Godzilla Vs Week: Godzilla Vs Mothra

Hello and greetings to Day 1 of Godzilla Vs Week.  I apologize to the stateside readers in that I was a bit busy today just working out and living life.  Today's film starts us off with the third Kaiju in the series to be independent as much as King Kong and Godzilla and that rests on the wings of the one and only Mothra.  Yes, the plucky flying Kaiju befriended by forced perspective identical twins of fairy stature who live on a tropical island and worship the giant moth and it is only they who through the power of prayer or an irritating song can summon the mighty beast to call of battle.

"But Jake, what in the Sam Scratch has that got to do with Godzilla?!!"   Well, angry shouty person, I will tell you.  This time around in the fourth Godzilla film it is a smackdown between Mothra and Godzilla.  Apparently the King of the Monsters crown got a bit snug and it is up to Mothra to set Godzilla straight about a thing or two.  This is Godzilla Vs Mothra a.k.a. Godzilla vs The Thing, Mothra Vs Godzilla.

Think I need a breath mint?

Jiro Nakamura: "I'm not as afraid of Godzilla as I am of the spoiler...  he's meaner."







Reporter Ichiro Sakai (Akira Takarada of A Rainbow Plays in My Heart, On Wings of Love, A Holiday in Tokyo, The Flower and Half Human) and photographer Junko Nakanishi (Yuriko Hoshi of Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Kill!, Let's Go, Young Guy!, Judo Champion and Godzilla vs, Megaguirus) are taking snaps of the wanton destruction created by a massive typhoon when the uncover a giant reptile scale in the wreckage.  Further that same day an enormous egg was found on the shore.  the local fishermen and villagers claim salvage to it and soon scientists of various field come to study it.  
Professor Miura (Hiroshi Koizumi of Star of Hong Kong, Matango, Kon'nichiwa akachan, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Little Adventurer and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla) brings valid questions of the origin of the egg, whether the villagers have any stories or legends of a being of great size and might that could be reasoned where the egg hails from but a slick entrepreneur Kumayama, head of the Happy Enterprises appeals to the villagers' wallet, buys the egg outright for peanuts and invests a billion dollars in the potential tourism the egg will generate.  I always have given the Japanese more credit than something this foolish.  This ranks right up there with a fissure cracks up to Tartarus and you want to run a hotel and do photo ops with the random dead spewing out into the land of the living.

Last time I go drinking all night with Kong. Whew!

Our adorable twin girls of inch height plead with the slickster telling the great danger in keeping the egg as it belongs to Mothra and should be returned back toot sweet but Kumayama will hear nothing of this but offers to buy the twins as an addition to the tourism.  Yes he offers to buy sentient people for his ill-gotten gains.  Charming fellow.  I'll prep the waterboard and the bamboo for his fingers.  Moving along,  Godzilla rears his head at the arrival of a potential rival to his throne or domain.  He is very territorial and comes crashing into Nagayoya to find the egg and possibly squish it.  Mothra dives in to duke it out with Godzilla and then the buildings, streets and cars take a beating like no body's business.

Just a few comments about the film now.  This being the fourth of the Godzilla series this particular series is known as the Showa series reflecting the time in history of the reign of the Showa Emperor Hirohito being one of the longest of any previous Japanese emperor so Godzilla had a similar reign as King of the Monsters.
This time also brought about a myriad of creatures for the series with creatures like Mothra, Rodan, Ghidorah and the infamous Mechagodzilla.   This original inception of Godzilla and his universe hails from 1954 up to 1975 and had no more runs until the revamp in 1984.

Green Hornet??

1950's Sci-Fi Week!!!

Yes, yes I know I have been AWOL for the last few days.  Sleeping habits are being more horrendous than usual so allow me the opportunity to apologize to my readers up front.  I am sorry, gang.   With that in mind I will be doing a collection of films from the 1950's via Science Fiction. Some good, some bad but all fifties.  Why the fifties?  Well considering this is where Lucas, Carpenter, Speilberg and Cronenberg grew up with and influenced my generation, I feel it only fitting and proper to absorb what wild and bizarre may have touched them.

Earthlings! Prepare to be probed...vigorously.

With this in mind we will be experiencing films of Howard Hawks caliber to things like Robot Monster. It shall as always be a grab bag of cheers and jeers so buckle up kiddies, because this one we may never return from...or you know, we will just learn about some films...kinda like any other time.

Atomic Monsters Week: Godzilla Raids Again

Back again my fine collection of fanatical readers and behold Day 3 of Atomic Monsters Week.  This time around we look at the lesser sequel of the original Gojira or Godzilla for the crass American Yankee Pig Dogs.  Sadly director Ishiro Honda (Gojira, Mothra VS Godzilla and King Kong VS Godzilla) will not be helming this particular film and in his stead is newcomer to this genre director Motoyoshi Oda (Yurei otoko a.k.a. Ghost Man, Tomei ningen a.k.a. Invisible Avenger and A Will o’ the Wisp) and yet every production member of the original including composition and special effects were on board for this continuation.  So grab your best rain coat, head for the shelters and pause and point at the behemoths.  This is Godzilla Raids Again.

 

Hey, do I have anything in my teeth?

Shoichi Tsukioka: Spoiler… we beat Godzilla for you.

A scant six months after the original, Toho Company was chomping at the bit to get the next installment out to the screens and Honda was not on board when commenting how grueling the first film was and that their deadline would simply not do.  Toho didn’t hand him his walking papers and understood but had to get the product out and on the screens. 

Our story occurs shortly after the first as two pilots Tsukioka and Kobayashi (he has a Starfleet scenario named after him) land on a remote island in the Pacific looking for mass tuna fleets for a cannery company in Osaka.  What they witness is two immense beasts duking it out and flogging one another.   Tsukioka recognizes one of the creatures as Godzilla.  Moments after that realization the monsters tumble off a cliff and right into the ocean.  Our pilots immediately report their findings to Osaka and are scooped up by the military and their scientific team as the other creature is simply known as Anguirus for how he resembles an Ankylosaurus.  A scientist hypothesized that both Godzilla and Anguirus have existed from many millions of years ago and further note that the atomic tests may have stirred them from their ancient slumber as well as imbue them fantastic powers.  Thankfully these cats didn’t read from the Necronomicon or we would have an even bigger problem.   Moving right along, Dr. Yamane comments on his late colleague destroying the first Godzilla with his imploding bomb the Oxygen Destroyer but that he had passed on and destroyed his formula. 

So ya wanna rumble, eh?

From that realm of thought it would be feasible to distract blinding flares as he believes it was the atomic bombs’ flash that stirred and disturbed him in the first place.   The creature is warded off only to be drug back to shore when a substantial gasoline fire goes off.  Both Godzilla and Anguirus seem to be drawn to devastation. Our two fearless pilots with the Air Forces blessing hatch an audacious plan to sink Godzilla into the frozen depths beyond Osaka.  Apparently if you can fly a twin prop you are allowed your own ID4 moment. 

I had just a few comments on the film.  While the story wasn’t brilliant or remotely original; the quality of the film meets the same as its predecessor in that the effects were bang on, the composer is Masaru Sato of the Kurosawa films and it sounds far too good for the action or lack of action on the screen.  At best I give this a C Minus for effort and execution.  Better luck next time!

Oh jeez, Miley is at it again. That girl cannot be tamed!

Atomic Monsters Week: Them!

Hiya boys and girls! Welcome back to Day 2 of Atomic Monsters Week.  Say, what is better than a giant pissed off irradiated monster trashing the land?   Well what would you say to several irradiated monsters roaming all over New Mexico and scissoring people entwine?  Other than ouch of course being the key factor.   So grab your noble scientist, a disgruntled career military man and of course the hapless and helpless female.  This is Them!

Bah! I laugh at RAID!

Dr. Harold Medford: Get the spoiler! Get the antennae!

From the vast depths of screenplay writer Ted Sherdman (The Eddie Cantor Story, Hell to Eternity, The Big Show, Misty, Wagon Train, Hazel and Latitude Zero) come an atomic age terror lurking in the New Mexico Alamogordo area as two state police trooper Ben Peterson (James Whitmore of The Last Frontier, Crime in the Streets, The Deep Six, Face of Fire, The Law and Mr. Jones and The Shawshank Redemption) and Ed Blackburn find a little girl in the desert walking slowly and eyes so warped they can only guess what hell she could have seen.  Following her little footprints back to a mobile home that looks like a giant can opener or the Jaws of Life had gone all Willy nilly to it.   They find it registers to an FBI agent named Ellinson who was vacationing with his wife and two children.  No one is to be found and the child reacts to a strange sound that seems to almost echo on the winds.

Ted, you fart in the car one more time I am burying you in the desert!

More deaths and disappearances happen and our steadfast troopers investigate the remains of a general store with a dead store owner, his money still in the register and barrels of sugar smashed to pieces.  Peterson goes to check in on the girl in the squad car and head out to file a report while Blackburn does a sweep of the area. 

Peterson makes a cast of an odd footprint at the scene and heads back to office with the little girl and evidence in tow while Blackburn investigated noises and well…we all know how well that will go.  Peterson’s captain points out what happen to the general store owner that his gun before the bending must have emptied multiple rounds at his assailant before he got his neck and back broken, a fractured skull, crushed ribcage and enough formic acid in his blood stream to kill 25 men.  

The FBI unable to identify the footprint sends field agent Robert Graham (James Arness of The Thing from Another World, Hondo, Hellgate and Gunsmoke) along with expert entomologists Dr. Harold Medford and Dr. Pat Medford.  Harold is terrified at his theory but vouches for a brisk search around the premises of the mobile home when the lawmen and doctors come in contact with a eight foot long ant. 

Our law dogs empty their .38s at them like the last reel of Gunfight at O.K. Corral to no effect when Dr. Medford tells them to shoot their antennae thus blinding the creature and Peterson dumps a sub-machine gun in the creatures face.  

Medford is horrified to confirm his theory that this ant originated at Alamogordo’s first atomic bomb test site.  Can they do anything to stop these twisted lives that man has created whilst playing God or are they doomed to be lowered on the food chain?

Oh go watch the film it was thoroughly enjoyable.

Sure could use this for speeders!!!

  

Atomic Monsters Week: Godzilla, King of the Monsters!

Welcome ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls to the first day of Atomic Monsters Week.  To start us off right we must go to the King of the Atomic Monsters himself. The massive 164 foot tall and weighing in at 350 cubic tons!!!  I give you Gojira!!!!    So evacuate the beaches, close off air traffic and all bridges.  This is Godzilla, King of the Monsters!

 

So a Buddhist, a Daoist and a monk are..lemme check my Maxim again.

Dr. Serizawa: Ogata, humans are weak animals. Even if I burn my notes, the spoiler will still be in my head. Until I die, how can I be sure I won’t be forced by someone to make the device again?

Near the Odo Island, a fishing boat is attacked by a huge ball of fire.  Another ship is sent to investigate and offer aid only to be the same end with a handful of the crew surviving.  Meanwhile on the island, the village elder blames their lack of fishing crop to a sea beast known only as Gojira (Godzilla to you gajin) and tells tales of earlier times about native girls that were sacrificed to appease Godzilla and allow the village to live in peace.  Sketchy reports come following in for the Japanese Navy and news investigators make their way to the island via helicopter.  After many interviews the natives perform an ancient warding ceremony to keep the monstrous beast at by.   Not really knowing if it worked the whole village just sacks out.  Not even a single lookout for this.  The islanders are woken from sleep from a large storm crashing down against the rocks and the township as a young lad sees Godzilla bob bob bobbing along in the water.

I likes the night life! I wants to boogie!!

Terrified at the mainland the city of Tokyo is in ruin as Godzilla makes his way during the night and proceeds to stomp and burn his way through the city and heads back to the bay.  The military in a desperate attempt to hold off the gigantic beastie constructs a fence of electric towers holding a current of 50,000 volts to zap Godzilla where he to appear again.  Civilians are completely evacuated from the area and put in shelters.   Sure enough night fell and our boy is out and about, trashes the electric border and burns it down with his atomic fire breath (and super robot rocket punch OoOoo).  Total bombardment of tank fire and fighter jets annoyed Godzilla and caused him to leave.

Tokyo is in utter chaos with hospitals swamped with patients mostly from severe radiation poisoning, it was thought that the atomic weapons testing the Americans performed may have irritated this ancient dinosaur like creature making him this unnatural force of destruction.

In what seems like a futile attempt to destroy the monster; scientist Dr. Serizawa must make the conscious decision to use an imploding bomb on Godzilla causing all the immediate oxygen atoms to dissipate and make Godzilla asphyxiate to his death. 

I have just a few quick facts about the film now.  The inspiration of the movie was based on the hydrogen bomb tests at Bikini Atoll when a fishing ship the Lucky Dragon 5 got swept by a nuclear test yielding 15 megatons rather than the estimated 6.  The blast caused the military assigned, the villagers nearby and several of the Lucky Dragon 5 crew members to be sicken with radiation poisoning and causing death to more than a few.  It also issued the concerns of nuclear fallout and the contamination in the food supply of fish.   In 1956 the TransWorld Releasing Corp released an edited version of the movie for the US titled Godzilla, King of the Monsters!  This version had additional footage of Raymond Burr (Perry Mason, Bride of the Gorilla, Rear Window, Please Murder Me, Count Three and Pray, Ironside and Godzilla 1985) added and spliced into the original.  I did snicker when his character was named Steve Martin.

Scale model away!!!

Sci-Fi Week: Outland

Welcome back kiddies!  Day 4 of Sci-Fi Week begins and it holds a bit of sentimental value for me.   After leaving the James Bond Franchise in 1971, Most Connery fans were convinced he was past his acting prime and never do better than James Bond.   So suit up in your atmospheric suit, make sure to activate your magnetic clamps and get them boots a walkin’.  This is Outland.

It's only a model.

Spoilers have a flair for the dramatic…

Director/writer Peter Hyams (Capricorn One, The Star Chamber, 2010, The Presidio, Narrow Margin and Timecop) brings us a retelling of Gary Cooper’s High Noon only rather a battered mining town we have a mining colony at Io, a far moon of Jupiter.  Not exactly the best assignment for Marshall O’Neil (Sean Connery of Dr. No, Goldfinger, The Anderson Tapes, Murder on the Orient Express, The Great Train Robbery, Highlander, The Hunt for Red October and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) and his family but orders are orders and he has to lump it.  Before too long it feels like a typical mining operation and he meets with the general manager Mark Sheppard (Peter Boyle of Young Frankenstein, Taxi Driver, Turk 182!, Red Heat and Everyone Loves Raymond) who proceeds to inform the Marshall that most of the workers are good at what they do, they bust their butts and are entitled to play after hours but sometimes folks get a bit rowdy.

Yes I was in Highlander, now concentrate on the job!

Marshall O’Neil sits in with his men finding out the daily logs, his right hand man Sgt. Montone (James Sikking of General Hospital, Hill Street Blues, Doogie Howser,M.D. and The Pelican Brief) tries to point out the good about this town.  The booze isn’t that watered down and the hookers have a heart of gold.  Yeah so a man on duty not being in a pressure suit and exposed himself to a zero-pressure atmosphere only to become the contents of raspberry jam all over the walls.   Later throughout the week a worker that reports and fellow workers call as calm, collective and always well behaved smacks around a prostitute and threatens to slice her to bits.  O’Neil has the locked door disengaged and Montone sneaks through the vents with a shotgun blasting before O’Neil can question him.  Given the sheer size of this colony very little can go on without O’Neil finding out.

 Using the surveillance cameras throughout the colony he discovers the possibility of an amphetamine being smuggled onboard.  Confirmed by Dr. Lazarus (Mary Sternhagen of The Hospital, Another World, Independence Day, Spencer, Golden Years, Cheers, Sex and the City and ER), a wreck of a doctor as she calls herself is stunned rigid on the dosages that are floating in one man’s veins and cannot believe this is happening.  With a bit more investigation with cameras O’Neil links the smuggling to Sheppard and it is sanctioned by Sgt. Montone.   O’Neil follows and captures one of Sheppard’s dealers, tosses the drugs in the toilet and drops him into an isolation chamber leaving him in zero gravity to drift until he feels like being chatty.   Confronting Montone about being bought off, O’Neil tells him how he can help or get the hell out of the way.  His pride and sense of justice blinds him to the point that Sheppard’s partners has set a couple of professional hitmen to kill him but O’Neil patched into outgoing communications and is aware of everything that is coming his way.

Sheesh the caters really need therapy.

Now I understand the comparison to High Noon due to the clock counting down in the same way he is waiting his impeding assassins on arrival.    Will anyone help him or will all turn a blind eye to a man being eliminated?   Most of the film is blue screened, matte painted and scale model shots as well as the decompression explosions but I feel the effects as a whole still stand up to this day and c’mon it’s Sean Connery walloping men 20 years younger than him.   A novelization of said movie was once again like Logan’s Run done by Sci-Fi/Sci-fi Fantasy writer Alan Dean Foster. It is a dark drama with some levity and complicated relationships.  This is an old favorite so not exactly an arm twists to view it again.

Sci-Fi Week: Krull

Hiya boys and girls and welcome to Day 3 of Sci-Fi Week.  Well we have had some comedy, some sexist overtones and some decent writing.  Howabout a collection of fine English actors that happen to be in what I still think is one of the goofiest premises yet?    So grab your unexplained energy emitting blade, grab a bow and by gum pray to whatever deity whose ear you have.   This is Krull.

Wow, they do put anything in a crane machine game.

There is a prophecy that was foretold about a spoiler ruling these lands…

Directed by the astounding Peter Yates (The Saint (TV), Bullitt, The Robbery, Secret Agent(TV), Murphy’s War, The Deep, Eyewitness and Suspect) this film was a real boom for the sci-fi fantasy genre though it has been misunderstood, misquoted and frankly been baffling many for some time.  Our story opens with a bit of narrative (No, not Uwe Boll unnecessary narrative) proclaiming a prophecy of a girl of ancient name (or lineage) shall become queen, that she shall choose a king, and that together they shall rule their world and that their son shall rule the galaxy.   Sweet gig thus far, right?

Live in concert: Slayer...s

Prince Colwyn (Ken Marshall of Tilt, Claws, The Stay Awake, Feds, Burn Down and Berlin ’39) has agreed to marry the fair Princess Lyssa (Lysette Anthony of The Lady and the Highwayman, A Ghost in Monte Carlo, Dark Shadows (’91 TV series), Switch and Dracula: Dead and Loving It) for the benefit for both kingdoms and just as that whimsical romantic standing occurs, the land is invaded  a creature known only as The Beast in his huge rock formation of a starship known as the Black Fortress.  His armored lackeys known as the Slayers go sick house on the royal court and as well and destroying the castle and most of the Kingdom’s armies with blaster bolts all over the place.   Yeah went from fantasy realm and right into scifi.  Pretty sneak of you, movie.   So Lyssa follows true to form of Princesses Peach and Zelda and gets captured.  Seriously writer how about the girl gets to put up a bit more of a fight than that? Colwyn the only survivor is nursed back to health by Ynyr(Freddie Jones of The Satanic Rites of Dracula, Son of Dracula, Never Too Young to Rock, The Ghosts of Motley Hall, The Elephant Man, Dune and Erik the Viking) wise and older man who tells Colwyn the only weapon that could aid him in this quest would be the legendary Glaive.  Colwyn vows to rescue the girl and slay the Beast and his dark minions and the two proceed on this odd quest.  No Ynyr does not say that it is dangerous out there and hand him a wooden sword that shoots an energy beam but dammit if that wouldn’t be handy.    

He proceeds to head to the mountain range that might allow him to get to the Black Fortress quicker only to find out the Black Fortress teleports from location to location once a day at sunrise.   Boy, hope these people brought in the supplies ahead of time or they are going to be low on materials.   Along the path He finds a wizard that is more accident prone than Chevy Chase made former President Gerald Ford out to be Ergo “the Magnificent” (David Battley of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, S.O.S. Titanic, The Gentle Touch, Dramarama, Relative Strangers and Vigo) A band of brigands lead by Torquil (Alun Armstrong of Inspector Morse, Split Second, Patriot Games, Blue Ice, Black Beauty and Braveheart) and asks them to join in his quest and so the Fellowship of the…Glaive is formed.

Can he not see I love him tenderly?

Alrighty, I had just a few bits of observation to the film and or trivia to be had.   The fire mares are overexposure red filtered shots of Clydesdale horses that had to be rocketing across the fields when they were filmed.   The death cries of the Slayers is lifted from a 1976 film called At The Earth’s Core as it was the death cries of the Mahars.  Lastly scifi/scifi fantasy writer Alan Dean Foster did a novelization of the movie Krull and Marvel Comics felt its popularity was going to be so huge they did a two-issue limited series.   For me it was a piece of my childhood that combines sword and sorcery with lasers and starships.  Maybe it wasn’t an ideal blend but all in all it was fun to view after these so many years.

Western Week: Invitation to a Gunfighter

Hey Y’all!  Welcome back for Day 4 of the Western Week. Well we have tackled revenge, bank heists, train heists and even some good old fashioned land grabbing… so why not some more of that?   So tighten up your spurs and make that jingle jangle jingle.   This is Invitation to a Gunfighter.

Scruffy fella, ain't he?

Spoiler’s deceitful and downright no good!!

Our story following disgraced Southern man, Matt Weaver (George Segal of Ship of Fools, King Rat, Death of a Salesman, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Southern Star, Fun with Dick and Jane, Murphy’s Law and Just Shoot Me) who had the audacity to sign for the Union cause that after the war he returns home on foot to find his house has been ceased, bought and sold and his fiancée has married another man.  After a heated argument with John Medford, the now new owner of his home he finds out that town official Sam Brewster (Pat Hingle from Hang ‘Em High, Bloody Mama, If Tomorrow Comes, Gunsmoke, The Super Cops, Elvis, Batman and the The Quick and the Dead) stole his family land and home, grabs his shooting iron and proceeds to raise holy hell at Brewster’s.   Gets winged by the man that stole his girl and slapped in the pokey and the sawbones of the town fixes his arm and heck even the sheriff cuts him some slack and tells him to just leave town.  Off camera Weaver drops John Medford and the town is in uproar.  

I tells ya the Batman ain't to be trusted!!

But enough of all that saddening history and worldly nonsense, let’s talk about Yul Brynner’s character. Jules Gaspard d’Estaing(Yul Brynner of The King and I, The Ten Commandments, The Magnificent Seven, Westworld, The Ultimate Warrior and Death Rage), a well-mannered, cultured dandy that also happens to be have the reflexes of a rattler and willingness to blow a man’s head off.  The town’s “savior” gunfighter bails after seeing d’Estaing, jumps on the very coach he came it to town and hightails it.  Hope they didn’t agree on half up front. 

Ruth now Ruth Adams (Janice Rule of Starlift, Gun for a Coward, Bell Book and Candle, The Subterraneans and The Chase) conflicted on her former feelings of Weaver but her convictions to her husband Crane Adams (Clifford David of The Last Mile, Hamlet, The Party’s Over, A Woman Called Moses, Blind Ambition and Ebony, Ivory and Jade), a one armed man that is a drunk and apparently lousy shot makes for a difficult path for Ruth.  

Brewster is typically the wrong man in at the right time.  A coward and a rabble rouser that keeps his town in check by pointing out the horrors of the Civil War and how they must remain united in their upstanding ways.  He calls out for blood and demands the town put cash together for a gunfighter.  God forbid they take pity on another battered soldier even if he was on the other side.  So poor Matt Weaver is truly on his own, scared and armed. 

Face it, this is a cool cat.

I would like to take this time to point out a few things about the film.  One thing I noticed was Sam Brewster’s house is unmistakably the Bates house above the Bates Motel via Psycho. Producer Stanley Kramer (High Noon, Judgment at Nuremberg, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and The Defiant Ones) apparently loves films of a message of racism, sexism and realism if you will.  The fiction is better represented with a touch of reality.  Frankly this has to be the filthiest town on the US soil. Gritty living conditions, battered and beaten men from the war and the war widows, this town wouldn’t know hope if it bit them in the keister.  Love the crane work, low pans and killer dolly track work.   This is a much underrated film and deserves much more credit than it got, the characters are complex and could go any direction.  A forgotten gem of a movie.

Western Week: Navajo Joe

Get some!!!

Howdy buckaroos and welcome to the first day of Western Week.  Now having not tackled this particular field of film outside of my own entertainment this should be an interesting week.  So let’s start the week off good and proper.  With a bloody massacre, women and children butchered and a man seeking revenge to the point of utter madness.  Doesn’t that sound keen?   So saddle up your mustang, grab a Spencer rifle and aim good.  This is Navajo Joe.

Spoilers is sneaky as them injuns!!

Our film is fast paced, very little lag between scenes and frankly one of the better revenge storylines I have seen in a while.   The film opens up with a young Native American woman at the edge of a stream just washing some clothes against the rocks when a man on horseback trots up to the other side of the stream.  They share glances, albeit the girl’s a bit more shyly and then our charmer Duncan (Aldo Sambrell of The Sea Pirate, The Texican, A Bullet for the General, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Hellbenders and Tex and the Lord of the Deep) draws his revolver and drops her dead.  I know, right?   This starts up this amazing score that seems to be timed when the screams of violence and gunfire kicks in. Enno Morricone (Composer of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, Red Sonja, The Untouchables, Causalities of War and Inglorious Basterds) has been the primary composer for any Dino de Laurentiis production as well as almost every Sergio Leone (A Fistful of Dollars, A Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in America and My Name is Nobody) film and this score covers the various moods of the film but captures the overtone of revenge seething in Joe’s soul.  Also from a film goers’ point of view this was a complete waste of actress Nicoletta Machiavelli (The Hills Run Red, Matchless, Face to Face, Temptation, Anyone Can Play and Garter Colt) this gorgeous girl who can run lines well, give good emotion and presence with almost any male counterpart…again wasted within a matter of minutes. 

Gorgeous mountain range or Matte painting? You decide.

As the men ride off with their scalps they get that prickly feeling like they are being watched. Up in the far mountain range some 800 yards away is Joe (Burt Reynolds of Deliverance, Shamus, White Lightning, The Longest Yard, Gator, Hooper, City Heat and Boogie Nights) stalking them slowly.  Vigilant but not impatient, he waits for them to get comfortable and then will strike.    Duncan gets antsy and sends two of his boys to take him out, only to hear loads of repeater gunfire and see two horses sent back with his men slumped on their former saddles.  Duncan rides his boys back to town rouse the place and shoot up a far amount of folks in it.  Just so we are clear, these are bad hombres and I am behind Joe 100% in their deaths of which by far are quick.

An interesting film goof in my opinion, the train heist works by dumping logs on the track and yet the land they are driving the train through I didn’t see one fricking tree at all.  Sparse of trees I would think boulders rolled over the tracks would have been more feasible but hey I am not directing the flick.  My only point there is work with what you have and not what you just trucked in from a nearby town.   If you thought Reynolds got wailed on in Gunsmoke, holy hell they done threw him a whoopin’ in this.   Rest assured Act 3 has yet to happen.   

Shatner Hairpiece for Men: You're gonna love the fit.

The film of course is pretty dreary in its theme and I have seen a bit better examples of it but all in all it is a revenge story with western backdrop and I feel they did their level best.  Reynolds however feels it was a turd overall.  He describes the film as so awful it can only be shown in airplanes and prison that way the audience cannot leave. 

Sorry Burt I have to disagree.  Not too shabby.  Although those buck skins had to be getting hot running around in I wager.

Ridley Scott Week: Blade Runner

The Ridley Scott week chugs on through with what I believe to this date still are an amazing hybrid of Film Noir and Cyberpunk standings.  A utopia for some and desuetude for others, the colonization of the other worlds of our solar system and the problems back home.    So get a packet of Twizzlers, maybe some nachos and an oversized drink (Take that New York!) and settle in a nice easy chair.  This is Blade Runner.

I’ve seen spoilers in glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate…

In 1982 capturing the writing of critically acclaimed science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick’s story Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep, a notion that machine could never be as emotional as man, have a series of moral decisions that were taught nor could they develop ideas of their own came writers Hampton Fancher (Of Men and Women, Survival, Police Story and The Other Side of the Mountain) and David Webb Peoples (Ladyhawke, Unforgiven, Hero, Twelve Monkeys and Solider) adapted the novel of question and create a world of robotics, human angst and distrust of corporation.   While this being truly a product of the 1980’s trend this film will stand the test of time due to this solid writing not relying solely on the day’s lingo, attitude, strives and failures.   

Our story unfolds with a credits sequence explaining the dangers of a of androids called Replicants that have a tendency to feel like nothing more than slaves to their human masters.  Being 3 times as strong, fast and intelligent they rebelled and were deemed faulty for such.  Earth passes a law creating a separate police force to contain, detain and execute them.  They are the Blade Runners.   During a routine background on a sanitation worker named Leon (Brion James of 48 Hours, Nemesis, Time Runner, Tango and Cash, The Dark and The Player) from a detective Holden (Morgan Paull of Patton, Norma Rae and Fade to Black) and the interview ends with Holden being put in the hospital and cut to Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford of Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Patriot Games, Regarding Henry and Cowboys and Aliens) having his sushi only to be interrupted by a detective Gaff (Edward James Olmos of Miami Vice, Stand and Deliever,Roosters, Mirage, 500 Nations and Battlestar Galatica) and leads him back to his former Lieutenant Bryant (Veteran character actor M. Emmet Walsh of Blood Simple, Critters, The Flash, A Time to Kill, Albino Alligator and Retroactive) an old fashioned cop in the worst way telling Deckard he needs to come out of retirement because he is the best Blade Runner that ever was to take out 4 of the Nexus 6 Replicants, a few combat models and pleasure droid.   Reluctantly Deckard is back in harness and on the case.   Stopping at the Tyrell Corporation, the creators of Replicants he does a pre-cursory examination and fact finding check with the head honcho Dr. Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel of The Killing, Path to Glory, The Shining, The Commitment and Miami Vice) to get some insight to the mind of the Nexus 6 series.   A computer program reliable to detect human from replicant is administered to Dr. Tyrell’s assistant Rachel (Sean Young of Stripes, No Way Out, Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Fatal Instinct and Mirage) to verify a positive before a negative as the doctor says.

The tinny and melodic number of this film captures the essence of the film.  The overall mood and life of it comes from the narrative of Ford’s character like a shamus of old telling the tale through his eyes and once again Scott develops the film with the mood lighting, smoke ridden sets and suffocating amounts of humanity representing overcrowding, the need for colonization to expand the human race elsewhere due to the Earth filling up with people.  Most animals are artificial and real ones are deemed a luxury item for only the well do to or wealthy.

During this time the replicants’ leader Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer of Nighthawks,  LadyHawke, The Hitcher, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Blind Fury, Past Midnight, Split Second, Salem’s Lot and Batman Begins) is attempting to gain access to Tyrell as well for a longer life span than the allotted four year lifespan.  He is the true survivor of this crew.  The epitome of Nietzsche with a smattering of Descartes, the others will follow him into the gates of Hell itself because this being made know a way through. Through numerous re-releases the 2007 director’s cut adds additional footage that was cut out due to it being too lengthy but I personally enjoy the theatrical release for its purity in it was the first version I saw.

   So if you are watching this film for the 50^th time or the first time, just let it wash over you in whatever version you see.