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THE ARCHIVIST Volume XIV: Jagger Struts In FREEJACK [1992] and PERFORMANCE [1970]
![THE ARCHIVIST Volume XIV: Jagger Struts In FREEJACK [1992] and PERFORMANCE [1970]](https://i0.wp.com/cinapse.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/cropped-1_eIiigXg0nny6Q0rRfOStIA-2.png?resize=512%2C512&ssl=1)
Welcome to the Archive. Following the infamous “Format Wars” (R.I.P. VHS), a multitude of films found themselves in danger of being forgotten forever due to their admittedly niche appeal. Thankfully, Warner Bros. established the Archive Collection, a Disc On Demand and Streaming service devoted to some of the more idiosyncratic pieces of cinema ever made. Being big fans of the label, we here at Cinapse thought it prudent to establish a column devoted to these unusual gems. Thus “The Archivist” was born — a biweekly look at some of the best, boldest and most batshit motion pictures the Shield has to offer. Some of these will be recent additions to the collection, while others will be titles that have been available for awhile. With over 1,500 pictures procurable on Warner Archive (and more being added every month), there’s no possible way we’ll get to all of them. But trust me when we say we’re sure going to try.
Hey all you mad wild babies! Welcome back to The Archivist. I continue to learn my Roman Numerals, and you continue to learn about the endless Warner Brothers back-catalogue of cinematic wonders! This week’s installment finds the gyrating wonder, Mick Jagger, as you might have never seen him before! With Die Antwoord’s actorial debut apparently coming up short in Chappie, I thought it appropriate to check out another musician stretching a pair of thespian wings. Jagger exercised his respectable acting chops in a handful of diverse films, and The W.B. Archives offers two very cool movies from his sparse film career. I can’t tell you how excited I am to tell you about one of them (although, they are both pretty great).
In Freejack, Emilio Estevez (looking so baby-faced, I would sooner believe him as the Mighty Ducks’ team captain, than head coach) plays a promising F1 racer who is sucked out of his own timeline and into the future (2009…Ha! Stupid movie! That’s already the past, losers!), where the super rich live inside a giant fence and can store their minds in a giant computer just long enough to be placed in some poor schmuck’s body from the past before they truly die. It’s based on a Robert Sheckley novel called Immortality INC., and that source material was apparently butchered in favor of several car chases and other shenanigans. It’s admittedly a poor film, but it shouldn’t be forgotten. I can understand its obscurity considering it came out in 1992, in the wake of icons like Basic Instinct, A Few Good Men, and Batman Returns, but it has an interesting place in the early ’90s Cyber Punk fascination. It also earns points for being a time travel movie whose premise allows for the protagonist to tell supporting characters who he is without the tedious rigors of convincing everyone he is not insane. People understand his highly dangerous situation (in what has become a way of life for them) as soon as he explains, and their reactions are always thrilling.
Mick Jagger doesn’t capture a ton of screen time in this one. He plays a mercenary who, even after being fired, insists on capturing Estevez’s character. His character is a lot of fun, and Jagger seems to be treating his character with no more care than the director did with the rest of the production. He phones it in with just enough charm to strike a smile or two. It’s just fun to see him do his thing, as an appealing character, especially in a squeaky pair of leather pants.
Speaking of which, the movie is kinda goofy. Estevez doesn’t quite sell the one-liners they fed him with the same bravado of the muscle-bound action stars of the day, and considering the script’s shallowness, the action isn’t quite exciting enough to…excite. It does offer some fun production design, and if you are a science fiction diehard, its well-worth your time, in spite of itself.
God…where the hell to start with tonight’s B picture (which is really the A picture)…
Performance chaotically intertwines the lives of Chas (James Fox), a ferocious London mafia enforcer, and Turner (Mick Jagger), a reclusive, disenchanted rock star. Chas is looking for an escape from his soured mafia ties, and Turner is looking to reconnect with his “demon” in order to recharge his songwriting energies. After Jagger’s character makes his mid-film entrance, they play a lot of dress-up, do a lot of bathing, and have a lot of sex (Turner had been in the middle of a ménage à trois). The dream can’t last forever, and after the two engage in a lengthy tug of war between their identities…something happens.
The movie opens with a bombastic torrent of exposition. The editing featured in the first 20 minutes is so overwhelming, I was almost too exhausted to continue. I’m not trying to scare you away from this experience in telling you that. I am trying to prepare you for a movie I think everyone needs to see. It may be challenging, but it is every bit as rewarding as long as you are willing to give yourself over to a movie that is just as much art as it is pure entertainment. It is a true work of cinema; one that tells you even more in its cinematography and editing than it does with its dialogue, and still manages to leave room for enough style to do nothing but exhilarate. Every moment of the movie’s time is filled with something provocative and engaging.
I had to routinely remind myself I was watching something from The Warner Archives, and not a lost classic picked up by one of our boutique labels. No offense to the other films I’ve covered for this column, but it seems like the majority of the titles under the Archive Collection label have been a few frames short of quality, rather than a few frames short of genius. I’ve had a lot of fun digging into their under appreciated works, but I have never been so thrilled by a movie in the catalogue thus far.
I won’t accept anyone telling me I only loved this movie for it being full of boobs and violence, either. Sure, Anita Pallenberg’s scantily-clad presence as a kind of antagonistic bohemian spiritual sex guru to James Fox’s character might be appealing, but it’s the dense feverishness of the film’s art that will stick with me forever. Besides, you need her in a movie constantly challenging gender and sexual identity with Jagger (and another character…who is hard to explain) being such an androgynous force of nature. This movie is the most complicated look at the “sex, drugs, and rock and roll generation,” and it blows Easy Rider right out of the water, from both a filmmaking standpoint and as an artistic representation of that time and place.
It also invented the music video. It features a music sequence, complete with a fantastic original song by Mick Jagger, yet had it come out in the ’90s, critics would have pooped on the entire movie’s frenetic style for its use of “the MTV edit.”
I need to stop…just see the damn thing. Jagger’s performance really shines…every performance does, and this Blu-ray release offers a few cool special features too, a rarity among Archive products.
So save yourself from being possessed by a dying rich guy, and have a mushroom trip in the key of Mick Jagger.
It’s double-feature time!
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THE ARCHIVIST VOLUME XIII — Failed Comic Book Adaptations: THE SPIRIT [1986] and STEEL [1997]
Welcome to the Archive. Following the infamous “Format Wars” (R.I.P. VHS), a multitude of films found themselves in danger of being forgotten forever due to their admittedly niche appeal. Thankfully, Warner Bros. established the Archive Collection, a Disc On Demand and Streaming service devoted to some of the more idiosyncratic pieces of cinema ever made. Being big fans of the label, we here at Cinapse thought it prudent to establish a column devoted to these unusual gems. Thus “The Archivist” was born — a biweekly look at some of the best, boldest and most batshit motion pictures the Shield has to offer. Some of these will be recent additions to the collection, while others will be titles that have been available for awhile. With over 1,500 pictures procurable on Warner Archive (and more being added every month), there’s no possible way we’ll get to all of them. But trust me when we say we’re sure going to try.
Welcome back, vigilantes, to an action-packed installment of The Archivist! Today, superheroes are everywhere. Their exploits can be seen on any size screen in nearly any locale. They are major moneymaking machines in filmed entertainments and also profitable in every sort of merchandising. They are plastered on apparel, phone cases, backpacks and purses, and practically anything else you could want. Did you look in your ass, lately? You probably have one in your ass. The Atom would be my first guess.
Yes, the original creations of the comic book realm are now more prolific and popular than ever, but even as recently as 1997, producers of film and television still didn’t really know what to do with them. Tim Burton had great success with a Batman franchise, and Superman had also performed well, but sometimes Quincy Jones gets in the mix and things start to go off the wall.
Let me explain…
First, let’s get through the good. Superheroes had often flourished on TV, but in 1986, when Sam Jones (Flash Gordon) donned the blue suit and matching fedora/mask combo for an extra-long pilot of The Spirit, nobody seemed to care. I had a rough go of researching this one. It doesn’t even have so much as a Wikipedia article to clue us in to the production history, so that means I won’t be able to tell you about all that stuff only I find interesting. Sorry! I suppose I could tell you a little about the movie itself, though.
Detective Denny Colt is investigating the murder of an old friend when a thug connected to his friend’s killer guns him down. Thought to be dead, Denny takes on the persona of The Spirit, only revealing himself to the police commissioner. He starts kicking all the right asses, makes a name for himself, and works his way toward solving the mystery that set him on this dangerous path.
Don’t be fooled by the low-res images I’ve included in the article. The DVD actually looks quite good considering this is a TV movie from the 80s. I am thankful for that, because this pilot has so much promise, I’m surprised it wasn’t picked up for a series. They were shooting for pure comic book glee with this one, and from the art direction to the performances, the whole thing strikes the same adorable tone. It’s full of funny gags, zippy dialogue, and more vibrant color than you could fit into Frank Zappa’s best acid trip. At a super slim running time of 69 minutes, the movie practically overflows with low-budget appeal. It’s a lot of fun and you should check it out, especially if you were lost or burned watching Frank Miller’s bafflingly dull and unfaithful adaptation from 2008.
Phallus much?
About ten years after The Spirit tried his hand at television, Shaquille O’Neal tried his hand at acting… again. Did you ever see a movie called Blue Chips? He was in that, too, and he was good! Shaq can aqt! So what the hell happened two years later when he infamously made an ass of himself in Kazaam? What the hell else happened just one year after that when he decided to take on a butchered adaptation of a DC comic book character? Something about moving to the Lakers must have given him a serious confidence boost (I mean… duh). Sometimes you just can’t stop until you get enough.
John Henry Irons (Shaquille O’Neal) is happily creating “non-lethal” weapons for the American military with his best buddy, Sparks (Annabeth Gish) and obvious maniac, Nathanial Burke (Judd Nelson), when Burke takes a weapon past its tested abilities to impress a senator. Sparky is crushed and crippled, and all three inventors are disgraced and leave the army. Irons, who lives in a wide-open scrap yard in a bad neighborhood in L.A., discovers some of his weapons technology has fallen into the hands of local gangs. He teams up with wheelchair-bound Sparky, takes a look at the man in the mirror, lets Sparky know she is not alone, and the two of them use scrap metal to create armor, computers, and enough advanced weaponry to tell the gangs they should beat it.
Taken from a very cool storyline in the Death of Superman era, Steel has almost nothing to do with its source material. Normally, that would be fine. It is apparently human nature to take something and make it your own. In this instance, it was the inspiration of Quincy Jones (producer/collaborator on Michael Jackson’s classic albums) that might have led this film astray. His intentions were noble. He felt children didn’t look to the future with positivity. I’m not sure how this ridiculous movie could change that, but I’m sure that’s just the way it made him feel.
The movie is a mess. It tries to strike the goofiest “Tee hee, crime fighting is fun! Smoking is bad!” tone, while employing “streetwise” dialogue with as much PG-13 profanity as possible. For whom did they make this movie? The dialogue is at its most troubling when only African American characters populate a scene. It sounds like a white guy took a bunch of overheard speech patterns and injected them into the script at random. Apparently… that’s actually what happened. Writer/director Kenneth Johnson visited an inner city school in order to get the conversations “right”. Who knows, maybe with better actors, the script would work fine, but with Shaq demonstrating all the magnetism of Michael Jordan in Space Jam, the language sounds forced and awkward. Add to that extremely boring action sequences, the most uncomfortable Richard Roundtree reference imaginable, and a predictable story made up of elements borrowed from previously released action movies, and this movie becomes really hard to recommend. I want to say you have to see it to believe it, but then you would have to see it.
Look, the whole point of The Archivist is to dig up the most nerdy cinematic discoveries possible, and if you want to see two failed superhero properties from a time when you could actually fail making a comic book movie, then these two movies make great companion pieces.
So fake your own death, and blacksmith yourself some seven-foot-tall body armor! It’s double-feature time!
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THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY: All You Need is Love (And Patience)
Initially shown as a two-part double feature, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him focuses on Conor (James McAvoy), an East Village barkeep piecing together what remains of his life after his wife, Eleanor, walks out on him after her attempted suicide. Likewise, Eleanor Rigby: Her follows Eleanor (Jessica Chastain) after her titular disappearance as she buries herself in college classes and suburban comforts in an attempt to distance herself from her life with Conor. As they cross narrative paths in fleeting moments, Conor and Eleanor are forced to painfully look back on the relationship they had and inevitably confront the tragedy that drove them apart. While the films’ order of exhibition alternated throughout their festival run, the total experience was an intimate yet heartbreakingly epic one, with an emotional power as overwhelming as its three-hour runtime.
For its theatrical release, however, Benson worked with distributor The Weinstein Company to combine both Him and Her into a truncated film entitled Them. Them uses both perspectives to grant the viewer an omniscient view of the story… albeit, as noted by some critics, at the cost of the film’s original conceit. In an unusual move, Weinstein showcases both cuts of the film on a two-disc Blu-ray, released earlier this February. The resulting dilemma is, expectedly, “which version do I watch?” However, my recent marathon of all three films has led me to believe that not only is the answer more complicated than I once thought–but that it may be the wrong question to ask altogether.
While Him and Her’s split narrative may seem gimmicky at first glance, it is how writer-director Ned Benson uses this conceit to his advantage that makes The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby such a memorable experience. The look and feel of each film differs according to its protagonists; Him takes on a static, cold look to mirror Conor’s increasing loneliness while Her’s looser, more handheld camerawork and bright, warm tones externalizes Eleanor’s frenzied yet driven attitude towards her new life. “His movie is all about moving forward — don’t stop, because otherwise I’m going to feel something — and when she comes into his life, he has to feel something,” Benson explains in an interview with The Moveable Feast. In regards to Her, “the character is much more interior in dealing with more emotional issues…I [shot] her film handheld except when he comes into her movie, when I go more static, and study him, because he is the baseline to her life. He’s the constant or the certainty in her life and once she’s left that, she’s completely uncertain in terms of her identity and trying to re-scope who she is.” There are also moments where Him and Her narratively dovetail, but much like the film’s production design, the content of these scenes diverge depending on which character is the focus. Conor’s perspective tends to paint him more as a heart-on-his-sleeve romantic hero, with Eleanor as strangely withholding and emotionless; Eleanor’s perspective, on the other hand, reveals a woman more close-guarded with her emotions, trying to figure out the best way to express herself when faced with Conor’s more bullish, headstrong nature.
The contrasting aesthetic and narrative qualities of Him and Her not only establishes a distinct identity for each film, but also deepens how isolated the characters — and their respective films — feel from each other. Because the world in Eleanor Rigby changes depending on who the film focuses on, the opposing protagonist isn’t the same character featured in the opposite film; to Conor, Eleanor isn’t Eleanor, and vice versa. Rather, like everything else making up his or her world, their love interest is merely how they perceive them to be. This results in a frustrating yet beautiful love story in which these two characters both long for each other’s understanding and compassion, yet lack the ability to see the world in any other way but their own. This limitation extends to the film’s audience, who is granted the ability to see both sides of the story, but in their mute spectator role cannot grant the same ability to the characters they empathize with.
It’s this remarkable effect of pathos that makes creating a cut like Them such a problem to begin with. In assembling Them, Benson didn’t face just the problem of which scenes to include, but a staggering ripple effect afterwards. Selecting certain scenes meant that other scenes featuring the same wardrobe or production design had to be included to ensure continuity, at times prizing one character’s perspective over another. Color timing and signifiers meant to distinguish between characters’ viewpoints become tangible rather than aesthetic decisions. In creating a standalone film synthesized from two differing perspectives, individual perception is forced to become objective truth.
As a result, much of Them feels tonally uneven, its characters slight. Eleanor’s quiet, introspective journey feels sluggish compared to Conor’s more active and headstrong quest to win back his lost love; at the same time, Eleanor feels more mature and developed than Conor’s boyish lonely-heart as she struggles to reconcile her drive to escape her tragic past with the consequences of the necessary actions she’s taken. When compared to the rich, detailed world of Him and Her, it’s hard not to feel cheated at times by Them — it’s the same story, to be sure, but you cannot shake the feeling of something greater existing beyond the boundaries of its frame.
However, I cannot doubt that something magical happens in intertwining Conor and Eleanor’s journeys. They may occupy their own separate lives at times, but Them argues that this does not mean their worlds are mutually exclusive from one another. In watching these two lovers run from heartbreak only to snap back towards each other like karmic rubber bands, Benson reveals how much Conor and Eleanor’s lives work in tandem. Despite their feelings for their partners, Conor and Eleanor remain impenetrable ciphers to each other, dancing closer to reconciliation only to break away when painful memories come back to haunt them, or when earnest actions register as threats. They could make this work–something inside them refuses to deny it–but the only ones holding Eleanor and Conor back are themselves.
This problem isn’t limited to just them, either. In the film, Professor Friedman (Viola Davis) lectures about how we have derived a sense of uniqueness or identity from our individual perception of the world. This belief, however, creates a mental solitude that inhibits our attempts to understand those around us; comprehending and accepting someone’s irrational behavior requires admitting the fallibility of our initial perceptions. As much as the characters in Rigby want to solve each other’s problems, they must also reckon with the limitations of their own understanding over the course of the film. Conor and his father Spencer (Ciaran Hinds) can only talk around their suffering with a bemused stoicism, or compare the relative weight of each other’s marital drama as if it were a contest in un-masculinity. Julian (William Hurt) attempts to “outsource” necessary discussions with Eleanor to a psychiatrist colleague because, despite being her father, he doesn’t feel qualified to help her; “Tragedy is a foreign country,” Julian mutters, explaining to himself as much as he is to Eleanor. “We don’t know how to talk to the natives.” Where Him and Her are about how confining individual perspectives can be, Them explores how humanity as a whole seems to have lost the ability to communicate as a result of this self-imposed isolation.
What unites all three films is the hope that developing meaningful relationships may help us overcome our perceptual limitations. Even more, that we seem to be hard-wired to seek out these relationships even as we cling to comforting yet flawed beliefs. Conor desperately seeks out family and friends’ explanations for Eleanor’s behavior in order to win her back; this forces Conor to reckon with his own refusal to deal with their tragic past, and he recognizes his headstrong, confident persona as a mask for his own emotional immaturity. Likewise, Eleanor’s drive to move beyond her relationship with Conor stumbles when the important people in her life refuse to follow in her footsteps. Akin to Juliette Binoche in Three Colors: Blue, Eleanor discovers that she cannot escape the memories of her traumatic past, for they are her sole motive for forging a different, better future. As a result, she inevitably finds herself confronting the very man she’s trying to forget. While both characters begin with a primarily individualistic worldview, they find they cannot move forward or grow without the thoughts and ideas of others. Despite Conor and Eleanor remaining in opposite emotional states at the conclusions of their respective films, all three films share the idea that there is still room for them to grow and find peace–as well as the hope that their paths will soon cross again.
Through retiming Him and Her’s color palate, Benson extends this theme to Them’s overall color scheme. “I keep those disparate color palettes in the beginning, and as the film went on, and as they sort of slowly re-found each other, I try and synthesize those color palettes a little bit…[so that] the last scene of the movie is a blend of it all,” Benson explained in an interview with Coming Soon on Them’s editing process. Rigby’s separate films effectively dramatize the protagonists’ point of views; Them takes this one step further and suggests that the more Conor and Eleanor open up themselves to change, their inner and outer worlds reach a desired (and very much necessary) equilibrium.
It’s easy to write off Them as a mere combination of two films that are strong on their own, since much of what makes Him and Her so effective — the differing versions of scenes, the attention to detail in each film’s contrasting production design and camerawork — are all pretty much done away with when placed in the framework of a conventional narrative. I mean, the very idea of smashing these two films together seems so frustratingly logical that it’s almost comical. It speaks to a long-standing belief in an omniscient form of storytelling where morality and consequence are as clear-cut as the characters experiencing them. That events only happened the way they happened, not as we remembered them. That the world as we see it is, in fact, the world that is. Him and Her certainly recognize that this isn’t the case, so anything less than that must, as a result, be an inherently inferior work. I certainly wanted to believe this was the case, and I initially did–it was the reason why I refused to see Them during its Austin run last September, and it was why I was hesitant to even watch it for this article.
But I can’t defend this idea anymore. Pitting Conor and Eleanor’s perspectives against each other creates such a natural visual and narrative dialogue that cannot be found by solely watching Him and Her. Intercutting the two stories may create a more linear, straightforward telling of the story more akin to traditional narrative film, but Them still feels like two clashing perspectives eventually reaching a middle ground rather than a wholly omniscient view of its subjects. Granted, the film does suffer by having to make the impossible choice between which versions of scenes it chooses to include, but that’s exactly why Them should be considered part of the experience of The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby rather than an alternative to Him and Her. While the two films may support the idea that Conor and Eleanor live in different worlds, Them shows how selfish and confining this idea can be–all while using the same footage as its progenitors.
At the same time, the experience of watching Them made me further appreciate the amount of care and detail put into the visual and storytelling qualities that differentiate Him and Her from each other. There’s an element of discovery and beauty in the experience of watching each version of the film, and is truly the best expression of what all three cuts are trying to achieve. It’s not enough to settle for one cut; to do so would defeat the purpose. While it may feel like you’re watching the same material over and over (and yes, you are), I can assure you that it’s never in the same light.
It’s uncomfortable to lack a sense of moral surety or objectivism. We would like to neatly compartmentalize the world and believe that things are as we see them. We hate being wrong. Or, at the very least, not being correct on the first go around. But a triad like Eleanor Rigby suggests that not only is this mode of thought the most painful and confining aspect of our existence, it is the main thing holding us back from forming meaningful relationships with others. It is through experiencing the world through as many eyes as possible that makes it possible to transcend and question our initial beliefs or expectations; hopefully, through that, we can find our way towards a better future. We may succeed, we may fail. At the very least, we wouldn’t be alone in trying.
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THE ARCHIVIST VOLUME XII: Where My Tribe At? THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR [1985] and GREYSTOKE [1983]
Welcome to the Archive. Following the infamous “Format Wars” (R.I.P. VHS), a multitude of films found themselves in danger of being forgotten forever due to their admittedly niche appeal. Thankfully, Warner Bros. established the Archive Collection, a Disc On Demand and Streaming service devoted to some of the more idiosyncratic pieces of cinema ever made. Being big fans of the label, we here at Cinapse thought it prudent to establish a column devoted to these unusual gems. Thus “The Archivist” was born — a biweekly look at some of the best, boldest and most batshit motion pictures the Shield has to offer. Some of these will be recent additions to the collection, while others will be titles that have been available for awhile. With over 1,500 pictures procurable on Warner Archive (and more being added every month), there’s no possible way we’ll get to all of them. But trust me when we say we’re sure going to try.
Come as you are: Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons, Ape-People, and People-People! All are welcome here, at The Archivist! Maybe you’re having trouble finding your place? Maybe you’re experiencing an identity crisis? Valentine’s Day has come and gone. Maybe you’re looking for love in all the wrong places? Maybe your most promising suitor’s head was torn off by a famous bear? If you are experiencing any of the above, this week’s edition of cinematic spelunking was hand-selected just for you!
When I chose The Clan of the Cave Bear and Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, I had no idea what perfect companion pieces they would make. They both covered the subject of fitting into unfamiliar societies, and they both had seemingly endless titles. That’s really all I knew. What a surprise when it turned out they could hardly be more fascinating when they were viewed in the same evening!
The Clan…OTCB stars the quite talented Daryl Hannah as Ayla, a Cro-Magnon (the species of humanoid ancestors from which most of us evolved) who, at a very young age, is half-dead and alone after losing her mother in one hell of an earthquake. A tribe of Neanderthals happens upon her, and although their leaders are reluctant, a loving couple is allowed to adopt her. Ayla must now find her place in this world of less evolved and brutally stubborn people.
The movie plays, unintentionally (?), like a socio-political allegory. At every turn, Ayla is beaten physically and emotionally by the more superstitious and xenophobic members of her new tribe. As it turns out, what became of the Neanderthal is no mystery at all. Most of them survived and became conservative legislators. Women have an oppressively small role in their society. Outsiders are feared, and Ayla’s very existence will apparently anger their gods. She really pisses them off when she reveals her unmatched skills with weaponry while saving the life of a child. Several moments like that one had me thinking this might be a great female empowerment film, or maybe even a fine feminist piece, but the movie is staunchly determined to conclude that these people absolutely cannot coexist.
This is a thoroughly intriguing film that just can’t help but trip over its own goofiness. The Neanderthal make-up, though nominated for an academy award, hasn’t aged well, and is hard to take seriously at first. The score, by the great Alan Silvestri, also falls surprisingly short, as its synth sounds awkwardly bump heads with lovely prehistoric images. I have to say, this is never-the-less a film you have to track down just so you can be in awe of how daring it is. To make a movie in 1985 with sparse dialogue mostly consisting of vague hand-gestures translated in subtitles is one thing, but to use that entirely fictional language to tell a story about a time so many religious people reject (even today) is entirely another. Plus, it was one of Bart The Bear’s (The Edge, The Great Outdoors) first movies. You go, Warner Brothers!
Now, from goofy, to crazy. Greystoke: TLOT, LOFTA delivers (or so it claims) the most faithful adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel Tarzan of the Apes. That is apparently dubious, but it does tell an incredible version of the often-filmed tale. John Clayton (played by Christopher Lambert, who is never once referred to as “Tarzan”) is the son of a marooned couple who die not long after his birth. He is adopted by a female gorilla and spends many naked years desperately trying to find himself among his animal family until a party of British zoologists discovers him. By that time, he has become a man, now way less naked than before (maybe Lambert had a no-nude contract), and is the “lord” of his tribe of gorillas. He agrees to leave the only world he has known, and he and Ian Holm return to England to live at the Greystoke Estate with his only remaining relative, his grandfather (played by Sir Ralph Richardson in his final role). There, his identity crisis only worsens, particularly after falling in love with a human woman (Andie MacDowell). Despite a lot of visual splendor (including astonishing make-up effects by the great Rick Baker), and excellent performances, this movie is a crazy mess, and that can mostly be attributed to the shenanigans going on behind the scenes.
The screenplay was written by Robert Towne! Chinatown Robert Towne! Script doctor of Bonnie and Clyde and The Godfather Robert Towne! Too bad he was fired before he could direct Greystoke. Apparently the commercial failure of his most recently written and directed film Personal Best lost him the job. He retaliated in officially replacing his name with that of his dog. That’s right. Robert Towne’s dog received whole credit for writing this script. With all that slobber on the pages, rewrites must have been a bitch. Strike one.
The film was placed in the capable hands of Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire), who apparently wasn’t big on restraint when he took over the project. As I mentioned before, Rick Baker’s ape suits are jaw-droppingly detailed and they found some convincing players to fill them, but do we really need to see a mother carrying around a dead ape baby like broken toy? Do we need to see the same mother’s teat dripping with milk while she tries to feed that dead offspring? These harsh realities would be worth showing if they were treated with some delicacy, but the images are thrown at us with the same carelessness this mother gives her dead ape after she finds young John Clayton. Strike two.
Fortunately, there isn’t a strike three (although Andie McDowell’s every line being ADR’d by Glenn Close is pretty weird). This movie might have problems so big as to force the viewer to laugh unintentionally, but it is so full of gorgeous shots, strong acting, fascinating ideas, and bizarre moments, you just can’t stop watching it. I was especially pleased with the film’s lead. Believe it or not, a few years before he was a snickering Scottish guy with a samurai sword, and several more years before he was a snickering guy with lightning coming out of his eyes, Christopher Lambert was a promising young actor. He seems to be in another, better organized drama. He still snickers a couple times, but I think his performance could have been something really special in a movie that didn’t wind up with such an indifferent anti-climax after a long trek through a lot of strangeness.
I could go on, but then again, so could you…like…with that whole “life” thing you have.
Another pair of must-see films from the depths of Hollywood’s historical jungle, and you can practically only get them from one place: The Warner Archives!
Now find fit yourself into a society of popcorn and beer! It’s
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The Archivist Volume XI: Gene Roddenberry’s lost TV Pilots — GENESIS II [1973], PLANET EARTH [1974]…
![The Archivist Volume XI: Gene Roddenberry’s lost TV Pilots — GENESIS II [1973], PLANET EARTH [1974]…](https://i0.wp.com/cinapse.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/45db9-0kalomrik0rbvhk-7.jpg?resize=612%2C260&ssl=1)
Welcome to the Archive. Following the infamous “Format Wars” (R.I.P. VHS), a multitude of films found themselves in danger of being forgotten forever due to their admittedly niche appeal. Thankfully, Warner Bros. established the Archive Collection, a Disc On Demand and Streaming service devoted to some of the more idiosyncratic pieces of cinema ever made. Being big fans of the label, we here at Cinapse thought it prudent to establish a column devoted to these unusual gems. Thus “The Archivist” was born — a biweekly look at some of the best, boldest and most batshit motion pictures the Shield has to offer. Some of these will be recent additions to the collection, while others will be titles that have been available for awhile. With over 1,500 pictures procurable on Warner Archive (and more being added every month), there’s no possible way we’ll get to all of them. But trust me when we say we’re sure going to try.
Welcome back to The Archivist! Get ready to have your animation all suspended because I have a super-seventies sci-fi trip into the more-or-less super-seventies future! Three years in a row, the great Gene Roddenberry gave television a feature-length pilot episode in hopes of starting a new series. Sadly, all three were rejected by their chosen networks, but fear not kids, for with the bad news, must come some good. The Warner Archives, in its wisdom, offers the whole “trilogy” for its Disc-On-Demand service! Gene Rodenberry! Obscure low-budget sci-fi! It’s a nerd two-for-one! Hyphens!
Genesis II
It all began with mustachioed Alex Cord as Dylan Hunt: swaggering NASA astronaut, adventuring into infinite possibilities. Somewhere within the Carlsbad Caverns, he was leading a team of scientists on a mission to achieve suspended animation. As fun would have it, the pressurized chamber holding Mr. Hunt forces the unknown fault lines above to shift and buries he and his team for over a sesquicentenary (somebody got a thesaurus for Christmas!). Unearthed by explorers from the future society, PAX, and a deserter from a supreme race of mutated humans (sexy fallout from WWIII, apparently) known as Tyrannians, Dylan must work his way through lies, lust, and multiple navels to uncover the truth about these warring factions. Who is on the side of righteousness?
It’s great! The filmmakers squeezed as much life into this thing as their clearly slim budget would allow. It has a lot of goofy charm, fun performances, and it achieves a fully fleshed-out vision of a new planet earth. The movie takes us on an adventure across new, but familiar terrain, and into new, but familiar conflicts. The Tyrannians need Hunt to repair their nuclear facility, but for what purpose? Do they need energy or weapons? Director John Llewellyn Moxey lives up to his surname in creating a surprisingly energetic movie, culminating in a cool climactic action sequence (at one point, they tackle a fucking horse), as well as a classic Roddenberry big-picture message about violence. Check it out.
Planet Earth
The next year, undaunted by his failure, Roddenberry returned, again with his protagonist, Dylan Hunt, and his new friends at PAX. This time, portrayed by the great character actor, John Saxon (Enter The Dragon, Nightmare on Elm Street), we get a better sense of what all could be done with this world in a TV series. Genesis II ended with such a sense of finality, that it might have felt like the entire story was over before it had hardly started. In Planet Earth, Dylan Hunt is now leading a team of PAX-onauts in exploring their new earth. Basically, it’s a small-scale Star Trek. They discover there are many societies all over the post-apocalyptic earth, including a matriarchy that has enslaved men.
The movie has a lot of fun with this idea. Maybe too much fun is had, including a rather outdated view of the politics of women’s lib. This is the seventies, after all, and although his intentions were good, Rodenberry’s teleplay (co-written by Juanita Bartlett) can’t help but condescend a bit. After being captured by the female confederacy, Hunt must find a way to seduce his mistress. He romances her as they drink (don’t worry, it doesn’t go date-rapey) and he muses, “Women’s lib… men’s lib… how about people’s lib?”
WHAT!? Man, as a sex, has never required liberation. Obviously, this woman-ruled settlement has taken social justice too far, and perverted it, but that line just reeks with deliberate misunderstanding. Sure, feminism was a little more militant back then, but over all, the plan in seeking gender equality was never about enslaving men. To suggest this “conquering woman” could be the future of women’s lib is completely ridiculous. Just the same, the movie manages to entertain.
The costume department had a lot of fun making wacky, but appropriate attire for these powerful women. Plus, the cast rather naturally affected their performances with a great deal of power and stature within the matriarchy. They great Diana Muldaur (from both Star Trek TOS and DS9) takes the lead role among her co-stars with a particularly impressive realization of her character. She is strong, even brutish, but still somehow feminine and graceful. Watching her, one has to ponder what features and characteristics can be considered specifically masculine or feminine, and whether or not any of those characteristics matter (they don’t, of course). That should have been the central theme of this film all along. Without those useless physical distinctions, Patriarchy collapses.
Strange New World
Another year later, finally giving in, Gene Roddenberry sat out when Ronald F. Graham and Robert Butler took some of the concepts and imagery from Roddenberry’s two previous attempts and created Strange New World (a sly reference to the opening monologue from Star Trek). This time, John Saxon returned to do more dropkicking, but not as Dylan Hunt. Now, he is Anthony Vico, saved with two other astronauts in a cryo-sleep in outer space while asteroids pummeled the earth they knew. They return 180 years later to find a secret society which harvests organs from clones in order to live eternally. The movie devotes the majority of its time to exploring that world and when the team makes its exit, after what feels like the climax of the script, only to discover another world, it is hard to find the energy to stay focused. The two acts are shockingly uneven. The first half slowly moved in “suspense”, and the second moves at a much faster clip and focuses on action and a far more appealing idea.
Vico and his team discover, hiding deep in the wilderness, tribal white trash! I’m not exaggerating. These people (all men) fear foreigners (“fornies”, they call them), live for huntin’ and trappin’, speak with a distinct southern drawl, and love weapons. As their foils, a group of tribal hippies (sort of) is also discovered. This faction has found a book detailing the laws of the Fish and Wildlife Services and adopted it as a bible. They live in what was once a zoo and now thrive in peace with the animals… they can even communicate with them. The NRA Vs. The EPA! It’s a beautifully goofy idea that would have made for wonderful satire, but this movie lacks the energy and structure to play well even as grounded science fiction. It just doesn’t live up to the fun or charm of its predecessors.
On the whole, these three features are a real treasure. To have this glimpse at some lost Rodenberry work is exciting and rare, not to mention these three works contain the concepts and characters which lead eventually to the successful TV series Andromeda.
Now wake your clone-ass up out of hibernation and discover some popcorn! It’s triple-feature time!
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The Archivist Volume X: Steve Martin in Forgotten Funnies With THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS [1983] and…
Welcome to the Archive. Following the infamous “Format Wars” (R.I.P. VHS), a multitude of films found themselves in danger of being forgotten forever due to their admittedly niche appeal. Thankfully, Warner Bros. established the Archive Collection, a Disc On Demand and Streaming service devoted to some of the more idiosyncratic pieces of cinema ever made. Being big fans of the label, we here at Cinapse thought it prudent to establish a column devoted to these unusual gems. Thus “The Archivist” was born — a biweekly look at some of the best, boldest and most batshit motion pictures the Shield has to offer. Some of these will be recent additions to the collection, while others will be titles that have been available for awhile. With over 1,500 pictures procurable on Warner Archive (and more being added every month), there’s no possible way we’ll get to all of them. But trust me when we say we’re sure going to try.
Welcome, new and returning friends, to The Archivist! I spent my time off during our last episode (a very special thanks to Austin Vashaw for gallantly taking the reins — do be sure to go back and read that if you haven’t already) to dig up a few forgotten treasures.
Now that it appears I will have to lose my overwhelming respect for Bill Cosby, I can still luxuriate in the yet untarnished body of hilarious work by the great Steve Martin. If you haven’t seen these flicks, do yourself a favor and correct that unfortunate business.
The Man With Two Brains [1983] Dir. Carl Reiner
I can’t fully wrap my head around how this movie could possibly not be considered an absurdist classic. This beast is more consistently funny (and by “consistently”, I mean it is never not funny) than half of Mel Brooks’ catalogue. As a slight send-up of old B Sci-fi movies, that’s an easy comparison, but The Man With Two Brains has more in common with the work of Leslie Nielsen or Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker. This is a send-up of everything. I was worried, after wiping tears away within the first ten minutes, that the movie was simply front-loaded with the great stuff, and would soon fizzle off into the same opacity as its own legacy. Not so. Like The Naked Gun, or Airplane, if you so much as sneeze while watching, you missed another great joke, and that much is true for the entire length of the film.
Somehow, in the midst of this totally bonkers script, giving even the Monty Python boys a run for their money, Steve Martin, Carl Reiner, and George Gipe managed to craft a story with propulsion. It doesn’t rest on its thousands of jokes sewn into every line of dialogue. Instead, it gingerly guides every nutty gag through a structured plot, with legitimate motivations for its central characters, and I was surprised to be sitting there, still laughing about a joke from five minutes ago, excited to see how it would all end.
The film even boasts a fantastic cast of actors who were never funnier. Kathleen Turner plays a comically incautious femme fatale. The great David Warner (the TGRI scientist from Secret of the Ooze) is effortlessly funny, playing a scientist, of course. James Cromwell shows up for about three seconds and gets a laugh, and I wouldn’t dare spoil whom, but an old television icon has a truly hilarious cameo in a scene near the end.
It’s really a shame no one preaches the good word on this one. Buy it. Watch it on repeat. Tell everyone how funny it is.
My Blue Heaven [1990], Dir. Herbert Ross
I can’t say I was quite so enthusiastic while watching My Blue Heaven.
This here, is a damn interesting piece of work. Released one month prior to Goodfellas, this comedy is based on the same biography as Scorsese’s beloved drama, and can, in many ways, be considered an unofficial sequel to its far more successful successor. There is a lot of good going on in the movie, but it’s all just a little too much to swallow.
The script, written by the late Nora Ephron (Yeah… just say that one time out loud: Nora Ephron wrote the sequel to Goodfellas), is overflowing with sweetness, humor and magnetism. We would expect at least that much from the woman responsible for every decent romantic comedy ever made. It’s cute! I have no problem admitting it is adorable, but having seen Scorsese’s classic many times, knowing Ray Liotta’s character so well, I can’t help but get a little uncomfortable watching Steve Martin’s rendition.
The whole thing takes place before Henry Hill (called Vincent Antonelli, here) finished testifying against his former partners in crime, but right after he is has been placed in witness protection. Martin is in full stereotypical Italian swagger. He has the flashy hair, he has the flashy-er suit, and he strolls around his new middle-of-nowhere suburban surroundings saying “Fuhget aboud-it!” and such. You know… like a sketch comedian would. As much as I would like to be won-over by his wiseguy wiles, it is hard to watch all of these whacky farcical antics in the context of the disturbing barbarism I know came before his time under protective custody. It’s the kind of thing you have to see, just so you can know what you thought of it. Fortunately for you, whoever you are, you will also probably enjoy your time finding out.
Just like in The Man With Two Brains, My Blue Heaven also boasts an excellent cast doing some good work. Joan Cusack plays a lost and lonely District Attorney. A variety of familiar character actors appear as Vincent’s old friends who are now in the protection program, and Rick Moranis gives an excellent performance as (for the first time? The only time?) a regular guy. As the FBI agent assigned to keep Vicent in line until his court appearances, we don’t get the normal Moranis shtick. No super-nerdy stupidity, not that I have a problem with that, but it is truly refreshing to see him play an intelligent, human character. He wears the role rather well.
There you have it: an exciting pair of lost comedies starring some of everyone’s favorite people.
It’s double feature time!
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Ten Years of My Favorite Film, THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU
Spoiler Alert: This editorial contains frank discussion of the film’s events and themes. It is assumed that the reader has seen it. Major spoilers below!
It’s amazing to believe that a full decade has passed since The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou was released on Christmas Day, 2004.
I have a deep love for The Life Aquatic, and in recent years I’ve embraced it as my all-time favorite film (Sorry, Kung Fu Hustle). That seems to surprise a lot of folks. Many consider it a “lower tier” Wes Anderson, much less a masterpiece or one of the greatest films of all time — and I couldn’t disagree more.
Over the years my friends have asked me why I hold The Life Aquatic in such a position of reverence and adoration. I haven’t ever felt sufficiently able to explain it. Love is not a quantifiable or objective science. It just is. But this is my attempt to try.
It wasn’t love at first sight. Like many great films it had to decompress. Unspool a bit. In fact, all of Anderson’s films have been that way for me to some extent. While I love many of them, none of them fully started out that way — they had to grow on me, after time or multiple viewings. I’d seen the film a couple times and really liked it, but after ripping a digital copy of my DVD, I realized while spot-checking the file that no matter where I landed, I was immediately ready to dive into this movie and start watching.
One thing I hear about the film a lot is that for a comedy, it’s simply not that funny. I might have agreed a few years ago. There’s not a whole lot of humor in the way of big belly laughs. The humor is very subtle and character driven, coming from deep inside their insecurities and small actions. The better you get to know the characters, the funnier the film becomes. Thanks to the Alamo Drafthouse, I’ve had the good fortune to see the film theatrically (in 35mm) twice despite missing its original run, and on both occasions the crowd roared with laughter at some parts I hadn’t necessarily even considered funny.
Bill Murray is lovably pathetic as Steve Zissou, the washed up documentary filmmaker who’s past his prime and directionless after the sudden death of Esteban, his partner and closest friend. His wife Eleanor (Anjelica Huston) can barely tolerate him. Steve is suddenly visited by Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson), a polite young man who may or may not be his biological son, setting off a wave of confusing and conflicting emotions. Also along for the ride are the Belafonte’s crew, which includes Willem Dafoe, Noah Taylor, and Seu Jorge, among others. Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, Bud Cort, and Michael Gambon also shine as supporting characters.
There are a lot of things I could say about the craft of the movie. For example, I love the unique style. Many of Anderson’s movies involve some sort of uniform for the protagonists: school uniforms, scout uniforms, hotel uniforms, that sort of thing. Most of these serve to minimize their characters in some way, identifying them as children or servants. None of them are what you would call “cool” beyond their cinematic value. You wouldn’t wear them on purpose. Not so with The Life Aquatic’s Team Zissou uniforms. The custom Adidas, blue activewear and red beanies are such a great, immediately iconic look (based on Jacques Cousteau). I would wear this every day.
It’s got a great soundtrack, too. There’s a smattering of David Bowie songs in both their original forms and acoustic Portuguese recreations by Seu Jorge. And mixed in among the other rock tracks is Devo’s “Gut Feeling”, played against a training montage that’s just a groovy synthesis of sight and sound. The score by Mark Mothersbaugh (of Devo), in addition to some more traditional film music, includes some awesomely quirky electronic melodies, the in-movie works of Noah Taylor’s character who composes the scores for Steve’s films.
Which reminds me, The Life Aquatic is a “film about filmmaking” and as someone who is in love with that world, most films in this category just get an automatic leg up on the competition. I see several of you nodding.
But that’s all craft. Diving into the story itself, here’s where the more important parts emerge. When a huge, previously unidentified shark devours his best friend Esteban, Steve loses his bearings. He’s 52 years old and hasn’t had a hit film in nine years. He has marital troubles and has spent most of his credibility as an explorer and filmmaker. Still, without money or a plan, he sets out to start his next project: to kill the “jaguar shark” that killed his partner.
There are two main, interconnected themes that I really latch onto. I consider them the main themes of the film. The first has to do with the importance and meaning of family, particularly fatherhood. The second is Steve’s journey and coming to grips with his declining relevance and trying to fix what he’s destroyed through his selfishness. On their outset, the crew tracks two signals on sonar, the jaguar shark which is Steve’s goal, and a mysterious phantom signal which is a wildcard on their journey. I believe these signals represent the two themes above — more on that later.
When Ned shows up in Steve’s life, it changes everything. It’s the last thing he’d ever expect, but Ned may actually be his redemption. When Ned asks Steve why he never tried to contact him, the answer is very telling: “Because I hate fathers and I never wanted to be one”. To his surprise, he takes a real liking to Ned and it challenges his long-held aversion to fatherhood. We also learn that Ned grew up idolizing Steve, and even still wears his childhood “Zissou Society” ring.
This theme is echoed elsewhere throughout the film. Jane (Cate Blanchett), a reporter writing a story on Zissou, is five months pregnant but the father, her editor, is married and effectively out of the picture. The child may be destined to grow up fatherless, just like Ned. The budding romance between Ned and Jane suggests that he might take up the mantle of fatherhood, atoning in a way for the sin of his father. Meanwhile, engineer Klaus (Willem Dafoe) takes umbrage at Ned’s presence, jealous because he has always looked up to Steve and Esteban as father figures.
It’s reinforced several times throughout the film that we can’t know for sure if Steve and Ned are biologically related or not. The film gives us conflicting information, intentionally obscuring the literal truth in the matter.
The first signal that the Belafonte tracks turns out to be a downed plane, specifically its black box. In scientific terms, “black box” is also used to describe a system in which the input and output are known but the inner mechanisms are unknown or irrelevant. This describes the crux of the fatherhood question. It’s unknown if Steve and Ned are actually biologically related, but in the end it’s only their relationship that matters. They become father and son, no matter what the biological facts may be. Like the phantom signal, Steve’s run-in with fatherhood is an unexpected adventure that occurs on his journey to his intended destination.
Steve hits bottom midway through he film when pirates attack the Belafonte and kidnap Bill Ubell (Bud Cort), the “bond company stooge” that he has openly resented and treated poorly. This development is absolutely his own fault for taking the ship through unprotected waters despite being warned not to. As he assesses the situation, the “Arctic night lights” appear in the sky, which look “as if the natural world’s been turned upside-down” — just like Steve’s life. His rescue beacon is answered by, of all people, Alistair Hennessey, his smarmy longtime rival and nemesis (and Eleanor’s ex-husband). The ultimate insult.
Steve turns a corner here, apologizing to Eleanor and trying to repair things. We see his ego start to fall away. “It’s probably the last adventure I’ve got in me. I was hoping to go out in a flash of blazes, but I’ll probably just end up going home.”
It’s this unexpected humility in Steve which convinces Eleanor to help him. With her intelligence and financial support, they set out to rescue Bill from the pirates. Steve expends his dynamite in the rescue op, dynamite which he was saving to eventually kill the jaguar shark. It may be the first selfless thing he’s done for someone else in years. In the process they also rescue Hennessey, who was kidnapped by the same pirates in the meantime.
At one point Steve calls himself “A washed-up old man with no friends, no distribution deal, wife on the rocks, people laughin’ at him, feelin’ sorry for himself”. Right after this sad realization, he follows with an apology to Ned — “I’m sorry I never acknowledged your existence all those years. It’ll never happen again, I mean it. You are my son to me. Almost more so.”
Steve is ready to throw in the towel, but Ned convinces him to take the “whirlybird” up to try to spot the shark from above. In one final conversation aboard the helicopter, Steve reveals that he has always hung onto Ned’s childhood letter to him. In a way it completes their journey to embracing each other fully as father and son. This moment is short-lived; the helicopter malfunctions, killing Ned in the crash. Ned’s death is tragic but it also sets everything in place to complete Steve’s journey. While in the helicopter, they spot a school of flurescent snapper, just as with Steve’s previous run-in with the shark. His death also brings everyone together, not only united as never before but by physically bringing producer Oseary Drakoulias (Michael Gambon) aboard for the funeral at sea — and also to be present for the finale. It also presumably creates a compelling drama for Steve’s film, which will propel it to success.
Though it’s never mentioned or even alluded to, I think it’s clear to all that in a fairer world, it would have been Steve who died. Ned was the better and younger man, well-loved and with a life ahead to look forward to. I’m sure that Steve ponders this as well, and that it colors everything he does from here. By the film’s end, Steve has attempted to repair things with everyone he has wronged or not fully appreciated — Eleanor, Ned, Bill — but others as well: Oseary, Hennessey, and the crew. He finally gives Klaus the approval he has always sought. He apologizes to Jane for making her life difficult, and compliments her good work on the article even though it embarrasses him to read about his inadequacies. But there’s still one person left he needs to come to peace with.
The shark is found, and the entire group piles into the sub to dive down and take a look. It’s no accident that Steve’s sub is named “Deep Search” and that it’s finally used here, nor that Steve sports the same as a tattoo on his arm. This represents Steve’s deep search for happiness and the end of his journey. In a beautiful scene, they do encounter the gigantic and luminous shark, which is breathtaking unlike anything they could have expected.
In a way, the jaguar shark represents Steve. He’s on a mission to find — and destroy — himself. By deciding to allow the shark to live, he’s doing the same for himself. His vendetta is dropped, his ego gone. He has tried to right himself with those around him, culminating in “patching things up” with the shark, and in so doing, himself. As he sits in the darkness of Deep Search, watching the beautiful shark swim by, he breaks down crying. Everyone lays their hands on him, signifying not only their understanding of what’s transpiring, but their forgiveness. God, I love this scene.
When Steve’s finished film is shown at a gala event, Klaus’s nephew Werner comes to sit with him outside and we hear applause roar from inside. Werner idolizes Steve, just as Ned did as a child. The symbolism which follows is so important. Steve hands Werner a very special gift: Ned’s old Zissou Society ring. He sits with Werner on one side, and a newly won trophy on the other. Here we see that he’s a changed man. Prestige no longer drives him; he has found meaning in being a more loving person. When he stands, it’s not the trophy which he picks up and carries away, but the boy.
The credits scene which follows is my all-time favorite. When I watch this theatrically I want to yell at people getting up to leave because this is one of the best parts of the movie. It’s true that it stylistically references Buckaroo Banzai, but that’s not the reason. It’s like an afterword for the entire story. As Steve and Werner walk down a long pier toward the Belafonte, everyone in his life joins him one by one, happy and revived. Even those he used to treat as enemies are welcome now. All traces of darkness and malice are gone, and when they finally reach the boat, we see a lone, familiar figure atop its upper level.
It’s the spirit of Ned, guiding it forevermore.
A/V Out.
Get it at Amazon:
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou — [Blu-ray] | [DVD] | [Amazon Video] -
THE ARCHIVIST — Volume VIII — Missions In The East And West With THE DEFECTOR (1966) and WICHITA…
f Welcome to the Archive. Following the infamous “Format Wars” (R.I.P. VHS), a multitude of films found themselves in danger of being forgotten forever due to their admittedly niche appeal. Thankfully, Warner Bros. established the Archive Collection, a Disc On Demand & Streaming service devoted to some of the more idiosyncratic pieces of cinema ever made. Being big fans of the label, we here at Cinapse thought it prudent to establish a column devoted to these unusual gems. Thus “The Archivist” was born — a biweekly look at some of the best, boldest and most batshit motion pictures the Shield has to offer. Some of these will be recent additions to the collection, while others will be titles that have been available for awhile. With over 1,500 pictures procurable on Warner Archive (and more being added every month), there’s no possible way we’ll get to all of them. But trust me when we say we’re sure going to try.
Welcome back to The Archivist! This week, you are privy to the first proper installment under my adoption. I bring you a double feature, fresh from the cinema-rich caverns of Warner Brothers, studying the themes of politics, law, and how the individual navigates a reluctantly accepted duty in The Wild West, and The Cold War East. Style, acting, and drama are abundant in these forgotten films.
The Defector [1966]
In his final role, Montogomery Clift stars in Raoul Levy’s final film, The Defector. This was sadly a posthumous release for both artists in the year of 1966. Set in the year of its making, the action starts in West Germany, when Clift’s character, James Bower (a physicist), is relatively gently forced into doing espionage in East Germany by a friend in the American Government. Despite much hesitation, the inexperienced scientist shoulders his new career as a spy with as much confidence as he can muster, even as details slowly come to him that the entire mission might be a wash.
Clift was perfectly cast in the lead. In stark contrast with his early tenure playing vibrant youths, he looks so unassuming in this film that he is the last person anyone would suspect of black operations. Apparently very ill during production, the actor trots around East Germany, arms lanky, a hunch curling up his back, with an infinite forehead soaring above the bushiest eyebrows. As far as leading men are concerned, this once hunky actor looks positively alien. So, watching this sort of Everyman barely evade his inquisitors and captors is not only believable, but quite a joy. This certainly isn’t 007. Hell, it isn’t even Sneakers. This is a cloak-and-dagger game on the WAY down low.
For what it is, it plays pretty nicely, too. If you can make it past the slow-moving sparseness of the first 30 minutes or so, it can be fairly rewarding. It has a cheap, made-for-TV quality, with thanks mostly going to flat lighting, but there is a lot of good work here. The performers are fun to watch, and there are some truly inspired moments of psychedelic, and straight-up goofy stylistic touches amidst its primarily moody tone. If nothing else, it’s interesting to watch an actor go out around the same time as the old studio system that brought him up.
For James Bower, his task in the East was mostly a lost cause, reflecting the doom of an unwinnable cold war. In the next film for this pairing, however, another ambivalent protagonist succeeds stateside in securing the ultimate destiny: a civilized country.
WICHITA [1955]
Wichita was released almost 10 years after Henry Fonda famously took the role of the legendary Wyatt Earp (for further reading on Earp’s cinematic history, check out The Archivist creator’s editorial HERE). He was not the first, nor would he be the last, as Joel McCrea (Sullivan’s Travels) swaggered his way into a sort of prequel to the better-known exploits in Dodge City. Strangely, this film tells a story almost too similar to the one featured in films like Tombstone, as a large band of cowboys run amok in Wichita, KS, and only Earp can stop them with all his justice-y capital “J” justice!
This here is a true, old school, Cinemascope’d, Technicolor’d, day-for-night’d Classical Hollywood western, folks. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad and there ain’t no in between. It’s a lot of fun, it looks great, and the first half is rampant with penis metaphors. At one point, a cattle hand even compares the size of Earp’s pistol to that of his own. How’s THAT for a pissing contest?
Unlike The Defector, Wichita features an ideal leading man in the idealized, mythic old west. McCrea is a towering, handsome man and nearly impervious to physical or emotional harm. For that reason, and the film’s sneeze-and-you-missed-it anti-climax, it just doesn’t add up to much, but it is a must-see as an entry in the Wyatt Earp cinema catalogue in spite of itself.
As companion pieces, these two works intersect along several avenues of discussion, chief among them being their interest in politics. The Defector surveys the politics of science, but more deeply explores the depths of what a person is willing to do in the name of his or her country, right or wrong. Wichita is concerned with the machinations of law and its resistance to the weight of the corrupt and powerful, and in the West, success in that frontier is treated like a righteous destiny. No matter what side of the world you are on, a call to action makes for interesting viewing.
Now hog-tie a bowl of popcorn, and interrogate some orange soda!
IT’S DOUBLE-FEATURE TIME!
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Pick Of The Week: SUNSHINE (2007)
Exactly what it sounds like, the Pick of the Week column is written up by the Cinapse team on rotation, focusing on films that are past the marketing cycle of either their theatrical release or their home video release. So maybe the pick of the week will be only a couple of years old. Or maybe it’ll be a silent film, cult classic, or forgotten gem. Cinapse is all about thoughtfully advocating film, new and old, and celebrating what we love no matter how marketable that may be. So join us as we share about what we’re discovering, and hopefully you’ll find some new films for your watch list, or some new validation that others out there love what you love too! Engage with us in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook! And now, our Cinapse Movie Of The Week…
With Gravity and Interstellar meeting great success as well-crafted, modern science fiction tales involving space travel, it seems appropriate to shine a spotlight on a truly magnificent film which I feel has never received its due.
You may have had the same conversation in the astronomy unit of your high school science class. While discussing the life cycle of stars, a certain realization hits the room: all stars die. In the grand scale of things, our own Sun will die, and when that happens — game over, man, game over. The Earth is conclusively, inescapably, and irrevocably doomed, and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it. A hush falls over the class as you wonder what we should be doing to avert this inexorable fate, as the absolute futility of trying to affect the distant future crushes your feeble human brain. The teacher reassures everyone that this event is five billion years away, and that’s for the scientists of the future to figure out. A bell rings, and you get in line for square-shaped pizza, soggy french fries, and chocolate milk.
Sunshine is the story of the scientists of the future.
As our Sun dies, a crew of the Earth’s most brilliant physicists, mathematicians, and astronauts hurtles toward the dying Sun in enormous space ship Icarus II, carrying a very special payload — a nuclear stellarbomb described as having the mass of Manhattan. Their mission is to nuke the Sun in a last-ditch effort to reignite it. Actually, they’re the Earth’s second-most brilliant scientists — Icarus I failed in its mission seven years ago, and this second attempt is the last chance. On this small team rests the fate of humanity and the entire solar system.
This may sound like a B-movie plot, but to the great credit of director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland, the story is treated with total seriousness as well as an astounding cinematic eye.
Icarus II has an iconic and functional design. The forward side of the massive payload is a heavily shielded dome to deflect the scorching Sun, with the ship following in the shade behind. An observation deck provides forward visibility. The ship is also equipped with a greenhouse-like garden for oxygen and food, a VR room for entertainment and mental relaxation, and an AI personality which the pilots engage via voice commands. As a side note, the shield appears to be completely covered in gold, which is a highly reflective material. If true, then this bomb not only represents the full sum of Earth’s fissile material, but our collective wealth as well.
The very impressive cast includes Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, Cliff Curtis, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Benedict Wong. These are the best scientists in the world, and quite appropriately it’s an International ensemble with American, Irish, Australian, Kiwi, Japanese, Chinese, and Hongkongese actors. Every member of the crew is imbued with a distinct personality and a role in the film’s events.
Primary protagonist Capa (Murphy) is a brilliant and sensitive physicist who is in a lot of ways the weakest crew member. Engineer Robert Mace (Evans) is the most coldly rational member of the crew who focuses only on completing the mission at any cost. He’s nearly always correct when disagreements occur, but his hot-headedness puts him in direct conflict with the others, Capa in particular. Psychologist Searle (Curtis) becomes obsessed with the overwhelming power of light as the ship gets ever closer to the Sun. Noble Captain Kaneda (Sanada, known for Ringu and The Twilight Samurai) is probably my favorite — I already loved him in his Japanese work; seeing him in a fully-realized English-speaking role is immensely satisfying. Interestingly, he’s also the only character without any weaknesses or character deficiencies, which probably explains why I love the guy so much. His endearment to both crew and audience becomes an important point later.
As the film progresses, the characters are faced with impossibly monumental decisions, the ramifications of which will impact all of humanity. When Icarus II receives a distress beacon from Icarus I, Capa, as the prevailing physicist, must decide whether they should alter their carefully plotted course to try to connect with the other ship. Ultimately he decides to do so — not to render aid, but to hopefully double their payload — two last hopes are better than one.
Later, when their oxygen supply dwindles to the point where it can no longer support the number of people on board to complete the mission, the team is faced with the horrifying decision to identify and kill their least critical member. What’s the right answer in a situation like this? It’s complex moral dilemmas like these which make Alex Garland’s script so riveting.
The scene in which the crew enters Icarus I is both exciting and haunting. I won’t say another word about it, but this is another reason I love the film. The tone here sets up a shift in the film that will become more and more horrific, and some of the terrifying moments which will follow are as effective as any horror picture.
Sunshine, as a concept, really is thematically at the center of the film, and at the center of many of the characters’ thoughts and actions, beyond the obvious plot aspect. We see Capa’s terrifying nightmares of falling into the Sun. His closest friend on the mission, Cassie (Byrne), admits to experiencing the same nightmares. Searle’s madness deepens as he becomes obsessed with the all-enveloping, all-consuming power that the Sun represents. As the film progresses, we see his skin become flaky and sunburned from spending all his time in the observation deck, as if trying to tap the Sun’s power. His obsession mirrors that of another character who will emerge as the film’s villain. Even the ship’s name, Icarus, is of course derived from the mythological character who flew too close to the Sun.
The theme of sunshine also is relayed constantly, and beautifully, through the film’s resplendent visuals. Light is expressed in many interesting ways: the surface of the Sun as seen on the observation deck (overpoweringly bright even at only 3.1% brightness — 4% would cause irreversible damage to the viewer), reflections off of golden shield panels, and a literal wave of sunfire which crashes over one character, and finally as a wall of flame and sparks as the nuclear reaction is engaged. The Sun is life, but it is also death. Icarus II’s massive shield provides safety to the crew, but anyone actually exposed to the Sun at this close distance would be immediately incinerated.
The film’s music is a huge part of why I love it. John Murphy knocks the score out of the park, just as he did with Boyle’s previous film, 28 Days Later. The film’s most tense and terrifying scenes are accompanied by magnificent and rousing themes which truly complement the images in the best way possible.
The film’s last act is the biggest point of contention for viewers. Boyle abandons the film’s gorgeous realism for unhinged style with wildly slanted and distorted camera work, blinding lens flares, whip-cut and disjointed editing, and moments of pure horror to accentuate the madness of a particular character who tries to sabotage the mission, and to obscure seeing this person clearly. I must admit that even I am not enthused by the stylistic liberties of this part of the film, but by this point it already owns me, overwhelmingly, and I can tolerate a couple minutes of space-time freakout for 97 minutes of perfection.
Just a year later, Boyle’s talents would be rewarded on the critically and commercially lauded Slumdog Millionaire with Academy Awards for Direction and Best Picture, yet these distinctions did little to raise the profile of the film that I actually consider his masterwork. Crushingly futile yet hopefully optimistic, horrifying yet uplifting; I urge appreciators of science fiction cinema to give Sunshine a new life.
A/V Out.
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THE ARCHIVIST — Volume VII — Old West Orbison
Welcome to the Archive. Following the infamous “Format Wars” (R.I.P. VHS), a multitude of films found themselves in danger of being forgotten forever due to their admittedly niche appeal. Thankfully, Warner Bros. established the Archive Collection, a Disc On Demand & Streaming service devoted to some of the more idiosyncratic pieces of cinema ever made. Being big fans of the label, we here at Cinapse thought it prudent to establish a column devoted to these unusual gems. Thus “The Archivist” was born — a biweekly look at three of the best, boldest and most batshit motion pictures the Shield has to offer. Some of these will be recent additions to the collection, while others will be titles that have been available for awhile. With over 1,500 pictures procurable on Warner Archive (and more being added every month), there’s no possible way we’ll get to all of them. But trust me when we say we’re sure going to try.
Welcome back to The Archivist! This brainchild of staff writer Jacob Knight will continue primarily under my supervision as a bi-monthly double-feature recommendation. Mr. Knight will be returning, whenever possible, perpetuating his love of niche cinema curiosities, but he has graciously handed the reins to yours truly for the time being. To more gently carry you dear readers, and myself, through this emotional transition without an excess of traumatic psychological injuries, my first iteration of The Archivist will focus on a single film. Fittingly, it involves both reins, and psychological injury.
Okay, so it has reins, at least.
In 1967, Roy Orbison was on an express elevator down from the top of the world. After a lengthy string of super-hits, managers and producers were coming and going, records ceased to sell, and tragically, his first wife died in a motorcycle accident. In a bizarre move, perhaps to counter his mourning, Orbison began work on an album that would become a soundtrack… to one of the goofiest westerns ever made. He was a man of many passions, and chief among them was a nasty case of cinephilia. Apparently, while he wasn’t buried with work as a musician, he managed to take in three movies per day. Remember, this is over a decade before home video. That means The Big O used to hang around theaters catching whatever they were showing in any given day. Badass.
What might have been a serious western, and maybe even a decent movie, quickly shifted to a humorless comedy before shooting began. Orbison plays “a singin’, shootin’, son of a gun” who leads a small band of confederate (yeah… the protagonists are fighting for the south) spies on a mission to steal gold from the Yankee army. Armed with a guitar…rifle and posing as a traveling saloon show, our man with the golden voice gets several, only semi-contrived, singing opportunities. Anytime he starts to sing, the film’s existence starts to make sense. Roy Orbison is one of the greatest singers who ever blessed popular music with real talent, and the guy loved cinema. This must have been a dream come true! As soon as any song comes to an end, however, he is totally lost, and everything continues falling apart.
Not one cast member seems to have the slightest grasp on comedy. Every joke is a beat too late, or too early. You would think these people would look pretty good acting alongside the amateur Orbison (who can’t deliver a single line with anything resembling confidence… in fact, I can recall a number of moments involving him quickly power-walking away from his co-stars after speaking… and only in his haste to escape the camera’s punishing view do I find any true conviction) but they often appear just as overwhelmed and confused as he does. Having said all of that… I kind of loved it.
If you can stomach what might be the most offensive depiction of Native Americans I have ever seen (featuring the… great(?) Iron Eyes Cody), you might find yourself arrested by this movie’s baffling discombobulation. There is something beautiful about watching our hero, sporting a Texas bouffant hair-do (eat your heart out, Bruno Mars), performing songs that sound exactly 100 years out of time with the setting, clearly forced to do children’s choreography reminiscent of Rick Astley, and doing it all with a sweet little smirk on his face. Even if he was a fish out of water, I feel vaguely assured he loved every minute of it. Even pedestrian Roy Orbison fans should be giddy watching this nonsense.
