REVIEW: Poltergeist (1982)

Steven Spielberg is a man of many talents. He has brought us so many things from dinosaurs coming to life on the big screen to Abraham Lincoln coming to life on the big screen, and one of his more beloved endorsements is a quaint little film called Poltergeist.

Director: Tobe Hooper

Starring: JoBeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, Heather O'Rourke

IMDb

Yes, this classic horror film has been a sort of classic in the history of the genre since it came out in 1982. It was directed by Tobe Hooper, who gave us Texas Chainsaw Massacre…

But also gave us the sequel.

So you can see how I’d be skeptical upon watching a film from a man who brought us such polar opposites in quality. But Poltergeist is one of the classics and I’d be a shmuck if I didn’t give it its fair dues. Let’s take a look at this bizarre and shocking old film and see what makes it tick.

The film begins with families at Thanksgiving fighting over the TVs and changing the channel in the house next door, just like any holiday should have. I’m so glad the film has such conflicts as “what should we watch on TV, football or Mr. Rogers?” Any film without THAT level of conflict just doesn’t get full marks in my books.

I'm just struck by how pointless this whole thing is...it goes on for way too long and ends up feeling like a big silly joke, especially when the neighbor character isn't really ever elaborated on or anything. Like the movie just forgot about him.

And to add to the bone chilling drama, we also get a dead bird and the mom tries to flush it down the toilet, but gets caught by the daughter, Carol Anne:

Busted! So they give it a Viking funeral and send it off to an afterlife with 777 virgins awaiting it…well, OK, they bury it in the backyard with some flowers and a picture of the family. How touching. It’s so touching that they immediately get fish right after!

Later on the son, Robbie, is trying to go to sleep, but keeps getting scared of the freaky clown he has sitting on a chair facing his bed…so why even have the clown sitting there at all? Also he’s afraid of the tree outside which is just crazy in how twisted it is…he has blinds that he could close, but he chooses just to leave ‘em open so the tree can scare the shit out of him.

Pennywise's Disciple.

I think this kid is a masochist. Or at the very least, just wants an excuse to go in and see his parents smoking pot and acting like jackasses in the next room over, so loudly that I’m surprised anyone else in the house gets any sleep at all. Good parenting, guys! Top notch!

After a long day of Mr. Rogers, dead parakeets and buying fish, the parents like some relaxing time...

The daughter apparently sleepwalks and ends up going to sit in front of the TV and watch the static, proclaiming loudly “They’re Here!” This line is one of the film’s most memorable, but apparently the mother didn’t care enough to ask what she meant then, but instead brings it up the next morning at breakfast, because that’s great morning talk…Carol Anne replies that “The TV People” are here, which the mother just takes as nonsense I guess...too pot-addled to really care what her daughter is doing...you know, if this was made in the 2000s, it would probably heavily focus on the dysfunctional aspects of this family.

However, later on the chairs start moving by themselves! Groovy, huh?

Wouldn't they be able to hear this happening before the ghosts could make the chairs into that exact pattern? And what is the ghosts' motive for such a thing, anyway? Do they just get off on making random, nonviolent, silly acts happen?

By the time the dad, Steven, gets home, the mom has gone completely nuts about the whole thing and is excited that she can put a chair in the middle of the room and it moves across the floor by itself. They even try it with Carol Anne!

Have I mentioned that I'm not thrilled with the way the mother acts in this film? Might as well just send your daughter to school through the neighborhood infested with gang violence at this point; couldn't possibly get any less considerate of her safety.

It’s also notable that the mother, Diane, is afraid Carol Anne will sleepwalk outside and fall into the pool which is still being completed in the backyard. Uh, there are things called LOCKS for a reason, you dumbass! I think I see where Robbie gets his window closing phobia from. I guess this is just a family that thinks the whole world is a death trap. Everything can kill you, and why bother trying to prevent that? Living in fear is the only way to live! Luckily, the rest of this horror movie won’t make those views any worse. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? Is that creepy tree going to burst through the windows and attack Robbie and Carol Anne? Pfft…

And tonight on "When Trees Attack"...

Oh. Well….shit.

Then they find out that Carol Anne has been taken by the strange mystical void inside their bedroom closet. They search the whole house but end up finding out that she is actually inside the TV static she spent so much time watching in a trance earlier. This is where the film gets a little more serious, as now we see the family pushed to their limits as they try to figure out what happened and how to fix it, and also the house is pretty fully haunted, too. So they call in this paranormal research squad who helps out mostly by telling them the house is dangerous. Gee, I wonder why…

Hmmmmmm....yeah it's probably haunted. INSIGHTFUL DEDUCTIONS!!!

Also we get this scene, where one of the paranormal research dudes ends up getting a face lift…

Ohhhhh yeah, flash those sexy looks!

The next day, Steven’s boss comes around to see why Steven hasn’t been to work lately, and they go to the graveyard on the hill to talk about buying the whole plot and building more houses on it. Steven finds out that his house was built on a graveyard and that that’s probably why their house is currently haunted. So even though Steven was apparently such an integral part of the company, one of their best salesmen…he didn’t know they ever did things like this? That’s a bit hard to swallow, movie. For such a top employee, he sure doesn’t know much about the business practices of his own company!

Then they call in this lady, who is some kind of spirit medium…

And by the power vested in me...I WILL GIVE THE HAMMIEST PERFORMANCE IN THE FILM, BY FAR!

...she then makes rounds of the house and tells the family exactly what the audience has already known for several scenes now: the house is haunted, Carol Anne is stuck in a halfway-dimension where she has to stay away from “the light,” and they have to get her back. Brilliant deductions! Truly if the audience didn’t hear all this twenty minutes ago, they’ll get it now. A brilliant strategy to waste the audience’s time if I ever saw one…

Now, okay, to be honest, these are some of the best parts of the movie, as the pace slows down and the family prepares for what’s to come next. We get some nice atmosphere, some good dialogue and the characters are fleshed out more as we really see what they’re going through. The film has had a great sense of atmosphere and setting for its duration and that continues now. The balance between the fast-paced, screamy parts and the quieter and more subtle ones is very well done. So there. I CAN be honest and admit a film's good points! Ha! Proved anyone wrong who thought otherwise!

So that spirit medium lady tells them it’s time to take action, and we get the big plan of sending Diane through the portal with a rope around her waist to save Carol Anne…and it works. There’s a lot of screaming, yelling, wind blowing and bright lights, but it works, and they get shat out of the vortex covered in blood and entrails for some reason. The spirit medium then says everything is A-OK! Which will be proven very, very wrong soon…where did she get her degree again? A back alley drug dealer or something? A back alley drug dealer of spiritual medium degrees? It’s possible.

The family moves out but stays in the house for one night longer…why? After all that bullshit, they’re not just going to leave immediately and stay at a hotel? They even let the kids sleep in their same room! You know…the one with the insane hell portal in the closet that only just got closed a few hours ago? Screw the idea that it’s safe…GET YOUR KIDS OUT OF THERE, YOU MORONS! Why do I get the idea these parents are the kinds of people who would just let their kids wander around without supervision in the neighborhood chainsaw and serial rapist super-store?

As expected, the hell portal opens up again, proving that the spirit medium lady was full of shit the whole time. Just look at what these parents have been letting their kids live next to all these years:

Reminds me of the time I had a portal to hell in my bedroom....just one of those things every kid goes through, like puberty, ya know?

Looks perfectly safe to me!

And then we see what happens when Diane takes a dip in the pool…

Hey, you skeletons! Get out of here! Go swim in the other pool. You don’t pay enough to be able to use this one and it’s really inconsiderate to those who do pay the extra fees…ugh, stupid skeletons. Such freeloaders.

Then we witness the collapse of the American housing market as the owner of Steven’s real estate company comes back just in time to witness this:

It's a fixer-upper.

Somehow I doubt he will have much luck finding new tenants for this neighborhood after this.

So that’s Poltergeist, the horror film where nobody dies and somehow it still ended up becoming a classic anyway. Spielberg and Hooper just delivered a great film with this one, as it’s filled with memorable scenes, cool atmosphere and good characters. Some parts get a bit dull and maybe the movie doesn’t need to be 2 hours long, but the overall film is still worth watching for some classic scenes and very enjoyable moments. 

It's a doofy, soft-headed movie but it's got heart to it, and plus, some scenes are just great. How can anyone deny the great chaotic scenes at the end of the film, where everything is going nuts? It’s just tons of fun. And there’s a certain simple, innocuous pleasure to the film, too, that gives it a sort of personal and intimate edge over films that copy it like Insidious and The Orphanage in later years. Those films perhaps took their themes further than this one did, but they don’t really have the “heart” that Poltergeist has, and so there’s something here that you might not find anywhere else. Call it the classic ‘80s’ style of Spielberg.

Much has been said about the “Poltergeist curse” which surrounded this franchise, in which many of the lead actors died in strange circumstances as well as other people involved in the production. It doesn't factor into my enjoyment of this movie, so I didn't feel I needed to mention it in the actual review. The most tragic is probably Dominique Dunne, who played the older daughter, and who was murdered by her boyfriend before the film even came out. There really are no words for that, and I'm dedicating the review to her memory as well as to the memory of all the others who passed away in the middle of this series of films. Hats off to the lost ones of the Poltergeist series...and let us move forward, to the sequels!

Images copyright of their original owners; I do not own any of them.

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Starring: Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor

Director: Steven Spielberg

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212720/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.I._Artificial_Intelligence

Well, I ended 2011 with a Steven Spielberg film, so I might as well begin 2012 with one as well. Regressive? Maybe. How about I review one that is a little different from "Warhorse"? How different you ask? Well...this one sucks.

First, a little back story. The film was originally going to be helmed by the great director Stanley Kubrick, but he sadly passed away before it could be adapted to the big screen. So Spielberg took on the project and cast Haley Joel Osment, still a big star after "The Sixth Sense," as the main lead. So what do you get? A mess...

This review will be a bit longer than what I usually post and there will be spoilers, so...be prepared.

Based on the short story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" by Brian Aldiss, it takes place in the future where the ice caps have melted, the cities have flooded, and people are being attacked by terrible-constructed CGI mega sharks and giant octopuses. Well, maybe not. Anyway, a scientist played by William Hurt (I can find out his character's name, but I just don't feel like it) wants to create a boy robot which will feel unconditional love, leading to the ethical question: can people love them back? Well, let's find out shall we?!

The first third of this film is almost like the plot of a sci-fi horror movie. One of the roboboys is "adopted" by two parents (Frances O'Connor and Sam Robards) whose own son is in a seemingly terminal coma. The boy is named David: he is nice, does what he is told and...is as creepy as hell! He follows his mom all over the place, including when she is using the toilet (hmm I was expecting the shower; touche, movie), all while wearing this blank expression on his face. There is also this really weird scene where he all the sudden burst out in forced laugher, causing the parents to laugh, before ending in awkward silence. Well...that's apparently enough for the mom to decide she is going to keep him! I personally would have had it sent right back to the factory, destroyed the little hell-spawn and made it into Bender from "Futurama," but to each their own!

"Hello, I'll be your pretentious, overly cute, child actor for this film."

Well, the roboboy now acts slightly more boy than robo, and this is where the movie begins what becomes its biggest problem. David's face goes from being a cold smile to a that of an open mouthed, scarred little boy who looks like he has no idea what he is doing. You know, Osment's normal look! He also stops being a creepy robot and starts to act more like a mildly creepy momma's boys who constantly needs attention. Yes, this is our main character folks. Have fun with him...

Oh yeah, one minor note I feel obligated to address. The family also owns a robotic teddy bear that possesses its own form of artificial intelligence. Okay, okay, okay, hold on, I swear it is not as quite as stupid as it sounds! Yes, at first it is rather disturbing in a movie that did not need to be anymore disturbing. In fact, I'm not really sure why they added it to begin with because it serves almost no purpose to the story. However, the bear, while lacking in personality, does try to be helpful at times, even to the point where he seems wiser than most of the main characters. Yes...the animatronic teddy bear is one of the more likable characters in the movie. That's...............ugh....

Guess which one is the better actor...

Well, the fun does not last for long, because (surprise) the parents real son Martin (Jake Thomas, the kid who played Matt on "Lizzy McGuire") wakes up from his coma. And guess what, he is an obnoxious little brat! He manipulates David to do to a bunch of bad stuff. Now to be fair, I do not have too much of a problem with this part. Sure the kid is a jerk but given that he suffers from "one child syndrome," it kind of makes sense in a brotherly manner that he would do this and it's nice to see a film where even if someone, a child no less, is sick for a long time does not make them a saint. Or maybe I just do not like David and therefore don't care what happens to him!

He used to see dead people. Now he doesn't really see much of anything...

Anyway, even though the parents realize what is going, the roboboy becomes too much of a hassle for them to deal with, so they prepare to send him back to the lab to be destroyed. Strangely, it's the father who forces the mother to get rid of David...even though it was his idea to get him in the first place. Kind of a flip flop, huh? And then, ugh, the mother pulls a "The Fox and the Hound" and sets the robokid loose in the woods. I believe her thinking was "I can't bear to have you destroyed, so I am going to set you free in an environment where you have no survival skills and filled with people who will catch you and destroy you in the most gruesome way possible! I'm truly the Mother of the Year!"

It is at this point where we are introduced to another character, Gigolo Joe, played by Jude Law. As his name implies, he is a sex robot who spends his time pleasuring the ladies. But he runs into trouble when he is framed for killing woman and eventually meets up with David. Joe is probably the only character who I genuinely like in this film (other than...the teddy bear). He is charismatic, he has good moves (no, I don't mean...no...), he is clever, and he has a healthy dose of cynicism but is still optimistic enough to look forward to the future. He is a really good character and Law plays him very well. So...WHY WASNT HE THE MAIN CHARACTER!!! Okay he didn't have to be the lead, but dear god, why have this cool sidekick attached to such any annoying lead! Its like the two don't even belong in the same movie! Rather frustrating, indeed!

Anyway, the two of them and the teddy bear (yes, he sticks around, just don't ask) meet up after they are captured by these anti-A.I. fanatics, headed by a guy played by Brendon Gleesen. They are then taken to this fair where robots are destroyed in front of a crowd of raging rednecks. There were some parts about these scenes that didn't really settle with me but not enough so I could really be to bothered to nitpick about them. I guess my biggest complaint that it is a virtually pointless aspect of the film. While it shows the tension between the battle over man and machine, there are other ways they could have done it. As it is, it really doesn't progress the story that much. They show it, David and Joe and the bear (....) escape, and that's it; the incident is almost never brought up again. Was filler really necessary in a 2 and a half hour film?!

Osment: "Gee, Mr. Law, we sure are going to have a great time making this movie!"

Law: "I wonder if it isn't too late for me to sign on to that 'Road to Perdition' script..."

So David sets out on a quest to get his mother to love him. How does he plan to do this? By finding the Blue Fairy from the Pinocchio story to turn him into a real boy. Wow, I don't know whether that's really stupid, sad, or both. For some reason, Joe goes along with it, and he leads them to Dr. Know, this annoying supercomputer that projects a 3-D version of Albert Einstein, voiced by Robin Williams (who incidentally was in his own subpar, futuristic robot flick, "Bicentennial Man"). It leads them to the now semi-submerged New York City, where they find themselves in the lab of Hurt's character. Hurt tells David how special he is because he is the first of his kind. But David wants to be the only one of his kind, throws a hissy fit, and then sets out to find the Blue Fairy on Coney Island [insert joke here]. Joe is captured by the police so that he can be transported to a better movie, Hurt is...never seen again for some reason, and David and the bear use a machine to go underwater. They find a model of the Blue Fairy, David keeps making wishes to become a real boy, they get trapped underneath a Ferris wheel, and are frozen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC8zz95rm8s

The End.

Or at least that's what I would like to have had happen, but they still have the rest of the third act to drag out.

So 2,000 years go by. Humans are extinct, New York is completely frozen over, and aliens are digging up the remains of the area. They find and defrost David and the bear, and since the roboboy is one of the last links to the human race, you guessed it, they treat him like he is very special! They also tell him that they will be able to bring back his mother, but only for one day. So the mom is brought back, David gets her all to himself like he always wanted being the little attention whore that he is, she goes to sleep, he goes to sleep (even though he said earlier that he technically can't), and then he either goes into a coma or dies, I don't know, something about dreams and such, the teddy bear sits on the bed wondering what the hell it's supposed to do, and the movie, finally, finally, FINALLY ENDS!!!

Wow, he gets to sleep in bed with his mommy. It makes me wonder who he would be like if he really was a real boy and grew up to be a real man...

Yeah, this looks about right.

Oh boy, that was a doozy. So how to sum it up...?

This is the kind of movie that has some things that work and other things that really, really, really don't work at all. It has an interesting plot and at least two decent characters, even if one of them is a teddy bear. But everything else is a problem. The main character is a selfish little whiner and too creepy for his own good, the rest of the characters are mostly forgettable and the story seems to feel the need to drag itself out for no reason.

Even the moral seems to be off. We are told point blank that it is whether humans can learn to love a non-living being. So what is the answer. Well...it's unclear. The mom cares enough about David so that she secretly lets him loose, even though this almost seems crueler than destroying him. But there never appears to be a point where it seems she loves him. When she is "brought back to life" she seems more like a spirit than an actual person. So even though this version says she loves David it does not appear that this is really her talking; just a figment of Davids mental capacity (I wont even be surprised if the aliens manipulated her so she acted this way on purpose). I think the story actual is about whether robots can love, but that answer seems a little more definitive: no. And that leads to a problem for this movie...

If I had to say my biggest problem: I just didn't care about what happened. While I admit that story keeps intrigued enough to get you through to the end, you still don't really care about what happens to the main character. I make fun of Haley Joel Osment's acting, but to be fair, I am not sure how well any actor would have done because the part is written so badly. David is unlikeable due everything I already mentioned, but also because he is programed to be that way. It is not like in other films where there are some technical glitches or some other abstract interference that makes it so that the character wants to achieve a certain goal. He does it because that is what he is supposed to do. When he is stuck at the bottom of the ocean, making his wishes, it's not a sad child wishing against the odds in the name of love; it's more like watching a wind up toy that hits a wall and can't move around it. He never really becomes a real boy in either a physical or an emotional sense. So why bother?

So that is the film. Despite the efforts of two of cinema's greatest filmmakers, it's a wreck. I can't honestly say that I hated it because it was at least trying to be a great movie, but there are just so many things that go wrong with it that final product is just annoying and unpleasant. Therefore, I do not recommend it.

These images and links are copyrighted by their respective owners and are being used here for entertainment purposes only. Please don't sue me. [end with anti-SOPA comment]

War Horse (2011)

Starring: Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, Peter Mullan, a bunch of horses

Director: Steven Spielberg

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1568911/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Horse_(film)

The year is almost over, but I got time for one more review, so let's check out this popular film that is currently in theatres.

Based on the book and the play of the same name, the movie is about a English boy named Albert and his horse Joey (played by 14 different horses, believe it or not). However, this bond is threatened when the horse is sold to a soldier (Tom Hiddleston) about to head off to fight in World War I, beginning a long journey as the animal exchanges owners over the course of the conflict.

I will start off with the good stuff. The film has great scenery, with beautiful shots of England and mainland Europe. The battle scenes are also well shot (it was almost as if the directer did "Saving Private Ryan" or something), and even though the violence is relatively mind in order to maintain a PG-13 rating, it still maintains a level of intensity. One of the best moments from this is when a character is literally facing his death and has a look of complete dread in his eyes before it all comes to an end. There are some other really good parts (both on and off the battlefield) that really allow the characters to shine and they try to find hope in times of darkness, determined never to give up.

I will say that the film has one major flaw. In the course of changing owners, the horse ends up with a spirited but frail girl and her grandfather (Celine Buckens and Niels Arestrup, respectively). The problem with this? There is simply no reason for this subplot to exist. It focuses exclusively on them for a good 20 minutes or so, but it does not progress the story at all. The segment is not brought up again until the end, but it is resolved fairly quickly (and almost cruelly). I am not sure if this was included in the book or the play or if it was added to bring in the younger female audience. Either way, it should have been cut out. It would have shaved the film's rather lengthily 2 hour, 26 minute running time, allowing for more focus on the actual war itself, and may have given it more of an adult appeal, which is what a movie about a boy and his horse usually requires in order to make it a generally "well-rounded picture," for lack of a better phrase.

Overall, this is a fine, heartwarming family film. Granted, I think it suffers from its attempts to try reach different audiences. It's a difficult task, though quite frankly I expected more out of Spielberg, who has probably had more success with this strategy than any director or producer alive today. Still, it was good for what it was and the negatives are comfortably outweighed by the positives. I recommend it.

I will be posting my Top Ten List very shortly, so stay tuned!

These images and links do not belong to me and are being used for entertainment purposes only. Please do not sue me.

Review: Super 8 (2011) TH

Small town kids, the military and a train with puzzling cargo

"Super 8" is a popcorn blockbuster that acts as a light drama, mystery and thriller, though one that's all about shameless homage to past films and late '70s pop culture in which it takes place. It's a something's-on-the-loose film with the "something" hiding in the background and adolescent nostalgia out to play in the foreground. It racks up blatant nods, such as '50s giant monster films, George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead," and even Spielberg classics like "The Goonies" and "Jurassic Park." It's done purposely to bring out fun references for sentimental history buffs, as well as keeps cinemaphiles busy with trivia, who might otherwise be ready to call foul at the first retread.

A motley crew of early teen filmmakers have various talents that range from bossy director, special make-up effects wizard, lead actor, pretty actress to the over-charged demolitions expert. Apart from the recent accidental death of Joe's, the make-up effects kid, mother, they live in a normally quiet town and keep themselves busy filming make-believe zombies. While on location for their super 8 movie in the dead of night, they solely witness a massive train wreck involving a truck with a person they know. The hurt man gives them a grave warning to stay away. Shaken up, they keep to themselves but as soon as the Air Force troops show to clean up, some bizarre things occur and it's up to the temp Sheriff, after the current went missing, and our little friends to find out the truth and take matters into their own hands.

Due to items and people disappearing out of the blue, the town feels under siege and holds a meeting but things aren't making sense apart from thinking it's the Russkies. The stand-in Sheriff sees a conspiracy closer to home as our own military refuses to say exactly what's in the cargo of the trains. It took too long to actually unveil the big mystery and eventually begins to lose some of its grasp when it initially began with thrills due to blocking your view point to show abrupt disappearing acts of civilians and property during wee night hours. The constant question is: What does it all mean? Not to mention that it better be a heck of a hot item when it's fully unsheathed: one that awes and glimmers and is saved last for hopefully good reason.

Pushing aside the mayhem and conspiratorial overtones, Joe and Alice, the actress from their movie, form a forbidden love due to their dads having beef, as well as some light drama with regret over the mother's death and growing pains with adapting were injected to make it more personal and dramatic than continually pulse-pounding. To lighten the load even more, there are some relatable jokes and good times shown with being an adolescent during the summer. The young actors portraying the roles have chemistry and managed to be candid and entertaining without being naturally annoying. It hearkens back to that good ol' period when you didn't always see the big picture of adulthood enough not to worry about the future instead of the now--which at present is both just so scary and astonishing.

"Super 8" has thrilling orchestras mixed with contemporary tunes of the era. This has jarring sounds, finely-tuned CGI to show over-the-top action and big explosions to knock your hat off, except they're more spread out than in the previews. It hinted how much power and leeway Big Brother has over its citizens and visitors to the point of black-and-white, closed-minded villainy. They attempted a quick wrap up by throwing out some forced sympathy for the now revealed mysterious entity despite massive property damage and trauma, as the justification for what's happening isn't entirely its fault. Though it would be like only watching the endings of "King Kong" and "Frankenstein," which did a similar "made bad by society" mock up, where the rest of the film showed evolution and gradually built up to genuine sparks of feeling. "Super 8" tried to jam-pack the experience with it all--some concentrated on, some not--and it felt like important answers were swept under the rug, as the tone shifts back again to the town people being just so relieved that it's all finally over and that the event brought them closer together.

Director: J.J. Abrams (Lost, Mission: Impossible III, Star Trek 2009)
Starring: Elle Fanning, Joel Courtney, Kyle Chandler
Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1650062/

Gremlins (1984)

Starring: Hoyt Axton, Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates

Director: Joe Dante

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087363/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gremlins

Don't you hate it when all you want for Christmas is this...

...and you end up with this?

Well, that is pretty much what happens in "Gremlins," the 1984 classic produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Chris Columbus of later "Home Alone" fame, that introduced everyone to the fury little creatures that become a big problem.

The movie starts off with Randall "Rand" Peltzer (Hoyt Axton) shopping around for a Christmas gift for his son in a sketchy area of Chinatown (I guess Macy's is closed at that hour). He ends up in a shop where he finds a strange creature called a Mogwai. He is told that there are three important rules that must be followed in order to care for the creature:

1) It cannot be exposed to bright light

2) It cannot come into physical contact with water

3) Most important of all, it cannot be fed after midnight

Gee, I don't see any of these rules being broken during of the course of the movie, do you? He nicknames it Gizmo and the cute creature is a hit with his teenage son Billy (Zach Galligan). However, when Gizmo is accidentally exposed to water (what a shock), five new Mogwai are formed from him and are much more devious in nature. Using sneaky tactics, they manage to get a hold of food after midnight (double shock), and multiply into a whole army of Mogwai, now called Gremlins, who go about terrorizing the town.

The movie is, in short, fun. While technically classified as a horror comedy, it is more the latter than the former. The Gremlins are not so much scary as they are obnoxious (in a good way). While they do attack people and cause a few deaths, they spend most of their time trashing the places they go to and partying. For instance, they sabotage a local bar by drinking, smoking, throwing things around, shooting each other (yes, they have guns, don't ask me why), and acting generally very rowdy. It is actually more of a dark comedy than anything else, with the Gremlins and their victims dying in several gruesome yet funny fashions (which are fair tame by today's standards). I think my favorite part is when they tamper with the stairlift of the Scourge of the town, Mrs. Deagle (Polly Holiday), sending her flying out the window of her house. Yes, that sounds a bit cruel, but believe me, its funny when you see it.

The most stark example of this type of format is the now infamous scene where Billy's love interest, Kate (Phoebe Cates) tells about a tragedy from her past that explains why she dislikes Christmas. This scene was very controversial, with apparently both studio executives and even Spielberg himself being very unhappy with it, but director Joe Dante fought to keep it in and that is where it remained. To be honest, I thought the scene was a little out of place; most of the humor comes from cartoon violence, not from a girl's childhood trauma of losing a parent. But I guess that is why it works: it comes almost out of nowhere to hit you over the head and then it is never spoken of again. So even though it is a rather bizarre scene to include in a movie about creatures that look like an 80s version of Furby dolls, I am glad they kept it.

Despite the viciousness, the movie also has a bit of heart to it. The characters are all generally very likable; I especially liked the mom (Frances Lee McCain) for her ability to take out three of the little bastards all by herself. And the innocent Gizmo helps bring a level stability to the madness as the one Gremlin who tries to stop his evil counterparts. Despite his problems with the "Kate scene," it becomes quite clear upon viewing that Spielberg had influence over the making of the film. It has a strong "E.T."-like atmosphere, and at least two scenes make a referencing to that particular Spielberg picture. Overall, I say the movie does a good job of juggling the different emotions of happiness, creepiness, and hilarity all within a single story.

Well, I can't think of anything else to say, so I'll just leave it at that. It's a good movie, for the holidays or otherwise, and I recommend it.

Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf, Karen Allen, Cate Blanchett

The last Indiana Jones movie, if I recall, was made in 1989 and left no indication that there was to be a sequel. But apparently George Lucas needed money, imagine that, so he vomited out this new sequel 20 years later, guilt-tripping good actors like Harrison Ford and ones of questionable taste like Shia LaBeouf to whore themselves out for one more ride on the fuck-train that amounts to about two hours of wasted time. This is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Meth. I mean, Crystal Skull. But what I said first would have made more sense.

Honestly, this is just pointless. Pointless and extremely boring at that. Harrison Ford doesn't even really need to act here - he puts on a scowl for the camera, ruffles up his now-gray hair and growls like he's got a bug stuck in his throat. I think he knew this movie was a stinker; you can just see it in every line he delivers. Despite that, he's still a lot of fun to watch, and is probably the movie's most redeeming factor. Cate Blanchett also phones in her performance as the female Russian colonel, and is never in any way captivating or interesting to watch. Shia LaBeouf does an alright job for what he's given to work with, which is painfully little, as the script is piss poor. I mean, they gave him the name "Mutt" - that sounds like something you'd hear in a parody of the 50s, not the actual 50s. It's like something out of Grease. Ray Winstone plays a pointlessly double-crossing something-or-other who will leave absolutely no impression on the viewer, as I also get the impression that he was not really trying.

The story is kind of like the old Indiana Jones movies, centering around a quest to find the lost City of Gold, except it's incredibly boring. In the beginning of the film we get Indy talking about adventures he's had in the past, and I kept thinking that any of these would be so much cooler than what I was watching here. Kidnapped by Pancho Villa as a teenager? I'd sign up to watch that in a heartbeat! Anything would be better than this movie though.

It isn't even like there's anything that wrong with the whole concept behind this; it's just that the idea of even making it at all is pointless. This is a cinematic dead end. The Indy franchise was dead for close to two decades before this was pushed out. Nothing the film does really leaves any impact on me. So the babe from the first Indiana Jones movie is Shia LaBeouf's mom, and Indy is the dad. Yawn. So some of the soldiers are eaten by giant ants. So the gang all go careening down about three waterfalls in a row while sitting upright in a jeep, Hollywood for dummies, all of it. By the time the aliens show up, you just don't care anymore. The fact that there are aliens in an Indiana Jones movie does not register as more than a silly curiosity rather than the catastrophe I am sure Spielberg intended, although I must note here the incredibly drug-addled way the whole thing plays out, lending credence to the "Kingdom of Crystal Meth" argument. The movie glosses over most of the important plot points like that, without any kind of urgency. Nothing leaves any impact. The characters sit there at the end and smile like they're in a Hallmark commercial, but really they're just smiling because their paychecks are just that much closer.

What ever happened to the days when these movies were blood-pumping, heart-in-your-mouth, non-stop action thrillers? Nothing about this works. It's all pieced together with a sort of self-conscious, ironic gloss that robs it of any real tension, any drive to move forward and excite the viewer. Like that stupid scene at the beginning where he jumps into a refrigerator to escape a nuclear bomb blast. It's so ridiculous that it is literally insulting to the viewer's intelligence; not like the cheesy moments in the old ones where it was fun. Here it's just stupid.

The older Indiana Jones movies were great because they stopped at nothing to take the viewer into the heart of the action. They felt genuine and real, even in their obvious over-the-top styling, whereas this one just sort of directs you to the Gift Shop to deposit your money for further exploitations, feeling more like a tourist attraction than an actual adventure movie. Fuck that.