Blogathon - Movie Products

My very first Blogathon participation comes from a blogathon started by Nostra from MyFilmView.com

Taking bloggers into the world of science fiction gadgets/products, my mission is to change movie history and in some cases include myself in movie stardom by answering these following questions;

Which movie would you find in your own Pulp Fiction briefcase? (One which you would treasure or is impossible to see because it is not available)

I've actually been trying to get my hands on the DVD of an excellent Indian film called Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron. Although the movie was made in the 70s, it still remains one of the freshest and funniest movies to ever come out of Indian cinema. Furthermore, lightheartedly looking at corruption in India, the films still hold true after decades.

If you had a Back to the Future DeLorean, which cinema related time period would you travel?

I honestly cannot answer that. I don't think I will truly be able to appreciate the 20s to 50s period and 80s onwards has been pretty average and something I've lived through. So, either have a look into the future, or if I must travel back in time, I guess the time of free love and radicalism would be fun to experience, so 60s and 70s it is, especially since the true Summer Blockbuster films also originated around then. 

If you woke up tomorrow morning and found out that you were living your own Groundhog Day and could only escape it by watching all the movies from a specific genre, which genre would you choose and why? And which genre would be your personal hell?

If I was living my own Groundhog Day, then first I would arrange to meet Anne Hathaway. If that works out, I guess I will not be watching any films because I would be in my celebrity heaven. If the plan fails, then I would probably go for the brainless action films (Fast and the Furious, Transporter, and the like) which would take my mind off living my life in a loop. As for my personal hell, period dramas. I can take only small doses of those every few years, and having to watch them day in and day out would be horrible. 

You have the Neuralyzer from Men in Black in your pocket. Which movie would you travel into to use it on one of the characters to change the movie in a fun or interesting way and what would happen because of the change you made?

It would have to be The Usual Suspects. I'd like for Verbal Kint to have a memory loss on the ship after the explosion and then see how the movie progresses since he would then not know who Kyser Söze is ;-)

If you would be able to enter the dreams of a famous movie character like Cobb did in Inception using the dream machine, which character's dreams would you jump into to get to know that character better and what do you think their dreamworld would look like?

I'm a big fan of psychology, so there would be a number of characters whose brains I would like to pick to see what's really going on in there. Jack Nicholson from One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. Maybe Edward Norton from Primal Fear. Or even Anne Hathaway from Rachel Getting Married which is such an underrated performance. I think all the three characters would have edgy dreams, but that of Edward Norton in Primal Fear are the ones that are bound to be the scariest.

Lacuna Inc, the company from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind just opened on the corner of your street. Which one movie memory would you delete to experience it for the first time again?

You know I asked this questions recently when I was watching Predator one day. How cool would it be to watch a movie without knowing anything about it? I would definitely love to experience some of the movie greats like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or even Clerks again without knowing anything about them...not even a trailer.  

Right next to Lacuna Inc, another company Rekall from Total Recall has opened as well. Which character in which movie would you like to be to experience it in first person?

No doubt, Ferris Bueller from Ferris Bueller's Day Out. That would be an amazing experience. 

Thank you Nostra for the opportunity to participate in the Blogathon. Cheers! 

CMBA Guilty Pleasures Movie Blogathon: Flight to Mars (1951)

"Of course, academia collects masterpieces and is sometimes uneasy with silliness. . . . But real fans cherish bad movies, too, the frivolous spasms of light on the screen, the ones that led to reckless dreams."

—David Thomson

When I was six years old, I couldn't wait to get home from school each day and watch the latest installment of my favorite television show, a shoestring-budget serial called Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, shown on local after-school kids' TV. Clearly modeled on Buck Rogers, Rocky was an outer space law enforcer who cruised the galaxy in a rocket ship with his female first officer and ten-year old sidekick Bobby searching for villains and meddling in the affairs of inhabited planets. Whether battling the evil queen Cleolanta, rescuing the beautiful princess Juliandra from the machinations of her evil twin sister, or saving the heedless inhabitants of two planets on a collision course, Rocky and his crew could be relied on to triumph over villainy and save the day with their low-tech gizmos and their wits.

The program was my education in the distinction between reality and the movies. I experienced my first screen crush on the lovely Juliandra and learned that reading the credits at the end told me who she was in real life. Seeing her on another TV show playing a different character altogether and reading her name in the credits there really drove home the point that these were actors playing make-believe people, and after that I was always aware of the difference between the actor and the character. Probably the most educational result of the program, though, was when my father told me that we didn't really fly around the solar system in rocket ships, that (at this time) humans had never left Earth and the notion of space travel was wholly imaginary. I was crushed, but I did learn that just because you see it on the screen doesn't mean it really happens in life.

When I watched a DVD of the 1951 science fiction movie Flight to Mars recently, it immediately evoked the wonder felt by the six-year old armchair space traveler watching Rocky Jones. Such pleasure is almost beyond analysis and certainly beyond justification. It might be called guilty pleasure, although only an adult would think of the sensation in such a way. Briefly put, it's a movie-watching satisfaction that cannot be justified on aesthetic grounds, that in fact defies justification of any kind beyond the purely subjective. In this case—as in many similar cases, I suspect—the reaction surely is essentially one of nostalgia, a reaction in which memory completely blends with the present. For the adult it is the equivalent of revisiting that innocent, pre-rational childhood state of mind in which anything that gives mental or emotional pleasure is accepted without thought, on that level of pure sensation in which the thing itself is its own justification.

As its title indicates, Flight to Mars is about the first human expedition to Mars. One thing that makes this movie so enjoyable is that its plot is virtually a template for similar low-budget films of the 1950s about space travel to distant planets. The crew consists of four scientists—the team's leader, Dr. Jim Barker (Arthur Franz, who played the astronomer in Invaders from Mars), a professor, a medical doctor, the female member of the crew, Carol Stafford (Virginia Huston, probably best known for playing the "good girl" Robert Mitchum is engaged to in Out of the Past)—and one non-scientist, a cynical reporter along strictly as an observer, Steve Abbott (Cameron Mitchell). After surviving such perils as nearly being captured by the gravity of the Moon and dodging a sudden meteor shower, they crash land on Mars.

When the crew leaves the ship to survey the damage, they find architectural artifacts of a Martian civilization and then suddenly are greeted by Martians (led by Morris Ankrum, veteran of numerous 1950s sci-fi pictures) in colorful space suits. These Martians, who are human in every respect and even speak flawless English (they've been monitoring radio broadcasts from Earth), invite the travelers to enjoy Martian hospitality in their underground city—yet another iteration of Fritz Lang's Metropolis—while repairing the rocket ship. This is, of course, a scientifically advanced civilization whose inhabitants eat hydroponically grown and mechanically prepared food and lounge around in molded plastic chairs in starkly modernist dwellings.

Although the aliens seem civilized and friendly, we soon learn they have an agenda of their own. The element which powers their civilization, corium (could this be related to the synthetic stuff used to make kitchen countertops in the 1970s?), is running out. The Martians, needing a new home, have decided Earth fits the bill and never having developed space travel themselves, think the space ship that has landed on their planet is just the thing to take them to Earth to launch an invasion. Will the travelers learn the truth about the aliens' scheme from the brainy Martian Alita (Marguerite Chapman) who, with her slide rule and T-square, is helping Capt. Barker in his plans for the repairs while falling in love with him (don't even think about alien anatomy), and her father (veteran character actor Robert Barratt), a pacifist in favor of détente with the earthlings? If they do, will they be able to overcome fuel and weight restrictions and take Alita and her father with them as ambassadors of inter-planetary peace?

Despite its obviously minuscule resources—it was, after all, a Monogram Pictures production filmed, according to the actor Cameron Mitchell, in just five days—Flight to Mars is a striking looking movie, in many ways a triumph of imagination over budget. It was one of the first movies filmed in SuperCineColor, a three-strip color process derived from Cinecolor, a two-strip process devised in the thirties as a low-cost alternative to Technicolor and used mostly for cartoons. The garish, oddly bright colors in Flight to Mars complement the film's futuristic sets, not only adding visual appeal to the minimalist decor, but emphasizing their almost expressionist geometry and angularity and forming planes of color that lend a convincing impression of depth and space to the film's painted scenery. The curious demographics of the Martian population also give the filmmakers the opportunity to mask narrative implausibilities with eye-catching costumes. The Martian political leaders are ordinary-looking middle-aged men and their garb may be strictly functional, but all the females on the planet appear to be in their twenties—slim, leggy, gorgeous, and dressed in tight, vaguely uniform-like outfits with outlandishly architectonic shoulder pads, super short mini-skirts, and shoes that resemble a cross between high heels and calf-height boots.

The special effects of the rocket in flight are superior to those of an Ed Wood movie, but that's about the most that can be said of them. On the big screen they must have seemed especially unconvincing. The model used for the rocket ship, however, is splendid—sleek, metallic, and streamlined. It was originally designed for the 1950 film Destination Moon but wasn't used in that film. After appearing in slightly modified form in Flight to Mars, it would later be used in several other sci-fi movies of the 1950s.

Whether dealing with giant creatures, alien invasion, or space travel, science fiction movies were a major part of the American film industry of the 1950s. Mostly niche fodder for drive-ins and the lower half of double features, these films offered a more spectacular, fantastic, and often disturbing experience than the sedate television fare and the serious-minded social issues pictures of the time. Occasionally one of these films would hit artistic pay dirt. But for every Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Day the Earth Stood Still, there were dozens of lesser films. The closest the space travel sub-genre came to greatness was probably Forbidden Planet, but as enjoyable as it was, everybody knew it was really Shakespeare in outer space. It wasn't until years later that this type of film got any real respect with Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Yet if you were to ask me which I would rather experience tonight, Kubrick's technically dazzling but cold and austere vision of the future, or the more basic—and in comparison, definitely silly and frivolous—pleasures of Flight to Mars, I would pick the latter without hesitation. And I don't believe I would feel even a trace of guilt over my choice.

This post is part of the Guilty Pleasures Movie Blogathon sponsored by the Classic Movie Blog Association. For more on the blogathon click here. The quotation by David Thomson is from "When Is a Movie Great?" Harper's July 2011: 35-39.

Super 8 (2011)

Overall Rating: 8.00/10

It happens in a flash, and it's quick, violent, intense, and completely void of practicality. Like one might find in many action-adventures, it's a declarative statement to the viewer - "this is where we set the bar for the feasibility of our action" - and if you don't buy it then, you're going to find the following two hours a very bumpy ride. In essence, it's just the way modern blockbusters go. They establish, very early on the need for you suspend your knowledge of physics, and accept that the heroes are going to get through a few over the top encounters unscathed.

J.J. Abrams knows as well as anyone, that line is a tough one to cross, and that the modern viewer will buy into more than they'd readily admit. With audiences more prone to accept first, ask questions later, Abrams grabs hold with the very first action scene in Super 8 and goes for the whole nine yards. It's a risky move, especially considering the appreciation for the remaining hour and a half depends on it, but if the viewer takes the bait and is willing to be absorbed, I can say from first hand experience it's a hell of a fun ride to go through.

Twisting and turning through every classic narrative you can think of, Super 8 flirts with realms as closely intertwined as Jurassic Park and E.T. to the opposite extreme with Romeo and Juliet romantic leanings. A young, but fluidly dynamic cast bounce their lines off one another with pin point precision, and personable timing. Homages weave in and out with everything from copy/paste sequences to 'wink wink' references for the obsessive completest geeks. Something some fans of the classic Amblin and Spielberg tales have found waning in favoritism, but I for one ate it up like a fat kid at a pie eating contest - so to speak (yes, I've just piled on a 'wink wink' while noting a film's use of 'wink wink' moments - #skill).

I've always found myself drawn to films on aliens, government intervention, and coming of age. So, diving in headstrong with the triple threat almost seems to put my critical hat at a disadvantage. I found myself loving the strong performances of young child stars Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Ryan Lee, Zach Mills, Riley Griffiths, and Gabriel Basso. With Courtney and Fanning being the two real standouts - granted, Riley Griffiths in an Angus-styled role as the over agitated, misunderstood overweight kid left me feeling a bit nostalgic to my years as an overweight elementary and middle schooler... and high schooler... and, you know, let's just move on.

Another standout among the cast lies in menu item #1 of the Spielberg catalog, the despondent father Kyle Chandler, whom I've been waiting to grab another strong big screen roll following his breakthrough in 2005's King Kong. Matching wits with Chandler throughout is professional supporting man, Noah Emmerich - complete with fully functional seldom-speaking black underling Richard T. Jones (don't worry Jones, you'll always have a place here). Rounding out the star laden adult cast is a personal favorite in the form of Ron Eldard - who seems to finally be recovering from the quick pedestal kick out after House of Sand and Fog - as Elle Fanning's drunken, worthless father whose tale comes with handy built-in dramatic tie-ins.

But despite all the talent involved, Abrams plays this surprisingly close to the chest. Super 8 is cool, calculating, and intentionally manipulative. With over the top exposition dialogue capped off by excessive staging, Super 8 has perhaps more than its fair share of moments that induce eye rolling from more critical audience members. Yet, at no point did any sequence feel flat to me. Bouncing off from one shot to the next, the completed product connects each dot on its own pattern. A pattern that begs to blend the unbelievable and reality without care for their contradictory stances.

All of which collide in a finale that is immeasurably over the top, ridiculous in visualization, and fails to answer a handful of the questions the film presents... and you know what? It is awesome. Yes, I said it. Sure, the finale fails to complete the chain of events that it leads up to, but it also brings a sense of conclusion. A sense that the unanswered questions will be fine just lingering there. The characters, whose growth is at the heart of the film, has reached the peak and come into fruition, and the rest is just circumstance. It might leave a few audience members wanting, but I found it a perfectly fulfilling affair.

Of course, never one to disappoint, Abrams takes one last shot at an explosive finale, before quietly fading into the blackness of space and allowing the credits to roll. It's a bit cheap, but I found my funny bone well tickled, and for that I say - Super 8 is flawed, but it has a lot of fun being so. If you're willing to buy in to the extremity of its action, you'll find a heartfelt tale of wonder and childhood trauma to grab a hold of and cherish as you leave the theater.

Film Credits:
Written and Directed By: J.J. Abrams

Source Code (2011)

Overall Score: 7.75/10

You wake up and you're a different man. The woman in front of you is a stranger who's known this you for time untold. The people around you are completely different from the world you know. You panic, you sweat, you flea. And when you reach a breaking point, boom. All of the sudden you're yourself again. But something's still not right. You're trapped in a box. On the camera is another woman you don't know, but this one knows the real you. The situation is the same, but different. Two woman, two you's, two completely different lives. Welcome to the Source Code.

Despite what it would have you believe, Source Code is not a thriller. Sure there's the running, the chasing, and the battle with time. But that's all a cover. Source Code is really all about one very specific thing. Life, and how far we're willing to go to salvage it when pushed beyond the confines of death.

As many have pointed out, Source Code is basically Deja Vu, Groundhog's Day, and Twelve Monkeys tossed into a blender; and yet it manages comes out clean on the other side. Its persistent optimism, high sci-fi undertones, and challenging questions on identity and fulfillment give it an air of freshness that even the most hardened of film goers will intake happily.

By those standards, Source Code thrives. With minute changes on each go-around it avoids the redundant atmosphere Vantage Point buried itself under. As well, Source Code also utilizes the 'actual' world, outside the restrictive the focal program, to give audiences another layer of tension and characters to interrogate and seek refuge in.

For a second outing, Duncan Jones plays it safe and smart, despite the ominous presence of Dunkin' Donuts (who I could have sworn were behind it all). The plot keeps things rolling, inviting new details to entice the viewer, but always acknowledging the characters and the science fiction first. As mysteries go, Source Code's is a rather tame one. No big twists, limited ideology, and even less big shock moments. It is those characters that we grow to know and appreciate that provides us the drive to see them prosper. Where many writers would put their idea at the forefront of any mystery, Ben Ripley intelligently makes it more about the surrounding events and people. The Source Code world is always secondary, and justly so.

Yet, there is one character that is disturbingly absent from the entire affair - Sean. The body to which Jake Gyllenhaal's Colter Stevens now owns while inside the Source Code. Very early on we are brushed aside on any emotional connection as Goodwin (Farmiga) promptly tells us "for this mission he is irrelevant." However, as Source Code travels down the slippery path between reality and imaginary, he becomes an element of collateral damage. By the end, many of us would be hard pressed to know he existed at all. Especially given the film's strong stance of ignorance with respect to him.

A minor detail in some eyes, but I can't help but feel that we have been deprived some crucial detail of character development. All we know of him is a name and profession. Beyond that he is a zombie. An empty vessel, and the lack of any care or attention towards him leads me to call into question the saleability of the film's ending. While it wouldn't be the greatest of endings in any other circumstance, I do feel it could have considerably benefited from some exposition on the man.

But Source Code does an excellent job of blinding that. By playing up our central character's emotional transformation, we care more for him than we would ever bother to care about the elusive Sean. We come to love Colter Stevens for his heart, his care, and the manner by which he comes to view the world. He, in essence, becomes our vessel. Yet, he is one to which we share the world, and for that we feel a deeper emotional kindred.

Thus becomes the tale of Source Code. For those seeking only thrills, Source Code is not the path you should take. For those who want the thrills mixed in with something a bit more, Source Code is without a doubt a destination you'll enjoy the journey to. Besides, who can turn down two hours of solid Michelle Monaghan and Jeffrey Wright lighting up the screen?

Film Credits:
Directed By: Duncan Jones
Written By: Ben Ripley

Monsters (2010)

Overall Rating: 7.50/10

A broken society can make even the simplest task seem inaccessible. You add to that a continent overrun by monsters, and you're likely to find that task nearly insurmountable. The 2010 low-budget sci-fi drama Monsters examines just that very situation. Teetering on the edge of dystopia, Mexico's alien invasion becomes the focal point where the future of humanity may weigh in the balance.

Navigating a world of aliens and alienated, Samantha (Whitney Able) and Kaulder (Scoot McNairy) must traverse the infected zone in the hope of getting back home to America. In doing so they bear witness to the brutal inner turmoil of a planet learning to adapt. Along the way they are also privy to some of the hidden beauties one might find in a world if they look. Something as simple as alien and plant life finding a middle ground, co-existing in a land of conflicting needs, can supply elements of hope and fear.

Able and McNairy handle the demanding task of being our eyes and ears, guiding us into this world, without hesitation or reproach. As these character begin to understand the new world in which they live, so do we. At the same time they also hold onto the world as they know it. We learn about their background through casual conversations during lull moments along their journey. Their conflicting traits of cynicism and optimism, sarcasm and frustration, help keep viewers engaged, without needing to constantly resort to action.

Director Gareth Edwards shows great talent in piecing together the film, despite a limited shooting budget, and making it authentic. The fictional world feels real because there are relatable components. Characters you could imagine living down the street from you or trying to prosper in a mundane environment, invite you in to their situation. You understand their plight because in many ways it's not as different as you might think. People trying to escape unwanted situations, foreign presences trying to change the environment, and amidst it all humans seeking to understand their place.

Going in with the knowledge that it's as much a drama as it is a science fiction or action film is crucial to understanding the direction it takes. Monsters relies on the tension derived from a foreboding nature. It also relies on human interaction, and basic human nature. We see character's who try to help each other out and those who seek only to prosper from others failures. By contrast we see aliens who maraud the world and aliens who study it.

At times I felt that Monster reached more than it needed to in terms of character development. Samantha and Kaulder's evolving relationship felt generic and faintly founded. The ending, which ties the film together, seemed like a bad *nudge nudge* moment, trying to get audiences rushing for a rewind button. Edwards' tale of conflicting worlds thrives on the journey, the different personality types it takes to survive, and the mysterious world. Monsters is as much about exposing an alien world as it is about a human one.

Film Credits:
Written and Directed by: Gareth Edwards

A Trip to the Moon (1902)

A TRIP TO THE MOON

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY: GEORGES MELIES

BASED ON NOVELS BY: JULES VERNE & H.G. WELLS

REVIEWED FOR: 1001 Movie Club

 OVERALL SCORE: 10/10

How does someone truly review one of the first narrative films of all time? How does someone judge the accuracy of a science fiction film that predates modern knowledge in ways we can only hope to experience one day? That's the difficulty with watching this 1902 classic eight minute piece of cinema.

There's very little opportunity with this film to evaluate the film in terms of narrative flow, acting ability, character development, and cinematic style. When it was created almost none of those things existed in the world of cinema. Which in many respects makes A Trip to the Moon simply unrivaled in stature or importance. 

Georges Melies shaped the future of cinema in ways you and I will never fully understand. Where many saw trains and walking people, he saw the ability to create magic. To transport a viewer to a world beyond sight and sound. The ability to blend animation and science fiction, with stage originated storytelling, Melies was able to create a whole new world of entertainment right before everyone's eyes.

The career magician made a number of films after having first experienced moving pictures in 1895. These films, numbering in the 500's, detailed techniques, such as the blending of animation/artistry to create a seamless story without resorting to off screen narrators, or cue cards to describe events that could not be illustrated otherwise. 

There is no denying that A Trip to the Moon is painfully outdated. However, we'd all love to still look as grand and awe inspiring at 108 as Melies classic does. A Trip to the Moon is equal parts entertaining, fun, silly, outlandish, and just downright absurd. Making it a perfect mantle piece for things I love about cinema. Melies put time, heart, and genius into this film, and that's something to which I hold nothing but eternal respect.

*You can see the film in its entirety, here.