Cynical Cinema

Alliance Films is on a roll with their epic films. A few months ago, they released a magnificent three-disc Limited Collector’s edition of El Cid to DVD, one of the great but forgotten Charlton Heston epics. It came with cards and comic books and dozens of special features and booklets and all kinds of trinkets. Today, May 27th, Alliance is releasing the next in this epic series, a Limited Collector’s Edition of The Fall Of The Roman Empire. The three-disc set is almost identical to El Cid in terms of the goodies that come inside. And the two films are very similar as well, in that they are massive military epics with casts of thousands, enormous sets, and Sophia Loren. Starring with Loren in The Fall of the Roman Empire is Alec Guinness, one of the most under-rated actors in history, as the reasonable and wise Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. He may well be one of the three greatest to ever live, up there with Brando and Olivier and Nicholson and DeNiro and Bogart.

The movie begins with Marcus Aurelius calling together the representatives of all the nations within the Roman Empire in order to secure peace and prosperity for the known world. Of course, this does not take place over the course of the film, and when it ends three hours later, it is with the Fall of the Roman Empire. This disaster comes about when Aurelius’ son, Commodus (Christopher Plummer), gets wind of his father’s decision to turn over the throne to his adopted son Livius instead of him. So Commodus decides to kill his own father in order to take the throne. And that leaves Rome in the hands of a childish, foolish man, who refuses to negotiate with his enemies or listen to other opinions, and thereby dooms the entire empire quite quickly. Well, in three hours.

This movie is famous now more as the movie that caused the fall of Samuel Bronfman’s cinematic empire, moreso than as a film. But as a film, it stands the test of time. The “Battle of the Four Armies” is as impressive a set piece as anything staged in The Ten Commandments or Ben-Hur or Lawrence of Arabia. 8,000 soldiers and 1,200 horses were used for the production, which was shot on a massive plain in Madrid. And the detailed reconstruction of the Roman Forum remains, to this day, the largest ever outdoor film set. With set pieces and sets like these, it’s easy to see how the movie cost a massive amount to produce. And when it became a gargantuan financial failure, it took Bronfman’s empire with it. He had previously been responsible for some of the massive films of the era - El Cid, King of Kings - but after this one he never made another. It was more his business plan than the failure of this film, however, that did him in. He had spent so much creating the sets for these epic movies that he overextended himself, and owed millions of dollars when he became financially destitute and shut down operations.

The Fall of the Roman Empire plays a little fast and loose with actual, factual, history. But the tone, the costumes, the sets and the structure of the armies and the senate are all perfect. The Battle of the Four Armies, while an impressive scene, never actually took place. But the scene toward the end where the senators attempt to bribe the military into making one of them emperor is taken from historical fact. But in the end, you don’t watch a movie like this to learn specific facts about world history. You watch it to be entertained. And The Fall of the Roman Empire IS entertaining. Livius is played by Stephen Boyd, who does a terrific job in a role that was first offered to (of course) his Ben-Hur co-star, Charlton Heston. Sophia Loren is great as always, and of course smoking hot. The role of Commodus was only the third movie role for Christopher Plummer, and it’s the role that propelled him to stardom. And Alec Guinness is simply magnificent as Marcus Aurelius, a role that sadly ends halfway through the movie with his death.

There are many similarities to Gladiator in this film, and indeed a few people have suggested that on many levels Gladiator was actually a remake of The Fall Of The Roman Empire. I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that is the case, but the stories certainly approximate one another. They occur at the same epoch in history, they deal with the same characters and the same downward spiral that consumed Rome in all her glory, and certainly the final scene is almost identical in both films. But Gladiator is a little more fanciful, and The Fall of the Roman Empire is way bigger in scale.

Now - while I certainly do recommend picking up this film, and this three-disc edition is wonderfully done, you might want to wait. For true rabid fans of this film, there is another edition coming out later, possibly as much as a year later. This edition features the standard two hour and 52 minute theatrical version that has been around for years. However, there was some lost footage that was discovered, too late to be included in this particular edition, that will be added to a later set. This will, though, likely be the only set with the poster-cards and the booklets that are included here. So perhaps, if you are a hardcore fan of The Fall of the Roman Empire, you could well do both. Like my nerd-buddy Dave, who owns all thirty-four different editions of the Star Wars trilogy. On VHS and DVD and LaserDisc and reel-to-reel and so forth. If only he had a laser disc player.

Of course, you knew when the new Indiana Jones movie was about to hit theatres, there would be all kind of reissues coming out. Paramount released the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles Volume 3 a few weeks ago, and now comes the original trilogy, in special-edition form, on May 13th from Paramount. The first movie in the series, Raiders of the Lost Ark, remains by far the best of the three. The opening scene in the film is still, to this day, incredible, with the giant boulder and the bag of sand and the darts shooting out of the walls and the whip and the chasm and the closing door and the double crosses and the float plane escape…all very exciting. One of the best opening scenes in a movie of all time. And best of all - no gunshots or explosions! Amazing!

Although the thing that set Raiders apart from other movies upon it’s release and made it an instant classic was that no one had ever seen a movie like this before, what makes it a classic now is that it is still better than any other movie like it. Imagine a movie made now that has something of historic, biblical importance as the central object. Now imagine it involves car chases, gun fights, lost treasure, exotic locales, face-melting guitar solos, and Nazis. And, archaeology! Were this movie to be made now, it would likely star Matthew McConnaughey and Kate Hudson, and it would be directed by Michael Bay and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and written by some Hollywood focus group-watching team of nincompoops. And it would probably be called “National Treasure 4: The One With Nazis”. And it would suck worse than “National Treasure 3: Search For the Necronomicon”.

It is a testament to the brilliance of both Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford that they did not allow this movie to become…that. Raiders of the Lost Ark is, in many ways, childish. And it is simplistic and cheerfully bonkers. And yes, it is standing on the shoulders of many movies that came before. But most of those movies were made in the 30s and 40s. And Raiders is set in the 30s. And it is both homage to the old John-Wayne-type serials of the early era of cinema, and also a completely new film going experience. It’s one of the only movies, ever, that is basically wall-to-wall action and yet could be considered classic. Harrison Ford did more than a good job as Indy, and he did more than create an iconic character in a movie. Much more.

This is what he did: He created an iconic persona in film in general. Not many actors have been able to do that. In the years following films like The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, you could tell in other films when people were playing John Wayne. The Duke created an all-new screen persona. Same goes for Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird, Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur, and Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast At Tiffany’s. And now, when you watch certain movies, you can see other actors playing Indiana Jones. And that is a remarkable achievement in acting. Harrison Ford makes Raiders magical with humour, toughness, intelligence, good looks and stoicism. And Spielberg makes it magic with the set pieces, the camera work, and the ability to create wonderful moments in dialogue, scenery, and especially action.

Also terrific in Raiders was Karen Allen. Now, for a long time, I always thought that Margot Kidder starred opposite Ford in this film, simply because they look alike and the Superman series ran almost parallel to the Indiana Jones series. But Margot Kidder was NOT in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Or…was she? I did some checking.

And in so doing, I have uncovered a conspiracy! Yes, I saved it for the end of my review, because it is such a huge revelation I wanted to save it for last. And here it is: Margot Kidder was born October 17th, 1948 in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. The daughter of an explosives expert, she rose to big-screen fame playing a bit part in the film Gaily, Gaily, and then scoring the starring role in the Brian DePalma film Sisters. Soon, she became a household name thanks to her portrayal of Lois Lane in the major blockbuster, Superman, in 1978. Superman II, II, IV, V, and eventually Superman XLII followed. After “Sisters”, she briefly dated DePalma, and was linked to Pierre Trudeau for a time. She was married and divorced four times, none of those marriages lasting more than a year, and now lives as a little bit of a recluse, saying she prefers the company of her dogs to that of men. In the early 90s, she came under fire from the press and the establishment in the U.S. for criticizing the press and the government over the Gulf War, saying that they did not realize the long-ranging ramifications of their actions. She had a well-publicized breakdown in 1996, when she was found wandering the streets naked and diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Karen Allen was born October 5th, 1951 in Carrollton, Illinois. The daughter of an FBI agent, she rose to big-screen fame playing bit parts in Animal House (1978) and Manhattan (1979). In 1981, she teamed up with Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg in the massively successful blockbuster, Raiders of the Lost Ark. She didn’t marry until 1988, when she tied the knot with Kale Brown, some guy who was in “Challenger”. She had a son in 1990, and the couple divorced in 1998. Since then, she has become more reclusive, and has professed her love for knitting as an activity. In fact, she loves knitting so much that she started her own textile company in 2003. She teaches acting in Massachusetts, and has been coaxed back to the big screen this year to reprise her Raiders role in the new Indiana Jones flick.

Now for the big revelation - Margot Kidder and Karen Allen are the same person! First of all, here is some photographic evidence:

Here’s what I think happened. Margot Kidder, finding that her Canadian background closed certain doors to her in Hollywood, while opening others, decided to make the best of both worlds by creating an American alter-ego for herself. As Karen Allen, she decided to make herself three years younger, since certain roles always go to the younger actress. She made sure that the family background was similar. Their birth dates, for example, were only two weeks apart. While Kidder’s father was an explosives expert, she decided that Karen Allen’s father should be something a little more vague, and thereby easy to explain - and FBI agent. Possibly one with knowledge of explosives. When Kidder hit the big time with Superman in 1978, she was unprepared for the sudden fame, and the alter-ego, Karen Allen, took over. Working with people she admired (like John Belushi and Woody Allen), as Karen Allen, and working with people who wanted her simply for her name, as Margot Kidder.

Then, in 1981, disaster struck. Karen Allen was offered a part opposite a little-known actor named Harrison Ford, in a movie helmed by a fairly interesting, two-hit wonder director named Steven Spielberg. It seemed like a perfect role for the Karen Allen persona - that was the side of Kidder that made the indie movies, and took risks, after all. But when that movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, became a massive blockbuster, all of a sudden both personas were out in the open and in the consciousness of America. Kidder tried to deflect attention away from her movie work by marrying and divorcing several times, but when she met Kale Brown, she thought it would be forever. And so, having painted Margot as the oft-marrying type, she had to get Karen to actually marry this guy and settle down. Once she was married, as “Karen”, she stopped working as Karen.

This gave her the opportunity to truly live two lives. One was the quiet, suburban home life with her husband and son, out of the limelight. That was Karen. Margot, on the other hand, since she no longer really existed, was totally free. Free to express her opinions and sound off about anything she wanted. After all, she had an escape where she could return home and be Karen for the rest of the evening, and let the Margot stuff slide off her back. But after eight years of this, the double life finally took it’s toll, and she snapped. Fortunately, she had the presence of mind to snap as “Margot”, since “Margot” had already portrayed herself as the left-wing nut, the outspoken eccentric, and it would stand to reason that it was she, and not “Karen”, who momentarily lost her mind. In fact, Margot now wanted to live AS “Karen”, and was planning to do away with Margot completely, a la Fight Club. But rather than succeeding in killing off one of the two personalities, she merely succeeded in making one of them crazy. After nursing her back to health, and explaining the two personalities away conveniently as “bipolar disorder”, her husband could take no more and divorced “Karen” two years later.

Shocking, eh? Not only that, I can go one better - I know where Kidder got her idea for the final transformation! In 1988, as “Margot Kidder”, she starred in a made-for-TV movie called “Vanishing Act” with Elliott Gould, where she plays a woman who insists she is the husband of a man whose wife has just disappeared on their honeymoon, even though the man has never seen her before. Vanishing Act was a re-working of a Robert Thomas stage play called “Trap For a Lonely Man”, and had previously been filmed as “One of My Wives is Missing”, and “Honeymoon With A Stranger”, starring Janet Leigh. That same year, she, as “Karen”, married her final husband. Now, “Margot Kidder” hangs out in a rural area with her dogs, and “Karen Allen” hangs out in a rural area with her knitting. You read it here first, folks!

The opening sequence of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is bothersome. Harrison Ford is sitting with some evil men, who mean to do him harm, and he really looks like Han Solo trying to play James Bond. The dialogue (the antidote - to the poison you just drank!), the set pieces (that big rolling gong), the utter ludicrousness of the entire scenario, just don’t feel like the Indiana Jones we know and love from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Fortunately, as soon as this scene ends, he goes back to being the Indy of old, but the movie never seems to recover. Although Temple of Doom is still quite good, and definitely better than any of the imitators that have followed, it comes off as cartoonish when seen in th context of Raiders. Kind of like Return of the Jedi was a cartoon after watching The Empire Strikes Back.

Of course, Temple of Doom still has dozens of memorable moments, like the chase in the railway cars and the pilotless plane, and the raft ride, but it is so LOUD. It’s so busy, and loud, and over-the-top that it loses any charm Raiders might have had. The first forty minutes or so are non-stop action, when you kind of just want to get to the story. Short Round is still hilarious, and I still love that kid, but Kate Capshaw is irritating as the love interest, and the bad guys just aren’t as compelling as Nazis. The whole underground temple has just such a creepy feel to it that’s incongruous with the rest of the movie’s bonkers implausible tone. I don’t care if a guy can pull my heart out of my chest, I still fear the Nazis more. And those gross-out scenes with the monkey brains and all that? Totally unnecessary. And obnoxious.

In the end, Temple of Doom IS pretty good. But it comes nowhere near the standard set by Raiders of the Lost Ark, and it is the worst of the three films by far. Well worth having, this is one of those trilogies that needs to be complete in your collection, and you can’t ignore this one. But it will likely be the one you watch the least.  It’s out in Special Edition form tomorrow from Paramount.

Only time will tell if the new Indiana Jones movie stacks up to the rest of the existing trilogy. And in all likelihood, it will. But the same concerns were voiced nineteen years ago when the third installment hit theatres. And, over the years, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade has held up extremely well. In fact, it is only slightly behind Raiders of the Lost Ark in terms of quality and awesomeness. It really is Temple of Doom that is the weak(er) link in the series. The Last Crusade fits right into the theme - Harrison Ford as the hard-edged James Bond of the world of archaeology. Classic lines (no ticket!). And classic set pieces - the airplane and the seagulls, the airplane off the dirigible.

The new twist added to this third film is the addition of Indy’s dad, played by Sean Connery. This is a common theme now, of third movies in trilogies. Austin Powers has run out of ideas…let’s give him a father in the third one! But at the time, it injected new, refreshing life into the series, and the interplay between Connery and Ford is fantastic. Also, this film marks the return of the Nazis. And, as I have said many times about Temple of Doom, it’s great that you can pull a guy’s heart out of his chest, you’re still not as bad-ass and scary as Nazis. The unfortunately named Alison Doody is light-years ahead of Kate Capshaw in terms of a worthy foil. Again, Indy is archaeology’s James Bond, as he is now given a female lead, in whom he has both an enemy and a lover. How very Bond.

And the Indiana Jones series could easily have turned into another James Bond series. Every movie with the same lines, the new gadgets, the scene where Indy has to face, once again, his fear of snakes. And it’s a testament to the brilliance of Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford that it did not. The inclusion of Sean Connery is fantastic casting, the search for the Holy Grail is, while a logical next step in Indy’s adventures, not overdone. And the spirit of the original is maintained. The Last Crusade is a more-than-worthy inclusion in the trilogy, and is almost as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark. Well worth renting, if you haven’t seen it, but buying the whole set is really the way to go.  They are all out in Special Edition form tomorrow from Paramount Home Entertainment.

When I was a kid, after a long game of tennis, I saw an episode of Mission: Impossible at my friend Oliver’s house. I loved this show! It was one of the best things I had ever seen on TV! It had everything - espionage, international bad guys, gadgets, and missions! And that theme music! So distinctive, so cool! However, Oliver had some channels that I did not, and I never saw the show again until today. When I grabbed Season Four of Mission: Impossible from Paramount Home Entertainment on May 13th, I wondered if it would be as good as I remembered. After all, my favourite programs growing up were MacGyver and The A-Team, and I can’t watch those now without laughing at what an idiot I must have been to have enjoyed such crap.

As it turns out, however, Mission: Impossible really does hold up over the years. Of course, over those years it has been the source of some of the worst pop culture has to offer. Those three horrible movies with Tom Cruise. The music has been used as background for the irritating Scientology video, also starring Tom Cruise. The phrase “your mission, should you choose to accept it” has been overused ad nauseum, and the self-destructing message has been a concept taken to asinine proportions. By the way, I DID watch Inspector Gadget as a child, and I could never understand the self-destructing message. The chief would always pop up in a garbage can, a dryer, a potted plant, and hand Inspector Gadget the message. Then, he would be told that the message would self-destruct. And Gadget would throw the message right into where the chief was hiding, and it would blow up the chief. Every time. Every time, it happened! And I would always wonder, as a child - if the chief was so adept at finding these hiding places for himself, in order to give Gadget his mission, why wouldn’t he just pop out of the dishwasher and tell Gadget the message, rather than having to hand him paper and wait while he read it? That always bothered me.

Season 4 of Mission Impossible is yet another example of when network TV used to be good. It’s like the A-Team, only without the terrible writing, the ridiculous gunfights and the lame acting. It’s like Counterstrike, only less slick and less Canadian. And it is far, far better than those absolutely idiotic Tom Cruise-John Woo movies.

Humphrey Bogart might now be considered the greatest actor of all time, but there was a time where he was considering giving up movies for good. Two starring roles convinced him to stick around. The Petrified Forest and High Sierra. High Sierra was a gangster movie in an era where gangster movies reigned supreme. James Cagney was the biggest star in Hollywood thanks to gangster roles in the Public Enemy and The Roaring Twenties. And Bogart had been his second fiddle for a while. As the lead in High Sierra, Bogart showed he was a legitimate star in his own right. He’s the leader of a gang looking to knock off a hotel, and Ida Lupino is terrific as the girl who complicates things.

Things progress toward a you’ll-never-take-me-alive-copper ending where Bogart is at his very best, holed up in his mountain hideout, with Lupino and a bad-luck dog coming to find him.

High Sierra is dark, intense and, for it’s time, fairly bad-ass.

That’s eight out of ten on my randomly-decided-upon measuring stick for movies. The box for the Russell Crowe - Christian Bale remake of 3:10 to Yuma says “The Best Western Since Unforgiven!” This is not true. It is, however, the SECOND best western since Unforgiven. The best one was a little-seen film called The Proposition, starring Guy Pearce, and it was a phenomenal film. What 3:10 to Yuma understands very, very well is the western hero. The greatest westerns all had heroes cut from one of two cloths. Either they were generally decent people who didn’t want to use guns but were forced into it, like Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales, or Gary Cooper in High Noon, or Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Or, they were tough, rugged frontier men who did not fear death, who were perfectly happy using a pistol, but they had a dark side and were not all good. Like Clint Eastwood in The Good The Bad and the Ugly, William Holden in the Wild Bunch, John Wayne in The Searchers, or Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven. True western heroes are never the type that are happy, upstanding citizens who also are great gunfighters who don’t fear death and are dangerous to bad guys but perfectly safe to good guys. That hero is the mark of a less interesting western movie. One that can still be good, but never great.

Another thing 3:10 to Yuma gets right is the villain. Yes. I hate it in movies when the bad guy whoots his own man just to prove what a bad guy he really is. And yes, Russell Crowe shoots his own man in the very first scene he’s in. But this time, it is with a purpose. It is not an attempt to make him into the personification of evil, he actually has a reason. Both Crowe and Christian Bale are absolutely fantastic in the movie, both playing the western “heroes” with shades of grey. Peter Fonda is fantastic as well, as a grizzled old Pinkerton detective, a standard character in the old westerns - the lawman charged with upholding the law who may actually be more evil than the man he is bringing to justice.

And that is what makes 3:10 to Yuma fantastic. This film really is a throwback to the western tradition of the 1950s when the original was made. That is one reason this is not a classic western. Really, there is nothing new here. This is just a revitalization and a masterful rendition of an old genre. There are two other things (two characters, in fact) that hold the movie back from being truly great - but it isn’t really the movie’s fault. You see, at the time in the 1950s, these two characters were in many of the westerns. But since then, these characters have become standard in countless movies, and so they seem like cliches. The one character is Crowe’s right-hand man, played by Ben Foster. He is the psychotic killer we see all too often in movies, the man who will kill anyone without compunction, but who looks upon his mentor with a kind of respect that borders on worship. The other character is Bale’s young son, who is almost cartoonish at the beginning of the film with his bitterness at his father and his lack of respect for his toughness. Of course we know he will respect his father by the end of the film, so it seems like overkill with so much of it at the beginning.

But the best part of 3:10 to Yuma is Russell Crowe. He is magnificent as the outlaw with ambiguous motives, he’s absolutely captivating whenever he is on the screen. He is able to walk a fine line between charm and menace, and it’s such a magnetic performance that we never lose sight of who he is. A killer and a bandit with some kind of conscience. He makes every scene he’s in come to life, and that’s almost the entire movie. The gunfights are great - realistic and gritty, if a little stylized. The final gun battle is also the second best since Unforgiven (number two is that final gun fight in Open Range.)

This is definitely the best well-publicized western since Unforgiven, but there have been quite a few good ones in the last few years, for all you western fans - Seraphim Falls was terrific, Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson turned in some great performances. The Proposition was criminally overlooked. Dead Man also, although that may well be because it is just so weird. But definitely worth seeing. And Open Range was a pretty good representation of the genre. It’s a genre that has been called dead many times, but with films like 3:10 to Yuma, one can only hope that the next resurrection of the western is coming soon.

As a film nerd, there are certain movies people assume I have seen. They will quote these movies to me as though I will automatically know what they are talking about. “You know the guy who plays Bob Slydell in Office Space”…or “remember that scene in Pink Flamingos…” and nine times out of ten, I have indeed seen the movie. However, I am still missing out on a few. One of those films is Trainspotting. Oh, I have had opportunities. In fact, I actually own a copy, but ever since I got it I just haven’t had a chance to watch it, or haven’t been in a mood to see it. And I know I should, and I know it will be good, and I love the rest of Danny Boyle’s stuff. He is the same guy who directed 28 Days Later, one of the most original zombie movies in twenty years, and now Sunshine, a movie I can describe only as breathtaking. It is available on Blu-Ray, and although I just watched it on regular DVD, I must say that if ever a film was created for Blu-Ray and HD, it is Sunshine (or maybe that Planet Earth box set).

As I watched Sunshine, two movies came almost immediately to mind. Event Horizon (although Sunshine was much better) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (although Sunshine wasn’t nearly that good). The main reason was that the first half plays very close to 2001. The talking computer that guides the ship, the incredible visuals of outer space, and the tense moments on spacewalks outside the ship itself. Then there is a moment that ranks up there with that “open the pod bay doors, HAL” moment in 2001. “There is enough oxygen on the ship for four people, right?” I won’t explain it. Those of you who have seen the movie will understand, those of you who have not ought to see the film. From that turning point on, the end of the film is very reminiscent of Event Horizon, again because of the visuals and because of the chaotic way in which it is filmed.

This is the only truly weak point of Sunshine, the chaotic nature of the ending. It is not bizarre in the same way the ending to, say, a Bergman film is bizarre. There IS a conclusion, it DOES make some sort of sense, but it is not that well thought out. If you pay close attention, and watch a few more times, then you end up with more questions than you had before. If you don’t pay close attention, and you just let the visuals overwhelm you until the credits roll, you won’t understand what’s happening at all. But this is a minor quibble, since the visuals are the main reason to watch. Cillian Murphy is terrific, as usual. He and Danny Boyle are one of those actor-director duos who are springing up everywhere now. (Cronenberg and Mortensen, Tarantino and Thurman, Lynch and Dern, Burton and Depp, etc…) And they do their best work together.

For a list of the best actor-director tandems of all time, check out this blog, I think it’s pretty good:
http://www.bestweekever.tv/2007/11/02/top-10-actor-director-tandems-in-movie-history/

Sunshine is a brilliant movie, and if you don’t mind a little bit of abstract art, you will thoroughly enjoy it. And if you have Blu-Ray, that also is a must when you’re renting.

I was excited for Dragon Wars. As those of you who read my blog regularly know, I have a serious affinity for the terrible monster movies. Mammoth! Megalodon! Ice Spiders! Well, I am sad to say that Dragon Wars does not achieve even that level of camp. This movie was apparently made with a budget of 70 million dollars. Which means the special effects are very good. Too good, in fact. The dragons (which are really snakes and flying things and walking things) are not campy because they look real enough. But this begs the same question I have asked of countless multi-million dollar movies. If you are going to spend 70 million bucks on a film, why not leave out just one of those monster-attacking-a-city scenes and spend that extra million bucks on a real screenplay, and maybe decent actors? When you have no story, you have no movie, no matter how spectacular these effects may be.

I am currently sitting in my basement, trying to avoid Maury Povich. Today his episode is about girls who used to be geeky and ugly, with self-esteem issues, and boys made fun of them. Now, several years later, however, these girls have blossomed into good looking, slutty strippers and porn stars, with self-esteem issues, and they want to rub it in the face of the boys who formerly rejected them. And for some reason, none of the guys say things like “yeah, I’m still not interested…you’re a hooker.” So I am downstairs watching Frank Capra’s briliant Mr. Deeds goes to town. Gary Cooper beats Maury Povich, hands down. And Maury Povich beats Dragon Wars, which is still on my mind. I just looked up the budget for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. It cost $806,774. Frank Capra was very worried at the time, as he had gone 5% over budget in crafting this classic. I then looked up the budget for that Adam Sandler remake that sucked so much. It was shot for a mere $50,000,000. I am trying really hard to figure out why. Since there were no real special effects, and the script was stolen from an essay written by a ten-year-old for English class, I can only assume that Winona Ryder earned $3,000,000, John Turturro earned $2,000,000, and Adam Sandler earned $44,000,000 for his role in the film. And $1,000,000 was spent on sandwiches.

That is a movie that certainly proves that big budget does not translate to better quality. Which brings me back to Dragon Wars. The movie is…I guess…about a young boy who walks past a box in an antique shop of some kind, and the box opens and turns blue, and then the proprietor of that shop (played by Robert Forster, who had his chance at a career after Tarantino cast him in Jackie Brown, but wasted it on movies such as this one) tells the boy that he is the reincarnation of a Korean dude. Then he tells a story about a Korean legend where a bad guy wants to be a dragon and a good guy needs to protect a girl who is pregnant with a child that will be needed to turn the bad guy into the dragon, but for some reason the bad guy wants to kill the girl, even though she has the child inside her, and instead the good guy and the girl die, and are reincarnated as this boy and some other girl. In modern Los Angeles. So, years later, the boy has grown into an impossibly handsome young reporter, and the girl is of course gorgeous. And works somewhere. Maybe.

Anyway, then some snakes show up and eat some elephants at the zoo, and start wrecking the city. The only way to stop them is to go to some cave. But they don’t. They are taken by the snake and then have a big fight with some bad guys and some flying beasts. Then another snake shows up to attack the evil snake, and they have a big battle, full of snake-on-snake violence. Then some weird stuff happens, the old man is never heard from again, and a glow of light takes the heroine away. Sounds dumb, no? Well, I have included only the smartest parts of this film. How this film got it’s 70 million dollar budget is beyond me. Don’t you have to show someone a script, or have good actors in place, or something to justify that kind of money to a studio? Apparently not. And why, you ask, would I even bother writing about this garbage movie? Well, because no one ever, I assume, has used the words “crappy Korean monster movie” in the same review as the words “Frank Capra”. Until now.

BlacKout is about an event we likely all recall. That giant blackout that turned off the power across Ontario and upstate New York a few years ago. I remember exactly what I did. I got a couple of girls from work to come home with me, we grabbed ice bags from the store in my building, we filled the tub with the ice and the beer that was still in my fridge, and we waited. Our phones were dependant on power, so we didn’t call anyone, we just waited. My roommate came home. Then the girls from downstairs came up. Then the two college guys from across the hall came over. Then other girls we knew just arrived from nowhere. Somehow the word was out, phones be damned, that our place was the central gathering point. People had beer, put it in the tub, and we had a great time out on our balcony and around our house for an entire night. This good time was aided by a small act of violence. When Dave from downstairs came up carrying his guitar, and set it down for a moment, we hid it in the ceiling until the next day. We were pleased to have a small party, but we’d be damned if it would turn into a campfire kumbaya party.

In other parts of the country, things weren’t so orderly. In particular, a neighbourhood in New York City called East Flatbush, where the tension boiled over into violence, looting, and a vey scary night for everyone in the area. BlacKout tells their story, and it is out on DVD this coming Tuesday courtesy of Paramount and BET. Most exciting for me was seeing that Melvin Van Peebles was in the film. Van Peebles (and yes, he is Mario’s father) is a cinematic legend, the man who almost single-handedly created the “blaxploitation” genre in the 70s with his film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadaasss Song. He certainly hasn’t done much of note recently, and I’m just glad to see that he’s working. By now, he is playing George, who is in his nineties and is the super of a building in East Flatbush, the building that is central to the movie. The movie deals with several couples, a mother and son, three old ladies and a few other individuals who live in that building, and what they do during the blackout. Believe me, it is much different from what I did.

BlacKout (I don’t know why I’m still putting that big K in there. I still don’t get the big K) plays like a second-rate Spike Lee film. Specifically, a second-rate Do The Right Thing. Very very similar films, in that Do The Right Thing was centered around one day, in that case the hottest summer day of the year, and BlacKout is centered around one day, the day of the…blackout. Also similar in that it follows many people around, and their stories intersect with one another without building to any kind of massive cheesy ending where every story comes together. They just exist on their own, and in relation to one another, and it is quite good. Second-rate Spike Lee is not really a put-down. Few films could match the tempo, the dialogue and the feel of Do The Right Thing. For example, Disturbia was a second-rate Rear Window, but it was still pretty good. Comparisons to Do The Right Thing I think are unavoidable with this film, but if you can watch the whole thing while constantly thinking of Spike Lee’s masterpiece and still enjoy it, the film maker here (in this case Jerry LaMothe) has done something impressive. BlacKout is good. It just isn’t classic.