24fps: SOLYARIS

Solyaris (1972) has long been one of my favourite Science fiction films. Naturally when i was younger part of that was a snobbish backlash against Star Wars and the like for having seemingly killed SF stone dead. Now I’m older, much older, I find my fondness for it runs much deeper. I realise that for some ‘hypnotic’ can translate as deadly dull but the pacing here reminds me here more of a good slow build Japanese horror film or, if it weren’t so dark a sinister, an epic romance. It’s slow, measured, sometimes disturbing, but ultimately emotionally rewarding. I don’t suppose you have to be middle-aged and a little world-weary to identify with Kris (Donatas Banionis), but it must help. When the action comes, and there’s not a great deal of it apart from the resulting aftermath, it really delivers some powerful, memorable scenes, especially as Hari (Natalya Bondarchuk) rips through a steel door with her bare hands or drinks liquid nitrogen to try and escape the horrible dawning realisation of what she is.

The big open question is the end. What does it mean? Open to interpretation I guess, and to be honest I’ve read quite a few interpretations. All of them equally good. Or equally insufficient. This is often compared with 2001: A Space Odyssey, but seriously you really can’t imagine blubbing at the end of Dave Bowman’s journey – Kubrick never was much of a one for people. For a reason I can’t quite identify (oh you know me so well) I always choke-up when Kris is reunited with his father – if he is, of course. The symbolism of that running water, so right in your face, also escapes me. I’m not sure I want or even need to know. The emotional reaction is so strong I wouldn’t want to spoil it with anything as crude as understanding!

24fps: LIFEFORCE

Lifeforce (1985) is the best science fiction movie ever made. Let me say that again. Life Force is NOT the best science fiction movie ever made. Which statement is true? Both of them in a way. Yes, the final result is a complete and utter mess, but if you’re going to go wrong then this is the way to go. See for yourself and you’ll realise I don’t really have to point out what is wrong about this film. You’ll soon figure it out for yourself. What I want to concentrate on here is how good a film it is. For all it’s crappy dialogue, wooden acting, lightshow un-special effects, etc, it does something that many many other bad films fail to do. It entertains.

Something interesting is always going on, not in the overall story or in the subtext or subplot, but right there in front of your face on the screen. This is where you get your money’s worth and why I can always find time to watch this film again and again. Vampires, zombies, spaceships, comets, asylums, expendable soldiers, mad doctors, exploding bodies, whoa – naked chick, actors who should know better, London on fire. The dialogue is woeful, but the delivery is nothing short of genius. Vincent Price made it his stock in trade to deliver the most appalling lines of dialogue with the maximum amount of acting! His fine tradition is continued here by Frank Finlay, Patrick Stewart and Peter Firth, perfectly good actors delivering utter nonsense for all they are worth – Patrick Stewart being particularly hysterical. That’s not to mention a career defining performance by cut-price star Steve Railsback as an American astronaut overcome ‘by most feminine presence’ he has ever come across. That man has not lived!

Of course you could make it your argument that the creators were trying to make the best film they could and in making the worst they have somehow failed. Jason X was a terrific movie in the same way, but that was very knowing and all but a comedy. This is aiming for a combination of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Quatermass and the Pit and you can’t get much higher than those twin ambitions. In the end (not to mention the beginning and the middle) all the film really lacks is someone with enough strength to blend the elements. With Dan O’Bannon on the writing I guess I’ll have to blame Tobe Hooper who doesn’t really have the chops alone to make a big movie. He made have had little help from money bags Golan-Globus, but if you are going to have a film fall apart this is certainly an object lesson in how to do it.  When I was a kid bad movies were bad because “nothing ever happened until the end” and then you realised it wasn’t worth waiting for. With lower attention spans and greater desperation on the part of movie makers at least now we get films in which stuff actually happens … every twenty minutes or else.

I say now, I mean the modern era of course. It’s odd but I just thought – shouldn’t movies have distinct ‘ages’ like comics? I’m a fan of the Bronze Age, so I like that particular classification, but what would be the ‘ages’ for film? The silent era seems to be the only concrete distinction at he moment. I may be wrong. Let me know if there is any classification other than genre or decade.

I could talk about this movie forever so expect a similar review next year by which time time I’ll have probably seen it several more times.

STAR TREK UPDATE

SPOILER WARNING

Just got back from the cinema and JJ Abram’s sparkling new version of Star Trek. I think it’s safe to say that was a success. It certainly worked as great entertainment.

Talk about all the right choices. OK mostly the right choices. The cast were uniformly wonderful even though they didn’t have a great deal of actual acting to do – the new Spock being particularly good. McCoy’s character was well played and well written too. Uhura came over all Janice Rand to me but that’s showing my age! Nice to see Captain Pike again. The music was thrilling in all the right places. The production design was solid – though we seem to be lost somewhere between dirt and squeekiness on an abandoned oil rig!?! All the special effects looked great and the action sequences were well staged and believable – as well as unbelievable of course. I have to admit I had a tear in my eye at the beginning, and the action sequences that followed had me, well, excited. The aerial drop and subsequent fight scene was probably my favourite bit and could do with multiple viewings.

But for this to make a great film rather than just another summer blockbuster movie you’d have to reverse the order of my feelings. I wanted to be emotionally engaged at the end and I wasn’t. I wanted to be most excited at the end and I wasn’t. There was however enough emotional goodwill left over from the beginning to make me feel not quite so bad about the end. I left the cinema upbeat after being in a particularly bad mood. There is usually a certain point in any action movie where my suspension of disbelief is throttled by a bum note. Unfortunately I did lose a lot of interest when Simon Pegg turned up as Scotty. Like John Cleese in a James Bond movie the answer is – No I can’t go that far with you. And I’ve seen too much Babylon 5 to be impressed with that Romulan ship from the future!?!

For me the reason the film falters in the last part is the reliance on the time travel plot. You’re always going to lose tension when you can always loop back or skip forward or give the viewer the suspicion you might just cheat it. There are no cheats here, but I’d have preferred a strictly linear plot. Another thing is I hate being a cheerleader. The emotional ending as anyone might expect is the Enterprise heading off for new adventures weighed down only by medals and congratulations. That’s no good for me. I wanted emotions torn to shreds, betrayals, irrevocable loss, sacrifice – in other words – a little of The Wrath of Khan and the beginning of this very film!

Overall it had me feeling it was maybe just a notch behind Iron Man but that’s just me. That also finished weakly, but perhaps that is the eternal fate of films destined to be continued…

Well, call me a critic. I loved the treatment of the first hour or so. This is the way the franchise should’ve started again after the original. There were multiple in-jokes for older trekkies too which were not overplayed. But hey, my favourite nod to the past was Kirk’s green easy-lay student chick – hilarious. And was that a nod to William Shatner at the end from the new Kirk – nice impression.

I’d guess it won’t play as well on DVD so you’d better warp factor eleven to see it now. Hur hur!

STAR TREK

After countless uninspiring variations on a theme where none bettered the simple originality of the first, finally, finally, just maybe – something worth the wait. I rarely get excited by new movie releases. Quantum of Solace was the last one and that was a big disappointment. Oh well, there’s no avoiding it – real cash must be found! Star Trek must be seen. And I’m just grateful it’s not called Star Trek Begins!

24fps: PLANET OF THE APES

Planet of the Apes (1968) – I hardly need say anything else.

Except this. Remove the sequels, the TV series, the comics, the merchandise, the re-imagining, and all the associated crap and try and put yourself in mind of how this might have looked when it was made rather than when you first saw it. That’s what I try and do when watching this. A lot of folks these days just think to themselves, well, y’know it’s got monkeys in it – they’re cool and funny. No, this film is a powerhouse science fiction like they used to make back in the day. Science fiction that really meant something. What it means is up to you of course.

Crack open the DVD and luxuriate in the opening scenes before you even catch sight of a gorilla on horseback. So much of the sense of the film is there.

Now I’m going to say something here and you’re welcome to disagree. This film is about race. There. That popped a vein in one or two heads didn’t it? That thought brings up all kind of worries and fears, things a lot of people just don’t want to think about, but it’s about as in your face as you can get. In another time it might be more about religion, but this is a US film made in 1968, so what else is it going to be about. The film asks simply what if the boot were on the other foot and to make the reverse more palatable for the audience it substitutes species for racial origin giving it an astonishing visual twist that has lasted in the imagination for 40 years. It’s a story put through a sci-fi (sorry syfy) filter in order that you don’t feel too upset. I refer you to an earlier British play that cut to the chase without that filter – namely Fable (1965). That project suffered because most people are really just too stupid to understand the message. Tell it like it is or sugar coat it – the result is the same. People just can’t face the uncomfortable truths, which is understood by Orangutans who wish to ‘protect’ the chimps and gorillas from the ultimate and most dangerous knowledge. Man has always been a beast is the lie … and of course that certainty reminds us of the reassurance in Fahrenheit 451 that fireman have always started fires …

Of course more than that it has intelligent things to say about how society survives by rewriting unpleasant truths, how religion is used as a control mechanism and a device to circumnavigate uncomfortable logical thinking. The clever thing here is that Zaius is not the out and out villain of the piece. He is a pragmatist doing what he needs to do in order that his world is not destroyed like the one before it. Taylor is the destructive force, the enemy from the past – and he is doomed from the start. In fact Taylor only survives at all because he is the selfish cynic – a twisted mirror image of Zaius. We have the innocent curious chimps to sympathise with. Do we really want to uncover the truth about ourselves?

One point for folks attempting big sci-fi concepts on Zuda (or any project for that matter). You don’t have to explain how things happen. It is completely irrelevant how apes came to rule on earth. The important questions are entirely in how that new society operates and what it means to us in our society now.

The reason Tim Burton’s film was so poor is that he updated a film he seemed to think was about monkeys – talk about missing the point!

PS. I realise Movie Night is getting bounced around a little – normally a Friday but from now on whenever, but at least once a week!

PPS. If you have any weird racist agenda please keep it to yourself. You don’t know me.