the device, the superpowers of the world will surely force him to construct more Oxygen Destroyers for use as a superweapon. After watching a program displaying the nation's current tragedy, Serizawa finally accepts their pleas. As Serizawa burns his notes, Emiko breaks down crying. A navy ship takes Ogata and Serizawa to plant the device in Tokyo Bay. After finding Gojira, Serizawa unloads the device and cuts off his air support, taking the secret of the Oxygen Destroyer to his grave. Gojira is destroyed, but many mourn Serizawa's death. Yamane believes that if nuclear weapons testing continues, another Gojira may rise in the future. It is a warning to the future from the victims of the past. Gojira contains political and cultural undertones that can be attributed to what the Japanese had experienced in World War II, so much so that Japanese audiences were able to connect emotionally to the monster. Many viewers actually saw Godzilla as a victim and felt that the creature's backstory reminded them of their experiences in World War II. The atomic bomb testing that woke Gojira were carried out by the United States, the film in a way can be seen to blame the United States for the problems and struggles that Japan experienced after World War II had ended. The film could be said to have served as a cultural coping method to help the people of Japan move on from the events of the war. Making it a monster movie was very canny, as it appealed to the masses – the genre being popular at the time – and would have carried around the world. It’s clearly a political piece but it would not appear so, being a melodramatic monster movie. It is perhaps the first film to ever use metaphor in such an obvious and outrageous manner. It startles me just how many people still don’t realises what it’s really all about. Toho originally planned to produce Eiko-no Kagi-ni (In the Shadow of Glory), a Japanese-Indonesian co-production about the aftermath of the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, however, anti-Japanese sentiment in Indonesia forced political pressure on the government to deny visas for the Japanese filmmakers. The film was to be co-produce with Indonesian studio Perfini, filmed on location in Jakarta in color (a first for a major Toho production), and was to open markets for Japanese films in Southeast Asia. Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka flew to Jakarta to renegotiate with the Indonesian government but was unsuccessful and on the flight back to Japan, conceived the idea for a giant monster film inspired by the 1953 film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and the Daigo Fukuryū Maru incident that happened in March 1954. The film's opening sequence is a direct reference to the incident. Tanaka felt the film had potential due to nuclear fears generating news and monster films becoming popular, due to the financial success of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and the 1952 re-release of King Kong, the latter which earned more money than previous releases. During his flight, Tanaka wrote an outline with the working title The Giant Monster from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and pitched it to executive producer Iwao Mori. Mori approved the project in April 1954 after special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya agreed to do the film's effects and confirmed that the film was financially feasible. Honda was not Toho's first choice for the film's director, however, his war-time experience made him an ideal candidate for the film's anti-nuclear themes. Several other directors passed on the project, feeling the idea was "stupid," however, Honda accepted the assignment due to this interest in science and "unusual things," stating, "I had no problem taking it seriously."  It was during the production of Gojira that Honda worked with assistant director Koji Kajita for the first time. Afterwards, Kajita would go on to collaborate with Honda as his chief assistant director for 17 films over the course of 10 years. Due to sci-fi films lacking respect from film critics, Honda, Tanaka, and Tsuburaya agreed on depicting a monster attack as if it were a real event, with the serious tone of a documentary, which has always made Gojira stand out above all other monster/b-movies. There have been many Godzilla movies made since, some good, some bad, but the good ones always follow Honda, Tanaka, and Tsuburaya rule. It is an iconic film in terms of idea and special effects, a cultural phenomenon and one of the most important films of the twentieth century.

Stalker

Dir: Andrei Tarkovsky

1979

*****

Upon its release in 1979, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker received a less than favourable reception. Officials at Goskino, a government group otherwise known as the State Committee for Cinematography, were particularly critical of the film. On being told that Stalker should be faster and more dynamic, Tarkovsky replied “The film needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts.” The Goskino representative then stated that he was trying to give the point of view of the audience. Tarkovsky supposedly retorted “I am only interested in the views of two people, one is called Bresson and one called Bergman.” Stalker is a masterpiece, perticularlly in its cinematography but while it certainly isn’t fast, it sure as hell is dynamic. It takes place in the indefinite future, where the "Stalker" (Alexander Kaidanovsky) works in some unclear territory as a guide who leads people through the "Zone" - an area in which the normal laws of reality do not apply. The Zone contains a place called the "Room", said to grant the wishes of anyone who steps inside. The area containing the Zone is sealed off by the government and great hazards exist within it. At home with his wife and daughter, the Stalker's wife (Alisa Freindlich) begs him not to go into the Zone but he ignores her pleas. In a rundown bar, the Stalker meets his next clients for a trip into the Zone. The "Writer" (Anatoly Solonitsyn) and the "Professor" (Nikolai Grinko) agree to put their fates in the Stalker's hands. They remain nameless and the characters refer to one another by their professions. They evade the military blockade that guards the Zone, surviving gunfire from the guards. They then ride into the heart of the Zone on a railway work car. The Stalker tells his clients they must do exactly as he says to survive the dangers which lie ahead and explains the Zone's dangers are invisible. The Stalker tests for traps by throwing metal nuts tied to strips of cloth ahead of them. The complicated path that they must take cannot be specifically seen or heard but can only be sensed. The safest path is never the straight path. The Writer is skeptical of any real danger, but the Professor generally follows the Stalker's advice. As they travel, the three men discuss their reasons for wanting to visit the Room. The Writer expresses his fear of losing his inspiration. He appears angry and stressed. The Professor seems less anxious, though he insists on carrying along a small backpack, its contents unknown. While the Professor's desires are not clear, he reluctantly gives in to repeated pleas from the Writer and admits he hopes to win a Nobel Prize for a scientific analysis of the Zone. The Stalker insists he has no motive beyond the altruistic aim of aiding the desperate. At times, he refers to a previous Stalker named "Porcupine", who had led his brother to his death in the Zone, visited the Room, come into possession of a large sum of money, and in shame committed suicide, as the Room only grants true desires. While the Room appears to fulfill a visitor's wishes, these might not be consciously expressed wishes but unconscious desires. In addition it appears that the Zone itself has a kind of sentience. When the Writer later confronts the Stalker about his knowledge of the Zone and the Room, the Stalker replies that his information came from the now deceased Porcupine. After traveling through tunnels the three reach their destination. They determine that their goal lies inside a decayed and decrepit industrial building. In a small antechamber, a phone begins to ring. The Writer answers and cryptically speaks into the phone, stating "this is not the clinic", before hanging up. The surprised Professor decides to use the phone to telephone a colleague. In the ensuing conversation, he reveals his true intentions in undertaking the journey. The Professor has brought a nuclear device with him, and he intends to destroy the Room to prevent its use by evil men. The three then fight verbally and physically in a larger antechamber just outside the Room. The fight ends in a draw with all three of them exhausted. As they catch their breath, the Writer experiences an epiphany about the Room's true nature. He argues that when Porcupine met his goal, despite his conscious motives, the room fulfilled Porcupine's secret desire for wealth, instead of bringing back his brother from death. This in turn prompted Porcupine to commit suicide. The Writer further reasons the Room is dangerous to those who seek it for negative reasons. With his earlier fears assuaged, the Professor gives up on his plan of destroying the Room. Instead, he disassembles his bomb and scatters its pieces. The men rest before the doorway and never enter the Room. Rain begins to fall into the Room through its ruined ceiling, then gradually fades away. The Stalker, the Writer, and the Professor are shown back in the bar, and are met there by the Stalker's wife and daughter. A black dog that had followed the three men through the Zone is in the bar with them. When his wife asks where he got the dog, Stalker declares that it just came to him, and he remarks that he felt unable to leave it behind. Later, when the Stalker's wife tells him that she would like to visit the Room herself, he expresses doubts about the Zone. He states that he fears her dreams will not be fulfilled. As the Stalker sleeps, his wife contemplates their relationship in a monologue delivered directly to the camera. She declares that she knew perfectly well that life with him would be hard, since he would be unreliable and their children would face challenges, but she concludes that she is better off with him despite their many trials. "Martiška" the couple's daughter, sitting alone in the kitchen, recites a love poem by Fyodor Tyutchev. Martiška holds the large book and lays her head on a table. She then appears to use psychokinesis to push three drinking glasses across it, one after the other moving across the table, the third one falling to the floor. A train passes by where the Stalker's family lives, and the entire apartment shakes. As the noise of the train begins to subside, the film ends. The screenplay was written by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky and was loosely based on their 1972 novel Roadside Picnic which combined elements of sci-fi with dramatic philosophical and psychological themes – themes that Andrei Tarkovsky explored so well. The meaning of the word "stalk" was derived from its use by the Strugatsky brothers in Roadside Picnic, which alluded to Rudyard Kipling's character "Stalky" in his Stalky & Co. stories. In Roadside Picnic, "Stalker" was a common nickname for men engaged in the illegal enterprise of prospecting for and smuggling alien artifacts out of the "Zone". After reading the novel, Tarkovsky initially recommended it to a friend, the film director Mikhail Kalatozov, thinking that Kalatozov might be interested in adapting it into a film. Kalatozov abandoned the project when he could not obtain the rights to the novel. Tarkovsky then became increasingly interested in adapting the novel and expanding its concepts. He hoped that it would allow him to make a film that conforms to the classical Aristotelian unity, that is the unity of action, the unity of location, and the unity of time. The film departs considerably from the novel. The film has basically nothing in common with the novel except for the two words "Stalker" and "Zone". Tarkovsky viewed the idea of the Zone as a dramatic tool to draw out the personalities of the three protagonists, particularly the psychological damage from everything that happens to the idealistic views of the Stalker as he finds himself unable to make others happy. It is interesting that Apocalypse Now was released at the same time. At the height of the Cold War, Russia and America were making films that dealt with a journey to the heart of darkness, although I feel that Stalker asked far more questions. Both films however, are well known for the problems they had during production. Tarkovsky spent a year shooting a version of the outdoor scenes of Stalker. However, when the crew returned to Moscow, they found that all of the film had been improperly developed and their footage was unusable. The film had been shot on new Kodak 5247 stock with which Soviet laboratories were not very familiar. Even before the film stock problem was discovered, relations between Tarkovsky and Stalker's first cinematographer, Georgy Rerberg, had deteriorated. After seeing the poorly developed material, Tarkovsky fired Rerberg. By the time the film stock defect was discovered, Tarkovsky had shot all the outdoor scenes and had to abandon them. Tarkovsky was so despondent that he wanted to abandon further work on the film. After the loss of the film stock, the Soviet film boards wanted to shut the film down, but Tarkovsky came up with a solution. He asked to be allowed to make a two-part film, which meant additional deadlines and more funds. Tarkovsky ended up reshooting almost all of the film with a new cinematographer, Aleksandr Knyazhinsky. The finished version of Stalker is said to be completely different from the one Tarkovsky originally shot, although some of the crew who saw both versions argued that they were identical. It is said that the rushes of the first version of the film were kept by editor Lyudmila Feyginova in her home for years. They were destroyed by a fire that also claimed her life. The film uses sepia for the world outside the Zone and color footage within the Zone. To allow changes to the color tone of a long strip of film over an extended take, Tarkovsky built a long film processing vat which had different temperatures along the way. Like Tarkovsky's other films, Stalker relies on long takes with slow, subtle camera movement, rejecting the use of rapid montage. The film contains 142 shots in 163 minutes, with an average shot length of 88 seconds and many shots lasting for more than four minutes. The central part of the film, in which the characters travel within the Zone, was shot in a few days at two deserted hydro power plants on the Jägala river near Tallinn, Estonia. Several people involved in the film production, including Tarkovsky, died from causes that some crew members attributed to the film's long shooting schedule in toxic locations. Sound designer Vladimir Sharun recalled “We were shooting near Tallinn in the area around the small river Jägala with a half-functioning hydroelectric station. Up the river was a chemical plant and it poured out poisonous liquids downstream. There is even this shot in Stalker of snow falling in the summer and white foam floating down the river. In fact it was some horrible poison. Many women in our crew got allergic reactions on their faces. Tarkovsky died from cancer of the right bronchial tube. And Tolya Solonitsyn too. That it was all connected to the location shooting for Stalker became clear to me when Larisa Tarkovskaya died from the same illness in Paris.” The film’s score was composed by Eduard Artemyev, who had also composed the scores for Tarkovsky's previous films Solaris and The Mirror. For Stalker Artemyev composed and recorded two different versions of the score. The first score was done with an orchestra alone but was rejected by Tarkovsky. The second score that was used in the final film was created on a synthesizer along with traditional instruments that were manipulated using sound effects. In the final film score the boundaries between music and sound were blurred, as natural sounds and music interact to the point where they are indistinguishable. Initially, Tarkovsky had no clear understanding of the musical atmosphere of the final film and only an approximate idea where in the film the music was to be. Even after he had shot all the material he continued his search for the ideal film score, wanting a combination of Oriental and Western music. In a conversation with Artemyev he explained that he needed music that reflects the idea that although the East and the West can coexist, they are not able to understand each other. One of Tarkovsky's ideas was to perform Western music on Oriental instruments, or vice versa, performing Oriental music on European instruments. Artemyev proposed to try this idea with the motet Pulcherrima Rosa by an anonymous 14th century Italian composer dedicated to the Virgin Mary. In its original form Tarkovsky did not perceive the motet as suitable for the film and asked Artemyev to give it an Oriental sound. Later, Tarkovsky proposed to invite musicians from Armenia and Azerbaijan and to let them improvise on the melody of the motet. A musician was invited from Azerbaijan who played the main melody on a tar based on mugham, accompanied by orchestral background music written by Artemyev. Tarkovsky, who, unusually for him, attended the full recording session, rejected the final result as not what he was looking for. Rethinking their approach they finally found the solution in a theme that would create a state of inner calmness and inner satisfaction, or as Tarkovsky said "space frozen in a dynamic equilibrium." Artemyev knew about a musical piece from Indian classical music where a prolonged and unchanged background tone is performed on a tambura. As this gave Artemyev the impression of frozen space, he used this inspiration and created a background tone on his synthesizer similar to the background tone performed on the tambura. The tar then improvised on the background sound, together with a flute as a European, Western instrument. To mask the obvious combination of European and Oriental instruments he passed the foreground music through the effect channels of his synthesizer. These effects included modulating the sound of the flute and lowering the speed of the tar, so that what Artemyev called "the life of one string" could be heard. Tarkovsky was amazed by the result, especially liking the sound of the tar, and used the theme without any alterations in the film. This in turn effected the overall sound design. The title sequence is accompanied by Artemyev's main theme. The opening sequence of the film showing Stalker's room is mostly silent. Periodically one hears what could be a train. The sound becomes louder and clearer over time until the sound and the vibrations of objects in the room give a sense of a train's passing by without the train's being visible. This aural impression is quickly subverted by the muffled sound of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The source of this music is unclear, thus setting the tone for the blurring of reality in the film. Tarkovsky said that he wanted "music that is more or less popular, that expresses the movement of the masses, the theme of humanity's social destiny." He added, "But this music must be barely heard beneath the noise, in a way that the spectator is not aware of it.” In one scene, the sound of a train becomes more and more distant as the sounds of a house, such as the creaking floor, water running through pipes, and the humming of a heater become more prominent in a way that psychologically shifts the audience. While the Stalker leaves his house and wanders around an industrial landscape, the audience hears industrial sounds such as train whistles, ship foghorns, and train wheels. When the Stalker, the Writer, and the Professor set off from the bar in an off-road vehicle, the engine noise merges into an electronic tone. The natural sound of the engine falls off as the vehicle reaches the horizon. Initially almost inaudible, the electronic tone emerges and replaces the engine sound as if time has frozen. The film ends as it began, with the sound of a train passing by, accompanied by the muffled sound of Beethoven's Ninth symphony, this time the Ode to Joy from the final moments of the symphony. As in the rest of the film the disconnect between the visual image and the sound leaves the audience in the unclear whether the sound is real or an illusion. Stalker explores our memories, our fears, fantasies, and nightmares, our paradoxical impulses, and that yearning for something that's simultaneously beyond our reach. It is essentially an allegory about human consciousness and a starkly beautiful one at that. It is an unquestionable masterpiece, one that would sadly kill it’s creator.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix

Dir: Simon Kinberg

2019

**

An unremarkable ending to a series that was two films too long. I liked First Class but the re-boot series really found its feet in Days of Future Past. Unfortunately the two films since have been a huge departure from quality, I thought Apocalypse was bad but Dark Phoenix was an exercise in mediocrity and had a distinct lack of creativity. I was weary of First Class at first as I didn’t think the franchise needed a reboot so soon but, like most people, I liked it. Days of Future Past however was ingenious, it didn’t need to incorporate the cast of the previous series because of the impact of the first film but it did because the story was so clever. It brought all doubts of the reboot to an end. I have to admit I had to pause a few times to work out timelines, who was who and where was where but it was worth it because it was clever and fun. The problem was however that they just couldn’t top it,  Apocalypse fell short and incorporated poor ideas. It was far too simple, superhero story lines had moved on from that sort of thing long ago. Lessons have not been learned though, and Dark Phoenix is just a rehash of The Last Stand. The Last Stand was the weakest of the original trilogy, the worst story to reboot, even though the comic series was pretty good. Dark Phoenix makes The Last Stand look like a masterpiece. The integrity of each character has been lost. I do find it hard to keep up with the X-Men movies, especially when they are rather uninteresting but each character has been established and in Dark Phoenix each character looks like a shell of their former selves. I say characters, but what it actually looks like is a group of actors who have lost their enthusiasm for the series and each performance feels lethargic. It is clear this is the end of the road for the series but instead of going out with a bang they’ve decided to simply comply with contractual compliance, get it done, stick it out there and move on. There is no fanfare whatsoever but then I’m not sure anybody cares. When Jennifer Lawrence’s raven/ Mystique is (predictably) killed early on in the movie, I didn’t weep for her character, it didn’t move me. In fact I was happy, I thought to myself great, finally Jennifer Lawrence, you are free of all your franchises, go off and make wonderful independent films and don’t go signing any more multi-film contracts. The studio couldn’t even be bothered to give the film to a director who had directed a film before. The Dark Phoenix comic series is strong and The Last Stand was a poor adaptation of it but my goodness, 2019’s Dark Phoenix is mind-numbingly boring. Even the non-comic reading viewers could see what was going to happen, perhaps and obvious thing to say, but one would have hoped for a few surprises along the way, a twist here and a revelation there, but there was nothing. Nothing of interest and nothing of substance, just a bit of fighting here and there. Many of the fan-favourite X-men were missing and the film’s villain was probably the least villainous in the history of cinema. Jessica Chastain, a phenomenal actor, in a white wig. Everyone likes an easy day in the office but seriously, what was that? The excuse that the events of The Last Stand never happened because of the change in the timeline is a tired excuse also – look what happened to Star Trek and the Wrath of Khan 2 (AKA Into Darkness). If every sci-fi franchise rooted itself and made a different version of something it had already made the’d be nothing for a nerd like me to believe in anymore. It killed Star Trek for me and Star Wars is going the same way, thanks to its overuse of nostalgia (basically copying everything from the old movies). That said, it has never been as blatant as it is here, even more so than Into Darkness. This is obviously even more ridiculous given that The Last Stand is so much better. The Last Stand had real emotion attached to it while Dark Phoenix simply relies on the viewer feeling the same way towards the newer characters than the way they did with the same characters played by the original cast. I’m sorry but I still don’t see Tye Sheridan as Cyclops or Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, this is only their second film as those characters and they haven’t been given enough development for me to be emotionally invested in them whatsoever. The new X-men also sucked, especially Ariki, whose mutant power is to flick people with his stinky dreadlocks. The bad-guy aliens were a poor man’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers understudy group, not scary and not even threatening. I liked the train heist scene but only because I like train heists but apart from that there was nothing here for me. There was no sense of suspense, no thrill, no emotion and absolutely zero energy. I couldn’t have cared less about the characters or what happened to them. Worse still, it looked as though all the original cast members of First Class felt the same way. Now that X-Men have been bought by Disney they need to look long and hard at what they’re going to do with them, either way I feel it needs to be drastically different and that they should give it a few years before trying. Then they should call Grant Morrison.

Hellboy

Dir: Neil Marshall

2019

**

Following the success of 2008’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army, director Guillermo Del Toro had expressed interest in a sequel, saying, "I think we would all come back to do a third Hellboy, if they can wait for me to get out of Middle-Earth, but we don't know. Ron may want to do it sooner, but I certainly know where we're going with the movie on the third one.” Indeed, the original idea was always to make a trilogy of films. In May 2010, Guillermo del Toro dropped out of directing The Hobbit and it felt like good news to Hellboy fans. Just a mounth later Del Toro speculated that Hellboy III might happen after his next project, but said that the screenplay had yet to be written. And then nothing. It was two years later when, inspired by a recent Make-A-Wish function in which Ron Perlman appeared in full Hellboy makeup for a terminally ill boy, Del Toro stated, "I can say publicly that now we are together in trying to do Hellboy 3". Again, nothing. For the next few years Ron Pearlman would repeat his desire to make a third film while Del Toro would tease but never commit to actually making it. At one point Pearlman gave a passionate interview saying “For me to do Hellboy 3, well it could kill me – in terms of physically demanding, for a guy my age, but it's worth it because anyone who sits and listens to Guillermo's version of how this thing ends is completely seduced. It's so theatrical and compelling and if you liked the first two movies in any way, shape or form, this is the ultimate one-two punch." Then, in 2015, del Toro said that Legendary Pictures might fund Hellboy 3 if Pacific Rim Uprising does well at the box office: “The hard fact is that the movie’s going to need about $120 million and there’s nobody knocking down our doors to give it to us. It's a little beyond Kickstarter.” After del Toro left the director's chair for Pacific Rim Uprising, the deal fell through. We all knew it then but in February 2017, Del Toro announced via Twitter, "Must report that 100% Hellboy 3 will not happen." It felt like a death, albeit an expected one. There were rumors of a spin-off however that kept the hardcore fans hopeful. In 2010, Hellboy screenwriter Peter Briggs was asked by Universal to script a spin-off centering on Prince Nuada from Hellyboy II, and provisionally agreed that Briggs could direct the film in New Zealand. Briggs began work on an outline with co-writer Aaron Mason. Titled Hellboy: Silverlance, the script was a B.P.R.D. story featuring Abe Sapien as the main character with Hellboy in a supporting role. Moving into the new B.P.R.D. headquarters in Colorado, Abe is troubled by his psychic connection with Princess Nuala, and begins researching the elves' history. The film would have shown Nuada's adventures throughout history, including his rivalry with a fairy courtier who orchestrates Nuada's exile in hopes of marrying Nuala and seizing control of the fairy kingdom; Nuada first meeting Mister Wink by saving him from a troupe of soldiers during the Spanish Inquisition; and Nuada in Nazi Germany, engineering a pact to keep various supernatural entities safe during World War II (with Nuada and Kroenen fighting in a friendly match for Project Ragnarok men.) Doug Jones would have played both Abe and the Angel of Death, who strikes a bargain with Nuada. Rupert Evans's Agent Myers would also have returned. The story climaxed at the new B.P.R.D. headquarters, with the return of Rasputin's summoning gauntlet. Universal wanted to proceed with the project, but it emerged that del Toro's Hellboy 3 was still a possibility, so Silverlance was shelved. In 2015, Briggs received another call from Universal, saying that Hellboy 3 had been cancelled and asking him and Mason to return for a reworked Silverlance, with producer Lawrence Gordon involved. The caveat was that Hellboy could not appear, but the writers managed to get the character a cameo appearance at the climax. If successful, the film would have launched a From the Files of the B.P.R.D. spin-off series but in May 2017, Briggs affirmed that, with the announcement of a Hellboy reboot, the Silverlance project was dead. A fucking reboot. You had one of the the world’s greatest directors, who had made two amazing films already, with an actor born to play the lead character ready to suit up once more, and you decide a reboot is the best way forward? It is confusing how studios seem to loose money because they are too scared of loosing money. It’s the same old story. Mignola at least was writing the new film and it was a t first a follow on film but Perlman was unwilling to star without del Toro’s involvement, so when Neil Marshall signed up as director, it was decided that the new film would be a reboot. In May 2017, Mignola announced that the reboot, then titled Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen, would be directed by Neil Marshall and star Stranger Thing’s David Harbour as the eponymous character. Mignola also stated that the film would have an R rating. Writer Andrew Cosby had stated that the film will be a "darker, more gruesome version of Hellboy."  Harbour further elaborated on the film's R-rating, stating, "This movie is gory, I mean it's like a horror movie. There's a lot of blood in it. It's brutal." Mignola had stated that he would have minimal involvement with the reboot, acting more as a co-executive producer and without involvement in the pre-production or design, stating, "When the decision was made to do another movie, I got involved, basically saying, 'If you're going to do that story, don't do this, or that, change this, and that.' I helped to steer it.” In August 2017, the film dropped the subtitle Rise of the Blood Queen and was re-titled simply as Hellboy. Unbelievable. That said, I quite like Neil Marshall and while no one else could ever play Hellboy other than Ron Pearlman, the casting of David Harbour felt pretty inspired. I genuinely gave it a chance, mainly due to Harbour, but I found it a let down. It incorporated some of my Hellboy favourites including Darkness Calls, The Wild Hunt, The Storm and the Fury and Hellboy in Mexico but it missed out so many of the good bits. It was like listening to music with my mate in his car. He always has his music on random, which is good, and he likes the same music that I do, which is also good, but he never listens to the full song. He gets bored and skips to the next before each song has ended and that is what this reboot felt like. It looked good visually but there was also something lacking, something del Toro had tapped into early on, that right mix of film and comic book imagery. I actually loved David Harbour’s performance and I really liked Sasha Lane as Alice Monaghan. I also enjoyed Milla Jovovich’s performance as the Blood Queen but I’m afraid Ian McShane’s Trevor Bruttenholm was nowhere near as lovable as John Hurt’s. I respect that they brought back the original blood and gore of the comics, and Neil Marshall was certainly the right director in this regard, but it was far too much to stomach. Hellboy is a lot of things but I don’t think the comic should have ever become a horror film. Since the film’s release and after the negative feedback, Harbour has responded by saying "We did our best, but there's so many voices that go into these things and they're not always going to work out. I did what I could do and I feel proud of what I did, but ultimately I'm not in control of a lot of those things." Harbour also felt the film was unfairly compared to Marvel films, stating: "So everybody goes chocolate is delicious and these guys make the best chocolate. So as you judge the movies, it's like, 'Well it's not as chocolatey as this, this does not taste like chocolate at all.’ And I sort of want a world where there's more flavors than just comparisons to chocolate. So in that way when Hellboy is viewed on the chocolate spectrum, it does very poorly." I completely agree, although I don’t like the chocolate allegory. The fact that is isn’t like the Marvel films is one of its strengths but unlike the first film, it hasn’t been overlooked for what it is. We’re comparing it to the original film, made fifteen years previous, that kicks its backside right out of the stratosphere. It hinted that we’d see Abe in the sequel but I can’t see a sequel happening. Maybe they should have had Abe in the film, although I wonder whether he would have fit. When Abe doesn’t fit in a Hellboy film you’re in trouble.

Alita: Battle Angel

Dir: Robert Rodriguez

2019

**

In an interview late in 2017, Robert Rodriguez said of his Alita collaboration with James Cameron, "This just doesn't happen. Guys like Quentin Tarantino and Jim Cameron only write scripts for themselves to direct. When Avatar became the biggest movie of all time, he told me that he's going to spend the rest of his career making Avatars, so I said, 'What happens to Battle Angel then?', because as a fan I was just interested! And he said, 'I don't think I'll ever get to do that. Hey, if you can figure out the script, you can shoot it!' So I took it home, spent all summer working on it, cut it down to 130, 125 pages, without cutting anything that he missed. It was a great gift. We had a blast; anytime I had a question I could just call him or email him and he would send back these hugely detailed answers that were so helpful. He just loves being the producer that he always wants. The guy's just so freakin' smart. Getting to learn from someone like that was the greatest internship ever." While I’m glad the two film makers got on and had a great time, I find it baffling that the director of El Mariachi, Desperado, From Duck till Dawn and Sin City sees himself as an intern. I’m not sure whether it’s humble or shows a complete lack of confidence. Sure, some of his recent films haven’t been that great, but they’ve been a hell of a lot of fun and his self-indulgence in his work, in the Machete films for example, are exactly the sort of projects he should be working on. He doesn’t need to be directing films that James Cameron never found the time to make. Cameron was fair-weather fan anyway, Battle Angel Alita was brought to his attention in 2000 by friend and fellow film maker Guillermo del Toro. I can’t help but think del Toro probably thought about the possibilities of adapting it but dismissed the idea for good reason – it’s not that great a story. I’m not a fan of the original MANGA but I have been aware of it since the early 90s. I read the first part of the Gunnm story and it didn’t grab me. I see the early 90s as the last golden age of comics, there were some brilliant stories being released, not just through MANGA and anime in general but across the board. There were far more interesting comics to spend my time with, as far as I was concerned, Battle Angel Alita was a poor mix of Rollerball, Frankenstein/Pinocchio and Pokemon. Obviously there was more to it than that but I really didn’t want to start something in the hope that it would get better. To give the film some credit, it has been around for a while and it has been a clear influence on other comics and films. Unfortunately, this means that the story feels less original than it really is, which ultimately left me cold, and a little bored. The film is set in 2563, 300 years after Earth is devastated by a catastrophic interplanetary war known as The Fall. We follow scientist Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) as he discovers a disembodied female cyborg in a pile of junk spat out by the floating Sky city above them. With some analysis, the Dr discovers a human brain inside the head unit, completely intact. Ido attaches a new cyborg body to the brain and names her Alita (played by a semi-CGI’ed Rosa Salazar) after his deceased daughter. Alita awakens with no memory of her past and tries to fit in as best she can with her surroundings. She meets a boy called Hugo who introduces her to Motorball, a battle royale racing sport played by cyborg gladiators. Hugo secretly robs cyborgs of their parts for Vector (Mahershala Ali) owner of the Motorball tournament. Stories circulate about a spell of murders around town and after becoming suspicious Alita follows Ido as he leaves the house in the middle of the night. They are soon ambushed by cyborg serial killers led by Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley). Ido is injured, and Alita instinctively fights using "Panzer Kunst" (a German expression, meaning "the art of the armor" literally "armor art"), a lost combat art for machine bodies. She kills two of the cyborgs and damages Grewishka, who retreats underground. Ido reveals that he is secretly a Hunter-Warrior. Grewishka goes to Dr. Chiren (Ido's estranged ex-wife played by Jennifer Connelly) for help, who is working for Vector. Despite Alita believing that fighting will help her rediscover her past, Ido discourages her from becoming a Hunter-Warrior. Later, Alita finds a highly advanced cyborg body in a crashed spaceship outside the city. Recognizing that the body is a Berserker — deadly shock troops of the enemy nation United Republics of Mars (URM) from the Great War — she asks Ido to install Alita in it but he refuses. Frustrated with Ido, Alita goes off by herself and registers as a Hunter-Warrior. At the Kansas Bar, she and Hugo are unable to recruit other Hunter-Warriors to her cause of taking down Grewishka. Zapan, a Hunter-Warrior, provokes Alita, and she severely beats him in a fight, triggering a chaotic bar brawl until Ido intervenes. An upgraded Grewishka arrives and challenges Alita to a duel, revealing that he has been sent by Zalem's technocrat overlord, Nova, to destroy her. Despite her courage and combat skills, Alita's body is sliced up by Grewishka's chain-bladed fingers, but Ido, Hugo and Hunter-Warrior McTeague arrive and force Grewishka to retreat. Ido apologizes and transplants Alita into the Berserker body. Having fallen in love with Hugo, Alita enters a Motorball tryout race for the prize money to send Hugo to Zalem. Hugo’s relationship with Alita leads him to decide to quit his secret job. He confronts Tanji, but Zapan appears, murdering Tanji and the cyborg and framing Hugo, though he escapes and calls Alita for help; she abandons the race and finds him just as Zapan does. Zapan mortally wounds Hugo but Dr. Chiren offers to save Hugo by attaching his severed head to Alita's life support system. When Zapan sees through the trick and attempts to stop Alita, the guard mech stops Zapan from stealing her claim on Hugo's bounty, and Alita seizes his prized Damascus blade and slices most of his face off. Ido transplants Hugo's head onto a cyborg body and tells Alita that Vector’s offer to help Hugo reach Zalem was a lie; as an exiled citizen of Zalem, Ido is certain that citizens of Iron City cannot enter Zalem unless becoming a motorball champion. Alita storms the factory and confronts Vector, who reveals that Chiren has been harvested for her organs. Vector summons Grewishka, but Alita’s new nanotechnological body allows her to easily destroy him. She forces Nova to speak to her through Vector. When Nova threatens to harm her friends, Alita fatally stabs Vector. Ido tells Alita that Hugo has fled to climb a cargo tube towards Zalem. Alita catches up to him and pleads with him to return with her. He agrees, but a serrated defense ring dropped by Nova shreds his body and throws him off the tube. Alita catches him but cannot pull him up, as his arm is breaking off. Hugo thanks Alita for saving him before falling to his death. Months later, Alita is the star of the Motorball tournament. Cheered on by the crowd, she pledges vengeance by pointing her sword toward Zalem, where Nova watches from above, smirking. I can’t see the appeal of being both a revolutionary and a sports star at the same time, it doesn’t really make sense to me. In the early 90s I was reading Zenith who was a pop star and a superhero, but it was a brilliant satire and there wasn’t any Rollerskating or cyborg nonsense. I read that it was Quentin Tarantino who suggested Christoph Waltz for the role of Dr. Dyson Ido, which is unsurprising but very lazy, given that he is essentially the same character he played in Tarantino’s Django. Rodriguez may have dabbled in the sickly world of CGI in the past but he really mastered it with Sin City. Sin City looks far better than Avatar in my opinion and I feel the Mexican director could be focusing his time and creativity on better, more personal projects. I like that they made Alita’s eyes bigger but overall nothing looks right. It doesn’t look like the original MANGA and it doesn’t even look anime. It’s a headache-inducing, projectile vomiting adventure in CGI, special effects over story with absolutely zero character development. I’m not apposed to ‘switching off and enjoying’ but it’s hard to enjoy watching something that treats one’s eyes with such aggression while treating one’s brain with complete contempt.

Us

Dir: Jordan Peele

2019

****

The problem with having an amazing debut film is that you’re expected to produce an equally amazing – if not better - follow up. Many a film director would avoid such comparisons by making a completely different film in a completely different genre but not Jordan Peele, he’s sticking with unconventional horror, and so he should – he’s very good at it. Much like Get Out, Peele approaches the story from different angles, there is nothing formulaic his story-telling, leading certain critics and audiences to proclaim that he’s ‘genre confused’. Nonsense. People have just gotten used to sub-standard horror/thriller films and don’t know what to think when presented with something original. That said, Us relies heavily on nostalgia, the 1980s, the era of the family-friendly fantasy and the classic slasher film. He succeeds beautifully, where even directors who made 80s films in the 80s have failed. It’s an ambitious film with a story that would throw many a great director, but Peele knows his cinema and he’s thrown a few subjects into the meaning of the film, all of which make clear points, but he also leaves just the right amount of mystery that allows the audience to interpret it how they may. The opening scene is so good, its still head to believe it wasn’t filmed in the 1980s. It’s 1987 and young Adelaide Thomas has gone on vacation with her parents to Santa Cruz. Her parents seem rather young, her mother clearly angry at her father, her father playing the fool and coming across as an immature parent. At the beach, she wanders off while her father is engrossed in a fairground game and enters a funhouse promising wonder within. Inside she finds a hall of mirrors and panics when she can’t find a way out. She approaches a mirror only to find a mirror image of herself, but the wrong way round. As her reflection turns, she is faced with a girl who is the mirror image of herself. When her parents eventually find her, she is left in shock and unable to speak. In the present day, the adult Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o), who has since recovered her speech, heads to her family's lake house in Santa Cruz with her husband, Gabe Wilson (Winston Duke), and their two children, Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex). She is apprehensive about the trip, but Gabe brushes off her misgivings while eager to impress their rich friends, Josh and Kitty Tyler (Tim Heidecker and Elisabeth Moss). On the ride there, the family sees the body of a man who has been shot dead being loaded into an ambulance. He resembles a man Adelaide remembers seeing before the hall of mirrors incident all those years ago. They meet the Tyler family at the Santa Cruz beach. After arriving, Jason wanders off and sees the same man standing alone with his arms outstretched, blood dripping from his hands. When she realizes Jason is missing, Adelaide panics, and the family leaves the beach as soon as he is found. That night, a family of four dressed in red appears in the Wilsons' driveway. They break into the Wilsons' home and attack them. The Wilsons quickly realize the four intruders are doppelgängers of themselves, led by Adelaide's double, Red. The only one who speaks, although with a very raspy voice, Red tells them a story about a girl and her shadow. The girl had a good life where she could choose things for herself, but the shadow lived a pale imitation of that life, being forced to copy the girl's actions against her will. Red describes her family as tethered to Adelaide's family, but she says she grew to hate the girl, and brandishing scissors, she says today will be the untethering. The family is separated by their doppelgängers: Red makes Adelaide handcuff herself to a table, Zora is pursued by Umbrae, Gabe is pursued by Abraham, and Jason is sent to "play" with Pluto in the closet. Zora evades Umbrae and Gabe manages to kill Abraham, while Jason discovers that Pluto mirrors his actions and manages to lock him in the closet. Red is drawn away by Pluto's cries, allowing Adelaide to break free. The family regroups and escapes on their boat. Meanwhile, the Tyler family is murdered by their own set of Tethered doppelgängers. The Wilsons arrive and realize what has happened, eventually killing the Tylers' doubles and turning on the news to see that millions of Tethered have been murdering their counterparts across the nation. The doppelgängers subsequently join hands together to form a massive human chain, which was alluded to at the beginning of the film in an advert for the ‘Hands across America’ movement of the 1980s. As the Wilsons drive away in the Tylers' car, they are attacked by Umbrae but manage to kill her. As day breaks, the Wilsons arrive at the Santa Cruz boardwalk, where they find the road blocked by their own car, which has been set on fire. Pluto has set a trap for the Wilsons, standing over a gasoline trail with a match. Jason, remembering that Pluto imitates his actions, makes Pluto walk backward into the fire, however, Red reappears and abducts Jason, making Adelaide run after them. While Zora and Gabe recuperate in an abandoned ambulance, Adelaide returns to the funhouse and finds a secret tunnel in the hall of mirrors. It leads to an underground facility overrun by rabbits, where Adelaide finds Red. Red explains her belief that the Tethered were created by humans to control their counterparts on the surface. She says the experiments copied their bodies, but were unable to copy the soul, leaving the Tethered condemned to mindlessly copy the actions of their surface counterparts. The experiment was ended and the Tethered were abandoned. They lived on their own for generations, in abandoned mine shafts and subway tunnels, until Red organized them to escape and take revenge. The two fight, with Red anticipating and countering all of Adelaide's attacks. Adelaide finally manages to overpower her and impales her, then breaks Red's neck with her handcuffs. She finds Jason hidden in a locker. Adelaide drives the family away in the ambulance and recalls the night she met Red in the hall of mirrors. It is revealed that Red is the real Adelaide and the surviving Adelaide is the doppelgänger. That night in 1987, the doppelgänger choked the real Adelaide unconscious, damaging her vocal cords, dragged her underground, handcuffed her to a bed, and took her place in the surface world, revealing why she couldn't speak after being found and why Red is the only clone that could speak. While the Wilsons drive off, Jason looks at his mother suspiciously, as if he is already aware of the secret. The film ends with the camera pulling back to show that the Tethered have joined hands across the country with news helicopters hovering above. The 80s themes and the underground people reminded me a bit of Stranger Things, but to be fair the film has more elements of films such as The Shining and Funny Games. Films such as Funny Games are always seen as more disturbing than your common slasher because they feature real people, rather than masked monsters. Peele somehow gives us both, making it a rather sinister and brutal horror film but a ‘blockbuster’ type horror at the same time. The imagery is perfect, with the arrival of the doppelgängers particularly terrifying. There are a lot of ideas at play here. The original idea came from an episode of The Twilight Zone, but more than that the film touches on the effects of the class system and marginalization. The doppelgängers are effigies of situational classism. They're trapped, both mentally and physically, and are ignored by society. There is a moment when the doppelgängers declare that "we're Americans" when asked who they are, which could represent the duality of American society, how some citizens can afford to live on top of the class system, while others are stuck in poverty. It is called Us after all. I think it’s a great line to throw in there for debate without the need for justification. Weirdly, the Tethered's red jump suits and their single gloves are an allusion to Michael Jackson. We also see his Thriller t-shirt seen on young Adelaide. Peele has stated that Jackson was "the patron saint of duality, plus it also fit in well with the 80s theme of the film. The director playfully stated that "Everything in this movie was deliberate, that is one thing I can guarantee you. Unless you didn't like something and that was a complete accident". The film also contains numerous references to Jeremiah 11:11, which reads: "Therefore thus saith the Lord: 'I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them”. Of course, Jeremiah warned Jerusalem was facing destruction due to false idols. Old biblical parables are scary, its all part and parcel of putting a good horror together. These are all ingredients, Peele has set out everything you need in order to make the cake, it is up to the audience to cook it. Peele has since explained that the central theme of the film is indeed American privilege. He said, “One of the central themes in Us is that we can do a good job collectively of ignoring the ramifications of privilege. I think it's the idea that what we feel like we deserve comes, you know, at the expense of someone else's freedom or joy. You know, the biggest disservice we can do as a faction with a collective privilege like the United States is to presume that we deserve it, and that it isn't luck that has us born where we're born. For us to have our privilege, someone suffers. That's where the Tethered connection, I think, resonates the most, is that those who suffer and those who prosper are two sides of the same coin. You can never forget that. We need to fight for the less fortunate.” Essentially we need to challenge ourselves, just as they had to in the film, and sometimes there is nothing more frightening than facing yourself. Brilliant.

Shazam!

Dir: David Sandberg

2019

***

The superhero character Shazam has had such a turbulent history, I’m actually shocked that a live-action feature film has finally been made. I’m not sure it was worth the wait however, or if they got the character right. I’ve never been a huge fan personally for two good reasons; Superman and Bananaman. Superman has a far better origin story and Bananaman does the whole kid turning into a superhero thing far better and with heaps more charm. DC has a tendency to get too serious with their characters and Shazam has always suffered because of this in my opinion. I think the one thing Shazam is best known for is the ongoing trademark conflicts with Marvel Comics, who owned the trademark for "Captain Marvel" – the character’s original name. DC renamed their Captain Marvel superhero character Shazam after acquiring the publishing rights from Fawcett Comics in 1972. Captain Marvel had originated at Fawcett in 1939, but fell into limbo after 1953 following a long legal battle with DC over Captain Marvel's similarities to Superman. The truth is, DC bought a copy of their own superhero and were essentially stuck with it. Captain Marvel/Shazam did outsell Superman comics in the early days but it was short lived. For me, Shazam represents the desperation and lack of creativity in the early days of superhero comics, the only reason he’s being churned out now is because he’s been around so long, he’s cheap (they own him) and he could be re-invented. At least, he should have been re-invented. I’m always one for appeasing the original fans, but in this instance there are so few of them, I do wonder why they bothered? I believe this film is aimed at a new audience, so why not do away with all the nonsense about Wizards and gods? They could have updated the suit while they were at it but to be fair it isn’t all bad. Actually, much of the film is rather enjoyable but I wouldn’t go as far as saying it was great. New Line Cinema began development of a Shazam! live-action feature film in the early 2000s, with multiple screenplay drafts by William Goldman, writing partners Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen, Bryan Goluboff, and John August. How you can go from the great William Goldman, writer of such classics as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Marathon Man and All the President's Men, to Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen – creators of Cheaper by the Dozen and Garfield: The Movie, is beyond me. In the end the final script was written by Henry Gayden, who wrote a short film in 2011 called Ham Sandwich. It’s as if DC had nothing to loose, and in many respects they didn’t. It is impossible not to compare what DC and Marvel are doing at the moment and DC is so far, about as left in the dust as they possibly could be. Their Justice League project was rushed and now looks dead in the water, Wonder Woman was good but really not as perfect as it first appeared and I thought Aquaman was a CGI headache. Marvel have found that perfect balance and are producing hit after hit. DC doesn’t need to copy Marvel, they just need to adapt the comics they already have, rather than ‘look for a new audience’ or try to appease everyone, because so far, they are pleasing very few people. They need to hire better writers, fans of the comics for starters, and they need to think outside of the box. They also need to cast their films better but that is actually something they get right with Shazam. Zachary Levi, like Gal Gabot and Jason Momoa, are great in the lead roles. But are somewhat let down by the supporting cast. I liked Asher Angel and Jack Dylan Grazer as the boy who turns into Shazam and his best friend respectively, but no one else quite held my attention. I didn’t think much of David F. Sandberg’s direction either and I wish DC would stop hiring horror directors for their ‘family friendly’ films. Two Annabelle doll cameos in two DC films is ridiculous, if only the directors could focus on the subject in hand, rather than pat themselves on the back for previous work that they’ve done. Annabelle has no business being in a DC superhero film, its stupid and distracting. The version of the script written by August, which went into pre-production in 2008, was an action-comedy which focused on the origin story of the hero, and it seems this hadn’t been updated in the ten years that followed. Peter Segal, who had never directed before, was attached as director and Dwayne Johnson was in talks to appear as the film's villain, Black Adam. Following the success of Warner's Batman film The Dark Knight and the commercial failure of its lighter, family-friendly Speed Racer, both during the summer of 2008, August departed from the project, citing pressure from the studio to make the screenplay darker and more serious. In August 2009, Bill Birch and Geoff Johns, a prominent DC Comics writer, were assigned to write the screenplay, while Segal remained attached as director. In August 2010, the studio considered canceling the theatrical movie in favor of a live-action series for prime time network television. In December 2013, Segal stated that the film would not be happening, as the similarities between Captain Marvel and Superman had become an obstacle after the successful launch of Man of Steel earlier that year. It’s hard to tell what changed since then, other than DC running out of ideas, but the film doesn’t seem to sit well as part of the Justice league films or on its own – especially when it references the Justice league characters so much. The Superman non-cameo towards the end of the film seemed awfully desperate, in a film that didn’t quite know what to do with itself. It’s part kids film and part horror movie, with Spider-Man’s self discovery but in Superman’s body. I really don’t care enough about the DC universe to get upset about it and it is for that reason that I liked the majority of it, or at least I think I did, because at this point I think I’m just relieved when I don’t actually hate a DC movie. It’s an oddity, not the worst superhero film ever made, indeed DC could learn a lot from it, but I can’t say I’m desperate for a sequel or anything.