Movies to Knock Off The List, pt. 3

Redford shoots- he scores! (more to come)

This is a movie that, by all rights, I should absolutely despise. It has all the superficial qualities that I've always cited as detractors from a film- overdone production design, neon-ridden cityscapes, inexplicable lighting, synthesizer score, midgets for midgets' sake... heck, just three reviews ago I said that I was soured on the dystopic future genre entirely. Yet somehow, the film brings all these together with a well-written script, fantastic direction, a dark, moody tone, and wonderful performances to form a coherent, breathtaking vision- to me, the exception that proves the rule. Damn you, Ridley Scott, for inspiring less talented filmmakers to abuse those elements for years after Blade Runner's release (cases in point: Judge Dredd and Batman and Robin- production design gone amok). The version I saw was the Final Cut, so the visuals were as pristine as it was possible for them to be, the pace was good and quick without cutting out character, and the narrative was uncluttered by poor voice-over narration or a tacked-on ending. The movie is film noir through and through; set in the far future (though not quite as far as it would have seemed in 1982), the film is about Rick Deckard, a cop (or "blade runner") whose specialty is the "retirement" (i.e. termination) of replicants (genetically-engineered androids indistinguishable from humans), who gets called in to do one last assignment when four renegade "skin-jobs" pop up in the middle of 2019 Los Angeles. Now hot on the trail of the rogue replicants and confronted by a newer model who doesn't even realize that she's an android, Deckard has to watch out for his inhumanly strong, super-quick prey while facing up to the question of "what is human?" Appearing in his third sci-fi adventure flick in a row, Harrison Ford plays Deckard, a Chandler-esq private-eye-type who, like all good noir detectives, gets his teeth kicked in more often than not. Deckard is kind of an average Joe character, a guy who's just trying to do his job and go about his own business, and doesn't give a crap about much else; as it is written, the character could have been played by, well, anybody (the documentary even says as much), so any character inflections come straight from Harrison Ford, who makes the guy quiet, contemplative, and occasionally something of a smart-ass. Sean Young also stars as Rachel, a next-gen replicant designed to believe she's a regular human, and the dame who ultimately screws up Deckard's initial world view. Young defines the term classical beauty here, as it looks like she stepped right out of the forties; her deliveries are flat and uninflected at first, as she has this unshakable poise for the early portions of the movie, but that slowly dissolves as she spends more time with Deckard, and strives for the humanity that she suddenly finds has been denied to her. Rutger Hauer knocks it out of the park as Roy Batty, leader of the maladjusted replicants. I hesitate to call him a villain, because even though he does pretty sinister things, he does them, first of all, in pursuit of a fundamentally understandable, universal goal- the drive to live (his replicant model was designed with only a four-year life span)- and secondly, Hauer plays him as a fully-rounded, three dimensional character- though still quite an intimidating one. The dialogue in Roy's best scene- his last- was entirely improvised by Hauer himself, because he felt the soliloquy in the script wasn't relatable; considering that Roy's final lines are beautifully poetic, this knowledge raises my estimation of Hauer's talents a hundredfold. Beside him for most of the film is Darryl Hannah as Pris, Roy's gun moll, if you will; with her white face, blackened eyes, and blond fright-wig, she is the most inhuman of the replicants, both startlingly acrobatic and undeniably doll-like. The visual effects, while more than two decades old, are amazingly effective and captivating, creating a megapolis out of L.A. with huge video billboards, gargantuan buildings, and (hooray!) flying cars. The street-level scenes create a mish-mash of cultures (with a crap-load of focus on the Japanese) and fills it with neon-splattered urban decay, sprinkling atop it generous portions of smoke, steam, and continuous rainfall. The exteriors are all lit practically (for the most part), while the interiors are lit dramatically (and brilliantly) to create the maximum visual effect. The compositions are ALL artful, which is quite an amazing feat, and the camera work is inventive and clever. The one caveat I had with the film was the unicorn dream (from the Final and Director's Cuts only), which didn't seem to have any relevance at all to anything, but thankfully, by the end, the point of it comes to the fore in a clever way, bringing into question Deckard's own humanity (a question which is more poignant when left unanswered and ambiguous). Perhaps it's just the cut I watched, but it seemed to me that Blade Runner was not as abstract, indecipherable, or disconnected from humanity as I had been led to believe; in fact, I got it right off the bat: it is a dark, brooding, intelligent film that, like everything Phillip K. Dick did, questions the very foundations of our reality, and like everything Ridley Scott does, is filled with artistic wonders and brilliant storytelling. It's got heart and soul, and that makes it more than any of its poor imitators could ever hope to be.

Well. I may never look at a television set the same way again. David Cronenberg, while expressing a great deal of opinions concerning TV that I share, has once again presented a movie that is so bizarre in its sensibilities and so extreme in its symbolism that I can't help but feel slightly alienated by it... and more than a little amused by the audacity of it. Visceral, violent, and disturbing, it is a movie that is hard to put out of your mind, and, like all good films, leaves you with something to think about (delivered in true Cronenberg style). It starts off simply enough: Max Renn is one of the proprietors of a minor cable TV station that specializes in the tasteless and taboo. He visits a video specialist to try to find new, underground material for his station by pirating random TV signals, and stumbles across something called Videodrome, a "show" that's nothing but continuous torture and murder set in a dungeon. Unable to take his mind off it, and convinced that he's on to something big, Max tracks down the source of Videodrome, only to discover a dark secret: the signal itself gives the viewer a brain tumor, which causes surreal and nightmarish hallucinations and renders them programmable. James Woods as the sleazy, exploitative Max is perfectly cut-out for the role, a guy who rationalizes his morally challenged existence to everyone, including himself, and who doesn't see himself as a bad person- who really isn't, actually, until he lets his voyeuristic obsession with the darker side of human nature take over. Probably the most telling symbolic moment is when Max, under the thrall of a Videodrome cassette, is seduced by his own television set, burying his face into the image of his lover's lips as he gropes the screen wantonly; soon he is a slave to his addiction, literally and figuratively, and it's difficult to tell if he does what he does because Videodrome forces him to or because he'll do anything for more Videodrome. As Nicki Brand, Max's mysterious lover and most frequent hallucination, Deborah Harry (who made her major motion picture debut with this film) is alluring and seductive, offering noir-ish hints of sadomasochistic temptation for Max before he's even affected by the evil TV signal; while she almost plays as an evil Jessica Rabbit, she's not really in the film enough for this to be a major issue (after act one, she just sort of pops up once or twice). The rest of the characters are too two-dimensional to really mention- there's the evil suit pulling the strings (Leslie Carlson as Barry Convex), the video-pirating nerd with delusions of grandeur (Peter Dvorsky as Harlan), and... okay, there is the bizarre preacher of the advent of television civilization, one Professor Brian O'Blivion (played by Jack Dreley), but he has more for an interesting face than any sort of an actual performance. The film calls into question a subject that has weighed on my mind heavily- the increasing immersion of society in a growing sea of video and audio stimulation. Especially relevant now (what with the advent of the Internet and mobile phones that can play TV shows and movies), Cronenberg associates the false stimulus of the image of a TV set with a hallucination, which is where the make-up effects come in, as these visions start to manifest in the real world in increasingly strange and off-putting ways. As usual, the weirdness of the film takes center stage here, with prosthetic effects that are visceral and disturbing creating the most horrific of hallucinatory nightmares to come out of Cronenberg's sick, sick mind (the fact that the word "flesh" keeps popping up in his movies genuinely disturbs me, though I'm not certain why). I couldn't help but compare the latter half of the film to a Freddy Krueger flick, and by then, of course, the line between reality and fantasy is so blurred that it's hard to guess what's supposed to be real and what isn't. Probably the strangest of these effects is the decidedly symbolic slit that appears in Max's midsection, into which videocassettes are inserted that control his thoughts. Freud would have had a field day with that one. Overall, I'd say that, while Videodrome has some good and interesting points on the subjects of television and video's effect on the viewer and the nature and perils of voyeurism, it is, like so many other Cronenberg flicks, really, REALLY f-ed up, and with little to no explanation provided- making it less palatable to the casual moviegoer than some of his more mainstream flicks like the Fly. Still, I have to admit that it's a hell of a viewing experience, and it really sticks with you when it's over (especially given its rather abrupt and startling ending). Definitely worth the watch.

OH DEAR, SWEET JESUS. I haven't had such a concentrated dose of pure eighties in my ENTIRE LIFE. This movie is like the shallowest, most self-indulgent fluff to come out of that entire materialistic decade- and that is saying something. The funny thing is, I actually do like fighter pilot stories from OTHER films (the climax of Batman counts, right?), but this one is so overdone with melodrama, testosterone, and that wonderful T.V. commercial-style slickness (that would later be adopted by Jerry Bruckheimer for every single one of his movies) that I can't help but, well, hate it. Seriously, it's like the template of a Michael Bay movie, with the simple plot, predictable twists, and cookie-cutter happy ending, played against a rock-filled soundtrack and a series of pumped-up action sequences. And has there ever been a film where the primitive animal drive to be the BEST was so blatant and so central to the film's plot? No, I think not. In fact, the film's entire narrative structure is HINGED on the concept, with a bunch of gung-ho fighter pilots engaging in dogfight tactics training at the Fighter Weapons School pilot training facility, competing both in the skies and on the ground. As part of the new batch of recruits, we meet Maverick, a natural in the cockpit who's out to follow through on his father's legacy as one of the best pilots in the sky, and his rival Iceman, another gifted pilot whose level head and by-the-book skills make him the best candidate for the Top Gun graduation prize. While at a bar with his fellow pilots, Maverick meets Charlie, a feisty girl who turns out to be an aeronautics expert at the training facility; he continues to court her anyway, and soon they are having a steamy affair, albeit one hindered by their working relationship. Maverick finds that, if he is really going to be the best, he has to learn to balance his responsibilities with his gifts, and that he must get past the shadow of his father if he wants become his own man. Now, not only is that an insufferably clichéd plot, but the characters fit right into their molds: Tom Cruise plays Maverick, the headstrong, anti-authority hot shot who has the brass balls to call himself the best, and the skills to back up the claim. While I usually have no problem with Cruise in other movies, here he came off as incredibly annoying, a hot-headed snot who expects the world to pander to him 'cause, hey, he's hot shit! He's the guy who knows he's the best, and lets it get to his head- and in the end, he's still the best, and his arrogance is rewarded. Yay. Val Kilmer plays opposite Cruise as Iceman, the intense, straight-laced big man on campus who says that Maverick is reckless and irresponsible, and is ultimately right; in a nice, unexpected twist, Ice WINS the Top Gun prize, but he ends up overshadowed by Maverick anyway. Kilmer is kind of bland in the part, really- it's a fine line between cool and apathetic, and I think he takes a hop or two across that line as the film goes on. Kelly McGillis is in there as well as Charlie, a fiercely independent woman who is immune to Maverick's baser charms, and sees past the slick exterior to the soft, vulnerable guy inside, the guy she ends up falling in love with (yes, it's that bad). She makes for good banter with Cruise, but the conflicts between them seem incidental, since it's obvious that they're going to end up together before the credits roll- and lo and behold, they do, in a contrived last-minute walk-on that isn't fully explained. Oh, and Anthony Edwards is, in my opinion, the unsung hero of the movie, bringing to the part of Goose, Maverick's partner, a lighthearted sense of fun that the movie really needed, but one that crashes and burns when the character, well, crashes and burns- his death, while necessary to the plot, actually does come as quite a blow to the viewer, and it's hard not to assign culpability to Maverick for the whole thing (there were five targets- he had to tail Iceman?). Michael Ironside and Tom Skerritt appear as too-cool instructors Jester and Viper, and Tim Robbins makes a blink-and-you'll-miss-him appearance as Merlin, whom we never see without his mask. The film boasts golden-sunset lighting and bright blue nights, and like I said earlier, the overall visual look of the film is like the ultra-polished style of a T.V. commercial- a car ad, probably, something from Mitsubishi. The dialogue is so trite that it's almost it's own parody, and it feels unbearably cheesy during a lot of the more tender moments. The score is light and fluffy, mostly dressing for the soundtrack (and DAMN that soundtrack- I can never get that damn "Danger Zone" song out of my head once I hear it). Also, just a note, but this movie features what has to be the most unintentionally homo-erotic sequence I've ever seen in a movie: shirtless volleyball between the guys, set to a peppy eighties beat. I mean, I'm usually not to picky about that kind of thing, and I usually don't like using the word as a descriptor this way, but that scene was gay gay GAY. The action sequences, on the other hand, are really, really well done, with vertigo-inducing twists and high-speed passes between maneuvering jets; it really goes for a high-octane experience, putting the audience right there with the pilots. Going on just the action, I would probably have given this film a much higher rating, but the fact is, the plot is too flimsy and conveniently resolved, the acting is just about average, the script is hokey, and the whole thing just feels like a relic of a by-gone age. Can you imagine a realistic movie about jet pilots in the Navy made NOW? Do you think it'd be nearly so upbeat, given cinema's stance on the military these days? Didn't think so. This is fluff at its fluffiest, only the most insubstantial of intellectual appetizers, and an anthropologist's tool at best. Movies are better than this now. Well, some of them, anyway.