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Two-Minute Warning (1976)
One of the great all-time bad movies
If you're in the right kind of mood (however you personally interpret that), you might find this tacky 70's idiocy to your 'so bad, it's great' list. This is Irwin Allen on one of his worst days, so be forewarned. Right down to that tepid "DUM . DUM . DUM . " 'suspenseful' TV-Movie soundtrack. DUMB is right!
Perhaps Hitchcock could have taken the basic sniper-in-the-stadium premise and come up with a decent & plausible action/suspense thriller. Instead, we are stuck with the most stupid, laughable script that sounds like it was written by a wanna-be on a crystal meth binge. Chuck Heston, Mr. Ol Grits & Sawdust himself, chews the scenery and his tightly clamped jaw simultaneously - no easy feat. He must have known what a true-blue stinker this was, and just went at it at full-force, no longer giving-a-damn. How he manages to keep such a straight, serious face throughout is acting in the truest sense of that ambiguous term.
The dialogue would make Ed Wood drool with envy. At first, I wasn't sure if this was a comedy or not. We have all those faded has-beens doing their 'spot the old star' cameos, proving to be nothing more than perfect clay pigeons for the unknown sniper. (Was Hollywood trying to tell them something?). As for the "mysterious sniper"; Who is He? What does He want? Why is He doing this? WHO CARES???!!!
John Cassavettes as a gung-ho right-wing conservative All-American SWAT Leader? How about Paris Hilton as a young, struggling Mother Theresa? Cassavettes was undoubtably having bad financial problems then to take on such vapid tripe. What other B.S. excuse could it be? He should be commended for keeping such a straight, stern and deadly serious look on his face as well.
As for crucial plot details, Heston suggests that they "slowly" evacuate the stadium (of over 90,000 extras & unemployed wanna-bes). I mean, how could the sniper suspect they are on to him? Obviously, he wouldn't catch-on until the whole stadium has been fully evacuated, so there wouldn't be any chance of him shooting anyone beforehand. I guess I just was never that smart to be a peace officer. Heston also comes off as the ideal, staunch & gallent NRA Poster Boy - gritty gun talk and all. Why does he always sound like he's constipated?
This is your true-blue Man's Man's Macho Movie in the most hilarious of ways. I won't spoil the "exciting" trample-fest ending, right out of 'Godzilla meets Rodan" - and Cassavettes' closing "moralistic" speech (which should have gotton him elected NRA Pres. - Was buddy Heston secretly taking notes? Hmmmmmmm.) Also, what a blatant racist Balsam's character comes off as, when he belligerently accuses Brock Peters (reduced to the 'Yes Boss' black janitor stereotype) of negligence. Who says Liberal Hollywood is predjudiced and unfair? Gotta blame somebody. Might as well pick those easy, convenient targets.
Anyways, our insulted token-minority member proves his innocence and worth to the Big White Man by bravely climbing the ladder to GET THAT GODDAMN SNIPER - only to get pushed-off, so he can lie helplessly on the ground, with a bleeding head, for the remainder of this truly thrilling tale of excitment. And you thought there was no justice left in our wonderful world.
I won't ruin the rest of the great surprises in store. What MST3000 could have done with 'Two-Minute Boring.' If only . . . If only . . . May God Bless You.
The Abominable Snowman (1957)
SEE IT IN WIDESCREEN
I first saw this exceptional Hammer film on the Sat. Nite 'Late Show' when I was 12 years old. I wasn't fully prepared for it, assuming that it would be your standard B monster movie. It proved to be far more than that. The script by Nigel Kneale (based on his BBC teleplay "The Creature", which I believe that Peter Cushing also starred in) was surprisingly very insightful and intelligent. No dumb or pretentious dialogue to be found here, and the entire cast gave great performances of some real substance - no shallow, annoying stereotypes.
It started at a slow pace, but began to gradually build much tension and atmospheric suspense. BUT, it was that one certain scene that really hit me hard - where that claw reaches in at the bottom of the tent!!! THAT WAS IT! The first time where I actually sprang up, shut the set off, and ran directly to bed and hid under the covers. No other genre film ever got so frightened a reaction from me. THIS WAS A FIRST! Mind you, no gore or grand effects. For a long time later, I'd occasionally trip on that scene, fearfully wondering what happened after that. Obviously, "Blair Witch" took a few creepy clues from this. The British had that weird approach to their 5O's Science-Fiction Horror Thrillers by creating a dark, creepy mood of claustrophobic paranoia and mounting terror; quite similar to Hitchcock's brilliant technique of building excruciating suspense and an overwhelming sense of pure dread. LONG LIVE THE KING!
Unfortunately, we don't see too much subtlety in todays' formulaic approach to cinema - it's all dumped on our laps, and is usually way too overcooked and half-baked.
I then finally got to see ASOTH about a year later without dashing under the covers during that haunting 'claw scene.' I was shocked by how engrossing the story kept getting. It was going for more than just the jugular. Kneale and director Val Guest devised quite a provocotive story about man and his fear of the unknown - and how, in his arrogance and self-serving greed, will misperceive and misinterpret what is actually real and what he thinks (and desperately hopes) to be real. Reality is highly ambiguous and this film excellently conveys how fear, greed and predjudice will always distort and twist what's actually true. Much like the troubled, uncertain world we live in, and so much of the narrow-minded bigotry that always seems to drop in uninvited. When the plastic bubble of ignorant complacency is suddenly tampered with or burst, all hell can then break loose where one's judgements, values and sanity can now be in serious question. It's safe to say we've all been in those confusing, dire boats at times, often when least expected, so one can thus relate to the allegories presented in this fine film's intriguing story.
Cushing and Tucker are superb and there's a strong dramatic chemistry between them - two opposing men with a similar goal, but with opposite viewpoints on their strange and increasingly dangerous mission - to capture the ever elusive and mysterious Yeti. Perhaps they're only chasing a myth; just like the misfit characters' plight in Huston's "Treasure of the Sierra Madrea," where paranoia takes over and spoils the party - or perhaps it's more real than they initially envisioned (and ignorantly 'hoped'). The ambiguous ending has that unsettling 'twilight zone' irony, and could also fit right in with "Outer Limits" in its disturbing philosophical tone - unlike the often pretentious and self-congratulatory Star Trek "intellectualisms".
WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS!! It was only on a more recent viewing that something odd occured to me. DON'T READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT YET!! When Cushing finally sees the dark shape of the aproaching Yeti, we 'see' it from Cushing's perspective (subjective shot from his P.O.V.). This seems to infer that he might be imagining it - or it might possibly be the real thing. We seem to know, but don't REALLY know. Our own perceptions, like the frightened characters are also now in question; thus our strong identifications with the main characters. Has anyone else ever picked up on that possible ambiguity?
Also, at the enigmatic conclusion when a stunned Cushing tells the deli llama that "What I was searching for, never really existed" and the llama replies with an almost sinister compassion that "There is no Yeti", as the camera pans back to the desolute Himalayan Mountains while we now wonder and question what we have just experienced. Some strokes of true genius here, far from your typical low budget 5O's B&W monster movie. It smoothly takes on those allegorically profound Kurusawa touches, that greatly distinguishes it from the rest of the B movie herd. Haunting, disturbing, evocotive and unforgettable - the genuine 'thinking persons' Science-Fiction Horror Thriller.
I have to also add that you should see it in it's wide screen format for it does make a vast (no dumb pun intended) difference. There are also eight minutes of extra footage - all extremely pertinent. No superfluous 'director's cut' crap. You haven't fully seen this undiscovered classic if you've only seen the AMC prints (unless they've been recently updated, which I doubt).
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - especially for those who've grown tired of so many mindless, overproduced Hollywood disappointers.
Reign of Fire (2002)
THE FILM IT COULD HAVE BEEN
In case you've been lost in space in a galaxy far, far away (someone should make a movie about that), the latest Hollywood filmmaking trend is the WASTED OPPORTUNITY. You've undoubtably suffered through them a few times, and thus painfully familiar with the good ol' formula: TAKE A PROMISING PREMISE, GET THE VIEWERS' HOPES HYPED, THEN RUN IT RIGHT INTO THE GROUND, and then brillantly assert that (get ready for the big, famous catchline) "IT WAS ONLY A MOVIE." Hmmmm, I thought it was a peanut butter and balony sandwich. What do I know?
Here we have the perfect textbook example. I won't bore you by harping on the zillion flaws since you've heard um all before. After an interesting opening scene where the dragon escapes from an underground London excavation site, director Bowman suddenly segues into a newspaper montage explaining how hordes of more fire-breathers have emerged (from where? How?) and have laid waste to most of the world. (Politically Incorrect dragons with misanthropic attitudes. See, there is intelligent life on this planet afterall).
NOW, allow me to ask the big, dumb question: HOW COME THAT WASN'T THE STORY?
When we jump ahead twenty years later (how time flies when the world is being destroyed), everything worth seeing has already happened. Sorta like showing up at the party about twenty minutes after everyone has split and there's nothing left but empty beer cans. Great way to spend an exciting evening isn't it? Is there a script doctor in the house?
Wouldn't it have been more suspenseful to have seen what occured right after the male dragon escaped and how all the others came to be? Did it help to unleash the rest from the bowels of the Earth? As an added bonus, did they also lay a few millions eggs that just happened to hatch at the appropriate moment? (This is pseudo movie science, not Einstein). Talk about planned parenthood.
I was all geared up to want to see their initial attacks against the world's major cities (INDEPENDENCE DRAGON; just spare me the thrilling excitment of Will Smith) and all the panic and mayhem that ensued. (Considering the state of planet earth today, who wouldn't?). NEXT, I would have really dug that crucial scene when the scientists finally realize (OH OH!) that it was our fine, flaming friends that undiplomatically evicted the dinosaurs and started the ice age - and three guesses as to who's next on the hot menu??? Also, imagine a surreal flashback that actually SHOWS this horrifying 'historical' event instead of "Oh yeah, I almost forgot; those dragons wiped out the dinosaurs and most of the human race. So what else did you do over the weekend?"
Forgive my patronizing, but isn't that what those cleverly deceptive posters and trailers were trying to B.S. us into believing - and buying?
THEN, the spectacular battles and devastation scenes (like that chilling TIME MAG cover of NYC in flaming ruins with those ominous words; THE END?) as mankind is frightfully defeated by the winged monsters. Can't win em' all, boys.
Wouldn't DRAG WARS have been a little more engrossing than this otherwise insipid TV-movie that only boasted fleeting moments of real action and tension? No? Then quit reading this. Also, speaking of dragons, WHERE THE HELL WERE THEY? Off on an extended lunch break? All I can recall seeing were something like birds in the distance. How's that for threatening and terrifying? I bet you had a hard time falling asleep later that night. I did; furiously tripping on the time, money and naive desire I beautifully wasted on this putrid mess, but mostly thinking about the far, far (where have we heard that one before?) greater film that REIGN OF BURN could have been. Looks like the LOST OPPORTUNITY is here to stay. Oh well - DUH! Kinda makes you wish the dragons would torch out Hollywood and all of its vapid Yuppie Cinema. Better run and take cover.
PREQUEL, ANYONE?
Independence Day (1996)
INTERESTING FAILURE
I won't hark on the billion plot flaws, sterotyped characters, the sophomoric "comic relief" or the just plain stupid dialogue, like those 'intellectuals', who feel it is their moral responsibility to constantly niggle over obvious (and inevitable) flaws. I also cannot give my naive loyalties and idiotic blessings over to those "Chill out, it's only a popcorn flick" devotees either.
What I will say is "WHAT A PERFECTLY WASTED OPPORTUNITY!!!" (Can anyone spell 'Reign of Fire'?). When I first saw those eye-opening trailers, I had that stupid, good-hearted (and totally deceptive) impression that this would be a dark, intriguing and terrifying epic vision of alien armegeddon. No such bad-ass luck.
Knowing Hollywood all-too-well (like the old 'familiarity breeding contempt'), I should have cynically suspected that I was actually being attacked by the promo and marketing aliens. I did initially wonder, but like many of us, I allowed myself to be grossly misled out of that simple, innocent (and ignorant) desire to see a truly entertaining and greatly provocotive Science-fiction thriller. I must have been ripped out of my craving gord with such "positive" hopeless optimism.
Remember those effective ominous shots of the gigantic shadows engulfing those 'usual target' cities? You would almost enthusiastically assume that this was going to be something really grim, scary and profound. HOWEVER, (don't you just love that encouraging word?), what we finally get is "The Will Smith Comedy Hour" and a so-called plot that made the stories on 'Lost in Space' seem like compelling masterpieces of brilliant Science-Fiction. Also, let's not forget all those forgettable cut-out & paste paper mache' characters.
Now, wouldn't you think that a big-budgeted film about aliens destroying the world would have at least some suspense and an overwhelming sense of dread and horror, along with frightfully riveting action - perhaps even a little bit of disturbing thought? Aren't those the prime ingredients that we usually seek from films of this kind? A bit more than just shallow 'entertainment'?
I'm not advocating the dull, talky "intelligent" pretentious "art" films either. How about encorporating the 'best of both worlds' and have a tense, exciting action film that also tells an effective story to leave you with some appropriate nightmares and renewed perceptions of one's self and the troubled world we're living in (or at least trying to)?
I believe that's called integrity (or something along those critical lines); and even those "enjoyably entertaining" turn-off-your-enlightened-brain popcorn time-passers still need some structure and consistancy to rock& roll with at least some class.
Is that requesting too much from today's greedy and convoluted 'beyond-any-even-false-hope' film industry? Probably so.
I'm outta here. I got some important snoring to catch up on.
Beast from Haunted Cave (1959)
Slow 5O's Corman builds to terrific climax
This was another childhood late late show haunting memory I saw some time back. Still excruciatingly SLOOOOOOW til the final exciting fifteen minutes of fame. HOWEVER, the characters are a bit better developed than usual, AND director Hellman (who went on to direct Jack Nicholson in some interesting 7O's cult films) cut his teeth fairly well on this early low budget effort by creating a dark and eerie haunting mood and morbidly chilling atmosphere.
We know the basic plot, but the genre reversal has its offbeat merits: the gangsters-on-the-lame crime noir tale that gradually slides into a scary supernatural story. 'Twilight Zone' and 'Thriller' used those narrative techniques effectively in building mystery and high-edged suspense. There are those few moments throughout when the Lovecraftian creature appears like a phantom from out of the cold darkness and attacks various charactors - and they still shook me.
'Blair Witch' took some subtle clues here of the fear of the unseen lurking menace that can see you, but you can't see it.
WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS
However, it's the last part where they finally encounter the beast in the cave that makes up for lost time. The monster is original and quite freakishly scary - and, to top the monster-menu, it's also inhabited by the evil revengeful Indian Warrior. Not a tame mix. This beast can suddenly move fast-as-hell and be upon you just like that -once its got you, that's all folks. And that blood-sucking scene was quite morbid for the time - even now. No gore, just a scary mood topped with final frightening action - GRIM GUSTO.
The actors do well enough that I came to know them a bit and even cared somewhat as to their dire fate in haunted cave. The ending stayed with me for a long time after my first 12 year old viewing. Yes, you can see an early 'Alien' precursor here.
The interestingly weird spider-like monster outfit was personally designed and operated from within by actor Chris Robinson, who appeared in supporting roles on "Outer Limits", "Fugitive" and "Invaders" as well as other mostly low budget, but notable films, later in the sixties. I wholeheartingly applaud his creative ingenuity and esoteric determination - who else would wear that bloody thing?
Like most B&W 5O's B's, it looks best at 2:OO AM. Corman was a sufficient wiz at these endeavors and always lent a strange absorbing charm and appealing offbeat character to these minor atmospheric gems; that often surprised me by being just a little bit better than I had anticipated.
Be ready to fast-forward during the drawn-out middle section. Climax is grisly, but it's the wicked stuff of good B horror. GIVE BEAST A CHANCE.
P.S. Did a younger Kubrick ever see this? The weird idea of the haunting, accursed Indian Spirit is a little similar to "The Shining's" supernatural Indian folklore theme. BRRRRRR! ,
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
Still 5O's greatest Science-fiction classic
What to say about this highly effective memorable classic that hasn't already been said? Recently, I saw it again, first fearing that it wouldn't live up to my fond and frightened memories, but it actually MORE than did! As an adult, I was able to see the many disturbing existential themes in this marvelously crafted Jack Arnold production, undoubtably his best.
Top screenwriting honors go to Richard Matheson for his brilliant script that makes all the pseudo-science believable and maybe even possible. Obviously, the science in this film is total nonsense, but with each seduced viewing, I would automatically react as if it could possibly happen - and worse than that - it could happen possibly to ME or even YOU. When I first saw this, at lucky age 13, on the late show, I took those nightmares to bed with me. I was completely stunned and very disturbed.
When Scott Carey first notices that his clothes don't fit right and he's now two inches shorter, I was cringing in mortal terror as if it was happening to me. This was deadly serious - no tongue in no cheek. This is also great filmmaking at its greatest and most frightfully effective. I don't know of anyone who never got completely lost, absorbed and captivated by the intriguing story and its moral and philosophical themes.
Special FX hold up impressively well; 5O's audiences must have really been mesmerized by them on the big screen. The Cat and Spider scare scenes are amongest the best; tense, riveting action of the most murderously suspensefull kind. I dare anyone to feel complacent or ho-hum during them.
Williams somberly assertive narration deserves to be congratulated - I really and fully cared for him and feared over his impending, doomed fate as if it was happening to my best friend and even myself. It was the taut existential lonliness and bleak isolation that forced me to identify and relate to Carey's tragic hell- ingenious, allegorical portrait of one's own personal angst. WHEW!!!
Interesting how Carey begins as your so-called average Joe, who wouldn't be too popular with todays feminists, then, as he gradually shrinks, becomes more deep and humble and even poetically intellectual for a former jock. Wickedly ironic how his shrinking begins to castrate him til he's in the humiliated, impotent position to his bigger wife. Sinister, as to how their roles slowly reverse - the patriarch is now the fallen angel. Why do these things have to happen???
Superb acting from the underrated Grant Williams, strong and sensitive, tough and vulnerable - may God be with him.
WARNING - POSSIBLE SPOILERS - Moreover, it was that profound and ambiguous ending that really got to me. I was left astonished and dumbfounded as I stared at the old test-pattern, wondering what the hell I had just experienced: Was it final acceptance of the inevitable? Our own lone search for our place in the world and universe? Search for God?
I can keep going on forever as Scott Carey will go on shrinking forever. Scary, bizarre, astounding, but highly enlightening. Not many films can do this and not too many, if any, probably ever will.
ISM was both a commercial and critical success - entertaining and artistically provocotive. It will always be a treasured enigma to me as it's been to so many others I've known and reviews I've read. Check it out - again.
"To God there is no zero - I still Exist."